Paducah said..
Similar power but the Chopper likely has a bit more induced drag.

Paducah said..







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!

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.

TomDW said..





Extremely interesting topic for me, I also use SS FS 115 like Aeroegnr although with HG i76 foil so LA wing and HEAVY! And largest sail I use is NP Freeflight 5.7, not wanting to go to bigger sails because as a wave windsurfer that is the kind of foiling I aspire to. I sitch to smaller wave sails asap but in inconsistent wind this has me slogging a lot.

My experience getting on the foil with this board is entirely consistent with Aeroegnr's description and I mostly use it as my only board, not having space to take 2 boards. I also found it is slower to get foiling than other shapes but once on the foil I love it.

What I tried the other day is :

- footstraps to outboard position and dual backstrap instead of the wave/freestyle setup I had before : for my experience level (low intermediate) it seemed easier to keep control over the foil and speed up more while with the inboard straps I would get laterally rocking and more instable.

- UJ way FORWARD from the middle as the Wizard users do. I had expected this would be a nightmare with nose tucking, but before with the UJ in the center and my big feet I simply had no place to stand comfortably while slogging or trying to get to take off speed. Interestingly, the board did not nose dive and felt easier to keep flat while building up speed. So I put the UJ between 1/4 from front to all the way in front and it worked!

my active pumping is poor and I do spend a lot of time in 'inland 8kts' not foiling, so I wonder for my skill level: (esp. Passive foil entry, still learning transitions, Max sail size 5.7, not foiling above 20kts in general because then I go wavesailing) : what might make the better addition to my quiver?

- a larger board? Would a SS Wizard 130 be a useful addition to the FS 115? Or

- a more up to date foil/glider? What makes most sense: getting a HA wing with enough wingspan? Or , getting a Carbon mast and foil a la Sabfoil or Phantasm, and if so with which wings?

ideally a combo of both.

considering I weigh 85kg and ad 195 tall and am not good at active pumping yet.

TomDW said..
Thx for the insights and the video! Useful, even if it talks me out of getting a new 2nd board

utcminisfour mentions the i99 as cheap add-on low wind foil. Actually I did not mention that I also have an i84 lying around that I have not yet tried on the Freestyle 115 thinking it would add even more weight to an already heavy combo (Board + alu HG foil are a pretty heavy combo in my book). Would the i99 make a big difference over the 84, as I am thinking it may feel rather slugish? Maybe better than the i99, I can get a good deal on used a PTM 926 + fuse and 400 stab which also seems like a good add-on to my i76 frontwing, if only I can pair it with a HG mast. Guess I need a Pantasm to HG mast adapter of around 108 eur and I'm done.


alternative to buying a new bigger board, I should maybe spend more time on the Horue 110l that Ihave lying around. I spent my 1st foiling year on that, but found the Horue foils too technical and twitchy as a beginner and was having difficulties in learning the gybe due to the very outboard straps, as I'm used to waveboards and strap to strap gybes in windsurfing, reason why I got the SS FS115 which feels uich closer to a windsurf waveboard than the Horue. But the Horue definitely wins from the SS in lightness, being only 6.5 kg board and also much lighter carbon foil (I have Vini + wings LW and XLW and prefer the latter for its torque, being 971 wingspan and medium aspect).

aeroegnr said..
I went out today on 5.6 in 7.5 and the water was really choppy which made it quite frustrating. There were some strong gusts, but they were short and the lulls were deep, not the best conditions. And first time I've had to wear a wetsuit in a while so my weight was quite high for this board.

Regardless, I tried to smarten up my pumping technique and practiced getting the back hand fanning technique to get to semi planing speed, similar to how I was getting there quicker on the friend's Exocet. I just had to keep my weight far enough forward, which mostly meant than that I had to keep at least my back foot out of the strap.

I also tried moving the mast base forward which did help to accelerate with the initial sail fanning, but that really interfered with the balance of the board/foil and made it very hard to lift off and keep flying once I got to the semi-planing bump.

So I moved the mass base back far in the track as usual.

This was the progression I settled on, which was more involved but I got some practice working through the steps more deliberately. I think I've tried all these things separately and maybe together but I wasn't paying enough attention to what was happening.

*Get ready deep and forward in front strap or out of front strap to get the motion going and get the board itself effective.
*Fan sail to start accelerating while somewhat upwind still
*Turn my aim for beam reach or slightly more downwind to build speed.
*Migrate into front strap if not there, and get rear foot in back strap when board is settling onto the semi-plane during a strong rear hand pump on the sail to keep it from rounding up
*When the foil starts to bite get the full body pump with the hips going and fly. Usually this was when sail loaded up the front hand or I just had enough speed with the smaller pumps.

TomDW said..




Interesting, a video would be great. Esp. the pumping starting somewhat upwind, whereas I am already pointing downwind then, like on a waveboard.

aeroegnr said..
Revisiting this topic as I've had a lot of time off the water recently, thinking I would not be able to get going in light stuff that well with this board but I was thankfully wrong.

A few things that helped improve getting up in what I think was only 8-10kts. May have been a little less as not even the kites were bothering to show up. Just me and two wingers. I had the 7.0 foil glide but want to try with a smaller freek some day.

1-mast base was a few cm fwd of what I showed in my pics earlier. It really helped me keep the board flatter during the initial acceleration. I had the foil at about the 12.5cm mark
2-more downwind angle at initial start. I was going by feel but it was downwind enough that the sail angle felt like most of the pumping effort drove the board forward not sideways trying to resist lateral motion with the foil mast. Once speed came up I would turn more upwind to keep apparent wind building.
3-i tried to start pumping totally out of the straps and move into the front then rear as speed built. This board will really plow at my weight if I have my weight back. It was not even enough for me to waterstart, but getting downwind and with my front foot's heel on the front edge of the soft padding and my rear foot between the front straps I could accelerate in almost no wind. I was only struggling to fly when the tide dropped enough that I started feeling a wall of weeds grabbing my foil. Before then, I was really getting going in the lightest I have ever with this board.

Eager to give it another go. It helped immensely being at a spot that had almost no irregular chop. A spot closer to me may not be doable at that windspeed unless it's offshore just due to how much chop is there in only 8-10kts. But I'll try.


No good video of my pumping but this was what the water state was like:

?si=72CEBP-B0Q6ToI8o

And a jibe that if I was less lazy in sheeting in on entry I probably would've made it:

?si=Ccfpd8WY31rL1w6_

aeroegnr said..
...hauling the big gear restricts me on what else I can bring, especially a passenger.

aeroegnr said..
Yeah I just want to push the envelope on the low end. I still use the iqfoil sometimes but hauling the big gear restricts me on what else I can bring, especially a passenger.

bel29 said..






the trade-off of all trade-offs

thedoor said..

Are you on 926 when on Freestyle/Foilglide?

Paducah said..

There's always uber for the excess gear (passenger). Priorities, man, priorities.

You would have had a better chance making the light air jibe without that final 20ish degree turn to a reach. Keep going off the wind until you sheet in and start to accelerate. Much easier said than done, I know. You did a nice job flipping the sail early.

aeroegnr said..
Thank you. Yeah that was my second jibe in months on this gear. I don't think I planned on when to jibe and was just happy to be airborne.

Uber is an option but yeah that would start adding up really quick

Paducah said..





In that case, very well done. Usually takes me a few to dial in when I've been off a particular piece of gear for a while. My first few look like I've never done this sport before.

Uber was tongue in cheek. There's a bike path to Scenic View. She's got no excuse.

aeroegnr said..

You know it's funny. In Hyeres we stayed at a hotel close enough for a bike ride to the rental spot and back. That was peak vacation, just riding through a small French town to a small restaurant above the hill from windsurf rentals in perfect weather.

That memory will stay for a long, long time.