Does anyone else find it weird that we call the long part of the foil that connects the fuselage to the board the "mast"? So now we have two things in our gear that we call the mast. It gets confusing when someone says, " Adjust the mast." Sail mast or foil mast?
How did we ever start calling it the mast? If you Google search parts of a hydrofoil, just about all early images return "strut" for that part. I notice several posters here are using that term. The horse is already out of the barn, but should we start saying "strut" instead of "mast"?
Does anyone else find it weird that we call the long part of the foil that connects the fuselage to the board the "mast"? So now we have two things in our gear that we call the mast. It gets confusing when someone says, " Adjust the mast." Sail mast or foil mast?
How did we ever start calling it the mast? If you Google search parts of a hydrofoil, just about all early images return "strut" for that part. I notice several posters here are using that term. The horse is already out of the barn, but should we start saying "strut" instead of "mast"?
No it's not weird. Just a reflection on the demographic of wind foilers. Scientists studying language have found that innovations are always from the youngsters. Once we get on in years we have trouble thinking up new words for things. "Strut" is certainly better than "mast" but i'm sure a young windfoiler could come up with something that just hits the spot. ( Windfoiler is also a bad name, too generic, the best I can do is uni foiler or UJ foiler. More descriptive maybe but I'm not terribly imaginative)
Well, foiling like we do has existed for a while amongst kitesurfers, and a foiling kitesurfer only has 1 mast.
Does anyone else find it weird that we call the long part of the foil that connects the fuselage to the board the "mast"? So now we have two things in our gear that we call the mast. It gets confusing when someone says, " Adjust the mast." Sail mast or foil mast?
How did we ever start calling it the mast? If you Google search parts of a hydrofoil, just about all early images return "strut" for that part. I notice several posters here are using that term. The horse is already out of the barn, but should we start saying "strut" instead of "mast"?
who calls who the mast, and we call the leg (Shaitan leg), also called a poker.
This frustrates me aswell.... Kiters got there first and the wanted to be more like windsurfers! I say "foil mast" and sail or UJ to keep it clear. I also say windsurf foiling or foiling windsurfer to newbies because they would have no clue otherwise.
In the Columbia Gorge they have called it "mast" from the very beginning in 2015. That became a habit.
Guys like Bruce Peterson have been calling it "strut" in order to avoid confusion.
strut
noun [ C ]
US /str?t/
strut noun [C] (SUPPORT)
a support for a structure such as an aircraft wing, roof, or bridge
Looks legit to me![]()
Aviation (Hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror) has no shortage of nicknames.
There was a version of the Cessna 172 called the "strutless gutless"


www.b737.org.uk/aircraftnicknames.htm