First kit!

[B-Walnut]

Something clicked in my brain watching the prone at the gorge video in a neighboring thread here. Finally decided to stop thinking about sup foiling and take a go at it.

Today I purchased a takuma kujira helium 1500 and a mantis 5.0 wing. Getting loaned a 7'10" 140l board to take out for a day or two to get my bearings on. Then a 7'0" 150l board after that. Finally a 6'6" 130l after that.

In a month or two hopefully I'll be ready to get my own board and am wondering if I'll be ready for a 5'10" 122l or a 5'6" 112l Kalama board? Weighing 185lbs and aiming for SUP foiling in the ocean once I have the wing down...

Any first day out tips? I'll be in the gorge, wind tends to average around 20 knots where I ride.

[red_tx]

Glad you are stoked B-Walnut

I would recommend getting someone to pull you behind the boat first if you have never foiled.

Good luck and send it.
-red

[PonoBill]

Try it for a while and then take a lesson. Getting the basics starts with standing on the grass with the wing flagged behind you, facing the wind. Then bring the wing up and start playing with it. Do more or less the same thing in the water, then get a lesson.

[805StandUp]

In a month or two hopefully I'll be ready to get my own board and am wondering if I'll be ready for a 5'10" 122l or a 5'6" 112l Kalama board? Weighing 185lbs and aiming for SUP foiling in the ocean once I have the wing down...

FWIW, I have two Kalama boards... a 6'0x28x115L and 5'5x29x109L.  Your mileage may vary but for SUP Foiling, personally I found the sweet spot to be 5'10-6'2 to have the right glide to get into waves.  Shorter and I catch less waves because I can't get up to enough speed on the shoulder or have to be way deeper and where the prone surfers are.  I think in one of his Progression Project interviews, James Casey says similar things about shorter than 6'0.  Of course once flying shorter is nice and I know people riding shorter boards that connect 2 or 3 for 1s (or more) once they chip into the first one so they don't mind.   For winging, as I understand it the shorter the better and downwind there seems to be a direction towards longer 6'0+ but narrower.

[Vancouver_foiler]

Get a helmet and buy lots of advil or better

[surfcowboy]

Vancouver lol. You go right to the hard part. 😂

It’s fun but yeah, the soreness is staggering. I’m a year in and sort of through it. Sort of.

Congrats on the rig and on getting board loans. That sounds like a great setup to progress through.

[B-Walnut]

In a month or two hopefully I'll be ready to get my own board and am wondering if I'll be ready for a 5'10" 122l or a 5'6" 112l Kalama board? Weighing 185lbs and aiming for SUP foiling in the ocean once I have the wing down...

FWIW, I have two Kalama boards... a 6'0x28x115L and 5'5x29x109L.  Your mileage may vary but for SUP Foiling, personally I found the sweet spot to be 5'10-6'2 to have the right glide to get into waves.  Shorter and I catch less waves because I can't get up to enough speed on the shoulder or have to be way deeper and where the prone surfers are.  I think in one of his Progression Project interviews, James Casey says similar things about shorter than 6'0.  Of course once flying shorter is nice and I know people riding shorter boards that connect 2 or 3 for 1s (or more) once they chip into the first one so they don't mind.   For winging, as I understand it the shorter the better and downwind there seems to be a direction towards longer 6'0+ but narrower.

Interesting point about the glide... I guess I was more focused on volume since my current surf sup is at 120. The new 6'0" kalama is supposedly going to be 130 which seemed a bit big... but again, I obviously have no experience on sup foils yet so i'll just have to see how it goes.

[Califoilia]

FWIW, I have two Kalama boards... a 6'0x28x115L and 5'5x29x109L.  Your mileage may vary but for SUP Foiling, personally I found the sweet spot to be 5'10-6'2 to have the right glide to get into waves.  Shorter and I catch less waves because I can't get up to enough speed on the shoulder or have to be way deeper and where the prone surfers are.  I think in one of his Progression Project interviews, James Casey says similar things about shorter than 6'0.  Of course once flying shorter is nice and I know people riding shorter boards that connect 2 or 3 for 1s (or more) once they chip into the first one so they don't mind.   For winging, as I understand it the shorter the better and downwind there seems to be a direction towards longer 6'0+ but narrower.

^^ This post is spot on!! ^^

I ride a 5'1x27x102L at 180 lbs...but yes, I do miss some waves due to the much less glide the board has compared to the same shaped 5'7x28x103L board I have.

Pretty much just falls in line with what I say about everything wrt foiling (boards, wings, masts, fuses)...."When you get something, you give something up". I choose the maneuverability and easier pumping of the shorter board, at the expensive of not getting as many waves as I would with my larger/longer board.

IOWs, right now I'm more "quality over quantity", but I just picked up a new Kings 5'4x27x102L flat tail, to see if adding 7" of bottom instead of the usual kick tail, gives it a paddling bottom more equivalent to my 5'7, and catch a bunch more waves, but still have the maneuverability of the shorter one presently.

The new board seemed paddle as expected yesterday the first time out with it, but my mast setup/guess was wrong, and the conditions were pretty mixed up and wonky for a decent comparison on how well it lifted off and surfed. Will report more later once I get everything sorted out, and dialed in correctly...if anyone's still interested. 🤷‍♂️😁

[B-Walnut]

FWIW, I have two Kalama boards... a 6'0x28x115L and 5'5x29x109L.  Your mileage may vary but for SUP Foiling, personally I found the sweet spot to be 5'10-6'2 to have the right glide to get into waves.  Shorter and I catch less waves because I can't get up to enough speed on the shoulder or have to be way deeper and where the prone surfers are.  I think in one of his Progression Project interviews, James Casey says similar things about shorter than 6'0.  Of course once flying shorter is nice and I know people riding shorter boards that connect 2 or 3 for 1s (or more) once they chip into the first one so they don't mind.   For winging, as I understand it the shorter the better and downwind there seems to be a direction towards longer 6'0+ but narrower.

^^ This post is spot on!! ^^

I ride a 5'1x27x102L at 180 lbs...but yes, I do miss some waves due to the much less glide the board has compared to the same shaped 5'7x28x103L board I have.

Pretty much just falls in line with what I say about everything wrt foiling (boards, wings, masts, fuses)...."When you get something, you give something up". I choose the maneuverability and easier pumping of the shorter board, at the expensive of not getting as many waves as I would with my larger/longer board.

IOWs, right now I'm more "quality over quantity", but I just picked up a new Kings 5'4x27x102L flat tail, to see if adding 7" of bottom instead of the usual kick tail, gives it a paddling bottom more equivalent to my 5'7, and catch a bunch more waves, but still have the maneuverability of the shorter one presently.

The new board seemed paddle as expected yesterday the first time out with it, but my mast setup/guess was wrong, and the conditions were pretty mixed up and wonky for a decent comparison on how well it lifted off and surfed. Will report more later once I get everything sorted out, and dialed in correctly...if anyone's still interested. 🤷‍♂️😁

When people talk about the "Kings boards" are you all talking about the boards at kingspaddlesports.com? What makes them special vs others? Better for sup foiling?

[Califoilia]

When people talk about the "Kings boards" are you all talking about the boards at kingspaddlesports.com? What makes them special vs others? Better for sup foiling?

Yes, at least when I write it. I like them because not only are their "off the shelf" boards designed and built very well...while still being light in weigh (relatively speaking compared to many/most of the other "production" boards), and they have sizes to fit just about anyone, and they price them all the same regardless of size, something many other sup foil board companies don't do. My first board from them was a "stock" board, and it worked great, and I loved it.

But what I really like about them, is that Dave Daum the owner, is also very open to designing whatever it is the customer wants. He's a wizard on the CAD program and CNC machine, and what you see and are happy with on the screen...is what you get once he's done with the custom board.

I've used other shapers to make a custom boards for me, and while very nice, and equally well built, and light...there seemed to always be something that got lost in the translation of what was in my head, and what I eventually ended up with. Dave's also makes it easy for anyone from anywhere to design a board with him w/o having to sit in the shop with him if the so choose to go that way via

But this is not to say that others like John Amundson, Mark Raaphorst, Dave Kalama, or others aren't making board equal quality, and/or performance features. Kings is just a somewhat local board company, and I've surfed with Dave for many years before he ever started working with him. He's become a good friend, makes a great product, and so I'm quite partial to his boards. So take all of the above with that in mind, and if/when you might read me write "Kings" in a post in the future. 👍🏽🤙🏽

[jondrums]

I'm very curious to hear if the flat tail concept translates to increased glide in a sup foil board.  logically it makes sense that we just added back a bunch of running length in comparison to the bevelled tail designs.  But does it work in practice.  I think I saw a quick post by Dwight saying it works for SUP, but no details.

[805StandUp]

I am curious on whether your hunch works too, Califoilia.  Look forward to the ride report (and pics!)

Oh and B-Walnut, enjoy the learning process!  Once a lot of us went down the rabbit hole, there was no turning back!