Foiling news Issue #1
So what’s the latest, what do we know? Foiling is here – every major manufacturer of windsurfing kit now has or is bringing out a foil.
The Basics
In a nutshell
Of course, I could go on for pages on how to foil but for the purposes of this short article this is the summary:
To Start you will go out with the same size sail you’d need to use in the days conditions only with a foil. Ideally rotational or with one or two cams below the boom.
For safety Make sure you have a decent thick wetsuit on and preferably buoyancy aid and helmet. The number one tip – At all times do not let go of the boom. This will mean you don’t end up with any part of your body coming together with the foil
To Get going bear away from the wind and pump If you need to, keep your weight back and you should start to feel a sort of plaining feeling like you are going faster but not quite foiling. So at this point make sure you have both feet in the straps lean towards the back and prepare for take off.
You should take off at first try to do little bunny hops to get used to being in the air before going for prolonged flight.
It is then your task to stay up for longer – don’t go up too high or you will do a sort of spin out crash and don’t come down too fast or you experience a sort of nose plant crash. You will get used to these and how to stay up when they happen.
The Kit
The are all type of foil – full carbon, alloy with G10 and alloy with carbon. You want a stiff mast from a both a lateral a torsional force point of view.
Some foils like the Naish and NP fanatic and starboard freeride are designed with an easy riding small sail feeling, , then you can get the Pryde F4 and starboard full carbon GT, race and slalom made for speed and upwind performance.
What type of board?
One with a Deep Tuttle fin box is the answer with the footstraps out-board on a wide tail if poss.
The story is you need to match the length of the mast on your foil to the width of your board, so width from 75 to 95. Light weight is good and reasonable short so not too old – something like a slalom board. You then have a dilemma - old and cheap so it doesn’t matter if you break it or new with a foil box strengthened to take a foil – which will then be strong enough for sure – there are either dedicated foil boards or foil ready boards meaning a normal board though with a foil box in it.
What Is The Waiting Time?
Sketchy- when foils arrive into stock then tend to sell fast – we currently have the NP Alu foil in, the Fanatic is due in next week but we will not get all we ordered so they will sell fast, The next batch of Starboard are due in early January this will include the freeride and freeride GT – the newer cheaper ones £1100 ish and the dedicated starboard foil board – shaped for use with a foil not just the best design for foiling they have with a foil box in it.
We now also have the Moses foils in stock and the vento 92 on demo £1398 looks easy to use -I’ll report back later once its been on the water!