After much thinking and daydreaming, and a bit of practicing on an old kite foil board in the surf, I am getting very enthused about going foil surfing.

The questions for me are, what boards can I buy? Brands, models, custom shapes, sizes. Any suggestions? It needs to have a deep Tuttle mast fitting.

I would happily get a custom board, but I would want a shaper with a bit of a track record, preferably near Melbourne

So far the only candidate boards I can find are the Sunova 2in1, and possibly the Starboard Hypernut. Starboard have no useful information on their web pages.

Naish and many others only seem to offer tracks for plate mounts. That seems odd given the GoFoil appear to be a market leader that only offers deep Tuttle mounts.

I already have my kite foils and masts so I need a deep Tuttle fitting so I can use them. I have a spare 70cm mast and a low speed surf foil so the gear is fine. The fittings are compatible with the GoFoil cassette, but the top is angled so the fitting needs to be the full depth.

I want to store and travel with only one board so it needs to be a convertible so I can get out for a surf.

My foil guy says the shorter the better so 7' to 7'6" sounds good.

My current surf SUP is a custom 8'11"x30"x4". It's a bit of chubby, so very stable. I'm guessing it's about 130l. I am happy to trade performance for comfort and ease of use. I weigh 75kg and 185cm tall.

The heavier weight of production boards is a bit of a worry. Swing weight is death in foiling so lightness is desirable, although not a deal breaker.

If you SUP a 8'11", I would advise against going straight to a 7' foil board.
You need to be comfortable on your SUP to forget all the paddling stuff and concentrate on foiling. Learning to take off on a 7' SUP coming from a 8'11" plus learning how to foil will make things quite hairy, and dangerous.

So, get a cheap first foil board long enough for your paddling abilities, that you will change in some months. Just like SUPing or surfing, it is a very bad idea to imagine beginning on the board that you plan to use later on. A 8'6" / 9' board foils very nicely, at least for the so important first sessions. You will have time later to get down in size to ease turning and pumping.

Or, you could try to SUP a 7' board to get the paddling technique wired first. But it will take time.

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Gorgo said..
After much thinking and daydreaming, and a bit of practicing on an old kite foil board in the surf, I am getting very enthused about going foil surfing.

The questions for me are, what boards can I buy? Brands, models, custom shapes, sizes. Any suggestions? It needs to have a deep Tuttle mast fitting.

I would happily get a custom board, but I would want a shaper with a bit of a track record, preferably near Melbourne

So far the only candidate boards I can find are the Sunova 2in1, and possibly the Starboard Hypernut. Starboard have no useful information on their web pages.

Naish and many others only seem to offer tracks for plate mounts. That seems odd given the GoFoil appear to be a market leader that only offers deep Tuttle mounts.

I already have my kite foils and masts so I need a deep Tuttle fitting so I can use them. I have a spare 70cm mast and a low speed surf foil so the gear is fine. The fittings are compatible with the GoFoil cassette, but the top is angled so the fitting needs to be the full depth.

I want to store and travel with only one board so it needs to be a convertible so I can get out for a surf.

My foil guy says the shorter the better so 7' to 7'6" sounds good.

My current surf SUP is a custom 8'11"x30"x4". It's a bit of chubby, so very stable. I'm guessing it's about 130l. I am happy to trade performance for comfort and ease of use. I weigh 75kg and 185cm tall.

The heavier weight of production boards is a bit of a worry. Swing weight is death in foiling so lightness is desirable, although not a deal breaker.

Maybe check out our range lightweight and one of the best constructed on the market they also run both deep Tuttle and the twin boxes. We have 2 n 1 boards and pure DW foil board and right now I would say one of the biggest selections on the market. www.onestanduppaddle.com

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Gorgo said..

Naish and many others only seem to offer tracks for plate mounts. That seems odd given the GoFoil appear to be a market leader that only offers deep Tuttle mounts.

I don't think Deep Tuttle is the future. The ability to move your mast and additional strength of the tracks will eventually shine through. There are adapters now available to fit a Tuttle mast to a track board.

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BrisKites said..

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I don't think Deep Tuttle is the future. The ability to move your mast and additional strength of the tracks will eventually shine through. There are adapters now available to fit a Tuttle mast to a track board.

My understanding was that Deep Tuttle was stronger because it is embedded in the entire thickness of the board and bonded to the upper and lower surfaces. It's also set in a high density foam block and the load bearing surface are all carbon.

I have owned plate mount foils and now have Deep Tuttle carbon gear. The newer gear wins hands down in terms of ease of use, reliability and low maintenance.

I would have thought the ideal would be for manufacturers to simply install both plate and Deep Tuttle mounts. The tracks could be embedded in the foam block and both mounts installed at the same time. Then you could use whatever gear you want.

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Gorgo said..

BrisKites said..

...
I don't think Deep Tuttle is the future. The ability to move your mast and additional strength of the tracks will eventually shine through. There are adapters now available to fit a Tuttle mast to a track board.

My understanding was that Deep Tuttle was stronger because it is embedded in the entire thickness of the board and bonded to the upper and lower surfaces. It's also set in a high density foam block and the load bearing surface are all carbon.

I have owned plate mount foils and now have Deep Tuttle carbon gear. The newer gear wins hands down in terms of ease of use, reliability and low maintenance.

I would have thought the ideal would be for manufacturers to simply install both plate and Deep Tuttle mounts. The tracks could be embedded in the foam block and both mounts installed at the same time. Then you could use whatever gear you want.

Plenty of that gear available new and for conversions.

Not really. At the moment it is very brand streamed and knowledge of products is fairly narrow. "We sell this. I ride that. It's great!"

Quite a few of the products we see on the internet haven't made it into production yet, with only prototypes getting around.

It was even hard to find out if Go Foil is compatible with the deep Tuttle standard, with some manufacturers saying it definitely isn't compatible. It is, mostly.