Disclaimer: I am a complete and utter dribbling kook, with that "I am the Water Boy" vacant wide eyed stare; when it comes to foil gear knowledge...and (was) not a great deal better on the water. So, this highly uninformative review is more about the fast progressive and stoke I have experienced since this Monday, on the new Axis foil/board combination (note at the time of writing it is Wednesday night after my third session).

Background: I had one session on a Liquid Force happy foil (did a major 8 month groin injury jumping in the Dongora chop, so sold it), and two sessions on a Konrad Versa foil (60cm mast) borrowed from Jason at Westoz / WA surf. Needless to say I wasn't foiling much and spent 95 percent of the time crashing at speed from height, punching, pissing and moaning (I do believe I even had a Rocky "ADRIAN!!" ) moment at one stage in the water; frustrated at my own dysfunctional impotent incompetence.

I was told it is hard to learn, but I was not prepared for this utterly despondent frustration.

Then suddenly I had a few successful 50-100m foil runs on the Konrad, so in true middle aged man kook form, I bought myself a spanking brand new Axis Surf/Sup foil (75cm mast) and a Minimal Volume (145cm - MV) Axis board from Jason. Jason recommended the smallest 680 wing so knowing ****e from clay, that is what I got.

What can I say about it? Well it has a beefed up mast and fuselage, all components are engineered with extreme precision piecing together seamlessly, the carbon wings are wonderfully crafted and.. Bahahahahahhaha, who I am kidding. .

It is super shiny and sparkles refracted red rainbows in the Sun.

So picking it up from the WA Surf / Westoz Demo day on Saturday at the Pond (wholly fck I counted 45 kites at one stage and apparently it had all settled down by then), this has been the summarised journey.

First session (Monday): Horrible wintery 12-23 knot WSW wind on my 8m rebel - I was desperate:

- Some Ventilated Crashes, but far less than on the other two foils.

- A few horror out of control speed run crashes (as the wind gusted above 20 and I'm a major kook).

- I went so far upwind it took me most the time just getting back. But a few 300m or so runs.

Realising I can get and stay up on the foil at much slower speeds without stalling, allowed the above crashes to be far more controlled.

Second session (Tuesday) (16-20) again on my 8m rebel - too much wind again but I'm was super keen:

- Ventilated a few times, but knew it was coming and fell in water with ease; saved most by applying front foot pressure.

- Out of control speed runs were mainly controlled. a few hard lessons from trying to push the speed beyond my capability.

- This time I really had to scratch my head on how to get back.with shallow water upwind and downwind of me, floating 1.5km out near Point Grey (that was just two tacks by the way!) I was extremely puzzled by this upwind dilemma. Had to ride the board on the surface for half the time trying to get back downwind to avoid downwind speed crashes.

Third session (Wednesday) (13-17) on 10m rebel and the whole reason I am writing this pointless and uninformative review:

- Not one ventilated or other crash. In-fact not one ventilation!

- Not one uncontrolled speed crash, and foiled carved downwind with ease (Had to keep an eye on my son learning his unhooked surface passes and hence crashing a lot).

- Apart from changing feet, the board and myself did not touch the water for a good hour!

- I could now foil with control!

I even started doing the foil pump thing, whilst riding at the kite. I started doing increasingly more aggressive S carves.

Eventually I had the stability and confidence to look around and admire the view. I started to feel the foil and the board became increasingly irrelevant. To top it off a dolphin came swimming alongside me (underwater)... freaked me out at first until I just relaxed ... what a buzz. I kind of felt as if I was the dolphin or some weird transcended ****e like that, gliding with no friction.

Going downwind also allowed me to start cranking the speed up and heel over - pointing at crazy angles upwind. What a rush! Not race foil fast, but damn well fast enough for me.

Take Away from this pointless gibberish:

- 3 days, 3 sessions in (and only one of these was ideal foiling conditions really) and I'm foiling the entire time except for changing direction (can go toe-side sort of, but switching feet..not yet).

- This cannot be due to my extraordinary kiting kinaesthetic skills; if anything it takes me a long time to learn any new skill to be honest. I am also no spring chicken and crashes, they bloody hurt now, especially the next day.

- The foil is super stable and intuitive which allowed for fast progression. I can't wait to hit the ocean and fine some swell next session.


But essentially the most important take-way is:

The new axis foil is Red, Shiny and it Sparkles - Glistening Red Refracted Beams of Gliding Joy.

Have been using the Axis Free MV (125 x 45cm) lately after seeing them and the other Axis gear at Merimbula last month. Spoke to Adrian Roper about his design features and was impressed enough to order some Axis gear to sell. (Disclaimer)

The deal with the Axis MV is that it's a minimal volume board, hence the MV, but still very stiff and lightweight. there are two other boards in the MV range one at 145cm and one at 105cm. The main reason I am using the board is, apart from seeing if it's any good, is that trying to kite with a board with some volume makes strapless foiling really hard to get started as the board moves and bobs around in the chop. Marco, one of my kitesurfing friends locally, has a home made paulownia board with minimal volume and makes getting up foiling strapless look easy, so rather than make my own I took the easy way out and bought one in.

So does it work? Yes A minimal volume board makes strapless kiting easy. The board stays in position in the water half submerged, just stick your feet in position, power up the kite and you're up and foiling. I am currently using a Moses 633 surf foil on a 91cm mast which is buoyant enough to float the board on its side indefinitely if you come off with the foil in the air. (More about that later)

Not having a footstrap/s keeps the deck uncluttered and encourages manoeuvres which are often testing my foiling skills resulting in more frequent crashes. Still it's easy to just grab the board, which even with a large foil, is light and easy to position and get back up again. Even though the board is extremely thin, it has a slightly raised spine going along much of the stance area of the board which gives a lot of rigidity which would normally be absent on such a thin design. The rocker is sweet, making touchdowns easy to recover from and making the board feel well balanced. With the swing weight being so minimal, it makes the board very responsive. The deck has a soft and grippy EVA surface over its entire area and there are plenty of footstrap position options. So overall a great board which I am really enjoying riding.

However there is a strange behaviour with this board and foil combo which foilers with high volume surf style wings need to be aware of. If you have a wing which enables your low volume board to float on its edge pointing into the wind and the foil floating on the downwind side of the board, the board will start moving at a reasonable speed into the wind Often much faster than you can body drag upwind Also the action of chop on the board seems to cause the foil to pump a little as well making the whole kit shoot upwind out of sight! Needless to say, expensive foil kit heading out to sea amongst a whole lot of pleasure boats hooning around is somewhat upsetting. First time this happened a sea kayaker happened to be passing and he turned the board around for me. The second time the wind was dying and body dragging upwind wasn't cutting it, so I body dragged quickly to shore in the hope of running up the beach, upwind of the board and body dragging out ahead of it. Unfortunately the wind continued to die, and it was problematic just keeping the kite in the air. So I had to drag a dad with a SUP board away from playing with his son and get him to paddle me out to my board and swim it in.

Bear in mind this doesn't happen every time you come off the board, but is most likely to happen at the furtherest extremity of your run a long way from shore. Murphy's law and all that. The whole kit, pictured below, will comfortably sit flat on the surface too when it feels inclined and head gently downwind which is easy to catch. So until my skills are perfected or I use a smaller less buoyant wing, which I have a couple, I've attached a footstrap which makes for a few less crashes but mainly gives me an attachment point if I need to clip the board to me if the wind dies or I have to relaunch the kite.
Interested to know if others have experienced this. I've read of it happening to some people on kiteforum but didn't take much notice until it happened to me.

If you'd like to have a demo of this board and various foils feel free to contact me. I know how to catch it if it runs away
Have fun, Dave

get a kite
Been bolting the sup foil on a kite board and using a tiny kite really good fun. Tow into runners and float downwind. None of that nasty paddling and pumping crap. Best thing is you do not need to do the car shuffle as you fly upwind then cruise back down on the swells.
Pic is not me but it gives you the idea.


This is my setup 750 wing