hydrofoil boards

I have very little experience, other than 60 years of living, 25+ years of kiteflying, 18 yrs kitesurfing, friendship with Adrian Roper for 15 years (Axis and Underground designer), supporting kite racing in Australia for around 6 years, sponsoring some top riders, mixing with my local foilers regularly.
I agree that if you are a bit weak and soft then carrying stuff is hard. Travelling, yeah maybe, but just buy some extra luggage allowance its cheap these days.

The point that I should have really emphasised is the price, this SS product will open up the sport for a lot more people, the mast length options are cheap (and reduce weight), and the shorter masts definitely shorten the learning curve. When people learn easy the sport will grow, when people acquire great skills they can argue the merits (or not) of weight. There is definitely a link between lower weight and higher cost. Foils are awkward to walk around with, avoid it.

This product should not be dismissed simply because its a bit heavier than some other brands, or even significantly heavier then the carbon, fixed length mast models. The fact is that once its in the water and being ridden the weight makes little difference to a freerider. Some may eventually want to go faster, and there are a gazillion options out there for them when they get to that stage.

All reports are that the Flight School concept is a very good one. Or you could what Cab did and up just make it really tough for the board to foil

Have YOU ridden it?

...anyway to get the PU out then?

My Liquid Force board is 5.7 kg and the foil in just over 3.8 kg giving a total of 9.5 kg.

For walking from the rigging area to the beach the weight is not a problem. Even for a walk of shame up the beach the weight is not a problem. You just have to make sure it is properly tucked under your arm and balanced.

If I had to do a couple of km walk back I would want to rig some kind of sling or even do a pack down of the foil. I haven't really pursued this because we've been able to get back to the start when the wind drops out, even though fast, light wind, downwind riding is kind of technical on a foil.

In terms of a luxury experience, light weight really matters. It's just so much more pleasant and comfortable if you can pick you your gear and walk effortlessly with it. There already exists a water sport with heavy, expensive gear. It's called windsurfing.
The real attraction of alloy foils is they are generally cheap. When you're learning it is almost certain you are going to bounce your foil off a rock. That would be heart breaking on your $2800 full carbon work or art (closer to $4400 including the board). Not so traumatic on a $1500, second hand alloy kit, including board.

The negatives of alloy in real world use is the mast fills with water, and galvanic corrosion. Both are more a nuisance than a real problem, but a properly made carbon kit suffers from none of those problems. Plugging the mast with silicone had not been a great solution to leakage in my experience.

The other issue is the low aspect wings attached to most alloy foils. They seem to be only good for very slow riding. This is great when you are a learner. Foil face plants (foil bombs) hurt. A lot! I have very little experience of high aspect foils (that will change soon). I am hoping I will be riding much faster with more stability.

I have owned and ridden the both the SS Hoverglide and the LF Fish Foil.

They are both heaps of fun and pretty tough.

The SS Hoverglide doesn't piss salt water into your car after a session (big tick).
The SS Hoverglide is steadier in the water than the LF.

Weight is not great in both, but they can be easily carried over the shoulder out of the water or under the arm in the water. No big deal.

But .... I would love to try a carbon freeride to now to appreciate the difference from the aluminium.

My frustration with SS is that even though they have sourced from a brand with some cred. The end result is heavy for absolutely no logical reason. Everyone else can keep an Alloy foil under 4kg. It just smacks of lazy engineering.

In regards to the question of to or not to go fast. There are a large number of foils already in the affordable bracket that are beginner friendly that lift early and are slippery enough to not hold you back when the urge takes hold.
It might just be that time you have a TT'er ahead on the east bank at Sandy Point, obviously going for a speedy run. You then realise you are catching, then the urge takes over as you power up to overtake while holding way more upwind angle.

Weight matters if you have to carry it, or it hits you.

Speed matters if you're slow and everybody else is blasting past at double your speed ... with greater stability.

It shouldn't cost much more to make good stuff. In the 70's Ibanez sold heaps of cheap guitars. They worked out they had a skilled workforce and that they were just as capable of churning out good stuff, so they did.

About 3 months. Once I was up and foiling and gybing reliably I started looking around for what follows. It was always my intention to upgrade the Liquid Force once I had worked out that I could ride a foil, and whether it was something I really wanted to do.

People who don't foil have no idea how addictive it is.

The main reason to go away from an aluminium foil is more to do with the practicalities of daily use. Hollow masts fill with water and have to be emptied before putting in the car (sealing with silicone was not satisfactory). Galvanic corrosion is always a niggling worry even though it hasn't proved to be much of a problem.

The general consensus (of a very small sample size) is, we are vey glad we started on a cheap and cheerful foil. It has been great fun. We would have been heart broken if we smashed our expensive new foils into the reef.

Apart from the price, carbon foils are truly beautiful objects. They look like sculptures.

While we're on it, there's a good strapless surfboard rider at our local beach. When we were just getting through the total kook foil rider stage, he was ripping on his Cabrinha Double Agent. Lots of carving foil gybes in the wave zone. It's a perfectly good setup for its intended purpose. It is outrageously expensive for what it is (but that's not unusual for Cabrinha gear).

Wow, high price. In Europe I picked up a Moses Fluente carbon foil, T40 board, board bag and shipping for 1600 euro = 2380 Aust. Dollars.

Haven't got it yet, let's see if I smash it on the rocks.

I had my first session on one of these today.



It's got to be the best value available in Australia and NZ. The quality and performance is excellent. The foil is carbon, the mast carbon with a foam core. The board is EPS. The web site is full of detail on what everything is. The complete kit weighs 6.5kg. You can get a bag that's custom made for the board and foil protectors.

Check out the product available. The prices are NZ$. Shipping to Australia you deduct the 15% NZ GST. You might have to add in the 10% Australian GST depending on what you buy.

www.jshapes.com/collections/all

Build quality is overall fantastic. The ends of the mast where they insert into the tuttle boxes look a little agricultural but they work fine. Beautifully light.

The fuselage and wings are one piece so you can't swap in other wings. The wings are much higher aspect than the Liquid Force, but a bit lower than the full race wings others are using.

The board bag is also really high quality. It's very nice to have a custom fit bag that just fits perfectly.

Assembly and disassembly is quick and easy, although there is a knack to how you get the ends in an out of the tuttle boxes. You get things on the right angle and use the leverage of the mast and it all just happens. The 4 bolts are just to lock things in place, all the strength comes from the tapering of the tuttle boxes.

The first 30 seconds were bunny hops but once you get a little speed over the wings it comes up and is rock solid. Amazingly solid in fact. Really good at speed downwind. Front wing ventilation is almost non-existent.

It feels fast, but my GPS says I'm not going all that much faster yet. I need to get a session in decent winds before I know for sure.

Still working on gybes. I found gybing the Liquid Force quite easy but I am back to square one on this foil.