Duotone Magazin No.01 2019

What comes to your mind when you think of high-end foils? Mikeslab, Enata, Levitaz … ? Well, welcome to our mind! When we decided to start our ‘High-End Foil Project’ we knew step one was checking out the state of the art high-end foils on the market. And there were two questions that kept bothering us: Are these products the right benchmarks? Can we take it even further? W e’ve been building foils for years, tinkering with designs since before our first production foil came out in 2014. But our focus has been on creating commercial products for the entry and freeride market. So you could say that though we’ve been working with foils for a while now, we’ve had little experience working on high performance racing foils. On the other hand we’re not sure that focusing solely on making the fastest racing foil is the direction we or the market are interested in heading. We wanted to create a top-notch product, of course, but one for ambitious foilers, not necessarily just professional racers. High performance and maximum quality were the attributes we had in mind. While we knew what we were looking to do in terms of design, the question of production was another story…  We knew that we wouldn’t be able to compete with all the small carbon foil manufacturers offering semi-custom production. Crazy enough, our answer to this was batch production. It was not only about offering high performance and quality, but about ensuring that every single foil leaving production would be exactly the same – in look and performance. Consistency was one major aspect that semi-custom construction cannot deliver. To achieve this, teaming up with the right partners was of utmost importance to us. Above all we needed someone skilled, someone who was into racing, but who still had commercial understanding. Jérôme Bonieux was our man. With him we had one of the most dedicated and experienced foil designers on our side, someone who could deliver the technical knowledge we needed. Besides his technical know-how, the fact that Jérôme was running a foil school on Mauritius meant we were sure he’d have a good understanding of what a foil needs to deliver for the average foil rider. He was able to elevate our design and production abilities to a new level. But that was not enough for us. We were on a mission; we wanted to set new standards and wouldn’t leave anything up to chance. We wanted someone to reconfirm the structural design of our foil. This is where iXent came into play. They are experts in structural analysis and calculation and look back to years of experience in lightweight construction. Their founding partners worked for BMW for years and were part of Team Oracle Racing, implementing the structural design of the boat and especially of the foil for the America’s Cup. And if there’s one thing that can be said with certainty about the America’s Cup it’s this: there is an insane amount of money behind it. Its only purpose is prestige, and the people behind the racing teams spare no effort to make sure they have the best working products for the race. It is truly the bleeding-edge of race technology. For iXent’s founders one of the key lessons during their time at the America’s Cup was that quality and performance of a foil are highly contingent on vibration. The more a foil vibrates, the thicker it theoretically becomes due to the amplitude, and the less it performs. So stiffness is a crucial factor. Conducting elaborate structural analysis iXent and we aimed at using the right materials in the right applications to ensure that the foil could offer the highest strength and stability at the lowest weight penalty. CONDUCTING ELABORATE STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS iXENT AND WE AIMED AT ENSURING THE HIGHEST STRENGTH AND STABILITY AT THE LOWEST WEIGHT PENALTY. F O I L Copy: Antonio Destino Photos: Tom Court, Dan Knight T R U E T R U E 72 73 F O I L D E V E L O P M E N T