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Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

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oldkiter
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Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

Postby oldkiter » Wed Aug 01, 2018 6:20 pm

Have a LF Happy foil and happy pill board.
Having too much problem getting board on edge to waterstart.
Wearing me out! Just too weak and/or old!!
Appreciate any suggestions as to which foil setups are basically "neutral buoyant" so that foil more or less sits on water when starting.

Thanks.

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Re: Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

Postby BOEMIX » Wed Aug 01, 2018 6:35 pm

I'm using a ketos foil and board since I started foiling and I'm very happy with it.

It's almost neutral buoyant but enough to float itself and it's so light but strong too, cause I'm foilboosting all day round and still nothing has broken.

Only upgrade I did is I swaped the bigger wing I started with for a smaller Freeride one and everything improved.

But I think it doesn't has the ultralowend you can extract from a more floaty board.

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Re: Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

Postby RalfsB » Wed Aug 01, 2018 6:39 pm

I can share my experience, will avoid mentioning brands. I started on an aluminium foil (maybe that was a particularly heavy one, have not tried others) and I hated how heavy it was and how hard each waterstart was. Then I had an opportunity to buy a used carbon setup for a good price so I switched to that. The difference was like night and day. Although carbon still sinks, it is very easy to hold, feels like a feather in comparison to my first setup.

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Re: Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

Postby Regis-de-giens » Wed Aug 01, 2018 6:55 pm

Ketos as well. Very light and easy since you need so few effort to keep it on its edge (useful in light and strapless)

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Re: Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

Postby jakemoore » Wed Aug 01, 2018 7:10 pm

A friend let me use his Ketos with pocket board. It’s the nicest setup I’ve used.

My foil is Levitaz and the SS fuselage is a big ballast that rights the foil even more than Alu setups I have tried. When using a volume board there is some work to put it on its side. A thin board reduces the righting moment by allowing the rail to sink. With a skin board (crazy fly chill deck proto) I can waterstart without my hands on the board. I just lay my feet on the board and use the water pressure against downwind movement to put the foil in start position.

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Re: Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

Postby borist » Wed Aug 01, 2018 7:11 pm

Ketos is a good choice. Foil with Pocket board feels freakishly light if you are used to alu foil. New Lift is not bad either.

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Re: Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

Postby tegirinenashi » Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:47 pm

If you swap the fuselage to carbon, it would alleviate the LF sinking problem. I have made 350g fuselage, and the foil become much nicer. With those standard 1200 g grossly overbuilt alum fuselages I wonder how competent the designers were.

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Re: Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

Postby gmb13 » Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:49 pm

Moses Onda Kite and Go Foil Kai are buoyant and will float on the surface.

Have a look at the video from 1:42 onwards. You can see the Onda float on the surface and keeping a volume board on its rail.

https://vimeo.com/280926753#t=102s

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Re: Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

Postby Peter_Frank » Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:59 pm

Can also only recommend the Ketos foils, as they sit quite long "heeled over", all of them.

Especially the "Surf" wing is amazing and even more floaty because of its size - they have had it for over a year now as a SUP wing, KF660-1200, but we are many using it as the perfect surf (kite) wing - so now it will come in a direct "kite" wing with only 2 holes.

8) PF

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Re: Suggestions on which "neutral buoyancy" foil to get.

Postby Laughingman » Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:17 pm

Yah the carbon fuselage makes a big difference with the liquid force foil set. Also the Impluse wings add a lot of float.
But the best advice I can give is get a board with less volume so you can sink the edge. This will help you water launch with much less effort then the 20L+ boards which you really need to leverage to get on their edge.


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