I have both the Cedrus Evo Surf and the NoLimitz V2 among other masts.
I use the Cedrus almost solely, I only use one of the other masts when I want
to switch foils quickly or when mounted simultaneously on couple of boards.
I mostly downwind or wing surfing with multiple brands like AFS, KT, Omen , F- One, Lift
and Slingshot. I tried/own most of the above OEM masts but I haven’t found my self using those
as I’m very happy with the Evo. I don’t do scientific comparisons, just go by feeling.
Some recent stoke downwinging with the Cedrus Evo in action.
One thing I noticed going from a tapered mast to the Evo which at the bottom is tapered upside down: there is a touch of drag as wouzel said, but the amount of drag feels much more constant as you go up and down, which is nice. As opposed to the feeling of sinking in the mud if you go too low. Then the sudden step increases drag more suddenly and you can feel it like a more subtle version of an fd pod, training the good habit of staying high.
pretty big limit to put on a mast, especially when you look at the span of most downwind wings now. What is their target market now? Just foildrive masts and lightweight obsessives?
Good point about tapered masts. I haven’t ridden one with significant taper in a while and I do use my whole mast throughout the session so that matters to me. My current mast is 12.4-12.8mm thick until the last 6-8" or so and the chord depth is 98-99mm until that last bit as well. $1249 for that AFS UHM mast and as far as I know it has zero current competition when comparing dims and price. No Limitz lands at $1350 and Cedrus clocks in at just over $2000 for mast with one adapter and a cover.
I think we’ll start seeing more super high performance masts this year that may or may not get the greenlight from brands for use with all foils. AFS told me straight up I won’t break their slim mast but that I might feel a bit of flex vs their 80cm which I’d say is true from on water feels (I just feel a touch more instability in whitewater and on tip breaches, nothing that slows me down tho). Duotone (I have no clue about their foils tho) is releasing a 13.5mm by 108mm deep 76cm mast and a 14.5mm by 110mm 84cm mast and doesn’t seem to publish any restrictions at the moment. I’ve heard rumors from a few other brands as well but nothing released yet.
I think we will continue to see stiffer, thinner, shorter chorded masts in the years to come. The benefits are real and it just takes time to get the stiffness right and verification on how well they perform with a brands full range of foils. Prone vs wing vs DW all have very different demands.
I should say that when I say draggy, in reference to the Evo, for me it is hypothetical as I’ve personally never used a mast that is slipperier, NL V1 included, close I’d say. Since I’ve not yet used my afs 80. And recall that the foil shop mast video called the Evo the easiest to pump or something like that.
Wouzel on multiple sites is the only one I’ve seen really posting negative reviews on the cedrus. A few comparison videos online put the cedrus over no limitz, uni progression mast and uni katana. I do appreciate wouzels insight though. I believe sometimes we get a bias on anything new we paid a lot of money for. The YouTube reviews are a uni dealer I think so a little surprising seeing them rave over the cedrus
That shop is also a Cedrus dealer, so, they have options on mast sales. If you decide to go Cedrus they are probably the people to buy from. Josh seems to do pretty good hookups for people and I assume they also have good customer service if you have an issue.
For what it’s worth, writing negative content or doing a negative review straight up sucks and most people don’t have a platform to review on. So, it’s just abnormal to see that kind of thing published. No Limitz is pretty hands off so you can see more complaints. Cedrus conversely is very hands on, so, people with issues don’t speak up as much. I tried really hard to convince myself I loved the Cedrus and am probably an anomaly in how much testing and comparisons I did on it. Even when I finally ran the data at the end I was surprised.
At the end of the day you most likely will be happy with either mast if you are trying for a universal option. My original question of “What’s your desire out of the next mast?” would have been better asked as what deficiencies does your current mast have and what performance attributes do you want out of your next mast? The No Limitz does certain things well and the Cedrus does certain things well. We’re entering a point in time where the foils are getting crazy stiff and efficient and masts are going to become similarly nuanced to pair correctly with the foils. Just as you look at span, area, thickness, aspect ratio, fuse, and stabs on foils you have the option to look at specific characteristics on masts to determine the direction you want your foiling to go. That’s why I don’t recommend either if you are really serious about optimizing performance.
The Cedrus EVO is the lowest drag mast I’ve tried that is still really stiff. It is possible that the Axis Ultra might be slipperier especially high in the water column but I don’t think any of the other stiff masts could match it. I hear great things about the AFS UHM 80, but I haven’t tried it sorry.
I will say - and I think NL proves this - the mast adapter/connection design relying on a piece of metal sitting inside the hollow carbon mast for carrying bending loads is a failure point. Cedrus gets away with it by making the business end of the mast bigger to handle that load. It’s a thing we have because these were originally designed for that crappy takuma system where the connection is smaller than a good mast should be so the connector has to neck down smaller than the mast.
If the carbon mast can sit inside the base/adapter it’s a lot stronger and I feel like NL could go to something like this for most systems now that Takuma is no longer relevant.
This is so uncool, i hope it’s just kind of very unfortunate use of wording.
I have a V2 80cm (custom cut by nolimitz) with uni connection, which i really liked until now.
Basically the post says i can jump winging with a progression 170, but not downwind with a 200, although the deceleration of the landing will yield much higher bending moments.
Then also with my 68 kg i will create a lot less force than a 90kg rider.
None of this is news, this should have been ovious designing, testing and then marketing it in the first place. A span of 100cm wasn’t even that big or uncommon when the V2 came out.
So to me the post doesn’t make much sense unless there’s some sort of other issue not foreseen.
I sent them an email, let’s see what they answer.
I love my NoLimitz masts, I’ve had three at this point - a v1, v1.5, and v2. But the customer experience has been a little rough around the edges.
When they “recalled” the v1 (because they were breaking in the wild!!), we all had to pay $300 and return our old mast to get the new mast with the internal bungee and redesigned connector. Then the v2 came out like 6 months later, which didn’t feel great. I’d happily have just hung on until then rather than shell out for the v1.5.
The new, retroactive warranty limitation also feels cheesy, I agree that was a common span length for larger foils at the time the mast came out, and it’s an imperfect metric to use anyway for the reasons you note.
I get the impression the foil masts are a passion project for these guys next to their real bread & butter aerospace carbon fab business. They really raised the bar early on at a time when masts were not being designed to high standards, which was awesome. But the foil makers have caught up, and they have the luxury of designing specifically to their foil range (and known future releases), and are more invested in keeping their customers happy long-run. I wonder if NL will decide they’ve done what they set out to do in this segment and bow out rather than keep iterating…
So i got an answer from Nolimitz.
They at first replicated the theme of the post.
I basically replied using the same arguments as above, added by some.
-No limit of the use of their mast in their marketing or during the sale process to small foils only. I bought a ‘No-Limit(z)’- high end mast. Only now, 7 months later in my case, a lot more for other customers, they limit the use case in hindsight.
-They basically say i could still race and jump winging with a foil below 1000mm span, but not cruise and downwind with a foil bigger than 1000mm. This does not make any sense. The physics are clear, the deceleration of the landing from a couple of meters of a foil with a span below 1000mm will yield way higher bending moments than just cruising or even pumping a 1200mm span.
-Also, with my 68 kg i will create a lot less force than a 90kg rider, no mention of this in the limit given.
-None of these mechanical considerations are new, this had been obvious when they were designing, testing and marketing the V2 in the first place. A span of 1000mm was a common size when the V2 came out, Their claim that foils have unforeseeablly developed too much span in that time is incorrect.
-They probably just maxed out their security factors too much. Which in hindsight explains the light weight, but could not have known by us customers, we all assumed it to be due to their military production expertise and access to composites not available to other companies…
-I added i was not here to complain for the sake of complaining, as I still really like the mast. But I’d rather have bought one with a couple hundred grams more that I could also use with bigger downwind foils for tiny conditions instead of now having to buy and carry around another mast just for that use case.
-We are all humans and make errors, so I did not ask them for a refund, but to think about other ways of compensation or to stand behind their waranty no questions asked for existing customers.
Especially for those that do not use social media and might not even know of the limitations.
And to offer V2-customers healthy discounts on a hopefully improved V3, hopefully soon to be released(?).
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They very quickly answered and offered me either a refund if sent back or warranty no matter what, as with my 68kg bigger span foils are probably less of a problem as long as i don’t jump them.
Well, it sounds like you’ve liked the mast and they are willing to warranty it if it breaks? Sounds like a win win to me. Maybe follow up your request with an ask that if it does snap you can upgrade it to a v3 if that drops sometime soon???
I’m sure it’s frustrating for current owners and I don’t want to diminish anyones irritations because I’ve been upset about gear too. However, I have to admit, I applaud the fact that they leaned into the storm and made a very public announcement about it. That surely wasn’t easy for them to do but I respect that they did the hard thing and have maintained a professional demeanor.
As far as I can tell the foil industry is accelerating, not slowing, and there will undoubtedly be more growing pains to come.
I picked up a used NoLimitz V2 as an upgrade from my Lift Classic. Today was my first session on it and wow it’s a great time. Much more direct control over the wing and still plenty of speed.
I used to think all these discussions about mast stiffness were a bit crazy but damn did it make a difference to my kit
storm and made a very public announcement about it. That surely wasn’t easy for them to do but I respect that they did the hard thing and have maintained a professional demeanor.