Which windfoil?

Hi everyone!

First time poster here. I'm an advanced windsurfer and I recently started windfoiling. I did the sustained flight course and can maintain flight pretty reliably, now I'm learning to jibe. I would like to buy my first foil and a dedicated board that would allow me to progress. I'm interested mostly in freeride in low wind conditions (around 10-12 knots). I weigh 66 kg. What foil and board would you recommend for me?

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DavidJohn said..
The 122 Naish Hover..

Or for the best of all worlds
Naish 120 Crossover

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smellme said..
Hi everyone!

First time poster here. I'm an advanced windsurfer and I recently started windfoiling. I did the sustained flight course and can maintain flight pretty reliably, now I'm learning to jibe. I would like to buy my first foil and a dedicated board that would allow me to progress. I'm interested mostly in freeride in low wind conditions (around 10-12 knots). I weigh 66 kg. What foil and board would you recommend for me?

If you're going to freeride on the ocean and get into down-winding swells or riding small waves, the Naish WS1 (with 90cm mast) is awesome

If you focus on down-winding you might look at swapping out the WS1 front wing with the Surf wing, which is just a little better for carving the swells.

I agree with Sean on this one. The Naish are low aspect foils, they will do what you are looking for. The SB GT-R will be a longer term progressive foil for you. I prefer the higher aspect foils for higher speeds, and the SB foil system will allow you to build out and tune to your wind/learning demands. Good luck!

A picture is worth a thousand words.

JP 135 is a great board, early planning, perfect strap positionning, tried it loved it
go carbon straight away, the np al(2018) is a piece of sh.... the 2019 should be better but won't come close to a starboard or other carbon foil.

as for upwind and downwind ability here's my track from this afternoon with my starboard race setup

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smellme said..
Thanks for the advice, guys.

I want to do freeride on the Mediterranean sea, so with 10-12 knots it's going to be rather flat.

What do you think about JP Hydrofoil 135 with NP AL foil? It seems to be a very popular combo but the board is bigger than what you recommended.

Should I go for carbon foil from the start? I can absorb the cost, it's more of an issue if I would really benefit from it.

I would go with the NP carbon foil if you can afford it, because you'll end up wanting one if you like foiling. I have the NP AL foil and although it's decent enough to get going and you can have fun on it, it needs a little bit more speed than the carbon foil to get flying as the front wing isn't as big. If you're only getting 10-12 knots you'll want as much area as possible to get flying. Although I love NP gear, if you're only getting 10-12 then you may want the Naish coz it's got a much bigger wing, so you'll get going in less breeze. :)

I own multiple foils and will try to shed some light on how to choose.

The foils I currently have acces to: NP Flight AL, Lokefoil LK1, F-One Wind and Mantafoils Freeride. In the past I also had the previous Lokefoil, and I've tried the starboard (GT, Race and new Millenium setup), PrydeF4, slingshot Fwind1, Horue Vini.

First thing you'd want to asses is what kind of sailing you do now, and what your goal with foiling is. Are you a waver? Want to bump/jump in light wind/small sails? Are you a slalomsailor / want to go fast?

For light wind sailing bigger wings ofcourse have the upperhand, where low aspect wings work better with small boards, and high aspect wings work well with big boards. Of you want to race High aspect is the way to go, I can really recommend the LK1, its the most stable foil I tried so far, and very fast. Also, the huge 1200 front wing allowed me to use 3.6sqm while slalomsailors around me were using 8.6, this wing is more freeride ori?nted with a bigger chord for almost the same length as the 850 wing. It is however not suited for jumping. (Same goes for other racefoils, jumping loads are way higher than the load of a 130kg sailor with a formula and 10sqm.)

If you want to do small sail freeride, a smaller board and low aspect wing are the way to go. I have no experience with the Naish, in europe Naish isnt that popular, but it does fall in this category, together with the slingshot, f-one and new NP Glide. Downside: it isnt fast. For jumping and high airs you need good speed, which I haven't really been able to achieve with a low aspect wing. It is however very easy to sail. For my taste they are too draggy / feel too heavy when sailing, so I don't like them.

In the middle there is the horue Vini. I really love this foil for the right combi of playfulness and speed. It has really great low wind potential and works best with smaller boards aswell.

As for boardchoice. Don't go too big. I can get up with 4.8 on the small board (86L for 86Kg / 192cm) in the same wind I would get up with 7.0 on the formula. (+/- 10kts) Having balanced sail and boardsize helps enormously in early flying. For early flight with small sails a 75 wide with a playful foil like the vini is big enough! Ofcourse a formula with a 9.0 and a big race wing would get me going a little earlier, but putting the same small sail on the formula would get me nowhere in little wind.

For light wind i would not recommend the flight alu 2018 version, haven't seen the 2019.

So, recap: if you pick a more racey foil you'll need a bigger board / sails to get going in the same wind. If you pick a more low aspect foil a smaller board / sail is more suitable for the same wind conditions. Big boards / small sails don't match. High aspect foils / small boards and small sails might very well match, if the surface of the wings are big enough. (Lk1 1200sqcm wing + 4.8 + 86L/70w gets me going in 10kts). With a starboard GT or prydeF4 this combo is less obvious, and bigger sails would be better suited.

Thank you again for all your input. Eventually I went with Starboard 122 with SB freeride foil. It's the set I did my course on. I also tried the Naish. It was niece, a lot of lift, but felt a little too draggy. I got a good deal on the SB set from the center where I did the course - 1800 euro. It is in very good condition, a lot of scratches but no serious damages.