Always looking for the right board for me, and the Patrick F-race looks great especially the carbon/kevlar rounded deck (no concave!), anyone use this board for foiling? Wondering how it balances with an AFS W95 foil, the 140 L looks about right for me, just wondering how much it weights.
I've got the 120 and still use it as my main lightwind foil board, however I'm switching to a dedicated one this weekend.
I learned on a tabou speedster 85 and use my jp freestyle for 13+ knots foiling. Paired them with an RRD wh alu 85 (120cm fuse, 780 wing) and f-one levo (+-85 fuse and 900 wing). Most used sails are 7.5 severne unit and 5.2 freek
So overall impressions: very good board for crossover foiling. Partly because I didn't try any race foilboard so far, partly because I must've had almost 50 foil sessions on it this year.
Construction wise I did manage to brake the nose once, but that was because I crashed with my knee on it. Furthermore it shows signs of use, but that's okay concidering my usage.
I left my footstraps in the outboard position. The frontstrap is easy to find but I surfed a long time with my backfoot on the tuttle box because I found the board to become unstable real quick. As I progressed I reached for the backstrap as well and it works perfectly fine. A wider board should even be better.
The take-off is good, but comes mostly down to skills. I got it going with the freek as quick as guys on +2m sails and foilboards. Anyway the longer nose compared to these dedicated boards gives it a nice glide which is good for the low end potential. Playing around with the mastfoot works very well.
One important thing to note is your choice of foil. The RRD must have had 0? rake. Together with the sharper rails of the f-race, it could slow me down during touchdowns a lot and even lead to crashes. The f-one must have some because I don't have this problem anymore.
Overall, I'd recommend it to people who want one board to fin and foil. I think it's more orientated towards fin, but it's lots of fun on the foil too and do perfectly! If you're into foil course racing then you should go wider. But for everything else it's worth to concider. Maybe the tabou fifty is something to concider for you too?
A final note: this board is a machine on the fin. It has explosive acceleration and up to this day it's the board with the most control I've surfed!
I have an F-Race 130 from 2018 and I used it until I got the Tabou Magic Carpet 110. It's the cheaper construction and one thing I noticed when foiling was that something feels flexible...probably the board, but could also be flex on the Slingshot fuselage in position C. Weighing the board when it was brand new, it was a bit above spec in terms of weight.
I agree that the length helps build the initial board speed, but at the same time it's a very long board for windfoiling once you are up foiling. I think an aggressive pumper can get more out of a board that is more suitable for pumping onto planing.
If you want to do both and you like the board for freeride/slalom, then maybe it's a good board. I had a couple of good sessions on a fin with it, but never liked it as much as the Starboard iSonic and HyperSonic boards that I have used for freeriding with fins.
Select to expand quoteJuriM said..
I have an F-Race 130 from 2018 and I used it until I got the Tabou Magic Carpet 110. It's the cheaper construction and one thing I noticed when foiling was that something feels flexible...probably the board, but could also be flex on the Slingshot fuselage in position C. Weighing the board when it was brand new, it was a bit above spec in terms of weight.
I agree that the length helps build the initial board speed, but at the same time it's a very long board for windfoiling once you are up foiling. I think an aggressive pumper can get more out of a board that is more suitable for pumping onto planing.
If you want to do both and you like the board for freeride/slalom, then maybe it's a good board. I had a couple of good sessions on a fin with it, but never liked it as much as the Starboard iSonic and HyperSonic boards that I have used for freeriding with fins.
I pump that board up on the foil with a 5.2 when the others are out on 7.7. with and shorter foilboards. Lenght should not be underestimated. You're right that it comes down to technique but where a short board is lively and cool in the air, it has a drastic penalty to it.
For me it might be the best board I've ever surfed with a fin, that's also the reason I haven't sold it yet altough I'm 85% on the foil, but that's a thing of preferences.
Bit of topic, but how do you like the magic carpet? I finished a 200x79 custom foilboard and will most likely start on a 180x65 soon for foilstyle, but am a bit reluctant because I didn't really enjoy the Foil X when testing it. Might be because I needed to adapt my technique more.
Select to expand quoteBit of topic, but how do you like the magic carpet? I finished a 200x79 custom foilboard and will most likely start on a 180x65 soon for foilstyle, but am a bit reluctant because I didn't really enjoy the Foil X when testing it. Might be because I needed to adapt my technique more.
I had a lot of trouble initially with the Magic Carpet when windfoiling. Then I took the straps off (partly to learn winging) and got a mast base that allowed me to get the base about 1.5" further forward and I think that solved the problems I had (I haven't windfoiled much recently, so I need more TOW to make sure). The front foot needs to be quite far forward for me to get the initial speed in light wind and then I slide my foot back as I'm pumping and gaining speed. The straps were getting in the way of that. Another guy at the beach has the 120 liter version and I saw that he was using the mast base pretty far back last year. I spoke with him a few days ago and he said changing the foil completely changed where he needs to put the mast base, so now it goes all the way forward. I think Ross Williams also said something indicating that he's mostly using the forward part of the mast track (there's a Tabou video where he talks about set-up for all the different sports the board is supposed to do).
I have been mostly focusing on winging for the past couple of weeks and I'm enjoying it and I feel that the board works really well for wingfoiling. It's the only board I have used while winging, so definitely not an expert opinion. :)
If I could change some things about the Magic Carpet 110:
- Make the mast track a bit longer or at least move it slightly forward.
- Extend the double US box rails further back, so that if you do windfoiling, you can still use a pedestal base and don't have to have a separate Tuttle base mast. I have both now. I tried windfoiling with the pedestal mount and the front wing directly on the mast (Slingshot position A), but it didn't feel quite right (however, I still had the straps and didn't have the full range of the mast track when I did it).
BTW, it would be really cool to have a "foil assist drive" type of thing that installs into or through the vacant deep Tuttle box on these hybrid boards! No messing with cables around the board and stuff attached to the foil mast and attachment on the board deck would also be super secure & easy.
