This original thread on this topic was closed; however, I wanted to follow up with my testing.
In the past I have run smaller and smaller tails for wing foiling which reduces drag.
Due to the discussion in this original thread I put on a larger tail of the same design during my prone session. It seemed to work well and provided a lower stall speed and more to push against when pumping.
Today I ran the same setup winging. It seemed to cause too much drag for my taste when winging, although I was able to pump and stay on waves. It did take a little more effort to keep up with some of the waves that were not standing up as much.
There will be a future prone test at some point. I suspect as I get better at prone pumping I will like the smaller tail due to less drag, all just a hypothesis for now though.
My guess is that the larger stabilizer does NOT reduce stall speed. I think what is happening is that the larger stabilizer makes it more difficult to change the angle of attack, which reduces the chance of hitting the stall angle.
For my Lift 120HA, I have a FoilParts adapter which allows the use of a KD Maui stabilizer. I can adjust the stab to 3 different lengths. When I use the shortest position, I am more likely to stall because I have less pitch control.
I’ve been looking at this pretty closely as I’m testing a couple new tails right now. Smaller, and specifically thinner, tails all keep the average speed up and away from stall speed better than bigger, thicker, tails. So, I end up linking swell far easier because I am quicker to access a new energy source and can keep up better.
I have not tried any glide to failure tests though. It would be worth knowing if the higher average speed also includes a higher stall speed.