windfoiler getting into wingfoiling: what equipment?

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Stretchy said..
Get your scissors out Peter, long arms will quickly give you forearm pump. I've shortened the arms of all my steamers

Not an option when it gets cold, Rob. This ain't WA. I will use a short-sleeved suit and a wind jacket when temperatures are moderate, which is a lot better than long sleeves, but there's a limit to how long this works. My hands tend to get cold very quickly, anyway; we've had plenty of sessions were Nina was fine without gloves, while I needed to use open-palm mittens and an Ianovated suit with tubes. Traveling to Oz or Texas is definitely better, but in recent years, Texas has started to get long cold spells in the winter months, too.

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

I'll check how polar plots from positional data compare to the doppler plots. Accuracy will be lower since doppler headings are quite accurate and positional data have jumps, but maybe even positional polar plots are useful.

Here's a poor mans "polar plot" through the data of the GPSResultsV6 program. This error filled excerpt is a 20 minute upwind leg on windfoil gear - 9.0 HGO sail, 91 board and about ~13 knots of wind. The data is not great but ignoring nonsensical readings we get the general idea.

Yes, I have a disproportionate starboard tack bias, I'm working on it, I promise

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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.

BTW: there is not very much point in arguing with zealots trying to demonstrate superiority of this or that; but besides wandering what she was using that limited her slalom board to a 60 degrees upwind angle (vs 35 for a wing!?), you might think that the two VMGs are close, but they are not. A 1 knot VMG difference is huge. It means that in 30' the slalom board gains 1 km upwind.

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duzzi said..
thank you for showing how fast slalom boards are with respect to a wing! (Get a racing windfoil and it is a different story of course.)

Quite amazing what you get out of these graphs. They showed that upwind angles are significantly better when free riding with a wing than on slalom gear. If you focus on speeds, that's about as meaningful as comparing average speeds for wave sailors at the PWA Cabo Verde 2022 to slalom in Fuerteventura this year.

At most places outside of Oz, where the water is not flat, you'd have to compare free ride fins to foils. That's not really a competition with respect to VMG - the wing wins hands-down. But perhaps the even more relevant issue is how much play time you get. We're on Cape Cod, one of the windiest spots on the US East Coast. This summer, foilers got at least 3 days for every day that windsurfers were on the water - with the added bonus that windfoilers and especially wingers rarely had to go in an change gear, while windsurfers frequently waited for the wind to come up/back, or re-rigged. The one windsurfer that got the most time on the water switched between foil and fin depending on the wind.

A few years ago, windfoiling was slower than finning in many "real world" races, and there were plenty of windsurfers who assumed it would always remain that way. The PWA events in the Canaries this year have put an end to that. Maybe winging will never get quite that fast - going fast is not really where the fun is for most wingers. But I would not bet on it. The GWA wing slalom races are currently held back by the mandatory pump leg, which limits how small the wings can get. Many wingers "automatically" graduate to faster, smaller, higher-aspect wings as they progress. The wing polar plot I had posted was on a 1250 low/medium aspect wing. The same winger would now be on a 725 high aspect wing in the same conditions, which is a few knots faster without even trying to go faster. From what I have seen, that's a pretty typical story. One thing winging may have going for it in the long run is "nicer" crashes. A full-speed, hooked in catapult on the fin, or when the foil comes out of the water in windfoiling, can be quite nasty and painful. Those crunching sounds my neck makes seem to get worse after each bad fin catapult. In contrast, many wing crashes are quite harmless in comparison. Sometimes, they are pure fun, when you keep flying with the wing in your hands long after your feet left the board.

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Grantmac said..
Duzzi lives in the windiest large city with access to water in North America, offering abundant flat warm water and steady wind.

Corpus Christi? SF may be windier but is not generally known for "abundant flat warm water".

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dimacced 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 :))))

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.

At our play ground, many good windsurfer also learned winging. Now they alternate and get pleasure from wing or windfoiling. I decided to also learn after seeing them that they enjoy both activities.

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SA_AL said..

thedoor said..

dimacced said..
Hello everyone, I have been windfoiling --

Thank you all for any advice.

cheers

Edoardo

I wouldn't trust the advice of anyone that tells you the learning curve on winging is steep. They cleary never tried windfoiling :))

I have decided to try winging but I could not do it right away like others are experiencing. I have also seen other good windsurfers are spending lots of sessions before they start foiling. I wish others shared their experience also so that I feel better about my lack of progress in learning wingfoiling 1-2 sessions.

The sailors who quickly learn to wing are already very proficient foilers, and they don't initially try in light wind. You need to be really well powered when you have your first try, as you don't know how to pump yet.
For myself, I was foiling on my second run out, but I have a lot of previous foiling time.

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SA_AL said..

thedoor said..

dimacced said..
Hello everyone, I have been windfoiling --

Thank you all for any advice.

cheers

Edoardo

I wouldn't trust the advice of anyone that tells you the learning curve on winging is steep. They cleary never tried windfoiling :))

I have decided to try winging but I could not do it right away like others are experiencing. I have also seen other good windsurfers are spending lots of sessions before they start foiling. I wish others shared their experience also so that I feel better about my lack of progress in learning wingfoiling 1-2 sessions.

Start with a big board and slow foil. For my first try, I used a 135l 76 cm windfoil board and the infinity 84 foil (I weigh 78 kilos). I got on the foil in the first reach and did no lose ground. Second session I was trying gybes. Third session I tried an 88l board and I did so many walks of shame that I stopped counting them. Barely getting going and losing so much ground that I needed to stop. Went back to a 130l rented wing board with a massive mid aspect ratio foil (go foil 2200?) and nailed my first flying gybe.

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Faff said..

SA_AL said..

dimacced 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 :))))

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.

At our play ground, many good windsurfer also learned winging. Now they alternate and get pleasure from wing or windfoiling. I decided to also learn after seeing them that they enjoy both activities.

Like all windsports, need steady 15 knots and flat water.

hard to find nearby where I leave, you get the wind but the waves come together most of the time, the only exception is with offshore winds, but I would not learn wing foiling with offshore winds unless it's on a lake