GEAR: SHOULD YOU USE A RAKE SHIM?

The GONG shaper’s point of view on board rake in wing foiling.

Using a rake shim is optional with a 100% GONG quiver. Rake is only built in by default when it truly makes sense, for example for racing with the HM107 mast (integrated 1.5° rake). This nose-up angle offers more tolerance on touchdowns and also allows you to push harder on the front foot to accelerate.

If you mix boards and foils from different brands, your board may end up slightly nose up or slightly nose down. Is that a problem? No. Should it be corrected with a shim? Not necessarily.

Our shaper explains it all below 👇

Wing foiler: Bastien, GONG team rider, on Racer FSP Pro, Droid SP Aramid CZ, Ypra Race mast and Ypra Race foil.

In response to a wing foiler on the GONG Galaxy group, here’s what Patrice Guénolé, GONG founder and shaper, points out:

“The benefit of managing rake angle is limited and temporary.

Generally speaking, rake shims are used to compensate for a shaping constraint.

For example, if a board has a lot of rocker, a shim doesn’t really serve much purpose.

On the other hand, in Race, you may like a flat rocker to take off early, but also need tolerance on touchdowns to avoid pearling. Then you can add one shim, or two, or three. Same idea in freestyle.

In surf, conversely, we often prefer to keep the foil parallel to the board’s shape line to perform well both in flight and on contact, and to relaunch more smoothly.

Riding nose down or nose up is mostly an aesthetic concern. Correcting it can have an interesting psychological effect, like many placebos.

Rake management is important, but only if you know exactly what you’re looking for.

In your case, riding nose up doesn’t seem to have changed your life as a rider. So why change it?

Personally, my shapes integrate rake management directly into the rocker curve, depending on the program.

Finally, note that the foil has a much greater influence on nose up/down than the foil/board pairing.

A stab that’s too small: nose down.
A very cambered front wing profile: nose down.

Etc…”

Want to use a rake shim with your GONG foil? Visit our Adapters & Accessories section.