To wave wind foil you need to be able to work to windward so you can ride the wind blown waves or ground swell. The better you can work to windward the more waves you can ride. I'm 82 kgs, sail a Alien 125 with Redwing 1400 foil. The 1400 works well when the wind over 11 kts. But under 11kts, I get frustrated not being able to work to windward and just end up slowly mowing the lawn, which is relatively boring. Are there better foil / combos out there for these conditions? Are high aspect foils better than low aspect foils in these conditions?

An HA foil with a powerful fuselage will absolutely go to wind better. But they might compromise your ability to turn on swell.
Everything is a compromise.

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Grantmac said..
An HA foil with a powerful fuselage will absolutely go to wind better. But they might compromise your ability to turn on swell.
Everything is a compromise.

What's a powerful fuselage? I'm not familiar with this term.

8 to 11 knots you can't expect anything other than mowing the lawn
Wave windfoiling in 8 to 11 will require a wing that won't be able to turn
This is just common sense stuff here
If it were me I would be finding something else to do.
But whatever floats your boat.
Good luck on your endeavor

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John340 said..
To wave wind foil you need to be able to work to windward so you can ride the wind blown waves or ground swell. The better you can work to windward the more waves you can ride. I'm 82 kgs, sail a Alien 125 with Redwing 1400 foil. The 1400 works well when the wind over 11 kts. But under 11kts, I get frustrated not being able to work to windward and just end up slowly mowing the lawn, which is relatively boring. Are there better foil / combos out there for these conditions? Are high aspect foils better than low aspect foils in these conditions?

There may be penalties in speed but if you were to shim the stab to maximize lift of the foil (raise trailing edge of the stab) you could then heel the board more to windward when pinching without falling off the foil, which should add a few degrees of pointing ability. It'll make the setup more front-footed when cruising but like the man said - it's all compromise.

I've really liked the Redwing 1400 upwind when've tried it, but that was on a bigger board (Alien 145, big sail) and I'm much heavier so I may have been able to load the foilmast more. I was staying pretty low on the foil/pretty flat side to side with no heel, and using the foilmast as a big fin for pointing.

A powered up bigger foil goes upwind better than an underpowered smaller foil. You could always just rig bigger so that your 1400 was powered up and then you would go upwind fine, but you don't want a big sail for swell riding, so my conclusion is you need to take our your CC and add a foilwith more low end.

Sounds like you are liking your redwing when powered up so just add the 1800. You don't want to go too big, I couldn't swell ride my old infinity 99 (~2400sqm), but 1800 should be fine.

Not sure I would mess with HA wings unless you want to trying keep up with JJ when its blowing 30 or you want to get into freerace foiling.

I would not increase your fuse length either as you want to have control over angle of attack when trying to ride swell.

I think the term "powerful fuselage" refers to a fuselage where the front wing is further forward of the mast. This is typical of race foils.

If you don't rebalance the rest of the system, this will require a lot of front foot pressure, which quite a lot of foilers like (I don't). Then, when you are riding the waves back downwind, you have to really keep your weight forward because you don't have much help from the sail exerting mast base pressure at that point.

There are HA foils which can turn about as well as you can expect in wind that light assuming you are downwinding rather than riding ground swell in side/side-off.
But it doesn't seem that Severne offers anything like that.

More powerful fuselages place the wing further forward. Not an approach I'd take for your purposes. I'd look to the wing and stab shimming to get some front foot pressure.

I usually am riding ground swell waves about 90 degree to the wind so I can use the swell to ride up wind, after doing alternate left and right carves on the wave/swell. Hence I don't loose as much ground and may not be a good comparable.

Here is my 2 cents worth, I am 85kg and ride a 110L board with my big sail being a 4.4m freestyle sail. The lowest wind I have been able to have a none slogging session was in wind averaging 10mph with gust around 13 to 14mph. The wind meter was within a couple of hundred meters from where I was foiling. Seemed to be windier than 10mph to me but its all I can offer. And I could only get going in a gust by pumping and I am not a good pumper.

Anyway I was on a SAB 945/483 (1300cm2) which is their big "Surf" wing/sab. I would consider it MA and like it because it behaves nicely when on a swell/wave but does have a wider turning radius.

I whiched from a SAB 790/450 (1550cm2)and found that the higher aspect thiner foil/sab required more take off speed but once up it was so much more effect I could actually stay on foil in less wind. I also found the high aspect freestyle sails (which have a bigger foot than the wave sails) had way more low end than my wave sail and again seemed more efficient. However the tight leach does not twist off as well so I find it less manageable at the high end.

Hope this helps

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Gwarn said..
8 to 11 knots you can't expect anything other than mowing the lawn
Wave windfoiling in 8 to 11 will require a wing that won't be able to turn
This is just common sense stuff here
If it were me I would be finding something else to do.
But whatever floats your boat.
Good luck on your endeavor

Don't disagree more wind and a smaller foil is the most fun. However I have had some great low wind days riding ground/reef swell 90 degree to the wind. The faces are actually less choppy and less crowded

IMHO low wind is actually when the windfoil shines on ground/reef swell. Getting the additional energy from the swell creates quite a bit of apparent wind when going up wind so I still have plenty of power to pull on the sail while carving toe side. Of course the downwind down the line heel side carve becomes less aggressive but still fun using the power of the swell to "surf" the turn.

So John340 keeping trying to figure out the best gear and let us know how it works out.

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Hess said..

Gwarn said..
8 to 11 knots you can't expect anything other than mowing the lawn
Wave windfoiling in 8 to 11 will require a wing that won't be able to turn
This is just common sense stuff here
If it were me I would be finding something else to do.
But whatever floats your boat.
Good luck on your endeavor

Don't disagree more wind and a smaller foil is the most fun. However I have had some great low wind days riding ground/reef swell 90 degree to the wind. The faces are actually less choppy and less crowded

IMHO low wind is actually when the windfoil shines on ground/reef swell. Getting the additional energy from the swell creates quite a bit of apparent wind when going up wind so I still have plenty of power to pull on the sail while carving toe side. Of course the downwind down the line heel side carve becomes less aggressive but still fun using the power of the swell to "surf" the turn.

So John340 keeping trying to figure out the best gear and let us know how it works out.

I'm thinking of trying a medium aspect wing of around 1200 / 1300 mm2. eg the Slingshot PTM926 or G900, or your Sabfoil 945, or Axis HPS 930/980.

Thanks for your performance feedback on the Sabfoil 945. I'm interested in performance feedback in terms of marginal wind performance on any of the other foils.