So I’ve been talking about how ONO is the best deal in foiling for awhile now. $1400 for a setup including a stiff, good carbon mast. Since my friend Rob does YouTube reviews and liked the look of it. I gave him my setup to do a review. Rob is about 200 lbs and likes to do freestyle winging.
The designer of these foils is the same guy behind “foilparts” that makes all the adapters people use. Daniel is pretty good at designing foil stuff it turns out.
Been testing the 800, its pretty good, replacing probably both 125 and 150
How have you been liking it for prone?
Yeah the swifts are good. But didn’t wow me. I like the m800 a lot more.
Only had one prone surf session on the m800 so far. Stayed up longer and easier than my old lift gear. I’m really liking it.
its a great wing, very stable and easier to navigate through rougher water. very good pump and very good speed. liking the glide too.
Here’s my ONO M800 review: I’ve had this foil (75 cm mast, M800, 13.5 stab, regular fuse) for 2 weeks now and surfed it in shin/knee high to 1.5x+ overhead conditions. I SUP foil and am coming off an Axis 999 (chopped to 940mm) and a 899 with 350P stab, 19mm aluminum mast, crazy short fuse. I’ve also used the Axis Spitfire 900, ArtPro 1051, and GoFoil GL/NL series wings. So, these two companies are my comparison.
OK, the construction and finish on the ONO are good to OK. My mast (brand new) has a gap with the fuse in the front of the joint because it was over-sanded at the factory, but other than that, the quality seems in line with other companies’ products. I don’t notice any issue with this defect and the connection between the fuse and mast is tight and doesn’t wiggle at all. The connection between the fuse and front wing is rock solid as far as I can tell. One issue that could be improved from a drag aspect is the bulbous protrusion at the front of the fuse where it connects to the front wing; seems like that knob creates unnecessary drag and Ono should have shaved that down - there must be a reason for it, but I’m not sure what it could be. The finish of the front wing and stab is perfect. They don’t whistle at all, even on 1.5x head-high waves when you’re trying to outrun the freight train. The mast is 16mm thick and feels every bit as stiff as the Axis 19mm aluminum and GoFoil masts I have. One drawback of the mast is that you have to totally remove your screws from your board to mount the foil because the baseplate holes are closed, but I’ll live.
Foil performance: This little guy has a ton of lift for a 800 cm^2 wing with an aspect ration of 10.2 and a wingspan of 90.5 cm. The stall speed of the wing is at least 3-4 MPH lower than that of the 899 (850 cm^2) and just a bit lower (maybe 1 MPH) than the 999 (1038cm^2). I’m torn on the pumping of this wing. Here’s the predicament, when I was on smaller waves and came out the back with little speed, it seemed harder to accelerate than the 999. This is weird to me because the aspect ratio is higher on the ONO and the wing span is smaller than the 999 (perhaps the foil section is thicker making this the case). However, I found that if I trim the M800 right, it has a tremendous amount of glide and I could dig myself out of holes that I couldn’t with the 999 because of the lower stall speed. So, me not being able to accelerate the foil readily is likely a technique thing and not a fault of the wing. The Ono pumps significantly easier than the 899, SF900, and ArtPro1051 in all size waves.
The wing has a broad range of useful operating speeds. On smaller waves it provides a solid platform and turns every bit as well as an Axis SF 900 but pumps WAY easier. Again, when surfing smaller waves it felt like I couldn’t accelerate the wing as readily with pumping the way I can on my 999. Waist high waves and up, the wing is epic: Turns well, handles wingtip breaches fine, and easily accelerates with pumping. When you come out of larger waves with speed, the M800 is a pump machine - I was only limited by my lack of endurance as the wing would hold speed easily. It’s like this wing has an easy 1st gear that’s tough to accelerate past on smaller waves, but once you overcome that threshold speed of 1st gear, you can click into 2nd and then 3rd, but you have to punch through that slow speed resistance that it seems to have.
On 12/28/23 the biggest swell of the year showed up, I managed to paddle into two 1.5x+ head high waves. The drops on the M800 were manageable and the wing was able to stay in front of the section, but I had to really drive the foil hard in these conditions to stay in front of the section. I believe the 899 and 1051 would have been faster on those waves and given me more leeway to play as apposed to just survive like on the Ono, but the 899/1051 would not have let me pump back two waves to catch the next macker that was coming in as easily.
The M800 did some really surprising things pumping back out. Once on 12/28/23 I was pumping back out and aired the wave I was trying to pump past. I had a slight touch down as I came down the back of the wave I aired which slowed me down quite a bit, but the foil immediately engaged on touch down and I was able to pump to the wave I was aiming for. On my 999 I would have come down for sure. I tried this a 2nd time on 12/30/23 and was ejected off the top of the head high wave I was pumping over and landed flat on my back from ~8 ft up (HA! hurt). I also dug out of some other touch downs with the M800 over the last few weeks that I would have needed a GL210 to dig out of and would have had to paddle back from with the 999. I’ve gotten a bunch of 3 for 1’s on this wing and even managed a 4 for 1 on 12/28/23 (I know for prone guys that’s standard issue, but it’s tough for me on a 105L SUP). The ONO’s top speed is as fast at the ART 999 and SP900 for sure, but slower than the 899 and ARTPro 1051 for sure. The M800 seems to have a threshold speed that none of the Axis wings seem to have, but once you’re past it you can play around in different speed zones (I don’t know what this is about). Maybe if they took out that bulbous protrusion on the fuse, the foil would lose the threshold speed effect that I am feeling.
Winging this foil was predictable, thought the mast is shorter than I like. On 12/30/23 I was able to wing the massive swells that were coming in and the wing could keep up just fine.
I would suggest this foil setup to anyone that is looking for a low priced set up. You can get them on the site for $1600 out the door or likely used for $1000 or less (sometimes they have sales for like $1300 with a code). The M800 is really good and you can’t go wrong at that price.
Totally agree, very underrated foil, almost too easy to ride.
Compares very closely with the Lift 120. A little slower in speed and roll, more glide and lower stall speed.
I use mine with OG Cedrus carbon, 60cm and 75cm. Handles wingtip breaches well on the short mast!