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light wind surfboard vs foil board

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bragnouff
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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby bragnouff » Mon Feb 19, 2018 9:53 pm

tautologies wrote:
Mon Feb 19, 2018 9:17 pm

Having a low volume board allows you to be in the water and so as you angle the board and drift with the wind, the foil will create a bit of lift for the board earlier which allows for a tad more pressure on the kite and and lift from the board. Basically you might be more efficient in terms of generating apparent wind and apparent lift from the foil as the water starts moving across the foil. If you are standing on the floaty board you will miss this and the pressure on the kite will decrease. Obviously I do understand you can angle a floaty board as well..but then why have the volume? ....and some will be able to stand on small board...even when the board submerges to start creating lift...there is a tradeoff point a place which I have no idea where is.

Of course the main reason for me to choosing a small board is I just find it easier and simpler to deal with both for travel and for keeping around.
For the same wetted surface, assuming you can angle that floaty board as much as necessary, it will have the same benefits you describe for your low volume board in terms of starting on the foil. You're not losing anything on that front having some volume in the board. But on the other hand, that extra volume that you're pushing into the water will create an opposite reaction and contribute in making you a bit lighter, and therefore contributes to lowering the overall forces required to get you going. I guess drawing some vectors would help...
Then inbetween power strokes while you're moving but not yet planning, that volume will keep you from fully sinking again and slowing down to 0.
Once the wind is decent enough (which is just a couple of kts more than in this marginal lower threshold scenario), volume will not matter much anymore and actually will be a nuisance more than anything the stronger the wind gets.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby tautologies » Mon Feb 19, 2018 10:14 pm

bragnouff wrote:
Mon Feb 19, 2018 9:53 pm
For the same wetted surface, assuming you can angle that floaty board as much as necessary, it will have the same benefits you describe for your low volume board in terms of starting on the foil. You're not losing anything on that front having some volume in the board. But on the other hand, that extra volume that you're pushing into the water will create an opposite reaction and contribute in making you a bit lighter, and therefore contributes to lowering the overall forces required to get you going. I guess drawing some vectors would help...
Then inbetween power strokes while you're moving but not yet planning, that volume will keep you from fully sinking again and slowing down to 0.
Once the wind is decent enough (which is just a couple of kts more than in this marginal lower threshold scenario), volume will not matter much anymore and actually will be a nuisance more than anything the stronger the wind gets.
:thumb:
I can see your point for sure, I have to say though this is the super marginal conditions and super marginal differences....so it would be reasonable to guestimate the benefit in given same / ideal everything else.
In my mind the benefit will be so marginal that you'd be much better off improving other parts of your equipment first. For instance getting a bigger front blade.
My mind the benefit would be way way less that 1 knop. I'd be surprised if the benefit would be even 0.5knop. Do you have any guesstimations?

I am assuming the ideal technique for both approaches would be employed, that the wind condition is ideal for the different board and ideal kite for that solution is used and that the goal is to get on a plane (where a lighter board would be beneficial). If your goal is to not sink at all between the powerstrokes then that is a different goal than what I am assuming.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby bragnouff » Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:03 am

The few times that I experienced lack of volume is when the wind dropped so much that I had very little pull when looping the kite, maybe only during 20% of the loop, kite barely staying in the air. And too much time between two loops or sines to stay longer on the surface and gain anything. The kite just barely lifts you out of the water during the pull, but can't reach the next stage of the boot sequence before sinking to the knees and ass in the water again. If I could have chosen a way to mitigate that, it would have been, in that order: longer lines, better kite, bigger kite, bigger foil, bigger board (more volume).
This applies only for marginal conditions, like Peter Frank stated. Once the kite pulls a tiny bit more it matters less and less. And maybe with the avail energy in the wind increasing with the square of wind speed, you may be right that it's about half a knot or two.
Pity the ones who desperately need that half knot!

At some point, we have to accept that there are days when it gets too light, when the wind drops too much and we'll fall below whatever threshold we have. However it's not that uncommon since we tend to try and test the bottom boundaries through foiling, whereas we wouldn't even consider going out in that in the old days. Similar considerations when snowkiting, but in 3D. How much you can gain altitude in a loop cycle...

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby tautologies » Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:32 am

bragnouff wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:03 am
The few times that I experienced lack of volume is when the wind dropped so much that I had very little pull when looping the kite, maybe only during 20% of the loop, kite barely staying in the air. And too much time between two loops or sines to stay longer on the surface and gain anything. The kite just barely lifts you out of the water during the pull, but can't reach the next stage of the boot sequence before sinking to the knees and ass in the water again. If I could have chosen a way to mitigate that, it would have been, in that order: longer lines, better kite, bigger kite, bigger foil, bigger board (more volume).
This applies only for marginal conditions, like Peter Frank stated. Once the kite pulls a tiny bit more it matters less and less. And maybe with the avail energy in the wind increasing with the square of wind speed, you may be right that it's about half a knot or two.
Pity the ones who desperately need that half knot!

At some point, we have to accept that there are days when it gets too light, when the wind drops too much and we'll fall below whatever threshold we have. However it's not that uncommon since we tend to try and test the bottom boundaries through foiling, whereas we wouldn't even consider going out in that in the old days. Similar considerations when snowkiting, but in 3D. How much you can gain altitude in a loop cycle...
:thumb:
Yeah I think we are pretty much in agreement. My priority has been having a small and easily transportable board. I do think there are bigger advantages to gain from having more lift from a foil blade :-)
Regarding the float when getting power and then landing on water again...I am wondering if technique would be a way that can help avoid having the board go down...once you get enough lift you can also pump the foil itself upwind to tighten up the lines again and create some apparent wind..if you have enough foil it should be possible to transfer some energy from your legs to the kite.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby jakemoore » Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:29 am

Have any of the people advocating door style twintips or surfboards tried foiling?

I just can't imagine there is any comparison unless it's shallow or there is seaweed.

I love my light wind TT and alaia in shallow flat water. Surfboard in truely light wind is better to surf without the kite. SUP and longboard are better without the kite. But none of those make me wish the wind would back off like a want for hydrofoil.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby bigtone667 » Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:48 am

jakemoore wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:29 am
Have any of the people advocating door style twintips or surfboards tried foiling?

I just can't imagine there is any comparison unless it's shallow or there is seaweed.

I love my light wind TT and alaia in shallow flat water. Surfboard in truely light wind is better to surf without the kite. SUP and longboard are better without the kite. But none of those make me wish the wind would back off like a want for hydrofoil.
I ride a door, surf board or foil and pick what I need depending on the conditions. My local beach location goes from sand bank "door" friendly conditions from mid tide to low tide to great foil conditions as tide heads to high.
Only two weeks ago I started on the foil and 6.2m kite, went to the Surfboard/Door and 6.2m kite as the tide fell and the wind picked up and ended the day on the same 6.2m kite and TT. Magic Day, one kite and three boards.

But I will definitely ride the foil as my first choice device in low wind conditions if the water is deep enough. For me, Doors/TT/Surfboards don't really cut it in the 10 knot range.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby joriws » Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:30 am

jakemoore wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:29 am
Have any of the people advocating door style twintips or surfboards tried foiling?

I just can't imagine there is any comparison unless it's shallow or there is seaweed.
Sure, I've both foil & flydoor xl twintip. On low wind days (which we have plenty) I cannot imagine that I could go foil any better than flydoor-twintip. Race foil would ride faster and better upwind angles when planing but the problem is having the power to gain the speed for plane first => kite is at "zenith" at 60 degrees. I cannot bodydrag out with foil to deep enough waters which requires 100m bodydragging on my usual sea beach. If the foil is low performance I go circles around the foil with Sonic2 15m and flydoor. Which I did last summer to a ploughing guy with cloud & foil. He sold his foil quite quickly after that for better performance foil.. :)

Someone mentioned 10kn winds - that would be a storm on our summer! I am all the time talking 6kn and up ultra-low-winds aka single digit winds. My 110kg + flydoor xl + sonic2 15m is roughly 7-8kn that can plane. But instead of exact wind numbers - I've posted also to this thread older video where I am using Speed4 15lotus to go with unfamiliar door-TT when 17m LEI kites do not fly properly. And with my Sonics my door-lowend has improved.

--

About volume/displacement - I think it is to Peter_Frank to proof via video (I follow your YT channel so upload there) that he can lift off better with standing over knee deep on his submerged 35l (or something) foilboard to gain floatation balance point with feet adding vast drag against 9m(ish) kite dive instead of sitting on the water and pushing board sideways ("normal technique"). And prove at the same time that wind is light. Let's say 8kn wind is accepted. Seeing is believing and now I am calling you for your statements. Somehow proof that board volume has significant effect on 8kn wind.

If we look at Gunnar's video about body dragging with foil at the end we see that he's not standing on the board but setting it up "normal" (sitting on water front foot straight and foil about 45 degree angle) to have pivot point and minimum resistance from the water - and cannot achieve plane on first dive on 1:23. What I see has nothing to do with *board* volume, even between dives when he's on top of board the board is moving but tail heavy sea anchor and water is not surrounding the full board to gain volume-based displacement lift (same happens on door-tt when wind is light, I can get to board but I cannot push board over the planing speed, I can "sweat-plane" and try maybe 10m and then quit trying). On video he talks about next video about water start but I cannot find such video, can you? Other views?

https://vimeo.com/96927290

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby jakemoore » Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:29 pm

joriws wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:30 am
jakemoore wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:29 am
...
I just can't imagine there is any comparison unless it's shallow or there is seaweed.
Sure, I've both foil & flydoor xl twintip. On low wind days (which we have plenty) I cannot imagine that I could go foil any better than flydoor-twintip. Race foil would ride faster and better upwind angles when planing but the problem is having the power to gain the speed for plane first => kite is at "zenith" at 60 degrees. I cannot bodydrag out with foil to deep enough waters which requires 100m bodydragging on my usual sea beach. If the foil is low performance I go circles around the foil with Sonic2 15m and flydoor. Which I did last summer to a ploughing guy with cloud & foil. He sold his foil quite quickly after that for better performance foil.. :)

Someone mentioned 10kn winds - that would be a storm on our summer! I am all the time talking 6kn and up ultra-low-winds aka single digit winds. My 110kg + flydoor xl + sonic2 15m is roughly 7-8kn that can plane. But instead of exact wind numbers - I've posted also to this thread older video where I am using Speed4 15lotus to go with unfamiliar door-TT when 17m LEI kites do not fly properly. And with my Sonics my door-lowend has improved.

--

Maybe that says more about the low end of the Cloud kites than hydrofoil? A need for a kite that pulls in light wind is a given for seeking the ultimate low end.

A big Flysurfer and a door make a well known light wind combo for a long time now. But if the water was deep enough would a hydrofoil on the bottom off the door slow and degrade it's low end?

If a person wanted to buy a board and not a kite to improve their low end fun would you suggest a door as the first choice?

Are you looking forward to flydoor days?

P.s. the Flysurfer door "mirrors" light wind video is the sweetest of all. If I had those conditions I would look forward to lighter wind so I could ride the door. Its a shallow.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby early bird2 » Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:30 pm

I know I'm a little off the title but for me , I would pick a Freerace board instead of a surfboard for light wind , I ride a Sector 60 and this is a very good compromise . Gets on a plane in light wind with a 17 Chrono , Good speed , goes upwind decently , jibes and play in the small chop very good . I don't have a door but my feeling is that the Freerace is not far back from it in light air and probably more fun , plus would get on a plane before a surf board . Of course it takes a little more water depth than a door . Anyone here tested Door against a Freerace against surfboard?

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby jakemoore » Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:49 pm

I have an NJS race board. It does have better low end and upwind than the door and surfboard unless there is seaweed. Its very heavy for a jump. I don't think its buoyancy that helps it so much as the fact that it has a wider planing area, straps are placed better, and big efficient fins. I haven't ridden it since the foil came.


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