Some thoughts here in 2018
Back in 2007 kite hydrofoiling started as a set everyone could buy, and then go hydrofoiling.
A few did that, and it was amazing, but never really caught the masses...
Okay, now some years later the French had developed the kite hydrofoil to the ultimate sailing vehicle, stiffer faster better performing than ANY other craft on the water, even strapless.
It took sime time, but suddenly the racers got eye for this, and in less than a year the race hydrofoils made raceboards (Formula or Formula like) totally extinct, evaporated as dew in the morning sun !
At the same time the bigger market for freeride and freestyle started, some like Zeeko was frontrunners for getting it to the public as freeride, and also Horue got it to the next level in terms of freestyle - so more and more brands started delivering beginner hydrofoils and freestyle foils.
Beginner foils had some area, but not that big really, maybe around 750 cm2 for the "bigger" ones.
And freeride foils for those who liked to go fast, eventhough not racing, could be small, between 450 and 550 cm2 often, while medium sized 600 cm2 low AR wings could be used for waveriding.
Now racefoils, a league of their own, also started using bigger (but fast and high AR) wings for lighter winds and marginal winds.
And brands started pushing low cost foils with really big wings, 800-850 cm2 for those who wanted to learn.
Freestylers and waveriders also found that bigger wings had many advantages, they were just too slow (turning)
So wings started getting bigger in all three categories, and apart from race wings AR started to drop.
Nowadays we are back to the starting point for many freeriders and waveriders, as now the wings are back to the Carafino shape, same area and low AR - the circle is complete now 11 years later
In 2007 the Carafino foil were offered and everyone could start hydrofoiling - it looked like this:
More and more started riding this one, and it got developed a bit, still same wing
Suddenly in the period 2010-15 the superhigh AR fast racefoils dominated the entire world
Slowly more and more freeride hydrofoils came along, and now they are selling a lot more than racefoils, and dominate in most areas - no pictures of these as pretty normal medium AR medium sized wings that worked quite okay for everybody both beginners and freeride/freestyle/wave.
Lately we have reached back to the starting point, huge low AR wings like the Moses Onda (1200 cm2) and Ketos 1200 cm2.
Take a look back at the first Carafinos and look at the resemblance
A full circle
PF