Schleping the giant aluminum foil mast, wing and all to the water is a pain but the performance seems good. Am I getting anything more than the ease of carrying the platform in and out of the water?

Does the carbon translate into earlier planing, more control, more fun?

Any thoughts/experiences shared would be appreciated. Thanks!

DC

In a few cases, carbon mast and fuze pairs with smaller carbon front wings, which changes the sport.
However, that 3 lbs. alu fuze is used on most carbon setups that are modular.
It's also possibly easier to lose 10 lbs and get more fit than to spend double for carbon.

Worth it? Yes.

Well, in all honesty, for the wings and fuselage its mostly a weight thing, and whether its worth it depends on how much you value your money and weight reduction. When its all in the water the differences are pretty minimal, although I feel slightly more response from carbon wings than from glass or composite (like F-One's price competative IC6) wings. My close ties with F-One allowed me to try various setups of exactly the same proportions in different materials, I have not had the chance to try a long fuselage in carbon and alu, so I find it very hard to comment on those differences, in smaller (<1m) fuselages the differences in performance are negligable given that there are no monoque constructed parts. A solid (so no screws) mast fuselage or fuselage wing connection will enhance rigidity and therefore performance.

As for the mast, carbon could give you a noticable increase in performance, but definately not every carbon mast will.

Aluminum has a great tradeoff between weight and torsional stiffness, the only thing it can be slightly lacking in is bending stiffness. Cheaper aluminum masts often have better bending stiffness and lower weight, however, they have a lower torsional stiffness compared to a good aluminum mast! A good carbon mast (think >1500?) will be both stiffer in bending and torsion than an alu mast, but is (almost) solid carbon in most cases (often M40J, the industry standard for high quality masts), therefore the weight difference between a good alu mast and a good carbon mast is quite minimal.

In my 3-4 years of foiling experience I've found that for me torsional stiffness has the highest priority, bending stiffness second, and weight last. Alu masts make one of the best compromises of those 3 factors and price, and expect to pay 3-4 times the price of your aluminum mast to buy a carbon mast which is actually "better".

Depending on your style of riding, a cheaper carbon mast might be the better compromise, I'd for example prefer the enhanced bending stiffness and loss of torsional rigidity if I sailed a big (formula / foilrace) board on flat water in light / stable winds. As soon as chop or gusts get into the mix, for me the alu wins in terms of the best performance between the two. (Although I personally opted for the super expensive high quality racing mast option, as its obviously the better option, but at a way higher cost.)

Anything Carbon is cool as hell. Get it. Lighter, stiffer and you can get taller ones to get through the chop better. Plus the hot chicks on the beach will notice your long and cool looking mast.

YES, the AFS foil wings, mast, and fuselage are all solid carbon, can take a hit without a problem!, no corrosion, lighter and it makes a difference because it reduces your sprung weight, losing body weight is not the same as reducing sprung weight, because if you lean out on your lines the sail pressure is offsetting your body weight.

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Sandman1221 said..
YES, the AFS foil wings, mast, and fuselage are all solid carbon, can take a hit without a problem!, no corrosion, lighter and it makes a difference because it reduces your sprung weight, losing body weight is not the same as reducing sprung weight, because if you lean out on your lines the sail pressure is offsetting your body weight.

only issue is cost for carbon, but if you want to sell it you should be able to get a decent price for it. A used saltwater aluminum foil is probably not worth much, and that is assuming you can disassemble it.

Carbon can be 2-3x that of aluminum. I guess it depends on your budget. I have both. But I think I would rather have aluminum and a great wind foil board, then carbon and a sucky board. If your budget allows for it and you covered the other bases, go for it.

Absolutely!!!!! Just in terms of maintenance it's a joy to own. I have full carbon kit with stainless Torx screws with 600 hours on it. Absolutely zero corrosion. No maintenance at all. Never washed. Used almost every day.

I do sand and paint scratches. As a lockdown project I removed a bunch of epoxy paste repairs from the front wing, filled with carbon and wrapped a layer around the tip that gets all the bashes. Very easy to work with.

I could spout on about the joys of carrying lightweight carbon kit to the water, but that varies depending on brands and individual products.

Personally I think aluminium only benefits the manufacturers. There's a higher chance of reject products with carbon manufacture and failures result in having to replace an expensive product. It's easier to churn out aluminium. Masts come by the metre. If there's anything wrong then they just send you another $5 piece of aluminium.

Take back the cost issue for carbon, the AFS W85 sold for around $1100 US and is all carbon, few good foils under $1000 and they have aluminum masts and fuselages. Only problem is no one seems to carry them in the US anymore, but for most of you that is not an issue! Do see UK sellers with them in stock.

Even though guys 10x better than me are flying around effortlessly on alu foils, I am happy spending 50% more to get an Armstrong carbon foil for maintenance and resale value alone. Weight is a nice bonus.
if i didn't know any better, I'd probably be just as happy with alu and spend more time taking care of it.

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flyingcarpet said..
Even though guys 10x better than me are flying around effortlessly on alu foils, I am happy spending 50% more to get an Armstrong carbon foil for maintenance and resale value alone. Weight is a nice bonus.
if i didn't know any better, I'd probably be just as happy with alu and spend more time taking care of it.

Don't know where you get an Armstrong for 50% more. Not here. Slingshot Hoverglide system is ~ USD 1K, Armstrong USD 2K and Phantom USD 3K. Forget the past. Aluminum much lower cost, beat the crap out of them, who cares about dings.. not so with carbon (you better fix it right away). And only a few have carbon fuse (LP, AFS & maybe another one). Now you are only talking about the mast.

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ZeroVix said..

flyingcarpet said..
Even though guys 10x better than me are flying around effortlessly on alu foils, I am happy spending 50% more to get an Armstrong carbon foil for maintenance and resale value alone. Weight is a nice bonus.
if i didn't know any better, I'd probably be just as happy with alu and spend more time taking care of it.

Don't know where you get an Armstrong for 50% more. Not here. Slingshot Hoverglide system is ~ USD 1K, Armstrong USD 2K and Phantom USD 3K. Forget the past. Aluminum much lower cost, beat the crap out of them, who cares about dings.. not so with carbon (you better fix it right away). And only a few have carbon fuse (LP, AFS & maybe another one). Now you are only talking about the mast.

And of these three, as far as I know only the Phantom has a really stiff carbon mast. Expect to pay 3+K USD for a carbon foil which is actually better than a latest gen alu (with the wider chord masts). As a referennce, the only carbon foil I had with which I really FELT the difference on the water was my Lokefoil racefoil which is around 4.5K USD in the setup I had. As long as you're not racing, you dont need a carbon mast, thats also why most freeride brands dont put them on the freeride kit in the first place.

Carbon is nice, but dont get blinded by carbonfetish and buy "cheap". Either go for it and get a good one, or go aluminum and go cheap. Only if you have a salt-water problem and prefer light weight over stuffness the cheaper carbon masts might be the way to go for you. To answer the "but brand X has a carbon mast and is really good for only 1500?" comment I'd say try and compare first, I did for the past 4 years, (in '16-'18 I had 3 different carbon foils and switched to alu in '19-'20), have tried I think 15 different foils in that period, and this is my conclusion.

Ofcourse in 16-18 the carbon foils were stiffer, but those years all brands used different dimensions on the alu masts with a lot narrower chord! Since the newest gen alu masts there's really no point to buy a "cheap" carbon mast, from a performance standpoint.

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WhiteofHeart said..

ZeroVix said..

flyingcarpet said..
Even though guys 10x better than me are flying around effortlessly on alu foils, I am happy spending 50% more to get an Armstrong carbon foil for maintenance and resale value alone. Weight is a nice bonus.
if i didn't know any better, I'd probably be just as happy with alu and spend more time taking care of it.

Don't know where you get an Armstrong for 50% more. Not here. Slingshot Hoverglide system is ~ USD 1K, Armstrong USD 2K and Phantom USD 3K. Forget the past. Aluminum much lower cost, beat the crap out of them, who cares about dings.. not so with carbon (you better fix it right away). And only a few have carbon fuse (LP, AFS & maybe another one). Now you are only talking about the mast.

And of these three, as far as I know only the Phantom has a really stiff carbon mast. Expect to pay 3+K USD for a carbon foil which is actually better than a latest gen alu (with the wider chord masts). As a referennce, the only carbon foil I had with which I really FELT the difference on the water was my Lokefoil racefoil which is around 4.5K USD in the setup I had. As long as you're not racing, you dont need a carbon mast, thats also why most freeride brands dont put them on the freeride kit in the first place.

Carbon is nice, but dont get blinded by carbonfetish and buy "cheap". Either go for it and get a good one, or go aluminum and go cheap. Only if you have a salt-water problem and prefer light weight over stuffness the cheaper carbon masts might be the way to go for you. To answer the "but brand X has a carbon mast and is really good for only 1500?" comment I'd say try and compare first, I did for the past 4 years, (in '16-'18 I had 3 different carbon foils and switched to alu in '19-'20), have tried I think 15 different foils in that period, and this is my conclusion.

Ofcourse in 16-18 the carbon foils were stiffer, but those years all brands used different dimensions on the alu masts with a lot narrower chord! Since the newest gen alu masts there's really no point to buy a "cheap" carbon mast, from a performance standpoint.

Just curious based on your experience of different systems. Which aluminum setup would you say is the best bang for the buck? I haven't tried 15 different foils. Anything standout in terms of quality, price or modular way? Would love to hear your input, since you started some time ago. Thanks.