Aside from all the race excitement - quick question.
How can I tune a setup to move the happy place for a mast?
Background- I’m a proficient foiler - I’ve tinkered quite a bit with tail shimming and board shims.
I want to move the natural mast position back in the box without losing so much lift - how do I tune this? I’ve tried board shimming positive and negative and didn’t do much what I wanted. Do I add a bunch of positive tail shim to place the mast farther back ?
I like foiling like surfing - with my foot back on the back of the kick pad. I feel like I end up spending a lot more time in the middle of my (very small) board- which feels like surfing a mid- length - if that makes sense.
Almost 100% an aesthetic / style thing. I can dial gear perfectly fine otherwise - just can’t get the mast back enough in the box without losing too much lift
My advice would be that the modern surf foils and boards all have pretty flat setups so you probably don’t need to shim as much as in the past (what foil + board?)
Secondly, you just need to move your feet back there. Are you prone takeoff or tow? For prone you need to find a happy place that is easy to pop up but once you are on foil you can move around
More subtle but the stance and look you are thinking of is for turning, not pumping or cruising, so the foil will only be happy with your back foot back there when you’re in attack mode
lol - I went back and watched a video and I guess so. Actually I saw a local guy in the water the other day with his mast quite far back and the box and I was digging his style - looks like having the foot right over the mast does something “extra”
Yeah - currently constantly moving my feet, which is fine - just looking for a bit more time with foot slammed back against tail kicker
Yes for longer fuse but you will loose manoeuvrability for glide, as for the tail shim it depends , some stab are below some are above , since i dont use a tail shim and dont have your setup i cannot tell, another option is +1 front with a base plate shim but you have to lengthen your bolt at least in the front.
I think this is the wrong path. Your feet end up where they end up based on how you lay on the board (based on lots of pop up muscle memory) and where you lay is based on the sweet spot for how the board paddles so naturally you paddle in the sweet spot and you pop up in the boards sweet spot as well, this puts you in the right position to get speed dropping in and get on foil. You then put the foil in the right spot so that sweet spot is also a good place for the foil.
So if you tune the foil for foot placement back there you will paddle in the sweet spot and fight all your muscle Memory to pop up way back(and if your not instantly on foil the board will fall off the back of the wave because your not in the sweet spot).
This is also why lighter riders ride with the foil farther forward than a heavier rider would on the same board/foil combo(as a heavier rider trying a lighter rider’s gear there’s always too much lift) - for that board the lighter rider has a sweet spot alot farther forward without pearling.
Looking at Bennetts i’d say that his position is a product of micro boards putting the sweet spot back and mostly riding steeper bombs - where your never really cheating forward on the board to catch the wave and gain speed.
For the record i don’t think there’s anything dumber than tail kick pads on foil board but thats just me!
Ok! Come to think of it the guy I saw was also in quite a small board.
I guess I need a new (smaller) board then? LOL JK
So in summary - once the golden position for a mast is found on a particular setup - there is nothing one can do to tune the setup to change this position. Is that accurate?
There is an ideal position to now place the foil so when jumping up the foil lifts the board out of the water just as you jump. This is based on wave power and foil power. Both of these vary with wave power and foil power.
To move the foil rearward of this ideal foil position requires lots of manipulation of your jump up technique.
Adam’s micro board was the result of the foils evolution in having less immediate power so the foils were moving much further up the board and particularly with uni at the time. Then one day he looked at all that board behind the foil and wondered what good it was so they chopped it off.
Without doubt if you are wanting to surf your foil set up with your back foot on the kick of the pad, but still have your back foot square over the mast (which to my mind is crucial) then you are after a chopped tail board. Amos Nano(tom Earl design) is an awesome board for this look and feel. I find the chop board also makes the set up feel more back footed ( I like, some might not)
