What do you guys think the perfect mast height for prone foiling in average conditions is?
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I think the water conditions, depth of water at your spot, your weight/ height, style of riding and the foil your flying can all play a role in ideal mast height. A range of heights can be good to have access to.
But itās really nice to narrow it down to one length for sure. āThe more gear you have with you the more likely you might ruin your sessionā - says a wise surfer
Iām 5ā8" and 75kg ā¦ Ride mainly 120ha or 170ha foils. In my experience the shortest mast I enjoy is 28" (71cm) and the longest is 32" (81cm) .
30" (~76cm) is my happy medium and my favorite length Iāve used was a 78cm no limitz
Iād pick ~30" if I had to only pick one length for prone in the surf. Winging and towing larger waves, longer can be nice. I donāt think there is much debate that learning with a shorter mast is nice, but maybe no shorter than 24"?
Curious what others think.
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When it comes to surfing wings, I find I want a longer mast once the span of the wing Iām using gets past 90cm. At that point I go from a 75cm mast to an 85cm. I guess if I had to Iād split the difference and find a 80cm mast.
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75cm to learn and I guess 80-85cm once you progress. I just change to an 82cm Axis mast and really noticed the extra length bouncing around on the sand on smaller waves which would be a hassle for beginner, also found the drag pretty noticeable, but definitely gives a bit more leeway for going fast and turns for keeping the foil from breaching hard.
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Sorry for the inches use. Hoping we have already decided to use metric?
Iām still learning but I think thereās a case for the ~71-75cm in the surf due to efficiency of having less mast in the water/ foil closer to the surface.
Also, depending on the wind, I feel like Iāve noticed more air dynamic drag for my body on longer mast (prone in surf)
Can anyone speak to whether that would be true? As far as air drag on your body when your up higher?
A little longer definitely gives you some more room for error.
Most of the higher performance prone foilers in aus are all riding 80 to 85cm.
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80-85cm for winging and prone is great, I canāt imagine going shorter now
Iāve been wondering about air drag, you definitely feel drag and get a slipstream from around 30kph on bike/skateboard drafting someone, and 30kph is 2min/km which is the top foiling DW speed afaik, so I would imagine definitely starting to push into aerodynamics territory. Interesting to see if anything comes of it but I imagine unlikely to be worth optimising at those speeds you must be pretty preoccupied
Its absolutely a factor, but your board and body are the vast majority of that drag (and definitely a wing if you are flagging one). The mast is a rounding error. It would be interesting to see the composition of drag (% below water vs % above water). Iām willing to bet that at speed, the above water drag is much more than the below water drag. Tons of variables here with wind, yaw, current, speed, setup, etcā¦
I agree, the mast is a rounding error itself. But I guess what Iām qualitatively feeling is the idea that my body and board is getting blown around more the higher I am off the water. Maybe itās just in my head. Probably more factor of a slightly shorter mast making it more likely to have the foil closer to the surface. Seems like a lot of the really nice looking turns where the wing is sort of drifting and sweeping. Itās better to have less mast in the water?
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Yes obviously mast air drag is absolutely meaningless I mean full body air drag, wing obviously massive drag to the point where there is nothing to optimise other than deflating it.
For the mast length questions: Wind speed increases as you get further away from the water but doubt perceptible when you are talking 10-20cm difference.I think this maybe is in your head? I wonder
My thought was that it might be worth considering aerodynamic tuck of sorts when racing downwind. Second thought probably worthless if you imagine a minimum tailwind wind speed of 15kph giving apparent wind of only 15kph which is too low
Lol we should merge forums
Agree with you on the frontal above vs below waterline point, especially for wing speeds with the apparent wind!
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Iāve landed on 78-80 as my favorite size. On a 75 Iām wanting more bank and on the 85 I feel too much delay in roll. But for downwind sup 75 for sure. Gets up so much easier. At least in our conditions.
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ive heard a few people on podcasts mentioning people riding
āvery small bumps with a longboard and a super short mastā
Does anyone have an opinion on short mast advantage on tiny swells?
i assume its because the foil is higher in the swell for more lift to come up on foilā¦rather than the foil being too deep and possibly below the most power in the small swell?
thanks in advance
Just found this thread, been struggling SUP Dw this past year on the 830 katana. I have success when itās nuking or on big wings, but when I try to downsize on smaller foils it is so hard to dig myself up that last bit. I always need a few more paddles. I start to get very high up and I canāt reach the water. I canāt make my paddle much longer.
Looking at the Nolimitz 78 as a compromise
Narrow your hand spacing on your paddle.
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Iāve been on 70 - 75 - 76 - 78 - 86 (progression thru different brands and sizes combinations) - and now Iām on a 80 UHM AFS -
For prone itās a perfect balance for me of not too short it easily breaches, no too long itās hard to turn rail to rail. My favorite all-round size now even for tow sesh on head waves - maybe bigger than that could use an 85, but still, I think 80 will still be able to handle some decent size waves!
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love the 78NL for winging. It measures more like ~81cm when you include the baseplate, so you might not notice a big difference between the 830katana. I have a 74cm alu TK i chopped down from 85cm that has been serving fine. Iām hoping this will be a good length for when I start learning to prone/DW. Sometimes sticking with the gear you have helps to get you dialed in before you invest in a new rig. That said, Iāve definitely spent too much time on bad gear that held me back!
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Since weāre talking about a range of 10cm or less here, did we define how a mast should be measured? A mast āshouldā be measured from the board to fuselage. Not including the fuselage. By this measure the NL 85cm V2 I had was 86cm, the Code 75cm measures barely 72cm and the Axis aluminum 82 measures just under 80cm. The two latter companies are obviously including the mast foot while No Limitz has gone the other direction and beyond 
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