I’m hoping I could get some help with an issue I’m having with the axis art pro 1201.
Loving the wing it’s amazing great glide, love the pumping. It’s everything I’ve wanted except for one issue.
If I’m not careful on a wave I’ll pop a tip out. 9/10 times down I go. Not because I lose lift but because the board straightens out on me and I’m still leaning into the turn. Ive gotten so I can hear it happen and hold on for 10 yards or so but still fall.
To be clear I’m not breaching a tip in a tight turn it’s kind of happens in either chop or when the wave peaks up before it breaks.
I’m on a 75cm mast so I’m thinking maybe 82cm. But I’m really curious if this is a recoverable situation or not.
I have the same wing for pumpfoiling/wingfoiling and as you said the glide and pumping is great but turnability and tip breaching is horrible. Recovering a breached tip is almost impossible. I have a 85cm mast which helps avoiding the breaches.
That foil got rave reviews when first out. 365 skinny tail and crazyshort advanced fuse? A longer mast would probably help a lot. And as stiff as you can get. I’ve found this type of foil requires a commited slow turn that can be tightened up, but if you load it up too much initially, the mast will flex and twist and board will straighten out as you stated. It’s like your foil has found a different wave to ride.
If it’s trully from breaching, then a longer mast and concentrate on keeping the boards nose down while turning should do the trick.
A theory on tip breaches and recovery: To be recoverable the breach should be hard and deliberate. This means a sharper turn with a steeper tip angle. When a tip breaches, while going straight for example in a piece of awkward chop, you are doomed. This likely will happen on all foils, even those that claim to be great at tip breaches. Its all in the deliberate powered turn.
82cm mast did the trick. Had it out today and I could turn much harder without tips out. When I did tip out I was at such an angle that I didn’t lose lift and fall.
Who try to chop the 1201? We know the tip breach is not so good also tunning, so if chop to about 1100 or 1060 maybe good improvement on it but still not loss the glide and pumping?
I would not chop the wings off the 1201, this will wreck the performance I believe. I have modified my 1201 for better wing breach, the idea is to make the airfoil cross section look more like the bottom foil and less like the top foil shown below:
Its hard to explain how to modify the foil, start with a grinder and grind a 10 degree (more flat then steep) bevel all across the top surface of the leading edge, keep the angle the same and vary the width from narrow at the tip to wider at the middle. Then take a block and sandpaper and sand the flat spot totally smooth (take out the grinder marks), this gives you a very accurate depth of cut for the flat, make sure to keep it totally flat and same angle all the way across. The with a rounding sanding action, round the front of the flat, then round the back of the flat to smooth it in, then use finer sand paper to smooth out everywhere you have sanded with a block with a thin foam pad to smooth everything out. You will only change the front of the top section nothing on the bottom or nothing toward the rear of the foil. The leading edge will “droop” a bit more, like the middle airfoil above, this is good. When you first ride the new foil, it will feel off, you will need to shim the tail quite a bit, get an Axis tail shim kit, they are cheap and really good and fun to play with!!!
The reason is that as the lift goes up, as you are “pushing” harder on the foil the angle of attack must go up too and when this happens the low pressure (green arrows) spikes on the front top surface right behind the leading edge (3rd airfoil below). When you sand down the front upper surface to make the leading edge more sharp and drooped and move the wide point back you don’t get this massive spike of low pressure right at the front.
With my modified 1201 I can pump even with the wing tips out and not ventilate, you must focus on going fast though (this lowers the angle of attack) and at the same time not to pump or push at all or to take very small quick pumps. Here is video where I am turning and the tips come out while I am pumping, very few foils can do this, have the tips come out while you are pumping. Here is link to the whole article from the pics above
Here is video of my riding the modified1201, you can see the wingtips pop out when i circle around and get close to the dock.
