We had a spontaneous Windsurfing4you FOIL test day at Slotermeer with Tjitse Spitse, Sem Stroosma and Pim Keizer.  I had a first try on a dedicated foil board by Patrik. The Patrik Foil Race 91. In combination with the 95 AFS foil this feels very different and everything just falls into place. For a sail we used a Skyblade 7.0.

Before this session I'd only foiled on a slalom board (81 wide) and a 85 high mast. Just to put things in perspective. First thing I was proved wrong about was my prejudice about such a HUGE square board. How can a board like that be so LIGHT?!! And once on the water how compact and agile such a board can be and feel?!! Overall flight was much more controlled and the stance was just more like slalom, feeling very natural. Also there is a lot of power in the set but you feel you can handle this because you have more leverage over the foil due to a wider board. 

What I mean by more agile is that gybes were going more steady and you feel you can easily make them higher up because you are just in control. Almost an alpha of 30. I'm working on it. Supergood feeling to go into the gybe with such a powerfull set. Watching Sem doing super fluent gibes on his own set made me see how they need to be done. So I've learned a lot about that as well. Sailed together with Sem and made a lot of gibes. 

Mastlength of 95 compared to 85 does make a difference. It gives you more room for going up and down and more time to prevent touching the water with the board. Ten cm's does make a lot of difference I assure you. Also in higher waves it might be ideal.

Back to my own set I felt that the 85 might be just the right size for a board of 81 wide especially when beginning in foiling. It was a very good experience to try this dedicated foil board and as a beginner already feel that the hours of R&D have resulted in a practical and very solid end product.