Here's a, maybe too obvious? question for those that have played with different setups. Hopefully I'm not revisiting too much ground here.
In general how much of a difference do you notice with compact, narrow boards vs. wide and longer boards with minimum speed? This has kicked around in various discussions here and wanted to know what others experience is.

I've also heard arguments that narrow boards are easier to get going because of the ease of pumping the board, or drag on wide boards, but these arguments never seemed to match my experience. But, I could be doing something wrong.

I ask because recently someone got a new board and he let me take it for a spin and so I had an immediate side by side comparison to my regular freeride setup in the same conditions.

The setups
My board: Slingshot Freestyle 115 (188cm long and 71cm wide) w/ phantasm 926 and vee tail, 7.5 gator (I forgot my 7.0 foil glide...oops)
His board: Exocet FreeFoil 132 (I think?) that was 210cm long 86cm wide w/ starboard 1300, 102 fuse and the big 330 tail which he had rigged with a 7.0 foil glide

Clearly, the boards have drastically different shapes.
Also, the Exocet has no cutouts vs. the larger board I use (IQFoil) having massive cutouts. The freestyle has small cutouts.

What I noticed
The Exocet had a much more passive foiling entry than the freestyle by a lot. I would expect this but I was surprised at how much different it was. Pumping the 7.0 felt an immediate push, and seemed to be more responsive to sail pumping than my 9.0 with the IQFoil but that could be me remembering wrong as I didn't have it set up that day. Board pumping was a bit different because his footstraps were set up too far forward at first but once I got flying it felt like a mini IQFoil.

The slingshot, which I love to ride due to the strap arrangement and feeling in the air, requires much more technicality. If I do any sail pumping it has to be while I'm out and forward of the straps, to keep the front nose down and to use the board width, otherwise it just doesn't do anything. For board pumping I really put a lot of forward pressure in the front strap more than in the rear and it responds quickly once I feel the foil biting, then I can get more on the tail. Otherwise, the tail just pushes water and bogs down.

Pumping on the Exocet was also way easier due to the extra volume and shape being a lot less sensitive to stance and position on the board, but again this is kind of a "no duh". Obviously there's trade offs with a more surfy 3 strap setup vs. a wider more freerace setup.

Minimums
With my skill level I felt maybe a 2knot wind minimum (guessing based on what I saw him and me doing while we were on our respective boards) unless I really hammered on the board pumping with the slingshot. I've gotten used to riding a board this size and shape but it takes a lot of concentration and balance and timing to effectively pump the board and get foiling. Once in the air though, that all pays off. I think I got lazy with my pumping technique except a few times where I got going in similar gusts to the exocet, which he got up with less effort.

I can also waterstart the freestyle easier just because of how it sinks really well, but his board wasn't too bad compared to larger boards. In general if I can waterstart the freestyle in a gust it's around my wind minimum to take off. This wasn't true with my other setups as if I could waterstart I had oodles of spare power. It's just that easy to lever up on the freestyle with it sinking at my weight (around 210lbs). I can pump the sail to help lever over it and get my head inboard and I don't have to bend my knee as much due to how much it sinks vs. a more floaty board. It's just delicate with how I do it otherwise you get too far forward, pearl, and go for a swim.

Why I ask
I want to know what things I can do to improve my technique with this board. I don't have good recent videos unfortunately, but I've noticed other things. For instance, wingers riding narrow low volume boards like the slingshot and still getting up pretty early. I figure there is still a lot to unlock in my personal skill to get flying earlier on this board but maybe I'm deluding myself.

I normally reserve the slingshot for higher winds, but I got skunked a bit by the forecast and didn't bring my iqfoil setup, and figured it would be good to keep pushing my skills on this board.

Other thoughts
I wonder if I have one more hole I could go forward on the foot straps to help keep the nose down while slogging, helping me effectively pump, and move the foil further forward another cm or so.

Also I haven't foiled with the gator in a long time and I thought it would feel worse on foil but it felt really good on the foil, much better than when I've tried to foil with blades. I try to avoid using blades due to the feel on foil and usually use foil glides or freeks but the gator was very nice. I may just use that in lighter winds on this board because of simplicity and ease of jibing with it vs. the foil glides.

I felt a lot more power due to the board width when sailing the Exocet, and found it easier to hit top speed. To do the same on the freestyle required me to be out laterally of the straps and on the rail with both feet so that I could sheet in more. I'm used to this now but it was just interesting to feel that extra width with sheeting when sailing these boards back to back like that.

I rarely rode my freestyle with a large sail so cant help too much. Also so much of how you should take off is determined by the foil than the board,. Eg this past week in maui on the high aspect NP foil I had to completely alter my take off because if the board wasn't at speed and I foot pumped the board onto foil the foil would wet stall. So I had to do more of a "planing" takeoff with gentle sail pumping like a fin board until I had enough speed to mostly glide onto foil, with tiny foot pump. However, this "planing" take off does better with more paralell rails as it will get up to speed easier. I think each set up has an optimal combination of sail pumping, foot pumping and sail pumping style that you need to dial in.

So If the goal was to get better at getting the freestyle off the water I would work on experimenting with different sail pumping without trying to foil to see which variation gets you the most glide/speed per pump. And once you have that dialled then maybe you work when and how much back foot biased pumping to add in.

Thanks thedoor, I think you have a good point with the foil mattering a lot. In this case, I think they are similar classes of foil (at least in size and span, but maybe the starboard had a longer fuse?).

Next time I may try doing more of a sail pump out of the straps to see how that makes a difference. If I extend the light wind range of this setup another 2kts that would be fantastic all around.

If the Starboard 1300 foil is similar to the one I used to have, it needs about planing speed for take off. So the question is which board is easier to get to (almost) plane. The extra width and length of the Exocet both help a lot in this respect.

Comparing volumes to wing boards can be quite deceptive. With a sail, you have and extra 20 pounds of weight. The wing is not just weightless, but actually supports a lot of body weight when powered from enough wind or energetic pumps. When starting with the wing, the wing is typically pointed diagonally up and forward, so the lift it generates is divided between forward and upward. Proper timing of pumps and leg bending basically allows the winger to reduce his "effective" weight a lot the entire time, so it's as if a person with half the weight would be winging. You can't do that with a sail, unless it's a waterstart in super-windy conditions where you accelerate to full planing before you're standing upright.

About 85 yrs ago, Lindsay Lord did some seminal research into planing boat hulls. The original motivation was to produce better boats to run whiskey during the Great Depression but the US Navy used his research for the design of torpedo boats during WWII. One of his findings was that an approximate length/width ratio of 2.5:1 was optimal for an efficient planing hull. If you look at where Formula windsurfers evolved to prior to the age of foiling, they came very close to that guideline as many boards were around 230-235cm long and a meter wide.

Fast forward to your question - I think a lot of things are going on and that it's easy to get lost in the trees.
1- If we take the Lord formula and apply it to the size of most foiling boards today - around 195-215 cm - we see that the optimal width should be around 80-85 cm. Which tends to coincide with what most of us would consider a light air board
2 - Cut outs, imho, are more about the behavior of the board as it touches down at speed. You don't want a lot of lift aft as you hit the water. The lift penalty of the cutout, though, is probably less than we might expect as the cutouts create a bit of a stepped hull and the water caught behind the cutouts likely induces the water to move past in a flow that comes close to approximating if the cutout wasn't there. (This is also why wingfoiling wings aren't the aerodynamic disaster I expected them to been.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kline-Fogleman_airfoil )
3 - DW wingboards solved a big issue for winging as the sport moved to higher aspect wings which required a higher takeoff speed. Prior to DW boards, the trend was shorter, much shorter boards which matched with the bigger, liftier foils then more commonly used. These foils could lift off at subplaning speeds and the need to accelerate the board was reduced. When wingers started using 800-900 cm HA wings, it took a lot of power to get the really short boards to accelerate to the speed necessary for them to lift because of their very short waterlines. Their narrowness is a function of a) the need to clear the rails when heeled over and b) the wingfoiling aesthetic of minimizing all. Yet, if you consider a length of 160 cm, you can see that you still end up with a pretty narrow board following the 2:5:1 ration guideline.
4 - VMG boards like the IQ not only need to lift early but also provide adequate leverage over the foil and rig so their width is more a reflection of that need since it outweighs the need to lift early about 98% of the time. Formula foil boards are pretty much still 100cm wide for that reason.
5- The Slingshot still roughly conforms to the Lord guideline but it has reduced area around the tail. IMHO, this reduces the amount of lift the hull produces over an equivalent more square "Lord board". I'd imagine if the Slingshot had a conventional foilboard tail, it would lift a lot sooner. In the terms of your profession, the reduced planing area for the same length means a higher "wing loading", ie the bottom surface of the board has to carry a higher amount of weight per unit of area because of the tail shape.

So, your experience seems to be entirely consistent with these points.

Lord, Lindsay. 1963. Naval architecture of planing hulls. search.worldcat.org/title/760643
source: mypaipoboards.org/interviews/JohnElwell/JohnElwell_2010-0823.shtml

love the page of history Paducah!

indeed -- many (many!) co-variables so very difficult to disentangle, but overall I agree: bigger (board/sail) doesn't necessarily mean quicker on the foil.

BUT early flight is not the only determinant of optimal board size/shape. for instance: there is no doubt that I'm most efficient around an up/downwind course on my 100cm formula foil board, but I'm not quicker (in fact, potentially slower) to get onto the foil with same foil/sail on my 91cm board. Inertia is real! But in a race other things matter (more), so the bigger board still wins...

Some light wind sail and foil pumping action with an enormously big sail (5.6 m2).



And with a bit more wind, but still light I'd say.

Amazing summary for us laymen Pad!

Select to expand quote

Taavi said..
Some light wind sail and foil pumping action with an enormously big sail (5.6 m2).

I wish I could see more of your body position in this video. Are you ever pumping out of the front strap? You've definitely got an aggressive and active style of riding that I aspire to.

I ride the 115 but have never used a sail larger than 5.3 as the door said foils can make a difference before the phantasm was available because of Covid shipping delays I was on the axis HPS front wings the 930 was my light wind go to wing to me that wing got going was earlier than any slingshot wing that I had experience with.As for pumping front foot in the strap and rear in front of back strap off to the side a bit.Been riding with my straps a bit different than some 6.5 in spread on the front makes strap to strap jibes easier and I still might move the rear full forward right now this works for me.

Thanks KDog, here's my strap arrangement.

Also, I may try not being in the front strap when getting going. Maybe that's been my problem because getting in the rear puts my weight too far back? Will keep experimenting.

Select to expand quote

aeroegnr said..
Thanks KDog, here's my strap arrangement.

Also, I may try not being in the front strap when getting going. Maybe that's been my problem because getting in the rear puts my weight too far back? Will keep experimenting.

Also I would go back to the 400 tail in light wind has more lift and is not that much slower than the 360

My experience is that the closer the masts are together the more "squirrely" the board is on take off. Regardless of foil size. Bigger foil does reduce the take off speed of course, but I'm really talking about how the board feels during the below take off pump phase. Once in the air it's a different story as the distance between masts gives the sail a lot more leverage over the foil and leads to instability.

Still learning.

Select to expand quote

aeroegnr said..
Are you ever pumping out of the front strap?

Going to the straps right away.

Select to expand quote

aeroegnr said..
Here's a, maybe too obvious? question for those that have played with different setups. Hopefully I'm not revisiting too much ground here.
In general how much of a difference do you notice with compact, narrow boards vs. wide and longer boards with minimum speed? This has kicked around in various discussions here and wanted to know what others experience is.

I've also heard arguments that narrow boards are easier to get going because of the ease of pumping the board, or drag on wide boards, but these arguments never seemed to match my experience. But, I could be doing something wrong.

I ask because recently someone got a new board and he let me take it for a spin and so I had an immediate side by side comparison to my regular freeride setup in the same conditions.

The setups
My board: Slingshot Freestyle 115 (188cm long and 71cm wide) w/ phantasm 926 and vee tail, 7.5 gator (I forgot my 7.0 foil glide...oops)
His board: Exocet FreeFoil 132 (I think?) that was 210cm long 86cm wide w/ starboard 1300, 102 fuse and the big 330 tail which he had rigged with a 7.0 foil glide

Clearly, the boards have drastically different shapes.
Also, the Exocet has no cutouts vs. the larger board I use (IQFoil) having massive cutouts. The freestyle has small cutouts.

What I noticed
The Exocet had a much more passive foiling entry than the freestyle by a lot. I would expect this but I was surprised at how much different it was. Pumping the 7.0 felt an immediate push, and seemed to be more responsive to sail pumping than my 9.0 with the IQFoil but that could be me remembering wrong as I didn't have it set up that day. Board pumping was a bit different because his footstraps were set up too far forward at first but once I got flying it felt like a mini IQFoil.

The slingshot, which I love to ride due to the strap arrangement and feeling in the air, requires much more technicality. If I do any sail pumping it has to be while I'm out and forward of the straps, to keep the front nose down and to use the board width, otherwise it just doesn't do anything. For board pumping I really put a lot of forward pressure in the front strap more than in the rear and it responds quickly once I feel the foil biting, then I can get more on the tail. Otherwise, the tail just pushes water and bogs down.

Pumping on the Exocet was also way easier due to the extra volume and shape being a lot less sensitive to stance and position on the board, but again this is kind of a "no duh". Obviously there's trade offs with a more surfy 3 strap setup vs. a wider more freerace setup.

Minimums
With my skill level I felt maybe a 2knot wind minimum (guessing based on what I saw him and me doing while we were on our respective boards) unless I really hammered on the board pumping with the slingshot. I've gotten used to riding a board this size and shape but it takes a lot of concentration and balance and timing to effectively pump the board and get foiling. Once in the air though, that all pays off. I think I got lazy with my pumping technique except a few times where I got going in similar gusts to the exocet, which he got up with less effort.

I can also waterstart the freestyle easier just because of how it sinks really well, but his board wasn't too bad compared to larger boards. In general if I can waterstart the freestyle in a gust it's around my wind minimum to take off. This wasn't true with my other setups as if I could waterstart I had oodles of spare power. It's just that easy to lever up on the freestyle with it sinking at my weight (around 210lbs). I can pump the sail to help lever over it and get my head inboard and I don't have to bend my knee as much due to how much it sinks vs. a more floaty board. It's just delicate with how I do it otherwise you get too far forward, pearl, and go for a swim.

Why I ask
I want to know what things I can do to improve my technique with this board. I don't have good recent videos unfortunately, but I've noticed other things. For instance, wingers riding narrow low volume boards like the slingshot and still getting up pretty early. I figure there is still a lot to unlock in my personal skill to get flying earlier on this board but maybe I'm deluding myself.

I normally reserve the slingshot for higher winds, but I got skunked a bit by the forecast and didn't bring my iqfoil setup, and figured it would be good to keep pushing my skills on this board.

Other thoughts
I wonder if I have one more hole I could go forward on the foot straps to help keep the nose down while slogging, helping me effectively pump, and move the foil further forward another cm or so.

Also I haven't foiled with the gator in a long time and I thought it would feel worse on foil but it felt really good on the foil, much better than when I've tried to foil with blades. I try to avoid using blades due to the feel on foil and usually use foil glides or freeks but the gator was very nice. I may just use that in lighter winds on this board because of simplicity and ease of jibing with it vs. the foil glides.

I felt a lot more power due to the board width when sailing the Exocet, and found it easier to hit top speed. To do the same on the freestyle required me to be out laterally of the straps and on the rail with both feet so that I could sheet in more. I'm used to this now but it was just interesting to feel that extra width with sheeting when sailing these boards back to back like that.

First a question about you sail Gator 7,5 m. How would you rate it for windfoiling compared to your Foil Glide 7 m.
Reason for asking this :
I have a Gator 6,5 m I really like with very short boom 188 cm and very light. At the beginning only using it for wave windsurfing. Doing crazy things with it, using it as my biggest wavesail on small waveboards, not feeling much difference in handling with wave sails around 5 m / 5 m 4 with similar but shorter boom length.
Then started windfoiling and using the Gator 6 m 5 with success. Light, short wishbone.
So then I thought I'll get an even bigger one to lower the wind limit and I bought the biggest Gator 8 m 197 cm boom because I like things easy without cambers, the sail takes less room in my car, smaller diameter rolled up.
But I made a mistake. I thought all Gators have the same lay out.
There are 3 layouts for the Gator : small size / medium size / large size.
The large Gators have a big cut out. I guess above the 197 cm boom the sail has width of about 220 - 230 cm.
I'm just a beginner in windfoil so I cannot really judge this.
Is the big Gator 8 m or 7 m 5 a bad sail for windfoiling, and maybe I should get another type of big sail (Foil Glide, Foilfreek, Duotone F-type, etc.).

About your question concerning the shape of the board. Although I'm a beginner I'm interested in the technical matters of boards and foils.
I've been looking and comparing a lot to wingfoilers.
I see a lot of wingfoilers now with long narrow downwind boards, a bit rounded in the bottom.
They take off very early, and have a very low wind limit especially if they take a very wide high aspect foil.
In general they use a smaller wing surface than my windfoil sail, at least 1 square meter smaller.
I think / nearly sure they have a (much) lower wind limit.
As somebody wrote before : holding their wing diagonal pulls them a bit up, a bit like a kite, while we have a 10 kg rig pushing by gravity downwards, and with the rounded bottom of their boards they rock a bit also sideways before getting in foil.
I've been asking myself could we windfoil better on such a wingfoilboard if we would install a sail mast track and add some 10 - 20 liter. I don't think because I read and hear as windfoilers we need width of the board, especially for bigger sails.
Maybe somebody knows the answer to this.
Lately somebody said me he got out his old original Windsurfer board to have fun in low wind because of the rounded bottom. Back to the future.
I think wingfoiling is (a bit) more efficient than windfoiling. (makes me think about discussions between skiers and snowboarders).
But the main thing is we all have fun and keep on experimenting.

Select to expand quote

YellowHelmet said..

aeroegnr said..
Here's a, maybe too obvious? question for those that have played with different setups. Hopefully I'm not revisiting too much ground here.
In general how much of a difference do you notice with compact, narrow boards vs. wide and longer boards with minimum speed? This has kicked around in various discussions here and wanted to know what others experience is.

I've also heard arguments that narrow boards are easier to get going because of the ease of pumping the board, or drag on wide boards, but these arguments never seemed to match my experience. But, I could be doing something wrong.

I ask because recently someone got a new board and he let me take it for a spin and so I had an immediate side by side comparison to my regular freeride setup in the same conditions.

The setups
My board: Slingshot Freestyle 115 (188cm long and 71cm wide) w/ phantasm 926 and vee tail, 7.5 gator (I forgot my 7.0 foil glide...oops)
His board: Exocet FreeFoil 132 (I think?) that was 210cm long 86cm wide w/ starboard 1300, 102 fuse and the big 330 tail which he had rigged with a 7.0 foil glide

Clearly, the boards have drastically different shapes.
Also, the Exocet has no cutouts vs. the larger board I use (IQFoil) having massive cutouts. The freestyle has small cutouts.

What I noticed
The Exocet had a much more passive foiling entry than the freestyle by a lot. I would expect this but I was surprised at how much different it was. Pumping the 7.0 felt an immediate push, and seemed to be more responsive to sail pumping than my 9.0 with the IQFoil but that could be me remembering wrong as I didn't have it set up that day. Board pumping was a bit different because his footstraps were set up too far forward at first but once I got flying it felt like a mini IQFoil.

The slingshot, which I love to ride due to the strap arrangement and feeling in the air, requires much more technicality. If I do any sail pumping it has to be while I'm out and forward of the straps, to keep the front nose down and to use the board width, otherwise it just doesn't do anything. For board pumping I really put a lot of forward pressure in the front strap more than in the rear and it responds quickly once I feel the foil biting, then I can get more on the tail. Otherwise, the tail just pushes water and bogs down.

Pumping on the Exocet was also way easier due to the extra volume and shape being a lot less sensitive to stance and position on the board, but again this is kind of a "no duh". Obviously there's trade offs with a more surfy 3 strap setup vs. a wider more freerace setup.

Minimums
With my skill level I felt maybe a 2knot wind minimum (guessing based on what I saw him and me doing while we were on our respective boards) unless I really hammered on the board pumping with the slingshot. I've gotten used to riding a board this size and shape but it takes a lot of concentration and balance and timing to effectively pump the board and get foiling. Once in the air though, that all pays off. I think I got lazy with my pumping technique except a few times where I got going in similar gusts to the exocet, which he got up with less effort.

I can also waterstart the freestyle easier just because of how it sinks really well, but his board wasn't too bad compared to larger boards. In general if I can waterstart the freestyle in a gust it's around my wind minimum to take off. This wasn't true with my other setups as if I could waterstart I had oodles of spare power. It's just that easy to lever up on the freestyle with it sinking at my weight (around 210lbs). I can pump the sail to help lever over it and get my head inboard and I don't have to bend my knee as much due to how much it sinks vs. a more floaty board. It's just delicate with how I do it otherwise you get too far forward, pearl, and go for a swim.

Why I ask
I want to know what things I can do to improve my technique with this board. I don't have good recent videos unfortunately, but I've noticed other things. For instance, wingers riding narrow low volume boards like the slingshot and still getting up pretty early. I figure there is still a lot to unlock in my personal skill to get flying earlier on this board but maybe I'm deluding myself.

I normally reserve the slingshot for higher winds, but I got skunked a bit by the forecast and didn't bring my iqfoil setup, and figured it would be good to keep pushing my skills on this board.

Other thoughts
I wonder if I have one more hole I could go forward on the foot straps to help keep the nose down while slogging, helping me effectively pump, and move the foil further forward another cm or so.

Also I haven't foiled with the gator in a long time and I thought it would feel worse on foil but it felt really good on the foil, much better than when I've tried to foil with blades. I try to avoid using blades due to the feel on foil and usually use foil glides or freeks but the gator was very nice. I may just use that in lighter winds on this board because of simplicity and ease of jibing with it vs. the foil glides.

I felt a lot more power due to the board width when sailing the Exocet, and found it easier to hit top speed. To do the same on the freestyle required me to be out laterally of the straps and on the rail with both feet so that I could sheet in more. I'm used to this now but it was just interesting to feel that extra width with sheeting when sailing these boards back to back like that.

First a question about you sail Gator 7,5 m. How would you rate it for windfoiling compared to your Foil Glide 7 m.
Reason for asking this :
I have a Gator 6,5 m I really like with very short boom 188 cm and very light. At the beginning only using it for wave windsurfing. Doing crazy things with it, using it as my biggest wavesail on small waveboards, not feeling much difference in handling with wave sails around 5 m / 5 m 4 with similar but shorter boom length.
Then started windfoiling and using the Gator 6 m 5 with success. Light, short wishbone.
So then I thought I'll get an even bigger one to lower the wind limit and I bought the biggest Gator 8 m 197 cm boom because I like things easy without cambers, the sail takes less room in my car, smaller diameter rolled up.
But I made a mistake. I thought all Gators have the same lay out.
There are 3 layouts for the Gator : small size / medium size / large size.
The large Gators have a big cut out. I guess above the 197 cm boom the sail has width of about 220 - 230 cm.
I'm just a beginner in windfoil so I cannot really judge this.
Is the big Gator 8 m or 7 m 5 a bad sail for windfoiling, and maybe I should get another type of big sail (Foil Glide, Foilfreek, Duotone F-type, etc.).

About your question concerning the shape of the board. Although I'm a beginner I'm interested in the technical matters of boards and foils.
I've been looking and comparing a lot to wingfoilers.
I see a lot of wingfoilers now with long narrow downwind boards, a bit rounded in the bottom.
They take off very early, and have a very low wind limit especially if they take a very wide high aspect foil.
In general they use a smaller wing surface than my windfoil sail, at least 1 square meter smaller.
I think / nearly sure they have a (much) lower wind limit.
As somebody wrote before : holding their wing diagonal pulls them a bit up, a bit like a kite, while we have a 10 kg rig pushing by gravity downwards, and with the rounded bottom of their boards they rock a bit also sideways before getting in foil.
I've been asking myself could we windfoil better on such a wingfoilboard if we would install a sail mast track and add some 10 - 20 liter. I don't think because I read and hear as windfoilers we need width of the board, especially for bigger sails.
Maybe somebody knows the answer to this.
Lately somebody said me he got out his old original Windsurfer board to have fun in low wind because of the rounded bottom. Back to the future.
I think wingfoiling is (a bit) more efficient than windfoiling. (makes me think about discussions between skiers and snowboarders).
But the main thing is we all have fun and keep on experimenting.

It's almost a separate discussion but for me, above 6.0, cambers are much better both for stability and for low end. Having a locked in shape is a big benefit both when pumping and gluding through lulls when there isn't sufficient pressure to keep the sail's profile.
Narrower, canoe-body boards have been done already in windfoiling over in France. Guido, who occasionally visits here, iirc has one. They do perform well but I dont believe they are intended to carry a lot of sail.
Once you account for foil size, I dont find wings really getting up earlier than us even evenly matched for wing/sail area. And, in the lulls, I'm not trying to keep a big wing's tips out of the water. A skilled iqfoiler even with the relatively small 900 wing is a sight to behold in light air.
As to board shape, a lot of DW boards are 60cm or narrower which wouldn't work well for a windfoil for most of us or at least offer an advantage, imho.
Good points to ponder, though. fwiw, I'm in the at most one or two pumps before front strap camp; usually gi straight in unlesscwind is desperately light. But, I'm also light.

Select to expand quote

YellowHelmet said..

First a question about you sail Gator 7,5 m. How would you rate it for windfoiling compared to your Foil Glide 7 m.
Reason for asking this :
I have a Gator 6,5 m I really like with very short boom 188 cm and very light. At the beginning only using it for wave windsurfing. Doing crazy things with it, using it as my biggest wavesail on small waveboards, not feeling much difference in handling with wave sails around 5 m / 5 m 4 with similar but shorter boom length.
Then started windfoiling and using the Gator 6 m 5 with success. Light, short wishbone.
So then I thought I'll get an even bigger one to lower the wind limit and I bought the biggest Gator 8 m 197 cm boom because I like things easy without cambers, the sail takes less room in my car, smaller diameter rolled up.
But I made a mistake. I thought all Gators have the same lay out.
There are 3 layouts for the Gator : small size / medium size / large size.
The large Gators have a big cut out. I guess above the 197 cm boom the sail has width of about 220 - 230 cm.
I'm just a beginner in windfoil so I cannot really judge this.
Is the big Gator 8 m or 7 m 5 a bad sail for windfoiling, and maybe I should get another type of big sail (Foil Glide, Foilfreek, Duotone F-type, etc.).

I'll answer the sail one, looks like Paducah answered the board one well.

Here's a summary of my thoughts on the various sails I've used for foiling

NON FOIL SAILS
Cheetah- I used the 8.0 Cheetah a ton to learn on i76 and i99 slingshot foils. When revisiting the cheetah I found it very soft and non-reactive, making it difficult to pump effectively and sluggish to point hard with

Goya Mark II (no cam) - Used the 6.6 for foiling for a bit and it generally felt ok. Haven't used it recently and beat up the sail a bit learning fin/foiling with it in higher wind.

Legacy - Kind of like the cheetah and didn't use it a lot. Didn't find it that pumpable and the 5.8 wasn't really doing it for me in most wind conditions.

Gator- I used it in several different foil setups, from smaller starboard race foils to the phantasm now. It felt decent. Not soft and non-reactive like the Cheetah, but decent moderate range. On the bottom end it lacks the drive of a cammed sail. On the top end it starts to get squirrelly when overpowered on the foil so you have to be on it a lot more than a cammed sail. But, it's decent if you want to use it for fin and foil.
When jibing it feels lighter than the cammed sails, and easier to flip.

Blade- I don't like the 6.7 I have for foil, almost at all. I'll use it when it's all I got. The 5.0 I like somewhat, but I give it another 2-4cm of extension to raise the effort and it doesn't feel that good to me. I can't nail down exactly what it is but it feels off.

Freek- I really like these from 4.4-6.3. All around fantastic for freeride. They just lack in the lulls when they flatten out. But, they get great power when pumped and are duckable (which I've started to try unsuccessfully during jibes).

FOIL SAILS
Foil glide (6.0-8.0)- I've used these more than the non-foil sails lately, especially the 7.0. Generally has a huge range from light wind to high wind and I've dropped the clew attachment to the lower hole when I don't feel like switching sails and the wind picks up. Softer feel than the Olympic, but still feels good hanging off it and pointing hard upwind when I pull extra outhaul. If you want to use these kinds of sails I strongly recommend getting an adjustable outhaul kit because it makes an extreme difference upwind/downwind with a cammed sail.
Now after revisiting the gator 7.5 I may use the gator more because it's easier to setup and is good on a fin, so if I bring a fin and foil board I'd bring the gator and leave the foil glide 7.0 at home. Otherwise I'd use the foil glide for pure foiling. I've used it on fin and it's ok but you can tell the forward pull vs. a normal fin sail and it gets a little awkward.

Hyperglide Olympic (9.0 only)- Like it a lot, taken it up to 20kts wind or so and it stays solid but noisy in the leech. Pulls like crazy and you have to pay attention and make sure everything is balanced on it (harness) or you will wear yourself out trying to manhandle it. It is going to be cancelled for the 8.0 in the Olympic class, so I may pick up some used sails/masts as its great for lower end. Just expensive and everything breaks earlier than other gear (masts especially).

I'll also say that foil glides and the HGO are less durable than other sails so if you are doing a lot of learning, the gator or another sail may take the beating better. My Cheetah survived me learning to fin AND foil on it with a small tear. However, I've blown out two HGOs and had them repaired, broken 2 masts in very non-traumatic ways. I also fell on my biggest freek (6.3) and tore out the high tension area at the foot and need to repair/replace it. Anything foil specific from severne may be fairly high performance at the expense of durability.

So, optimizing on sail capability may not be the move when you're still learning. There may be other sails that are more durable and foil specific though. A lot of people like sailworks but I hear they're going out of the sail business as well so I really don't know. And not enough Duotone users here to have an opinion or observation.

Hey Aero,
Good subject, it's near and dear to my heart. I love that you focus on technique as much as gear, you are on the right track with that!

Way too many variables in your experiment to put much weight on things but here are my thoughts.

In general, I am not surprised with your experiences between these two set ups.

When in the water a small board with a huge sail will basically be underwater, tail dragging, foot strap dragging and tippy as hell. That will make it harder and more technical to launch. It HAS to pumped and pumped well to dig out of that hole.

The Excoet is full in the ends, longer, wider with more volume and that makes it way easier to launch. Lindsey Lord would say: that design will float on her lines better. Everyone knows length makes a huge difference in take-off speed. Okay, maybe the width is draggy but everything else is working for ya and you have a big ass sail to overcome that drag. Then that width is required to carry that much sail.

The foil glides are designed to foil in light air. The gators are designed to blast with a lot of sail in real wind on a fin. I have a gator 7.5, I HATE IT. Way too much twist so it sucks to pump. I am scavenging the battens out of it and taking it apart to learn how the head cap goes together. I am reverse engineering the details of the sail that I like.

I think to get the most out of your freestyle board you should use a freestyle sail under 6m and a foil set up with a lot of low-end lift. Then focus on pumping in the straps. To stay in the straps while going slowly transfer your weight through the rig and into the mast base.
Look up Simon Bornhoft and warrior stance for some tips on this.

A small board paired with the right gear and pumped with skill should be really early to lift as Balz demonstrates. Not necessarily easy to do or a passive take-off but potent in the right hands.

Wings take off earlier. Period the end. The lift vector from the sail is up... They have no prejudice to using big foils when needed and they pump them with skill. The are tons of examples of them pumping free in single digit wind speeds. For sure we can and should learn from them, but it is not apples to apples. Remember when I tried this? Kalama type for windfoil | Windsurfing Forums, page 1 - Seabreeze


When my budget permits, I want to explore windsurfing on pump foils, Motor sailing! I really think there is something fun there that most windsurfers overlook. For instance, I feel pretty strongly that the upwind 360, duck tack, and Heli tack would be easiest to learn in 10 knots of wind on a foil that can keep gliding at slow speeds. In light air there is much less apparent wind slowing you down when turning into the wind, plus its way less intimidating. I can do all those moves on my sand sailing skateboard because it just keep moving, its stall speed is zero knots. I have kept my Kalama home brew even though I am short on space, I still wonder if it will work well windsurfing on a pump foil.

Good points utcminusfour.

I have used the 5.6 and 6.3 freek to pump up in winds a few time that were not strong enough to keep me flying. It was a balance of the right conditions to do so and timing things just right. It's very rare for me. Maybe I should spend some time working on that.

The struggle I think is often getting the right balance while also contending with chop. When it's gusty with deep lulls and choppy, it can be very difficult to keep balance in the right spot to pump effectively. Like with Taavi's video above, I see very little chop. Sometimes it can be like that here in one site with some wind directions, but not that often. I find it easier to have more sail up in that case. But, I'm willing to try to find out if there are ways to overcome that. I know it's possible, I've seen videos with guys pumping up in almost no wind like a pump foil, like Balz and others, but I am just not there.

Warrior stance is what I try to do to ride the freestyle when it's in a lull. I think that I will need to try to shift my rear foot more forward though in order to help get the right portion of the board on the surface. So pumping out of the rear foot strap until I get some momentum going. It'll take some experimentation with getting it right. Having this board has improved my balance substantially because of how light I can actually ride it in. Being able to use a smaller sail would help a lot, but it just hasn't been my experience yet.

More TOW where I'm actually flying in light wind with a small board like this would be perfect. It would make practicing things like ducks, 360s, jumps, etc. so much less intimidating than when it's blowing closer to 20kts. And my efforts to ride switch sometimes will be far easier.

@aeroegnr, chop definitely makes it more difficult. If you struggle with stepping into the straps right away (understandable, as your board has a more pulled in tail area), I think you should still try to be at least in the front straps right away. Here is one more clip, with a smaller 89 litres board, which also has the back strap at the very tail end of the board, similar to yours. Notice how I get into the front straps right away, then get the board moving slightly, and then step into the back strap.

Thanks Taavi, those are great clips. I'm going to try this as soon as I can. Hopefully I'll have good news to share and some insight into what I've been doing wrong. I can slog around in the front and rears by bending the front knee and leaning forward, but I think it's harder to apply early pumping efforts with my rear foot all the way back because it sinks the tail too much.

Also I really like the strap arrangement. It makes it super easy to get in the rear strap after jibes or in and out whenever I want. Much different to the much wider setup on the foilx and iqfoil (but those are totally different boards, especially the iq). And very carvy when I go and get out in the waves and can get lower and more central over the board.

I noticed Tony had a very long track in his board

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aeroegnr said..

YellowHelmet said..

First a question about you sail Gator 7,5 m. How would you rate it for windfoiling compared to your Foil Glide 7 m.
Reason for asking this :
I have a Gator 6,5 m I really like with very short boom 188 cm and very light. At the beginning only using it for wave windsurfing. Doing crazy things with it, using it as my biggest wavesail on small waveboards, not feeling much difference in handling with wave sails around 5 m / 5 m 4 with similar but shorter boom length.
Then started windfoiling and using the Gator 6 m 5 with success. Light, short wishbone.
So then I thought I'll get an even bigger one to lower the wind limit and I bought the biggest Gator 8 m 197 cm boom because I like things easy without cambers, the sail takes less room in my car, smaller diameter rolled up.
But I made a mistake. I thought all Gators have the same lay out.
There are 3 layouts for the Gator : small size / medium size / large size.
The large Gators have a big cut out. I guess above the 197 cm boom the sail has width of about 220 - 230 cm.
I'm just a beginner in windfoil so I cannot really judge this.
Is the big Gator 8 m or 7 m 5 a bad sail for windfoiling, and maybe I should get another type of big sail (Foil Glide, Foilfreek, Duotone F-type, etc.).

I'll answer the sail one, looks like Paducah answered the board one well.

Here's a summary of my thoughts on the various sails I've used for foiling

NON FOIL SAILS
Cheetah- I used the 8.0 Cheetah a ton to learn on i76 and i99 slingshot foils. When revisiting the cheetah I found it very soft and non-reactive, making it difficult to pump effectively and sluggish to point hard with

Goya Mark II (no cam) - Used the 6.6 for foiling for a bit and it generally felt ok. Haven't used it recently and beat up the sail a bit learning fin/foiling with it in higher wind.

Legacy - Kind of like the cheetah and didn't use it a lot. Didn't find it that pumpable and the 5.8 wasn't really doing it for me in most wind conditions.

Gator- I used it in several different foil setups, from smaller starboard race foils to the phantasm now. It felt decent. Not soft and non-reactive like the Cheetah, but decent moderate range. On the bottom end it lacks the drive of a cammed sail. On the top end it starts to get squirrelly when overpowered on the foil so you have to be on it a lot more than a cammed sail. But, it's decent if you want to use it for fin and foil.
When jibing it feels lighter than the cammed sails, and easier to flip.

Blade- I don't like the 6.7 I have for foil, almost at all. I'll use it when it's all I got. The 5.0 I like somewhat, but I give it another 2-4cm of extension to raise the effort and it doesn't feel that good to me. I can't nail down exactly what it is but it feels off.

Freek- I really like these from 4.4-6.3. All around fantastic for freeride. They just lack in the lulls when they flatten out. But, they get great power when pumped and are duckable (which I've started to try unsuccessfully during jibes).

FOIL SAILS
Foil glide (6.0-8.0)- I've used these more than the non-foil sails lately, especially the 7.0. Generally has a huge range from light wind to high wind and I've dropped the clew attachment to the lower hole when I don't feel like switching sails and the wind picks up. Softer feel than the Olympic, but still feels good hanging off it and pointing hard upwind when I pull extra outhaul. If you want to use these kinds of sails I strongly recommend getting an adjustable outhaul kit because it makes an extreme difference upwind/downwind with a cammed sail.
Now after revisiting the gator 7.5 I may use the gator more because it's easier to setup and is good on a fin, so if I bring a fin and foil board I'd bring the gator and leave the foil glide 7.0 at home. Otherwise I'd use the foil glide for pure foiling. I've used it on fin and it's ok but you can tell the forward pull vs. a normal fin sail and it gets a little awkward.

Hyperglide Olympic (9.0 only)- Like it a lot, taken it up to 20kts wind or so and it stays solid but noisy in the leech. Pulls like crazy and you have to pay attention and make sure everything is balanced on it (harness) or you will wear yourself out trying to manhandle it. It is going to be cancelled for the 8.0 in the Olympic class, so I may pick up some used sails/masts as its great for lower end. Just expensive and everything breaks earlier than other gear (masts especially).

I'll also say that foil glides and the HGO are less durable than other sails so if you are doing a lot of learning, the gator or another sail may take the beating better. My Cheetah survived me learning to fin AND foil on it with a small tear. However, I've blown out two HGOs and had them repaired, broken 2 masts in very non-traumatic ways. I also fell on my biggest freek (6.3) and tore out the high tension area at the foot and need to repair/replace it. Anything foil specific from severne may be fairly high performance at the expense of durability.

So, optimizing on sail capability may not be the move when you're still learning. There may be other sails that are more durable and foil specific though. A lot of people like sailworks but I hear they're going out of the sail business as well so I really don't know. And not enough Duotone users here to have an opinion or observation.

Hi Aeroegn,

Thanks for the detailed answer on the sails. I understand.

In sizes 3,7 - 7,0 the Gator has the freemove layout without cut away.

I use the 6 m 5 I like a lot both for windsurfing and windfoiling mainly because of the short boom 188 cm.

At first I bought I to use on wave board 78 liter with very special challenging conditions : current up to 11 knots, so you don't get planning with a 5 m or bigger even at 25 or more knots.

But by starting to windfoil I use it as well for foiling.

I recommend it in the size 6 m 5 (have no shares of Severne). I think in that size the Gator is better than the Blade for fin and foil.

All my other sails (smaller North wave sails Ice and Hero + medium sized power wave Gaastra Poison) are loose leach : when the wind picks up I tension the downhaul.

But the Gator doesn't work that way. I even asked around to Severne because I thought this was a factory error. They replied the Gator has some of the characteristics of wave sails as well as slalom sails : they need to be pulled down at a specific tension (I'm told until the sideways V in the upper part of the sail is loose, that should be the reason of the V) and then pulling or releasing the outhaul.

For windfoiling I pull 4 cm less down.

In sizes 7,5 - 8,0 the Gator has a very different lay out, the freeride layout with a big / huge cut away.

Don't you find the big cut away and the wider sail cumbersome ?

I'm just a beginner but I find only little or marginal difference in the Gator 6 m 5 and 8 m, although still light and only 1 kg heavier, the benefit of the extra pull of 1 m? is not that big IMO. I thought I would make more difference.

Anyhow both sails Gator are solid and strong for windsurf and windfoil in wave conditions, off course 8 m is not really used in waves.

Thanks for you advice on the strength of the foil specific sails like Foilfreek, etc.

On fin I mainly duck jibe so for me it's easier and faster as well on foil and I feel I progress faster in duck jibing on foil than power jibing. The duck jibe sail transition goes very fast before the feet switch and then it often goes wrong.

Learning to duck jibe on foil is much more stressing for the lower section of the sail compared to windsurfing.

Have already broken a couple of lower panels during duck jibe.

Now I've decided, especially reading your post, for the moment to keep repairing my older smaller wavesails with extra strong dacron sections.

Later I will switch to foil specific sails, more vulnerable sails like Foilfreek or maybe Duotone Duke SLS, which is a windsurf sail but looks rather good for foiling (with 2 sail clews) and is very light.

I have very little space in my car (type estate) with 3 wave windsurfboard inside so I need to roll the 8 sails very small and close + 3 wishbones + 8 mast pieces. Cambers would make a too big pack in the car.

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Paducah said..

YellowHelmet said..

aeroegnr said..
Here's a, maybe too obvious? question for those that have played with different setups. Hopefully I'm not revisiting too much ground here.
In general how much of a difference do you notice with compact, narrow boards vs. wide and longer boards with minimum speed? This has kicked around in various discussions here and wanted to know what others experience is.

I've also heard arguments that narrow boards are easier to get going because of the ease of pumping the board, or drag on wide boards, but these arguments never seemed to match my experience. But, I could be doing something wrong.

I ask because recently someone got a new board and he let me take it for a spin and so I had an immediate side by side comparison to my regular freeride setup in the same conditions.

The setups
My board: Slingshot Freestyle 115 (188cm long and 71cm wide) w/ phantasm 926 and vee tail, 7.5 gator (I forgot my 7.0 foil glide...oops)
His board: Exocet FreeFoil 132 (I think?) that was 210cm long 86cm wide w/ starboard 1300, 102 fuse and the big 330 tail which he had rigged with a 7.0 foil glide

Clearly, the boards have drastically different shapes.
Also, the Exocet has no cutouts vs. the larger board I use (IQFoil) having massive cutouts. The freestyle has small cutouts.

What I noticed
The Exocet had a much more passive foiling entry than the freestyle by a lot. I would expect this but I was surprised at how much different it was. Pumping the 7.0 felt an immediate push, and seemed to be more responsive to sail pumping than my 9.0 with the IQFoil but that could be me remembering wrong as I didn't have it set up that day. Board pumping was a bit different because his footstraps were set up too far forward at first but once I got flying it felt like a mini IQFoil.

The slingshot, which I love to ride due to the strap arrangement and feeling in the air, requires much more technicality. If I do any sail pumping it has to be while I'm out and forward of the straps, to keep the front nose down and to use the board width, otherwise it just doesn't do anything. For board pumping I really put a lot of forward pressure in the front strap more than in the rear and it responds quickly once I feel the foil biting, then I can get more on the tail. Otherwise, the tail just pushes water and bogs down.

Pumping on the Exocet was also way easier due to the extra volume and shape being a lot less sensitive to stance and position on the board, but again this is kind of a "no duh". Obviously there's trade offs with a more surfy 3 strap setup vs. a wider more freerace setup.

Minimums
With my skill level I felt maybe a 2knot wind minimum (guessing based on what I saw him and me doing while we were on our respective boards) unless I really hammered on the board pumping with the slingshot. I've gotten used to riding a board this size and shape but it takes a lot of concentration and balance and timing to effectively pump the board and get foiling. Once in the air though, that all pays off. I think I got lazy with my pumping technique except a few times where I got going in similar gusts to the exocet, which he got up with less effort.

I can also waterstart the freestyle easier just because of how it sinks really well, but his board wasn't too bad compared to larger boards. In general if I can waterstart the freestyle in a gust it's around my wind minimum to take off. This wasn't true with my other setups as if I could waterstart I had oodles of spare power. It's just that easy to lever up on the freestyle with it sinking at my weight (around 210lbs). I can pump the sail to help lever over it and get my head inboard and I don't have to bend my knee as much due to how much it sinks vs. a more floaty board. It's just delicate with how I do it otherwise you get too far forward, pearl, and go for a swim.

Why I ask
I want to know what things I can do to improve my technique with this board. I don't have good recent videos unfortunately, but I've noticed other things. For instance, wingers riding narrow low volume boards like the slingshot and still getting up pretty early. I figure there is still a lot to unlock in my personal skill to get flying earlier on this board but maybe I'm deluding myself.

I normally reserve the slingshot for higher winds, but I got skunked a bit by the forecast and didn't bring my iqfoil setup, and figured it would be good to keep pushing my skills on this board.

Other thoughts
I wonder if I have one more hole I could go forward on the foot straps to help keep the nose down while slogging, helping me effectively pump, and move the foil further forward another cm or so.

Also I haven't foiled with the gator in a long time and I thought it would feel worse on foil but it felt really good on the foil, much better than when I've tried to foil with blades. I try to avoid using blades due to the feel on foil and usually use foil glides or freeks but the gator was very nice. I may just use that in lighter winds on this board because of simplicity and ease of jibing with it vs. the foil glides.

I felt a lot more power due to the board width when sailing the Exocet, and found it easier to hit top speed. To do the same on the freestyle required me to be out laterally of the straps and on the rail with both feet so that I could sheet in more. I'm used to this now but it was just interesting to feel that extra width with sheeting when sailing these boards back to back like that.

First a question about you sail Gator 7,5 m. How would you rate it for windfoiling compared to your Foil Glide 7 m.
Reason for asking this :
I have a Gator 6,5 m I really like with very short boom 188 cm and very light. At the beginning only using it for wave windsurfing. Doing crazy things with it, using it as my biggest wavesail on small waveboards, not feeling much difference in handling with wave sails around 5 m / 5 m 4 with similar but shorter boom length.
Then started windfoiling and using the Gator 6 m 5 with success. Light, short wishbone.
So then I thought I'll get an even bigger one to lower the wind limit and I bought the biggest Gator 8 m 197 cm boom because I like things easy without cambers, the sail takes less room in my car, smaller diameter rolled up.
But I made a mistake. I thought all Gators have the same lay out.
There are 3 layouts for the Gator : small size / medium size / large size.
The large Gators have a big cut out. I guess above the 197 cm boom the sail has width of about 220 - 230 cm.
I'm just a beginner in windfoil so I cannot really judge this.
Is the big Gator 8 m or 7 m 5 a bad sail for windfoiling, and maybe I should get another type of big sail (Foil Glide, Foilfreek, Duotone F-type, etc.).

About your question concerning the shape of the board. Although I'm a beginner I'm interested in the technical matters of boards and foils.
I've been looking and comparing a lot to wingfoilers.
I see a lot of wingfoilers now with long narrow downwind boards, a bit rounded in the bottom.
They take off very early, and have a very low wind limit especially if they take a very wide high aspect foil.
In general they use a smaller wing surface than my windfoil sail, at least 1 square meter smaller.
I think / nearly sure they have a (much) lower wind limit.
As somebody wrote before : holding their wing diagonal pulls them a bit up, a bit like a kite, while we have a 10 kg rig pushing by gravity downwards, and with the rounded bottom of their boards they rock a bit also sideways before getting in foil.
I've been asking myself could we windfoil better on such a wingfoilboard if we would install a sail mast track and add some 10 - 20 liter. I don't think because I read and hear as windfoilers we need width of the board, especially for bigger sails.
Maybe somebody knows the answer to this.
Lately somebody said me he got out his old original Windsurfer board to have fun in low wind because of the rounded bottom. Back to the future.
I think wingfoiling is (a bit) more efficient than windfoiling. (makes me think about discussions between skiers and snowboarders).
But the main thing is we all have fun and keep on experimenting.

It's almost a separate discussion but for me, above 6.0, cambers are much better both for stability and for low end. Having a locked in shape is a big benefit both when pumping and gluding through lulls when there isn't sufficient pressure to keep the sail's profile.
Narrower, canoe-body boards have been done already in windfoiling over in France. Guido, who occasionally visits here, iirc has one. They do perform well but I dont believe they are intended to carry a lot of sail.
Once you account for foil size, I dont find wings really getting up earlier than us even evenly matched for wing/sail area. And, in the lulls, I'm not trying to keep a big wing's tips out of the water. A skilled iqfoiler even with the relatively small 900 wing is a sight to behold in light air.
As to board shape, a lot of DW boards are 60cm or narrower which wouldn't work well for a windfoil for most of us or at least offer an advantage, imho.
Good points to ponder, though. fwiw, I'm in the at most one or two pumps before front strap camp; usually gi straight in unlesscwind is desperately light. But, I'm also light.

Hi Paducah,

I'm just a beginner but I find for lowering the low wind limit by changing gear (aside from skill, in particular pumping skill) :

- sails, especially size and board size are only slightly, even marginal important;

- foil size and shape are much more important, and much more convenient and faster to change.

I see some of us also think wingfoil take off earlier. It remains a point of discussion.

I've seen wingfoilers with really little wind maybe 8 knots, 6 knots, with a cigar shaped thick board + 250 cm wide Gong foil + 9 m wing

I sometimes wonder if the have helium in their wings.

Mate was amazed that I could get up in 14 knots today on 4.0. But it's just a technique thing...
Board is 111 ltr, 65 wide, 170 long. Fair bit of float in the tail. Foil 1000cm2. All I know is my legs started to run out of juice using short pumps on sail timed with driving front foot in strap and pushing down with back leg in rear strap set directly over foil mast. Once up plenty of time for a rest....

Let me jump in this one.

Take off style.
To summarize there are two main way toward foiling take off :
-Get fast enough to have enough lift from the foil to lift the whole weight of the setup. That's the way AC75 or twin-hull boats are using.
-Get a dynamic unweighting over the foil, and dolphin pump the front wing to generate speed by successive down gliding. That's the downwinder paddle foilers way, or more radical alienlike foilwizard from outer Switzerland Balz pumping on foil (no sail, no paddle, no wave...)
Of course, real world foiling is always a different flavor of mix between those two extremes.

winDfoil way.
If you restrict your view to nowadays 'howto winDfoil' manual, and what is usually advertized, you can either :
-take a 'slalom kit like' gear (ie large board along with large sail and a rather low drag small wing foil). You then have to pump tha sail as for slalom windsurf then as the planning kick in the foil generates enough lift to get your hull out of water. The foil is thus just another feature (as well as cut out) to reduce your wet hull thus the drag, and you sail on apparent wind.
-go the 'foilstyle way' (ie small board, small light sail, low drag large foil). You then butterfly your sail and manage to dolphin pump on your foil to jump from pre-planning slog to full flight : with technique, you don't have to go through the planning hull step.
Note that low aspect foil are hopeless for real low wind condition. The slalom like way obviously need HA even with 'small' front wing, and even if you can pump a low aspect foil to fly, the energy required to maintain it is too high as downwinder have now established.

My 2 cents :
Spot conditions have a major impact.
What is low wind ? There's is a huge difference between a light breeze such as what you get on Mediterranean summer like condition with a pleasant continuous 8 kt breeze (8 average over 5 minutes, with max gust at 10 kt minimum around 6 kt) and small inland puddle with 8 kt wind (8 kt average over 5 minutes with puffs at 15kt and lull at no wind if not simply reversing). Every one have to adjust gear to what conditions one intend to ride.

What I have tried out and what I chose (and why).
During my winDfoil progress, I have tried out large sail (over 6m2) along with large board (over 80cm width). I have concluded that it requires long sail pumping sequence (up and over 10 strokes), slowly increasing rythm. It is working well in light continuous breeze (sea shore breeze), but it requires good cardio capacity, as usual fin windsurf slalom. Once you manage to go planning it is a go for long reach. But real low wind is way above my personnal stamina, and I often miss my startup sequence ending up in having to idle long minutes in order to get my heartbeat down to reasonable numbers for my over 50s. Plus I don't often get to sail these wind condition.
Now I mostly ride my small board (about 60cm width, 1.7m long) along with small sail (I usually end up about 1m2 smaller than what the average winGer are using, never over 5m2, and as low as 2.7m2), along with what I consider rather large HA front wing (94cm/100cm2 or 78cm/790cm2). I susually get on foil with less than 5 sail pump stroke, but that is in a gust, and my take off technique is on the foil pumping style. My home spot is a gusty place.
Riding large sail and board feels more like riding a hobbycat to me : it is fast and very interesting as you have to trim many things, but it is a big machine, more like riding a giant Dune sand worm : you're riding a Power of Nature, having to keep controlling it (or it will crush you). I tend to favor small gear for its 'liveliness', as if flying with your own wings : you have direct connection with any current of air, taking advantage of the slightest movement.

Board shape perspective.
The two boards you're showing are, IMHO, quite outdated developement. Sadly, brand manufactured shape are usually quite lame and compromize too much : they need not to frighten their customers. Even though SlingShot having been one of the most daring brand (along with Horue). Most real development is made by homebuilt shapers. Plus as winDfoiling is receding over winGing frenzy, I am afraid we won't see much done in a near future. However in my area Franck is still developing some interesting concept over winDfoiling board. Contrary to me, he is a slalom typed foiler, and he rides Patrick AEON foil these days. He made a 'round hull' board for himself with enough width to use quite large sail, and the front foil wing he uses are quite small. We are about the same size (both about 70kg) and when we sail together, he usually would use a sail about 6m2 when I'd ride a 4.5M2, and a front foil wing about 40% smaller than mine. I jibe sharper, but he is definitively way faster than I am. I once tried out his setup (its previous iteration in fact). It is quite amazing how easy it builds up speed and transition smoothly to foiling. www.free-ride-addicted.fr/shape/ I know he would consider to develop and sell board design for one specific needs, resulting shape file would be CNC ready to provide to your local shaper.
I have an idea of making myself a new board, but only don't really have the time for this at the moment. I would still be a small board, but I would get inspiration from the latest winG and downwind board. I believe that regarding take off ability, planning hull is not relevant, as you get on foil at sub planning speed. So round narrow hull makes a lot of sense on that matter. But then you also have to consider bounce back ability for unintentional touch down.

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6u1d0 said..
Let me jump in this one.

Take off style.
To summarize there are two main way toward foiling take off :
-Get fast enough to have enough lift from the foil to lift the whole weight of the setup. That's the way AC75 or twin-hull boats are using.
-Get a dynamic unweighting over the foil, and dolphin pump the front wing to generate speed by successive down gliding. That's the downwinder paddle foilers way, or more radical alienlike foilwizard from outer Switzerland Balz pumping on foil (no sail, no paddle, no wave...)
Of course, real world foiling is always a different flavor of mix between those two extremes.

winDfoil way.
If you restrict your view to nowadays 'howto winDfoil' manual, and what is usually advertized, you can either :
-take a 'slalom kit like' gear (ie large board along with large sail and a rather low drag small wing foil). You then have to pump tha sail as for slalom windsurf then as the planning kick in the foil generates enough lift to get your hull out of water. The foil is thus just another feature (as well as cut out) to reduce your wet hull thus the drag, and you sail on apparent wind.
-go the 'foilstyle way' (ie small board, small light sail, low drag large foil). You then butterfly your sail and manage to dolphin pump on your foil to jump from pre-planning slog to full flight : with technique, you don't have to go through the planning hull step.
Note that low aspect foil are hopeless for real low wind condition. The slalom like way obviously need HA even with 'small' front wing, and even if you can pump a low aspect foil to fly, the energy required to maintain it is too high as downwinder have now established.

My 2 cents :
Spot conditions have a major impact.
What is low wind ? There's is a huge difference between a light breeze such as what you get on Mediterranean summer like condition with a pleasant continuous 8 kt breeze (8 average over 5 minutes, with max gust at 10 kt minimum around 6 kt) and small inland puddle with 8 kt wind (8 kt average over 5 minutes with puffs at 15kt and lull at no wind if not simply reversing). Every one have to adjust gear to what conditions one intend to ride.

What I have tried out and what I chose (and why).
During my winDfoil progress, I have tried out large sail (over 6m2) along with large board (over 80cm width). I have concluded that it requires long sail pumping sequence (up and over 10 strokes), slowly increasing rythm. It is working well in light continuous breeze (sea shore breeze), but it requires good cardio capacity, as usual fin windsurf slalom. Once you manage to go planning it is a go for long reach. But real low wind is way above my personnal stamina, and I often miss my startup sequence ending up in having to idle long minutes in order to get my heartbeat down to reasonable numbers for my over 50s. Plus I don't often get to sail these wind condition.
Now I mostly ride my small board (about 60cm width, 1.7m long) along with small sail (I usually end up about 1m2 smaller than what the average winGer are using, never over 5m2, and as low as 2.7m2), along with what I consider rather large HA front wing (94cm/100cm2 or 78cm/790cm2). I susually get on foil with less than 5 sail pump stroke, but that is in a gust, and my take off technique is on the foil pumping style. My home spot is a gusty place.
Riding large sail and board feels more like riding a hobbycat to me : it is fast and very interesting as you have to trim many things, but it is a big machine, more like riding a giant Dune sand worm : you're riding a Power of Nature, having to keep controlling it (or it will crush you). I tend to favor small gear for its 'liveliness', as if flying with your own wings : you have direct connection with any current of air, taking advantage of the slightest movement.

Board shape perspective.
The two boards you're showing are, IMHO, quite outdated developement. Sadly, brand manufactured shape are usually quite lame and compromize too much : they need not to frighten their customers. Even though SlingShot having been one of the most daring brand (along with Horue). Most real development is made by homebuilt shapers. Plus as winDfoiling is receding over winGing frenzy, I am afraid we won't see much done in a near future. However in my area Franck is still developing some interesting concept over winDfoiling board. Contrary to me, he is a slalom typed foiler, and he rides Patrick AEON foil these days. He made a 'round hull' board for himself with enough width to use quite large sail, and the front foil wing he uses are quite small. We are about the same size (both about 70kg) and when we sail together, he usually would use a sail about 6m2 when I'd ride a 4.5M2, and a front foil wing about 40% smaller than mine. I jibe sharper, but he is definitively way faster than I am. I once tried out his setup (its previous iteration in fact). It is quite amazing how easy it builds up speed and transition smoothly to foiling. www.free-ride-addicted.fr/shape/ I know he would consider to develop and sell board design for one specific needs, resulting shape file would be CNC ready to provide to your local shaper.
I have an idea of making myself a new board, but only don't really have the time for this at the moment. I would still be a small board, but I would get inspiration from the latest winG and downwind board. I believe that regarding take off ability, planning hull is not relevant, as you get on foil at sub planning speed. So round narrow hull makes a lot of sense on that matter. But then you also have to consider bounce back ability for unintentional touch down.

Agree with most of what you said one reason I started windfoil was to have small enough gear to fit into a small car.As far a wind yes we all started because it made not so great windsurf fin conditions fun ,real light wind is a lot of work with not much reward even most wingers that I know won't be bothered with 7+ meter wings.Foils yes a good low drag high aspect foil is the right tool for light wind. Boards a lot of riders in the US ride SS because the boards could be had for low dollars as slingshot was leaving windfoil, most custom boards that I see are self built finding a custom builder is not easy.

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KDog said.. real light wind is a lot of work with not much reward...

I would disagree. An amazing session yesterday in about 6-10 kts on VMG kit. Warm late fall day, minimal boat traffic, flat water. It was a delight. Yes, took some effort but well rewarded once up in the air - a very nice "soul" session. The effort doesn't bother me. If I wasn't out sailing, I'd have been cycling or in the gym for fitness.

Glad 6u1d0 shared his thoughts - they've been exploring these shapes for a while in his neighborhood. Also love his description of inland 8 kts having raced in his description of inland 8 kts Saturday.

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Paducah said..

KDog said.. real light wind is a lot of work with not much reward...

I would disagree. An amazing session yesterday in about 6-10 kts on VMG kit. Warm late fall day, minimal boat traffic, flat water. It was a delight. Yes, took some effort but well rewarded once up in the air - a very nice "soul" session. The effort doesn't bother me. If I wasn't out sailing, I'd have been cycling or in the gym for fitness.

Glad 6u1d0 shared his thoughts - they've been exploring these shapes for a while in his neighborhood. Also love his description of inland 8 kts having raced in his description of inland 8 kts Saturday.

I agree with KDog, I can get going in 9 to10 kts on a 110 lt board, 5.3 sail and MA 900mm span foil, but this combo in this wind does not point well and all I end up doing is mowing the lawn. Add 2 kts and I can use a HA 900mm span foil and significantly improve my ability to point to windward. This opens up upwind / downwind riding in swell, which for me is where the fun is.

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John340 said..

I can get going in 9 to10 kts on a 110 lt board, 5.3 sail and MA 900mm span foil, but this combo in this wind does not point well and all I end up doing is mowing the lawn.

MA wings generally require more forward force to maintain speed. and 90cm span isn't a lot. As I said, one have to adjust kit depending on condition intended to ride. I rarely do it as I have enough good days with other 'smaller' gear, but my to most low wind kit is with a front wing 102cm span / 1240cm2 area. I still use my small 100l/1.7m long board and a Chopper XL sail (about 5.5m2 I guess).
Here's a typical ride with this setup.


Is it worth the pain ? I'd say it depends on how many days I've spent ashore...

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John340 said..

- snippage -

I agree with KDog, I can get going in 9 to10 kts on a 110 lt board, 5.3 sail and MA 900mm span foil, but this combo in this wind does not point well and all I end up doing is mowing the lawn. Add 2 kts and I can use a HA 900mm span foil and significantly improve my ability to point to windward. This opens up upwind / downwind riding in swell, which for me is where the fun is.

Who's to say I don't do the same? My freeride foil is only 800 wide - a MA 1100 but at my weight, works with a powerful 5.4. When I'm in a lazy mood or have to launch at a park where carrying a expensive carbon down to the water doesn't seem like a prudent choice, I'll opt for that kit even if it means not getting off the water as consistently. I've been on this while local wingers are on 6, 7 and even 8m wings. And the 5.4 rigs a lot faster (and quieter) than even an electric pump can blow up a wing.

But where I live, we get a lot of "inland 8 kts". The bigger kit can amount to 20-25% of my sessions especially in the warm months where it may account for 75-80%.

6u1d0, I overlayed my XL Chopper on top of my 5.4 and they were very similar in size except the Chopper was missing the top panel of the 5.4. Similar power but the Chopper likely has a bit more induced drag. My 5.4 is a circa 2008 North freeride 5 batten. btw, nice video!