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swoosh said..

The kiters make it look effortless, never thought i'd ever bother with kiting, but below video makes me want to give it a shot, if the windsurfing foils get figured out tho, maybe no need:

Where in Maui is the footage of the foiling kite taken?

Swoosh said: "The kiters make it look effortless".

A maxim I work by is: " If it looks easy, it isn't"

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John340 said..

swoosh said..

The kiters make it look effortless, never thought i'd ever bother with kiting, but below video makes me want to give it a shot, if the windsurfing foils get figured out tho, maybe no need:

Where in Maui is the footage of the foiling kite taken?

Spreckelsville John

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swoosh said..
Dunno if they are faster, I guess if you take kiting for an example, seems like foiling has destroyed their raceboard/slalom type classes. That being said I'm not sure their racing classes are really going anywhere.

For me being able to cruise around using a small light wave sail in <15kts seems pretty cool. Previously most hydrofoils just looked super gumby, but they look like they have got things pretty figured out now with the guys chucking air in not much. It'd definitely be more technical and difficult, but most people seem to think that windsurfing being hard is part of the fun

I'd imagine if the freestyle guys got hold of one you'd see stuff like this:


The kiters make it look effortless, never thought i'd ever bother with kiting, but below video makes me want to give it a shot, if the windsurfing foils get figured out tho, maybe no need:

These foils look a lot smaller than the ones seen on windsurfers.

Would this be because windsurfers have more weight for the foil to lift? And the kite pulling up.

In high winds the foils would not need to be so large.

If kiters can foil in heavier winds at great speed then windsurfers should be able to too. High wind foil designers put pencil to paper for us.

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tonyd said..

John340 said..

swoosh said..

The kiters make it look effortless, never thought i'd ever bother with kiting, but below video makes me want to give it a shot, if the windsurfing foils get figured out tho, maybe no need:

Where in Maui is the footage of the foiling kite taken?

Spreckelsville John

Cool, I gotta go one day

A US windsurfer has bought one and, if you follow the link and the poster (bmoore98), you can see how he's learning to foil: www.iwindsurf.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=31058&sid=a2020129522ae8841cd2a99ced89b9fa

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WindmanV said..
Swoosh said: "The kiters make it look effortless".

A maxim I work by is: " If it looks easy, it isn't"

Yep, reading the blog, it appears he's been at it for 2 years pretty solid. And just guessing, but with the conditions they get, he'd probably be out every other day.

I can't imagine bother with a foil when its over 15-20kts. But it seems like an attractive 10-15kt option.

Sorry to say, but that is not sprecks. Firstly kiting is banned at sprecks as it is in the flight path, also there looks to be lots of sand which is not too typical of the reefs of the north shore. Probably off kite beach near the sewerage plant, where the water is generally deeper. (not sure haw shallow a foil can go - but not sure i would run it over some of the reefs.

Just to throw in some rumours to stoke the foil fire so to speak. Chatting to guy over here (Maui) today who kite foils and apparently tied up with the sailing scene (dingys), who also claimed to be tied up closely with the man himself NP. He claims that kiting and the Wasp will be at the next olympics ( both as a foil boat), and further, says that the RSX will be a dual boat class - displacement hull for under 6-8 kts, and foil for above. Who knows, he maybe on the money, then again he may be talking out of his hat. But yesterday while the winds were light and the racers were out training, Alex Aguera was reportedly hosing the light wind slalom boys on a kite foil.

The CloudFoil video is interesting. There doesn't seem to be much wind yet he is using a 3.5 kite. Also the shape of the board seems to be almost irrelevant. Would be good to see a video showing them getting the board / foil going.

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DAM71 said..
Sorry to say, but that is not sprecks. Firstly kiting is banned at sprecks as it is in the flight path, also there looks to be lots of sand which is not too typical of the reefs of the north shore. Probably off kite beach near the sewerage plant, where the water is generally deeper. (not sure haw shallow a foil can go - but not sure i would run it over some of the reefs.

Just to throw in some rumours to stoke the foil fire so to speak. Chatting to guy over here (Maui) today who kite foils and apparently tied up with the sailing scene (dingys), who also claimed to be tied up closely with the man himself NP. He claims that kiting and the Wasp will be at the next olympics ( both as a foil boat), and further, says that the RSX will be a dual boat class - displacement hull for under 6-8 kts, and foil for above. Who knows, he maybe on the money, then again he may be talking out of his hat. But yesterday while the winds were light and the racers were out training, Alex Aguera was reportedly hosing the light wind slalom boys on a kite foil.

One of the things I can't work out is why, if they wan to use this as a "displacement hull", they've chosen something so short. Surely with no centreboard, a small sail, narrow planing surface and short length, when it's in "displacement mode" it will be even slower than something like a Formula board or Techno when they are not planing - the Optimist dinghies will be giving it a hard time!

NP were wrong with the claims they made about the RSX and what it would do for windsurfing, they look even more wrong now IMHO.

If the Wazp is in them something will have to come out, as the IOC won't allow any more classes. It's hard to see the 470s or Lasers being dropped as they are so popular. Maybe the Finn? But other word around is that a yacht is going to come back in, which would be damn good since an enormous number of the world's racing sailors are yachties and they have been royally shafted by having their discipline dropped from the Games.

The frustrating thing is that we already know what sports get lots of viewers - simple, slow ones like swimming, running and gymnastics. "Extreme" sports like whitewater kayaking, MTBs and BMXing get outrated by the "old style" disciplines in the same sports. We seem to be throwing away types with wide popularity in favour of "extreme" classes that fewer people sail, but still no one watches.

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stehsegler said..
The CloudFoil video is interesting. There doesn't seem to be much wind yet he is using a 3.5 kite. Also the shape of the board seems to be almost irrelevant. Would be good to see a video showing them getting the board / foil going.

Kiting is like that in general, can use a big variety of sizes and still go out, but some will be less comfortable for sure. The foil kiters I know prefer going way undersized on their kites as once the board is foiling a regular sized kite for the wind generates too much power! Can easily use a 7m when the norm would be 12m or 14m.

I see the vids with windfoiling and super small sails used also.

I think foiling is like sex when you are realllly drunk
Better than nothing, but the lack of feeling would make it a bit bland.

I fail to see the point in foiling, unless u wish to break a record. Even then it is like a F1 car vs V* supercar on same track. Yes one holds the record but it is so far removed from the 'normal' car that is it really coparable?

So yeah they may be faster or point better and so on, but the nothingness of riding a foil must be really bland after 30+kn on rough stuff.

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DAM71 said..
Sorry to say, but that is not sprecks. Firstly kiting is banned at sprecks as it is in the flight path, also there looks to be lots of sand which is not too typical of the reefs of the north shore. Probably off kite beach near the sewerage plant, where the water is generally deeper. (not sure haw shallow a foil can go - but not sure i would run it over some of the reefs.

Just to throw in some rumours to stoke the foil fire so to speak. Chatting to guy over here (Maui) today who kite foils and apparently tied up with the sailing scene (dingys), who also claimed to be tied up closely with the man himself NP. He claims that kiting and the Wasp will be at the next olympics ( both as a foil boat), and further, says that the RSX will be a dual boat class - displacement hull for under 6-8 kts, and foil for above. Who knows, he maybe on the money, then again he may be talking out of his hat. But yesterday while the winds were light and the racers were out training, Alex Aguera was reportedly hosing the light wind slalom boys on a kite foil.

Sorry but the Optimist class will be at the Olympics:www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2016/04/01/optimist-added-to-olympic-sailing-event-schedule/

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Mark _australia said...
I think foiling is like sex when you are realllly drunk
Better than nothing, but the lack of feeling would make it a bit bland.

I fail to see the point in foiling, unless u wish to break a record. Even then it is like a F1 car vs V* supercar on same track. Yes one holds the record but it is so far removed from the 'normal' car that is it really coparable?

So yeah they may be faster or point better and so on, but the nothingness of riding a foil must be really bland after 30+kn on rough stuff.

Would a foilng windsurfer even work in rough water? It looks like it would work in the flat stuff, but on a 30kt day in open ocean?

A couple of kiters are foiling where I sail, but they aren't fast yet that's for sure.

They whole thing looks awkward and overcomplicated.

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Chris 249 said..

DAM71 said..
Sorry to say, but that is not sprecks. Firstly kiting is banned at sprecks as it is in the flight path, also there looks to be lots of sand which is not too typical of the reefs of the north shore. Probably off kite beach near the sewerage plant, where the water is generally deeper. (not sure haw shallow a foil can go - but not sure i would run it over some of the reefs.

Just to throw in some rumours to stoke the foil fire so to speak. Chatting to guy over here (Maui) today who kite foils and apparently tied up with the sailing scene (dingys), who also claimed to be tied up closely with the man himself NP. He claims that kiting and the Wasp will be at the next olympics ( both as a foil boat), and further, says that the RSX will be a dual boat class - displacement hull for under 6-8 kts, and foil for above. Who knows, he maybe on the money, then again he may be talking out of his hat. But yesterday while the winds were light and the racers were out training, Alex Aguera was reportedly hosing the light wind slalom boys on a kite foil.

One of the things I can't work out is why, if they wan to use this as a "displacement hull", they've chosen something so short. Surely with no centreboard, a small sail, narrow planing surface and short length, when it's in "displacement mode" it will be even slower than something like a Formula board or Techno when they are not planing - the Optimist dinghies will be giving it a hard time!

NP were wrong with the claims they made about the RSX and what it would do for windsurfing, they look even more wrong now IMHO.

If the Wazp is in them something will have to come out, as the IOC won't allow any more classes. It's hard to see the 470s or Lasers being dropped as they are so popular. Maybe the Finn? But other word around is that a yacht is going to come back in, which would be damn good since an enormous number of the world's racing sailors are yachties and they have been royally shafted by having their discipline dropped from the Games.

The frustrating thing is that we already know what sports get lots of viewers - simple, slow ones like swimming, running and gymnastics. "Extreme" sports like whitewater kayaking, MTBs and BMXing get outrated by the "old style" disciplines in the same sports. We seem to be throwing away types with wide popularity in favour of "extreme" classes that fewer people sail, but still no one watches.

Chris, I have no idea where this blokes ideas / opinions came from, and realistically, I have no idea as to who, what, or where the sailing classes go about making their divisions. Personally, i think some people are trying to make a perfectly round wheel more round. And i believe the RSX was and is a dismal failure, and they should use a one design raceboard.

The reason i can see why the kiters are foiling, is when the water is turbulent and choppy, they can still get out. I sailed lowers today, and it was choppy and gusty, and really reminded me of SEQ . However, the only kiters outside of the guys chasing waves that left the safety of kite beach were the foilers. On the foil they were not getting bounced all over the place, so they could still kite.

Like i said in my original post, I was just adding to the rumour mill.

Hes smart not using footstraps on the board .
Guess if he hits a turtle or something at least he wont break hes ankles.

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Shifu said..
Would a foilng windsurfer even work in rough water? It looks like it would work in the flat stuff, but on a 30kt day in open ocean?

A couple of kiters are foiling where I sail, but they aren't fast yet that's for sure.

They whole thing looks awkward and overcomplicated.

The kite foilers here hand out us our arses to us windsurfers regularly.....

Most of them clock regular 30+ in 12/14knts.

For us here it's already game over.....

Re the windfoil, the Pryde developper is up to 28 knts with the 7.8. Still working on it.

Rough water doesn't seem to worry him either, and with the 7.8 he's planing in 6/8 knts.

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seanhogan said..

Shifu said..
Would a foilng windsurfer even work in rough water? It looks like it would work in the flat stuff, but on a 30kt day in open ocean?

A couple of kiters are foiling where I sail, but they aren't fast yet that's for sure.

They whole thing looks awkward and overcomplicated.

The kite foilers here hand out us our arses to us windsurfers regularly.....

Most of them clock regular 30+ in 12/14knts.

For us here it's already game over.....

Re the windfoil, the Pryde developper is up to 28 knts with the 7.8. Still working on it.

Rough water doesn't seem to worry him either, and with the 7.8 he's planing in 6/8 knts.

That's just because the windsurfers in New Caledonia are not really fast.

true

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seanhogan said

The kite foilers here hand out us our arses to us windsurfers regularly.....

Most of them clock regular 30+ in 12/14knts.

For us here it's already game over.....

Re the windfoil, the Pryde developper is up to 28 knts with the 7.8. Still working on it.

Rough water doesn't seem to worry him either, and with the 7.8 he's planing in 6/8 knts.

The guys in our area don't seem the be going dramatically faster than windsurfer in light to medium winds at upwind and downwind angles, but the angles are way better.

I see in the medium wind 18-22 knots on a beam reach I felt for sure I could hold and catch. In this vid I was gaining in the puffs until he headed upwind and left me for dead. It is very hard to get moth and kiters to want to get into a speed hook on a beam reach as it's apparently harder and takes work/skill. I'll find out this summer what it is all about, figured if you can't beat them...... join them!

At the 2 min mark is the kiter/windsurfer interaction!

Video of a jibe on the Neilpryde Convertible:

www.facebook.com/windfoilbytaaroa/videos

boring.... only interesting thing in that video is me in the background !!!!

Good video of kite foil vs windsurfer - pretty close!

wow that was a sweet video! I love the bit at the end where the windsurfer just picked down the foil kiter! When I was out two weekends ago I did similar on the 6.2 when the foil kiter came to play, I bore off and just cleared off! :)

That is an awesome event! I read up a bit on it to get a feel of what is going on.


"That's Vincent Langer, German and European IFCA Champion. It was tight between him and the foil on most days. Jerome Bonieux, on the foil, is an excellent foiler. What the drone footage doesn't show that well is how big the rolling chop was. The foil doesn't need to pick his line around those marks because he's hovering over the chop and the drag on the foil is way less than on a gybing board so it's much easier for him to keep his speed through the turns.

I spent most of the week battling with another kite foil further back and the second half of the gybe was particularly frustrating. They have to switch feet before the gybe, so the best strategy was to be really aggressive in the 20m before the gybe and in the first half of the gybe. If you can push them there, you might get lucky. However, when we are battling to do the rig flip and foot switch and to control the board when the whole rail is engaged, they just power up. With so little drag, they maintain more speed in the gybe and don't have the acceleration issues we have after a gybe. The foil also has excellent upwind ability so as soon as they have any power, they can take a tighter line and effectively roll you on every exit. I think that's what happened to Vincent in that race. I don't think he went wide so much as that was the line the conditions dictated.

We had some rules in place to protect everyone. We separated the foils from the windsurfers at the start and we were encouraged to pass upwind of the foil. I only tried a downwind pass once and it was pretty scary knowing that if they had a problem, I'd have all of that sharp carbon coming my way."

Read more at

http://forums.boards.mpora.com/showthread.php/76630-Kite-Windsurf-Cup-Langebaan#ySDu6UVRwI6LFCu2.99

The kitefoilers in our area show there is a learning curve, but the guys who have it nailed are getting amazing performance out of very light wind, even when there are decent lumps in the water. All points above noted I am busting to try out a foiling sailboard!

Lurking but wanted to provide some feedback... Local beach is Belmont Shore, CA and this year we have around 12 kite foilers out of the regular 50 or so twin tip and surf board riders. 2 - 4 regular wind surfers at this beach although the common beach for the wind surfers is outer beach at San Pedro, CA.

Normal Windsurfer transition to kiting is to twin tip first so that kite skills are perfected before moving on to surfboards and hydrofoils.... Learning how to fly a kite takes time irrespective of previous water experience. Learning how to kite foil can be brutal and can take time. Took me more than 16 hours before I was up foiling.

More kite boarders are making the transition to kite foiling and there are many brands to choose from - Alpinefoil, Horue, Liquid Force, MHL, Slingshot, Mosus, Spotz, Taaroa and so on. Low aspect ratio wings as shown in the Maui video are slow easy to learn on. Many of the modern foils allow interchangeable wings so you can swap between a large light wind wing to a smaller race wing... I personally have three front wings to choose from.

'Lightest wind for me is 6kts with an 18M foil kite and I have a quiver of 9/11/15/18M foil kites together with 7/9/12M Leading Edge Inflatable (LEI) Kites. I prefer my foil kites to LEI kites but will use LEI's on gusty/high wind days.

Boat speed for foiling is around 12mph and depending on wind, normal cruising speed is around 20mph with a top speed I can hold with my performance wing of around 26mph but the racing guys and gals are 30mph+

Kelp - Most foil struts/masts have pretty sharp leading edges and will slice though single strands of kelp and weed but anything larger will knock you off.

Kite foiling offers the opportunity to use smaller kites and kite in lighter conditions. You can go faster than a twin tip or surf board and point as high as a yacht to the wind on the water. Numerous styles of kite foiling including race, freestyle, wave etc. Big swells are very manageable on a kite foil - Just need to move up and down and carve through the troughs.

The other innovation that has occured in in the last three years is the development of high aspect ratio foil kites which complement kiteboard foiling very well with upwind performance characteristics that match foil boards.- F1, Elf, Flysurfer, and Ozone are some of the foil kite brands.. So foil kites and foil boards are very popular and a requirement on the race course.

The video shown above with the wind surfers racing a kite is dated only that a modern kite foil racer now uses large foil kites (15M/18M) together with a Foil Board and the large foil kite provides a huge advantage downwind... Attached is a video from the Mexico event from a few weeks back...



Horue has done much to promote Kite Foiling and Wind Foiling but I have yet to see a Horue foil... Just not that popular here in the USA...



A nice foiling race which also shows some of the foiling innovation in other boat classes...



Finally... Me and two buddies foiling in about 10-12kts of wind... All of us are on foil kites together with foil boards... You can hear the awesome sound of the wind through their lines as I pass them.

I have to try this. I reckon it'd be perfect for Cockburn Sound, Western Australia. Flat choppy water with no weed.

I've been looking at Horue and Mako foils, but the recent push from Neil Pryde has me hoping they release theirs on the market soon.

I suspect it'll be easy on my 64 year old knees as I'd be sailing above the jarring chop.... but does anyone know how you control the 'altitude' of the board when sailing?