F-One Matira Light Weight Inflatable Foil Wind/SUP Crossover
I guess I’m still pissed at the shop that sold me the board. They don’t know the difference between a tuttle, deep tuttle, some F-One proprietary foil box and a GoFoil straight deep tuttle. “Yes, it’s a deep tuttle”, I was told with multiple emails and phone calls. I guess all they wanted is the money from the sale. Oh well. The foil mostly fits the plastic foil box and I finally had a chance to get the board wet!
The first thought after I stepped on the board was “WOW, this is a noodly turd!”. Even with the board pumped to 20PSI you feel every wiggle. I hooked on and sheeted in the sail. It starts to glide, on a gust I start to pump the board and foil to get me up and there it was, my moment of epiphany! The light weight board used its noodly power to flex the Maliko 200 wing up and down, UP AND DOWN! It instantly jumps up on the foil! “Holly shit!” That was easy and in such light wind! The Takuma board certainly does not do that. Then it happened a few more times. Every time the light weight and the flex of the board helped to pump the Maliko 200 up and flying. Once up, the board feels fine. The softness and flex make it easy to stand, climb and uphaul on. Very nice on my messed up knees. The noodliness isn’t as great as I hoped it would be in the chop. The board loses some of the efficiency gliding when flexing, this also made tacking a little disorienting at first.
The wind died down to somewhere in the 8-12mph range. I found a spot with BARELY knee high “waves” that were kind-of rolling. I pumped the sail and the board caught my first wave! Up on the foil and flying I went! “Sweet!” Riding the wave, doing some “cutbacks” on the foil! Did it again and again! Wind died down more, nowhere near enough wind to get on the foil without the help of the wave. Couldn’t waterstart, so I uphaul, tack upwind, ready to schlog back and I catch another wave and another and kept catching the small chop that was still coming in from the earlier breeze. Made what I thought would be a waste of a day extremely fun.
Can’t wait to try this board as a SUP-foil in similar small shit. The Takuma board, in larger waves was barely able to get me flying. The Matira with 40L more volume and a large thick behind seems more able to catch the tiny rollers. Hopefully the flex helps as much in SUP mode. Very interesting design and I’m a bit less disappointed with the “turd” now.
Stoked, yes! Little less pissed, only because I like the board. It’s an inflatable toy that has some intriguing characteristics for foiling. Hope it holds up.
