It seems like a lot of windfoilers are abandoning the sail for the wing. Even Wyatt miller and tony logosz at slingshot hq are moving towards winging, if you listen to Wyatt's latest interview. This is a mistake in my opinion as there is a lot of potential in windfoiling as shown in the videos featuring 2keen, azymuth and the other WA windfoilers. You can carve hard with speed on a sail. You simply can't do this as well on a wing.

Guru4 said..
It seems like a lot of windfoilers are abandoning the sail for the wing. Even Wyatt miller and tony logosz at slingshot hq are moving towards winging, if you listen to Wyatt's latest interview. This is a mistake in my opinion as there is a lot of potential in windfoiling as shown in the videos featuring 2keen, azymuth and the other WA windfoilers. You can carve hard with speed on a sail. You simply can't do this as well on a wing.

I remember when kiting started to get popular back in the mid-nineties -- many windsurfers went to the dark side along with a lot of potential windsurfers. Now it seems windsurfers, kiters and foilers from everywhere are moving to wing foiling and especially kids. There will always be the hardcore windsurfers and kiters (windfoilers and kite foilers) but realistically -- wing foiling is going to dominate, like it or not!

I love to windfoil but I find myself with the wing more times than I thought I would. When I talk to retailers it's pretty obvious which way the wind is blowing -- the writing is all over the wall -- winging is here and it's just getting better and better. What people didn't think could be done with a wing yesterday, someone is doing today and who knows what tomorrow will bring!

At our local we have heaps of kitefoilers, and a building number of wingers, me include though I kitefoil too.

Talk is of bigger wingdings and foil wings for lighter air, none have mentioned trying kitefoil. I was out on my 15mtr Flysurfer the other day foiling. Wingers were out too, and getting up and going though working hard.

With the improvements in boards, foils and wingdings I doubt there will be a need to try kitefoil, they are going in fairly light winds already. And kitefoil is the hardest to learn, you need lessons and the gear is expensive.

I am enjoying wing foiling but I would miss out at least a third of my sessions due to the wind being too light if that was all I did. All those glorious 10-17 knot sessions just would not happen. (It's actually 37% of sessions in a normal year and over 50% since COVID cause I took anything I could get in lockdown)

The wing foilers that come out on the light sea breeze days can do fine if they get out in the wind line and keep going. They're stuck if the wind drops a little or their gybe technique is the slightest bit off (which it usually is) and they lose apparent wind.

I've read about light wind wing foiling, and I've tried it. We have some super experienced wing foilers with custom light wind foils and big wings. They don't get going in much under 17 knots. If the wind dips down a little they're stuck. I have checked up on people slogging in on my way back from a coast run. I've been powered up and having fun and not even on my lightest wind gear. They've been struggling to the nearest landing place and long walk back.

Possibly the most dangerous thing I've done recently is chase wind out to sea on a wing foil. It's sort of necessary to do long beats if you want to make ground up wind. Much is made of the ability to self rescue. That is exaggerated. If you're stuck a mile out to sea then it's going to take ages to paddle back to shore. The one saving grace is that *IF* a puff comes along you can jump up and get on the foil and get back to shore. It's much more fun and safer to save wing foiling for solid wind, which happens to be the same as your average freeride sailboard.

Even if you solve the light wind problem, wing foils are really slow. That problem might be solvable. I have seen a couple of fast wing foilers and there's some videos showing decent speed. I have some new equipment to try if I ever get enough wind (see above).

Gorgo said..
I've read about light wind wing foiling, and I've tried it. We have some super experienced wing foilers with custom light wind foils and big wings. They don't get going in much under 17 knots. If the wind dips down a little they're stuck. I have checked up on people slogging in on my way back from a coast run. I've been powered up and having fun and not even on my lightest wind gear. They've been struggling to the nearest landing place and long walk back.

Learners or heavier guys on small wings might need 17 knots.
However with a bit of experience and the right gear 10 knots is easily do-able.
I'm no expert but have been Sup, kite and wing foiling for a while and am fairly competent, I weight 90kg and use a 1150 Axis foil and 6m Smik wing and can go in around 10 or so no problem.

... as above plenty of us are out well below 17 knots.
Yeh same ... hardly ever kite foil now. Except if flat water and I want to explore upwind in a nice location. Any hint of swell and it's a no brainer.
Wave kiting is still sick and so is even a nuked out bump and jump in waves on a kite.
that being said big ocean swell downwinders on a wing ... I have to say it may even beat a SB kiting session in premium conditions I'm afraid. Maybe ..

oh and kiting wasn't popular in the mid nineties. Just a few crazy pricks mucking around with fixed framed wings and skis in maui in the mid nineties.

didn't really take off until 2008/2009 really and you could argue it was even a couple of years later than this. I remember even then people would ask what the hell we were doing.

We are still at the stage you have to explain to most folks what a wing is. But won't take long with all the social media "look at me " crew we've all become.

Grantmac said..
All forms of kiting have the worst self-rescue when the wind really dies, but as others have said kite-foiling places people in the position of most likely swimming a long way.

...

I don't think that is accurate or particularly relevant. There are many effective and efficient ways to self rescue with an inflatable kite. Even ram air kites can be self rescued quite effectively in most cases. In it's best form sailing a downed kite is almost as much fun as sailing a small dinghy. Ultimately you need to be prepared to sacrifice equipment if you need to do that to protect yourself.

More importantly, any form of wind sport device can get into a situation where things go from good to bad with little warning. Just the other day I got bucked off a foil doing nothing in particular and that ended in 3 minute drama that could have had bad consequences.

I think the "just paddle in" idea is hugely over simplified. I am very fit and very experienced but having paddled in from a couple of km out, it is much easier said than done. It takes ages. It's tiring. It's hard. (According to my GPS the kneeling "lifesaver" paddle was easiest and fastest.) It happened a lot until I simply accepted that wing foiling is a strong wind sport. I am working on the techniques and gear for lighter wind wing foiling. I am hesitant to go down the route of buying huge foil wings. I have more than enough wing gear already.

Given that many wing foilers are less than athletic, you really need to practice paddling and self rescue techniques before you need to do it. You need to ride in a way where your escape route is assured the whole time. It's not a good idea to ride a couple of km out to sea with no plan to get back when things go wrong.

Wing foiling has several distinct issues to deal with.

Number one is that you have much less power at your disposal. You're much more vulnerable to minor drops in the wind. Power and speed lets you glide through all sorts of wind fluctuations.

The rider is an inherent part of the structure. If the rider is damaged or tired then you've got nothing. A kite can launch itself and drag you back to shore. Even a damaged kite on the surface will tow you in. Body dragging a sailboard is doable. You can body drag a wing, or sit sail or variations on that. I guess you could rig the leashes to support the wing to sail in if you're damaged.

The wing, rider and board are all tied together with leashes. Virtually every session has some kind of "micro-bump" where the board hits you or you fall into the wing, or the wind tries to impale itself on the foil. All it takes is some bad luck and you could be injured and unable to use the wing to power your way back to the beach.

But your automatic kite drag to shore as mentioned hav also been be the cause of many near or fatal drownings as well. If the rider is injured the last thing they need is a kite pulling you through and down into the water. I don't think you can compare the two for equal threats to the rider.
but I get the use of a controlled kite for outer shore rescue is far more as effective than the wing. Good point.

As you get better at winging your wind minimum keeps going down. I've only windfoiled a few times but kitefoiled for 2 years.

With my SMIK 6m and 1850 I only need a sniff of a 12 knot gust to get up and I can ride though lulls down to 8 with some pumping of board and wing together. This is now below my kite foiling minimum where I can no longer relaunch if I drop it. I've had my fair share of long swims back and they really suck with a kite, its not easy especially on a low volume pocket board even with the best self-rescue knowledge. By comparison with my 95ltr wingboard (I'm 88kg) if the wind dies I've still been able to slog back in, I even sit down and hold the wing up one handed so long as its blowing 4knots you will make way faster than swimming and if there is any swell the foil under the water assists.

The worst thing about winging is getting out though a shore break or falling in the break and getting caught inside by a big set. You are so vulnerable to heavy damage or serious injury. In the same situation with a kite you can get though huge sets and white water by going deep and swinging the kite forward or just get up and away quick before being hit.

Until the wing design gets good enough to enable a quick windsurf style water start winging is never going to take over.

hilly said..

Gorgo said..
I am enjoying wing foiling but I would miss out at least a third of my sessions due to the wind being too light if that was all I did. All those glorious 10-17 knot sessions just would not happen.

The wing foilers that come out on the light sea breeze days can do fine if they get out in the wind line and keep going. They're stuck if the wind drops a little or their gybe technique is the slightest bit off (which it usually is) and they lose apparent wind.

I've read about light wind wing foiling, and I've tried it. We have some super experienced wing foilers with custom light wind foils and big wings. They don't get going in much under 17 knots. If the wind dips down a little they're stuck. I have checked up on people slogging in on my way back from a coast run. I've been powered up and having fun and not even on my lightest wind gear.

Possibly the most dangerous thing I've done recently is chase wind out to sea on a wing foil. It's sort of necessary to do long beats if you want to make ground up wind. Much is made of the ability to self rescue. That is exaggerated. If you're stuck a mile out to sea then it's going to take ages to paddle back to shore. The one saving grace is that *IF* a puff comes along you can jump up and get on the foil and get back to shore. It's much more fun and safer to save wing foiling for solid wind, which happens to be the same as your average freeride sailboard.

Different here, only wings out when it is light. But there are no windfoilers here. Sorry, there is one and he uses a wing on his windfoil board. Kite foils and windfoils have an advantage in flat water but I much prefer wings to ride waves in light wind. Using a kite I always caught the kite when riding downwind on the wave. I can get going in well under 17 knots on a 6m wing with 1250 foil @ 105kg.

Shame there are no windfoilers carving up the world class waves in the south west. We need more videos of windfoils ripping on big waves like in margs. This will bring more attention to windfoiling in waves and maybe bring people over from wing to sail.

Wyatt's comments about booms not being locked into the wing are not what I've experienced. I have an Echo and the boom is locked to the wing -- if you move the boom with your wrists up and down this directly moves the wing up and down unlike a strap handle, which bends. I have retro fitted a couple of wings with booms and again the boom is attached firmly to the centre strut and any wrist movement gives direct input to the wing.

He's also out of touch regarding windows. If you're on waves in Maui with the wing flagging to the side then windows don't make a lot of sense, however, in just about every other circumstance they do. Naish added windows to its V2. Airush is adding two additional windows to the rear of its pro wing. Armstrong have added another more rear window (at least to its upcoming 6.5). Ozone has added windows to its V2. Cabrinha now has a window option and on it goes. Like them or hate them it looks like they're here to stay and will be a mainstay or at least an option for just about every wing (even Slingshot will eventually jump on board).