Hi, I am former windsurfer / windfoiler and now kind of intermediate level wingsurfer.
A year ago I broke my foot while wind foiling - got stuck in the back strap when I fell backwards. This is quite typical injury in wind foiling. Nowadays I foil strapless (both wind and wing). Foot is already fine but I do not want to repeat the injury.

However, I am interested in learning to jump with wing and therefore should start to use the straps.
Have the foot straps caused you a risk situation or injuries in wing foiling? In jibes, waves, speed, jumps, when ventilating and falling etc?

I recently also got my first bigger waves (at least on my scale, somewhat higher than me). It was fun but felt a bit risky. Is there something to know in wave riding to avoid injuries?

Also other wing foiling oriented injuries like strain injuries would be nice to know and prevent: e.g I started with ensis wing V1 and now own permanent lumps in index finger bones as they where rubbed to central strut. Though now after learning basics I can hold ensis wing better and avoid rubbing and pressure points.

It would be "nice" to know what kind of close shave or leading to injury situations you have had and what we can learn from them.

Waves, start strapless until confident, then straps for jumping.
Jumping. Either super tall but narrow, which does stress a kles and knees, for the young and flexible....
Or, slalom tight so your Midwood and heel is free to float and pivot out, for the guys who need to get out on every fall.
Just like windsurfing.

Cuts on my hand from pushing the stab through a heavy shorebreak but quite often: bruised ego due all the crashes.Straps: I tried them last week again, and I can carve a bit harder strapped compared to strapless, but don,t like the feel of being locked in. With windsurfing I can do forwards, backies and pushloops on a goo day, but jumping with a foil underneath me doesn't feel that save.
bigger risk of landing on them and that has more consequenties....So I stay strapless and max 75cm above the water. (I have an 82cm mast)

Regarding to straps: I'm using two front strap -setup. At beginner stage my foot got sometimes stuck in straps after falling. With big, heavy beginner board it was sometimes hard to get them out as board was flat on water and i was laying on other side with my foot twisted inside strap. I have not had that problem for a long time. Maybe partly because now when falling i have reflex to kick out of straps during a fall. Other thing is that my board is now much smaller so it's easier manouver.

I have had one close call in waves that didn't include straps but the leash.
Wind was pretty strong, i was using 6m2 wing wich was too big for conditions. At some point i was on the water and wing was 2m away from me, flapping in wind at end of the leash. I tried to pull wing towards me, but leash was so slippery and wind was pulling so strongly that leash slipped from my hand. Without thinking too much, i wrapped leash one time around my hand to get a better grip - big mistake! At the same time big wave came behind and broke straight on top of the wing causing a massive pull to leash. I felt leash crushing with tremendeous power around my hand for a brief moment, then it luckily slipped off and i got pulled with wave for a moment from wrist attachement. After that my hand went numb and i was sure that bones in my hand were crushed. Got back to the beach where sensations came back to hand and was left only with some bleading bruises. I have been kiting many years and always been very cautious to never wrap any lines around myself. But winging is so laid back and feels so safe that i forgot to be alert. Good remainder for me indeed!
Now i'm starting to jump aswell and use backstrap also. I'm also very interested about hearing if people have had close calls with jumping and especially tips to avoid them. I would imagine that the risk factor will increase a lot especially when adding rotations. I think the foil is most dangerous when stalled - at least those have been the situations when i have been close to jackknife/tacoing. And after landing this can be a thing to keep in mind i suppose?

Hav'nt tried wingfoiling yet but looking into it a fair bit now.
Question: is it hard on your lower back?
I had a back injury years ago, no probs prone foil or kiting.

foilthegreats said..
Only time I get sketched out is when using my Armstrong 100cm mast. I've had a few really awkward tacos when doing spinning airs. The long mast can have some really awkward leverage but thankfully I'm limber enough to get away uninjured so far.

I also think straps can increase safety as you can control the board when crashing. You will also be able to recover in critical situations that without straps would be a yard sale.

I wear booties and that also helps prevent injury as my foot can twist in the bootie while stuck in the strap.

Warm water I use these 2mm and they're great: soliteboots.com/collections/all-products/products/2022-2mm-custom-omni-2-0

I agree, straps greatly improve safety. Plenty of situations where I would of gone over the handlebars or lost it, have been saved by straps.

toppleover said..
Hav'nt tried wingfoiling yet but looking into it a fair bit now.
Question: is it hard on your lower back?
I had a back injury years ago, no probs prone foil or kiting.

No issues winging. Only possibility of injuring your lower back would be to flip the wing when upside down from the middle. Follow Alan Cadiz's method and flip from wing tips, and no load on your back.

Jedibrad said..
Wrist strap caused me a shoulder injury, I now stick it on a waist band. Leg rope goes there too

I have noticed that risk as well. Do you use harness lines also? Whether they can be used at the same time in same belt / harness? Any other disadvantages to connect wing leash to belt/harness? I also connect board leash to back off the harness. Really hard pulls sometimes when crashing from high speed and do not like the idea that my leg is pulled (I have loose knees from soccer) .

Yep above, same has happened to me. still have a sore wrist from it after a few months. I'm still holding onto the damn thing though. gotta learn to let it go.

Long time windfoiler and 1.5 year occasional wingfoiler here. I would windfoil with front straps only and have never had an injury. Last year I was wingfoiling strapless and fell inwards during a jibe, tweaking my knee sideways. I damaged my meniscus and was limping for months. It's fine now, but was easily the worst injury I've had of the two sports. I don't think winging is any safer than windfoiling other than there's no mast to bonk your head on.

Ive had some elbow tendon issues after long sessions or lots of volume.

I don't often wear a helmet, but I realize I should. I recently swam under my board to clean off some seaweed off of the foil, a tiny wave hit my board and I got cracked on the forehead with the back of my mast. The contact wasn't very hard, but it made a pretty deep gash and was a wakeup to the fact that hitting my head on a foil could do some real damage. I think helmets are probably an underrated piece of equipment in this sport.

Must admit I did let go the other day with my first wing on the 925 in decent swell. I was going so fast (relative to what I'm used to on the 1250) . But the "let go" wAsnt the purpose or reason, I literally just jumped off, arms and legs going every which way and screamed like a little girl. The lads are still giving me sh1t about it two weeks later.


Got back on the 1250 yesterday - man it felt pedestrian.

and yeh I'm getting a bit of elbow tendinitis. Gotta massage the hell out of them most days.

ah well better to bust than rust.

I seem to get chest pains regularly
every time I go to work when there's wind so I strongly recommend against this working thing

I have some major winger's elbow. Haven't been able to straighten elbow for 9 months. I am a craftsman, always using hands/forearms which contributes to overuse. It doesn't hurt so much while winging. I have been massaging and rolling it out and stretching but it hasn't helped much. I ride with harness always nowadays. I think the harness is the best thing ever. I ride Dart wings which have an intense pull. Jump alot which is a lot of load on elbows. My ART 999 is helping a lot with slipping through the water and reducing pull on arms. Ski season should help.

Problems with elbow here also, started already when windsurfing, no problem during winging but next day it hurts pretty much and some trouble in everyday life. Winter and snowboarding helps me also.

Figured I throw this one into the mix since I didn't see much reference to fingers. Middle finger contusion injury that happened around June of 2020. This is what my right hand middle finger, middle knuckle still looks like today. Always stiff but basically functional again. Off the water for about 5 weeks when it first happened and wore a splint for 4 weeks after that.

I was practicing behind-the-back-tacks ( more releases and re-grabs than conventional tacks so you need to do them quickly!) I missed a final regrab; front hand from front handle back to boom (Duotone Echo) and didn't let go of the rear hand quick enough. Wing did a super quick twist and somehow caught my middle finger as I was letting go. Finally back to practicing these same tacks this fall. I let go quickly if things aren't working!

Tennis elbow is the most common nagging pain after several days of winging. I recently changed wings from a 6.4 to a 4.8. That seemed to help quite a bit.

I've noticed the feet are starting to have lots of scrapes, just from normal activities, so probably should use booties.
My shins have had their share of bumps and scrapes, mostly from hitting the rail when learning how to gibe.