Been watching Mr Bennett’s ripping on these for a while, he is on the 680ha, 60, 180s setup. He says its better than the silk on smaller swells where you have to do a little pump to connect the sections. Like inside sections of waves in Fiji where it becomes a small wave foil park. He says you get more speed from the ha vs the silk and that means more efficient to pump and it turns just as good. Kind of like going from the spitfire to the kujira, the extra 1-2 ar will mean more speed and efficiency which is great in smaller conditions. Overall he says its like the new ha is like best of both worlds with no downsides. Even with the inferior construction of armstrong he says that the flex is not noticeable in smaller waves. For large waves he is still on the 650 silk.
For me personally I just invested in a new setup with similar ha wing offerings and don’t really want to invest in armstrong which has an old fashioned connection system. I may wait and see which new ha wing that Adam is riding next year. As gear evolves pretty fast now
Some of the new HA are already available here in the states. I’m definitely excited to get my 880, the 680 and smaller sizes won’t be available for another month or so. I’m also not convinced the Armie connection is inferior. Since the last discussion on this topic I’ve spent a few weeks now on another brand and I can say I far prefer the Armie connection to the lever in a socket type connection. I’m seeing a lot more rigidity in my Armie gear and I am way less concerned about dissimilar metal seizing my hardware, which I am already seeing as an issue in my other set up. I also feel like there is way less stress on the fasteners. At any rate, I’ve now got both Armie and another premium surf set up to compare back to back and I’m really excited to get on the new HA and see how they stack up.
I’m looking at ordering one of these wings in the hope of making it easier for me to connect. I’m 80kg + wetsuits up to 6/5, have had some 2/1 from time to time but far from consistent. Surfing low energy east coast waves. 2’@ 8” is fairly typical. Currently riding a k2 1250 as my daily driver, would be on the 1400 but I find it harder to finesse it over the ww, as I need to turn more intuitively, which the 1250 does. Anyway, looking for the ha size that will make is as easy as possible to pump, but still nimble and won’t throw me on takeoff. I’ve been told 880, but read of lighter folks proning the 1080. Any thoughts?
hey, I just saw this video with Latham and Billy. Latham is about 15lbs more than me at 205lbs. His go to prone is the 880 as he says in the video. But seeing him ride will give you an idea for yourself.
I had 3 waves on the 880, so limited impression, but:
Feels cool, instantly reminded me of the 925 that I only ever caught 3 waves on. Funny how strong a feel or pedigree foils have, despite it being a total different design, I thought “armstrong”.
Felt loose, quite slow and capable, easy to pump and very loose on both roll and pitch. I didnt’ get enough waves to to get much more of a feel in hard turns, but jumped back onto a chopped 1099 and the 1099 felt very unrefined and super fast afterwards, and crazy hard to turn.
The speed and turn made me think you could start to think about surfing the 880 in the pocket, and get really critical and vertical. Noticeably slow though, not sure what the wingers think of that. For prone I think slow can be good to stay in the pocket, as long as it isn’t too lifty. Waves were waist high, typical conditions I surfer the pp140. Probably feels looser than the 140, and definitely less stable on the roll, so something to get used to.
