Trend is towards smaller and faster foils so how well the board glides becomes more important. Many manufactures are bringing out straight tail boards with better glide for next season. What is your opinion about optimal board lenght/width and volume for getting up early? I'm 90kg with gear and usually riding 4'10, 85l board. This gets up to 1900cm2 foil from 9-10knots onwards with pumping. But with small foils i need so much wind and can feel the drag that short&wide board generates and pumping only stalls the foil. Now i'm debating between 5'2 85liters or 5'4 95 liters 2022 fanatic board for light wind riding and small foils. At some point bigger board just adds extra drag, but what would be the optimal ratio with volume and lenght? +10liters above bodyweight? +-0 liters? Opinions?

First of all, I think the straight tail benefit is a myth. There is a lot of reference to windsurfing, but all the faster boards have cut outs at the tail and or slight V in the tail. Besides that we don,t need to go that fast to lift of, but to lift you need some pumps angling the board wich is by windsurfing a way to step o the breaks. For me the ducktail are fine. Things like an fast rocker, relative sharp parallel rails in the back, volume under your frontfoot for effective pumping are imo way more important.To keep it by myself: I,m 96/97kg and using an 90l AK Phazer5.8. an simple but light board with an relative fast rocker and ducktail. It does get going really quick. For most conditions this is big AND small enough, but when it is flicky and i,m in a windgap it sinks like kneehigh and my former board a Fanatic Skywing110l just didnt. I would say for lightwind an lightweight board something around +10 and for our weight around the 5.8-6ft mark with an very fast rocker would be optimum in lightwind. Bigger is extra weight to carry, shorther will miss out in the gliding phase.

Foil: cm2 doesnt say much. I owned an Gofoil Iwa with +/-1500cm and that one was waaaaay more draggy as my Sabfoil 1100 with a whopping 2100cm2.
Wingspan (aspect ratio) and thickness are imo more important.I have 2 foils with 1100cm and they are completely different animals.My Balz799 (wingspan799mm cm2 1100) is relative thick, lots of lift and very quick going. not slow but I can see there is an speed limit.
Then I have the 940 as well (940mm wingspan, 1100cm2) thinner, more stretched out and needs an slightly higher speed to get going but is serious fast and almost doesn't add any lift when going fast.

Flat tails are not a myth. They accelerate so fast, you wheelie out of control on first ride. You have to chill and be less aggressive on take off when wind is strong.

I recommend the size board you currently enjoy. The tail change alone adds to your low end,

Tail notches like windsurf race board use, on wing boards, are from people who forgot or don't understand why windsurf boards have those cutouts. They are there for increased top end speed. They actually hurt early planing.

There is an difference in opinion.What i,m a bit afraid of, is that people walk into a shop or a shaper say they want a XXX volume board, look at the tail, ooh its straight then it must be right and imo it's not that simple, because you can,t see a tail without the rest of the design elements. Take for example a really short board with very little planing surface or a heavily rockered one, or one with rounded rails and it won,t plane quick with a straight tail, make it weight a ton due incompetent layering and even if you sprinkle it with magic dust. If you think it does please share your knowledge and explain why and how instead of just saying it works.
Nobody is waiting for a yes it does!, no it doesn't!- topic.

From my experience it is definitely not a myth Jeroensurf.

When i switched from the Takuma LOL 1600 foil to the Kujira 1210 i had a bit of a hard time learning to control the takeoff angles and lost quite a bit of low end.Thinner and higher aspect foils do not allow big AOA's at low speeds,they just stall.

I then added a foam straight tail to the same board i was using and everything clicked.Easy takeoffs,even in marginal conditions.

I've probably rode at least 100 different boards with who knows how many different foil setups. By far the most noticeable correlation between shape and ease of takeoff is the tail shape. A tail that is straight and flat all the way back just gets up easier. Well done step tails can make things easier, but the difference is pretty obvious.

I 100% agree that sharp, clean release edges make a huge difference. round edges can kill an otherwise great shape. This is one of the reasons some step tail boards can get up pretty easy.

Lots of tail rocker or a tail step was needed earlier in foiling because the big low aspect wings needed a high angle of attack to takeoff at low speed. It worked great back then but is a huge hinderance now. Foils have evolved way past that but many boards have not. In some cases you can actually see a brand's foil performance being limited by the board shapes they ride.

I constantly tell people to stay away from certain shapes. The only step tail boards I've tried that are pretty good are the last gen JL Flying V, some of the JP boards, and anything else with a pronounced step spanning the entire tail, not just an angle. These boards are worth getting and will work great for most stuff.

Worst offenders that I've tried are probably last gen Armstrong. I did a back to back downwind test and could get the 1125 up in a few strokes on my straight tail board but couldn't get the 1850 up on the Armstrong shape. Their new boards are a lot better.

Luckily most boards can be helped by a small wedge on the tail to encourage release. I've been putting these on kick tail boards for the last year and it usually transforms it into something pretty good. If you have a step/angle/kick tail board cant encourage doing this enough!

No matter the size or shape of the board, just use a straight tail with sharp edges.

Very interesting. For the last year or so I was wondering why my heavy 7ft 115 litre custom foil board with a lot of curved tail rocker seemed to get up on foil easier than my JP 6ft 8" 95 litre with its step flat tail in surf?
I can only think that a curved tail rocker has less contact with the water surface & doesn't dig underwater whilst moving forward that has a braking or sticking effect as the board is pumped up. The curved tail rocker seemed to have less area contact with the water surface giving an even smooth rising affect as the back foot pressure is applied.
An over exaggerated tail rocker would mean no tail behind the foil, hence the modern boards with shortened tails or cut out step tails.
But the faster the board moves forward, the more the foil lifts to take out the tail area contact with the water surface. Hence the straight tail with sharp rails for fast planing.
But this is just my view & some of my experience. I'm no expert.

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Seajuice said..
Very interesting. For the last year or so I was wondering why my heavy 7ft 115 litre custom foil board with a lot of curved tail rocker seemed to get up on foil easier than my JP 6ft 8" 95 litre with its step flat tail in surf?
I can only think that a curved tail rocker has less contact with the water surface & doesn't dig underwater whilst moving forward that has a braking or sticking effect as the board is pumped up. The curved tail rocker seemed to have less area contact with the water surface giving an even smooth rising affect as the back foot pressure is applied.
An over exaggerated tail rocker would mean no tail behind the foil, hence the modern boards with shortened tails or cut out step tails.
But the faster the board moves forward, the more the foil lifts to take out the tail area contact with the water surface. Hence the straight tail with sharp rails for fast planing.
But this is just my view & some of my experience. I'm no expert.

You answered your own question, in surf rocker can help a board accelerate. Flat water or going into chop is an entirely different situation.

In the waves, you only need the paddle speed to catch the wave, then the assistance from the wave and foil accelerates you past planing really fast. Given enough power on a wave, a board with tail rocker will force the nose up and thrust you on foil. in situations with more limited acceleration like on small foils, light wind winging, or SUP downwind a flat tail rocker seems more desirable!

Sup dw is the most applicable to waves and it seems like shapes are moving to flat tail rocker and using a small tail width to get the movement needed to catch a wave. wing shapes seem to need better acceleration once planing while dw shapes seems to want better acceleration before planing.

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Seajuice said..
Very interesting. For the last year or so I was wondering why my heavy 7ft 115 litre custom foil board with a lot of curved tail rocker seemed to get up on foil easier than my JP 6ft 8" 95 litre with its step flat tail in surf?
I can only think that a curved tail rocker has less contact with the water surface & doesn't dig underwater whilst moving forward that has a braking or sticking effect as the board is pumped up. The curved tail rocker seemed to have less area contact with the water surface giving an even smooth rising affect as the back foot pressure is applied.
An over exaggerated tail rocker would mean no tail behind the foil, hence the modern boards with shortened tails or cut out step tails.
But the faster the board moves forward, the more the foil lifts to take out the tail area contact with the water surface. Hence the straight tail with sharp rails for fast planing.
But this is just my view & some of my experience. I'm no expert.

With 20 liters less your JP sits way lower in the water than your big board.
I guess in your case that's more important for takeoff than the tailshape.