Diy sup foil

[supuk]

Managed to get it all finished up today but no proper pics, hoping to try it tomorow with any luck! The first foil specific dw board?

[Area 10]

Well, would you count Kai's board as a DW board? If not (and it didn't much look like one), then surely you have built the world's first (unless someone here knows different). Congratulations - it's pretty tricky to be the first in the world to do anything.

[supuk]

here we go testing later today as and when the wind pics up if not it will be tomorrow in the rain.

[yugi]

Nice!

Presuming you just "eyeballed" the foil angles how are you planning to tweak them? Presuming that's where all the tweaking is at.

[supuk]

The insadence is all ajustable so will just have a play I used to be a glider pilot so got a fairly good idea of were it need to be.

[getcarter]

man i'm dying to see how this turns out?....Charlie do you have some kinda price list for the various things you build?...
GC

[AndreasBreda]

Would love to do a testride on this one. Looks really cool

[supuk]

Had a quick test today it was 15-18knots on shore small chop so I had to paddle stright out. To start with I was standing way to far forward, once I got back I did 3 small hops unfortunately I cracked the top of the mast were it bolts in so it went all very woberly from there on,just trying to re do it now to test again tomorow. So far I'm thinking the mast and fuz need to be a lot stiffer so may need a re build allso need to try think a bit more about the insadence between the foil and the board as to how to have it set up for the best take off. Allso posably wondering about moving the fin box forward more

[Arany]

I show your picture  to a friend  of me and he dont live me .I have unidirectional  Carbon and glass that used to build windsurfer mast in the 1980 I wonder if I want to build mast what do I need and on the clan they could give me old rex for trying does it look ok to you.thanks

[PonoBill]

Once you get it flying the incidence will be set by the angle the board assumes, unless you mean the angle of the foils relative to each other. As I recall the front foil is screwed on with four screws. You could shim under the attachment with either a tapered shim or simply washers.

And A10, both Conner and Kai's boards were modified from existing boards by chopping off the tail. This may well be the first purpose built foil board.

[Area 10]

And A10, both Conner and Kai's boards were modified from existing boards by chopping off the tail. This may well be the first purpose built foil board.

Glad to hear it. Supuk is a true innovator. The other day I tried a couple of his 21.5" wide boards on flat water. To my amazement, I could actually balance them - in fact I didn't get wet at all. I was getting some extraordinary speeds - for me at least. In fact, looking at the GPS record, even on his 26" wide heavily rockered DW 14ft board I managed a peak speed of over 9mph, with a sustained burst veering between 7.6 and 7.8mph. No wind, perfectly flat. That would be nothing of course for Connor, but for a plump wobbly old porker like me that's prey darned fast for a DW board in millpond conditions.

He told me that if I knelt down and paddłed his 21.5" wide 14ft flat water board hard, it would go fast. He was right - I got a peak speed of 10.5 mph. If I had the balance skills of a much younger man I'd maybe be getting those sorts of speeds standing up. I actually wouldn't have believed this possible - at least for me.

[surfcowboy]

Charlie, I was thinking the other day that some sort of aluminum channel would be good for a test unit while figuring out the front to back position. It wouldn't likely work for a real working board, but as a test unit it would allow for a lot of tests.

Might not need it, since you can just move your weight but it got me to thinking about new kinds of boxes for this.

I know you'll dial the angle with a little time, I remember earlier you mentioning leaving it so you could tweak the angles.

[TallDude]

Also possibly wondering about moving the fin box forward more

I'm feeling that it's still just too much board. Maybe more deck pad towards the tail. When you're foiling, it seems less board would be easier to control. Once your back down to paddling in the water how little length and volume can you get away with? Maybe width is your friend?

[supuk]

First proper go out on the foil today in some micro waves. Things to note when learning to foil
1. It's a bit like paddling with a anchor when it's not flying.
2. It feels pretty darn high when you right out the water.
3. It's  a long way down when you crash
4.when you crash you crash hard and fast!
5. When the foil wants to go one way and you want to go the other the foil always wins!
6. Prepare yourself like your going in to a bull ring and probably won't win.
7. Did I mention the hard crashes!

That said I defiantly felt like I made some progress today  and got some cruzey flights staying fairly low and in semi control. It's defiantly puts you back to being a complete novice.

Got all sorts of thoughts on the direction to go, it would be great to do some more prototypes but bit strapped for time and money with the wedding coming up. One thought is that safety defiantly needs to be considered more I had a few close calls geting high sided and landing face first on the foil lucaly it missed my face, the north kite design seams like a prity sensible idea at least to start with.

[Area 10]

Sounds like someone needs to design a Kevlar suit for foiling... What would the foil do to a standard kiteboarding helmet if it hit it hard?