Has foiling just killed light wind windsurfing?

Interesting thread to read,, and lots of good / different views on the topic.

1)To jump to the first question. If foiling has killed light wind windsurfing?

Defiantly not. I'm sure if sailors want to go light wind windsurfing, then there still is lots of options for boards / rigs, even if some brands 'down scale' their range, with not having the boards for really light wind. The current boards will still be excellent for many years ahead. I don't think it will totally disappear, but defiantly decrease a lot in volume. Also brands can't justify small volume productions of some sizes and the natural way is to dis continue them in their range.

2) I don't think it is the industry ( to start with) that is pushing anybody hard, 'forcing a new product on the market' to make some extra money, and make customers buy the latest foil set up of boards / foils, as the only option.

I believe majority is driven by what sailors and what the market want. Of course there is a eventually a big marketing push following behind this, to sell more products. Nothing unusual really. Most brands saw the opportunity, to jump on board when the demand started on foils and boards.
Believe it or not, but it is here to stay.
But yes it can be seen a little 'over the top' with all the foil talk / new products / events etc. For sailors having no interest in it and will never give it a go,


3) I have to disagree on the 'it is to expensive' fear. Yes for sure it cost $. But like mentioned many times, if you want max TOW, Then you will get it many times over. I assume every sailors want to maximize the time on the water and have fun.

The most important is to start with the right foil, as you will progress so much easier on the learning curve. You can use any old slalom board to start with, to keep the cost down (just try to keep the width over 70cm or so. 70-100cm as it makes is easier / more stable). Even some SUP boards can be used / or converted to be used.
The right alu foil complete set up new is $1500-1750 (on average), and if you can find used then around $900-1300 or so.'(if they are to cheap, then there is a reason :)
Full carbon foils around $3000 new, and used from $1500-2000.


4) The arms race for racing foils. Racing anything has always been the same. Lots of push to develop better gear all the time, use of high tech materials etc, and you can end up spending a lot of $ going down this path. Some want to win races or be the fastest on the water. Other just like the efficient performance of a race foil set up. Some have specialized boards / rigs and this can all add up in $. It just depends what you want. You can buy a used race foil and use your normal race sails, if you have those, and off you go. Even the old formula board will work just fine.

However as mention a few times above there is 2 directions in the foiling. Race foiling / fun foiling. (well both is fun) :).
The main thing is that the fun lifty foils don't require much sail power to get going.In comparison we can often use a 5.9 in lighter wind, where the race guys using 8.0-10.0. The speed and upwind / downwing is defiantly better on the race set up. The ease of use, jibing, carving etc, is better on the fun foils. To learn on the liftly fun foils is easier.

To be honest I have used 1 foil set up since I started, (the standard starter alu foil package) and using the same setup today (Over 1 year) I use my current wave sail range from 3.7-5.6.
The only sail I got 'extra' is a 5.9 that I use in light wind (takes me down to 10-12 knots). I use one foil specific board 125L. Okay the board is a bit of expense to start with, but worth it if you are getting really into foiling.

I'm blown away with how many good days I had on the foil, in wind and conditions I would never have consider before. Also note that the fact that travelling upwind / down wind is quite effortless, so the distance and exploring up / down the coast, or on the river, or riding swell down wind and to make it back upwind in a easy way, - is priceless,,

5) There is a fear factor to get into foiling, I do understand this 100%. It is intimidating first time to get flying, or the though of crashing.
The right foil setup will help a lot on the safe learning progress. As mentioned there has been some early below average unstable foils out there, that made the learning progress hard/ and at times dangerous. The current foils is a lot better and more stable.
There is also options to use shorter masts, to ease yourself into it for the first days (without crashing from 1m above the water)

6) I will wait until the gear is developed a bit more. I often hear this, but have to say the gear is there at the moment in terms of performance and how easy it is.

Give it a go as it will open up a lot of added fun days on the water :)

But to finish on the headline question again (has foiling killed light wind windsurfing).
As Martin mentioned, the shallow spots and weedy spots (you just can't go on a foil).
Also some purely just like the light wind windsurf gear they currently have and feel no need to change.
All perfectly good, but there will be a downturn on the brands development on light wind windsurfboards now (or over time).
It could be a good time to 'stock up' on your favorite light wind windsurfboard :) , and in a way they might still keep some good value, as they can be used for foiling? he he :)

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my7thlife said..
The thing is, the ultrasonic was an ideal foil&lightwind board, if you now buy a dedicated foil board you need a 2,000+ investment for a board that is not even suitable for windsurfing. Not to mention my 2013 US is not foil ready so it is quite risky to try it with a foil...

2013 board should be solid, not like newer boards, lol. If you want to foil then use it and replace the box if and when it fails or replace it now then you'll foil with 1 less worry. I found a cheap formula board so I can keep my US for slapping fun.

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CJW said..
The other thing is it does take a bit to get your gear setup to make foiling easy, this can be difficult if you just go in blind with a normal windsurfing 'style' mindset and a non analytical approach. There is also a lot of bad advice out there in terms of how to setup your gear unfortunately.

Very good point. Gear setup can be a big problem for newbies, especially if they mix & match gear. A couple of sessions ago, there were two setups on the beach that just did not fly. One was mine , but at least I knew that it should have felt differently, and figured out that the wing was too far back for the board I used. The other board had the same problem, but the newbie did not know he had a gear setup issue. He used a Slingshot i76 with an RRD foil board; that combo requires the C position, it seems, the B position did not work well. My combo (SS i84 + Skate 110) required an extra hole in the fuselage that created a "D" position where the wing is 5 cm further forward.

Once the gear setup is correct, the "old style" wide LW boards seem to work great for foiling. Lots of width and volume make it easy for beginners. I'm quite tempted to put a foil track into an old longboard like a Mistral Pandera. The i84 seems to take off just above 6 knots, and that board speed is easy to reach on a longboard without having to pump like crazy. But maybe I'm just dreaming. I love longboards, but love foiling more. Put them together, and keep having fun when the wind drops below the foiling threshold?

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BSN101 said..

Protabou said..

Orange Whip said..
I doubt we'll see any second hand SB US's coming up for sale any time soon.

I am selling a 2016 Starboard UltraSonic 147 Carbon (10 times on water, no damages/repairs - only couple of paint scratches). The only thing is that you need to be in Europe to get it (I am living in Latvia)

Go for it OW! Lol

Haha, freight might just be the killer. Anyway, there's four at Busselton I'm keeping my eye on.

The foil sail test in the July edition of Windsurf mag featured 8 sails, 5 of which were 7.5 or bigger. What gives? I thought part of the foil deal was using small sails for planing in next to no wind. My biggest sail is a 7.7 and I can plane in 12 knts on an old heavy log. That article is encouraging, if I could just get my hands on a SB US I mightn't have to go to foiling to plane in 10 knots

It's the addiction (and quest for upwind/downwind performance.) As your skills improve, you begin foiling in lighter and lighter wind. Where you once needed whitecaps, you find that you've been out all day and haven't seen a single one. Your reference points of water condition change - radically. You want more. You want to go every $&#!ing day. If the 7.0 isn't getting you of the water, maybe the 8 will.
- source: personal journey and how I just bought an 8.8

Prior to the 8.8 my biggest was a 7.7. On the 7.7, I can get going in about 9 kts and stay on the foil around 6-7. That's a big difference from 12.

As well, if you are racing or just exploring, the upwind/downwind capabilities of these things are amazing. Dale Cook recently did 94km up/down winder in the Gorge in the US in 3 hours. Camille Bouyer did about a 66 km (iirc) circumnavigation of Ile de R? in France in a couple of hours. The big dogs at Engadinwind are using 9s and 10s ripping upwind in 8-10 kts.

If not foiling is your thing, that's cool. But, pretty consistently, we can use at least a couple of sail sizes smaller than our slapper friends.

Dale:
www.relive.cc/view/v7O9dR99zLv

The JujuCams Boys :


If you want to see a pretty cool race - here's something from Day 2 at Engadinwind starts around 1:37:30. Earlier in the video, you can see some great freestyling in about 12-15 kts of wind with sails from 4.5-5.0
?t=5849

I was considering getting another US but with the foil approved box. Too late now! All my other main boards are JP but at the time I couldn't find a SLW so I took what was available and I'm super happy with the US slapper. I'll be foiling on an old Fanatic.

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Mark _australia said..
I agree my7thlife

They are dropping models to push foiling - if only as its ridiculously expensive (they get a $5K sale out of you instead of a $3K)

They're dropping models to stay in the game. They probably know that a keen sports person will only have so much money to spend on a sport and they will spend that same amount whatever that sport happens to be. If you were a $2K a year windsurfer you can make the transition to foiling still spending 2K a year.
If you were a $10k a year windsurfer you will spend that as a foiler. Starboard is just doing what they have to do to keep customers. They probably, at least in the long run, don't expect to get any more money out of you.

IanK I agree to an extent. My point is more about buggering up existing models to make them hybrids and they're losing customers as a result. I think they've got the balance a bit wrong.

If they want to simplify, keep lots of models but stop doing 10 different SUP constructions and 5 different WS constructions, and so on.

I hear what you are saying on the many options on construction.
Believe me if the brands could just have one construction, and customer volume would be the same. Then they would do this any day.

They do what there is demand for, and to maximise the potential sale of boards.

They don't create lots of new constructions, in hope to sell more. They create it from the demand from all their customers / importers / shops in all their different countries.

To take Starbord as an example. I worked there for some years in the past and one thing I alway remember Svein Rasmussen did, was listen very carefully to customers/ shops / importers. Every country was different. Some like construction X, other liked Y and so on. There is a good reason why bigger brands have a huge range.

Svein often said, ' we have to give them what they want', and in the high selling Europe countries, the demand was always slightly different for what ever reason. So I guess it is just to try to cover every market.

Fot the Foil Ready windsurf boards. I haven't looked into it 100%, but it is my understanding that those bigger slalom / freeride board just have a better reinforced Tuttle box? And nothing has changed with the actual design for windsurfing.

It just meaning that a customer thinking of trying foiling, can use the current board to give it a go ( without needing to buy full dedicated foil boards). Some just like the 2 options. Windsurf it or foil it. Not sure it is taking anything away from 100% Windsurfer's, that wants nothing to do with foiling. I can only think some hundreds gram added weight from the foil box?

Again the brands gave customers what majority wanted. Being able to use their current windsurf boards but also give foiling a go if they wanted. You can buy a good used foil set up and plug in ($800-1300).

Im sure the gain is much higher , than the loss in having foil ready boards.

This is my personal view, but I think over time that the foil ready windsurf boards will decrease again and people will get onto the more foil specific boards. Well it is already happening :).

J

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Subsonic said..
Yeah i've got to say, pulling the foil out at peli point, i suddenly get the gist that im some sort of degenerate sub species of windsurfer. Makes foiling past them all the more enjoyable.

It's all in good fun of course azymuth

Try pulling a wing out when your with
your foiling mates then watch the
sniggering no different to windsurfers having a go at foils.
in fact its similar to when I jump on the Wally..., more sniggering....
its all good tho I feel sorry for those who judge with no evidence.

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Subsonic said..
i suddenly get the gist that im some sort of degenerate sub species of windsurfer. Makes foiling past them all the more enjoyable.

Yep so true, I'm told they have been around since the 70's and I'm a fashion victim. They were but the difference now is they work.

Funny thing is I seem to end up that was with all my sports ( recumbent cyclist, minimalist runner...). But just as I still enjoy a blast on my cyclo cross bike I still appreciate a big board or longboard workout from time to time. (Can't bear padded running blancmanges though).

Jesper (SailRepairWA) pretty much nailed every angle in his replies, so I can only really speak for myself.

I started foiling coz my mate bought a foil in winter, so we all thought we'd give it a go. I used my 2016 JP 135 Slalom board with an NP AL Pinkie and within a session was flying and hooked. I had plenty of crashes along with a **** tonne of fun, and extended my sailing range down to 10 knots which meant we were on the water a lot more on sunny winter days instead of just howling northerlies in pissing rain.

Since then I've bought a second hand JP foil board and upgraded to Starboard GT -R foils, and I can't remember the last time I went slapping. My JP Slalom 135 which I used to use with an 8.6 in 13 knots to get going now sits in my back room gathering dust, and will probably stay that way til the slalom series starts in summer.

I was not not keen on foiling, and openly scoffed at it til I gave it a go, and now I hang for 8-10 knots so I can do 20 knots upwind in complete silence, feeling the sensation of flying above the water while chasing my mates. It's extended my sailing range down to 8 knots, before I change back to normal gear at around 20 knots and can then sail in up to 30 knots with the gear I have. This means more TOW and more fun, which after all, is what life is about right?

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my7thlife said..
Well, Remi went live on facebook today. When I asked him about the ultrasonic he claimed that it didn't sell much and that now 'most people are foiling' (I guess he meant in light wind conditions).

Hard to believe both arguments. For starters I don't think the US is that difficult to produce; one size - one construction. Second, I don't think they sell in volumes every single size of the numerous boards they release. Moreover, if the US isn't selling, how come the fanatic lightwind and the JP superlightwind still are? As for the 'most people are foiling' claim, at least in the places I sail, even on marginally windy days, the people who foil hardly add up to a 5-10% of the sailing crowd.

I still feel discontinuing the US was a marketing decision, so as not to compete with the dedicated foil boards. Besides wasn't the 2018 147 foil board almost identical to the US? But who knows, eventually they might revive it a couple of seasons down the road...

Well since you wrote "US" many times, I feel I have to respond . Here on Cape Cod in the US, I don't recall ever seeing an Ultrasonic (or Falcon LW or similar). One of the regulars has an old formula, but he takes it our only a couple of times a year. On light wind days, the normal thing was to see one 50-kg women planing on her 6.2, and perhaps one longboard or two. This year, things have changed a lot. On lighter days, there are usually several foils out, often 3-4 at the same time. A lot of the foilers have purchased several foils already, some also have purchased more than one foil board or foil-ready board specifically for foiling. Others have modified old boards for foiling.

The only real "marketing" push that I noticed was that there were multiple opportunities to try foiling. A lot of windsurfers who tried it ended up buying foils.

A nice illustration of what really changed is the story of an "early adapter" friend who purchased a foil from Slingshot 2 or 3 years ago. Slingshot sent her a kite foil that she had no chance of ever getting up on on a windsurfer. Eventually, they replaced the front wing with an FWind1, but she was still stuck with the short fuselage. She's not the youngest or the quickest learner, so learning to foil on this setup is near impossible for her. Rather than getting another new front wing and the longer fuselage, she's given up on foiling.

Contrast that to another local windsurfer who started out with the Starboard Team foil setup last year. He since has switched to the Infinity 76, and loves it so much that he uses it exclusively. He has moved the foot straps on his old formula board inboard, and looks 100% in control on the foil.

A third guy started out with the Infinity 76 and paired it with an RRD foilboard. He had a hard time with the combo, until one of the other locals pointed out that the wing was too far back. Simply using the "B" position that works well with Slingshot boards did not work at all for the RRD foilboard.

The stories illustrate that it's big jumps in the usability of foils, helped by more knowledge how to set them up and use them, that's driving foil and foil board sales. For most, foils cover the same wind range as light wind boards - somewhere around 12 knots, give or take a few. But light wind boards never were as popular as foils already are.

Regarding price, let's consider a windsurfer who wants to extend his range down by about 3 knots - say from 15 to 12 knots.

One option is to buy a dedicated LW board ($3K) plus a larger sail, mast, and probably boom (another $2K). The other option is to buy a foil and perhaps Powerplate to use with current gear - less than $2K. We've gotten two of us foiling (with 3 front wings, masts from 45-90 cm for different tide levels, and 3 boards) for less than $3K. Nina can plane perfectly fine in 12 knots on a 112 l slalom board and a 7.8 (or a raceboard and a 7.5), but she'll pick the foil instead at least 9 out of 10 times. Foiling is as much of a "fad" as making boards shorter and wider has been for the past 20 years or so.

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Subsonic said..

Maddlad said..
Jesper (SailRepairWA) pretty much nailed every angle in his replies, so I can only really speak for myself.

I started foiling coz my mate bought a foil in winter, so we all thought we'd give it a go. I used my 2016 JP 135 Slalom board with an NP AL Pinkie and within a session was flying and hooked. I had plenty of crashes along with a **** tonne of fun, and extended my sailing range down to 10 knots which meant we were on the water a lot more on sunny winter days instead of just howling northerlies in pissing rain.

Since then I've bought a second hand JP foil board and upgraded to Starboard GT -R foils, and I can't remember the last time I went slapping. My JP Slalom 135 which I used to use with an 8.6 in 13 knots to get going now sits in my back room gathering dust, and will probably stay that way til the slalom series starts in summer.

I was not not keen on foiling, and openly scoffed at it til I gave it a go, and now I hang for 8-10 knots so I can do 20 knots upwind in complete silence, feeling the sensation of flying above the water while chasing my mates. It's extended my sailing range down to 8 knots, before I change back to normal gear at around 20 knots and can then sail in up to 30 knots with the gear I have. This means more TOW and more fun, which after all, is what life is about right?

Your mates an idiot. what was he thinking? Now nobody can fit all their gear in the car, and he's probably started a whole new arms race amongst your crew.

Oh wait...

I wouldn't exactly say he was an idiot, more of a lovable little scallywag really. He did however start another arms race the little bugger.