Select to expand quote

boardsurfr said..

Mucel said..
Regarding the foil my only doubt is the fuselage. It's a surf fuselage (70 cm), which is 10 cm shorter than the NP glide wind fuselage (80cm). May it have so much influence? I thought I wouldn't need a long fuselage to put the front wing under my body as my US tracks are further of the typical fin box and can adjust exactly which is the best position.

Your thinking is correct with respect to the position of the front wing. But a shorter fuse is much less stable, so you'd have to be an excellent foiler to control it. Race foils come with fuses that are up to 115 cm long for more stability.

This means that your foil will go up and down much more quickly when anything changes, for example when you shift your weight, or a gust hits. You do not have much time to react, and as a beginner, your reactions are not yet automatic, so you will breach more.

The other thing that might make life harder for you is that the NP Surf setup comes with a 70 cm mast, while the Wind setup comes with an 80 cm mast. The longer mast also gives you more time to react, and 10 cm more can make a surprising difference. You can learn on 70 cm masts, and you can use them (I do it all the time at shallow spots), but you need better control than on longer masts. I see even very good to expert foilers breach and crash on a regular basis when they are forced to use shorter masts. The 2019 NP Surf foil used an even shorter mast (65 cm).

You'll definitely have an easier time learning if you upgrade your gear. The cheapest change would be the Wind fuselage, at about $160. But since that would move the front wing 10 cm forward, you'd have to adjust your stance. Moving the mast base forward would be part of that, but probably won't be enough. Your feet probably would need to be in front of the foot straps, so you may as well remove them, at least until you've got reasonable height control.

Hi, I bought an 80 cm mast for the glidewind surf, as the original one was only 65 cm. I'm doubting of buying the 80 cm fuselage. Only 10 cm difference in length would affect so much stability and jibing?

I went from 64 to 79 fuselage.
Huge difference at first, but your body adapts to slower reacting fuze by reacting slower, so maybe some difference, but not anything your body cannot overcome.
Steady wind is number one in importance.

Also, if you have glide SURF, switching longer fuze in MIGHT mean you bought a glide WIND surf, which moves the front wing about 4.5" more forward.

Select to expand quote

LeeD said..
I went from 64 to 79 fuselage.
Huge difference at first, but your body adapts to slower reacting fuze by reacting slower, so maybe some difference, but not anything your body cannot overcome.

I also tested 60 cm vs 80 cm fuselage for my Armstrong foil (CF2400 and HS1850) and I see that 80 cm is much easier to keep steady. I wanted to get 60 cm for jibing but I went back to 80 cm. I think 60 cm fuselage will become handy when I learn the wing foiling.

Yes, of course, using correct equipment and balancing it is a factor. However, in all these discussions what I see as the elephant in the room is good old-fashioned muscle memory and TOF (time on foil). We all go through this. You have to learn new techniques for controlling pitch when you change the rake and sheet of the sail and moving your feet, etc. It can be daunting, but we have all figured this out.

Go out, have fun, crash a lot, then smile as you finally make it all the way across your body of water in one joyful flight. It took me 50 sessions to get to this point. Most people can do it in ten sessions. But make sure your gear is balanced first.

Lots of great advice here, the number one is to not give up. Foiling is amazing and will more than double your time on the water given the lower wind threshholds. If you already built the skills to windsurf, it's not that bad of a step to foil, it pays of big dividends for the investment you make.

Have fun, don't take it too seriously, it will all click a lot faster than you think.

DC

Still, depends where you sail.
5.0 and 85 liters is dependable for 90 days each season, in SF Bay if you weigh less than 80 kgs. Yes, you might have to drive 20 miles to a different spot.
I'm on the fence with Duzzi. Almost any day I can foil with a 6 meter sail, I can plane just as much with a 7.5.

In my particular case, foiling has not increased the number of days on the water. That's because I sailed formula exclusively. However, it sure is nice to foil with a 6.4 rather than formula-sail with a 11.0. My old bones thank me.

The i99 wing has really pushed the lower limit of winds for me, however, it has really been a bear with when overpowered. And it's been much easier to switch my board from a foil to a fin when that happens, instead of rig a more appropriate sail when the wind picks up.

Bigger issue is that the sites I sail at within an hour drive need to have high tide with a certain wind direction, or you're limited to short reaches before risking slamming into the bottom. On the right wind direction days, you can stay in the boat channels. But there's a spot right by me that is deep but nobody else has sailed there but me, but it's also the first place I successfully foiled.

Select to expand quote

LeeD said..
.. Almost any day I can foil with a 6 meter sail, I can plane just as much with a 7.5.

Most of us here are foiling down at least a couple of meters in size in that range. Yesterday, at my local, fins were 7-7.8, I was much happier on a 4.7 - and going more.

You gotta factor in the size of the different riders.
Me, at 75 kg, I only compare against -80 kg riders, down to 65 kgs.
Big guys, 100 kg, need 3 meters more sail to get going than lightweights. Several factors, but most important is big guys alway tune with max downhaul on race gear, while little guys might be freestyle.

Select to expand quote

LeeD said..
You gotta factor in the size of the different riders.

I did... The big 90kg guys were foiling 6.0s.

Most of us are finding that with some time on the water our foils will have a wider wind range than our finned gear. If one can begin to nail light wind jibes and stay on the wing (even with a few bounces), that's a game changer as it lowers the threshold a meter or more -below even where a decent pumper can get off the water. fwiw, I am using an 1100ish medium aspect wing.

I find it about the same.
Wind 12-20, foil with 5.2.
Windsurf 7.4.
I can hold a 7.4 Loft Freeride a bit more.

I think the simplest way (noone mentioned) is to just get your weight out and into the harness. I did foil racing in 30+ knot gusts with 9.0 and 780cm2 wing, just getting the weight out into the harness is the number one way to keep the nose down. Important is that you keep sheeted in in the process! Sheeting out for most setups (harnesslines fairly far forward, most beginner / pre-jibing foilers ride this way) equals less pressure on the mastbase and nose going up!!

An extra plus of getting your weight out is that you dont have to bend your legs or move your feet, by distributing your weight properly between the harness (aka mastfoot) and your legs you can distribute weight over your legs as you see fit (aka both straight for upwind, a little bend at the knees for a slalom course).

If you look at the slalom foil vids from tenerife you can see, all they do is keeping the weight out and in the harness, no excessive preassure on the front foot, and those guys are powered upp!!

Technique aside, harness line placement and outhaul tension is of massive importance for keeping the nose down, any pressure on the backhand equals a foilboard going up in gusts. If its gusty thighten the outhaul by A LOT! Thightening the outhaul (or even "overthightening", dont be afraid to pull more than you would on fin) massively stabilizes the sail preassure point, allowing you to handle a wider windrange. You dont need the depth in your sail in the lulls once you're up, and if its hammering in the gusts you wont need it to get up either. Ideally you want to be able to sail around without holding the boom most of the time.

A little test for harness line placement: If you let go of the boom in a lull / average wind of the day, and the sail falls backward when you do, your harness lines are too far back and are limiting your windrange.

Couple of things I've found,

Accelerations are much quicker on the foil due to the lack of friction so you need to anticipate gusts, keeping the weight forward so you don't accidentally find the weight shifting back as you speed up on the gust.

The style of wing makes a big difference, the locked in sailing style described be whiteofheart works for high aspect smaller area wings, for low aspect / high area wings a more upright open stance tends to work better as they just create too much lift as they go faster.

I don't use the back footstrap a lot with smaller sails / windier conditions other than for going upwind. Find it gives me more control over the lift and manoeuvrability, this could be specific to the Foil / board set up though.

Fuselage length makes a huge difference, I've a friend who's a much better sailor than me but he has to work really hard to control the original Pryde F4 with it's 80cm ish fuselage when I'm comfortably cruising and gybing on the AFS wind 95 which is 88cm. Shorter fuselages are great for surf / SUP / Wing low speed manoeuvrability but not stable enough at speed.

Finally, I started with the Gecko 133, using the tuttle box, and it was perfect for the first 18mths or so until I knew what type of foiling I was into. Then switched to the JP Hydro 135, definitely works better, more comfortable stance and easier gybing due to the wider tail width. I use this with 7.7 V8 down to 4.2 wave sails and 1080cm - 670cm wings. One thing to try might be to see if you can get a tuttle adapter for your foil and your that box which is a bit further back.

Like a few others have already said I originally started foiling as a light wind alternative to big sail / board flat water which I was kind of bored with and found foiling a really good new challenge in these conditions. A I did more I found myself having more and more fun in windier conditions as a new sensation particularly on my local flat water spot where the wind can be really gusty meaning you're constantly on and off the plane.

Windy Estuary session - YouTube

Select to expand quote

WhiteofHeart said..
Technique aside, harness line placement and outhaul tension is of massive importance for keeping the nose down, any pressure on the backhand equals a foilboard going up in gusts. If its gusty thighten the outhaul by A LOT! Thightening the outhaul (or even "overthightening", dont be afraid to pull more than you would on fin) massively stabilizes the sail preassure point, allowing you to handle a wider windrange. You dont need the depth in your sail in the lulls once you're up, and if its hammering in the gusts you wont need it to get up either. Ideally you want to be able to sail around without holding the boom most of the time.

This could be the technical explanation for why I prefer foiling with lots of outhaul (at least on my wave sails). Much more than I fin with.

Thanks everybody. Very good advices. One doubt: if you sheet in you put more pressure in the mast base which is good to prevent the nose goes up, but on the other hand if you sheet in there is more drive and speed which makes the foil push up, right? The solution is sheet in but putting the sail forward, not backwards?

Those are good questions. I think the best overall answer is time on foil. Just get out there and build up your experience. You will figure all this out. We all had to, and did.

Select to expand quote

Mucel said..
Thanks everybody. Very good advices. One doubt: if you sheet in you put more pressure in the mast base which is good to prevent the nose goes up, but on the other hand if you sheet in there is more drive and speed which makes the foil push up, right? The solution is sheet in but putting the sail forward, not backwards?

If your lines are balanced, sheeting in doesn't necessarily drive the nose up. What drives the nose up for a lot of people is having lines too forward so when they sheet in with the back hand, they oppose it with pressure on the back foot. Likewise, it's important to learn to sheet in and out while still maintaining even downward pressure on the harness and therefore the mast base. That way, sail adjustments are less likely to change your flight level.

A finned board let's you get away with this stuff more easily but, still with a fin for example, lines too forward can make you prone to spin out when overpowered for the same reasons - pushing too much with the back foot.

Select to expand quote

Paducah said..

LeeD said..
.. Almost any day I can foil with a 6 meter sail, I can plane just as much with a 7.5.

Most of us here are foiling down at least a couple of meters in size in that range. Yesterday, at my local, fins were 7-7.8, I was much happier on a 4.7 - and going more.

I don't want to kidnap the thread that has a lot of good suggestions but I think it depends. Maybe for a heavyweight there is a 3 square meter gap ... but I never witnessed a gap like that. Two meters seems the norm, unless you use foil racing equipment and then the gap is less or even reverses. At my weight, 72Kg, the foil has around a 1.5/2.0 "advantage". I put advantage in quotes because I really do not see the foil being any more convenient when you consider the whole kit. Let's be generous and compare my Point-7 ACX 7.5 with my Spy 5.4.

SAIL - Point-7 Spy 5.4 vs ACX 7.5 - 22 cm shorter boom, 0.9 Kg lighter.Advantage foil

BOARD - Flikka Foil 77 vs Futura 71 - 19 cm shorter, 6 to 30 (!) cm wider, 1 Kg heavier.Advantage fin

FOIL/FIN - Moses 790 vs Tectonics Phoenix 40 - oh well ... a tiny one compared to a meter long fish catching monster weighting 4 Kg more

If I am on my small slalom or B&J board the foil kit is the same (minus the sail) and the convenience advantage for the fin really goes to the stratosphere ...

Sail more and practice. With my setup (SB race foil), I lean forward, straighten the rear leg, and round up into the wind more in a gust. Just don't forget to bare off once you're through the gust.

Select to expand quote

boardsurfr said..

Mucel said..
Regarding the foil my only doubt is the fuselage. It's a surf fuselage (70 cm), which is 10 cm shorter than the NP glide wind fuselage (80cm). May it have so much influence? I thought I wouldn't need a long fuselage to put the front wing under my body as my US tracks are further of the typical fin box and can adjust exactly which is the best position.

Your thinking is correct with respect to the position of the front wing. But a shorter fuse is much less stable, so you'd have to be an excellent foiler to control it. Race foils come with fuses that are up to 115 cm long for more stability.

This means that your foil will go up and down much more quickly when anything changes, for example when you shift your weight, or a gust hits. You do not have much time to react, and as a beginner, your reactions are not yet automatic, so you will breach more.

The other thing that might make life harder for you is that the NP Surf setup comes with a 70 cm mast, while the Wind setup comes with an 80 cm mast. The longer mast also gives you more time to react, and 10 cm more can make a surprising difference. You can learn on 70 cm masts, and you can use them (I do it all the time at shallow spots), but you need better control than on longer masts. I see even very good to expert foilers breach and crash on a regular basis when they are forced to use shorter masts. The 2019 NP Surf foil used an even shorter mast (65 cm).

You'll definitely have an easier time learning if you upgrade your gear. The cheapest change would be the Wind fuselage, at about $160. But since that would move the front wing 10 cm forward, you'd have to adjust your stance. Moving the mast base forward would be part of that, but probably won't be enough. Your feet probably would need to be in front of the foot straps, so you may as well remove them, at least until you've got reasonable height control.

Hello Boardsurfr
Thank you for your useful advises. One comment regarding your last paragraph. My idea was to put the double usbox tracks in a place which could handle both wind and surf fuselages. If you see in the following pictures, the advanced position of the tracks of the foil with surf fuselage would have the front wing in the same place as a wind fuselage in rear position of the tracks.

Please tell me your opinion.

On the other hand, I've seen many people on the net windfoiling with surf fuselages and Large glide surf foils like mine, but I guess they are more skilled/advanced than me. I think I will buy the wind fuselage. I'm looking forward to getting stable flights.

Another important point to learn faster could be tuning positions of the mast/foil several times in each session, and I do it only from one session to the following one.

Looks backfoot heavy.
You have the surf/wing fuselage.
The windsurf fuze moves foils about 4" farther forward so you can weight your front leg when up on foil.

You need the windsurf fuselage, otherwise you run the mast so far forward that you have no directional stability.

Hi, thanks. One question. I think windfoiling fuselage in Starboard supercruiser is 73 cm long, the slingshot one is 76 cm, and the NP glide surf is 71 cm. I guess the two first ones have no stability problems even they are rather short. Am I right? Do the brands have the same way of measuring?

I thought the explanation could be that big wings like the supercruiser or the NP glide wind large, help or solve the stability problems of a short fuselage thanks to the long chord of the wings.

Theory but better real experience

Measure effective fuze length from very front of front foil to very back of back wing.

They are measured differently. Supercruiser is actually 87cm and would be close to a 95cm if the wing attached like NP.

Select to expand quote

LeeD said..
Measure effective fuze length from very front of front foil to very back of back wing.

Total length including front and rear big wings, 75 cm

75 is short but ok. I spent 2 seasons with 64 fuselage and a month ago, bought the 79. Easier pitch control, same jibing and windswell turning.
But I never had balance, in any sport.
Looking at the 95 fuze for the future, unless wing takes over from wind foil.

Select to expand quote

LeeD said..
75 is short but ok. I spent 2 seasons with 64 fuselage and a month ago, bought the 79. Easier pitch control, same jibing and windswell turning.
But I never had balance, in any sport.
Looking at the 95 fuze for the future, unless wing takes over from wind foil.

Thanks Leed. 64 cm is very very short. Did you manage to have stable flights in gusty conditions with such a short fuselage? did you use big front wings?

The guys who use Gofoil in WWF, I think they use surf fuselages, I don't know how they manage to go so stable. Something related to the huge front winds? or behind those brigth videos are many many hours ;)