Just tried to prone an FFB Dagger 6’9" with a GF P1300 hoping to achieve almost breaking waist to chest wave lift-offs at 195 lbs… nope.
Total disaster. Unlike a sup foiler who can porpoise the board at the crest of the wave to get foiling, I’d get up to speed in front of the wave, and try to do the long board lunge to drive some momentum into the wave, but the nose would just displace water and slow the board down so I was left behind by the wave pumping uphill. There is so much drag with a non planing hull and large foil at lift off speed.
Next I tried catching breaking waves but again, the non planing hull and large foil made for a tightwire act to keep from bogging the board or over foiling, then on the rare occasion I nailed the required straight take off and narrow stance in a sweet spot about the size of a thumbtack, the tail of the board wouldn’t allow for an upward pump to clear the nose…
So, I notice on downwind runs the prone guys have their masts pretty far back on longer “downwind” boards so maybe if get the GF V2 mast as far back as possible and use a smaller foil that I could handle the drop, maybe this might work on those rare days that easy paddling is the call due to currents etc. but I think I wasted my time and money on this one. Maybe it’ll make a decent light wind wing board.
Anyone have any tips on getting a setup like this dialed for catching almost breaking waves? (If it’s breaking I’m on a 4’5"…)
Just to confuse the issue, at 60kg I prefer my 100L 7’ KT Dragonfly for prone over anything else I’ve tried and only take out the short boards if I need to duck dive. I can catch unbroken small waves with an Armie HA880 and with the 1675 pump foil I can catch even smaller waves. When I say unbroken I do not mean open ocean swell, just getting in really early in the shore break. You can definitely catch waves that stand up but don’t break, but not just rollers.
Sounds like something is off, maybe try moving the mast back, I have had my DW board feel really unstable and weird at takeoff with the mast too far forward. The other is try a baseplate shim, I found a +1 degree (nose down/foil up) shim helped getting earlier lift and I could lift off without dragging the tail as much when lifting off on weak waves. If you are digging the nose, a -1 might help?
I’ve been really surprised by how much fun I’ve had on a 7’6 SPG Pegasus, super easy and fun to catch a variety of waves, small on the pp200, bigger on the pp140. I surfed it a few times in bigger surf and other than duck diving it is great, able to sit wider than the longboarders, and definitely able to get into waves earlier that would be tricky on a prone board. Way more versatile than I was expecting.
I run it with a small baseplate shim (back of bolts lift by 1mm, same as @J_L ) and I think this helps. I run far forward on the box.
The only thing that is no good is whitewater takeoffs, the tail gets pushed around and you get that tracking feeling.
Here is a video trying to get a shore run in sketchy cross onshore. I’d have been right on the rocks on a prone board, and that was the first wave in 10min that was standing up a bit wider. Definitely opened up the possibility with the board.
Also worth adding that with the longer board, the belly pumping from @allthefoils is really a game changer.
