Sizes Available: 110 x 47cm, 120 x 46cm, 130 x 47cm Sizes Tested: 120 x 56cm
F-One Says:
Beveled rails, double concave, specific foiling outline with a wide point well forward, these boards have all the shape features that make them easy and forgiving on the water.
The range includes three sizes: 130×47 cm, 120×46 cm and the tiny 110×44 cm to fulfill all advanced users. The 130 and 120 are equipped with a large deck pad and inserts for three footstraps. The 110 has the deck fully covered with a pad and zero inserts for dedicated strapless use. All feature the twin-track system for maximum compatibility.
Built around a structured but very light foam core with 100% carbon reinforcements, the POCKET Carbon foilboards are strong and super light. The solid cap construction will preserve the edges of the board. Easy to handle and more reactive than ever on the water, the POCKET Carbon will make your foiling more rewarding and bring you to the next level!
There are a number of compression-molded foil decks on the market, but this is the first time we’ve tested a carbon version and it stood out for its ability to combine its lightweight feel with surprising durability and good rigidity that translated to crisp and tight performance. When you pair the Pocket Carbon with a full carbon foil set (like the 800 Mirage), the entire arrangement is so light and flickable that it will blow your mind.
Design and Features The Pocket Carbon features a flat deck with a good amount of rocker in the nose and a double concave bottom with a single spine down its center. The board comes with inserts for a ducked-style stance, giving you three forward/aft insert options for dialing in your balance with the back foot perched on the trailing edge of the board. The Pocket’s corduroy deck pad covers the bulk of the deck, extending right up to the edge of the rail and offers good grip for those that choose to foil strapless.
Impressions During our first session with the Pocket Carbon, we experienced a couple of accidental foil-downs as we adapted to the higher speeds required of the Mirage 800 we were riding and the board’s extra rocker in the nose did a good job of deflecting unexpected nose dives. The Pocket Carbon features fairly thin rails with a low angle chine into the hull, but the construction and thickness doesn’t give you a ton of volume. With the low volume, compact shape and limited surface area, the 120 required a good amount of power to get us on top of the water. That said, once you get it in the air, the 120 is a minimal platform that accentuates and amplifies your every move. With its lightweight carbon layup, the 120 has non-existent swing weight, which makes the deck very maneuverable, almost as if you’re floating and it’s not there. We liked the flat deck (no dome or concavity) because no matter where you put your foot it’s always parked at the same angle to the foil and this helped our consistency in more challenging maneuvers. The rocker in the nose puts your front foot at a little higher parity to your back foot and this seemed to give us an intuitive and positive stance that felt balanced and comfortable even at higher speeds.
The Pocket Carbon’s corduroy deck pad was the perfect balance of plushness and density with enough direct input and control going into the deck while feeling sufficiently comfortable for longer sessions. While you can choose from a size bigger, or a size smaller, the Pocket Carbon is the high-end sports car of kite foiling that amplifies speed and maneuverability, but requires a bit more skill and confidence to get going and survive the typical missteps of learning. If you spend the bulk of your foiling time in the air and you’re looking to spice things up, then the Pocket Carbon just might be your next board to push your foiling experience further.
Foiling has unleashed a fantastic riding potential in light wind but it has also proven to be a fantastic support to carve some lines on flat water or small waves alike. Imagine a foil that is stable and lifts you at low speed so you can succeed in all your transitions or tricks, a foil that glides and can accelerate so you can race your mates for short moments before you bank on a nice wave to lay a perfect turn. This foil is the Mirage foil.
Built using the Monobloc construction with pre-preg carbon, those foils are both very light and really strong. This set-up offers better load transmission and better stiffness throughout the different parts for maximum control. The Titan connection allows to plug both an aluminum or carbon mast and the fuselage is split in two parts to facilitate transportation.
The Mirage wings are recommended with the C220 Surf stab. This stabilizer offers fantastic glide and great carving potential. Fast and agile it will serve perfectly the Mirage wings with effortless turns and thrilling accelerations.
When it comes to kite foiling, the Mirage 800 gives you the best of both worlds with high top-end speed and big sexy carves. We tested the full carbon setup to see if the extra expense is worth all the hype.
Design and Features The Mirage 800 features a carbon layup that feels super light and stiff in your hand and was mated to the C220 surf stabilizer which is a really higher aspect stab with subtle winglets that rise up at a shallow angle. We tested the Mirage 800 with an 85cm carbon mast which brought the overall weight of the package to an amazing feather-lite feel. The Mirage assembles with all the same Torx style bolts and the fuselage splits in half for easy travel.
At first look, the Mirage 800 is obviously a fairly small front wing that delivers hot rod high speeds with its intended purpose to mash down on the gas pedal, fly fast in a straight line and drive big banked carving turns. The first thing we noticed right off the bat is that the Mirage 800 has a bit higher takeoff speed to create lift. Now if you ask a foil racer, they will say the 800 takes off nice and slow, but if you ask a wingsurfer, they’ll tell you the 800 requires a high-speed takeoff. Everything is relative, but the 800 required us to power up our board to a solid running pace before we started to feel the lift. The takeoff was pretty predictable if you accelerated beyond foil-up to the wing’s happy speed, but if you hesitated at the threshold, the 800 would fall off pretty quickly. While we wouldn’t consider the 800 challenging, the goal is to get up to speed and maintain a solid clip to keep the foil party going.
Impressions One thing we noticed is that when you’re at threshold foil-up speed, the wing feels a little bit more active on its roll axis rolls, from side to side, but as you accelerate you start to feel the foil become more stable and locked in. With the additional speed, you get more confidence to go faster and faster. Since we tested this with the Pocket 120 carbon foilboard, the combo was amazingly light in terms of carrying weight on land, but the sensitivity, acceleration and maneuverability on the water were mind-blowing. It felt like a Formula 1 race car that loved to stick giant GS carves with really comfortable initiation rolling into turns. At high speeds, it’s got this very intuitive balance between all the axes. The Mirage 800 did seem to demand some extra front foot pressure with our weight moving farther forward than anticipated, but it just seemed to eat up as much speed as you wanted to throw at it. The 800’s carbon mast offers good rigidity, with inputs to the wing below feeling direct and snappy. However, if you tested the carbon mast back to back with aluminum, you could probably feel more stiffness with the aluminum, but as mentioned above you can’t beat the luxurious weight and zippy feeling of a full carbon rig.
If you’re a committed kite foiler that’s routinely redlining your speedometer or carving big massive turns, the Mirage 800 will be an intuitive and easy handling foil that will only help you push your limits. Applause goes to the F-One team as they bring production products within the line of high-end custom craftsmanship.
