The question is pretty straight forward.
For me, I only tend to foil until it’s chest to head high. If it’s bigger, I take the surfboard.
Also, if I don’t see any non-crowded take off zone, I don’t foil.
If it’s head high but offshore I probably won’t foil, either, but that depends on how mushy the wave is.
Edit: I haven’t touched my small waves twin fin or my longboard since starting foiling.
If I get stuck going to a wedding or some other bullshit in Costa Rica etc I’ll surf but that’s about it. At home once or twice a year when it’s over 10 sec and glassy
I wish it was different but the question is the written upside down for me..Sometimes conditions allow me to prone foil.
Now with the foil drive i am getting way more sessions but wind and bigger waves make it difficult too.
Also a factor is time, i live in front of a surf break thats only pronable when small so surfing is still the winner.
Apart from this people would be the main factor, I have sometimes change gear to a surfboard when I have seen a perfect for proning break crowded.
Since I live in the gorge which has such great conditions I don’t care to foil in the surf. When I go to the ocean I pretty much always choose a surfboard or sup for the waves. If it’s windy, strapless kiting is awesome.
If there is no chips and or its over 4 ft, The best prone days are chest high groundswell here in florida.
If the wave has a steep critical drop and isnt mushy or is high tide shorebreak i surf, besides that its typically always more fun to foil. Surfing in florida is “peak season” now so will surf 90% of the days of the year the next few months. Keep those fishes and pintails for the big days but your going to be on foil 90% ++ now. #foilbrained
Last time i touched a surfboard was almost 7 years ago. Just before drilling 4 holes through a perfectly good thruster to fit a DIY foil.
I honestly can’t imagine any conditions that would make me choose a surfboard over foil. It just feels silly to take a surfboard into a lineup with more than 5 guys and wait your turn (or hassle) to ride a couple of seconds at crawling speed.
For me all conditions are foil-able. If it’s big, sit wide or catch the reform and pump around. If it’s small and littered with longboards, walk another 50m to the next sandbank, or paddle 100m to the nearest reef reform. If it’s too shallow, wait 3 hours or take an old foil/short mast, scramble over rocks or stall the takeoff.
Perhaps if i lived at a perfect barreling reef break and had local privileges to actually take more than 2 waves an hour, then… naa, fkit, I’d still go foil somewhere else.
I will surf if:
Otherwise I’m all-in on prone foiling 
If it’s big, it’s really hard to catch the reform. Any whitewater that’s 50cm tall or higher will make me get ejected from the board!
I think foiling is way more fun on bad waves, but when it gets good, I’m still surfing. I’m really foilbrained but the days that are clean and overhead+ to double overhead at one of my local pointbreaks, I’m sorry but I’ll take a surfboard hahaha
We wingfoil so much that I basically have given up prone foiling just to have more #DiversityEquityandInclusion.
Small and no wind = longboard. ~100 days here.
Bigger and no wind = shortboard. ~30 days here.
Small and wind = wingfoil. ~200 days/year here.
Bigger and wind = kite. ~35 days here.
If my front yard was a wave of Fiji quality with no one out I would still surf. But anything like crowd factor, long boat rides, and worse of all the “cool factor” of how surfing is the best thing ever (it is for someone who can’t surf or just started or is a pro I guess). Is a huge turnoff. I’d rather do my own thing and ride the foil every day with no one or a couple of prone foilers around me. I used to surf every day almost in Fiji for 5+ years and even during COVID when no one is out. That feels like a past life now
I haven’t touched a surf board in 2 years now. Im still trying to get the hang of prone foiling on sharp turns and carves and basically treating like a surfboard or a surf style.It’s more interesting to me and challenging than a normal surfboard, which i’ve done for the last fifteen years.
And same. Even if conditions are great for surfing, id rather prone it and get in the pocket and carve faces
I’ll pull out a surfboard to paddle out with my wife or kids. Otherwise its a foil.
Even when I ride a longboard, I feel silly with how short the rides are.
almost nothing, I saw this and had to feel for people that have the hots for surfing at the moment as it looks like such a circus. Barrels and hollow waves are what foiling misses but at the cost of that I will pass for a while longer
I’ve surfed worse crowds with worse waves hahaha
I still prefer surfing to foiling, so if the conditions mean fun surfing, then that’s the call. Prone foiling has made the small days super fun. Occasionally when the swell is big enough to be surfable (chest and up but not throwing out) I’ll still foil if the conditions are right (easy take off.) Been dreaming of a Foil Drive though to go ride head high open ocean reef type waves that are doable on a big sup foil as well, but I’d rather surf than supfoil…
Tubes=surf
Mush burgers=foil
I
Damn. Lance’s is clearly done.
ya you need proper expedition yacht money to get uncrowded barrels… all the places you can fly to are ruined. That HT Lances video is the best the rest of us can hope for and it’s not appealing to be part of the problem.
Like it was said before, I only prone, unless:
which equals to almost never in europe.
Outlier here, I surf quite a bit. Definitely when it gets big, but also a lot of smaller days when I think a usually crowded spot will be light.
I am on the foil most of the time, but sometimes i just want to attack the lip or pop into the lineup for 1/2 an hour.
