I know what foil is but I have no idea how it effect the way a board performs. Does anybody out there know more than I do? Thanks Julie
Julie. Foil is the change in thickness of a board as you travel from its tip to its tail. When thinking gabout foil one must consider the trade off between board responsiveness vs board floatation. The thinner a board is the more responsive it is to the surfer - thinner board means the surfer is physically closer to the water (imagine trying to surf a board that is 12 inches off the water?!). George Greenough, a famous board designer, is known for his ultra thin “spoon” knee boards. They were ultra thin (how thin?) and the performance level he achieved with them on waves inspired a whole new style of surfing in the early 70’s. He was carving and putting the board in parts of the wave never seen before. GG was able to achieve maximum performance partly because of his forward thinking foils. The design never made it into main stream surfboard design for one main reason - you really needed a set of swim fins to get a Greenough spoon in to a wave. In other words - they don’t paddle for ##### - and the typical stand up surfer simply can’t get the board into a wave. That’s where the other aspect of foil design comes into play. You need a certain amount of thick ness in a board to make it paddleable. So with these two elements in mind one can see that foil is the critical interplay between board performance and board paddleability. This may or may not answer your question but at least it will give you some food for thought. Thanks for your question. Swaylock This leads me to another question (I love answers that make more questions): Has anybody out there got a GG spoon? Ever ridden one? I’d love to hear/see a detailed desciption of the board…