First day into a winging trip I broke my foil (longer story there). I managed to scrounge up a Cabrinha x1300 foil (1300 sqcm, 4.7 AR) to save my trip. To-date I had only winged on mid/high aspect foils.
HUGE adjustment to use this foil, and a MAJOR compromise in performance from what I'm used to. Laterally very "tippy", zero glide, one-speed, and no ability to recover from a breach (spectacular blow ups when combined with a shorter mast than I was used to). I basically felt like a beginner again for the first day or so.
But after that, I started to really enjoy figuring this thing out. I could RIP turns on it like no other foil I was used to (actually I had to rip turns because the foil couldn't glide through a turn). While I couldn't really progress new maneuvers on it, I am sure figuring out how to ride this thing made me a much better rider. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't use this foil by choice, but it saved my trip and I had a ton of fun on it.
My takeaways:
- Riding new (and potentially sub-optimal) gear was interesting and educational.
- Low aspect foils can turn like no mid/high aspect foil I have used - and these turns are a lot of fun when you dial them in.
- I spend too much time optimizing my gear. You can have a lot of fun on any setup. Ride what you got.
- I feel like people recommend beginners starting on lower aspect foil setups (maybe I'm wrong about this though). After my experience I feel like that's a terrible idea. This setup was very challenging.
When was the last time you winged a low aspect setup?
I started out on an i76 Slingshot with a windsurf fuselage from my windfoil setup. Aspect Ratio: 2.
As you say, low Aspect are draggier, so they make gliding round a gybe harder. You need to have the power on for longer, then get it back on sooner after you change your hands. For beginner gybers, this makes it more difficult compared to a mid/high AR
A long fuselage makes it very stable in pitch, but the downside is you need a lot of force to pump it. Low Aspect should also be easier to ride, as they have less of a change in lift vs AoA,so shouldn't be as sensitive to ride. A more advanced rider might find that annoying though.
Having less wingspan will always make a foil turn better. Ultimately, there is always going to be a trade-off between glide/drag, and the ability to turn.
There's a reason that these two have completely different wing shapes, the one on the left needs to be highly maneuverable, the one on the right needs to glide as efficiently as possible:
There is another difficulty with making a wingspan huge - it will break more easily. With aircraft, you might end up needing to reinforce the wing so much, it becomes very heavy and nullifies any decrease in drag.
Personally, I like my current foils with an AR of about 6 (Sabfoil 799+899), but the conditions you ride in make a big difference as to what foil shape you might want to use.
I've been winging my original foil lately...a first gen GF Kai. It's incredible fun, even if a bit impaired in speed and glide compared to the thin or HA wings. It's not a big foil so that takes a bit of the blimpiness out of it. Any bigger than the Kai and I feel like I'm dragging a plough
I did learn winging on a Moses/SAB 873 wing before i changed to a Slingshot Phantasm PTM 926.
The 873 for sure is slower than the PTM but now way did it feel draggy. Also while turning it never felt like it just wanted to go straight like some say about the Moses/SAB 1100, which is 22cm wider, has about the same area but is more of a HA or MA wing.
The 873 is just not that agile and fast like the PTM 926, which i prefer when i have some power in the wing.
Fwiw, i just bought a SAB 1100 for the really light and patchy days, where i want maximum lift and glide to stay on the foil.
Btw. the SAB 1100 fits perfectly on the Phantasm fuse (with M6 screws).
Hi I recently when back to a low/mid aspect foil I was finding with winging I was our running the wave and having to use the wing to power up again. Not just wave riding with the wing flagged.
Go Foil EZ1600 is what i got . Best thing i have done i now have 2 (1025 EZ)
I am now using these wings for SUP/Prone and wing foiling. They may not pump back out for miles but you can pump to get 3 and 3 for waves on the beach break.
They stay in the pocket for wave riding and turn really well.
I am happy with my choice. Some times I think we all rush onto high performance gear to quickly.
Oh and they are cheaper
