Gear and lack of true foil spots.
Foiling is a lie. “You can surf away from everyone and be all by youself!” The lie there is, foiling is good at beginner spots. All beginner surf spots here (Los Angeles area) have 3 surf schools pushing people into waves. So while it’s not hard to catch waves, finding open space is difficult.
The gear limits us in Southern California. There are mainly just miles of beach break where the drops are fast close outs. If you tow in from outside you can do some swoopy turns, but once you get into the true surf line, there’s not much for a foil to do.
So you end up at pointbreaks and try to get the insiders (or maybe the outside chip ins) so you don’t get yelled at by entitled rich white longboarders, or worse old shortboarders who throw rocks. Surfing out wide on the shoulder just confuses people. They keep trying to paddle further out in the channel and just get in your way there. They understand the lines better when you sit deeper in the pocket. But then you’re in a crowd of people.
When you do find that pointbreak/reefbreak style wave that you can repeatedly hit the white water on, then you realize the gear is holding you back from actual surfing. If you’re limited to mid-length lines and the inferior waves, why not just ride an actual mid-length in the superior waves?
Long way to go about saying. How do we make a foil that allows for a proper shortboard snap? Either a white water rebound, or a proper off the top in the pocket? I think being able to do that would allow more of the beach breaks to open up to foiling. Lift HA90 is the closest compromise wing (pump and surf capability) I’ve ridden. Unifoil Vyper is probably the best pure surf foil (very good surf, decent pump) I’ve ridden that comes closest to the snap in the pocket type lines.
Oh and before you say get a wing. There are so few pointbreaks where you can actually wing in waves. I do wing, but then you get 5 wings on one pointbreak and you’re starting to need an air traffic controller to keep order.