I have to put this out there into the world because as someone that has benefitted from many foilers comments / tips, I need to share something I haven’t seen much content around… the KT instinct 2200.
I have been wing foiling for about a year and feeling really stuck. Like to the point of wanting to quit stuck. Would easily get on foil, ride waves a bit, have fun. But I could not, no matter how hard I tried, consistently jibe. I might get one or two in an hour long session, and be on foil for 35% of the time. Feeling fed up, and like I had tried to skip a step by going too small on my foil, I sold all my shit and I decided to get the KT mast, Nomad 190 tail and Instinct 2200. I have to say this thing blew my mind immediately. My 1st session out, I got 8 jibes. The 2nd session I got 29 jibes and was on foil 60% of the time (proof in the screenshot below). I will caveat this by saying, maybe it’s just that every huge foil is easy and I was a numb nuts for skipping down to a 200 area foil too quickly? But this thing is super fun. Stable as hell toeside and heelside, and still turns well enough. Rode a few small waves comfortably on it. It does not mind a breach and or tip out. It crushes light wind too. I’m 185 lbs and was getting it up in 13 mph of wind w/a 5.5 wing without much work.
The only thing I’m still sorting out, is that if you push it hard to get to the surface and be on foil really quickly, it can sometimes feel a little weird… almost like its got a little bubble trapped up under the foil. So letting it up come up a little gentler solves that easily. Anyways, this thing is sick. The reflex foil and tip cambers are pretty wild to see in person. There’s something working there. Anyways, save yourself heartache if you are learning and get a bigger foil if nothing else.
Yeah I doubt many of us have ridden it. But all reports are that it’s quite good. My buddy rode it at AWSI and said it was probably the most surprising foil he rode last year. He liked it a lot and he’s a freestyle winger.
Indeed, it’s a real deal. I use it for teaching, and just got the guy in that clip wing foiling on his first ever wing foiling day. Both boards in this clip have the same Instinct 2200, and it’s fun to ride it myself as well.
super great to hear…easier, is easier…and my wife is just starting out and I’ve been wondering about this line of foils for her…
I’m just not sure about how such a big foil handles when the wind and swell picks up (as in Hood River). I’ve really enjoyed some big lifty foils in light winds that turned into a total handful in stronger conditions
Not sure. At top speeds of appx. 20 mph it was not feeling like it was going to blow up, but that’s probably not all that fast for a place like the Gorge. I’m also a fairly heavy person at 185 lbs. I’ll keep y’all posted if I get it going faster and have any valuable feedback.
At top speed Foil Sessions app said I was at 19mph. Not sure how accurate that is, but felt about right to me. Definitely not one to comment on how well it pumps since I’m not good at pumping, but I don’t read this foil shape as a dock start pump foil type of thing.
I had a similar experience switching from Cab H-series to KT Atlas. The Cabs were nice and carvy, but really speed hungry. The Atlas is such a stable, smooth foil. I was suddenly landing some foot switches and all of my gybes, whereas I could not land a footswitch on my other foils and only 50% of gybes.
It looks pretty similar, at least in terms of outline and dimensions, to the GoFoil GT2200. That’s what I’m learning dock starts with, as a large rider. Kind of overkill for pretty much any situation with external energy available, but it feels much better/playful/faster than some of the other XLarge foils I’ve had or tried.
It pumps. I am super clumsy with the dock starts, my success rate is really low. And on that day I was super tired as well. Had some successful short runs with different stabilisers, and even managed to get it working without the stab, and then started filming and everything went downhill from that point. Somebody with more coordination would definitely have better success.
135 felt unnecessarily big, 95 feels nice and 115 was a bit easier. The main problems I had - the pump of the 2200 feels quite different from all the others I have used. Often when I thought that now it’s already going fast and well, I still managed to mess up the pump. And with the small stabs it’s not directionally as stable as some higher aspect foils would be, so whenever I did not get the feet perfectly in the center the board started turning and in the water I went. Now thinking back… should have perhaps stayed on 135 a few more attempts and tried to figure it out.
