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Foil stall meter - idea

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red_tx:
Anyone ever considered a meter on top of the board that was some hybrid between a level and a depth gauge for the foil?

We have all seen and experienced when the foil breaches the water on leading edge of wing. (FACE SLAM). I was just watching pono's post in the wind powered section and was reminded of this idea.

Maybe something like this would be mounted on the front of the board and help folks keep the foil down below the water. After a while you would not look at it.

I believe it would help learning foiling, and then adjusting to new mast lengths etc.

In theory it would have the ability to determine:
Pitch
Roll
Foil Depth

I am not sure yaw applies here but it hurts my brain to go there.

What do you think?
-red

PonoBill:
The way things go bad on a foil, I don't think a meter would help much. I always know when I'm going to over foil, I just can't do much about it. I can push as hard as I like on the front, it's just too late. By the time you equipped a meter with some kind of surface sensor you could use the same equipment to control the stabilizer to prevent overfoiling. A lot of the sailboats that are foil-equipped use a surface detector to control the AOA of the foil. They generally go a lot faster than we do, and the systems work despite the foil having a huge amount of potential lift at those speeds. Of course the problem with any kind of system like this, is that when everything goes REALLY pear-shaped the crash is much worse. Search YouTube for Moth crashes to see what I mean. Like being strapped to a Polaris missle.

surfcowboy:
Also I’ve never seen a time when looking down during a board sport is a good thing.

I think Pono’s right.  If you have a sensor, use it for control. Otherwise you have a product that’s only used while learning which is a business disaster.

Beasho:
Foiling is like any other sport.  It takes time to get good, or even to not fall.  But if you have less than 20 sessions it's like a 10 year old kid making comments on a surfboard's design when he had only ridden it 5 times. 

"Ok kid.  Give it a year and get back to me."  I don't mean this to be harsh, actually more motivating for the average person willing to take a few knocks in the surf (proverbial knocks). 

This stuff is not rocket science, even better it is actually EASY.  I am, for some reason, the only person who has ever said this.  My only secret sauce is I give everything 10 tries before I comment on how hard or easy it is. 

Weight forward.  Do not even try to fly.  Surf nose down, slowly on a 3 foot wave.  Start to go down the line and then slowly put pressure on back foot . . .

PS:  The biggest problem is with breach.  Stall occurs on these wings below 6 mph.  You rarely experience stall except when you turn 180 to kick out of a wave and promptly drop.

red_tx:
Thanks for the feedback folks. For the record, I am in no way even a beginner. I am lesser than that. I have only flown behind the boat and then I caught one tiny wave paddling in from the boat after he dropped me off.

I was not expecting to catch the wave then all of a sudden I was flying. That was surprisingly easy.

I'll just duct tape a level on the front of my board :)

Super stoked on foiling and just thought I would float my idea.
-red

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