I had a chance to kite with Sk8 1050 back to back with Silk 1050 yesterday. To be fair, I have enjoyed kite foiling with some foils that most people say are not suited to the kite. This isn’t a recommend to buy a foil for kiting, Its just that my opportunity to compare the two was on a kite day for me. The wind was on the border of Force 3 and 4 with some small gusts. Two wingers lighter than me were out on downwind SUP boards.
My bias is that the Silk was faster to ride and faster turning. But some of that may be the ASF 75 cm mast is very slender and the ASF stabilo was smaller. I was using a stabilizer from an Eagle plane and classic Cedrus mast with the SK8. In particular the slowest possible stall speed was slower with the SK8 and the top speed faster with the Silk. Both have great range. While the SK8 1050 is a wing that I would kite with only out of novelty or on a bare minimum wind day, the Silk 1050 is fun for me to kite with.
The Sk8 was slower and therefore easier to keep in the energy of some small slow moving bay chop. The SK8 was easier to pump for me.
We didn’t get a chance to find any white water but I did spend a fair amount of time trying to ventilate the foil. Riding with one wingtip out is pretty good with both. I was deliberately trying to find the point where the foil would crash and they both will if the wing is far enough out. The Silk is more tolerant and the bubbles seem to separate from the wing faster when it goes back in the water. I also tried to crash the foils by deliberately tracing the surface with the foil - riding flat so it would ventilate in the center where the wing meets the fuselage. Again they could both be made to crash but the Silk is more tolerant. My belief is that will translate into better wave riding. Ive had some great wave sessions on the sk8 but only 45 minutes of kiting on the Silk.
If I didn’t already own the Sk8 and I were a bit closer to my ideal weight I would probably choose the Silk. F-One probably has a better selection of wings for BigDawgs but the new AFS connection looks to me more robust. If AFS came out with a super high aspect Pure wing say 1300-1400 cm2 with a mono bloc construction it would be hard for me to resist.