I saw this comment in a whatsapp group today. I can’t tell if I agree with it or not.
“gotta keep in mind best turn will be the one at the slowest stall speed as you can get more vertical and turn around quicker”
The limitations of foil turns as compared to surfboard turns is becoming very evident though. It’ll be interesting to see where the next generation of foils goes.
Mike and I debate this. He’s likely in the camp of slow and tight and I think the best at those turns right now.
My thought is that you should lean into the strength of the craft you’re riding. Shortboards are designed to fit in a pocket and crank tight turns. Longboards for glide. Foils excel at glide and keeping speed. My favorite turns are optimized for keeping as much speed as possible with the hardest bank angles I can maintain. Building speed from carve to carve.
But best is subjective and we all have our own styles. There isn’t a right or wrong. Some days I feel like midlength glides and others like bashing lips. It’s all amazing.
Bumping this as the most important discussion that was never concluded
I think the ergonomics of foil turns match surfing to a large degree, evident because the only people that can turn a foil properly could already surf.
Key exceptions like Kane who foils like no-one else at all, primarily because he didn’t surf, so has a unique style.
I share this because this clip from Reo is possibly unique, almost getting to a layback downcarve MF style with the straight leg finish. Something that I haven’t seen that much of.
Wow you dug in the wayback machine for this one.
I don’t think there have been any crazy improvements in foil design to make them more like surfboards in the pocket. In fact, I would say the industry went the opposite direction for at least a year because the users of foils just want to pump and stay on foil for 3 hours at a time. I don’t understand how pumping and going straight is more fun than turning.
The best “surf” foiling is being done by guys in straps still. Being able to overpower your foil and use the leverage of straps is too big of an advantage. (examples are Eddie O at the Foil Fever contest. Any foiler at the GWA wing events)
So the key there is to use undersized foils and overpower the foil to break it out of the line it wants to be on.
EDIT: To address the clip above. It furthers the point I made above. Reo is on a ha 480. That’s not a foil you can pump for ages.
Yeah if you want low speed but high acceleration then you should just get a surfboard. Foils are for going fast
What’s faster. A foil or a tow board?
Ok yeah at extreme speeds on monster waves or 50kt winds across flat water foils lose. But for my daily knee-to-waist and light onshore conditions foils go way faster
Tow board 100%. They end up skipping across the water while foils resist the entire time.
Yeah this is what sparked the thought. I’m on a Silk 850 and loving the feeling of turning so much that I don’t even worry about pumping. We’ve had an amazing run of waves and it makes me want to eject to Indo or something with a Silk 650 and just lay turns.
And that turn from Reo is really nearly overpowering the foil, and a full wrap in about 10 feet circle. I had a turn that felt like this (no doubt looked terrible), but it is bringing it closer to surfing for sure, where you can push through the fins grip.
I like the carve style turns, but I think aggressive foil stalling surf style turns are an interesting idea.
So a question is what is the body training mechanism to do this? Is it surf skate? Is it “driving” with your back hand (surf style)?
is it pivoting around your front hand (what reo seems to be doing)?