Where’s the video link Dave ?
Taking into account the 3-D environment that’s unique to foiling on a breaking wave , I worked on multiple foil sections at various depths and mounted them in shortboards and 48" paipos I could stand on. Relying on all foils being submerged and at speed the side foils being surface piercing.
Each kit contained the minimum area , weight and all foil components coming from standard flat plastic sheet that came in at $50 per foil set.
Brett,
I have a board that has almost no rocker - would the foil work on this board - soon as it gets hollow it nose dives. I had been considering getting it reshaped - but was wondering if the weight of the foil would reduce the nose dive tendency. When I’m home I could send some board photos.
Does the foil attach to FCS plugs?
Bob
Sure Bob, PM or email the pics. Surffoil@gmail.com
I’m off work for 6 weeks with shoulder surgery so I thought I’d do a few foil posts.
Ok, it may not be until mid-October when I get home. I don’t think I have access to photos of this board while I’m away.
Hope the surgery goes well.
That looks painful, hope you are OK.
Brett, Sorry to hear of your need for surgery. I hope you will heal successful and quickly.
I had shoulder surgery a while back and though it took a while to heal, I came back stronger than before. Credit to the physical therapy.
All the best
…I love that little papio board. I could imagine standing up on that thing. IS it as fast as it looks?
All the best
I think they knelt on my chest to work on the shoulder !
Mr Mik, our family is still loving your fins.
Any foil configuration will work in flat water, you can either add area or speed to get it to lift but there’s no creative challenge in that pursuit.
But on a curling wave the changing speed, balance, and wave shape makes it a lot harder to control the lift in a circular tube…
Splitting the foil sections allows for some off-wave area to be reduced in the tube where the angle of lift is increasingly vertical. Splitting the foil area into sections means you have to increase the overeall area because each piece generates its own leading and trailing edge drag.
But it’s more than a tilting of water from left to right, there’s also the fore and aft angle so I put the main submerged foil at the back for steady lift, and left the side foils for balance on left or right waves.
A simple angled connector between all three foils is surprisingly rigid and reduces the number of mast or mounts from foil to board. The connector also means you can build a two foot long foil from severall smaller foils so fabrication and replacements are cheaper and quicker. And with several sections it’s easily adjustable to customise the ride for wave or rider.
Its a mind game of more than surfing performance but creating something completely original and making it an amazing creation that encompasses the why and how of a product and the greatest benefit for the user.
These above are the 2015 versions In polycarbonate, Aluminium, ply carbon fibre and polypropylene that all look like the USS Enterprise.
Thanks for the pics. Opening my mind.
I was ready this year to put out a foil kit for shortboards but the market is so busy with the SUP/ surf foil makers that I can wait for the hype to fade and keep refining the design.
There’s a long way to go with foil design and I’ll put up some more prototypes over the next few weeks.
But this ones not mine !!
What the…? That is just crazy. Doubles as a picnic table?
For any of the creatives here you’ll know that not every inspiration is successful, some concepts end up a cautionary tale of unrestricted imagination.
One of the problems of foil design is that surface zone where air and water meet and the massive change in lift and drag and ventilation as a foil pierces into and out of that zone.
So I took a step back and looked at the basic footprint of a foil setup and it’s generally a rectangle so it was time to explore some successful characteristics of that rectangle.
I’ve made many flat plate foils but in order to maintain some characteristics, I tried a series of fenestrated or hoop foils where the overall dims stayed the same but removed a central area. It created a range of foil areas at the front and back and on both sides, blending the lift of the lateral foil with the stability of the long side foil areas.
I pulled the front and tail width in and out and varied the area distribution across and along the foil for bettter performance and tried a series of square, swallow and diamond tail shapes to see how that changed the drive and control n the tube.
After trying the multi piece foils in 2015 a single piece unit proved to be a lot easier to create and the less connections the simpler it is to work with and less opportunity for wear and tear too.
It also allowed me to not fear or avoid the transition zone between air and wave as a fenestrated foil could move through this zone smoother than the earlier multi piece foils, becoming a constantly changing submerged and surface piercing foil as the wave shape and energy dictated.
thanks for all your contributions, surffoils. I’ve finally learned to kitesurf foil - so much fun! I’m using a larger wing and really feel the wave energy, but usually outrun waves. Looking forward to better foiling in waves, with or without a kite, as skill and gear improve.
The “doughnut” foils you have shown us are very interesting. Must get some camber with the flex in the narrow side parts, it would seem. Do you have any idea how much flex you get while riding?
Variable camber may be a key development for progress in hydrofoils, especially if it can give low speed lift, but flatten a bit once going… interesting to engineer, but not impossible.
This guys channel is amazing. Here he is testing his electric jet foil.
EDIT: Here’s the channel link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC89LRjXxCO9DvzvmTW3TPDw
Bwd, From takeoff to bottom turn you go from 0-15 kph and most likely never get above 30 kph, so there’s not a wide range of speeds to cover if you’re foiling in the surf.
Being reliant of having a totally submerged foil for lift results in being scared of the water surface. With better design like the hoop or donut foils the foil is already specifically designed to do it all.
The only caveat would be that you’d need 2 foils to cover small and big waves.
I live in northern SD County where summertime conditions tend to be slow small and mushy. If I wanted to do a paddle-in foil board for mushy high tide swells that don’t break until they get 20ft from from shore, what would I be looking for in a foil aimed at nothing higher than 2-3 feet with the idea I’d either straigthen out or kick out prior to the wave actually breaking. How small is too small to get a foil up on plane? More planing and less turning.
As long as you have swell not merely wind chop it’s possible to foil. And it’s easy to foil on unbroken swell.
If you think you’ve got enough swell I’d steer you towards a simple setup with two large foils like this.
You can make them from ply and resin and set them 24-30" apart.
Youll need a longboard to get maximum speed but once you’re sliding down that swell you’ll lift up very smoothly.
I shape/glass longboards, make fins and I do vacuum bagging. I think I could make a wing like that. Do you have any interest in a collaboration? I’d pay your price on a design.