Hey all, halp! I am obsessed to the point I sometimes think I need to detox from thinking about foiling.
Have listened to all the prog pod. Started working my way through the Casey catch-up. My friends don’t get it.
Despite all that information swirling around my brain I’m after some advice on what people would suggest would be a good front wing to progress too as I think (happy to hear otherwise) I am ready.
I’m 81ish kg. Currently riding Armstrong A+72cm mast, 1550V1 front, v tail, 60 fuse.
I initially got into winging to get as much time on foil as I could but always wanted to get more into prone.
I’m 28 sessions into winging and really enjoying it, (H2T gybes both ways, riding waves and wind chop with wing flagged out etc. Haven’t managed to tack)
Recently picked up an amos high flyer 4’8 for prone.
Had some rides that have sort of melted my brain recently (650+metres across a bay where wave sort of faded to a lump of swell)
Can pump to stay with/on waves on prone board and done a little cheater 2 for 1 but haven’t really been able to pump that far.
I know that’s a big old wack of text. Appreciate any advice.
Get used to it. Gives you a nice head start though when they come around!
Pretty generic advice:
I don’t know about the upgrades within Armstrong to comment on gear compatibility, but try stuff out as much as possible before making a commitment, you could pick up really nice used or discounted 2023 gear.
Probably don’t buy anything until you are able to pump that foil around until your lungs burn, you should get there soon.
Anything faster and higher aspect will be much much harder. Whatever you go for, optimise for “ease of use”. Anything that isn’t renowned for ease of turn/pump/intuition etc will be mega frustrating. I jumped from Axis PNG to ART and that just was the worst. Months of dud sessions.
I’m about six months into prone foiling after a lifetime of surfing and a bunch of years of kite foiling. The prone game really changed for me as soon as I got my Progession 170. I can’t say enough good things about this foil for prone.
I also have the Progression 140 but I mainly ride the 170 since I’m still learning something new each session.
I’m 75 kg and now connecting a bunch of waves and working on my turns.
Hey I’m new too, around the same spot in the progression and also on Armstrong gear. I’ve noticed a lot of the prone guys who did start on Armie gear have switched to Uni or similar since Armie doesn’t really currently have a prone surf foil that both turns and pumps well from what I understand, at least, according to the forum posts I’ve read.
I’ve been tempted to switch, but I like the Armie gear I have for winging. I’ve heard that there is a new HA series about to release that is supposedly far better for prone than their older HA series, better pumping, easier to handle and better turning.
So, while I’m tempted to jump to Uni to try to buy myself some more progress asap, I’m going to wait until I get a chance to ride the new foils and see how they are received by the community. Here’s some sizing info I got from Real, they said they should be out around the end of December.
“Looks like the new HA’s are going to be sized as follows, 1180, 1080, 980, 880, and 680, and possibly a 580 at some point.”
I have the HS1850 which I started winging on, and am now using the MA1225 for winging and the MA800 for prone mostly. Sometimes I prone the 1225 with my 7’x100L downwind board when the waves are super tiny.
I’m small, 63kgs, and found that the small MA800 foil is SO MUCH easier to prone than the 1225. I can’t pump either way so I don’t miss the glide there yet, but the ease of handling on the drops and speed sections is so much better.
The MA series are pretty well reviewed for winging and I definitely am enjoying mine although I don’t have anything to compare them to. I understand they aren’t great pumping foils for prone surfing although the pros seem to make them work. I wouldn’t probably recommend one as a dedicated prone foil due to that, but if you are winging and prone I’d say you would probably have a good time on an MA1000 or 800 doing both despite the pump handicap. That said you and I both are probably going to want a good pumping surf foil soon, let’s hope the new Armie is a hit.
From personal experience jumping from your HS1550 to either HA925 or HA1125 is likely to be very frustrating. Theses two HA wings are designed for speed and glide but are very unforgiving: they are very reactive (quite squirrelly), tips can get near the surface without immediately crashing, stall speed is high and stall is brutal. I definitely would not recommend them. If you want to jump on HA wings, either wait and see if Armstrong is coming up with something more enjoyable and forgiving, or look for another brand. You will be having a lot more fun and progress a lot faster with easier HA foils.
I know Real loves selling them and Austin Tovey makes them look like you can pull a misty flip at your leisure…but I have found Armstrong foils to be inferior compared to the offerings from Lift, Unifoil, F-one, Axis, AFS, Takuma.
I recommend going on a trip somewhere that you can do some different foil demos. I suspect most Armstrong riders are just trapped because of the sunk cost and/or they haven’t tried anything else. But maybe the upcoming wings will be good?
I think more and more that foil preference is a personal thing, but I’d agree with a previous comment and demo a bunch of gear and see what suits you. I swapped from Armstrong to Axis recently and for me, it’s been a bit of a revelation in terms of ease of use and progression. It doesn’t look as nice as a full carbon setup, but you get over that.
Buying a new wing is a good time to look around at 2nd hand gear too as you can buy a fair bit for the price of a new wing!
That was exactly my case. After two seasons trying to tame the HA from Armstrong I jumped ship after trying a bunch of other HA wings. F-one, F4, Go Foil… all with similar surface, all way easier to handle and equally fast. That last point really surprised me because I was going as fast as with my HA925 but the rides were so smooth and controlled I equated that feeling to a lower speed.
But yeah parting from gear that cost north of $3500 for a fraction of the cost is painful.
Yeah, I think wing designs are only part of it. It’s also just a really bad system in terms of engineering. Lots of movement, many connections. I mean the tapered connection that doesn’t seat is the worst connection by far and there’s 2 of them between the wing and mast! I imagine Armie also feels trapped by his past decisions engineering that system.
It’s funny 6 years ago nothing was really good enough for the stiffness to matter but now we’re stuck with those old connection systems where the designers either got lucky or they’re screwed.
That’s an interesting point. You could almost choose a brand based on a good solid connection system and assume that all the foil designs will converge into something similar.
As you say, some companies are locked in to a design, not wanting to burn all their current customers.
On engineering, @TooMuchEpoxy that is interesting, never realised how many parts there are. Lots of locking screws.
fwiw I tried an original Hyper 190 yesterday for interest which is probably better than the 1550V1 on most aspects and I formed a stronger opinion: What you miss most on old foils is glide. They just don’t have it. Makes pumping a pain. I could pump that foil fine but it was tiring and any mistake and you slow down so quickly. You can recover but it’s just lots of drag = energy = high heartrate = mistakes.
Because I can share my opinion, I will: honestly I think foiling is hard enough, get something reliably easy to pump with lots of glide that turns nicely.
So alot of that Mistake > Stop Pumping > Recover > Resume Pumping is flex and connection movement. You hit a wierd piece of chop or you put some energy into the board wrong and the flex/movement throws you off center. You’ll be amazed how many of those moments can be eliminated by stiffness.
As for the v1 hyper i never found that setup to be particularly stiff. As said before the concept of the connection is sound but it took some tighter manufacturing tolerances and better carbon layups on the mast and fuse for it to really shine. You can feel all this movement on the beach. Wrench the foil around (hard - you can’t do anything worse than foiling loads) with one hand had place the other on the connections where parts meet. You should be able to feel movement.
Also, board flex is insidious. Boards develop flex way before they crack. Its like its robbing your pump continuously. We’re just now starting to get boards that stay stiff more than a year. If you are riding a freedom be wary.
Interesting, it could have been that. I can dockstart pump it fine, but just found it a hassle so much so that I think you’re probably right. gen1 foil + gen3 or 4 mast could be an issue too. Definitely would explain the weirdly inefficient feel
Takuma system is similar to Armstrong there seems to be the same connection issue between the fuse and front wing. Their mast is another topic entirely. What’s interesting is that Adam Bennetts rides Armstrong on a regular basis, wonder what the reason is behind that since he has access to the afs
Evening! Are u saying that freedom foilboards have a rep for flexing? I have a techno 2 that is two years old. Did u just give me an excuse to buy a new board? Seriously though connecting is important to me. I wonder if the is could be a factor.
i can almost 100% garuntee that its flexing. Assemble the foil on the board at the beach and have somebody wrench the foil around and you’ll feel the movement with your hands on the bottom of the board around the base plate.