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Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

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Onda
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Re: Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

Postby Onda » Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:24 am

Exactly the topic I wanted to open here myself already, thanks!
I ride a 633 with Peaks and my spots are pure windswell (very small most of the time), so the vid above is very typical for the conditions I foil.
I am far from being able to push the capabilities of the 633 to the max, but I´m wondering if there is any other foil which turns a bit tighter than the 633 while not compromising on the stall speed. I wouldn´t care if the overall stability of the foil (pitch, roll) is lower than the 633, I love agility of the foil (but I know only the 633 yet, never rode another model).
Has anyone used the MFC Hydros FW 1000 and could compare it with the 633? Seems to perform really well as a surf foil.

Surf foiling in small swell is so much fun I have to say! It is not comprehensible unless you´ve done it yourself. I have hardly touched my surfboard since I learned the basics to carve around a bit and ride those little swell waves down the line.

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tkaraszewski
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Re: Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

Postby tkaraszewski » Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:27 pm

jumptheshark wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 2:26 am
Well, most wingers are on boards 10-20x the volume of the kiter's board with all the swing weight that entails. That right there pretty much makes it a different thing altogether, but there is also the big wing in your hand as apposed to a 45cm bar, the soft power of said wing as apposed to the instant torque of a kite that can be feathered or summoned full force whenever and whatever the situation even while riding swell. I can tap into and completely shut off my kite five times in three turns in as much time it takes a winger to engage and then luff their wing once. Try surfing a wave while feathering the power of a wing off and on to suit in any part of any turn. No, in tiny waves like in that vid, the wing guys are surfing far more conservatively as dictated by the power of the wave. A wing is engaged only to go upwind, and provides no juice while surfing. With a kite, you can carve up and down something small and crank hard enough to kill all your speed and with a flick of the wrist you firing on down the line. Kites allows you to go down the line in waves that don't have the power for those kind of shortboard lines, where in the same conditions wingers are drawing more longboard like lines.

Surfing a foil with a wing in hand compared to a kite is as different as racing a foil with a wing in hand as compared to a kite.

A winger needs easily twice those conditions to manage what the guy in the video is doing. The dynamic power of a kite while actually carving in swell adds huge fun factor to small conditions, where a wing adds no positive dynamic to the swell beyond what you can milk from it with the foil alone, and even then you have to hold onto a big thing and trail it behind you. If you think its more fun your welcome to it. I'll gladly use you as a jibe mark
interesting explanation. Makes sense, and is more in line with what I see people doing traditionally when kiting in the waves on surfboards. Usually what I've heard people say they want on foils is for the kite to disappear. They say they want it to be completely depowered and adding no pull so they can ride the wave unencumbered. Both of the example videos in this thread (the skateboarders, "mateos cut") seem to agree with this, there's obviously no pull from the kite on a skateboard, and in the "Mateos cut" video, he's barely flying the kite and has it pretty much sheeted out overhead the whole time except when going upwind, similar to what you'd do with a wing. The video of Gunnar looks like he's using a bit more kite power to pull him through his bottom turns, but it's hard to see as well with the line mount view and besides, Gunnar seems to have mostly given this up in favor of wing surfing.

Anyway, yesterday it was gusting over 30 knots here with 5ft+ waves which is not much fun on race gear so I went out on a 4m with with a 75L board and a Lift 200HA foil and had fun in the waves, but I guess that's not what you want to do.

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Re: Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

Postby Knowone » Wed Jul 14, 2021 7:48 pm

@JTS...Thanks for your insight. Your comments on how the size of the rear wing affects foot pressure is very helpful...with my Lift 170, I had to drill holes in my 2020 Dwarfcraft 100 to move the strut forward on the board. I found the placement of strut track (mast track sounds better!) was too far back; when I was rolling the wing over in a tight turn, I did not have sufficient leverage to pitch the nose up.
I am planning on buying a 150 HA, and had planned on one of the smaller rear wings..but I also enjoy the 'surfy' feeling of driving off the back foot, so perhaps I will go one size bigger in back.

@Joe... Thanks for your comments. I fly Clouds, and understand your technique for "forcing' a turn. My goal is to find a foil that turns naturally (effortlessly?) at the speed and radius that I need. (I can make any ski turn, but the right ski for the conditions...heavenly!)..
What I want (I think) is a slightly faster, tighter turning foil..I would like to be able to is ride a similar line to those in the video, but faster with more body angulation...(more aggressive! more G's!)

@tka... I was on my 2.8 yesterday...great swell/conditions. I saw a number of wingers enjoying themselves. But I agree with JTS's analysis, the greater wingspan and swing weight of a wing foil setup limit the ability to rip tight, linked turns..(Jonny Hieniken being the exception, but then he is a god...)
In general, I would get 3 or 4 high G little turns when a winger was carving smooth, long radius turns...to each his/her passion!

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Re: Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

Postby mirza23454 » Wed Jul 14, 2021 8:52 pm

Lots of good discussion here

- tswierkocki thanks for mentioning the cloud 9 foils! I'd seen those mentioned in passing but didn't really know much about them until now. Maybe I can find a way to demo one of the smaller X / F foils.

- Knowone / mateos cut / jumptheshark, that looks awesome! This is basically what I'm asking about, but even more aggressive. I didn't know the Lift 170 was good for this. Interesting discussion about aspect. I haven't tried out enough setups and I'm not skilled enough to have a lot of useful opinion here, except that I noticed that a 2140 (yeah that's a silly size for kiting) Naish HA foil with a short fuse was much more agile than a 1250 low aspect Naish Thrust L on a mid length fuse. In this case I guess the fuselage had much more effect than the foil wings. It could also be that the lift from the larger foil creates so much more turning pressure when leaned over / carved that a small amount of lean results in a lot of action. E.g. one other thing I noticed is that going upwind, I can lean into the smaller foil and stay there, whereas the larger foil I ride the board fairly flat, and if I lean it turns upwind aggressively and I can't keep it from overturning.

- joekitetime, any videos of foiling like "mateos cut" but more aggressively? I like the notes about how to use the kite through turns. I'm not strictly wedded to a completely depowered kite I think, i.e. if I could use the kite to make more awesome moves, I'd go for that.

- tkaraszewski, wing foils are cool, but look pretty slow (turning) from what I've seen. In this thread, I'm not really asking about surfing foils in general, but more about super agile / fast / dynamic turns.

- Knowone any details on drilling the dwarfcraft? Coincidentally I'm picking up a DC Micro this week and bummed to hear the mast track position might be too far back.

At the risk of getting silly, I found another video that shows what I'm thinking about at 2:35:

https://youtu.be/aOePGsg634M?t=155

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Re: Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

Postby jumptheshark » Thu Jul 15, 2021 12:42 am

I'd love to try a hydros. They look the biz.

Love the carving in that Snowboard clip!

I think the big stab on the 170 I'm on is definitely on the big side, might trim it down some day but for now can appreciate it at carving speed. Like I said, gets pretty locked in once the speed gets up, but gives nice rear foot push back in hard short cutback type carves and I think it lends nicely to floater type slides.

@ tkzwski Im sure it was fun, but 75 L is roughly 10 times the volume of many pocket boards.

You need decent swell to have any fun shutting the kite off completely for long stretches. The beauty of the kite is that the power is so quick and easy to tap into so in crap conditions you can go seamlessly from powered to drifting fluidly. When its all about getting those hard carves, kite power makes all the difference. The Peaks are pretty versatile. You can use loads of kite power or next to none and everywhere in between. Been unhooking for decent segments of most my sessions lately and getting off the harness is also a really fun pursuit. I wouldn't want it to be my only option, but can tell I'll do a lot more of it.

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Re: Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

Postby rnelias » Thu Jul 15, 2021 12:55 am

Amazing foiling skills of these guys from Ketos foils.

They ride like in a skate board

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Re: Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

Postby zerogee_ca » Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:11 am

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Re: Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

Postby gergos » Thu Jul 15, 2021 9:46 am

I'm a long time lurker here. I believe I'm on the same journey as many who posted above.
I do struggle to recognize if I'm hitting a boundaries/limits of my skills and experience or the gear I'm using. But usually the next day I blame my lack of skills, luckily that's something I can improve.

My two cents on the gear:
Currently I'm riding an old Levitaz Cruizer (1000cm2) with 96cm mast on a 3'6" pocketboard. I very much like the way this setup feels. My only concern is the weight of the foil which sometimes makes the crashes a bit more punishing and the strapless starts a bit more frustrating (it sinks pretty fast). If I keep the speed on waves it turn pretty fast.
I think of myself as someone with decent kite control, but foiling on waves requires an insane skilll set. So most days I'm trying to learn how to keep the line tension while I don't constraint my movement. I do believe this is the key to the Nirvana of this style.

I'm also experimenting with wings like Sabfoil W679, and I hope I can try the famous W633 sometime.
I'm mostly on small Neos (4,6,8) on 20m lines. I'm preparing a 15m bar to get more handling on the kite.

I'm really curious what kite and bar setup do you use for this style.

Ps: here's my favorite edit of this style


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jumptheshark
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Re: Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

Postby jumptheshark » Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:21 pm



Just wanted to add that I think little airs are a killer aspect to this style of riding and add a great element to otherwise bland conditions.

learning to break out the foil in any and all ways is a blast.

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Re: Ultimate foil for surf skate like quick carves?

Postby bragnouff » Thu Jul 15, 2021 10:35 pm

zerogee_ca wrote:
Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:11 am
I agree that the Spitfire XLW is a good contender for surf/skate. XLW with a 75cm mast is lots of fun. It's just a tad heavy and all that momentum comes in the way of reactivity. I'd really love to try a light version of it. Lighter fuse and foam cored wings would be awesome, at the expense of its indestructibility. In the meantime, riding it with straps helps to muscle it a bit more and push harder, and since there's only really one foot position that works, once you've found it, you might as well get strapped in place at all times. The XXLW is a bit overkill and doesn't really provide any benefit for that type of kiting. More lift, slightly lower stall speed, but also slower and a fair bit heavier underwater make it not the ideal for quick "rail to rail" carves.
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