Duotone Windsurf Sail – Warp_Foil

The WARP_FOIL extends our PWA slalom champion sail. It’s a specific and highly advanced foil design suited for experienced foil racers looking for something that complements the low-drag of the hydrofoil. Compared to traditional fin sailing you have approximately 70% lower drag on the foil. To match low-drag hydrofoils you need to adapt the whole sail profile and twist pattern. The balance between control and performance/speed over a maximum wind range is what counts for winning races. It’s a value that cannot be ignored. With the WARP_FOIL we’ve managed to deliver the most high performance, super stable and fast foil racing sail with a huge wind range, to be ridden on the water with a hydrofoil. Following the latest decisions within PWA and national associations the team around chief sail designer Kai Hopf, chief tester Marco Lang and PWA slalom champion Pierre Mortefon have split the WARP_FOIL development into 2 directions: 9.9 – 8.9 Course Most national foil races will be done on up&down-wind courses. Therefore the team started off testing our last years WARP_FOIL 20.19 (winner of the first PWA foil event 2019) against the best competitor foil course sails. To match the low-drag of the hydrofoil we reduced the head and regained the area by adding luff length (= more extreme high aspect ratio). Together with a reduced twist pattern this leads to a reduced movement of the upper sail to correspond to the lower drag when flying on the hydrofoil. On the water this results in improved stability and control/speed. To ensure maximum up&down wind performance the draft and profile distribution is very similar to a Formula sail. This makes perfect sense cause both sails are sailed on very similar courses. Finally we increased the foot roach to squeeze out the last extra bit of performance. 8.8 – 7.8 – 6.8 Slalom These sizes are consequently developed for the new PWA combined fin-foil slalom discipline. The team started off by testing the best foil sails available together with our original WARP 20.20 8.4. From these tests we have learned 2 decisive things: 1. Up&down-wind foil sails are not competitive on slalom courses. Plus the foot roach is too big for aggressive jibes. 2. The original WARP shows great acceleration on slalom foil courses but is not stable enough when flying on the foil. Also it has a bit too much backhand pull. With these experiences Kai took the aspect ratio and twist pattern of the WARP_FOIL 8.9 Course and combined it with the profile distribution of the original WARP 8.4. He then moved the draft position slightly forward and up and removed a bit of the foot roach. The outcome is a foil racing machine with an explosive acceleration on slalom courses thus remaining super stable on the foil due to the reduced loose leech and head size. In our eyes, the WARP_FOIL redefines the benchmark of control : performance : wind-range ratio. It’s purely designed to win low-drag hydrofoil races! Attention: for maximum performance the WARP_FOIL is equipped with 4 carbon tube battens. These battens are stiffer but unfortunately also more fragile than glass tube battens. Therefore they are excluded from our warranty!