For the MODULAR we started from a blank sheet, and we decided to lay a whole new foundation for this foil.

The foil has revolutionized water sports, it has exploded in recent years with a multitude of practices: Wingfoil, kitefoil, Surf foil, SupFoil, Pumping, Wakefoil, ...

The observation is simple, we are for the most part, become multi-support and our budget is not extensible.

So why not start with a blank sheet and design a modern, modular foil that would take all these practices into account, while laying new foundations for design?

• Mechanical
• Performance
• Weight
• Flow optimization
• Budget

Initially, Alpinefoil is a mechanical and composite design office with Alpine Design and DCE Engineering,
our specialty is to design, invent, innovate, find solutions and manufacture foils in France for everyone and for all as well as for other companies in the world of sailing.

Since 2007 Alpinefoil designs foils and the company has been awarded several times for its innovations: in 2013 with the ARTINOV prize, in 2014 with INOSPORT and in 2020 by ALPES IS HERE

In 2013 Alpinefoil designed the first standard Aluminium kitefoil in order to lower production costs and democratize the practice, 6 months later the first Titanium/Carbon mix kitefoil appeared solving corrosion problems, and mechanical resistance for the most demanding.
In 2016, Alpinefoil added to its aluminium foils a sacrificial anode that improves the corrosion resistance of aluminium foils. 2016-2017-2018 Alpinefoil is French kitefoil champion on the Engie Kite Tour.
In 2017 Alpinefoil developed a ROBOT head for sanding during foil production.
In 2018 the first Winfdoil A1 appeared with a new approach on the accessibility of the Windfoil
In 2021 Alpinefoil create the first kitefoil Pocket board built as a foil wing with a weight of only 1.9 kg and an outstanding stiffness.
Since 2007 we have acquired a thorough knowledge of the Hydrofoil wing profiles, which allowed us to push back the low and high beach of the foils.
2022 Version 3 of the ROBOTISED head is in production.

Our mastery of ECO Design is reflected on, the design and manufacture of our foils including our moulds and packaging, which allows us to guarantee a MADE IN FRANCE quality respectful of the environment.

Many of the AlpineFoil innovations were taken up and the foil was made accessible to as many people as possible.

Today with the MODULAR everything has been revised, only the orange color dear to Alpinefoil, the passion for sliding and technique have been preserved.

The Mast

The First point and one of the most important is the Mast, the current aluminum mats are very poorly suited for Wing/ Surf/ Sup ..
They are often too heavy, too flexible, too fragile, too inefficient, or penalized by the ventilation that throws us to the ground and prevents us from enjoying our foil serenely.

• The sensations

The second point is the Glide, a lot of people come from the Windsurf, the Windfoil, or the Kitefoil.
Currently the support that brings the most performance and glide is the kitefoil but today the wingfoil has totally mutated.
What we are looking for is to find the glide that we have in kitefoil but adapted to the Wing and has its constraints.
It was therefore logical that our experience in designing kitefoils is found in this new mat.
The goal for us is to find the gliding sensations of the Kitefoil and Windfoil but in Wingfoil.

• Evolutivity despite obsolescence

Moreover, aluminium mats are rarely scalable: it is impossible to replace the aluminium profile with a carbon profile, because the method of fixing a carbon profile must be different from that of an aluminium profile.

For this reason, in the foil market, in order to evolve its foil aluminium to a carbon foil, there are rarely other possibilities than to replace the mat, the plate and sometimes even the fuselage, This widens the financial gap of this development well above the 1000 euros. 
On the Modular to evolve its foil with a carbon mat costs only: 629 euros. 
When we know that 70% of practitioners want to eventually evolve towards a carbon mast, we think that this possibility is financially interesting.

Coming back to the Modular aluminium mast, we had several problems to solve during its design:

Problems of weight, stiffness (use of foil wing with large weights) and ventilation (sudden stall of the mast in navigation).

We had to draw a whole new profile.
This started with a flow study, then with RDM (Resistance of Materials) modelling to optimize the internal structure of the mast in order to obtain the best mechanical performance in torsion/bending

• Weight and Rigidity

But we decided to go even further on this mast.
The majority of extruded foil mats use relatively standard aluminum found on porch profiles and other window doors. This aluminium has the particularity of offering a good quality/price/performance ratio.
But by studying more closely this aluminum alloy, we realize that it remains nevertheless quite malleable.
There is therefore no other solution than to increase the thickness of the profile and thus the weight.

On the Modular we have chosen to use an aluminium alloy found in cycling or aviation and which brings a very important gain in rigidity and consequently a much better control of the foil.
This ultimately gives us a lightweight aluminium foil where everything has been optimized, down to the smallest detail.

• A polishing for the Slide!

During the extrusion process of the aluminium profile, the tooling leaves traces on the raw profile.
To remedy this, the simplest technique is to sand the profile by projecting fine microbeads, this makes it possible to remove these small defects, but generates a slightly grained and rough surface state that alters the glide.
We have decided to polish the anodizing front mast in order to optimize the foil’s glide and push its performance even further.

Based on the experience gained in recent years, our fuselage incorporates the principles that made the success of foils with the first aluminum fuselages dating back to 2014, reliability, accessibility, sliding, rigidity

Why an aluminium fuselage ?

For a manufacturer like Alpinefoil that controls carbon, why not use a carbon fuselage ?

There are several reasons :

The main reason is reliability.
A fuselage undergoes enormous efforts in all the axes X Y Z (torsion, flexion, etc ..) out of carbon is made of fibers that have the particularity of being very efficient, but only in the direction of the fiber.
It is very difficult to arrange the fibers to resume the efforts in all axes except by having a multitude of fibers that lead to a relatively thick and slippery fuselage.
In addition, the very high stiffness of the carbon penalizes the resilience on the fuselage, which is extremely stressed. Imagine that the fuselage is in one of the most stressed areas.
Imagine a log of wood in which you would plant a wood chisel on one side (the mast) and on the other a 1 meter board attached to the log (the wing) if you pull on the board and the wood chisel at the same time, the log explodes in its center, Because all the constraints are there.
Carbon does not like at all the repeated efforts in torsion, it will eventually fade as soon as the effort is a little too large or it will take play in the assembly. We have learned that in the past at our expense.

What is better? A carbon fuselage with a risk of breakage, or an aluminum fuselage, but whose oxidation can be controlled by regular maintenance? 

The second reason is : the respect of the connection planes of the foil wings, an offset of 0.1 degrees on the stabilizer or the front wing and the foil no longer works in the same way.
A carbon fuselage is moulded, it requires a finish, a trimming, a sanding. This implies a share of randomness, so it is almost impossible to respect this tolerance.
Aluminum and Carbon for a fuselage, it is like oak and reed, aluminum is resilient, it can take very strong constraints, deform slightly and return to its original form, because it is an isotropic material that can work uniformly on all axes.

The last point is located at the level of the inserts fixing the wings and the stabilizer, it is very difficult to have a durable bonding of the threaded inserts on a stress area so strong with a Carbon construction.

MANUFACTURING

The fuselage is machined in a rolled aviation aluminum block, the machining of the fuselage is carried out in the direction of the rolling of the material in order to bring even more bending resistance to the fuselage.
It is made on a machining center that allows an accuracy of one hundredth of mm.
It is then subjected to the same finish as the masts: polished for a better glide, then anodized for a better corrosion resistance.

TECHNICAL CHOICES

the fuselage mast connection is made by recessing and screwing by triple forged torx screws.
Experience since 2014 has shown us that this type of connection brings a very high level of reliability and rigidity. 
Not using an intermediate part between the mast and the fuselage eliminates the loss of rigidity associated with the assembly and the risk of play between these parts. 

The embedding of the mast directly into the fuselage makes it possible to resume the forces on the outside of the mast rather than the inside of the mast profile and further increases this rigidity.

The fuselage has a sacrificial anode that protects the foil from corrosion more efficiently (as on boats): this small detail impacts the cost of production of the fuselage, but is found on the durability of the foil

the profile of the fuselage is optimized for sliding, torsional strength, bending and weight, this allows to obtain a light and rigid foil

the wing fuselage connection :

In 2010 Alpinefoil made a study to try to choose the connection that would bring the most portability (possibility devolution) and rigidity. At the time, we did not imagine that we could use foil wings of 1800 cm², but the study that was carried out proved us right. This connection system has made it possible to give the universal compatibility of all our foil wings on all our fuselages Whatever the practice: Kitefoil, Wingfoil, Windfoil, etc.

The fixing by 4 screws in quinconce (offset from the central axis) particularity of AlpineFoil brings 80% more torsional rigidity compared to a fixing by in-line screwdriving 

This universal attachment allows us today to offer you a foil that does not suffer from obsolescence, which allows you to use all types of Alpinefoil wings, even the one from 2010 and also to guarantee you the future of your foil.

By taking stock of the foils on the market, we realize that many brands have never anticipated these developments, and that some have changed systems several times to readjust by literally cutting all compatibility between their own foil range.