As I research and acquire parts for my first powered build, I have been scouring the net trying to find different options.
I came across this one in another thread, and just had to order one and try it:
I am as skeptical as anyone, but the main reason I was willing was, the price, the fact that it comes with two wing sizes, and to help the community since others seemed interested. I could find their old canard design come up under discussion on various boards, but really couldn’t get any info about this new, re-engineered version. So, here I am serving as a guinea pig and will do my best to report my findings to community here. Please note I have no affiliation and paid full price for this unit.
I am quite hopeful that this foil will perform much better for wave/wake surfing than the liquid force setup I have been riding the past 3 years. The LF is just too fast and a little too twitchy for what I am looking to do next.
The crazyfoil package arrived this weekend and I have to say so far I am impressed - especially for the price. It does seem to be a bit heavier than I would prefer, but I don’t think it makes a ton of sense to be too much of a weight weanie with efoil setups. I do have some concerns about the mount which I will detail below and it came with the box a little torn up and a bolt missing.
If it proves to ride well and be durable behind the boat, I think it just might make a great candidate for efoils and will try to use it for my electric build. This may open up a new path that I haven’t seen anyone take yet on this board. I have long thought that big brand foil names are a little too proud of their products as reflected by their pricing models. In water and action sports we pay top dollar to be beta testers of products that are rushed to market and get leapfrogged in a single season or two all too often. I will be thrilled if this product just holds up and flys with stability and decent handling at 4-5mphs slower than my current foil.
Here are the details:
-65cm mast
It appears to have quite a bit of room for running phase wires and water cooling tubing in the middle. It is symmetric in shape which seems to be less common from what I have seen with mast designs. I need to pull apart my LF foil and see how the sidewall thicknesses of the masts compare. I hope it is strong enough for the extra forces that motor weight, thrust, and crash physics will provide in an efoil setup. I have seen some people have bent Gong masts already. O_o
-2 main wings
Both are much larger than my LF wing. They appear to be some kind of very dense composite. They have very little flex and are heavier than they look.
-Fuselage
Made out of solid aluminum it appears. If anything this piece looks bomb proof and may be overly strong compared to the rest.
-Mount
Of the whole setup, this part gives me the only real anxiety about durability for the project. It appears to be a similar plastic polymer to the wingset instead of aluminum. I did note that the fit between the mast and mast mount seems to be much tighter than my old LF one that is likely loosened up from a lot of use and abuse.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to ride it yet, because my older board does not have a track mount system. It just has 4 bolt holes and they don’t line up with the spacing of the Crazyfoil mount. It also came missing one of the bolts to mount the mast to the mast mount. I emailed the company to see what they will do, so I suppose we will also get an idea of the support the company provides.
My options at this point to ride it are:
A. Find a similar enough bolt that will work (this may be tough due to the way the head needs to be recessed in the mount)
B. Hope the company pulls through with a replacement quickly
C. Drill a new hole in the fuselage to get it mounted to my LF mast
I will keep you guys posted how this goes. I am really eager to try it now that it is mostly put together. Pictures coming in my next post.
I’m actually getting geared up to test a gong/axis/unifoil/custom setup at the moment…
