windfoiler getting into wingfoiling: what equipment?

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mr love said..
Its OK...I am back on my medication...

I am not having a go at winging at all......many of my friends are winging and loving it and I am so impressed with how the sport is developing and the amazing stuff some of the guys are doing now. My beef is nearly everybody saying to me .."when are you going to start winging, its way better than this" If I hear that from friends I know who have windfoiled and done so at a high level I respect their opinion but when I know that 95% of the people who say it to me have never stood on a windfoil board it starts to piss me off.

There is a local windsurfer I saw recently who said he was going to skip windfoiling and go to wingfoiling instead.

Saw him swap windsurfing gear with his friend, who had a slingshot windfoil setup. Got him to drop his hips to pump and saw him get up on foil for his first (brief) flight. Maybe it'll stick?

There's too much crossover with windfoiling/windsurfing for me to want to do more winging at the moment. My slick hasn't been used in about 1.5-2 years now. It helps that I get a lot more upwind/downwind performance on the race windfoil gear and am a little or a lot faster (depending on their foil setup). There have been a couple of really good wingers here, jumping and going on smaller wings, but it's still not as appealing to me? Dunno.

And I'm still working on trying more freestyle windfoil tricks on the freeride setup...not there. Waiting for the windy season.

I started learning to wingfoil late in 2021. Spent all of '22 solely doing winging. Bought a new Axis froth board, 4.4, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0 wings and did it every chance I got. I just couldn't get the jibes to click. I could mow the lawn all day long, I'll be damned if i could make a jibe. Last fall after a nearly 2 hour session, only covering 4 miles or less, I bagged it. Sold all my winging gear and went back to wind foiling. First session out I flew through a couple of jibes and covered 18 miles in 2 hours. And I was no where near as tired as I was from winging. Plus, I never had to swim in because the wind died.

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azymuth said..

Nikita said..I loved windfoiling, but there are no obvious advantages over winging. Winging is simpler in terms of gear and rigging, and it's easier to ride. Plus you can fully depower and ride swells.

The advantage of windfoiling which becomes apparent when you have spent the time to gain the skills and have good gear, is the ability to power-carve on waves and when downwinding windswells - combining sailpower and swell energy.
Similar to how wavesailers can utilise sailpower to accentuate turns on the wave face.

Just judging from a windsurfing-spectator point of view there is simply no comparison between windfoiling and wingfoiing. Maybe a wing has an advantage in a place with a shore break (maybe), but around here the few free-ride windfoilers that are left simply do circles around the wings. And when the F4 crew shows up you just look in owe at the speed, and ease of a racing windfoil, and performance of a wing is not even remotely close

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thedoor said..

mr love said..
Its OK...I am back on my medication...

I am not having a go at winging at all......many of my friends are winging and loving it and I am so impressed with how the sport is developing and the amazing stuff some of the guys are doing now. My beef is nearly everybody saying to me .."when are you going to start winging, its way better than this" If I hear that from friends I know who have windfoiled and done so at a high level I respect their opinion but when I know that 95% of the people who say it to me have never stood on a windfoil board it starts to piss me off.

Yeah the furvor for winging is nearly cult like, I am just wondering what's going to still it's thunder. Downwind sup foil seems to be the most likely thing at this point, but the next greatest water sport will come along eventually

Also, wondering if the hard core kite guys get the same peer pressure to wing :))))

Yeah that is annoing, people talking and giving advices on what they don't know themselves...I think the easyest and more accessible is a sport the more people there will be getting into it likely pumped by marketing repeating slogans somebody else said with no direct experience. With this respect windsurfers are different, because we all had to pay the ticket for doing it, and windsurfing is way more complicated to learn than any other sport came after, you name it: kitesurfing is way easyer, winging seems to be easier; in both I see people getting into it with very little training investment vs what I remember windsurfing has been for me. Windsurfing is a journey, not a week to learn sport for sure, but many of the skills a windsurfer of any level has are spendable in all other water sports fore sure, the opposite I don't think so at the same level.
On top of this, there is the business side of the equation; also the so called trainers or teachers are more likely to learn wingfoling then windsurfing to a level which they can make money doing courses to beginners. I know some said they where windfoiling but they barely get on the foil, their jiber are rubbish, not bale to use harness, they change sails every 2 knots of wind...this days nobody whants to spend the time is needed to get proficient in windfoiling though they feel themselves entitled to speek about it as they where expert.
Personally I get it simple; 'you say it is cool?..Let me try I will see myself', then I will decide if there is space into my time on the beach to do it on top of windfoiling, instead of it, or in what conditions or logistical situations could it be a better choiche.

Wow, a heap of passive-aggressive wing hating going on here. Each to his own and I guess this is the windfoil forum, so hate away. Until about 10mths ago I was really enjoying zooming around with my SB GTR+ windfoil. The speed is exhilarating, but hooked in crashes at 25+ can hurt. Bought some winging kit and was doing both for a while, but more and more I was choosing winging because I was/am enjoying learning new skills. I find the gybing more fun, more "surfy" and easier. It's the foot switch after that I'm having trouble with. Crashes are no longer a drama whilst winging and I've been happy to take out that element of fear. So I didn't fight it, I was naturally tending to winging, the windfoil is now gone. On the downside I have found winging much harder on the body in terms of muscles strains etc. if in the future I have to go back to windfoil there'll be no regrets, I'm sure I'll still enjoy it. ... But neither is as fun as cracking 40 on a windsurfer!

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Mr Keen said..
Not sure if I could be bothered to wing when I can make winger tracks on windfoil, gybes on wind swell powered up are so rewarding. Have a new wing in its box for the other half as it's easy to learn and will get her on the water with me.

Today 15-25 knots, 4.0 sail

Your tracks are similar to my windfoil tracks (except that your jibes are probably better), and I agree that sessions like that can be a ton of fun. But for reference, where is one of Nina's wing tracks at a spot with some swell (Cabarete):

I was out on a windsurfer that day, was going more than 10 knots faster than she was, and had a lot of fun. But she certainly had a lot more fun, riding swell through half of the bay with the wing flagged out.

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thedoor said..

mr love said..
Its OK...I am back on my medication...

I am not having a go at winging at all......many of my friends are winging and loving it and I am so impressed with how the sport is developing and the amazing stuff some of the guys are doing now. My beef is nearly everybody saying to me .."when are you going to start winging, its way better than this" If I hear that from friends I know who have windfoiled and done so at a high level I respect their opinion but when I know that 95% of the people who say it to me have never stood on a windfoil board it starts to piss me off.

Yeah the furvor for winging is nearly cult like, I am just wondering what's going to still it's thunder. Downwind sup foil seems to be the most likely thing at this point, but the next greatest water sport will come along eventually

Also, wondering if the hard core kite guys get the same peer pressure to wing :))))

Not hear to bash on winging or any water sport but this whole thread reminds me of when kiting first started and the reaction from the windsurf community. I am always curious about the watersports industry and ask wingsurfers where they came from ,seems kiting is first then maybe windsurf and a few have no previous watersports experience.I agree with the door downwind foiling could be the next big thing but unlike winging it's dam hard and most of those guy n gals are younger unlike wingers who are often quite a bit older.

I windfoiled 2018-2022, could carve swell and had a reasonably reliable gybe. Pretty fast too.
Winging for a year and it's no comparison. Far greater degree of freedom to carve, more reliable gybe across all conditions even though learning the gybe took me far longer than most wingers due to poor balance.
Now starting to jump and winging it offering a lot more there too. Plus starting to tack which I don't see the average windfoiler ever doing.

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aeroegnr said..

Stretchy said..
On the downside I have found winging much harder on the body in terms of muscles strains etc.

What muscles/parts are bothering you more on winging vs. windsurfing/windfoiling?

Forearms and shoulders. I find winging is a much more active sport to get going. You need to pump more aggressively with arms and legs to get on foil. I'm starting to use a harness now, which i hope will give some relief

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duzzi said..

KDog said..

thedoor said..

mr love said..
Its OK...I am back on my medication...

I am not having a go at winging at all......many of my friends are winging and loving it and I am so impressed with how the sport is developing and the amazing stuff some of the guys are doing now. My beef is nearly everybody saying to me .."when are you going to start winging, its way better than this" If I hear that from friends I know who have windfoiled and done so at a high level I respect their opinion but when I know that 95% of the people who say it to me have never stood on a windfoil board it starts to piss me off.

Yeah the furvor for winging is nearly cult like, I am just wondering what's going to still it's thunder. Downwind sup foil seems to be the most likely thing at this point, but the next greatest water sport will come along eventually

Also, wondering if the hard core kite guys get the same peer pressure to wing :))))

Not hear to bash on winging or any water sport but this whole thread reminds me of when kiting first started and the reaction from the windsurf community. I am always curious about the watersports industry and ask wingsurfers where they came from ,seems kiting is first then maybe windsurf and a few have no previous watersports experience.I agree with the door downwind foiling could be the next big thing but unlike winging it's dam hard and most of those guy n gals are younger unlike wingers who are often quite a bit older.

The reaction is actually understandable. When kiting came about I cannot tell you how many times I ran into people telling me how great kiting was and asking why on earth I was still windsurfing. The windfoiling wave was more moderate in its zealotry, although for a while people were claiming that it was an easier version of windsurfing, more range, smaller sails: a luminous future.

Fast forward fifteen years for kiting, after the deaths and injuries (and forget the now basically disappeared kite foiling madness). Fast forward five years for foiling, abandoned by so many simply because, yes, it is fantastic but it is also soo hard. And now we have the wing wave.

And again windsurfing is on an obsolete toy, while, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, the other toy is sooooo much better. And why are you still windsurfing?

It's a bit aggravating, especially when wingers (so many of them ex-kiters and ex-foilers) are mostly free-riding around at fifteen knots, do downwinders because they cannot really go upwind, they stay mostly (wisely) close to shore, and when they feel like saying something nice they tell you "I saw a windsurf yesterday, and I was surprised that is was going fast!".

Frankly, I cannot wait to see what comes up next and deflates those wings a bit.

Unless they're complete beginners, wingfoilers should point higher than any fin. Sometimes this can can lead to trouble, because riding downwind is so much fun and upwind ability is overestimated.

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Stretchy said..

aeroegnr said..
What muscles/parts are bothering you more on winging vs. windsurfing/windfoiling?

Forearms and shoulders. I find winging is a much more active sport to get going. You need to pump more aggressively with arms and legs to get on foil. I'm starting to use a harness now, which i hope will give some relief

You'll probably be amazed how much relief you get from being able to hook in for just part of a few runs in a session. We just had a few days where we needed wetsuits with long arms again, and I started feeling my lower arms burning at the start of sessions. After hooking in a couple of times, that goes away, and I don't use the harness much for the rest of a wing session. My legs are always very tired the next day from having to get up after all the crashed jibes, though. I really have to nail the jibes. Got some great pointers about what I need to change during ABK camp last weekend, so I'm hopeful to get my dry rate up a lot from the current 25%.

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Faff said..

duzzi said..

KDog said..

thedoor said..

mr love said..
Its OK...I am back on my medication...

I am not having a go at winging at all......many of my friends are winging and loving it and I am so impressed with how the sport is developing and the amazing stuff some of the guys are doing now. My beef is nearly everybody saying to me .."when are you going to start winging, its way better than this" If I hear that from friends I know who have windfoiled and done so at a high level I respect their opinion but when I know that 95% of the people who say it to me have never stood on a windfoil board it starts to piss me off.

Yeah the furvor for winging is nearly cult like, I am just wondering what's going to still it's thunder. Downwind sup foil seems to be the most likely thing at this point, but the next greatest water sport will come along eventually

Also, wondering if the hard core kite guys get the same peer pressure to wing :)))

Not hear to bash on winging or any water sport but this whole thread reminds me of when kiting first started and the reaction from the windsurf community. I am always curious about the watersports industry and ask wingsurfers where they came from ,seems kiting is first then maybe windsurf and a few have no previous watersports experience.I agree with the door downwind foiling could be the next big thing but unlike winging it's dam hard and most of those guy n gals are younger unlike wingers who are often quite a bit older.

The reaction is actually understandable. When kiting came about I cannot tell you how many times I ran into people telling me how great kiting was and asking why on earth I was still windsurfing. The windfoiling wave was more moderate in its zealotry, although for a while people were claiming that it was an easier version of windsurfing, more range, smaller sails: a luminous future.

Fast forward fifteen years for kiting, after the deaths and injuries (and forget the now basically disappeared kite foiling madness). Fast forward five years for foiling, abandoned by so many simply because, yes, it is fantastic but it is also soo hard. And now we have the wing wave.

And again windsurfing is on an obsolete toy, while, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, the other toy is sooooo much better. And why are you still windsurfing?

It's a bit aggravating, especially when wingers (so many of them ex-kiters and ex-foilers) are mostly free-riding around at fifteen knots, do downwinders because they cannot really go upwind, they stay mostly (wisely) close to shore, and when they feel like saying something nice they tell you "I saw a windsurf yesterday, and I was surprised that is was going fast!".

Frankly, I cannot wait to see what comes up next and deflates those wings a bit.

Unless they're complete beginners, wingfoilers should point higher than any fin. Sometimes this can can lead to trouble, because riding downwind is so much fun and upwind ability is overestimated.

Apparently they cannot sustain miles of upwind sailing, and so there are downwind trips, with cars at both ends. And the upwind maybe be better with respect to a wave/freestyle wave board, but it does not look like they are going much higher than my slalom board, and the VMG seems still much in favor of the slalom.

But I am not trying to compare. It is the attitude of the "new toy" children that is a little bit aggravating ... the bragging and telling others that they are obsolete. Not sure why people do that, I probably did it when I switched from sailing to windsurfing

Those polars say a lot. Wish I had doppler heading on my watch so I could generate them but I don't, unfortunately.

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boardsurfr said..

duzzi said..
Apparently they cannot sustain miles of upwind sailing

You're confusing "can" and "want". Why in hell would you go upwind for miles? The best reason to go upwind is so that you can go downwind afterwards. On slalom gear, that's because you're going fastonlyon a downwind course. With a foil, that's much less the case since foils can go upwind at roughly the same speed as downwind. But you reallywantto go downwind because playing with swell is where the fun is.

duzzi said..
and so there are downwind trips, with cars at both ends.

Downwind trips are a lot of fun on the fin or on the foil. But with wing (or kite) gear, it's simply a lot easier, since your gear takes up a lot less space, so you can easily fit multiple sets in a normal car or small van. And the fun factor will be higher when the chop gets bigger, or the wind is variable.

duzzi said..
And the upwind maybe be better with respect to a wave/freestyle wave board, but it does not look like they are going much higher than my slalom board

How about some data? Here's a couple of polar plots from the same person - slalom board first:
Here's a plot from a wing session:


The sailor in question is a very good winger, but an even better slalom sailor (#1 in the GPSTC overall women's ranking). She was going for speed in the slalom session, but just having fun in chop with the wing. Maximum upwind angles are similar, but come with a big speed penalty on slalom gear. Considering that her average speeds on 100-140 degree angles were about 3 times higher on the slalom gear, the average upwind VMG is surprisingly similar - around 8 knots on the wing @ 35 degrees to the wind, and 9 knots on the fin @ 60 degrees. Both sessions resulted in big grins, but the one after the wing session was bigger and laster longer.

duzzi said..
It is the attitude of the "new toy" children that is a little bit aggravating

While calling other adult water sport enthusiasts "children" could be considered insulting, perhaps you are onto something. Children tend to have an open, inquisitive mind, and will quickly change their favorite activity if they find something that more fun. Many people loose a lot of that openness as they age ... and most windsurfers have had a long time to age . As much as I like long distance windsurfing, I'll take a day of playing with a wing toy in nice swell over that any day.

Windfoil rocks and so does wing foil!
How were these polars created? I want to track this for myself to really learn how to get upwind better. You gotta get up to get down! Unless a car takes you back up hill.

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duzzi said..

boardsurfr said..

duzzi said..
Apparently they cannot sustain miles of upwind sailing

You're confusing "can" and "want". Why in hell would you go upwind for miles? The best reason to go upwind is so that you can go downwind afterwards. On slalom gear, that's because you're going fastonlyon a downwind course. With a foil, that's much less the case since foils can go upwind at roughly the same speed as downwind. But you reallywantto go downwind because playing with swell is where the fun is.

duzzi said..
and so there are downwind trips, with cars at both ends.

Downwind trips are a lot of fun on the fin or on the foil. But with wing (or kite) gear, it's simply a lot easier, since your gear takes up a lot less space, so you can easily fit multiple sets in a normal car or small van. And the fun factor will be higher when the chop gets bigger, or the wind is variable.

duzzi said..
And the upwind maybe be better with respect to a wave/freestyle wave board, but it does not look like they are going much higher than my slalom board

How about some data? Here's a couple of polar plots from the same person - slalom board first:
Here's a plot from a wing session:


The sailor in question is a very good winger, but an even better slalom sailor (#1 in the GPSTC overall women's ranking). She was going for speed in the slalom session, but just having fun in chop with the wing. Maximum upwind angles are similar, but come with a big speed penalty on slalom gear. Considering that her average speeds on 100-140 degree angles were about 3 times higher on the slalom gear, the average upwind VMG is surprisingly similar - around 8 knots on the wing @ 35 degrees to the wind, and 9 knots on the fin @ 60 degrees. Both sessions resulted in big grins, but the one after the wing session was bigger and laster longer.

duzzi said..
It is the attitude of the "new toy" children that is a little bit aggravating

While calling other adult water sport enthusiasts "children" could be considered insulting, perhaps you are onto something. Children tend to have an open, inquisitive mind, and will quickly change their favorite activity if they find something that more fun. Many people loose a lot of that openness as they age ... and most windsurfers have had a long time to age . As much as I like long distance windsurfing, I'll take a day of playing with a wing toy in nice swell over that any day.

Well, actually, I included myself in the child-like behavior of showing off your toy and claiming it is the best. Something that I suspect I was guilty of when I switched from sailing to windsurf in my early 20s.

I am also quite confident that I stopped that behavior in later years, something that does not seem to be happening with many mature men and women. Really, I cannot count how many times I have been asked why I was still windsurfing in the last 15 years! It cut across toy-owners: kiters, kite-foilers, wind-foilers and now wingers. And the arguments to try to convince others can get sophisticated: I should check, but I think each time polar plots were used to stress the point!

Well, I would not do the comparison 'only' on a performance base, I believe this is not the point since we are not aiming to compete (at least not myself) but to have fun. I started this thread to spot how to leverage my windfoil skills to learn winging and add something to my foiling experience. I believe there is potential for fun in both depending on skills and conditions. I recon windsurfing is tougher to learn than many other water sports born later, but I believe that the skills you are forced to learn by doing windsurfing are very much transferrable to almost any water sport to some extent. For what I have seen wingers do all we do windfoiling, in Maui they do competitions going upwind, they power turns with the wing descending and cutting back on the face of waves as we may do windfoiling as well (should you be interested you can see some videos from Alan Cadiz). Do they have better speed, angles doing that? I don't know, arguably not, given the physiscs expecially of the wing performance vs a windsurf sail, but who cares? I am much more interested in the experience, the feelings and the learning that may be associated, I am convinced that I can become a better windfoiler doing other water sports because our body learns better when challenged with something new, and you can surely transfer skills, plus there is no doubt, sometimes having a small board maybe inflatable with a wing can save you a session you would not be having because of logistics ( I have a family, they have interests too, and do not match so often with mines, so I need to introduce some flexibility to increase my hours on the water).
On learing jibes on windfoil, yes it has been, and still is challenging to me, don't know what would be winging, but there should not be reasons why it should be tougher or simpler, this must have a releation with the fact that coming from windsurfing we get fast to flying at speed, and possibily using smaller foils to do so, while not yet cranking the jibes, while many wingers learn to jibe on foils that are huge in comparison, so that they can have a better/easier learning experience, moreover winging has I see has less of a disuption when flipping the sail (actually they do not flip), and as windfoiler we may learn from that, trying to forget about the sail dead downwind and get the board on the other tack with the sail neutral on the hands...I will see to compare and learn from, and share.