Good luck…I silenced all Wouzel’s posts so I no longer see them…which makes things much better around here for me on all things Cedrus, but seeing your comments reminded me of my own efforts and those of a bunch of others - made to no avail. Would be nice to be able to say something positive or even constructive, aside from recommending the silencing option in your account preferences under “Users”…nothing else seems to make a difference that I’m aware of…
1 Like
Data is great, but there are sooo many variables to consider… who is really collecting it in the controlled environment, precisely paired conditions needed to do some kind of accurate scientific comparison. If foiling buddies I know and trust who ride well and tell me something is fast, glides well, is stiff… I believe them and value the information. It’s proved to be accurate in most cases. Some of it is rider dependent, comes down to a matter of style and taste,but ultimately, it’s “feels”… the feedback my gear is giving me that is the primary thing I care about when I try something out. The feedback my equipment is giving me is pretty critical in enjoyment and being able to do what I want to do on a wave, swell etc. If I was racing it might be different, but if I put on a new foil or a different mast and I’m whipping around turns on a wave smoother and easier… if I’m riding swell, carrying /gliding further, linking more bumps than I was before, I frankly don’t give a crap if someone logged it .5 kts slower…
You are all correct 
Based on having VERY limited hard data we have nothing more to go on but opinion of people we trust. I happen to have an inherent distrust of anyone trying to make a buck off of me. This is based on many years of buying junk without trying it first. Trusting opinions. All humans exhibit confirmation bias to some degree.
In fact Mr. Wouzel is the one of the very few that have attempted to quantify the mast puzzle and appears to do it out of passion. As far as I can tell, it’s not for profit. As far as feel and opinion, I would agree that a mast with a shorter chord should have less resistance in turning, a plus for the Cedrus and similar. As to drag, the jury is still out and probably always will be.
By all means, continue to debate the topic. Nothing will be resolved but if it’s in pursuit of higher performance in our collective passion, there’s nothing wrong with it 
2 Likes
Is the jury still out on drag? 
In my opinion, yes 
My opinions
- distrust any data deemed to be conclusive
- for prone and downwind, stiffness is MORE important than drag (Something I’ve changed my mind on, I used to think the opposite, sorry… This based on testing 4 masts from skinny to mega chord with the exact same setup over 4 days of pumping surf, two protos)
- the average wingers’ ability is too low to make conclusive judgements on the subtleties of foils as they rely on the wing more than they realise and operate exclusively in the mid-range of foils
sorry not sorry etc - this mast thread, the last one, and the one before that are all harmful to this forum and the nascent independent gear scene and I am withholding/couldn’t be bothered to share the detailed findings on 2 above because of it. LAME!
5 Likes
Could you clarify please,what does “skinny to mega chord” mean?. Skinny is short chord or thin section?.
What are the Top Downwind racers using in terms of thickness and chord?.
I have read Pros praising thin section, medium chord masts.
James Casey had a vid comparing a few.
Sorry it’s both dimensions, thin to thick section, narrow to thick chord.
Top racers are riding <600scqm >17AR foils so quite hard to make the same compromises they make - They are also very careful in where they put their praise. Whatever their sponsor just released is the best
This quote is referring to a comparison between NoLimitz V1 and Cedrus Classic (designed in 2017). It has absolutely no relevance to the Evolution masts, nor any argument related to drag vs. thickness vs. chord length.
Three independent reviews of Evolution Surf vs. NoLimitz V2 confirm better glide characteristics for Surf. Evolution Surf is on average thicker, but has a shorter chord length the NoLimitz mast. Since these videos were already shared on a thread that has since been removed, we will re-post them below.
This thread has gotten very out of hand, hopefully it can go back to a discussion soon, again no bashing and negativity was ever intended, if anything it was to help foilers considering purchasing a cedrus learn more about them before spending the money. I’m still riding my cedrus, it’s a great mast for the correct foiler, extremely efficient, turns on a dime so it really helps out those larger foils. Excellent execution on the adapters as well. For 95% of surf style prone and down wind foilers, it’s all about the real world feels, and it does feel great.
Respecfully, the first video from the foil shop I would consider very biased, given they are a dealer of cedrus masts. Myself and the couple of friends who have tried my setup would agree based on real world feels which anyone can chose to credit or discredit as they please. At the end of the day we’re just some noboy’s as far as anyone is concerned. to each their own on what they want to see and believe, if they’re distributing the mast’s and profiting off of sales i’d consider that biased. Other riders who have expectations based on a video like that may expect more than they receive.
On another note, bring in some positivity with the james casey video. He claims it’s a little bit harder to paddle up than other masts, I’m new to dw and have not been SUPing very long. again I’m nobody, take with that and do what you will, I don’t find that mast much more difficult to paddle up in dw scenarios, I have zero issues with it on the paddle up and for anyone who is looking to downwind on the cedrus surf, go for it, if you can’t paddle it up, it’s not the mast that’s holding you back, it downwinds very well.
Cedrus product and reputation seems to speak for itself I like it, don’t love it, but I would 100% recommend it to someone looking for the best universal adapter on the market
For the record, Foilshop is a dealer of all three of those masts and the tester is a sponsored Uni rider. Based on those facts, I trust that they don’t have any economic interest in promoting Cedrus vs the others.
4 Likes
Foil shop is great at sales! I’ve personally spent thousands of dollars with them on Uni gear, and I bought my Cedrus through them. I’ve owned 3 of the 4 tested, that’s what my opinions were based off of
1 Like
mackite has a review of the Evolution masts up now.
2 Likes
Correct. My Masters is in Experiential Education, I have a passion for learning and understanding as much as possible in my hobbies. I used to be fully employed in the outdoor industry, tested and developing gear, worked with pro athletes, breaking equipment in the lab with engineers, fun stuff! My writing possibly best serves people who are more analytical in their decisions. Especially people who can’t get hands on gear and have to buy blindly. The joy in it for me is probably rooted in awesome private conversations with people in remote locations around the world who need more than feels based reviews. It’s been very cool talking to people who are trying to figure out foiling alone in the middle of nowhere.
I think that quote combo is a good close to the conversation and sums up my Cedrus experience perfectly. Bennetts is very clearly talking about this topic and I see no reason to discredit him in any way by declaring his experiences as irrelevant to the conversation about drag vs thickness vs chord length. If data should be ignored, wingers don’t know what they are talking about, and one of the best prone foilers in the world is irrelevant, then this isn’t really an unbiased discussion.
1 Like
I have to agree with the thin mast.
My opinion does not count as i am just an intermediate winger and even worse SUPfoiler 
But it fits with Mr.Bennets…thick is draggy and draggy masts suck big time.No matter how stiff.
With the wing you can push them to very fast speeds but not worth the low end loss and the permanent seaweed “feel” IMHO.
There is a reason why all top brands are sourcing the best UHM carbon and releasing 14mm thick or less masts at +1000 euros a pop.
Not saying stiffness and control are not important,but it is a balance.
1 Like
Just got my 77.5 evo surf with FD mount and took it out yesterday. Comparing to 75 katana.
The mast is simply beautiful. Very impressed with it and the adapters fit amazing. I don’t think you could get any better as far as that goes.
The cedrus feels much lighter (and it is longer as you can see in the pics) 4lb vs 4.4lb. You can use the shorter universal nose cone from FD which is another plus, as the katana needed the larger one. One thing to be cautious of is the FD max bolts… I’m on a brand new majek pc-x and the baseplate on the cedrus must be quite a bit thinner because the bolts put little 1mm deep dents into the bottom of the tracks as seen on the dark photo. I have the split bolts coming from FD soon.
Feel in surf- this is where this mast shines. I was pretty blown away how much more glide it has than the katana. It’s a huge difference and again this is a longer mast too! The thing just goesssss. Turning is also improved. I was going to use my katana mast as my non FD prone/dw mast, but now I feel it’s going to be hard to go back to the katana knowing that I’m missing out on that much glide improvement. As far as stiffness, I personally couldn’t tell much difference from the katana.
I can tell you the thinner chord is wayyyyy better than the thinner katana….. it’s been said by multiple reviews and discredited as being biased. I have zero affiliation with cedrus. Major difference and couldn’t be happier! Kyle @ProjectCedrus was great! Super fast response to every question I had for him. I got free shipping and I don’t blame Kyle at all for this because he didn’t know, but ground advantage to Hawaii is terrible haha. Takes forever to get. Kyle let me borrow a proto uni adapter while the new one was being made too.
4 Likes
I’m only touching back in here because I started the thread, it had gotten more carried away than I intended and was never looking to bash Cedrus, not looking to now either, but for the sake of people looking for max performance that don’t have $1,800 to burn, I think my final opinion should be out there, I ended up in the minority. Super bummed about what I got as a whole for the cost, I gave it an honest go for a good 3 months, countless prone sessions and a few hundred dw miles. I really wanted to like it, personal opinion, having tested on back to back 10 mile dw runs with the same foil, the katana is slower but stiffer and more direct By a considerable amount. That was my breaking point, sold my Cedrus, I’m now on code gear and the + mast is a full pay grade above the Cedrus. Happy for anyone who loves their Cedrus unfortunately it was not for me. I would recommend trying it out before you buy it to anyone who wants max performance. If you’re Lighter, maybe ride smaller foils, or prioritize being able to use multiple brands, it’s a no brainer you’ll probably love it. My biggest problem was the twist it has, maybe the wind mast would be better to reduce that.
6 Likes
You can’t trust this guy at all, he’s completely influenced and only says what the sponsors want him to say.
2 Likes
Pretty much none of the reviews online say anything bad about any brands. I find they are still a useful look at gear I can’t see in person, and it’s pretty easy to read between the lines about what they are excited about and what they avoid talking about.
1 Like
I think that is issue with dealer making a review.
I think it’s pretty honest review even though he is a code team rider, don’t know if he have any investment with code.