It took some guts to launch an autonomous tow boogie - the price seemed reasonable given the ambitions of the product, and the budgets / willingness to pay from the typical folks purchasing Lift EFoils.
From what I’ve heard, there may have also been some blowback following one of their product year transitions and how they handled it with a distributor. No easy answers there in such a fast turn environment.
Takuma was at the top performance wise with the release of the 1300/1600 and again with the Kujira’s, especially the 1095. They were especially good for people who were keen on using different stab’s and willing to play with shims to get the peak performance. Then everone else caught up to them performance wise. And all their crap quality and move to random aluminum fuses and a way too expensive carbon mast that was slow, became something that just killed the buzz.
Love that video of Scotty@foilwizard. As a beginner foiler I was doing off the lips and roundhouses with LOL 1300. Super nimble foil that is really good in the pocket. But I sure couln’t pump and glide it like that- or at all, really.
I loved the Kujira 1210 but just like everyone else, i hated the shitty build quality. Rode Unifoil for a bit but wasn’t a fan. Then saw the AFS and the build qualities and i immediately jumped on board. The Silk 1050 can do it all if you need one foil. Wing, prone and DW. The Silks are 10x better in glide, speed and pump compared to the Kujira!! Super stiff set up and i wouldn’t go to any other brands now. Waiting to try the 900 Enduro.
Wait a sec, rewind, they…. Fired Laurent?! I hadn’t really internalized that. I don’t feel as bad.
I too have discovered AFS but I skipped the monoblocks and went straight to enduro. I’m pumping as well with the 1100 and a fd max on as I did with a naked board and 1400.
Great thread and great answer btw from @foilstate , really interesting story. The generic foiling podcast have an interview with the AFS crew that gives some insight into the two designers at AFS and how their styles are radically different (leading to the Silk and Pure foils)
As much as I like Freddy and Liam (their pod has gotten better, IMO), I really wish they’d talked more about AFS’s latest stuff, and design concept behind the Enduro line, for example…Guess I’ll have to wait for Eric to test them, LOL!
Apparently decathlon becoming a takuma distributor asked takuma for a lot of gear to be in stock (decathlon is massive in europe), but then removed takuma from their catalogue (because of too many warranty returns?). Takuma was left with a massive stock unable to sell enough of it, putting the balance sheet in negative.
That happened after kujira 1, I suspect the kujira 2 was not enough to save the finances.