Foil Racing - Downwind Speeeeeeeed !

My #1 tip, increase foil rake!! Having the nose up more is paramount to comfort at speed.

At higher speeds your foil angle will naturally have to flatten off to maintain stable lift. This means that at 30 or even 30+ knots the angle of your board to the water will be very different to flying at 20 knots. To prevent your board from flying nose down, an increase in rake angle is very very important, I'd say about 1-1.5 degrees more than for up/down racing.

Having too little rake for a speedrun makes it soo much more dangerous, a touchdown will immediately lead to a catapult! With a little more rake you can keep flying more easily, and if you dial it in perfectly even the cost in terms of speed is limited when you accidentally touch the water!

For the rest, hook in, weight out to load the harness/mastfoot, feet in the straps and be powered up, but not overpowered!!! My best speeds (slightly over 30 knots) were with 105L and 4.9 wave in 18-20 knots, which is a very comfortable upper windrange for that kit for me.

I ride with a loose leech for speedruns (like setting the sail to high wind wave setting), but with relatively thight outhaul to keep the preassure from moving in the gusts. Maybe a little less thight outhaul would be faster, but too me the drawbacks in terms of control are too large, and at 30 knots, control is what I need.

I dont do speedruns on the racing kit anymore, the up/down wings are not that fast. My fastest with racing kit was 52-53 on Lokefoil race M (90cm wide, 778cm2 surface area) with 9.0 in 13-18 knots. The newest PWA wings are probably the fastest thats out there now, but I dont have the $$$, so will just make do with my freeride kit!

Good topic, I think there are plenty of us wanting to know how to get more speed. Big kahunas is probably one of the main ingredients. Fear of pain and injury are probably the biggest barrier, for me at 55 as I don't heal so quickly these days.
My alphas are coming along well with a 21.4 last month and there is room for improvement that I can see. Have managed a 20 with my supercruiser with the 1300 wing fitted and regularly get 19s on it.
Where I am struggling is getting over 25kn on a regular basis and just under 27 is my best 2s with the 550 wing.
A couple of tips I have been given by a fast foiler is plenty of downhaul, more than windsurfing so the nose doesn't get pushed down in the gusts and to set the foil up neutral on a reach so you can sail it like a windsurfer and not have to lean forward for mast base and front foot pressure. This would be no good for upwind downwind racing but good for slalom.
Still working on rear wing angles to achieve the perfect set up but only use the faster gear a couple of times a month. I enjoy relaxing on the cruiser too much rather than scaring the crap out of myself.
Will also try more rake, thanks WOH.

Since the foil wings are airfoil Bernoulli lifting surfaces, the higher the speed the more the lift. Not only the front wing going up, but the stab going down. This makes for difficulty keeping the pitch under control in gusty winds.

Racing gear mitigates this with really long fuselages and stab shim angles. You can reduce the stab down angle to the point where it maintains nearly neutral down force at a great variety of speeds. This then requires the rider to do all the lifting with weight shifts. I know two pro racers who actually prefer this. They want all pitch to default to down, not up, until they weight their back foot.

I have tried this with a Moses Race, reducing the stab down angle by just 0.5 deg. The effect is HUGE. I am not a racer, but, boy, that foil is sweet butter at any speed. Friends of mine in Seattle like the -2.0 deg stab on their SB 115+ and 115++ for this same reason.

"Don't lift until I tell you to." 30 kts is easy, they say. I wouldn't know; my eyes get too big at 23 kts.

Great thread, we don't have many good one's here

I don't know yet what is working for me, I know I catapult 5plus times a day when I go into red zone or try to nail 20kt alpha air duck gybe (current record on duckie for me 19.4 on F4race 1m front wing)

Already I have learnt plenty on this thread

Although it's early days for the thread a pattern of what works for one won't work for another. This happens a lot in sport and life in general

Keep the ideas coming and we can all go faster

What do fast people think about board width and rear strap position?
On a reach/downwind my 91cm FMX foot straps feel to far out, especially with my rear foot hanging over the rail!
So obviously I rarely use them... but it does feel faster if I do.

I also tried an older 75cm slalom board once, with a relatively narrow tail and it felt too narrow.
It seems a lot of newer slalom boards have squarer outlines, especially the 85cm models, are these suitable cross overs.

Specifically, if you use the rear straps, how far apart are they?

Thanks!

looking at this video these guys like to stay high and put it all on the line
www.phantom-windsurfing.com/?fbclid=IwAR11AvrcBFUrKZqdNNlIaRvK8QimcNn-94gznYujNZwGULfULyD7YHzh8eI