So I've been using my first board for a couple of months now. The board is a 5'1 Gong Hipe 85l. I'm around 80kg.

Will there be any advantage of going to a rigid and maybe smaller board? How much does the added rigidity and top/bottom shapes of a rigid board add to the ride? The hipe feels plenty stiff, but a more nimble board sounds nice.

I'm not into the winging for jumping, only wave riding.

Once up, not a lot of difference. But, soft front rails suck like a spoon....the wrong side. And keeping pressure over time, like 75+ days.
But you can wing really good not ever trying a hard board ....but once you do.....

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LeeD said..
Once up, not a lot of difference. But, soft front rails suck like a spoon....the wrong side. And keeping pressure over time, like 75+ days.
But you can wing really good not ever trying a hard board ....but once you do.....

Patrice has said that the Hipe boards are the quickest of all the Gong boards, hard and soft, to come up on the foil. Guess he would know!

Again?
EVERY owner/supplier/maker/seller says his model is the best, and also the best brand.

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LeeD said..
Once up, not a lot of difference. But, soft front rails suck like a spoon....the wrong side. And keeping pressure over time, like 75+ days.
But you can wing really good not ever trying a hard board ....but once you do.....

Funny, on the windfoil I'd never settle for anything less than round/soft frontrails. Found that out using my freestyle board for foiling and have been shaping them like that ever since. Talking to other shapers, they also feel the soft 1/3rd on wing is way better than bevels (except maybe for waves). I've had absurd touchdown/crashes while overfoiling or doing jumps and the soft rails saved me from falling and get me back up and going with a few pumps.

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LeeD said..
Again?
EVERY owner/supplier/maker/seller says his model is the best, and also the best brand.

He didn't say that.

He compared between his own models.

For added context, keep in mind that for the same length, the Hipe has more volume than a hard board. It is very useful if you pump vertically to exploit the cork rebound effect for popping up, but it may be less efficient for other take off techniques that may work better with hard boards.

I guess you all should embrace balloons.

I agree Cola. Coupled with a steep take off foil(larger foil), you can use the rebound of an inflatable to jump you on foil and it's quite efficient!! However with Smaller HA foil it doesn't work as good and I would give the point to the composite board.