I've done a bit of hunting but can't seem to find a straight answer.

Are there any foils out there that are relatively maintenance free that don't suffer from corrosion in salt water??? For use with Slingshot Wizard 114 in ocean, free ride / waves.

I'd rather spend my time on the water, not rinsing, greasing and taping bolts, dis-assembling, re-assembling etc etc....

I mean i'm not opposed to some general upkeep, but the maintenance required seems excessive to avoid dreaded corrosion!!!

Go 1 piece all carbon.
But corrosion is not really a problem.
I sail in salt water 100% of the time. A good lube like tefgel, keep wings in fuze tight 2 months, and I gotta remove mast from fuze to fit into the van.
So maintainance is a whopping once every 60 sailing days.

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bigdaz said..
I've done a bit of hunting but can't seem to find a straight answer.

Are there any foils out there that are relatively maintenance free that don't suffer from corrosion in salt water??? For use with Slingshot Wizard 114 in ocean, free ride / waves.

I'd rather spend my time on the water, not rinsing, greasing and taping bolts, dis-assembling, re-assembling etc etc....

I mean i'm not opposed to some general upkeep, but the maintenance required seems excessive to avoid dreaded corrosion!!!

Look for foils constructed completely of carbon like AFS. They will still have stainless/high grade brass bolts/barrel nuts, but corrosion will be negligible compared to foils with carbon/aluminium components. The other corrosion thread made mention of stainless fuses as well now. Heavy but should also minimise corrosion.

Armstrong foils,No washing rinsing no gels or lubes

You could try a GoFoil. Full carbon one piece mast.
RS1000 or RS650 wings on a 40" mast will likely work very nice. No maintenance required. No parts to corrode.

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LeeD said..
Go 1 piece all carbon.
But corrosion is not really a problem.
I sail in salt water 100% of the time. A good lube like tefgel, keep wings in fuze tight 2 months, and I gotta remove mast from fuze to fit into the van.
So maintainance is a whopping once every 60 sailing days.

Yeah, its not so bad. It does take a little extra effort initially on the bolts that you do not remove regularly eg mast to fuse

Greasing the aluminium fuselage is a good idea. But changing the fuselage every season or so isn't a bad idea especially if you don't rinse and sail in salt water

If the corrosion was excessive early on, maybe a warranty issue?

First rule of selecting a foil brand: Make sure you they have a wide selection of front wings to experiment different styles of riding.

Second rule of selecting a foil brand: Look for something with forward going compatibility and support

TAAROA has titanium fuselages, that should be maintenance free

Foils without aluminum parts, like Armstrong foils, don't have a corrosion problem. My wife leaves her Armstrong foil assembled for months, with dozens of sessions in saltwater. They disassemble without problems, and never show any hint of corrosion.

For foils that use aluminum, stainless steel inserts reduce corrosion problems a lot, but they don't eliminate corrosion completely.

Screwing stainless steel screws directly into aluminum is always a bad idea, and it's ridiculous for gear used on water, and especially on salt water. That's just chemistry 101. The company best known for this approach also has made other questionable engineering decisions that led to plenty of broken fuses and screws. Watching "Baking Impossible" helps understand where the quality of the engineering comes from - the episode where the engineers design boats that just tip over when put into water is gold.

Screwing stainless into aluminum is not too bad. Yes, there is an electrochemical couple, but it has a high activation energy, so the kinetics are in our favor. They don't corrode readily. Same for screwing titanium into aluminum.

The bigger problem is stress corrosion. If a micro crack develops in aluminum, it can corrode all on its own, and grow the crack.

Carbon. The absolute worst problem is the combination of carbon and aluminum when they touch. The electrochemical couple AND the kinetics will corrode the aluminum. Carbon and stainless are ok, and carbon and titanium are very ok.

If you are concerned about corrosion, just disassemble, clean, rinse with fresh water, and grease all joints, even for disassembled storage. I do this whenever I snowbird to Florida. I have not had any problems with corrosion (Slingshot). I use white lithium grease or tefgel.

Second AFS, they have a lot of different foils and wings now. Question is do you want to catch a swell, then need a big wing 2000 cm2 range, but if you want to just freeride then smaller wing 1100 cm2 range will not interact with waves or swell like the AFS F1080.

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finno3 said..
Armstrong foils,No washing rinsing no gels or lubes

I concur. I leave all of my foil with screws on my Armstrong foil and no corrosion so far with the titanium screws. I had major problem when I was using Slingshot. But apparently if you apply Tefgel , this may prevent corrosion but it is annoying to take it part time to time to apply Tefgel which is also expensive.

Full tefgel easily lasts 30 sailing days, or 2 months, without any sticking problems in salt water.
That is adequate.
Stainless to alu.

Armstrong is great, no corrosion and very strong. But they are geared for surf type Windfoil and may not work on boards where you can't move the mast forward enough. Great for winging.
And the masts are not the stiffest for Windfoil.
AFS have been great. Both W85 and W95 no problem at all for corrosion.
I used Slingshot extensively and they were great to ride but had to keep on top of maintenance and replaced the fuselage regularly because of stress cracking. I think the origin of the cracking was corrosion. Slingshot was also much cheaper than Armstrong or AFS

Made me think about centrifuge rotors, aluminum centrifuge rotors corroded over time on the inside where the bottles went (and leaked) and had a set number of hours before the speed was derated, that was the only option for a long time. Then they started making centrifuge rotors out of carbon fiber, never corroded and were never derated, just had to be careful not to drop them, but they were so light it was not an issue, versus the heavy aluminum rotors. Of course the carbon rotors were more expensive, but it was worth it.

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FarNorthSurfer said..
Armstrong is great, no corrosion and very strong. But they are geared for surf type Windfoil and may not work on boards where you can't move the mast forward enough. Great for winging.
And the masts are not the stiffest for Windfoil.
AFS have been great. Both W85 and W95 no problem at all for corrosion.
I used Slingshot extensively and they were great to ride but had to keep on top of maintenance and replaced the fuselage regularly because of stress cracking. I think the origin of the cracking was corrosion. Slingshot was also much cheaper than Armstrong or AFS

Yes Armstrong work awesome in the open ocean hard forward in the tracks with the 114 Slingshot
I understand the Slingshot foils are amazing, however I am to lazy to undertake the maintenance requirements!
My local shop stocks Armstrong hence why I went with them and couldn't be happier.

I have a Severne foil & never disassemble the wings from the fuse.
2 years no corrosion showing.
I think the secret is the st.st helicoils so all threads are st.st to st.st.