Hydrofoil: How to Optimize Your Foil Setup

Dial in your hydrofoil for wake foil, prone surf foil, wing foil, or other disciplines. This video will walk you through how to tune your foil mast position, tail wing shims, foot position, and a bonus optimization at the end of the video.
#foilsurf #wakefoil #wingfoil #armstrong

[@chrispewkreme]

Just my $0.02 prone foiling on O’ahu. Mast position can totally make or break a session. Take this with a grain of salt, but a rising tide is very easy to catch waves and you can generally run the mast more forward. A dropping tide can be difficult to paddle into a wave and I’ve always had luck bringing the mast farther back. Sometimes you can paddle with your body slightly more forward or back but it’s easy to just change mast position with hydrofoil wing screws. As for foot position, I highly recommend putting your back foot over the mast or slightly behind it. This will let you kick the tail of the board and make the foil come up WHEN YOU WANT. It also helps Chang the pitch of the board easily. It helps REALLY carve and turn and change direction quickly. SHIMS! Experiment with them. See what you like. Sometimes a faster shim is fun. But sometimes I just want more lift and don’t mind less top speed. A shorter fuselage handles steep drops well but it touchy to input changes. A longer fuselage will not like steep drops but it’s also very forgiving and stable. These are just my tips. I’d love to make some videos after my year of experience prone surfing. I have lots of small tips and tricks that I wish I knew earlier on. Thanks guys! Always enjoy learning from you

[@HALFLIFEVIDEO]

Hey Chris -- great points. Thank you so much for the comment. Hopefully we'll get to prone together soon. Best, The Crew at Half-Life

[@jeffarcher400]

Thanks for the tips. Just got a foil and haven't tried it yet. Came on a wakeboard. I feared it sinking so duct taped it to a boogie board. Pretty sure it's not going to be perfect but now at least I know what to look for in balance. No idea if I should dock start with just the wakeboard,buy a wing or just boogieboard a few little waves and try to stand. Not sure what board I would buy. They cost a lot for something that's in the air most of the time. Seen guys fly a piece of plywood. At least that floats. I have old 5'10" shortboards I could bolt to but they don't have much volume. Seems you could try a boogie leash attached to the nose or between the feet and it'll never tangle the foil. Maybe even pull on it to lift for pumping and pull yourself into the board on hard carves and backflips😂.

[@HALFLIFEVIDEO]

Jeff -- I love it. I'm not following all of it -- but I love it. It's a whole lot easier if you just buy a foil board. Angles and mm matter. Have fun - get out there - and let us know how it goes. Best, Half-Life Crew

[@sikguystg]

Thanks! I think you left some stuff out though: Mast length Rear Wings - Axis in particular has a ton of rear wing options that are hard to navigate for me, I know you mostly cover Armstrong, but rear wings would be cool to hear about if you ever start covering Axis.

[@HALFLIFEVIDEO]

Hey Noah -- there's definitely a ton more we can cover! We'll put the Axis rear wings on the backlog. Thank you. Tim

[@claudiobertadeazevedo4669]

Great tips. I dont prone surf, hopefully one day yes, regarding mast position with different FRONT wings sizes is that the center of lift of a bigger wing has a tendency 99% of being further away from the the mast, to extrapolate a 2000cm wing has roughly 2x the lift of a 1000cm, however if the center of lift is at the same place, provided same rider stance, no need to change mast position, however this is unlikely to happen cause the bigger wing will have bigger chord and likely to shift the center of lift forward, but it is possible to design a wing with the center of pressure closer to the mast. From the CF1600 to CF800 there is a monster shift in the center of pressure It is more complex than that, don't hang yourself yet!, if the front wing is bigger but swept back, (jet airplane wing) the average center of lift will go to the back towards the mast, therefore it is possible to have a bigger wing and have to shift the mast forward. I do have one wing like that ultra sweptback

[@HALFLIFEVIDEO]

Great stuff Claudio -- take the floating tool with you for adjustments or get the 'wingnuts' for easy adjustment in the water. Best, Tim

[@marklucas7073]

Good info, I am a beginner, I wish you showed a shim in the video as I don't know what it is

[@jonnpow]

Some foils have them as options. It's a small piece of metal or something like a washer that changes the angle of the tail wing. Can also Shim the mast with a plate that has a thin wedge shape that goes between the mast base and board.

[@HALFLIFEVIDEO]

Hi Mark - great point - sorry about that. Please feel free to call us [phone] or email [e-mail] and we can get you dialed. Tim

[@Stefan-Foil]

Thank you, great video and very valuably advice from Sky Rama. One question. What is a "zero shim". Stock/No shim or one 1,0 shim to make the angle 0 degrees. No shim is 1 degree om Armstrong?

[@HALFLIFEVIDEO]

Hi Stefan - "Zero Shim" for the pre A+ system was a titanium shim labeled "0". With A+ there's discussion of whether or .5 or a 1.0 shim brings the A+ to zero degrees. When we talk about shims as "0" we're referring to either the "zero" pre A+ or no shim post A+. clear as mud? Shoot us an email with any questions [e-mail]. Best, Tim

[@markfletcher_atx]

great videos as always

[@HALFLIFEVIDEO]

Thank you Mark. Really appreciate you checking out the video.

[@greg.ocallaghan]

Was this video recorded a while ago? Just because Sky talks about the 0 and +1 shims, which were the old titanium shims on the non-A+ fuse.

[@HALFLIFEVIDEO]

Hey Greg - as noted in the video, recorded pre-A+ but all the concepts remain the same. Best, Tim