Is foiling the best thing that ever happened to windsurfing? Or has it ruined it?

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RichardG said..
Anyway foiling is great and a new way of flying on the water. Only a foiler knows the feeling. David Ezzy says once you try foiling you will give up the longboards. Having tried foiling, I don't think I could give up longboards yet and I think the foiling gear and longboards can co-exist separately in a quiver.

Agree with everything. Even got into a big argument with a friend who is dead-set against foiling about the "Only a foiler knows the feeling" part. Foiling definitely reduces the TOW on longboards, but there are days where a longboard can be more fun. That said, I'd rather buy another foil than a new sail for a longboard. I always wanted a nice 9.5 m competitive longboard sail, but if you add in the cost for a mast, you might as well buy a nice all-carbon foil.

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boardsurfr said..

RichardG said..
Anyway foiling is great and a new way of flying on the water. Only a foiler knows the feeling. David Ezzy says once you try foiling you will give up the longboards. Having tried foiling, I don't think I could give up longboards yet and I think the foiling gear and longboards can co-exist separately in a quiver.

Agree with everything. Even got into a big argument with a friend who is dead-set against foiling about the "Only a foiler knows the feeling" part. Foiling definitely reduces the TOW on longboards, but there are days where a longboard can be more fun. That said, I'd rather buy another foil than a new sail for a longboard. I always wanted a nice 9.5 m competitive longboard sail, but if you add in the cost for a mast, you might as well buy a nice all-carbon foil.

Thankfully foil sails perform really well on longboards. At least the Flyer and Phantom do.

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azuli said..
So SB claim IQfoil racing is possible from 5-35kns in any see condition with one rig (which is a 9m sail for men).

windsurf.star-board.com/products/iqfoil/
"The iFoil boards are just amazing. With one board, one foil, two fuselages, one rig and one fin you can cover 5-35 knots - no matter the sea conditions - you will race!"

Is this realistic?

After watching local foil racers and this video of foil racing in PWA in 25-30 kns, i'm not so sure:

They have the option to fin at higher wind speeds. Gusts at the PWA regatta exceeded 30. Far exceeded it.

"Just to try and put into perspective how windy it truly was, the maximum recorded gust today was 59.9 knots as the Tramontana showed its face for the first time since the 2011 edition. "



www.catsailingnews.com/2019/05/pwa-windsurf-foil-costa-brava-2019-day-2-images-by-john-carter.html

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Dcharlton said..
Foil has saved windsurfing, not killed it. Think of how many people left Windsurfing because they got tired of looking at the kiters have all the fun in 12knts of wind while we had our arms folded wishing for another 5 knts. Those days are gone, we don't even need the 9.0 sails anymore. Now I can foil when other windsurfers are schlogging. For me it doesn't replace windsurfing, it keeps me a happy windsurfer who has an alternative in lighter winds. When the wind picks up, I'm windsurfing.

DC

Saying foiling has saved windsurfing is drawing a long bow?

Compared to this topic double as many posts on the LT one and 5 times as many in the topic reviewing the LT.

LT isn't perfect but expect it will do more for the sport as beginners can give it a go.
Foiling looks great (haven't done it...or kiting...or wind winging etc) but is another high performance development of our sport that will mainly appeal to the already converted.

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lotofwind said..
Yeah but all the posts on the LT thread are all from the same person with vested interest.

lotofwind "5427 posts" and still banging on !

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tbwonder said..

Compared to this topic double as many posts on the LT one and 5 times as many in the topic reviewing the LT.

There is a good reason for that. People who foil spend there time foiling as it is so much fun. Perhaps if I had an LT instead I would find more time to post.

Testing your proposition seems to indicate you are likely wrong. Simply put, foiling has its own devoted section on this website, so it must have more prolific posters so not sure your statement is supported by fact. The LT posts are ,more concentrated on a few threads, so the appearance is amplified, so would doubt both the correctness of your statement and also that of the other person who you are responding to.

I think the obvious answerer is YES. No need for a semi trailer to get your big old heavy wally boats to the beach anymore like in the olden days, and then need 2 people to carry it to a boat ramp for launching. lol., short wide board is only needed, much smaller and lighter. Faster and more maneuverable and gets a waaaay better upwind angle than anything else out there.
They don't nose dive in chop and swell, well, you float above the chop on a magic carpet ride. Foils are the future, anything else is like trying to bring back a VHS , why would you take a step backwards to the 70's(50yrs ago) when you can be more efficient in the 2020's ?????
But there will always be the "back in my day" style crew that try to make others live like it was way back then.
Im sure in 50 years I'll be saying " back in my day, we rode foils, not these WiFi controlled hover boards"

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MatStirl said..
Compared to this topic double as many posts on the LT one and 5 times as many in the topic reviewing the LT.

The LT is very appealing to anyone who learned sailing on similar boards. At many places where I have sailed, that's the majority of the windsurfers. Quite a few of them have done the same "bump and jump" sailing for decades, and have little interest to learn new things or to look like fools while learning to foil.

Foiling appeals (mostly) to a different crowd. It looks cooler, and therefore more appealing to a younger crowd. It feels cool, which is a good reason to stick with it.

The one thing that is similar for the LT and foiling is that both allow for relatively rapid learning and steady improvement. That's a bit different from learning the basics on a big "door" board, and then trying to learn going fast on a shortboard. That second part is a lot harder, and many who try give up quickly. On the LT, you can learn to go quicker as the wind picks up, without having to learn to sail a completely different board. To learn foiling, you can stay on a board that's similar to a beginner board (wide and high volume), and use a small(-ish) sail. Within a couple of sessions, you get the idea what foiling might feel like: a totally new feeling that's just as cool as planing at full speed. After the first sessions, there are plenty of little success stories as you learn how to control the foil. It's a bit more rewarding than trying to learn to plane.

Right now, most foil beginners are quite decent windsurfers. Sometimes, that may make learning to foil harder, since you have to unlearn a few things (thinking about a certain stretchy windsurfer here as an example). In the future, we may see more beginners going straight to the foil after learning the basics of sail handling. I'd bet that the "stick" rate will be higher than it is for switching to shortboarding now. As they progress to smaller foilboards, more wind, and higher speeds, some may get interested in shortboarding.

Foiling has greatly improved my multi-fin shortboard riding, especially gybes. Using it as my light wind summer option means my brain stays in a front footed mode. A beginner who learns to foil will step onto a smaller waveboard pretty easily once they can't waterstart.

Longboards of all types don't translate, leaving people with a dead end skillset.

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"Younger Crowd" is a relative term, I suspect foiling appeals to a younger crowd than the long board only group but at a guess the average age of the people I foil with would have to be 50+.

You exaggerate Belly, the average age of the three guys you foiled with yesterday is only 49.5

I'm turning 43 next week, and I'm learning to foil, but will never give up the slapper!

Apart from being awesome fun, foiling adds extra TOW where you'd normally be standing on the shore praying for breeze.
Last night there was plenty of guys standing on shore waiting to see if it would pick up, while 4 or 5 others were out foiling around having a great time. :)

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snides8 said..

KelpoS said..
Sorry of this has been covered, but just wondering how easily does a foil board point upwind compared to a compatible kit for a given wind speed?

From my experience generally windfoil will out point conventional gear (Slalom) especially if using race foil gear,
In all conditions as long as the foil is airborne.
I have climbed over Keelboats on some occasions and usually slightly higher than moths.
I have sailed over Wally lts as well.
when I wing foil I can point quite high as well at least as much as a Slalom setup.
I must add I currently race
Windfoil
Windsurfer LT
and keelboats
so I find the various threads
on wallys v Foils etc
quite amusing.

Racing Wallys is not for everyone and I strongly suspect the crew that bag wallys have never sailed or raced one so their opinions are base on assumption and lack of education.
Wally racing is IMO more closely related to dinghy sailing than Modern windsurfing.
The appeal is the tactical racing that slalom racing doesn't have and the fact everyone is on the same gear
so it's the purest and fairest form of Sailboard racing add weight divisions
and its even better.

What sort of setup were you on to out point a keel boat? I mean on the full race foil racefoil setup (HG2, 115plus, 900 wing etc etc) generally I point lower than most normal course racing boats but we also go much much faster, much like the moth. At 17-20kts upwind it's just not possible to out point a keelboat....well I never have. I'd also say that under 10 kts our angles are pretty horrific in sailing terms and don't really get that great until 12kts, imo. At 12kts you can almost pull the same angles as most boats but you're doing 17-18kts.

I've stayed with a Melges 24 on freeride foiling gear. I had slightly better VMG but they had better angle. This is with a "slow" foiling set-up in challenging chop. On race gear somewhere flat I'd have walked away from them.

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RichardG said..

tbwonder said..

Compared to this topic double as many posts on the LT one and 5 times as many in the topic reviewing the LT.

There is a good reason for that. People who foil spend there time foiling as it is so much fun. Perhaps if I had an LT instead I would find more time to post.

Testing your proposition seems to indicate you are likely wrong. Simply put, foiling has its own devoted section on this website, so it must have more prolific posters so not sure your statement is supported by fact. The LT posts are ,more concentrated on a few threads, so the appearance is amplified, so would doubt both the correctness of your statement and also that of the other person who you are responding to.

Number of posts is one way of comparing. Perhaps another is in number of competitors in races - about 100 entrants in upcoming LT nationals.

I reckon foiling looks fantastic but with kids I just don't have time for another form of windsurfing and no one races them in my patch. That might change in future. The main reason I got the LT is to race and cruise with kids. LT has its shortcomings - sailing it off the wind in a blow can be a little scary with no footstraps.

Suggest the only people that can truly compare foil v say LT are those few that have done and raced both over a few seasons.