Video

better on the 600 fuse - as you would expect.

@@Wing-Tips sounds logical thanks 👊

suggest you watch the video again from 9 minutes onwards where I specifically go over volume in relation to the rider weight

I have thought about this but the technique does vary quite a bit depending on the wing, foil and board used, so it's not that easy to cover it, I need to think about it a bit and see if I can add anything useful to the process.

it seems crazy that today we are calling 1000 foils our 'big foils' but I'm not going to complain about it - it's awesome.

Much better low end, doesn't bump you around as much in choppy water. Similar turning, better tip breach and breach recovery.

I always put long tracks in my boards regardless of length

Thanks

thankyou

The 2024 Slick is a very good wing, I haven't used it enough to do a full review yet but I have sailed it twice and it has a better top end than the Unit, is slightly better upwind and they have really improved the flag out on it this year compared to last. The only downside for me is boom wings are not as nice ergonomically for your wrists. Given a choice between Nova Pro and Slick I personally would pick the 2024 Slick, it just rides way better and is much lighter.

Would I be right in thinking that out of the 3; Slick, Nova and Unit, the Unit comes out on top?

@@timhealey3737 no not really. The Slick and the Unit are designed for slightly different things. The Slick is more freestyle orientated and is a little better on the top end and for racing. The Unit is better on the low end for beginners, has better ergonomics and historically has had a better flag out for wave riding. We won't know if that is still true (better flag out) until September when the new Unit launches. Right now the flag out between Slick and Unit is very similar as the Slick is the newer of the two wings currently. I would place both the Slick and the Unit as better wings than the Nova from an allround perspective. The Nova would likely win on durability and stiffness but the Slick and Unit would win on overall performance.

Thanks for reply. Your reviews are great, very matter of fact and objective, no flannel. One last Q - i am looking for a wing that is good for wave riding and good for tacks, ie makes them as easy as possible. I'm not interested in jumping or racing. What would be your recommendation. Have been drawn towards Unit, but if, eg, Core or Ozone may be better, would welcome your opinion. Thanks. Tim.

@@timhealey3737 thanks for the feedback on the reviews, I just tell it how it is. The Slick is probably the best tacking wing on the market - certainly a little bit better than the Unit but both of them are good at tacking. The only Ozone I've tried is the flow and that has a reasonable tack and flags out well but its pumping in light wind leaves a lot to be desired. Not tried a Core.

With the Nova it depends if you are surfing on wind blown swell (ie. heading downwind on waves). Because here the weight of the wing really matters. If you conditions are predominantly cross or offshore then the weight won't matter. But if you are surfing downwind on waves then the weight is a problem and it can get tail heavy or dropout when you don't expect it due to that extra weight..

Awesome, love to hear that the videos help people.

Yes, I think in stronger winds, weight becomes less of a problem

Thanks, will do!

Thanks - glad you liked it.

Take a look at the Appleslice V3 from Appletree - this is a more modern shape, it's longer and narrower than previous designs. The 80L I believe is about 22.5" wide. Obviously it is still wider than a light wind board but it will get you going faster than older wider designs regardless.

@@Wing-Tips thanks so much, that concrete example is exactly what I was looking for!

Glad it was helpful!

Glad you like them!

I'll have to check them out - although a bit long for winging, I'm sure they work well but I do like a bit shorter for winging.

pick the narrower one - 23" is wide for a light wind board and is not going to be efficient through the water to gain speed.

@@Wing-Tips thanks. But in your video, you did say beginners could go up to 23" width. So I thought I'd ask.

@@raghuram2815 If you can demo them then I would try that. Certainly if you are a total beginner then you might appreciate a little more width for stability reasons - as long as you understand that you are sacrificing some light wind performance in going wider. If you are very new and not on foil yet then the 23" may well be the better option

no I only wing foil

thanks

@@Wing-Tips I have been following you for a few days. Your video content quality is very good. But I noticed that, due to video optimization problems, the videos are not getting more views and subscribers. You need to fix it. Best wishes

@@ForidaKhatunSetu thanks for your input

thankyou

Wow, thanks!

65L - you mean a board of some sort? I have a 60L and when I did this review I was probably on my 80L.

the 1180 would get you up sooner but it will also feel too big sooner - especially in chop as the large span picks up all the energy from the chop. My largest foil is the HPS 1050 which I also ride with a 350P and crazy short advance fuse. I felt the 1180 was too big for me because when the wind gets up a bit and it gets choppy it becomes harder to manage - and that actually for what it costs that is a big chunk of a nice narrow light wind wing board which has a much larger use case. So my reasons not to have one were that it was a very specialised tool and would not see the water that often - and once I have a light wind board (picking it up from swift foiling tomorrow) it wouldn't see the water at all.

Thanks for your thoughts! Be interesting to hear how the new light wind board is and the difference it makes!

@@tjboon sailed in 10-12 knots on a 1000 foil yesterday on the new board - and I didn't even pump my biggest wing, just used a 5m. Granted it was a pretty big pump session to get on foil but it proved to me that I just don't need big foils anymore. Light wind boards are game changers for sure.

⁠@@Wing-Tipsthanks for coming back to me on that :)

I would strongly advise riding them before parting with your money as I only felt the Spitfires were good on a wave, outside of that I didn't feel they added much in terms of glide and I felt a much better option was just buying a skinny tail to go with the HPS - which extended their glide quite noticeably. I have ridden the 840, 900, 960 and the 1180 now and I didn't buy any of them and stayed on HPS as the gains were too small to justify the financial outlay. I can tell you that all the Spitfires are harder to get on foil than their similar sized HPS equivalents, some significantly so (like the 900). If you ride decent waves a lot they are worth it but otherwise I didn't see a worhty pay off for the outlay.

this is mostly due to the 1180 having a very small operatinal window for me - in very very light winds on a normal style board I could use it. But as soon as the wind got up a bit I wanted to be off of it onto something with less span. The Spitfire 1100 would be a better match for me - I could still make it work in very very light winds and when the wind gets up a bit it feels less over sized.

Interesting about the rear, I have a speed 430 which the tips broke so filed down to roughly a 400p ISH, so was thinking that for larger wing and skinny for the smaller - seen another review suggesting similar so good to see you pointing out - super handy!

The issue for me coming from HPS is that the gains you get are relatively small. The 930 / 1050 combo is a great one and to this day I think the HPS 930 is still one of the best foils Axis has made for versatility and ease of use, it is ceratinly the sweet spot in the HPS range for me at 85kg. There is a reason I still own mostly HPS foils and that is that the benefit from upgrading to Spitfire is not worth the financial outlay. Only if you are constantly surfing reasonable sized swell or waves is there a case for going to Spitfire. If you are mostly riding flat water or very small swell then it just isn't worth it in my opinion as they don't get up as easily as the HPS, so that's a negative and really all you get is a bit of tip breach capability. Spitfires handle chop and disturbed water less capably than the HPS foils as they are higher aspect and more affected by it. Just my thoughts, many love the Spitfire foils but for me they just don't offer enough to warrant taking the financial hit to upgrade (in the sea conditions I usually ride).

Thanks

You can buy those direct from swift-foiling as they sell all the parts they use to build boards individually should you wish to build your own.

My nerves will manage - my foils on the other hand .... foil wrecking

you can gybe a large or small arc, assuming your foil has some glide to it and isn;t a very low aspect foil that slows down very quickly when you depower the wing. Most issues with stalling out are due to not getting the foil angle correct during and after the wing transition (ie. flying the foil up towards the surface and losing speed and then stalling as a result). My toe-side tutorial talks about ways to combat this problem.

@@Wing-Tips thanks

If I was running different mast lengths then perhaps but where I ride it is notoriously choppy - so we all ride 90cm masts out of necessity.

The man who designs those foils rides from my beach - I haven't spent much time on them to form a detailed opinion as they are mainly considered (even by the designer) as a downwind style foil. Which is not a side of the sport I spend that much time on.

@@Wing-Tips I have been riding art pros for the last 6 months - mainly the 951 - and I really enjoy the higher aspect wings. Is that a Brit designing for a french company then?

@@norfolkfoiler6466 yes, he is a Brit designing for a French company

The 900 is not a downwind focused foil at all, it’s a high performance freeride foil. there may be a mix up with the pure 800 which is downwind centered but still a fantastic winging foil. 900 is carvier but less glide than the 800, definitely recommend checking them out as they have been well received

@@BenoitRochard I sail with the designer of the pure foils and he recently highlighted to me this very thing that the Pure range has a mix of styles. Personally I find that confusing, they should really name foils differently that have different use cases. I do have the option to try the Pure foils and review them, which I may do at some point. I've only ridden the downwind Pure so far.

Thanks

Thanks! 👍

They are not specifically for jumping or doing freestyle tricks. Whilst I can jump it's not the reason why I foil on a smaller board. You are correct in some respects in that a smaller board is a lot easier to control in the air as it's lighter - however- a lot of freestylers are now using slightly bigger volume boards as they want the board to pop up out of the water on landings for doing freestyle combos and very low volume boards don't help with that. The primary reason to ride smaller is you have better and faster contol of the foil and better feedback from it.

@@Wing-Tips Makes sense.

Thanks 👍

Thankyou

In answer to your question, this isn't a technique video. It isn't designed to teach you how to start the board, just advise what skills you require. If I was doing a video on starting a sinker then that would be a dedicated video to that technique. The footage included was filmed with my back mounted camera....you cannot do a stink bug start whilst wearing a back pole mounted camera.

You are welcome!

I should probably try prone foiling at some point, just no surf local to me that is easy to prone

I appreciate that!

This is one of the discussion point you often come up against - which is some wingers like to sink the board entirely and stand on it in straps and then pump it to the surface to get going - I can tell you this is not at all easy and comes with even more compromises and you need to drop to -40L to be able to sink a board completely under you easily. For me I dropped -25L and this means the board has just enough volume to float a little bit under the surface if I kneel on it from the side (ie. avoiding having to do a full stink bug start). I did try a -35L board and that required a stink bug every time to get it going - it was not particularly harder to get going but that option to just climb on the side was gone - which I quite like as it's pretty fast to get up and get going where as the stink bug is more of a faff but useful when it's really choppy and kneeling on from the side gets tricky.

@@Wing-Tips thanks for getting back. So many variable factors to consider- local conditions, weight, equipment, ability... it's impossible to give universal foolproof advice I know. Sounds as though my intuition to go around 70L / -25 isn't far off though.

Wow, thanks!

Nice - glad you had a great session.

haha nice - nothing worse than falling off a sinker for 30 minutes in onshore chop, guaranteed to invent new swear words.

Perfect - suggest learning the stink bug start on your current board so you have the motions nailed down before trying it on a smaller board.

Glad you like them!