Production foilboards

[opie]

Jimmy Lewis Hovercraft
Sim Sup foilboard from KIng's Paddle Sports
Takuma Bx
Takuma DBS
Takuma ZK
Naish Hover
Sunova SUP Surf Foilboard
Slingshot Airstrike
Blue Planet Easy Foiler
Starboard Wide Point
Starboard Hypernut

Out of all these the Easy foiler is the most attractive to me,  but I can't live with a bump under my foot.  Are there any other offerings out there that I can look at?

Thanks

[supthecreek]

Hi opie

Sunova has another offering as well.
It's called the "2 in One"
It has a tuttle and Duel boxes, so it can use any foil set-up
Plus 5 fin boxes to use as normal surf SUP

Here's a video of it in action:


Website link to "2 in One"
https://sunovasurfboards.com/en/sup/sup-foiling

Plus a few pics for those that don't know the boards.

I will be seeing all these boards in a few weeks, when I visit the Sunova Factory in Thailand.

[PonoBill]

Dave Kalama has a bunch of his new production boards on the way. Dave is about ten steps ahead of everyone in his design, They are FUGLY but once you've started actually flying a foil every single little tiny detail you look at makes perfect sense. It helps that Dave is in the water pretty much every day and his kid is pushing the boundaries of what is feasible on a foil, And most of the serious foilers in Maui are on DK boards and have new custom versions on order. The stuff changes every day. I was freaked out recently when Dave and some other riders were on 5'5" boards. But Kathy Shipman was on a new DK board yesterday that was so tiny it stunned me. She was paddling it around as if it was a 12' sup. I think she said it was 4'7" X 23". I don't really know because my brain shut down. Really? Fuck me. I have a custom DK board in the works, getting glassed at Dave Peterson's shop. 7'2 X 32". It looks like a fucking aircraft carrier compared to the other boards getting glassed.

If I can tell you any one thing about foilboards it's this--if it looks like a surfboard, it's wrong.

[PonoBill]

Turns out the board Kathy was on is 5'6" X 23". Not quite as crazy as I thought. No, wait, that's totally crazy.

Opie, the Blue Planet Easy Foil looks really good except for the rails. I expect in a year most foil boards will have deeply beveled rails and a beveled tail. Both the Kalama board and the new Jimmy Lewis performance foil boards have them. When you're in the water a beveled rail gives some secondary stability. In the air, if you touch the rail on a turn it just slides over the face. A beveled tail helps you pump the board up but still gives stability.

[Dwight (DW)]

Agreed Bill. I’m still shocked so many shapers keep pumping out normal boards.

Bevels do even more than you give credit. Drop anything flat on water, it sticks.

[peterp]

I'm on the fence with those bevels - I see the quick release and benefit when cranking hard turns but primary stability and directional paddling goes out the window to some extent. With the wings getting bigger this may not be such a big issue and in waves it may be the way to go.

I'm interested in a board that can cross-over and do downwinds - and there directional paddling and quick release is key - super hard cranking turns not so much (for me at least).

So I'm leaning more towards longer narrower outline - 5'6 just sounds stupid.

[opie]

Everyone seems so happy with their beveled rails.  The thing that has me hesitant is that I am not in the same class ability wise as the rest of you.  I worry that giving up stability for better flying characteristics might not be a good idea for a mediocre Supper. 

This is why I shy away from custom boards.  I worry that shapers no longer remember what some one of my skills needs to have fun.
Also, my main breaks have lots of current, and I like to spend lots of time in the water, so I want to be able to comfortably stand without having to constantly paddle for extra stability.

That being said, I think I might try a Kalama board.  I hope he gets a website or sells through a retailer with a website when the production boards show up.  Some one needs to tell him that the traditional shaper's word of mouth business is leaving money on the table.  I doubt I am  the only one looking for a foilboard who doesn't live in Hawaii. 

I like to stare at the pictures and stats before I spend that kind of money sight unseen.

[PonoBill]

The Jimmy Lewis boards currently on offer are excellent beginner boards. but they have limitations as any beginner board will. I was surprised when I first stood on a Kalama board that it was so stable. A lot more stable than my converted L41 and as stable as the Jimmy Lewis. I think Jimmy is a genius at making what people want and need. Making what is probably the only beginner foil board when 99 percent of the market is beginners might seem obvious in retrospect, but he's the only manufacturer that did that as far as I can see. And his next wave of foilboards are advanced performance boards with deeply beveled rails and stepped and beveled tails.

Remember that the one thing you won't have to do with your rails is turn on a wave, so the rails don't need to promote that. When you are flat on the water roughly half the bevel is in the water, so the board is wider than you'd think, and when it tips, it gets wider on that side, so the secondary stability is excellent. The boards are surprisingly easy to paddle. I haven't foiled one yet. Just stood on one and paddled it around, but I was immediately confident enough to order one despite my geezer balance and weight. I'm pretty certain the board I'm getting is too big at 7'2". None of the people that have Kalama boards disagree with that belief.

Even odder is the downwind aspect. The people who do it well here on Maui are on the dinkiest boards. The most important element is the ability to pump the board up onto the swells. If you can't do that it's a long, grim paddle. A long board with a foil dragging under it won't make that paddle any less grim. Short boards with beveled tails are the easiest to pump up.

You can be surprisingly sloppy about direction when taking off on a wave or swell and still pull it off as long as you are prepared for the foil to take over and straighten your mistakes out. The most important thing is keeping the foil angle as flat as possible to minimize drag while still providing some lift. I have to wrestle my "big" (8'5") Jimmy Lewis into submission when I get a little crossed up in a wave, but I watch the foilers on the little boards closely, and their boards whip into the best direction with minimal effort. They get a lot more waves than I do, and it's not just because they are better.

I asked Dave Peterson, who is glassing the custom Kalama board, to add a finbox and mast track to my board before it gets glassed. The finbox is to add a ventral fin to let me experiment with that for directional stability. Dave is playing around with a ventral fin on his personal boards. I want to use a much smaller fin than he is using, with a very low aspect, but I like the idea. Whether or not it tosses me off when the nose touches down is a question that will have to wait until I get the board, but it seems to work well for Dave.

[opie]

7'2" by 32" sounds good to me.  Did he give you the volume?
I have the 7'10" 144 liter Takuma BX, and I am happy with it, but want my second board to have less swing weight.  I tried the 7'11" 123 liter Papenoo from F-one, and it seemed like enough volume, especially if I can get that volume arranged in a shorter  more foil specific board.
Foam is my friend.

[PonoBill]

No, but it's super thick. I'd guess somewhere above 130 liters. With the squared-off profile calculating the volume is simple. I'll measure it next time I go by Dave Peterson's place.

[Dwight (DW)]

The trick to making a huge bevel rail board work, is getting the volume right. The board needs to be down in the water, not riding high and dry on the narrow middle.

It’s not a shape for kooks that can’t handle boards with proper volume....deck flush with the water.

Get it right. Mine is more stable than my normal shortboard SUP

[Califoilia]

The trick to making a huge bevel rail board work, is getting the volume right. The board needs to be down in the water, not riding high and dry on the narrow middle.

Yes, I thought it kind of went w/o saying that you don't try to paddle around on the "bottom" of the board....

...but rather the entire bottom of it, which includes the surface all the way up the "beveled rails".

[dpmaui]

Here's Pono Bill's new Kalama 7-4 and again with Randy's new 5-4  for comparison

[PonoBill]

I like the photo caption: RackOFuglys. Randy's board would make a nice tender for mine, something to paddle in for lunch when I anchor the barge out in the harbor.

Hey DP--glass that fucker.

[Rider]

I can see a bit of “Stretch” cave art period in those graphics. Peace on.