Fireball 1000 first feels.
I had a couple hours winging the Fireball. I am 180lbs, winging in lake swell. I ran it with an ultrashort advance + and a skinny 40 stab. I have been primarily on Art Pro’s for a year.
This wing gets flying way sooner than Art pro. The take off is very suttle and smooth. My board seems to taxi extra fast with the Fireball.
The handling of this foil is very intuitive and easy. It doesn’t require as much input as AP to maneuver. Jibes/tacks felt a lot smoother and predictable.
It turns slightly faster than the 1051AP. It is looser on the yah and easy to skid into and out of turns.
I really enjoyed flying it slow and doing radical turns/hacks on chop. The stall speed is much lower than AP. It also goes really fast when I wanted to. Doesn’t feel locked in on roll axis at speed as the AP does. I could accelerate instantly to mach speed.
I feel that the FB is an all around better version of the AP.
The only thing I couldn’t dial in was the pump. I tried quick taps and big hops but never really felt like I was getting a proper pump. I have read that the pump is a bit different. If anyone has beta on that, please share. It seemed to carry/glide farther than the 1051. Once I stared pumping, I would lose the glide though. I feel like that is me just trying to dial the pump in though.
Breaching was really good, better than AP.
I am stoked to get it on some bigger swells to really take advantage of the glide and connecting bumps.
So really, no downsides comparing to the AP. Just need to figure out the pump.
Fireball 1070 - I did a 18km downwinder and my first go on the 1070 as the wind was light so didn’t want to chance it on the 1000 in 12-13kn.
Good - excellent glide, super fast and easy to cover distance, eating bumps and really able to accelerate over slow sections, my heart rate in the low 150s and not really breaking too much of a sweat doing 2:40s in very light chopped up conditions. Also very good low end, at one stage I had to take a call on my watch for logistics and just cruised along not really paying attention and stayed on foil which is a first as usually I need full Flow State™ to stay on foil. No falls from breaching the entire run which is a first, but a few crashes from various mistakes.
Ok - it feels spanny and maybe a bit much at high speed. The top end is really smooth and never feels like you’re going to be ejected, but it still starts to get a “hanging on” feeling. I felt like I probably would have been better on the 1000 for those moments. Definitely didn’t feel like I could surf it in big bumps, but could turn comfortably enough.
Pump - to me it feels normal and intuitive, the faster the easier, but the low end feels normal enough to me, compared to the AP 1121
Edit - on second thought, the Fireball is more sensitive to weight than the AP, definitely needs more attention to trim to pump - move front foot back, then back foot back to get it dialled
I just double checked the number of dots in the brochure and the number of dots are correctly listed in the table. However, your order sounds more correct.
Any opinion on a good size of Fireball for downwind runs in small to medium conditions from Greyhound area down to Santa Cruz for a 75kg rider? I was thinking to pickup a 1070.
I have mainly been in the Bay on a 1201, which to me had felt quite too big on my few ocean runs in the area. I was not feeling good about dropping into the bigger swells and instead getting stuck between them in backwash struggling to keep foiling. Though that may just be a skill and confidence issue…