After discovering that simply replacing a powerbox with a foilbox did not work well for my Skate 110 and Slingshot Inifity 84 foil, I decided to put a couple of US fin boxes in the board so that I could use the pedestal mount for the foil. The big advantage of the track mount is that it gives a few inches of room for adjustments so the foil can be place at just the right spot. Here's a picture of the finished installation:
We got a bit of wind today, so I took the combo out for a test run with the i84 foil, the 71 cm mast, and my 6.5 m Gaastra Matrix sail. The session was a bit frustrating because the chop was quite high even though the wind was light - too light to waterstart most of the time. I also had to get used to the foot straps on the board (I don't use any on the 71 cm wide slalom board I usually foil on), and had a hard time with tacking - after sailing a lot on the wider slalom board, I often stepped too far to the outside or even next to the board. Bad turns and uphauling in chop - not my favorite combo!
But the good news was that moving the foil forward worked as expected, and so did the track mount. I had the mast in "C" position on the fuselage, and pushed the pedestal all the way to the back. Here's a video from one of the longer runs:
I had put a Slingshot half footstrap in the back, since installing the foil box had removed the rear screw holes in the center. It actually was too far back for the foil position, so I ended up not using it. I'll either turn it around and mount it as far back as possible, and/or I'll have to mount the foil in "B" position on the fuselage. That would move it a couple of inches further back, but the track mount makes it easy to fine tune the position.
There were plenty of crashes in this session. Here's one where it looks like I'm going for a Gecko:
That would be a rather questionable idea without using the rear strap .. and with the foil behind me to fall onto! Maybe all the water that seems to be coming out of my head in the next picture can be blamed :-).
I've been windsurfing for more than 30 years, although this includes several multi-year periods where I did not windsurf at all. I got really hooked again a few years ago, after getting married to my lovely windsurfing wife, and starting to take ABK clinics. We mainly surf on Cape Cod, with regular trips to places all over the world.
I have a Ph.D. in Biology, and have worked in the biomedical field for more than three decades. This include postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School, leading a research group at a biotech company, and starting a company that develops software for biomedical research.
