sky ski

[mustangairchair]

do any of you ride air chairs , just got news from a member of a fly in montana june 4 5 6 intrested moomba mates?

[moombadaze]

That another toy I would love to try-looks like a blast

[DOCDRS]

I'm going to get one of these....maybe we should try a group buy?anyone interested

[viking]

do any of you ride air chairs , just got news from a member of a fly in montana june 4 5 6 intrested moomba mates?

Where? When? Didn't quite grasp this?
Thanks

[mustangairchair]

Seeley lake motana june 4 ,5 ,6 2010. the air chair fly in

[mustangairchair]

i can set up a goog deal if you guys are intrested in buying air chairs. i deal with www.chinchmax.com .i would only buy sky ski, they are the best to upgrade. i ride a sky ski le pro/ with a flex seat. you will never do anything after getting a chair. come to montana then a will get you up

[moombadaze]

Link did not work.

[Hydrofoiljunky]

www.Cinchmax.com Lonnie is the fella that runs this site. Super nice guy. This is where I bought my foil from and I'll bet he would work something out with ya'll for a group buy. Wouldn't hurt to ask.

Link did not work.

[Ian Brantford]

Foils are a hoot! A SkySki was my buddy's contribution to the boating effort after I bought my XLV in 2005. He ended up buying from http://www.eastcoasthydrofoils.com, but we've both dealt with Lonnie at CinchMax and can recommend him too.

I'd say that the foil has doubled the value of my boating experience. I ride both wakeboard and foil (neither one particularly well). We spent almost two summers riding the foil most of the time. Now it's back to about 75% wakeboarding, but some of my crew still foil almost exclusively. It is a great recruiting tool for new crew when they see the pictures and videos, because it is so visually spectacular, even at an intermediate skill level. I REALLY like it for the common situation where the water is too choppy to enjoy wakeboarding for long, but it's not bad enough that we want to go home. On a wakeboard, a foot of chop is more exercise than fun, but foils are still fun.

Foils can also be used when you're too tired or beat up from wakeboarding.

Foilers only get invited to wakeboarding shows once. Because of the visual appeal, they tend to steal the show, and are thus not invited back.

Here is some advice merged from my experience and some updates from my buddy...

1. Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoGqdZNdb_o&NR=1 . Pretend that it has the original much better music. Become convinced that you want take up this sport. Understand that the gear is expensive, but has excellent incremental benefit to the cost of boating.

2. See this forum: http://www.foilforum.com/forums/forum.php . Learn what you can from other users.

3. Try out some acquaintance's equipment if you must. However, scrap any plan to try buying your way in on the cheap. Get these:

3a. Go straight for a mid-range model of hydrofoil. Your skills will rapidly make an entry-level design old hat.

3b. Get the Cinch bindings -- footstays, foot straps and waist strap. Maybe the original ones are improved by now, but at the time the Cinch straps were much bigger and better.

3c. Get the shock tower (with shock absorber). Your back and bum will thank you.

3d. If anodisation is still optional, get it.

3e. Get a foil cover. Both AirChair and SkySki make them. Instead of buying the separate ski/chair cover, we improvised one using a wakeboard bag.

3e. Get the Cinch Neck Roll. We use it for all watersports. http://cinchmax.com/_wsn/page3.html .

3f. If you aren't already, use a properly fitted helmet with ear cups. All of your riding and falls will be done from a greater height.

3g. Get a deep-V rope handle. These are also used for slalom waterskiing. They can help a beginner to keep the hydrofoil's ski from falling over in the first couple of seconds.

4. Get advice on how to drive the boat with a beginner foiler. You go slowly. The forum above should help.

5. Get advice on how to ride as a beginner. It's not something that you can figure out by yourself. This sport has a higher learning curve than other watersports. Some foils might come with a helpful video. The forum above should help.

6. Have a camcorder ready with full batteries. You really don't want to miss those early attempts. They are hilarious. For still cameras, enable burst mode.

7. The funniest attempts to ride are right after the first complete failures, when the rider has enough balance to get out of the water but not enough to stay up. Hijinx ensue. There can be unintended backflips. Spectators should not have full stomachs/bladders/colons, because there is a danger of laughing so hard that one could soil oneself.

8. Get a rack (expensive) soon and avoid the inconvenience of storing this big piece of equipment in the boat's passenger space. I finally got a Comptech rack (http://www.skyski.com/node/93). The only reason that I chose it over the possibly better Samson (http://www.samsonsports.com/hydrofoil_racks.html) is that the Samson is new and has less information publicly available. I have heard from multiple sources that the cheaper Air Boom works, but is a bit shakey and you'll want to upgrade from it. Of course, any model can be improved over time, but that was the situation in 2009.

9. In 2005, SkySki was overwhelmingly favoured on the fora over AirChair, but this information is probably stale. I'd ignore any advice on the two that's more than a year old.

10. I got the Cinch Release. No one liked it. As soon as the rope goes slack, passengers in the boat get slapped in the face with it. It is also a hassle to set it up to release with the right tension. It now sits unused in my shed.

11. Check the main machine screws that hold the parts together, once at the start of each boating day.

[viking]

so when you wipe out on one of those is it comparable to a wreck on a slalom ski or wakeboard? Or is it magnified on the airchair? Would seem to me that a bad wreck on one of those would work you over much more than ski or board?

But then again, i've never tried one yet........