Armstrong Step 1 (S1) Foil On-Water Review

Matt Nuzzo rides and reviews the new Armstrong S1 foil, and gets some input from the coaches on how much easier it makes teaching foiling as well.

[kellysmith]

After struggling for months on a cobbled together Slingshot foil I was lucky enough to get to try out a friends Armstrong set up. It was an amazing difference. I ordered a 90L FG board and the S1 1850 the next day from Real. It is late in the season where I live so I have only been able to get out a few times but it truly feels like I’m cheating. Everything works together flawlessly.

[AndrewMarshall-mpeu]

Teasing that new Mid Length Armstrong board 👀

[fluiditynz]

I wonder how it compares with my current favorite of my own creations from January 2024. The S1 is very slightly higher aspect than mine and I have some different foil sections going down to the tips of mine. This foil and my foil are uncannily similar in plan view. It's not my fastest foil but it turns incredibly tightly and has a great low stall speed. I'll have to keep an eye out for new Armstrong riders with the S1 and try a swap to compare the ride. I don't see any magical anti breaching going on with mine but seeing as I recently made my own 850mm carbon fibre mast after being stuck on a 750 for a couple of months, I have a really nice 100mm safety zone for breaching now. In around 18 sessions on mine(1320 sqcm, 850 span), the worst I've had was to suck a pocket of air over the top surface, rode it down and then the increased speed and decreased loading ditched the air pocket and I rode up again. My older bigger foils I used to feel when the foil was close to breaching but when I did my 2022 second batch of designs, those ones dropped that warning but had incredible stall resilience. My 2024 batch, I've refined to increase speed a lot but still maintain some of my anti-stall technology. Armstrong are doing it now on at least one of their wing series (They call it Tip-twist from a USA design contributor) but there's no evidence of them doing it on their Step 1 wing so they are probably still debating whether to introduce it to their other wings. Almost all manufacturers will do it in the future, It started with Triton after I linked the aeroplane tech on kiteforums, then I think GoFoil with their mould ends chop and weld back at different angles, I find the design aspect really fun. People forget that a foil's volume displaces that much water and water's inertia is massively different than air. I suspect a lot of the computer fluid dynamic modelling people run is missing some really important points or we'd have hit more advanced wing shapes years ago.

[RandallIngels]

Two Questions: 1) What size S1 would you recommend for wake foiling for a 80kg rider? 2) What stab would you pair with the recommended S1?

[DundeeNoPixelClips]

Hi. Can you compare S1 2450 with CF 2400? Witch one is easier?

[yunasailing]

What Foil Size do you recommend for a beginner with a weight of 70 Kg? The 1550 or the 1850 from the S1 series? Thx

[luksterp]

How does the S1 1550 compare with the HS 1550 V2 ...? Earlier lift but top end slower ?