Anyone have experience with paddling up DW on Army foils and which ones are easiest to learn on ?

www.facebook.com/groups/armstrongfoilriders/permalink/749651126464591/?mibextid=W9rl1R

Haha thanks mate , that's my post on Armstrong Facebook, hope Armstrong might produce bigger MA foil or new low speed stall HA that will do the job.

Hi Kobo
It depends what sort of environment and how much you weigh. In a bay type environment it may be possible to learn on some of the larger HS foils.

It has taken a while for me to accept but my older slower foils seem be my best choice for learning DW in a very big bay. Still failing but my slower foils (GF customer), with the wider range, are helping me best in the bay scenario. Big Armstrong HA's might work for the very lightest pilots but probably not ideal..

I'm 80kg and I've got a 7'3 Sunova elite .foil wise only 1550v2 and a 1125Ha but a mate has offered a 1325 &1525 HA to try and buy if needed.just missed a cheap 2400 which would probs have been the easiest to begin with.

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kobo said..
Haha thanks mate , that's my post on Armstrong Facebook, hope Armstrong might produce bigger MA foil or new low speed stall HA that will do the job.

I know lol

Hey Kobo. IMO you'll want the performance mast with the big HA foils for SUP DW. I tried the 1325 on the A+ and it was too wild. Hopefully they bring out some bigger Medium Aspect foils. I'm sure with their DW boards coming they must have some plans for new foils to match. HA's do work for SuP downwind but I think you'll want a good few kilometres under you belt before getting on them.

Thanks Baldy123 I have a performance mast ordered and hopefully in the meantime while I'm practicing Armstrong come up with a more suitable foil.

Best to try Axis foils for DW

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kobo said..
Thanks Baldy123 I have a performance mast ordered and hopefully in the meantime while I'm practicing Armstrong come up with a more suitable foil.

Little birdy told me he's preordered an MA 1750 slated for April-ish! . So they're coming apparently. You'll love the Performance mast. Loved it first ride and I just increasingly appreciate the ride characteristics the more hours I put on it.

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spartacus said..
Best to try Axis foils for DW

Which Axis do you recommend
thanks

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Windoc said..

kobo said..
Thanks Baldy123 I have a performance mast ordered and hopefully in the meantime while I'm practicing Armstrong come up with a more suitable foil.

Little birdy told me he's preordered an MA 1750 slated for April-ish! . So they're coming apparently. You'll love the Performance mast. Loved it first ride and I just increasingly appreciate the ride characteristics the more hours I put on it.

That sounds promising!

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Windoc said..

kobo said..
Thanks Baldy123 I have a performance mast ordered and hopefully in the meantime while I'm practicing Armstrong come up with a more suitable foil.

Little birdy told me he's preordered an MA 1750 slated for April-ish! . So they're coming apparently. You'll love the Performance mast. Loved it first ride and I just increasingly appreciate the ride characteristics the more hours I put on it.

What he said ^

I am not so sure the new larger ma's will be a great choice for learning to downwind.

If you owned them and wanted to try then that would be different to waiting for their release and then spending the money on something that might make the process harder than it already is and that is ridiculously hard.

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AnyBoard said..
I am not so sure the new larger ma's will be a great choice for learning to downwind.

If you owned them and wanted to try then that would be different to waiting for their release and then spending the money on something that might make the process harder than it already is and that is ridiculously hard.

And why not - what is your reasoning. From my 40
odd sessions on Mas id say anlarger MA might be just fine. But then again ive never Dw paddled with any success.

Reports of the ma's being not much easier to get going winging than the ha's. 800 not much different low end start to the 725 yet less glide.

To paddle up in the bumps when anything but a pro will require the lowest end support but then the best possible glide for its size. Hardly even close to the requirements that drove the ha's and the ma's development. Time will tell.Winging is different as almost anything will do. Prone and dw sup are just full of competing requirements that need to be well balanced for happiness.

To learn to paddle up in 20 knots of chop though is the most demanding and frustrating thing I have ever tried and equipment selection is critical for success even for the proficient. Note I am struggling bad with the paddle up and am not pro at the paddle up So take my comments for what they are.

I downwind using ha1325, 60 fuse, 195 tail(no shim), 72cm v1 mast set at #4 on a 7.0 elite. I've had the board since xmas and found the board paddles up alot easier than me 5'10.
Patients, reading the bumps and timing it when to start paddling up helps me.
Paddle up on flat water is taxing and I'm prone to injuries from years of surfing and paddling. So I'd rather not. I've been sup foiling for a couple years now and foil most days in the Illawarra.

I find adding shim to the tail definitely helps the stall speed of the HA's for downwinding. I'm running both the HA1125 and HA925 with the 60 fuse and HA195 tail. 1xRed & 1xBlue shim is perfect for both and I can go as slow as I could with my gofoil setup without dropping.
I occasionally use the HA1325 but only in super light wind, sub 15 knots (bay type conditions). It works amazing with the 50 fuse and 2xRed shims. I found it un-ridable with the 60 fuse. Being able to easily gain and maintain height seems to be the key to light wind for me.

Yeh good point , I've been running my 1550v2 with -2shim on 232 and it really drops the stall speed and launch speed way down

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kobo said..
Yeh good point , I've been running my 1550v2 with -2shim on 232 and it really drops the stall speed and launch speed way down

Um trail runner is talking about red and blue shim so like adding + 1.5 not going negative . which to me makes no sense at all regarding improving stall speed ? Or does it ? Will reduce drag for sure but stall speed??

Let's say stall on main foil is say 8 degrees. Probably not much that low on the market but I'm being conservative with this example. Difference in angle of attack main foil to stab is usually around 4 degrees. So stock, at stall, front wing at 8 degrees, stab at 4 degrees _positive_ angle of attack. As in, the stab is helping to lift the whole board and rider system off the water and into the air ( even if the stab is cambered and has a zero lift angle of attack of a couple of degrees less than the geometric zero). So now put in the red and blue shims, +1.5 you say. As in, leading edge of stab now closer to bottom of board. This reduces the angle of attack delta between the main foil and stab to 2.5 degrees (remember started at 4 in stock config). So back to stall on main foil at 8 degrees angle of attack. Stab is now at 5.5 degrees _positive_ meaning it is providing more lift to the system with the red and blue shims than in stock configuration. As such, one would indeed expect the stall speed to come down some.

What I don't understand is the situation where shimming increases the stab aoa (moves the leading edge further away from the board) like on Unifoil (for example) and the brand is saying shim for more lift. In that case, all else being equal, the shim will increase front foot pressure, which can certainly feel more lifty, but in this case the shim is quite clearly reducing total lift across the speed range, not increasing it (except for the special case of the stab stalling out before the main foil stalls).

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eppo said..

kobo said..
Yeh good point , I've been running my 1550v2 with -2shim on 232 and it really drops the stall speed and launch speed way down

Um trail runner is talking about red and blue shim so like adding + 1.5 not going negative . which to me makes no sense at all regarding improving stall speed ? Or does it ? Will reduce drag for sure but stall speed??

Yeh it didn't really make sense to me .. in my experience the bigger tails and more negative shim drops the stall speed but also creates drag and you gain front foot pressure and loose top end speed which is good for DW when the objective is to get up as early as possible and stay up as long as possible . I found the KD 13' tail the best tail of all for dropping the stall speed down , I think it's because it has a thick camber profile and creates lots of downforce. I nearly broke my front leg on the 725 when I first tried it prone , there was so much front foot pressure and I could pump at walking speed , but it slowed everything down which I didn't really like for prone but I might revisit it for DW.

Yeh thats how i see it as well. I had one of the early
crisp tails, before say the 333 and exactly same thing - camber, front foot pressure, lower stall speed but too slow and draggy

I'm not talking about different tails with different amounts of lift, just changing the angle of the same tail and how it effects how slow you can go.
This is very specific to downwinding as there is always energy around but a lot of it is very weak and wont give you much push.
I think the confusion is around how much lift you can feel at low speeds (front foot pressure), verse how slow you can go without the foil stalling and the board dropping out the air (less front foot pressure). I prefer the latter.
Its something that works well for me, It might not be the same for heavier riders on the same gear.

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TrailRunner said..
I'm not talking about different tails with different amounts of lift, just changing the angle of the same tail and how it effects how slow you can go.
This is very specific to downwinding as there is always energy around but a lot of it is very weak and wont give you much push.
I think the confusion is around how much lift you can feel at low speeds (front foot pressure), verse how slow you can go without the foil stalling and the board dropping out the air (less front foot pressure). I prefer the latter.
Its something that works well for me, It might not be the same for heavier riders on the same gear.

Interesting...so in your experience you find DW that a flatter tail angle that produces less front foot lift at slower speeds is better. I can understand from a drag point of view it's better, and I guess if you compensate by transferring your weight more to the rear of the board as you slow down this would allow you to milk the energy as much as possible before stall.

Had some great DW glides today with a 1325 / 50 / 205 with 2 reds and a blue. I cheated and used a wing before failing at paddling up.

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MidAtlanticFoil said..
Had some great DW glides today with a 1325 / 50 / 205 with 2 reds and a blue. I cheated and used a wing before failing at paddling up.

The new 1725 MA sounds like the DW foil

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kobo said..

MidAtlanticFoil said..
Had some great DW glides today with a 1325 / 50 / 205 with 2 reds and a blue. I cheated and used a wing before failing at paddling up.

The new 1725 MA sounds like the DW foil

Or the 1475.

Yeh if old mate mick foil @ 93kg can paddle up a 1225 and DW small bay swell a 1750 might be overkill for me at 80 kg ?

Mick's been Casey Clubbing it up for awhile now though. Don't underestimate the power of reviewing footage with a coach. :)

And an SUP race paddler by the look of it. He is killing it.