Fuselage and Mast Length

Fuselage and mast length seem pretty simple and yeah they kind of are but it’s interesting to talk about anyways. 

Let’s start with mast length. The main propose of a longer mast is to widen your margin of error while riding. You will worry less about bumps and have more time to correct your inputs, which is valuable when reacting at high speed. A longer mast also allows for a steeper bank angle in turns, it’s mainly useful for rail to water clearance sailing upwind. 
mom the other side we have a short mast. A short mast will mainly make breaching more recoverable, give you a faster rail to rail transition (important on small waves), and lower takeoff speed. A short mast can also make it easier to keep the front wing close to the water’s surface meaning better pumping and more glide. 
a mid length mast (70-85cm) is where most riders will end up, mid length masts perform well in most conditions and wing sets. 

Fuselage length seems to be all the rage and there’s incredible variability in the lengths people are riding. As a basic rule, I tell people go for short fuse going slow and long fuse going fast. Here’s why: 

short fuselages have less stabilizing effect from the tail; less force is needed to change direction.  This means a few things- instant response is nice in small waves, you can react and change direction faster and it’s a more natural feel. You can ride slower while pumping, again good in small waves where you start with less speed plus it makes recovering from mistakes while pumping easier. It works because instead of pushing the front wing through the water, it pivots down keeping a lower angle of attack on the front wing. No stall! Overall it’s a more forgiving tuning for pumping if you run a bigger tail with the shorter fuse this effect is even larger. Another fun one is extra pop for airs! Faster change in direction is more time accelerating upwards and a higher launch velocity, be careful though, a short fuse can get twitchy at high speed.

longer fuselages mean a slower change in direction and more leverage for the Tailwing to work with. A smaller Tailwing can be run on a longer fuse, less high speed drag. Longer fuselages can help with high speed pumping downwind, it helps the rider get enough angle of attack on the front wing to generate meaningful thrust. Of course this comes at the cost of higher pumping stall speed; it will be harder to get on foil. Too long of a fuselage will feel “sticky” on inputs and hard to correct mistakes.

side note: short fuselages and big tails have limited use applications in surfing at high speed, where the extra drag doesn’t matter so much and responsiveness is valued more. 

In the end it’s all based on rider preference and use conditions. Big changes in these can feel really weird at first and may take time to adjust to so give it a few sessions!