The stupid sharp tips on many SUP foils always bug me.
Why the heck can't we design a "safety tip" out of some firm moulded plastic, to dull the knife-like edges on these wings?

This picture of colas is a wake-up call for any would be foiler or foil company that doesn't want to end up on the wrong end of a lawsuit.

If high Speed aircraft can have wingtip gas tanks....
Why can't SUP foils have similar (shorter) wingtip protectors?

The tips of SUP/surf foils are already actually quite thick and rounded, much, much safer than the kitefoils.
And much safer than your average surfboard fin :-)

The Gong SUP Foil for instance has sacrified some hydrodynamics for safety, with thick trailing edges and rounded tips. It hums a lot at speed, it is less efficient but much safer than kite foils. A Gong rider got hit in the face last week with the SUP foil, it hurted as hell, but no cut. And from what I see in the pictures, the other SUP foils are also thick and rounded.

I guess we are still in the early ages, and my bet is that we will see rubber tips & edges on foils like proteck did for fins. Or the ABS edges we see now built-in in many paddle blades, even 100% high-end carbon ones.

here is a comparison between the tip of the foil wing with a FCS fin with blunted edges (I always sand mine).



So yes, SUP/suf foiling IS dangerous. But nothing compared with the folks that just tried with a kitefoil and a 1 meter mast last year and no proper guidance. And safety features will come, they always do after the early adopter stage.

Colas, seems smart to at the very least, sand down the pointy bits.... but then I know nothing about how foils work.
I only know that deep gashes suck

DJ.... I like the "box wing" direction.... that looks awesome.
Hard to see in the video... but one on those rigs had two "box wings" ..... zero pointy bits.

Would that type of wing work for SUP?

looks high tech .but safe.you might become a DWer after all supthecreek.getting into foils.
i had one for my windsurfer ,after breaking it off 3x i gave up

i say get the grinder out and don't fall off.

New invention created, its called sand paper.

The Naish Malolo Foil actually has turned down tips. Now while they are designed for added stability turning on waves faces, they actually reduce the event of you contacting any "sharp" part of the foil. The rear wing is the most deadly as far as sharpness goes, but you only really hit it getting on and off your board, stacks normally aim the big wing at your head. An important thing to think about when purchasing your wing!

BTW, the Malolo is very blunt, thick and turned down un like many others out there .


Ride safe,

JB

If I'm ever going to get hit by a foil I want it to be a Naish foil..

It looks very blunt and rounded.

I think the most dangerous situation is when the board is caught in whitewater (which should always be avoided, but...). The board + foil can move then quite fast and in hard to anticipate trajectories; and in this situation, the stabilizer and mast trailing edges are also to be taken into account, as says JB.

I think the pro-teck edges look like for now the most promising solution: safety with nearly no increase in drag. Plus it would protect the foil against damage on land.

Just my two cents from a couple of years of kite foiling, the dangers of foiling are hugely exaggerated. The most common source of such fears are newbies imagining all the things that can go wrong, just like you guys are doing now.

Take this with a grain of salt. You can get clobbered and you can get hurt. The vast majority of times you just fall in and get wet.

It seems the source of greatest danger is riders over controlling the board, either deliberately or accidentally. As a beginner you're constantly struggling to make it all happen and putting excessive inputs into the board. Those inputs are transferred to the foil which reacts and amplifies the input, and can send it all right back at you. It is possible for a board to foil off and circle around and attack you from behind.

The solution is to relax and go with the flow. In a SUP context I would suggest going out in smaller swell and keeping well clear of breaking waves to start with. Don't even try to foil, that will come soon enough. Keep your weight well forward and just get comfortable dealing with this big, ungainly, uncooperative thing. Spend a couple of hours just paddling around and getting in and out of the water through whatever shore break there is. Learn how to hold the board on its side and upside down and stuff (there are pictures of a kite foiler riding his board upside down). Even carrying the board to and from the break is an acquired skill. You don't want to damage your foil (or other beach goers).

There seems to be two keys to success. One is muscle memory. You start off trying to ride the board and doing board things, and screwing it up completely. After 4-6 hours it clicks and you can feel the foil through your feet. It all comes quickly after that. I would think that boat towing could be an efficient way to get through that period.

The other is adjusting your centre of gravity. As a newbie you excessively focus on foot position and pushing down hard on your feet to try and get the board up on the foil, then to try and stopping it flipping you off. It is much more effective to move your head and shoulders. Where they go your body mass follows and so does the board.

Impact vests and a helmet are not a bad idea. The other thing that makes a difference is a lightweight foil. I have landed on, or been hit by my high performance carbon foil a few times. It is so light weight it just gets pushed away.

Using straps can definitely keep the board under control, but getting into the straps at the critical moment can be very difficult. I have had some epic crashes from doing that. Some people think that big, loose straps are the go so you can jump out of them. I find that they tend to twist and trap your feet. I have recently put some stiffer straps on my board and it is much easier to get in and out of them while riding.

Foil maintenance is part of the fun. My carbon foil is painted white. The white paint protects from UV and gives a sacrificial finish that is easily maintained. A couple of times a year I repaint it, making sure to get a good bead of paint around the tips. The paint is then sanded back to a clean finish with no excessively sharp points. It's quite common to see the race crew cleaning and sanding their foils before each session (for different reasons).

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Gorgo said..
Using straps can definitely keep the board under control, but getting into the straps at the critical moment can be very difficult. I have had some epic crashes from doing that. Some people think that big, loose straps are the go so you can jump out of them.

Thanks for your valuable input!

On the straps, years of windsurfing had taught me that you do not want loose straps, because the foot will get deep in and will not eject in case of problems. You need to have your toes + 1" max foot coming out of the other side. This way you get control but a safe release. It is worth micro-adjusting them on the water till the fitting is perfect.

On putting on the straps, one trick is to have the feet touching the straps, so you know where they are and can enter them by feel.

You are right on the overcontrol, (one of) my mistake was trying to perform turns.

any one tried these?

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paddlepop said..
any one tried these?

Seeing how footstraps are of no use if the foot is not tightly snug in, I dont think they would be on any help controlling the board.

They may be a way to have a parker to indicate the proper foot position, however.

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colas said..

paddlepop said..
any one tried these?

Seeing how footstraps are of no use if the foot is not tightly snug in, I dont think they would be on any help controlling the board.

They may be a way to have a parker to indicate the proper foot position, however.

They work fairly well.

You can push your feet into the sides of them.


Also Slingshot have had their wings downturned for safety, since they first released the Hover Glide foil like 3 years ago.

This is a pic of the surf foil with downturned edges on the front wing.

As JB said the rear wing is definitely the one to look out for, but that's usually not the one people get hit by.

I know that by turning the tips down it lessens the ventilation during a turn which would be a major benefit.
The roll greatly reduces the lift during a turn but gives it a 'tracking' feel.
The down turn makes it more dangerous when it rolls over because the tips are then facing up.
The direction of the tips does many things but safety's not one of them.
A foil is no sharper or harder than any surfcraft fin and flies no deeper than a longboard fin but I believe the 23 inches of foil width is the greatest danger.

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surffoils said..
A foil is no sharper or harder than any surfcraft fin

It definitively depends on the foil. I have only seen 2 foils (Gong and XXX), and the Gong tips are five times thicker than the XXX.

Here is the comparison of the tips regular fin (left, FCSII Performer) and the Gong foil wing tips.