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light wind surfboard vs foil board

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zerogee_ca
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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby zerogee_ca » Tue Feb 20, 2018 5:21 pm

We don't get waves in light winds, so the foilboard wins hands down. The foilboard adds new challenges, sensations and excitement that a light wind surfboard, or big TT's and Raceboards don't for me. The doorboards and raceboards had their day, time to move on.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby Slappysan » Tue Feb 20, 2018 7:27 pm

While I enjoy LW foiling there are drawbacks that make me opt for my skimboard instead if it's 8+ konts.

- If I drop my kite when foiling I have a 30-60 minute swim in cold water (vs. being able to just stand up)
- If the wind lulls for a few minutes I'm swimming in, vs. just standing around waiting for it to come back
- I have to walk / drag out to deep water, in some cases 500m
- extra setup / pack down time

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby tautologies » Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:35 pm

joriws wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:30 am
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.
Foil and any sized TT cannot compare. The foil will win that game every time. If you can go on a TT you'll be able to go on a door (simple fact is that foil can have larger boards as well), once you go on a foil you'll go faster, better and more upwind where the door at some point will drag you downwind.
IMO doors are also a PITA to ride in any kind of wind. It is literally the only board I dislike, but I respect that other like them. :-)

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby joriws » Wed Feb 21, 2018 2:37 pm

jakemoore wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:29 pm
... inlined ...
I interpreted jakemoore's questions more towards me so I answered those from my conditions.. Someone else on somewhere else would think differently.

> But if the water was deep enough would a hydrofoil on the bottom off the door slow and degrade it's low end?

Sorry - I do not understand the first question/comment what it means? Adding twiptip hydrofoil to door board? "bottom of the door"?

Sure I acknowledge that hydrofoil has less resistance when planing. But I try to highlight if you ever get to plane. And I can run door so low winds that when I cannot run it - usually kite's zenith is at 60-70 degrees so kite would not even fly to 90 degrees above your head. So I doubt that there is really enough force getting out & planing with hydrofoil either. But if I get to plane I could upwind angle better and maintain plane as less resistance on hydrofoil.

But I have not tested ultimate door-TT, the flyrace with big middle fin for upwind angles and angled footpads to keep board as flat as possible so you can run it against the fins. I think that is light wind evolution end of doors.

> 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?

My answer would be better kite because we do snowkite 1/3 of the year and it has the widest use scenarios. Ice kiting is like hydrofoiling going fast with no power because no resistance from surface. Wet deep snow is like tar where you need horse power to move. Mountain snowkiting - safe gliding and huge windrange..

But the question and local environment my answer would be door because it is easier to ride and we have ton of shallow beaches. I've hit my foil many times to sea bottom missing pieces of front wing, so did the cloud guy. And door is much cheaper than 2000€ hydrofoil. Some friends even did their own door from carbon. Surfboard - no, we do not have proper waves but if you are skater and want directional then go for it.

> Are you looking forward to flydoor days?

Not exactly but it is a session saver when you drive one-way 130km to beach to find out not enough wind for smaller board so sure I'll rider smaller boards by default. But on flydoor I can do something when weather fails. Darkslides etc. So in that sense I do look forward.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby joriws » Wed Feb 21, 2018 3:47 pm

tautologies wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:35 pm
joriws wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:30 am
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.
Foil and any sized TT cannot compare. The foil will win that game every time. If you can go on a TT you'll be able to go on a door (simple fact is that foil can have larger boards as well), once you go on a foil you'll go faster, better and more upwind where the door at some point will drag you downwind.
IMO doors are also a PITA to ride in any kind of wind. It is literally the only board I dislike, but I respect that other like them. :-)
The message quoted was answer to jakemoore's question if someone has both (foil & door) and what you think. "Have any of the people advocating door style twintips or surfboards tried foiling?"

Your quoted line has been taken away from it's surroundings. The idea behind my message is ultra light wind (single digit winds in knots). Usually when it is 6 knots or something the actual wind is 4-7 knots. Kite is not properly flying at zenith. So.. "I cannot imagine that I could go foil any better than flydoor-twintip" means in that context that I cannot get to planing-speed with door and I think I am not able to bodydrag out with foil 100m to even try foil-based attempt to plane. Again remember I am talking 6kn avg wind to be below my estimated door'able wind. As I can go very low already with door. So if foil is 0.5kn 'better' lowend it is not easy to utilize "I cannot imagine *I*..".

10kn winds, I am not using door. That would be a storm. Foil would give better angles etc - which I acknowledged many times. 6kn is the key and to be under the winds I can barely plane with door.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby tautologies » Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:39 pm

joriws wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 3:47 pm
Your quoted line has been taken away from it's surroundings.
It was not my intention to take your quote out of context. :-)

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby Matteo V » Fri Feb 23, 2018 8:49 pm

Slappysan wrote:
Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:14 pm

I know you ride a LF kitefish so you wont experience this with that board at all because it weighs a ton and is pretty low volume. If you have access to a light weight 35L + board take it out and practice standing still on top of it and see how much kite force you need to stay dry.
I broke all of them. I never had a kitesurfboard or surfboard that I tried to kite that was over around 40l. Windsurfboards are so bad as kiteboards, that there is really no value in my experience there.

The kite fish was what I came to at the end of buying lots of production kitesurfboards. Once I was forced to ride the KiteFish, and I hated it at first, I grew to love it and realized it's positive attributes. Almost all of these I believed to be negatives at the beginning:

1. Low volume means your feet are closer to the planing surface and the "moment" induced by high volume was nearly eliminated so the board handles/ responds better when pushed hard.
2. High weight means that the board, for as flat as it is, sticks on the water at high speed through chop.
3. Low rocker/short length means that you do not have the swing length of a traditional kitesurfboard and can fit in troughs that you never could with long kitesurfboard.
4. Low rocker/short length means you also have good upwind capabilities in a compact waterline at low speeds and do not catch too much wind with a turned up long nose like you would on a traditional kitesurfboard at high speeds.
5. Dura-frickin-bility! No longer did I have to buy a new production kitesurfboard and immediately put another 6oz deck patch on top of it (I did 6oz and a Kevlar patch once - that was the only board that never broke....well at least not in that patch area)
6. Straps allow you to pressure the wide fish tail in such a manner that allows you to ride the steepest of ocean faces, but then go back to having a wide tail when you want/need it.
7. Even with being sold on the "cool-aid" of strapless at first, I came to realize straps were what gave me more G's and the ability to really push the limits of kitesurfing. And this board really only mows the lawn when strapless. So being a board that requires the straps to do it all with, I almost always ride it strapped. This is the best property of the board - keeping the straps on for more fun which the board is tough enough to take.

Slappysan wrote:
Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:14 pm

When you ride boards like this and the wind lulls out you get that typical sinking feeling at first but then the buoyancy will kick in as you slow down and you'll find it reaches an equilibrium where on a no volume board you would have just sank.
And again, I am a complete failure in getting across the concept of displacement, Sub planing (plowing), and planing. If the forward movement of the board is around 2knots or more, you can see that planing forces have taken over. Just look down at your board and if the water has "fallen off" the back of the tail, (sub)planing forces are the only thing acting on the board. ONLY when you have the board sunk, is volume relevant as a force holding you up.

If by that last part, you are talking about the 2 non-kitesurfing pics previously posted, that never happens in a useful manner. If submerged volume was a useful thing in kiting:

1. TT boards would have volume added to their decks
2. Old school kiterace boards would have volumes approaching the displacement of the rider (did not really exceed half of that)
3. There would be more than 1% of kiters using higher volume funboard surfboards
4. There would be some displacement only (catamaran board, or sailboat mono-hull) kiteboards on the market


I hate to do this 2 times in a month, but let me make your argument against mine, for you.

You can, and some kiters actually do, ride a high volume longboard or SUP board. This is negated simply by the fact that these hinder so much of the performance potential of a kite, that almost no one does this - or only tries it once.

There is a split second where a 75kg rider has just sunk a 40l board to where the deck is covered, but the feet of the kiter are not. If this coincides precisely to the moment the kite delivers power to the rider and the rider pulls out of this "sinking" situation, then your notion of volume being useful would be valid. I would guess this to be a 1 in 100,000 chance of occurring as described. And in order for it to occur, rider speed must go to 0 for long enough to sink the board that far. In order to go to zero speed, the kite pull has to be ZERO for longer than 1 second. AND the riders momentum would also have to be given up quickly with intentional braking of the board via pitch or sideslip with weighted heels or toes. I am not saying this does not occur, as lulls, tacks, or out running the kite do happen frequently. But what I am saying is that any rider in at least any break I have been to, CAN AVOID your speed going to zero. Avoidance of "no speed" is crucial to "staying upright" in kiteboarding/kitesurfing. Those that achieve "zero speed" in kiteboarding, at least from my observations, find their next visual perspective is looking UP at the surface of the water.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby Slappysan » Fri Feb 23, 2018 9:33 pm

Like I said you just gotta get out there on a decent volume board and give it a try. Just sit stationary and float on the board using the kite to support as much weight as needed. It's not even that hard, especially if you are decent at balancing on a low volume SUP.

I'll try and make a video of me doing it for you but I'm not sure I'll be able to do it one handed.

The fact is I'm 165 lbs and I can stay dry in 12 knots of wind on my 4'10" x 19" (147 x 48 cm) surfboard with a 9m kite. That can't happen without the 30-35L of volume of that board. And the fact that I'm dry means that I wont need to go 10-15m downwind doing a looping LW water start once the wind freshens. This means I can kite through lulls in marginal winds.

I am also one of those people that take out my 10' SUP with my 17m kite occasionally, but only when I'm doing tandem rides with my kids. It's actually a lot of fun and works as low as 7 knots staying upwind.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby grigorib » Fri Feb 23, 2018 11:07 pm

tautologies wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:35 pm
joriws wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:30 am
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.
Foil and any sized TT cannot compare. The foil will win that game every time. If you can go on a TT you'll be able to go on a door (simple fact is that foil can have larger boards as well), once you go on a foil you'll go faster, better and more upwind where the door at some point will drag you downwind.
IMO doors are also a PITA to ride in any kind of wind. It is literally the only board I dislike, but I respect that other like them. :-)
Foil beats any door in ability to ride lightwind
Except
- when you're riding 1-2 feet of water depth
- when the kite is falling out of sky, you messed up a transition and need to focus on flying the kite and you're missing having your feet in the straps and being able to go any direction without a single glance at the board

I love my foils but I could ride my door in 9-10 knots by the shore, keeping the kite above the houses roof line (with 37m lines) in offshore wind and I wouldn't dare walking two hundred yards further out where I cold barely stand so I would be able to foil.

Also doors are amazing to get newbies up and riding. Kite schools that teach on regular/smaller size boards can ring up more training hours on water. Kind of like teaching kids to ride a bike on a unicycle.

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Re: light wind surfboard vs foil board

Postby Matteo V » Sat Feb 24, 2018 5:37 am

Slappysan wrote:
Fri Feb 23, 2018 9:33 pm
Like I said you just gotta get out there on a decent volume board and give it a try. Just sit stationary and float on the board using the kite to support as much weight as needed. It's not even that hard, especially if you are decent at balancing on a low volume SUP.
I do this on the kite fish, in medium to high winds. Light winds - this is not something I try to do when the winds are 12knots or less. Rather I make every effort to avoid stopping in light winds. Speed, and speed through the trainsition is key to having a good time in light winds.

So are you talking in medium (15knts) or high winds (20+knots)?

Again, I love to see how slow I can go, or even stop on the Kitefish, with the kite just above me moving quickly back and forth in medium or high winds.


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