Aloha folks just came by for some help spending my money. Been wing foiling for a year now, and getting somethings nailed down. I'm gybing about 60% successful on my strong stance (goofy), about 30% success on my weak side. Can ride toe side upwind pretty good. Occasionally able to switch my feet on foil, but don't have a technique dialed in yet.

Board: 5'4" 95L
Foil: Armstrong 1850, 72 meat, 60 fun, 232 tail
Me: 88kg

Usually riding in 14kts to 30kts

Question: should I down size my foil or wait until I have higher success rates on my gybes, foot switching, tacks?

If so, what size foil? 1550 (v1 or v2), 1250, HA925, 1125

I switch from the 1850 to the 1250 when it start's blowing above 15 knots. It's definitely easier to gybe on the 1850, it has a much lower stall speed. Getting a smaller foil is a good investment. It's good to change things up and stretch your skills.

Went out on a 1250 today in 25kts. Took longer to get up, but surprisingly not that hard. Couldn't gybe too well as I came off foil early.

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Goofcat said..
Went out on a 1250 today in 25kts. Took longer to get up, but surprisingly not that hard. Couldn't gybe too well as I came off foil early.

My feeble 2 cents;....Sure, get a smaller foil wing like the 1550 or 1250, but don't sell the 1850. Keep it for lighter wind days and attempting/learning more challenging transitions like tacking. I'm seeing more and more "mere mortal" people who say they need nothing bigger than 1100 sq cm HA foil, yet I doubt many of them could complete more than 10% of their on-foil toe-to heelside tacks and never even attempted a heel-to-toeside tack. Heck, you can quickly transition to just about any size medium aspect or high aspect foil if all your doing is jibing in strong enough wind.....

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Dspace said..

Goofcat said..
Went out on a 1250 today in 25kts. Took longer to get up, but surprisingly not that hard. Couldn't gybe too well as I came off foil early.

My feeble 2 cents;....Sure, get a smaller foil wing like the 1550 or 1250, but don't sell the 1850. Keep it for lighter wind days and attempting/learning more challenging transitions like tacking. I'm seeing more and more "mere mortal" people who say they need nothing bigger than 1100 sq cm HA foil, yet I doubt many of them could complete more than 10% of their on-foil toe-to heelside tacks and never even attempted a heel-to-toeside tack. Heck, you can quickly transition to just about any size medium aspect or high aspect foil if all your doing is jibing in strong enough wind.....

Tacking is a lot harder on a bigger foil though, you need the speed and glide. I can quite consistently (80% ish) tack my 880cm2 and 1480cm2 high aspects both toe and heelside, but I have never gotten the 1800 and 2200 low aspects around the tack flying. Even during the jibe with those big wings you feel you have to keep pressure in the wing to keep flying!

Nevertheless, I'm with Dspace, keep the bigger wing and get a really nice smaller wing for the days its 14 knots and up. Given your weight a 1400-1500cm2 foil should be a perfect allrounder, given you have the 1850 already, maybe the 1250 would be a better option.

The 1550V2 is a really nice foil and IMO you would get much more use out of it than the 1250 at your weight. I am 70 kg and use the 1250 only when the wind is nuking (and for prone). Definitely keep the 1850 too!

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WhiteofHeart said..

Dspace said..

Goofcat said..
Went out on a 1250 today in 25kts. Took longer to get up, but surprisingly not that hard. Couldn't gybe too well as I came off foil early.

My feeble 2 cents;....Sure, get a smaller foil wing like the 1550 or 1250, but don't sell the 1850. Keep it for lighter wind days and attempting/learning more challenging transitions like tacking. I'm seeing more and more "mere mortal" people who say they need nothing bigger than 1100 sq cm HA foil, yet I doubt many of them could complete more than 10% of their on-foil toe-to heelside tacks and never even attempted a heel-to-toeside tack. Heck, you can quickly transition to just about any size medium aspect or high aspect foil if all your doing is jibing in strong enough wind.....

Tacking is a lot harder on a bigger foil though, you need the speed and glide. I can quite consistently (80% ish) tack my 880cm2 and 1480cm2 high aspects both toe and heelside, but I have never gotten the 1800 and 2200 low aspects around the tack flying. Even during the jibe with those big wings you feel you have to keep pressure in the wing to keep flying!

Nevertheless, I'm with Dspace, keep the bigger wing and get a really nice smaller wing for the days its 14 knots and up. Given your weight a 1400-1500cm2 foil should be a perfect allrounder, given you have the 1850 already, maybe the 1250 would be a better option.

I guess I should qualify that my big foil was an original 1900 sq cm Gong Pro XL that was not probably not as low aspect (or as thick and draggy) as your bigger foils. It was very easy to tack with. Don't have the Pro XL any more but I do still have a Gong Veloce XXL (107 cm span, 1900 sq cm, 1.8cm thick, 5:1 aspect ratio) that I can easily tack to both sides and pull off 360's in pretty light wind. It's actually pretty "glidey" for its size since it's quite thin, and flat turns easily. I do appreciate what your saying because the few times I rode a monster thick wing like the Axis 1020 I could barely tack it on foil at all. Heck, I could barely jibe it after being on faster foils for so long. It was like trying to ride a sea anchor.

A foil with more glide and less drag definitely helps for tacking but remember if your tacking into a serious 28 knot head wind your hand wing, body and board are creating massive drag and slowing you down very quickly, even with a glidey foil in the water. I've always felt the best foil to learn to tack with has both a high top end speed for going into the tack, a low stall speed for coming out of the tack, and the ability to carve AND "flat turn" easily in order to get the turn completed quickly on foil...

My $0.02 is that it doesn't sound like the foil is holding back your progression yet. my recommendation is probably to get the gybes dialed on both sides before sizing down. That being said as long as you can pump up on foil efficiently, you would probably do fine on a smaller foil.

I switched from a 1650 sqcm foil to a 1200 sqcm foil (both high aspect) and only sensed a modest decrease in low end. Perhaps it also forced me to get more efficient pumping up in lighter wind. The more dramatic improvement was pumping, gliding and maneuverability. You will be going faster but you will have more glide for tacks, 360s etc. I also found the larger wing to lock into turns a bit more which made it hard to manage when I wanted to deviate from the natural turn shape (often characterized as being "stiff"). A smaller tail made a small difference but the front wing changed it a lot more

im not super familiar with the Armstrong kit so I can't recommend a specific foil wing.

So far, keep 1850, get gybes down. Then consider smaller for tacking.

I get to try a 1550 v1 tomorrow in 20+ kts. See how that goes.

Definitely get the smaller wing for higher wind days. You may find your moving faster and foiling isn't any more difficult on the smaller wing than the bigger one. If you're going in over 20knts, you should be going with something smaller to add to your quiver.

DC