SROKA POCKET BOARD & HA 1350 Lift

A new board and a new foil wing from SROKA gave us a reason to drop in on and catch up with Bruno Sroka, CEO and adventurer-in-chief, to find out a little more about their new products…

Hey Bruno! Please give our readers an overview of the new Pocket board and the new high aspect 1350 Lift foil – which disciplines are they optimized for, and what kind of rider?

The Pocket is a 4-in-1 board: four sports on one board, including dockstart, wake foil, tow-in surf foil and kitefoil. Its small size, stiffness and lightness give it exceptional precision, which makes it a formidable board for pumping and carving. You will be able to pump for long distances in the best conditions. The ultra-rigid construction makes the board feel like one with the foil and gives it an extraordinary responsiveness. The whole thing reacts exactly as you would expect it to, and it's just great fun! It is built with a PVC fiberglass sandwich on the deck and hull to obtain the best strength to weight ratio. An ultra-dense Airex block runs through the board at the US rails to withstand high pressures.

The Sfoil with the 1350 HA Lift front wing will make you glide endlessly downwind and reconnect small swell trains with ease when surf, wake or wing foiling in all small conditions. It’ll make you rediscover your usual spots, and choppy water will be your new playground!

Very easy to launch, the HA 1350 L does not come down once in flight. A simple pump stroke, an inconsistent swell or a small gust of wind is enough to prolong the pleasure of gliding indefinitely. Everything has been done to offer you a magical, infinite glide, with the minimum of effort.

How did you settle on the dimensions of the board, what’s the thought process here?

The dimensions have been optimized to have one board for all activities. It's the perfect compromise between length, width and volume so you don't have to worry about size. Having only one board to simplify the quantity of material so you don’t have to think about the choice of material! We notice that many riders spend too much time on the beach trying to choose the equipment. The goal is to spend as much time as possible in the water.

The pads extend over the whole board – what benefits does this provide?

In effect, the pads cover the entire deck of the board. This has two major advantages. It protects the board from possible shocks, and it allows you to consider strapless riding, whatever the activity. The weight gain if you reduce only a part of the pad would be minimal. To be one with the board is fundamental to us. This striped EVA pad really allows the feet to stick to the board.

55 strap inserts is certainly comprehensive, tell us the thinking behind this, and how they are engineered into the board…

Depending on the discipline, the feet are not positioned in the same place. For example, in wake foiling, the rear foot is slightly off the windward side. Therefore, on the rear foot there are three parallel insert bars. At the front, the straps can be used in a V-shape or in a central version in the axis or slightly shifted. These different options are suitable for all sports and all sizes and levels. A 4X4 board should be able to meet all needs.

The new HA 1350 Lift sounds dreamy for glide. What can you tell us about it?

With an aspect ratio of 9.0, this 1350 has a wingspan of 110cm. The glide ratio is partly due to the wingspan. So optimizing the wingspan for gliding really allows you to fly and stay airborne in minimal conditions, even if the wind drops or the swell is ridiculously small. This wing is perfectly suited for inshore wing riding where the wind is very, very gusty but also for surf foil or wake foil riding where the waves are very small. In downwind, with 15 knots of wind, it is very possible to downwind on it.

Where’s your primary R&D been happening for all the gear?

We test the products mainly in Brittany and the Canary Islands. This allows us to vary the conditions and to adapt to a variety of conditions that our customers may encounter. We would like to test at more spots around the world though, and we are looking for ambassadors from all over the globe to help us get feedback.

What else can we expect from Sroka in 2023?

Well, at the end of last year we released the 950 HA Speed wing, which brings incredible performance and ultimate glide but in average conditions. This year we will be releasing a whole range of surf foils (4'2, 4'6 and 4'8), a new range of wing foil boards (the Sky rider 5'4,  5’7, 6'0 and 6'3) and most importantly a range of carbon foils built exclusively from high modulus carbon. So there's a lot of new stuff coming this year, and we've been working and testing it hard for months this fall and winter.

Also this year we are redesigning the Classic 1500, the Classic 1250 and we are coming up with a new 950 which will be more carving oriented. The objective of these three new models is to optimize the glide while having a maximum of control in the longitudinal to bring control and stability even at high speed.