Either Tony at Oxza ( long wait time for custom) or Art at North Pacific. Both are excellent choices... Tony is quite a bit more progressive while Art is more conservative in his shaping
If your tuttle base bottoms out in the box, it is not fitted properly. (Unless you are talking about starboard's overconstrained lame excuse for a foil box which is supposed to bottom out and wont fit normal tuttle masts without modification)
Carefully check the other side for a similar soft spot, this a common problem with SB and fixing one side is frequently followed by the same repair on the other side. Best to fix/stiffen the entire area at once.
Rub the fin base with chalk and then install the fin. The area that make contact will transfer.chalk from the fin base to the box. Sand those areas until you achieve the level of fit you desire.
Also many of the SB carbon masts require a plastic shim part from starboard to separate the carbon mast from the al fuselage. I assume that is the plastic spacer you are referring to.
Can't say for sure because SB has many variants the look the same, but are slightly different and not really interchangeable.
I ride in a wide variety of locations, gear, and conditions..the only time I move my foil is when I move my footstraps. In fact, I am using locking t-nuts on my windfoil board to assure my foil goes in exactly the same place every time. My wing board uses slingshots RTS system which also assures repeatability. Anyone who has seen the inside of my van would never conclude that "that's not a quiver"
Plates were an improvement in the early 'wild west' days of foiling when everything was different and foil performance was poor. Fortunately that is no longer the case. If you are needing to constantly move your foil position you either need to update your foil system or improve your technique.
As for Tuttle not being strong enough; what about iq foil, kite race foils, or wing race foil. All of these disciplines successfully use Tuttle boxes. While the loads that kitefoil racers produce are scary, their equipment isn't.
Definitely reinventing and questioning assumptions everywhere. What they are working on is a reoptimization of the overall system. New board shape with Ken Adgate and Kevin 2e, adjustable Tuttle from Mike McKinley, new mast design and new high aspect foils from Bobby. The overall package should be something special.
Board will also be available in track form for those so inclined.
The Tuttle is definitely superior from a mechanical prospective. The transition from the mast to the plate is a total mess from a composite design point of view ( why do you think the cedrus mast uses an Al base plate) and the foil box tying the bottom of the board to the deck gives a stiffer, more secure connection. Hydrodynamically, while the testers are in agreement that it is better, simulation is problematic due the turbulence in this area causing convergence issues for the CFD.
I believe that compatability is one of the goals. I do know that they have tested with chewbanga, levataz, and mikeslab foils in addition to the prototype slingshot project drag mast. And are expecting compatability with f4 and f-one.
Box is modeled after the Mike McKinley tuttlebox.com boxes listed above.
Slingshots solution is using an adjustable Tuttle box and because of the adjustability there are holes and insets to allow use of up to 5 bolts for attachment.
Is adjustable Tuttle the optimum solution? Probability not, but it is superior to the plate system mechanically and hydrodynamicly as well as allowing compatability with existing Tuttle foils like f4, mikes lab, z, and patrik.
Deep Tuttle happened when race boards got wider in the late 90s. Running windward/leeward courses meant that the person who could control the biggest fin often got to the top mark first. Fin sized jumped from 2x to 4x (and ultimately up to 70) as the wider boards gave us better leverage. When the fins got into to mid 40s, we started blowing up standard Tuttle boxes. Deep Tuttle addressed this.
If you are using a fin bigger than something like 43, Deep Tuttle is highly recommended.
