Stance & Shimming Your Wing

In light of a recent post from AirJunky - I'm hoping that he will be able to shed more light on the effects of how to shim your wing.

Citation :

I'm happy to shed whatever insight I can on foot placement. For me, I like my rear foot to be centered over the trailing edge of the strut and my front foot at shoulder width from my rear foot. Being that all of my foilboarding has been behind a boat, my stance is directional, 0 degrees for the rear foot and about 15 degrees on the front. This stance means I am slightly behiind the foil, which creates a little bit of lift, for me that is a good positive resistance.

As far as different wings for different riders, we use the same size wings regardless of rider size or weight, though if need be we may shim the wing to add, or decrease lift.

I can offer some of it... Jake can step in where i miss. (and i aplogize if I'm covering things you already know)

For this example, picture yourself riding along with the kite in a relatively low position, say 10 o'clock (40 degrees off the water or so).

If your foil wants to try to climb out of the water, or if you feel like you are having to ride with a lot of weight on your front foot, then the foil is said to have too much 'lift'. Likewise, if it keeps dropping out from under you, and you are having to work to keep the board off the water, or having to lean back, then you don't have enough lift.

We have found that by shimming the rear wing, we can adjust and control the amount of lift the ski is to have. With the stand up, you also have the benefit of moving the feet around to gain much of the same effect. But, we have also found that different water bodies, and water temperatures affect the foil differently, some requiring additional lift, some requiring less.

So, if you have your feet set in a good spot for where you ride, and the lift is just a tiny bit off, or if you travel somewhere and the lift seems way off, an easy way to adjust is to shim the rear wing. (this is the only way to adjust lift in the sit down version).

To shim the rear wing, you want to start really thin. A lot of us use guitar picks, because they are very thin, and easy to trim to the shape of the fuselage (to cut down on any drag introduced).

If you shim in the front of the rear wing (place the shim between the fuselage and the rear wing and screw it down tight), it will increase the lift to the ski. If you place the shim between the fuselage and the trailing edge of the rear wing, it will reduce lift. BY moving the shim further towards the vertical strut, you increase the effect the shim will have.

Both positions are small adjustments, much smaller than moving your feet, so it will give you a certain amount of fine tuning possibilities.

I can attach some photos if that would help.

Brett pretty much nailed it. I like my foils to ride a little "hot", or with a bit of lift. This creates a positive resistance for me, so I ride with a bit of foot pressure to keep the foil in the water. This helps maintaining the foil at a certain height when cutting hard or going through heavy chop. Once I dial my stance in, then I will shim the rear to wing to get this type of ride out of it. Another thing to keep in mind is that all water rides different. Even though you might have your set-up dialed in exactly like you like it in whatever body of water you normally ride in, it may not ride the same in any other body of water. For this reason I usually keep some extra shims with my gear in case I need to dial my foil in to the water I'll be riding in.

Guys, what can I say? I've not finished reading the first post from TinyE and already it's opened my eyes to so many things - thanks a million. It's great when the fog clears a real BIG thanks.

just wondering if you had played with shimming any? results you could share?

tinyE a écrit:

We have found that by shimming the rear wing, we can adjust and control the amount of lift the ski is to have. With the stand up, you also have the benefit of moving the feet around to gain much of the same effect. But, we have also found that different water bodies, and water temperatures affect the foil differently, some requiring additional lift, some requiring less.

So, if you have your feet set in a good spot for where you ride, and the lift is just a tiny bit off, or if you travel somewhere and the lift seems way off, an easy way to adjust is to shim the rear wing. (this is the only way to adjust lift in the sit down version).

To shim the rear wing, you want to start really thin. A lot of us use guitar picks, because they are very thin, and easy to trim to the shape of the fuselage (to cut down on any drag introduced).

If you shim in the front of the rear wing (place the shim between the fuselage and the rear wing and screw it down tight), it will increase the lift to the ski. If you place the shim between the fuselage and the trailing edge of the rear wing, it will reduce lift. BY moving the shim further towards the vertical strut, you increase the effect the shim will have.

I have copied this quoted part of your interesting message to open a french topic there.

hey, I thought we were in a competition about number of posts! no fair taking hits from the english side!

well, please let me know people's experiences, and if they have other questions. I can't really read french.

tinyE a écrit:

hey, I thought we were in a competition about number of posts! no fair taking hits from the english side!
well, please let me know people's experiences, and if they have other questions. I can't really read french.

The last french registered member has written a few messages on the english side. It should help you to follow us

Hi guys - or anyone that is still tuned into the topic of shimming. After two years of riding and now developing foil wings to go faster the art of shimming the wings has become increasingly important. By following your posts specifically regarding the rear wing mods I can confirm that each rider of differing weight may prefer to shim his or her board according to their weight and rider style.

Start by introducing a guitar pick and gradually increase the thickness of the pick to change the angle. Each time you change the pick you have to go back out and test the foil - it's a bit of a drag especially on your own but well worth the result. Different temperatures will require different shim thicknesses. Even though it's a drag to do, the result is worth it. A little pain for a LARGE amount of gain.