Fortunately there are some great shops and brands out there to buy from at this point that don’t shy away from these issues. If something isn’t right, they just swap it out immediately or are willing to offer heavy discounts on blems to move them along. As foiling becomes more nuanced and precision becomes more important those will be the shops and brands that stand out and thrive in a market filled with many options. I theorize that right now the shift on the foils from standard carbon over to hm/uhm construction (f-one sk8 is the most recent, no change to design, just change to stiffness as far as I have been told) is going to demand that much more on the whole system. I’d expect that will mean the actual necessity for things being closer to perfection becomes more of a reality. Time will tell.
He kept the cedrus
Exact same conclusion as him with mine, ie a performance long lasting mast that you had use with any brands.
The weight is due to the solid one piece aluminum Armstrong adapter (same with Gofoil).
All the other brands a tiny adapter so weight is not an issue.
Maybe we have different ideas on unbiased reviews. This guy got sent a mast for free for three months to make a youtube video. It also sounds like he’s getting the surf mast sent to him to review as well. OP’s situation of getting a heavily blemished/repaired mast is very different than a cherry picked mast sent out for a video shoot. (Cedrus did post on social media this week that all their masts come with blemishes. I think this would be more useful to consumers making purchase decisions if posted on their website instead of as a comment on a social media photo.)
It’s the only review I’ve ever seen posted for any piece of gear by someone where the reviewer tries to paint a positive light on decreased maneuverability by saying how it makes them feel like a more solid rider. It was a bit confusing to me that he’s talking about loading up fully powered turns and how the Cedrus helped with that but it was just a few clips of him flowing rail to rail flagged out in a mellow style.
I did appreciate though that while the review seemed more like an informative ad for Cedrus he didn’t totally oversell it. I don’t think he said it was better than the Armstrong mast in any way other than the single day he noted it as going upwind a little better. He’s keeping it because it was sufficient as a universal mast and he’s interested in trying some other brands. Not because it was the best.
We had originally decided not participate in this discussion but feel the need to address some misinformation related to Cedrus products and services.
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We currently do not sponsor any athletes and have very limited production capacity. This is the primary reason you do not see Cedrus being ridden by “top riders” or by social media influencers. We have never given away a mast; we simply cannot afford to. We also sell primarily direct to consumer (DTC) and don’t get a lot of exposure from shops or dealers because we do not have many dealers. We are very thankful for all paying customers, including the shops who buy and use our products, and in that sense, every review of Cedrus is unbiased. We do not sponsor Oceanbound. They are a long time Cedrus customer (purchased a carbon classic for kite foiling in 2019) and we were interested in their feedback on Evolution Wind. We sent them a demo mast for a review. There is not a lot of review content on Evolution Wind; few people seem to understand the unique design, and we get a lot of questions about wind/surf comparison. We are trying to get more content and unbiased, 3rd party feedback on our masts. MacKite will be releasing their reviews soon.
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We have had 2 customers return their Cedrus masts, which results in a >99% satisfaction rate. One 250lb rider returned his surf mast after he found it not suitable for paddle up starts on 2m span wings. This is not what the mast was designed for. It didn’t break, it just wasn’t stiff enough. Another wing foil customer returned his Surf mast after 4 months of use due to vibrations with certain foils that we have yet to fully understand or validate with other riders. The mast was refinished and is now being enjoyed by another prone foiler. We have had 1 wing foiler trade their Evolution Surf masts for Evolution Wind for better stability and performance at speed. We also had 1 other wing foiler demo a Wind and they found that it solved some instabilities they were experiencing with Surf, but decided to keep the surf due to the playful nature. Again, and as clearly stated on our site, Evolution Surf was not designed for wing foiling, though it will certainly work for most in this use case. Evolution Wind is the first and only mast with a patented shape to prevent ventilation. Evolution Surf is designed with the needs of prone foilers in mind, and does not have the same ventilation resistance. We have been 100% transparent about this on our site since launching the mast in 2023. We have been very generous exchanging masts for wing foilers who purchased Evolution Surf despite our best marketing efforts. We also had 1 wing foiler switch from Wind to Surf! We do incur costs with these exchanges. One of the riders who exchanged for Wind also has a shorter Surf for prone/DW. The reality is, prone and DW are very different use cases from wing foiling, and as the first brand to launch two very distinct masts for different use cases, this by itself serves as the best acknowledgement that Evolution Surf is not designed for wing foiling. We had 1 wing foiler on an early build 103cm Evolution Wind experience ventilation on specific point of sail. He was helpful in identifying the molding defect and we refinished his mast at no cost and he is happy.
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The lower foot of the mast contains an aluminum insert that is encapsulated with epoxy. The filler has a different shade of black than the surrounding rubber and carbon fiber. The filler is non-structural, and we do our best to blend this area, much like the track mount area or tail of any hand-shaped, hand-painted surf board. On a few masts, we tried black paint, but decided against this for future builds. These are the cosmetic imperfections we mention in our FAQ and on the card that is included with each mast. We are not hiding anything. These areas do not cause ventilation. By nature, ventilation initiates at the waterline in the piercing region of the mast, and travels down to the lower pressure region created by the foils. The visual imperfections at the lower mast foot do not impact performance, and this is backed by nearly 10 years of experience designing, analyzing, and building foil masts. We continue to improve the cosmetics and surfacing of this highly complex and structural region. We finish our masts with a very slippery, smooth, and scratch resistant UV curable finish. Painting the mast is the #1 cost in terms of time and money, and because it’s done by hand, each mast will be unique.
In closing, we know that Cedrus is not for everyone. We are focused on creating a high performance, universal mast, that works for most riders. This is not easy. If you have any questions, concerns, comments, please feel free to reach out. Thank you to those customers who have given us the opportunity to solve their problems or fix some early production issues. We can’t solve problems we don’t know about. Considering Cedrus? Please don’t hesitate to contact us before purchasing so we can understand your use case and make sure it’s right mast for you.
I think this is only partially true. A simple counter example is the takuma kujira v1 that sold to most riders out there with minimal marketing budget, or the fone strike v1. Top riders (and regular riders) make a compromise between money, influence and feels. It varies from person to person but generally speaking the feels hold a significant part of one’s choice, after all we all do it for the love of the feels we get on the “right” gear. The kits that sell a lot usually strike the right formula, even though marketing can definitely influence the sales numbers. But it’s hard to fool people more than once. Multi-year riders usually know what works, what to look for, who to listen to. In the end the truth always prevails.
That being said making a universal mast is a hard endeavor and I respect the craftsmanship, same is true for anyone building things out there.
I never did understand the criticisms of the cosmetics…as when you asked how my evolution surf was working out, I told you “it’s a slippery work of art” (and you can tell there is filler like those in the complaint photos…not sure why this it would be a problem)
My surf evo is so incredibly low drag you can feel it right away as soon as you take your first few pumps. It is like a hand-brake has been removed. Will it make you into a youtube star - highly dubious.
There are pros and cons of the cedrus mast that we can debate, but I’m riding mine every session right now, and it is really clear to me that there should be no debate about the low drag. If that’s something you want, I highly suggest you try it.
Was there ever any hard data produced for this or any other mast proving that one has less drag than another? Not on paper… Can actual use really be simulated in a tank?
That one mast “feels” like it has less drag than another is simply not going to cut it for me. Rider reviews are entertaining but only subjective opinion.
If one wants a universal mast there’s no better option. I would buy one based solely on that provavble fact.
He spent a lot of money to have access to one of the Americas Cup foil designer , used the software to develop that profile.
Close enough to a water tank testing?
I don’t know, you’d have to ask the America Cup teams whether they trust the software enough 
As far as I know I’m the only one who really compiled and compared a lot of data on it? I looked at the same 4 foils on 3 masts (4 AFS foils on 2 AFS masts and Cedrus Surf) over 1500 miles or so. I calculated average speed on each foil/mast combo as well as average heart rate on each foil/mast combo to get my results.
It takes a lot of time to acquire all that data and you have to be careful to throw out oddball data sets:
- Don’t include days when the wind blows the opposite direction in the gorge.
- Don’t include days when river flow is abnormally high or low to impact data.
- Don’t include any short speed run sessions.
- Don’t include any bad sessions with too many falls which impact heart rate and average speeds.
So, it takes a huge amount of time and effort to put together usable data sets for real world feedback and I doubt many people care to do that.
Every time I hear “America’s Cup Designer” in surf foiling I think about Armstrong and how much all their stuff sucks.
To be fair no 3rd party has collected any valuable data on this stuff at all, its all about feels, at least the opinions from consumers we read on this forum. Probably why every manufacturer is able to claim their mast is the stiffest and lowest drag on the market… They probably like how none of any companies gear is directly comparable.
At the moment I think the “feels” that people reference is related to the short central chord (Cedrus 110mm). The only other masts in that realm that I know of are AFS Skinny (100mm), Duotone Slim 2.0 (108mm), and One Ocean Sports UHM SSS (102-108mm). As such, I simply don’t think most riders have a frame of reference to compare this at the moment. Short chords have better maneuverability (best actualized on larger span foils 900+mm) which 100% undeniably “feels” like less drag.
The data I collected on speed and heart rate seems to support thinner masts over shorter chords for actual data on drag. I did a minimum 100 mile test distance buy in to enter data comparison on every foil/mast combo. If the data was all scattered I would have thrown it all out as irrelevant. However, every foil showed average speed increases as the masts got thinner, along with lower heartrates. The largest step going from the 19mm/16mm Cedrus (120mm/110mm chord), down to the 13.5mm AFS UHM full chord (115mm) and then another, small, speed increase going from that mast down to the 12.8mm AFS Skinny (mine is 99mm).
So, for “feels” the short chord definitely produces a feeling that many people don’t have experience with yet that is really fun. For data, all trackable metrics I looked at show thinner to perform better.
dude you have to relax a little on all the cedrus posts. You reviewed the SURF mast while strictly WINGING. I read your blog article on it. You even raised the question of should you try the wing mast to answer it as a no based on what others have said about it. Cedrus has very specifically made these two separate masts for wing and surf. I don’t think it’s really fair to be this anti-cedrus when you haven’t even reviewed the proper mast for your main method of foiling.
Now, if you go get the their wind mast and come to the same conclusion then by all means come let us know. I almost wish cedrus would just loan you a wind mast to try it.
There’s nothing anti cedrus in that post at all. It’s commentary on speed and heart rate data in relationship to mast thickness and chord as a response to a question about if any data has been produced comparing masts.
Man am I the only one buying gear because I like the color?
Worrying about % improvements in all these different statistics seems to me like a fast way to suck the joy out of foiling.
Come on man. I’m talking in general. You’re very vocal on all things cedrus here. This is fine, but not everybody has read your blog and knows all the background of you solely winging on it.
You have to realize your posts online have a negative impact on cedrus and their sales. You obviously are a very talented winger, but try their wind mast and then make these claims. You’re turning people off cedrus based on riding the wrong mast for winging. It’s fine to share this, but it shouldn’t be much more than something like “the surf mast does not do well while winging based on my experience and whatever data you came up with”. That’s fine. But sometimes your posts can be misinterpreted by some that don’t know the background because they haven’t read all your other posts.
The question was asked:
So, I responded with what might be the only available data on the subject that isn’t “feels” based. Nothing negative, just data that was collected from me flagging out riding swell downwind and then going back up. I have not been informed that’s an inappropriate use of the mast.
Simply put, shorter chord feels more playful, thinner masts are more efficient.
If you have other questions you can DM me but not really interested in diving back into the past cedrus discussions.
do I have data about drag? no.
take my comment as a comment. This isn’t a peer reviewed journal paper we’re preparing here. We’re all just throwing out our opinions so that others have them and can take them into account. In the internet age, we need to build the skill of listening to a noisy signal and filtering it out into the information we care about. Some people don’t care about my opinion and I’m fine with that. Many people don’t care about a certain cedrus basher, and that person should probably adopt a similar mindset.
My only point is that I tried an axis aluminum, axis high modulus carbon, and a cedrus EVO surf on the same clean glassy small wave morning, same foil, same conditions. Back to back. And the cedrus wins hands down and is clearly lower drag for pumping and gliding.
All are welcome to share their informed opinions also, and I will listen, filter, and continue to form my opinion.