Windfoiling or wingfoiling

Both.

Last summer, already in August, Roosevelt was so choked with weeds that we had to launch further west at the old ferry ramp. 3-Mile was choked, too. Arlington is better because you launch directly into the current over the deep channel; no weeds right there. Port Kelley was so bad for weeds that I just quit going there. The wingers, however, did fine with their inverted paddling.

At Scooteney Reservoir you had to walk way out through the weeds, then launch. Lake Wenatchee stays clear due to its very cold water. Rimrock, too. Lake Washington got weedy.

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aeroegnr said..

segler said..
Lake Washington got weedy.

I used to live right on a cove there. There was a time of year that it got really bad. My launch (if I didn't want to step over rocks) was through lily pads that got very dense. I taught myself, was pretty clueless (maybe still am?), but I got out there.

Respect!

Well, I have been doing only wing foiling this year and am beyond frustrated with learning to jibe. No rhyme or reason to why I fall or which direction. Sometimes i fall left, sometimes I fall right, sometimes I fall forward and sometimes I fall off the back. I also struggle trying to luff the wing to ride waves. I wasn't great at wind foiling, but I was pretty decent at it and could get way more time on foil doing that than winging. I'm putting my winging gear away and getting my Levitator 150 back out and going to work on my jibes and riding swells and waves with that. Maybe it's having the boom and mast to hold onto that I need?I can wing foil and go back and forth, but I am tired of not being able to jibe yet. I'm done with it for now. I get limited time on the water and want to enjoy it, not be frustrated.

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excav8ter said..
Well, I have been doing only wing foiling this year and am beyond frustrated with learning to jibe. No rhyme or reason to why I fall or which direction. Sometimes i fall left, sometimes I fall right, sometimes I fall forward and sometimes I fall off the back. I also struggle trying to luff the wing to ride waves. I wasn't great at wind foiling, but I was pretty decent at it and could get way more time on foil doing that than winging. I'm putting my winging gear away and getting my Levitator 150 back out and going to work on my jibes and riding swells and waves with that. Maybe it's having the boom and mast to hold onto that I need?I can wing foil and go back and forth, but I am tired of not being able to jibe yet. I'm done with it for now. I get limited time on the water and want to enjoy it, not be frustrated.

Sounds like a smart move

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excav8ter said..
Well, I have been doing only wing foiling this year and am beyond frustrated with learning to jibe. No rhyme or reason to why I fall or which direction. Sometimes i fall left, sometimes I fall right, sometimes I fall forward and sometimes I fall off the back. I also struggle trying to luff the wing to ride waves. I wasn't great at wind foiling, but I was pretty decent at it and could get way more time on foil doing that than winging. I'm putting my winging gear away and getting my Levitator 150 back out and going to work on my jibes and riding swells and waves with that. Maybe it's having the boom and mast to hold onto that I need?I can wing foil and go back and forth, but I am tired of not being able to jibe yet. I'm done with it for now. I get limited time on the water and want to enjoy it, not be frustrated.

Were you using long or short fuse for wing? Also did you practice slogging in switch stance.

Windfoiling has so much to offer though, so no prob if you put the wing on the backburner.

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excav8ter said..
Well, I have been doing only wing foiling this year and am beyond frustrated with learning to jibe. No rhyme or reason to why I fall or which direction. Sometimes i fall left, sometimes I fall right, sometimes I fall forward and sometimes I fall off the back. I also struggle trying to luff the wing to ride waves. I wasn't great at wind foiling, but I was pretty decent at it and could get way more time on foil doing that than winging. I'm putting my winging gear away and getting my Levitator 150 back out and going to work on my jibes and riding swells and waves with that. Maybe it's having the boom and mast to hold onto that I need?I can wing foil and go back and forth, but I am tired of not being able to jibe yet. I'm done with it for now. I get limited time on the water and want to enjoy it, not be frustrated.

Persevere. It's all about the foil. Once they click, they are much, much easier than any windsurf gybe - fin or foil.

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thedoor said..

excav8ter said..
Well, I have been doing only wing foiling this year and am beyond frustrated with learning to jibe. No rhyme or reason to why I fall or which direction. Sometimes i fall left, sometimes I fall right, sometimes I fall forward and sometimes I fall off the back. I also struggle trying to luff the wing to ride waves. I wasn't great at wind foiling, but I was pretty decent at it and could get way more time on foil doing that than winging. I'm putting my winging gear away and getting my Levitator 150 back out and going to work on my jibes and riding swells and waves with that. Maybe it's having the boom and mast to hold onto that I need?I can wing foil and go back and forth, but I am tired of not being able to jibe yet. I'm done with it for now. I get limited time on the water and want to enjoy it, not be frustrated.

Were you using long or short fuse for wing? Also did you practice slogging in switch stance.

Windfoiling has so much to offer though, so no prob if you put the wing on the backburner.

Long fuse. My board is an Axis Froth, 5'8" 120L. I can't stand on it without sufficient wind it seems. I've honestly considered going up to the 145L or even the 160L Axis Froth. The time I've had windfoiling was great! I enjoyed it immensely. I never expect to get much better than foil jibes and "riding" some swells. I have such limited time on the water due to my job.

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marc5 said..
I hear you. I'm in 20+ days of winging after 41 years of windsurfing and a couple of years of windfoiling. After countless attempts at a wing jibe I finally made one last week. So nice not to swim!! I'm stoked now and feel that I seem to be getting it. Don't give up! I think that pumping the board through the turn for balance is helping me. A couple of lessons from a great instructor also helped.

So cool to hear you're getting the hang of it. I don't have 20 days of winging this year yet. It sucks and I have honestly been considering selling everything and buying a nice Seadoo and a camera to go out and photograph the guys who are doing so well buy me.

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excav8ter said..
Long fuse. My board is an Axis Froth, 5'8" 120L. I can't stand on it without sufficient wind it seems. I've honestly considered going up to the 145L or even the 160L Axis Froth. The time I've had windfoiling was great! I enjoyed it immensely. I never expect to get much better than foil jibes and "riding" some swells. I have such limited time on the water due to my job.

Why not just enjoy windfoiling? Winging is not a progression, it's just different like kite foiling.
My guess is that we'll see some wingers try windfoiling now the frenzy is abating and when they see the advantages of a sail

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azymuth said..

excav8ter said..
Long fuse. My board is an Axis Froth, 5'8" 120L. I can't stand on it without sufficient wind it seems. I've honestly considered going up to the 145L or even the 160L Axis Froth. The time I've had windfoiling was great! I enjoyed it immensely. I never expect to get much better than foil jibes and "riding" some swells. I have such limited time on the water due to my job.

Why not just enjoy windfoiling? Winging is not a progression, it's just different like kite foiling.
My guess is that we'll see some wingers try windfoiling now the frenzy is abating and when they see the advantages of a sail

That is my plan for the next few weeks at least.

No regrets on my decision so far. I have had so much fun wind foiling the past few weeks! My stoke is back. Sure, I can't put the sail in "neutral" like a wing, but I still have an amazing time carving back and forth on the swells i get on. It's just a different feeling, a more powerful and faster feeling.

Also, being the only guy on a windfoil in a crowd of 20-30 kites and wingers is fun. When they talk about the look, I know who it is.. Hahahaha

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patronus said..
If you want to go fast put a fin on it. If you want fun put a wing on it. If you want neither windfoil ;-)

If you need flat water put a fin in, if you have wind in 12 knots+ range and and do not want to go far from shore use a wing, and if you want to blast around in 8-9 knots with an 8.0 sail windfoil with an AFS F1080 cm2 wing!

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Paducah said..

patronus said..
If you want to go fast put a fin on it. If you want fun put a wing on it. If you want neither windfoil ;-)

I guess you missed the memo that NG personally delivered to the racing world.

Was been a bit tongue-in cheek- Don't know what NG is but fin speedsailors post 45-50knots and foilers 32-37. Real world recreational sailors see differences too. Racing breeds specialisd kit to suit the course not what most people sail. Saw a fin designer say drag from a foil goes as square of speed so foiling will never equal fin.

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patronus said..

Paducah said..

patronus said..
If you want to go fast put a fin on it. If you want fun put a wing on it. If you want neither windfoil ;-)

I guess you missed the memo that NG personally delivered to the racing world.

Was been a bit tongue-in cheek- Don't know what NG is but fin speedsailors post 45-50knots and foilers 32-37. Real world recreational sailors see differences too. Racing breeds specialisd kit to suit the course not what most people sail. Saw a fin designer say drag from a foil goes as square of speed so foiling will never equal fin.

NG is for Nicolas Goyard, a PWA exclusive foiler who beats all the guys on fins!

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patronus said..
Saw a fin designer say drag from a foil goes as square of speed so foiling will never equal fin.

Hydrodynamic drag and lift go with the square of speed. That's the same for foils, fins, and wetted areas on windsurf boards, and therefore not a valid argument why "foiling will never equal fin".

Every place where windsurfers break 45 knots has extremely flat water, and the same is true for places where windsurfers break 40 knots (which happens much more frequently). The runs are typically right next to a sandbank, or at places like Lake George or Albany where the weeds are extremely heavy, and usually in water shallower than 50 cm. For longer runs at deep downwind angles, very shallow water or heavy seaweed is an absolute must - otherwise, the rolling chop gets large enough to make top speeds impossible. These spots are simple not foilable. The one exception I know of where 50 knots have been done and foiling may be possible is West Kirby.

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patronus said..
Real world recreational sailors see differences too.

That's the interesting comparison. At our local spot on Cape Cod, the typical speed of recreational windsurfer on a typical day is below 20 knots. There are a couple of exceptions, but at least 80% of regulars rarely go above 22 knots, due to chop and just going back and forth. If the wind (and chop) picks up to 25+ knots, speeds go down.

In my first 3 years of windfoiling, I was significantly slower than most windsurfers. Nowadays, that has changed: with typical travel speeds around 18 knots, and top speeds above 20 knots, I'm after going about the same speed as most windsurfers. Of course, this is spot dependent. Yesterday, I was at a (semi-)flat water spot, where plenty of guys reached 25 knots on windsurfers. But better windfoilers have shown that pushing the freeride foil gear I use to 25 knots is not that hard in flat water.

Foil racing shows a similar picture. For the first few years, fins beat foils in moderate conditions. But that difference is now largely gone, with foils often getting top speeds within a knot of fins in "real world" conditions, be it in Israel or Italy.

Winging is even more interesting with respect to speed. As wingers naturally progress towards higher aspect foils, recreational wing racing seems to becoming quite popular. On the wing forum, multiple wingers have reported speeds in the high 20s, which is on par with recreational speeds in semi-flat conditions. Given the rapid improvement in both wing gear and skills, speeds will certainly go up.

But while I like speedsurfing enough to tolerate a 35-hour flight to get to great speed spots, and love windfoiling, I think it's just a question of skill development until most of my sessions will be with wings. I was on windsurf, windfoil, and wing gear yesterday, and the winging ended up being most fun. After a dozen sessions on wing gear, it already feels easier to use in 25+ mph wind than windfoil gear after 200+ session.