Standup Zone Forum
General => The Shape Shack => Topic started by: tarquin on October 08, 2020, 11:03:16 PM
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So thinking its time to see what all the hype is about.
I am 80kgs and a friend is 72kgs.
We can learn behind a boat then move to the wing.
Lots of good info on here.
By the sounds I want to keep it as short as possible. Lots of volume. Big beveled edges. But whats too short to learn on?
I am thinking just a quick build as we will move to something smaller pretty quick(hopefully) by the sound of it.
Keep it pretty simple. Flat bottom,maybe slight V.
Any ideas of a rough size and volume would be appreciated. Any ideas of what to do or not do.
I have 2 big pieces of foam from blanks and some 2,3 and 5mm HD foam. 2 stingers either side of foilbox and foil box all the way through from what I can see on other builds. I am thinking all cork deck, as I have plenty!
Has to be easier than building another hollow 14ft board too!
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Hey man, I did the same. Check out my foil sup build. I vote make it easy. You can build another once you’re comfortable.
I’m 63kg I went 6’4” x 28” x 4”. Flat bottom, slight bevel on rails. But I now know I could have gone simpler even.
I think my step down will be a foot shorter and 26” wide. But that’s because I want to SUP it too. Thinking of seeing if the Gong HIPE shape works. Even less detail than my SUP.
When I settle on a wing-only board (when I’m really comfortable) I’ll bet I’m down to under 5’ and 24” wide.
Go big. It’s hard enough. On my board I can stand up, lift the wing, and go. One less thing to flail with.
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Yes your build thread is helpful.
You are only 63kgs though! I am thinking I might need something with more volume.
Maybe go big as you said to make learning easy and cut it down later or hand it on.
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I would say shorter than about 5'8" would be harder to learn on. The pitch stability on your knees in any amount of chop gets tricky.
I learned on the 6'11" Fanatic (142 liters) which made it super easy. Like cowboy says, it's really nice to be able to just stand up and then pick the wing up at first.
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I was thinking around 6 ft.
Crazy idea! The expensive part is all the hardware. Make a central part of the board that has the boxes handle etc. The 2 stringers that go either side of the foilbox would be the sides. Once we have learnt I can just cut the rails off and glue some new foam on to make a narrower board. Also cut it shorter. Seems a pity and expensive to just make a learning board then bin it or give it away. I am running out of storage space!
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Take a look at my build thread: https://www.standupzone.com/forum/index.php/topic,36195.0.html
I'm a little heavier than you. This design is very stable at 6'3x28.5"x5 @ 129L. Can just stand on it and start winging in up to 1ft chop.
It does feel like a lot of board for winging though.
If I was going for a wing foil board only I would go with 6' but wide, 30" or so and probably 110L, to make it easier in heavier chop.
I found that the center ridge for precise foot positioning made it easier to get more stable.
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I ll say that they used market here is strong. You can at least get your materials cost back if you sell it. That’s why I’m moving down so quickly.
And you likely can keep similar dimensions if you just go thicker. I’d agree with no shorter that high 5’s but also I might offer, as was said that too long is a problem.
If you can get the width and thickness you want I’d say that no more than 6’6” in length is doable for the first week and then not too limiting for the first couple of months. But yeah, I’m barely getting on foil now but I can already see that I need to start a new build.
One note on the box install. Charlie at Grey Paddleboards makes pretty cheap inserts. After doing my stringer mount on one board and doing one with his insert tied to the deck with HD foam on another, I sort of feel like the insert is worth the money for the time saved. Again, I’m smaller but with 3 layers of glass/carbon over it and a long router bit, it’s hard to beat the simplicity of that install. Though I might try one more stringer mount to see if I can simplify it. I will 100% back it with HD foam to the deck this time however. Bottom to deck is key for me.
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I was thinking around 6 ft.
Crazy idea! The expensive part is all the hardware. Make a central part of the board that has the boxes handle etc. The 2 stringers that go either side of the foilbox would be the sides. Once we have learnt I can just cut the rails off and glue some new foam on to make a narrower board. Also cut it shorter. Seems a pity and expensive to just make a learning board then bin it or give it away. I am running out of storage space!
Not crazy, it's an idea I've been mulling for about a year--I should get off my ass and do it. My thought is to build a foam/carbon box about 12" wide and 36" long that has strap inserts and a handle on one side, and tracks and a handle on the other. Shape a board in closed cell foam. Cut out for the box and gorrilla glue in place. Then a very light schedule over the whole mess. Cheap and quick to build the board, the box is the only critical bit, and it's feasible since the area we actually stand on is small--from a little behind the mast to about two feet in front of it and our feet are close to the centerline of the board. I think almost every boardmaker has already seen the potential for an idea like this, and they're just figuring out what form of some similar notion would work best. Gong certainly sees the potential. I think as soon as you look at an insert for tracks that goes from the top deck to the bottom the wheels start turning. The only problem is the same one that prefab track inserts have--the board thickness is set by the insert. Really, the answer to that is simple--pick a reasonable thickness for the thinnest board you'd want to make. For anything thicker, just make it a tunnel hull. That helps with going straight anyway.
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Can you demo or borrow a board for an hour?
It only took me about 5 minutes on a low volume board before I was cursing and loathing all things wing.
Then another 5 minutes on a higher volume board and I was stoked on this new wing foiling adventure and able to get winging.
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No I can't demo a board. Probably could if I drive 2 hrs.
How much do you weigh? What do you call low volume ?
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At my weight (215) my Flying Dutchman 6'6"X32" probably 130L--is easy money, stable, light, no worries. I bought a Fanatic Sky Wing 5'8" X 28" that was 95L (the new ones are 110L) and it was just a recipe for suffering. I sold it on quickly. Then I bought a SIC 6'0" X 28.5" 104L -- better for me than the Fanatic, but still a pain in the ass to balance on while kneeling. I can do it, but it takes concentration and care. Probably if I got rid of the Flying Dutchman I could get comfortable on the smaller SIC, but I'd suffer, and the bigger board is painless.
Once I'm up I REALLY like the shorter board, but getting up on it in a pain in the ass. My next board will be under 6 feet, but 31 or 32 wide and thick enough to be 120L. Probably a deep channel.
I think the progression with shorter boards is faster, but I don't think that another few inches of width matter, and cerainly another half-inch of thickness is meaningless. I want a 12-13 pound board that I can kneel on without thinking about it. And when I stand up I don't want to see much in front of my toes.
I'm going to lose another ten or fifteeen pounds, but I have learned that losing weight doesn't suddenly make you better at foiling. It happens so slowly that you never experience some big epiphany. The weenie kids that weigh under a hundred pounds with the flexibility of Gumby have a lot of things going for them, but that means nothing to me. I'm not going to be there--I never was. I weighed 260 when I was fifteen. I got down to 212 when I was 16 and discovered motorcycles, but I've never been a flexible, short, athletic lightweight. That means I've always adapted gear to what I am, and unfortunately I've always been attracted to sports that suit lighter, smaller people.
No problem, but the answer to the OP question is, you need a board that you can stand up on for the first few weeks. After that, everything changes. Unfortunately, you absolutely need that board at first. Anything else is just too hard, and it teaches you all the wrong things. I've watched people who bought a board they'd love in a month give up on the sport, because they weren't there yet.
There a guy spending the summer and part of the fall here in Hood River named Felix--he's about my size, hell of an athelete and a very good kitesurfer, but he wants to learn to wing foil. He doesn't want to buy that stupid big board, so he's been trying hard on dinky boards--since August. He borrowed my Flying Dutchman for one day back in late August and ever since I can tell he really wants to ask again. I should be a mensch and just let him use it, but it seems every time I see him the wind is good and I want to use it. He needs a week with my board or one this size and he'd be off and flying, but instead he's flailing.
However you manage to do it, get a board that's big enough and get started. And then go from there.
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Yes I was watching a guy learning on a small board last weekend. He was struggling even on his knees. I was thinking, that dosnt look fun.
I was thinking something simple and that board burchas built looks like what I was thinking. In about 6'X30, he thinks and is about what I was thinking. I will get the foam out today and take some pics. Its the top and bottom bits cut of a block for a 12 ft sup. When they transport them they tape it all back together to protect the CNC blank.
So I think the idea of trying to keep the central part of the board is a good one. Then just cut it down or cut it out totally and build a new one around it.
Maybe some sort of system where the central part is interchangeabile between boards could be an option for the future.
Burchas,how long did that blank take to CNC. That bit looks very small!
Thanks again everyone.
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If I glue these together I get 4.5 inches thick at the thickest point. 1.5 inches of rocker at the nose. The top sheet is exactly 30". It was meant to be.
Should the mid section could be flatter?
I think it will work though.
You can just see a vertical line on the bottom sheet. From there to the blue line on the nose is 6 ft.
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No I can't demo a board. Probably could if I drive 2 hrs.
How much do you weigh? What do you call low volume ?
Drive 2 hours, it's way faster than spending days/weeks/months flailing on the wrong board...
I weigh 200lbs, I tried 70L up to 180L.
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I think I can get better advice here to be honest. There is no way I am paying 1000+ euros for a board either. So don't wont to waste their time.
I talked with the guy I am going to share the foil with last night. He has had some lessons and tried a few boards. He said dont go under 100 l.
He likes the idea of keeping the central part.
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Word of warning, you need a flat area (or at least predictable) for the foil to mount to. Also, most wing boards don’t really have rocker, in the traditional sense (at leas not as much as that.)
That looks more like a traditional surf board whereas I started from a dead flat piece of foam so I knew my deck and foil mast were at 90° and my volume was consistent throughout the board.
You can cheat the nose thickness a bit, but the tail really needs volume as that’s where your weight will be when getting up. Look at the side profile of pro boards. They are at least the same thickness through the tail and a lot have a bit more volume (the thickest part of the board) at the foil mount.
Any way you can get a sheet of foam to start from? Even 2 layers of eps insulation from a builders supply would be better I think, if you don’t have a foam source nearby.
I’m just saying be careful to not waste a few hundred dollars/euros in glass and epoxy and boxes over $40 of foam.
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???
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That looks painfully like the Geezer Foil.
(http://www.ponostyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IMG_0740.jpg)
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Ah, yes, much better view! You’re good to go.
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I had honestly not seen that. Did it work?
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Yes and no. Well, okay, actually just no. I did the math wrong, it was supposed to lift 250 pounds at 4mph. Instead it was probably about 600. I never put enough weight on it to test it. With it barely moving--probably 2mph--it would lift 250 pounds of sandbags and it leaped out of the water and got way up on just a couple of inches of the front wings. The back wing was one of the wooden foil wings from a kit--I forget the name. I made it with no fuselage, just the wing directly on the mast and the whole thing covered in carbon. I was so disgusted with the entire experiment that I never fiddled much with weight distribution but it was easy to get the back wing to overfoil and aerate, which made the thing porpoise uncontrollably.
But you don't get lift without drag, and it dragged like crazy. I could barely get it to maybe 1 mph with a paddle. It turns out that surface-piercing foils are much draggier than submerged--about double the drag. I didn't know that and none of the books i read mentioned it.
Also, it didn't turn--at all. I chickened out for standing on the thing while it got dragged by the boat after watching it porpoise--even with duct tape and foam there were a lot of things on the deck I didn't want to fall on, as you can guess by the picture--but I cheated the weights toward the rail to see how it turned. It didn't. I moved all the weight as close to the rail as i could and it still didn't turn. In fact it barely tilted. Maybe with 600 or so pounds we could have made it tilt and turn, but as it was, nope.
Total clusterfuck, but fun in retrospect. Based on my failed experiment I'd say you have far too much wing on that thing.
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Did those wood foils look like these. I bought some too and never used them! The foam wings are RC glider wings.
Wanted to do exactly what you did on the front of a 14 ft SUP. Decided they were to big and never got around to it.
Gong has some of there old G10 foils really cheap. I have been thinking about buying them and making something.
So the 2 blocks are foam are in the bag and clamped down to help get them flat. I will screw a guide either side and sand the back half flat. Again Gong has HD foam blocks with the 2 tracks. So i will buy one of those.
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Not sure what happened to that pic!
I need to order hardware.
Front and back foot straps or just front. 2 at the front or 1. Looking at different boards there seems to be a mix.
Burchas any help with measurements would be appreciated. Distance of foil box from tail and where to put the foot straps especially.
The block of foam seems huge!
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For me it was straight forward since I've used existing models on the market to model mine after.
Gong for instance have very detailed shots of their models on their website so for a 6' you can take that pic and Ghost it in Shape 3D over you model
and you'll get exact tracks and straps positions. I've used 2 other makers with board sizes similar to mine for comparison and made and average, they were all within an Inch range or so.
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Yes went to do that and realised my license had expired. Guess I'll renew it.