I'm 65 kg and learnt to foil and wing on a Naish crossover 120 which is 7'4, using the jet 1650 and have had an amazing time on it. Incidentally, I'm now waiting for my new smaller board to be delivered so will be selling the crossover, but my thoughts...

The water where I ride can be wild - wind against tide, waves bouncing off sea walls, wake from shipping and at times I've been thankful for all the volume. I think people are always so quick to say aim for a smaller board - there are real benefits to a bigger, longer board - stability when getting going, glide in the water to get the foil up to speed, a certain amount of inertia in the board which makes it more forgiving to clumsy footwork, and you can recover from some pretty hard touch / crash downs.

I also ride a 5'3 34 litre foil board at my local wake park, so know what a small board feels like and there no way I'd be ready to wing that just yet. It's the dream, but something to work towards.

I guess my takeaway is that foiling the 120 doesn't feel clumsy or awkward. Yes it doesn't pump as well as a small board but that's a small price to pay when learning IMHO. I'm not conscious of the size of it in use, perhaps that's because I'm using a slightly smaller foil than many. I think my progression would have been slower on a smaller board.

I've had a real dilemma deciding how small I should go for my new board - 80 or 95 litres - and I went for the 95. Reason being that the this will be my new 'big' board with my eye on the 5'3 being the windy board eventually. The ease of use for where I am trumped the extra bit of performance gain from a smaller board.

Side note - I also have the large Thrust foil which I learnt on at the wake park with the crossover. That's 1250 and known to be a 'responsive' foil - ie not the first choice for learning and I found it a challenging experience, but hey, ignorance is bliss and I use it on the 5'3 now. Point being that the foil and board package determine feel.