A £500 used F-one or Gong foil will entirely solve the problems of that terrible old monster
Thanks Guys.
The issue I have is that funds are limited but I’m determined to have some foiling fun.
I understand your concerns but I don’t have many options.
A learner wake foil setup is upwards of £1500 and I am not seeing any second hand gear.
Regards, Andy.
1 Like
Crack on then, you’ll figure it, overriding all your natural instincts is essential. Don’t lean to the side or backwards ever for a start!
How rigid is the connection between fuse and mast? and fuse and foil? These need to be absolutely rock solid, same with the mast to board.
If you were trying to surf foil I’d say get some better gear. For wake though almost anything will work. Do your thing.
1 Like
Thanks guys, I’ll keep at it while looking out for better used hardware options.
The connections between foil/fuz/mast are all rock solid.
Machining is one thing I can do at present.
Will report back soon with progress.
Andy.
Was wondering about this. Are you 100% sure the fuse connecting surface on the foil is parallel to it’s chord line? And the same question for the stab. If not, your angles could be way off.
Finding the chord line on a big wing with blunt LE is not easy…
Hi Ajam,
The Moses W873 foil uses a curved face (of 500mm radius) to connect to the fuz, just to make installation as awkward as possible.
So I machined the curved face into the Neilpryde fuz then positioned the foil with +0.5deg incidence. Then drilled, tapped and bolted the foil in place using the foil’s factory drilled holes.
The stab is the original Neilpryde item so no fuz machining needed, just a wedge shim to reduce it’s angle from -4.5deg to -2.5deg.
As you say, finding the chord line when big blunt leading edges are present can be tricky but I’m used to working with aerofoil sections and when taped up, it’s fairly easy to spot. To be honest, any small leading edge centre error will only manifest itself as a fraction of a degree over the large 300mm chord length.
I’ve triple checked the angles and they are definitely as quoted.
Appreciate the observation and question.
Andy.
2 Likes
Ah well, another session at the lake comes and goes.
Had a couple of slalom sets to loosen up as the water was so flat.
A cup of tea and on to some foiling.
I’m getting up every time now but only staying up for around 5 seconds before loosing balance or breaching.
I keep finding myself with the foil only a couple of inches below the surface, handle pulled right into my chest and then a breach. It’s a long way down from 28”.
Do you guys think shortening the mast to say 24” would make learning easier for us?
Cheers, Andy.
Won’t make a big difference. You need to overcome the urge to pull the handle in which causes you to lean back.
When in doubt, lean forward. When taking off, lean forward, when going too fast, lean forward.
Also consider the speed, you need about 15mph max.
Yup. Now you need to find the glide part of the equation. You’re treating it like water skiing which always has tension on the tow line. In foiling you will have very little and at times no tension at all in the tow line. Like Matt said, push forward and find even balance. You’re going through all the normal phases of learning behind the boat, it’s just taking a while because all your mentors are here online and not on the boat with you 
I always have people just come off the water and then touch back down, come up off water then touch back down and repeat to teach the control of your fly hight. Mast length won’t make much a difference if your over foiling and breaching because it will just happen sooner.
Maybe give this a try and see if it helps.
Good luck
1 Like
Thanks guys.
I’ll leave the mast length alone.
Will report back soon after the next trip to the lake.
Andy.
Yeah slalom leads to a lot of habits that are bad for foiling. On slalom you can always really lay into that back foot and dig a giant hole in the water to keep tension and dig a turn. Foil is the opposite of slalom. If I had to guess your nose up with a stalled foil 100% of the time and you’re coming down from a breach the moment the foil starts “working”. That t60 board is exacerbating this as it has too much float so you end up needing a ton of foot pressure to get it properly sunk to water start tail down and your going straight from there to foil stall. Find something like a giant wide flat skim style wake surf that can get flat on plane at a really low speed so you can initiate level foil flight from level board planing. It should 100% be on your feet with front foot pressure holding it down and making an affirmative decision to get on foil. NOT hanging on and waiting for the boat to get enough speed for the foil to work.
1 Like
Hey Andy,
Over a decade ago I made a homemade foil and could not get it off the water, the drag was just too high for its size.
Looking at your Frankenstein setup, the Moses 873 is 2066 cm2. That is a pretty big wing, so I would think wouldn’t require excessive speed to get some lift. I have no idea of the cm2 of your rear wing.
If it was me, I would remove the rear wing to start off with. Then see if you can get off the water. This removes the variables of size of rear wing and aoa of rear wing. Then you can just feel the front wing. If not having a rear wing trips you out, just make a rear stabilizer out of a credit card.
My worry with the rear wing is the angle could be off and it is providing too much negative lift, overcompensating the positive lift of the front wing. Or the area of the rear wing is too much.
With your rear wing introduced, you will feel the additional drag.
Oh, my bad, I see you are getting up now. I wouldn’t cut the mast just yet. I did find shorter masts were easier to learn on. For the breaching problem, if your board has a box, I would slide it further forward in the box in 1 cm increments. This will put more weight forward so you front foot doesn’t have to bear as much weight. The classic gut check is to hold the front wing at 1/3 chord length, while the board is upside down, and see if the board is level to the ground. (Kane De Wilde).
edit: Oh I see your board does not have a box, bummer. Curious to hear if the board is level when you do the Kane De Wilde test.
How are you holding the rope? With two hands? If so, try holding the rope with only your front hand. I would keep your arm extended so the pull is constant.
In kitefoiling if I am about to breach, I shift my weight forward on the board (use your arms as weights) & ride downwind to the kite to kill the pull from the kite.
Need to lower mast height in the water:
A) move your back foot a half step forward. Then see if there is a change in ride height.
B) move front foot a half step forward. This will be more challenging in that when you unweigh the front foot to move it, you are putting more rear foot pressure which will make your board want to breach. Easier with a kite as it can hold some of your weight during the front foot shift. If this is the case, I would start off with the front foot farther forward. It helps to mark the board (sharpie, tape, sticker) once you find the sweet spot. Then see if there is a change in ride height.
Then repeat the A/B routine.
I bet the driver needs to lower the speed by about 5 mph (maybe more) once you pop up. As when you pop up on foil, the drag goes down, but foil speed goes up when pull speed is constant, which causes more lift. You could always let go of the rope and practice pumping to avoid a breach. Balance is all in the hips.
I think the most efficient stance is narrow like Kane De Wilde (but I don’t know if that works on every setup), check out some of his videos.
In kitefoiling, I turn my foil away from the kite to get more pull assistance (i.e. more speed) when the foil height is sinking, and turn my foil towards the kite to get less pull (i.e. bleed off speed / when I want the foil height to sink).
I would recommend learning without foot straps. Once you get foot position dialed, you could try a foot hook. On my first heavy all solid aluminum Rush Randle setup I made a diy foot hook for my front foot, which made popping up on the board easier (i.e. front hand on rope, rear hand on board). And the foot hook is easy to eject from without causing ankle/knee injury that a traditional foot strap could. I don’t see the need for a rear foot hook personally, as I like to move my back foot a lot.
Thanks for the info guys.
We are surface starting like a wakeboard. The T60 is way too buoyant to punch down under the water for a deep start.
Board floating at 90deg to the rope then letting it turn towards the boat as the pull comes.
During this phase I release my back hand, stand up and off we go.
The foil is engaged and the board a couple of inches above the water but then I start to rise up and eventually breach, it I haven’t fallen off in the meantime.
Sounds like we’re on the right track, just need to keep at it.
1 Like
If you can find a large board that floats you when you stand on it you’ll have a much easier time getting started. Once you learn to get up and foiling and have stability start using the small board.
When I first learned to foil behind a boat I used a very large, low aspect ratio foil (f-one gravity). I found that the easiest way for me to start was to lie on the board like a skim board and slowly get towed after the boat. I would use one hand on the rope and one hand to support myself on the board while getting to my feet (board volume was about half my weight). I found the wakeboard start very difficult with such a large foil. It pushes so much water, I found only small mistakes to lead to getting off balance and failing. An additional bonus of the belly board start is that it’s a bit faster in between attempts, since the boat doesn’t have to come to a complete stop.