James Casey - SUP Foiling [ Video ]

Good work on the vid Casso.
Seriously solid skill set Jimmy.
Looks like the new perfect toy for little Maka's.

Nice video Casso and James!

Really fun to watch this sport come out of the closet and begin to take hold.

A friend has done it in July, report (in French) at: www.gong-galaxy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=8195
and pics at thaukite.com/image-galleries/divers/one-foil
He used his 6'4" x 29 1/8" x 109l Gong One, full carbon PVC sandwich ~ 6kg with pad. This boards has straps inserts for SUPing strapped.

In a nutshell:
- You want a board short enough to allow for some pumping, and not make the rocking motions unmanageable because of the swing weight and relative wind effect. But longer boards will paddle faster...
- light and strong. A PVC sandwich board seems mandatory. This is why Kai does not use a paddle I guess: to be able to use boards as small and light as possible.
- strap inserts may come handy, it seems easier to lean with them
- my friend found out the the kite foils do not provide enough lift and need too much speed, making it quite scary. So he stopped using it after the first tests, waiting for proper low speed foils to be available.
- the foil stabilizes immensely the board as soon as it moves, even still in the water. So it may be possible to use very narrow boards do diminish their weights, the foil will provide balance while paddling
- it is hard, and my friend was already kitefoiling. Plan extensive training sessions, for instance towed behind a boat. Kai has been foiling since the age of 9...
- "a kite foil may not cut it but there is no harm in trying" actually, there is quite a big potential to get hurt (the foil will cut it - your skin - ah ah). SUP-specific foils should be safer as they may be 3 to 4 times thicker than kite foils, and with blunted edges.
- I was planning to sell the same board (The One, but in 6'8'), but I store it, waiting to put a foil once the SUP foils get available.

Great vid Andrew..

That's great to watch what is able to do with this new toy, thank you Casso

Great clip, and great skills shown ... but. I thought the clip made it look like hard work, which is a good thing.

There were lots of runs where he was popping up and down on the foil. There were lots of shots of an interesting position where the tail of the board is on the wave and the board half up on the foil (that looks like a good position to be in momentarily). In most of the pumping scenes he only gets a short way before dropping down and paddling.

Judging by the look of the waves he probably would have been better off just surfing rather than foiling.

I think all this is really good to see. It shows that even when things aren't working perfectly that it's still doable and it shows that things are not necessarily as perfect as shown by the Kai Lenny videos.

Regarding boat learning, on the kiting forum there is talk about using low power boats to learn to foil. People claim to use outboards down to 6hp. You don't need much power to get up on the foil and powerful boats tend to be a bit brutal. This is consistent with our kiting experience where we use very small kites in quite light winds.

The other thing is that when a board is drifting by itself in a light wind swell (15 knots) you can see the board coming up on the foil and gliding momentarily as it gets a push from a bump. You don't need a lot of speed or power to be foiling. This is further supported where you can do a foiling transition at almost stationary speeds. As long as the foil has some forward motion it will stay up.

Great video Casso and well done James , great balance mate making it look all too easy and a really good example of keeping the foil low , if you go too high it cavitates and drops. Great control

Teatree :- The Go Foil has been the most popular and designed for a Sup but pretty hard to get in Aus. Most kite foils will work you just need a lower aspect front wing (slightly fatter) You get a good look at James's front wing at the end of the video , that is what you call low aspect .There are about 6 or 7 Sup foils on the Goldie you just haven't seen them, They are set up with either Cabrinha Double Agent , Slingshot , Liquid Force or Lift foils all available at SurfFX. The Slingshot is the most similar to the Go Foil and comes with 3 mast lengths that really help learning.

The Go Foil set up James is using as a Tuttle box connection , which means it plugs into the board like a future fin but goes almost all the way through the board , this is the strongest connection for retro fitting to an existing Sup but there are other ways. I am using twin USA 10" windsurfer boxes because I can fit Cabrinha , Slingshot , Liquid Force or Lift foils to it plus I can move the mast forwards or backwards to find the balance point. Heaps easier for learning until you get your balance. Plus the added bonus to twin box is you can still use the foil to kite or wake foil behind a boat not just your Sup. The Tuttle box connection limits you to Sup or Windsurf boards only.

All the foils I mentioned above and are Ali and pretty heavy except the Lift and top end Slinghot's they are full carbon , so make sure you allow for that when you pick a Sup you need a bit of extra foam. the boards are sluggish first few strokes then they just glide , if you are up to your ankles makes it hard to start. The boards aren't tippy with the foil as it acts like a giant center board. So basically you want a short fat Sup with plenty of foam and the wider tail you have the better .Here's a shot of mine .This is my second board a custom 8-0 x 27. Unfortunately I broke my hand on Thursday so no footage for a while , 4 weeks at least.

If you want to look at learning to Foil check out "The Slingshot Foil Academy " it's based around kite foils but gives you a great insight to learning to foil and explains aspect ratios and what set up to use when learning.

Click here to watch it:- www.foil-academy.com/

looks like a trip to surf fx is on the cards , those universal mounts should go well on my old naish 9,3. I'm hoping the ally foils are a whole lot less expensive than the carbon ones.

Piros, here is one of the Gong prototypes (carbon) compared to a kite foil wing (G10)...



www.gong-galaxy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=8663

Foiling fun!

Hey Kami yeah those are foil love bumps It happens at the start I rarely get touched now.

Colas that front wing is huge , it's just not needed to be that big it just creates drag. Nice build though and it will be an easy foil to learn on but very slow.

Select to expand quote

Piros said..
it will be an easy foil to learn on but very slow.

That's the goal!

And the slower you get, the less dangerous are the inevitable falls.

You can always change wings later. But for, I am eager to enjoy flying on the water, not crash and burning...