UniFoil at the Kernow Foil Classic 2026

Event Report

Cornwall, UK · 29 September – 4 October 2026

Five days of sunshine, epic waves, a couple of windy days and a car park full of foilers.

The 2026 Kernow Foil Classic was a pretty special week.

The KFC has become one of those events that feels bigger than just the competition. There are serious riders chasing podiums, amateurs having a go, free riders getting stuck into the sessions and a constant stream of conversations about boards, foils, conditions and what everyone should have been riding. For the UniFoil crew, it was a chance to do all of that together.

Running from 29 September to 4 October, the Kernow Foil Classic brought prone, wing, foil assist and parawing together across Cornwall's coastline. Hayle was the base for the event, with the competition moving between venues as the conditions and forecasts developed. In the end, Parawing found its contest venue at Praa Sands, Foil Assist was held at the Hayle River Mouth — home of the local Foil Club — while Gwithian hosted Wing, Prone and further Foil Assist competition.

That mobile format is a big part of what makes the Kernow Foil Classic different. Rather than forcing every discipline into one location, the organisers can chase the best conditions and find the right wave or wind for each part of the event.

A huge amount of work goes into making that happen, and Chris Burke and the Kernow Foil Classic team deserve plenty of credit. Chris also runs Poseidon Watersports, but KFC itself has grown into a much wider community event.

Parawing and Wing

Harvey Thompson

For Harvey Thompson, the week produced a standout result. Riding the Evolution 135 with a short fuse, Quantum 14 and +1° shim in the Parawing competition, he found the setup gave him plenty of glide and made linking bumps easy. It was enough to put Harvey into third place in the Parawing, behind Finn Spencer and Will Haslam, in a seriously strong field.

As the swell got faster, though, Harvey started to find the limits of the larger Evolution. He felt increasingly locked into the setup and became more hesitant to really crank the turns in case he breached. Looking back, he reckoned the Aggression 130 would have suited those faster conditions better.

That's exactly the change he made for the Wing competition. The short fuse, Quantum 14 and +1° shim stayed, but the front wing became the Aggression 130. Harvey finished fourth in the Amateur Wing and spent plenty of time outside the competition putting the Portal Mid-length through its paces.

It was a good illustration of how much the front wing can change the character of an otherwise familiar setup. The Evolution brought the glide and efficiency; the Aggression gave him a more responsive platform when the surfing became faster and more dynamic.

Finding the Balance

Zoltan Pongracz

Zoltan Pongracz was looking at the same question from a slightly different angle. He rode both the Aggression 130 and 150 during the event, keeping the short fuse, +1° shim and Quantum 14 underneath them.

For Zoltan, the short fuse was the clear winner. He finds the medium fuse too sticky and doesn't particularly like the extra-short either, because he feels he gives away too much glide. The short fuse with the 1° shim gives him the balance he wants.

The 130 Aggression handled double-overhead conditions well, but the biggest thing Zoltan took away from the week wasn't actually the foil. It was the board.

He had been riding a 5'0" mid-length and realised that, when the goal is to push the turns harder, a shorter prone board makes a huge difference to where the back foot sits and how quickly the board and foil respond.

He put that theory to the test after the event at Crantock, riding a tiny 3'11" prone board with a 170 Aggression. The difference was immediate. The whole setup felt dramatically more responsive and every turn seemed to want to come around faster. It was much closer to the kind of sharp, reactive riding that the judges were looking for.

But Zoltan still loves the mid-length. There's something about the glide, flow and being able to connect three or four waves that he really enjoys.

The setup that makes sense for competition isn't necessarily the setup you most enjoy surfing.

The Foil Assist Masters was another strong result for the UniFoil crew, with Andy taking second and Zoltan finishing third.

Maybe Next Year

Luke Austin

Luke Austin had a tougher week competitively. He went into the event on the setup he already knows works for him — an Aggression 130, short fuse, +1° shim, chopped Progression stabiliser at 12" and T80 mast.

It simply wasn't his day.

Rather than overthink the result, Luke came away impressed by the standard of riding around him and thinking about where he could take his own setup next. The speed and sharpness of the Pro riding has him interested in trying a smaller Aggression 115 with the extra-short fuse and Quantum tail.

Maybe next year.

When Fuse Length Changes Everything

Andy Cummins

Andy Cummins came away with perhaps the clearest equipment lesson of the week.

His go-to setup was the Aggression 150, extra-short fuse, 0.5° shim and Quantum 14 in the T80, running a Foil Drive Gen II with Max HP, mini pod and blue props.

And it worked.

Andy was consistently scoring 7s and 8s with the setup, even when the surf got well overhead. He described it as smooth on the rail, with plenty of glide, while the extra-short fuse made it easy to whip around in the pocket.

When the swell became more solid, Andy decided to go smaller and switched to the Aggression 130. The thinking was that the smaller front wing would stiffen things up for the bigger conditions.

The mistake was changing the fuse at the same time.

He went from the extra-short to the medium fuse, which is 10cm longer. Instead of giving him the control he was looking for, it completely changed the character of the setup. Andy found it difficult to get the foil to engage properly and it kept blowing up, leaving him massively overpowered.

Changing one part of a foil system can have a much bigger effect than expected.

In Andy's case, the extra-short fuse was a fundamental part of why the 150 Aggression setup worked so well.

Andy's second-place finish in the Foil Assist Masters added another strong result to the UniFoil team's week.

My KFC

My own role in the week was considerably smaller. I was there as a UniFoil Ambassador and helping out with the event crew, grabbing free surfs when I could rather than competing.

I was riding a 4'3" JS — Bennett's model — and moving between an Evolution 155 with 0° shim, Evolution 115 with +0.5° and Aggression 130 with +1°. All three were running the short fuse and 14.5 AfterBurner tail.

Having the different front wings available was useful as the conditions changed, but the best part of the week was really just being around the other UniFoil riders and seeing what everyone was doing with the equipment.

Five Days of Learning

And that was probably the overriding impression from KFC this year: the standard of surf foiling is moving incredibly quickly.

The equipment is becoming increasingly specialised, but so is the riding. The smaller, more reactive setups are allowing riders to carry more speed and push harder through turns, while the larger wings are still delivering the glide needed to link bumps and connect sections.

There isn't one magic setup.

Harvey found the Evolution's glide invaluable in Parawing before wanting the sharper response of the Aggression. Zoltan found his sweet spot with the short fuse but still prefers the flow of a mid-length. Luke is thinking about going smaller to unlock more performance. Andy discovered firsthand how much fuse length can alter the behaviour of an otherwise familiar setup.

That's what makes events like this so useful. You can spend all year talking about equipment, but five days of changing Atlantic conditions will tell you a lot more.

And then there is the other side of KFC.

The people.

The competition is obviously a huge part of it, but so are the free surfs, the evening sessions, the conversations in the car park and the people travelling from all over to spend a week doing what they love.

The KFC team have created something that feels properly rooted in the foiling community. It's competitive without losing the fun of the sport, and serious without taking itself too seriously.

For the UniFoil crew, we came away with some strong results, a few hard-earned equipment lessons, plenty of new friends and an even greater appreciation of how quickly surf foiling is progressing.

Most of all, we're just stoked to be part of it.

A huge thanks to Chris Burke and the Kernow Foil Classic team, along with everyone who helped make the event happen — the judges, volunteers, riders, free riders and everyone working behind the scenes.

What the crew rode:

Aggression · Evolution · Quantum tail · Short fuselage · Extra-short fuselage · 80 Torque mast