So do you think e foils on a windfoil is good or bad idea??

Faff said..
It would be cool to have one as a booster just to get on the foil and once up it would switch off.

Or you could just pump the sail to get on the foil... Why bother with a sail when you have an e-Foil. May as well ride with a small board so you can carve properly.

I tried it using a DIY efoil extender to my RRD H-Fire windfoil board using a Slingshot hoverglide Infinity 76. I bought an extra mast and attached a motor to it. Batteries and motor controller go in a pelicase style box on top of the board. My idea was to use it as a boost motor to avoid pumping, but for various reasons it did not work out so well:
1. The motor + prop creates extra drag - (maybe could be avoided by mounting the motor higher up the mast)
2. You need a failsafe like a deadmans switch. - In my current setup is is a chord with a magnet switch. Gets in the way everytime.
3. The whole extra setup (battery+motor) weighs around 9 -10 kilos extra which is killing any extra advantage of getting in the air earlier.

I may revisit it some day, but for now am just enjoying using the windfoil board as an efoil without mast and sail. Works like a charm and can by DIYed for less then $2000.

I have posted the build story on foil.zone. Search for 'e-windfoil' (cannot post link because of being a fresh member to the forum)

tonyk said..

jusavina said..

That guy might as well ditch the sail it serves no purpose

Yes, he did that once as a joke

stehsegler said..

Faff said..
It would be cool to have one as a booster just to get on the foil and once up it would switch off.

Or you could just pump the sail to get on the foil... Why bother with a sail when you have an e-Foil. May as well ride with a small board so you can carve properly.

I do pump, but sometimes it's not enough and it can be exhausting (nothing more frustrating than to barely get on the foil after vigorous pumping only for the next bit of chop to knock you back down). I like using the smallest sail and board possible especially when foiling because they are so efficient once up. Electric boost may minimise both the sail and board requirements. And because you'd use it only for boost, maybe the motor and battery could be much smaller. It'd be no different to self-launch gliders - the engine is used to launch and then retracted. We could go even further and maybe recharge the battery once up on the foil (probably too much drag though).

I should mention the guy in the clip doesn't have an foil, He is just a light wind freak. :)))

He was going to get into model RC yachts until he realised they didn't need crew :)

jusavina said..

That looks a bit like my experience. Most of the time the sail gets backwinded when throttle is too much. Very hard to get the sail to 'switch' on and getting just the right amount of flow through the sail (Severne Turbo GT 7.5)

I have also been following the foilzone site for a while as the efoil is an interesting concept.

It definitely pays to not buy the cheapest efoil judging by some of the posts! when you are messing around with lithium batteries, water ingress and charging devices....(much like the issues with those hover boards and over heating).

Its possible that some ones house caught on fire from battery overheating

Foil tacking !

I've been thinking of putting a second foil mounting track further forward on my Nash hover board to use it for winging and as a stand-up board to catch waves with. I'm not sure if the hover board at 142 L is big enough to use as a stand-up paddleboard, but putting a home-made propeller onto the foil mast is another option altogether. Are the home-made efoils Low enough drag that you could catch a gentle wave with them and then stop the propeller?