Kiteforum.com

I am very interested in foils and will buy one soon. Does anyone have a list of the various models and pros/cons/differences? I am an experienced kiter in California and am mostly interested in free riding and ocean swell / waves (not racing).

Here are the ones I am aware of so are:
Moses http://www.moseshydrofoil.com/index.php ... -foilboard
MHL Lift http://www.mhlcustom.com/lift.html
Zeeka Makaira http://ocean-riders.com/#/shop/4577682532
Magma http://www.magma-customboards.com/hydro-foil.html
Carafino http://carafinohydrofoilboard.com/

I would love to hear some of your thoughts!

ketos by orana: http://www.3gcomposite.com/boutique/

Havent tried any of them. But just ordered a MHL Lift cause it looks good!

Has anyone made one that can be taken apart and packed down nice and small ?

Also wondering if there is any petential in finding a mounting system that would adapt to a standard three fin set up found on surfboards.

Mount it to your own board... that might appeal to those of us interested in the light wind novelty of it.

Foil design would have to emphasis ease of use over performance.

sword http://www.taaroa-kitefoil.com/fr/
spotz http://jc-kiteboards.fr/news/category/matos/kite-foil/

@ rowboat

Zeeko Makaira Foilboard

http://www.kitesurferstore.com/ZeekoKites.html







http://docs.zeeko-kiteboarding.com/docs ... 1Final.pdf

Best,
KitesurferRO

I tried to put together a list of available foils here: http://kitehydrofoil.com/index.php/equi ... o-buy.html, but I have only tried the MHL, so I cannot really advise too much between the different ones.

What I can say is that any low aspect, non-race foil should work very well, and I suspect all the foils are very good.

Surfing waves or swell with the foil is awesome! A slower, low aspect foil would be best for riding swell, since you can really start to manoeuvre around and make relatively tight turns once you get dialled into your foil. Getting on a wave with the foil is an awesome feeling. At first it is a mission to find out how to slow down the foil and get the kite to drift correctly since the foil has so little drag and extracts so much more energy from a wave than a surfboard can, but it is so fun trying to master the waves on a foil.

If you are fortunate enough (and brave enough) to ride massive swell (the type that rolls in from kilometres, and scares everyone off the ocean except that one brave guy with a 1m long blade under his board), then you might want to find a faster foil, but one that is still manoeuvrable at low speeds. This size swell is rare, even in Cape Town in winter. I do not know which brand foil is good at this. Does anyone know? Basically a very fast lower aspect foil.

I have tried 3 different boards, all low aspect ratio beginner boards, the best one is Carafino 2008, it is light and strong, quality and finish is much better than the MHL lift.
The second best is the Rush Randle aluminum foil, it is easy to learn and strong, but too heavy for kiteboarding.
The 2013.5 MHL Lift is the worst, very poor workmanship, very bad design, the carbon looking board is too soft. The position of the strut is too foreword on the board, it makes learning really hard.

Hawaiis wrote:The 2013.5 MHL Lift is the worst, very poor workmanship, very bad design, the carbon looking board is too soft. The position of the strut is too foreword on the board, it makes learning really hard.

Glad to hear your opinion on the MHL boards, but everyone else seems to be pretty happy with them, so I'm kind of confused.

Not to say I'm an expert at all. I've only seen one hydrofoil board in person, never ridden one. It was an MHL Lift. The construction seemed pretty solid, and the owner was very happy with it.

Do you know anyone else who has had problems with an MHL board?

Again, not trying to discount your issues with the MHL board, but just want to make sure we aren't falsely judging MHL too harshly either.

davesails7 wrote:

Hawaiis wrote:The 2013.5 MHL Lift is the worst, very poor workmanship, very bad design, the carbon looking board is too soft. The position of the strut is too foreword on the board, it makes learning really hard.

Glad to hear your opinion on the MHL boards, but everyone else seems to be pretty happy with them, so I'm kind of confused.

Not to say I'm an expert at all. I've only seen one hydrofoil board in person, never ridden one. It was an MHL Lift. The construction seemed pretty solid, and the owner was very happy with it.

Do you know anyone else who has had problems with an MHL board?

Again, not trying to discount your issues with the MHL board, but just want to make sure we aren't falsely judging MHL too harshly either.

The MHL is a bad copy of the Rush Randle and Carafino. Although I was screwed by MHL, It is my honest opinion. Although I like the lightness of the MHL, it's flex is excessive. Making it the hardest to learn on. MHL lift is the tallest, and Rush Randle is the shortest, so MHL is hardest to ride for beginners. The strut location on the MHL lift is 7 inches forward of the Rush Randle. which force me to stand too far to the front of the board, and nose dives before the board pops off the water. I wasted $1850 on the MHL lift. if it was any good, I would not need to buy another Carbon Hydrofoil.