Just saw these pop up.
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Yeah, I’ve been riding the Kaikea 77 since June, and like it quite a bit.
Some shops have had them but still no info on Lift’s website.
It has significantly more lift than the LCX72, and slightly less than the HA90, and in terms of speed it’s somewhere in between.
It’s very stable and easy to ride. The distance between the mast and the front wing (front part of the fuse) is longer than on their other foils.
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have you winged it? Or how would it go on the wing? I’m running 90HA and new Florence 20X and keen to go faster on smaller foil
Yes, I only wing. If you want to go faster, maybe you should consider the Kaikea62.
For me, the 62 felt kinda similar to the LCX72 that I already had,but otherwise that could be a good step up from the 90HA, the 77 would only be a small increase.
Find a shop that sells Lift, they should be able to let you try them (Lift’s policy).
I tried the 62 but that day the wind was too low for such a small foil, I managed to get on foil but not enough to push it.
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Anyone running the 148 Havoc ? am using it as a one-foil….90% winging, 10% proning …perhaps a “dated/boring” foil for this crew but so far still doing it all for me…fast enough, surfy enough, lofty enough….36 glide & 31 flow….wondering what tail next for it if any bright ideas ?
Any info on the span and AR of either?
I’ll track one down, thanks. What mast are you on? I’m running the 32” M2 but thinking about going longer. Looking at the 36” M2, but wanted to see if the new M6 comes in a 36” before dropping that kind of cash. What stabiliser are you using? If you haven’t tried the Florence 20X yet, definitely give it a go.
I’m using the 32”M2 as well, it’s a great mast. I also have a 32”X2 and the extra thickness is very noticeable, worth a couple knots. I wish they had a thinner mast than the M2.
I haven’t tried the Florence 20x. I use the Florence 21x on the HA90, and use the Glide 25 on the LCX72 and Kaikea77.
I want to try the Glide32 on these as well, to see if the extra stability helps to push harder and go faster, although it will add some drag. A lot of the race foils (Mikeslab, Levitaz etc…) have pretty large stabs.
This summer I tried a Duotone Blitz 550 and it was on rails compared to the Lift foils, not necessarily faster in pure top speed, but a lot easier to sustain those speeds, super easy to go fast. And there was probably not enough wind to really gauge the top speed.
Frankly, if I had to put almost $2K on a new Lift M6 mast, I’d rather put a little more and buy a complete Gong Ypra Race foil setup, with a 112HM mast and a race winning foil.
If the dollar wasn’t so low (+tariffs) I would probably have one already.
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Would love some advice on a next move with Lift. After half a dozen days winging on super big beginner stuff, I bought a Lift 180HAX with the 31 Flow tail, and have ridden that exclusively for the past two seasons. I’m just a weekend hack and still an intermediate (maybe that’s generous) - flying easily, carving around, riding comfortably and consistently all the time, but… I can’t jibe, still after what must be over 100 attempts. Is the high aspect foil making things unnecessarily hard, stall speed, turnability, etc? There is a Lift Camber 160 for sale near me and I wonder if I should re-trench to a low aspect foil to get my skills sorted out. At the same time, reticent to waste money on what will probably very quickly be a dead end piece of kit. I don’t really have access to any other gear to experiment for myself.
If you can ride around on the HA foil, it’s easier to gybe than a lower aspect foil. More glide helps get the gybe around.
Could try a carve + extender tail or a glide tail. The flow tails are pretty long and stable, might be easier to whip a turn around with a different tail. Mostly just stick with it and it will click.
Don’t really agree with this. Yes, you get more glide with a HA foil, but most HA foils want to turn their own radius and get pitchy, wobbly or weird if you try to bank them hard or force them around a gybe or turn. You can vary your turn a lot more with a lower or mid aspect foil and you can force the gybe without the foil getting weird. I think the turning benefit of a mid aspect foil far outweigh the benefit of glide on a HA foil for the purposes of a novice.
That said, the 180hax isn’t really that HA. Camber is totally other end of the spectrum and is low aspect. I would think the Havoc is probably the happy medium that would work best, but I haven’t personally ridden it.
Where is it going wrong? If you just hold the wing over your head. Or if you essentially drop the wing, can you complete the 180 turn?
Have you tried on a skateboard? Skateboard winging is a lot more stable and let’s you get muscle memory in your arms so you can focus more on your feet when you are in the water.
I’m right with you on that struggle bus…and rode the 150hax and 180hax…and when fully/consistently powered up with good wind, I was progressing on making my jibes, as I think those foils are pretty responsive and predictable in turns.
I moved to other foils because the hax’s seem to lack low end and I don’t often have good wind or bumps to assist in getting on foil, and I couldn’t figure out pumping on them (hint: move that front foot back until you get firm resistance pushing down)
So from my position on the jibing struggle bus, I don’t see the 180hax as a hindrance at all…it turns well, glides well (IMO)…unless you can’t get/stay on foil easily enough.
What has helped me the most jibing has been to get some educated eyes on what I’m doing…so a lesson with Gwen LaTutor focused on jibing, he quickly told me the reason I couldn’t jibe was because I couldn’t ride toeside, so I would jibe and fall because that put me in toeside. I also wasn’t looking upwind as I was completing my jibes, and I often taco’d dangerously because I’d lose focus and stop keeping enough front foot pressure on my board (Gwen’s videos and his exercises to progress in jibing safely helped a lot).
But I don’t blame the 180hax for my lack of progress except for less time on foil in trying conditions (and my lack of skill in pumping those foils in getting up)
@Electronker I’m a beginner as well and have been on Lift since the start. I started on an HA 220 originally, then moved down to the 180, and while I personally haven’t felt the foil is the issue for me, it just took tons and tons of practice to feel confident in the turn. I will second @SpokeyDoke advice on having someone watch and/or video your jibes. What it looks like from an outsider perspective vs in my own mind, was 2 very different things. Watching the videos was helpful to see what is really going on and where to improve next time.
I had quite a few issues to start - starting out way to low on the foil ( board super close to water), and trying to jibe in less than ideal wind ( Im now watching the wind and looking for solid wind to initiate my turn). I have had other people comment that the foils seem to have plenty of glide thru the turn and if I combined the higher position in the water turning in a better wind zone, it could help. I would also just go out and practice turning over and over and over, while everyone else went out to ride bumps in the bay, so repetition was huge. I’m still clumsy on the foot switch, but i’ve got the turn down, onto the next problem. I’m on a 31 flow tail and weigh 80kg. I don’t have any other frame of reference for how other foils perform though, but I like the simplicity of the lift setup for a beginner, hearing the people I foil talk about shims etc.
I’m no expert (only two years into foiling) but had similar frustrations with jibing initially. What unlocked it for me was some advice I heard Rob Claisse give on the Generic Foiling Pod: keep applying front foot pressure all the way through the turn. Even just weighting the back foot slightly would cause me to lose momentum or make the turn a little wonky and I’d fall.
I see @SpokeyDoke mentions the same thing. It was the key for me.
Nathan Florence posted on Strava about testing new foils (122 vario and 121 stop?) anybody have any info on these, or on the bigger size range Florence wings posted about above?
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@SpokeyDoke , @bam174 , @drderp Thanks for your comments and great advice, really encouraging. Based on your perspectives I will just keep plugging away at it on my Lift stuff.
There are other new foilers where I go, on different stuff, Armstrong, north etc. and they are going thru same thing I did. So while im sure some wings are easier than others, the struggle is there regardless of foil at least at my local spot. I went today and sometimes jibes were good, sometimes terrible… my switch stance jibe is harder for me, just feels awkward.
Looks like Stop may be a typo for STOL. (Short takeoff and landing)?
I can’t read the AR printed but it looks like a single digit - new mid aspect maybe?
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Good catch. Wild they would make a new mid aspect when they just released the havoc