My daughter asked if she could wing-ding with me yesterday! How can i say no?
Love feedback from others who have gotten kids under 9 up winging! My plan is to do boat training for sitting to knees to standing to up on foil. Mirror that process on land with a wing in hand. Also work a land board with wing and hopefully connect the dots on the water by the end of the summer.
She weighs 45 lbs so i'm going to put her on my prone board(4"4" - 30 liters). Working on sourcing a 2m wing. For foil i'm going to hunt down the smallest thing i can find or maybe chop down a High aspect to 600 ish sq cm. Of course full life vest and helmet program.
Select to expand quoteTooMuchEpoxy said..
For foil i'm going to hunt down the smallest thing i can find or maybe chop down a High aspect to 600 ish sq cm. Of course full life vest and helmet program.
Chances are your daughter will make contact with the foil, so make sure that the edges on both front wing and stab are blunt enough. High aspect foils (and others) can have rather sharp edges.
Gday TME,
I've taught a lot of friends how to foil behind a boat. In terms of safety, I'd be making sure she understands that if things go pear shaped, she knows to not try and save it and instead ejects herself off the back of the board or to the side. You don't want to go off the front and have the foil run over you. Make sure she can understand and follow that instruction.
I'd also be inclined to use a big board until she's gotten used to the whole thing. Something long might not be bad for initial efforts so that if she does come off, she's less likely to be able to go under the board because there's so much nose to get past if she's falling off the front.
Pack as much safety gear onto her so it minimises any foil impacts.
Keep us posted on your findings and ideas!
I have a 7yo and 5yo, imagine going on epic winging trips with kids!
My 8yo has expressed mild interest in it, at this point we have only had him on a SUP with a wing in shallow water last summer. Hoping to try some tow foiling this summer. I think a big board that they can stand on and a foil that can fly really slow is the way to go to get started without scaring them off.. but a lot depends on your kid, my guy worries about deep water etc so he has to ease into things slowly or else he will just refuse to go. He's also doing a jr sailing camp this summer so that should help to learn the wind etc.
Interested to hear how it goes for you!
If you are instagram users, check Klaas Voget's account. He is a former professional windsurfer from Germany. The videos of his wee son show what works once the groms are pretty accomplished and I'm sure he will happily answer your questions on what the imp started out with.
I'd guess that the foil doesn't have to be extremely small in the beginning, while a wing bigger than 2m? would probably be off-putting.
Im planning to start my 4 year old this summer with a trainer kite so she can learn the wind window. She loves helping to pump up my wing, but probably a few more years until she can do anything else with a wing. I got my 6 year old godson onto an efoil last year and he loved it. Never stood up, but rode around on his stomach and porpoised a few times.
Finally found a 2.1 M I like for her at an acceptable price point. I'm thinking the upcoming gong inflatable DW board in the smallest size available might be a good starting point running in displacement mode only. Enough waterline for real speed/distance without a foil, inflatable for injury prevention, reasonable price point.Throw a big fin in there for lateral resistance and teach her to just sail around with the wing. Maybe dial in the foil at a later date once she can sail that around some.
