Currently using a 70cm Alu at my beach break. Mostly works OK but I will hit the sandbar on some duckdives.
I am making significant progress and have my popups pretty dialed and have been gradually creeping the foil forwards. Yesterday I was getting on foil on the outside and then the wave hit deepwater I had trouble continuing on foil on the green "swell" wave. I was thinking that maybe a higher aspect foil would have had more glide than my slingshot infinity 76.
My shortest moses mast is 82cm and wondering if I need to pick up a 72cm if I biuld a moses surf foil glider?
For prone surf foil, I've used 55cm and 24" masts. To short for me personally. I know guys that prefer this length.
75cm, 28" masts. My preferred length.
81cm mast. It was fine, gives you a bit more leeway before breech and a bit more room to pump. I hit bottom to much at my local spots to stay on that one.
Edit: just stating masts I've used. Specific lengths. Not saying those categories are the same length. ??
Metric correction: 24" is 61cm, 28" is 71cm.
My standard prone mast is 27/69. Due to broken gear, lately I have had to use 32/81. It's weird on take off, but feels cool down the line, as Hdip says, more mast room to play with, so less likely to breach. Same with the pump. Have to ride higher though to keep foil in sweet spot, which feels weird...probably get used to it. It is a constraint though on lower tides where there's rocks and in smaller waves, on the bottom way more. It would be worse in a beach break. Fun for a while, but won't be my daily driver....the 5" difference is going to cost sessions for sure.
Winging, the opposite, really liking the extra few inches of mast room, going to keep that.
I only use one mast - 85cm for proning and winging. But there are some limitations proning wise as mentioned above. Hitting bottom is one - but the other one is pumping - gotta keep that mast super high - it takes a lot more energy to keep it up there.
feels like there is more "drag" as well - that a function of having to keep it high.
One advantage though is you have more leeway to really carve hard and not breach - or more realistically for me - gives me more room for my kook errors.
Yep.
Been running that size for ages. Yep you touch the seabed a bit more but I prefer the margin for error.
I use a 80cm mast and it works sweet for everything, i do feel if it was any longer it could become a pain on the low tide prone days. Going shorter now just feels weird so i stick to the 80cm.
Jacko
Yep I use a 82cm x 16mm Ali Axis for prone & 82cm x Ali 19mm for the Ding.
Adam Bennetts got me on to this the longer mast on the prone helps you get the high aspect wings over in the turns and gives you a better pump range so effectively a better pump.
Seems i76 would limit you to very small waves, which usually break in shallow water.
I76 is around 1500 sq cm.
Know some people who foil Bolinas Channel, and he mostly uses a 65 mast to avoid hitting bottom.
Dillon allows longer masts, but is much bigger and foilers there tend to go smaller than 1000.
Sounds like Longer has the following pros: bigger margin of error, better for higher aspect wings. Maybe these outweigh the cons of slightly more drag and more bottom contact.
Will try my 82cm tommorow at my local beach break
short but sweet session on the 82cm mast and moses 790 wing. Definitely like the extra margin of error of the extra 10cm.
My wife caught a wave and a half on her cell phone
Select to expand quotethedoor said..
Sounds like Longer has the following pros: bigger margin of error, better for higher aspect wings. Maybe these outweigh the cons of slightly more drag and more bottom contact.
Will try my 82cm tommorow at my local beach break
Mmmm it's quite noticeable how much energy an average Joe like me needs to put in to pump
and link. Especially when you get to low and have to try and "save" it. Not sure about the "slight". But hey you also don't breach as much either.
Ran into much more trouble yesterday with the 82cm than sat. Waves were large and closing out on the sandbar then they died out when they hit the inside trench. I was intending to white water onto the broken waves but as the wave come I guess the water sucked up and my foil would ground. meant I had to stick to the trench but the waves had much less push at that point. Probably will pick up a 72cm Still a good day.
www.instagram.com/p/CZqKfG3FXXD/
Our main foil wave is a rivermouth, where it breaks on a bar then deepens, so other than low tide we seem to be able to get away with longer masts. Same with peaky reefs around here. My limited beach break experience, exactly what you describe, even with my 69cm mast. White water is instantly too shallow, so only choice is to try and make the drop in the dumpers. Frustrating! Made me grateful for the regular break.
