The return of Carafino

As hydrofoiling progresses, many people in the world begin to experience the sensation that I felt some 13 years ago. It has been over a decade since Carafino brought foilboarding to market. Entering the year 2012 gives me great delight to return to this extravagant collaboration of characters herein the forum.

I must visit history to explain the innovations of foilboarding. https://youtu.be/0T0BPKm00W8

Before anyone every tried to ride a hydrofoil with a kite, the experiment commenced in the waves with a jet ski.

In 1999, Carafino began the first production type "wave riding" hydrofoils in "aluminum" were created.

This history dates back to before 2003 http://www.stepintoliquid.com/
https://youtu.be/0T0BPKm00W8

http://www.wetdawg.com/pages/wind/foil/foilboarding_wd.php

In 2003 Carafino began carbon with glass hydrofoils for wave riding:

https://youtu.be/0T0BPKm00W8

Hydrofoiling began to progress but was hindered by the requirement of boots and bindings.
http://www.wetdawg.com/pages/wind/foil/foilboarding_wd.php

This delayed the progression of the hydrofoil for some years.

It was not until 2006 that Carafino created a board that was user friendly to the ankles and could be used without the requirement of boots.

The big trouble with the use of a hydrofoil and a windsurfing board or large kiteboard was the pressure put on the ankles.

About this time in the history, people gave up on the hydrofoil because no one wanted to use snowboard boots with bindings when kiting.

The greatest kitesurfer's of freestyle who where the big names of industry game players all gave the foil a go with the boots:
http://www.hanglos.fr/media2/news/newspics/pic200717yejbniBs.JPG

Once Carafino understood the formula for kiteboarding without the boots, it pursued commercializing the foilboard in full force in 2007.

In 2008 Carafino brought the first production to the market of hydrofoil Kiteboards with straps.
http://www.hanglos.nl/gallery/107880/kitegallery-undefined.html


The progression of the hydrofoil kiteboard is clearly evident in this link by the 2 line kite Laird is using, the boots with the aluminum foil and also the M9 Carafino foil which was our first carbon/glass production.

http://www.wind-water.nl/hydsurf_0.htm

In 2009 Carafino created it's own production facility with Richard Thompson and Peter Mimi. This venture collapse and thus Carafino SUP and wave kite boards became the priority for production. Carafino brought no product to the market for nearly 20 months. It was forced to finish projects in China for wave boards and not hydrofoil. A limited edition of hydrofoils in 2 pieces where created in 2009/2010

The 2 piece hydrofoil was an attempt to create a T bar which would come apart so that Carafino could save on shipping the T bar in smaller cartons.

That design worked but was not a favorite of Carafino. The design was suitable for pleasure riding and had no race or fast design modeled into the T bar.

In late 2011 Carafino brought back the original T bar designs and remodeled the T bars to create a thinner, faster and lighter version of our Stiletto models.

The new designs are evident in the bottom of the T bar. Carafino made the bottom of the T bar straight and rounded the profile to move through the water faster. The forward and aft fuselage of the T bar (section where the blades attach) are very narrow, thinner rounded on the trailing edges.
The T bar is much thinner at the top where the mounting plate is located.

The curved front wing works best for freestyle. Carafino has thinned the profile of the front wing and made the rear wing profile to work in balance with the front wing.

When a rear wing is out of balance with the front wing, the correction can be made by adding length to the fuselage and making the rear wing farther back from the front wing.

Of course flat and straight blades move faster through the water. But they lose rail to rail or carving turn quickness. This is not desirable in freestyle riding.

One can counter this effect of flat surface area making resistance to turn by creating a boomerang type front wing that is flat.

There are many different approaches to the blade and fuselage set up.

Many people, especially on this forum have spoken badly about the Carafino performance. Particularly the founders of this forum. I look forward to finally meeting them in person in the near future.

What they have failed to remember is that Carafino never created a foil to go fast. We created the foil to provide pleasure riding. Being that the foil was born out of Hawaiian waters, the mind set is to take it easy and enjoy while taking it all in. However, in France, it seems that everyone wants to go faster than the person next to them or in front of them.

I have noticed also there are some S bend type of foils on the market. These foils are (in my opinion) attempts to go around what Carafino has already brought to the market. The S bend type of foil creates cavitation. You cannot have a leading edge that bend back and then again forward. What is the purpose? One has to ask is there some advantage? No, is my answer, it merely promotes some new idea that show it is different from Carafino. I am 100% certain that the new Carafino T Bar moves faster in the water than any S bend model.
http://www.wix.com/carafino/carafino#!__frees-style-eng

Nonetheless, to make T bars in 2 or 3npieces has never proven successful for production. The connection areas suffer great stress in freestyle performance. Jumping and landing eventually cause breakage or signs of structural stress.

With that said, I will remind some of the people who have hosted this blog that I never supported the blog as I found it to be political. The English version of this site is very limited and not user friendly. I would recommend that you put a translator the site so that all people find the blog useful and not frustrating.

So good luck to all to win the championship for hydro foiling. I never thought years ago that what I created for sport would one day produce a world champion. I have to say, I am proud of myself.

Regards,

Mango Carafino

try to speak french a little, i did some efforts to read you

I will try without translater
First; we are happy to meet PAPA
I agree with the History
In france we like the speed and the capacity to go against the wind with a foil
Only a few trust in the futur of the freestyle
We have made a huge improvement with the speed of our foils without losing the facility to turn
Everybody can be happy to go forward
If you progress with your products and the relationships with the french kitesurfers i am sure that your come back is possible
With intelligence and modesty everything is possible
WE GO FORWARD FOR FUN WITH PASSION

Great summary!

from my personal point of view, in the end it is like cars: different shape, different design, different purpose.

I fully agree that modular design is yet not suitable for freestyle.
however from what we saw in the last 2 years, people are looking for riding pleasure / stability and eventually speed (at least in france).
market demands might be different in USA because of the strong influence of wakeboarding... I don't know enough about it to be affirmative on that..only a guess...

I beleive Frank summarized well by the last sentense. we all want fun.
New comers in the foil industry is good, it has brought some dynamics into the development of the foil design even though yet not too far from the 2008 carafino model in genreral design aspect (in the end a car is a car).

That's for my bit of comment. Would be very happy to chat with you in may and even try your foils if available over there.

kind regards,

renaud

The More foil maker, the better it is for the customers.
On my side i was always satisfy with my carafino foil, I have had one problem on a blade on the old version and this was taken in garantee very quickly.
Personally i do not do foil board for the speed but for the pleasure of riding with barly no wing and my Speed 21 with 35 m of lines and myself are very happy with my old carafino foil.

I enjoy as well being pulll by a boat whne there is no wind!

I am looking forward to test this new foil !

Cheers and happy new year to the foil community
and may 2012 be a peacefull year even in the Forum !:0)

All the best

Stan

sylvain a écrit:

try to speak french a little, i did some efforts to read you

Il ne parle pas dutout le Français mais si vous avez des questions n'hesiter pas a me contacter étant le distributeur pour la France. http://groovy-sports.com/

Very nice and complete historical presentation.

About the user friendly aspect, maybe you could create an english speaking forum yourself and administrate it. The english side of this forum strangely enough hasn't taken off. I would close it if somebody would create an english speaking alternative forum.
The french side is already sufficient work for me to keep an eye on it.

Happy new year everybody !!
I wish you all the best during 2012, especially on the water riding on our favorite toy.
I like the focus made by Mango on history, he just forgot an important part of it ...
Admin: 4 lines cancelled due to personnal (professionnal) attacks.
I will inform this community when I will got the products.

When I read that, I just don't know what to think and do...
Is this forum a place for that ?
Professionnals should keep they problems away from the forum.
I am speaking for Mango and Delreja, both of you. If this topic doesn't calm down, I will simply cancel it.

Read his avatar,

is any of it true?

As having followed his actions for many years all I can say is,
Be very careful of any thing he writes, says , or most important does in business!
You have been warned!

Ooh la la - to coin a French phrase...