@Zarb without knowing your height/weight and the types of waves you’re mostly foiling, I’d still say that what you have in the Prog140 is a exactly the right foil to help accelerate your learning curve towards multiples. The 140’s low stall speed and glide will make it much more forgiving to mistakes while pumping. Again, without knowing whether you prefer front or back foot feels, I’d suggest sticking with one tail set up - the Shiv (neutral footed) seems to be the most common choice for prone. A .5 degree shim might add just a bit more of a lifted feel to help on pump, or just go with 0 shim and get used to it as that’s probably what you’ll want to ride eventually to maximize efficiency.
After that it’s all about technique, which is mostly about time on foil. I agree that a lot of people overestimate the importance of equipment vs. technique in their progression. Instead of throwing money at new foils or brands or tails, consider coaching, video analysis, and time behind a boat where you let go of the rope and then pump into flat water. (Or winging if you want to learn another thing simultaneously).
Few other thoughts:
- People who come to prone foiling from a surf background tend to have an easier time learning to pop up and ride waves on foil, but find the pumping and multiples very challenging. Exact opposite for prone foilers who started out as wing foilers without much surf experience.
- Common mistakes when learning to pump (especially for ex-surfers) include not kicking out early enough, only kicking out once you’ve already started to lose speed, pumping up and down instead of projecting forward, staying too low while pumping, and most importantly staying too low on the mast.
- Plus all the other great but difficult to implement advice out there.
- None of this is easy, but if you stick with it and keep refining your technique you’ll get it eventually…