I've been windfoiling a lot the past year. At first with a focus on freerace, now commited to freestyle and wave foil. I've tried winging briefly on land and on a big daggerboard.
At my local lake quite a lot of people wing nowadays. Most of them have huge foils that crawl over the water, barely not faster than I slog. This is the kind of winging I want to avoid. It looks boring and in similar conditions I'm up and jumping on the foilstyle, or cruizing way earlier on the big windfoil board.
The idea is to have a small and playfull wing quiver to use it as an addition in 15-30 knots. Right now I pick my big windfoiler for 5-15 knots, foilstyle in 10-25 and freestyle or wave in 20/22+.
I've been told that for my 80kg a 5m wing is the best option. Really attracted to the gong brand, I can't seem to pick between their curve and fluid. I've read that the curve is great to start with, but I feel like it's more of an 'old school wing' because it's still relatively low aspect and thick, where as the newest models are high aspect and slim. Also these wings seem to need less surface in similar conditions. Would such a wing be to tricky for a beginner?
If you're an experienced wind foiler then I'd jump right to the Fluid and skip the Curve. I've never ridden a Fluid but I went from a Curve (called a Pro when I owned it) right to Veloce's and never looked back. I'd even argue that you could start with a Veloce XL or XL-T coupled with a Veloce 47cm stabilizer. In my humble opinion the bigger stabilizer makes the front foil wing much easier to learn on. I let an experienced kite foiler friend try my Veloce XL/47cm stab mounted to my 90 liter FSM wing board on his very first day of wing foiling. He's 90 kg and got several stable on foil rides within 1 hour.
Select to expand quoteNicoDC said..
I've been windfoiling a lot the past year. At first with a focus on freerace, now commited to freestyle and wave foil. I've tried winging briefly on land and on a big daggerboard.
At my local lake quite a lot of people wing nowadays. Most of them have huge foils that crawl over the water, barely not faster than I slog. This is the kind of winging I want to avoid. It looks boring and in similar conditions I'm up and jumping on the foilstyle, or cruizing way earlier on the big windfoil board.
The idea is to have a small and playfull wing quiver to use it as an addition in 15-30 knots. Right now I pick my big windfoiler for 5-15 knots, foilstyle in 10-25 and freestyle or wave in 20/22+.
I've been told that for my 80kg a 5m wing is the best option. Really attracted to the gong brand, I can't seem to pick between their curve and fluid. I've read that the curve is great to start with, but I feel like it's more of an 'old school wing' because it's still relatively low aspect and thick, where as the newest models are high aspect and slim. Also these wings seem to need less surface in similar conditions. Would such a wing be to tricky for a beginner?
I felt the same way when I was Windfoiling on small wings going fast and wondering why anyone would think Winging was better. When I started Winging I found it was a totally different feeling, you're not going as fast but you're having a more connected feeling to the foil, its a lot of fun and its a great time. You're having a lot more fun than it looks.
Just some of my observations, not a bad idea to give wings around 1800sq cm a shot, it will be an easier learning curve and you'll have a ton of fun.
DC
Great to know. I think the smaller fluid and veloce are suited for windfoil as well if the frontwing can be placed forward enough, so that's a big plus! I'm with you about stabs. On my windfoil, I play around with different stabs and shims because I think keeping the same board and frontwing is important to become good and depending on the conditions you play around with the stab if needed. It looks like there won't be arriving fluid stabs any time soon so maybe it's worth to try pairing it with a curve stab.
No revieuws so far on the fluid, but it looks to me as if it's the wing that got the most R&D (that of all previous foils + this one) and is going in the direction of the wing evolution. In any case, the veloce is a very good foil from what I've heard.
All respect to people who want to use slower wings. It's important to go out and have fun. Lately my focus is not around how much time I'm up foiling, but for how long I'm airborne and how high I can get. That's also why I'm interested in winging. Foilstyle in the light to mid winds, wing in the mids to high and freestyle or wave in the high to extreme.
Last weekend I rigged my 4.4 freestyle sail (I broke my 400 mast 2 weeks ago so could't rig 4.8 of 5.2) on my 101 liter board with a 900cm2/330cm2 foil, wingers were on 6m+ and 2000cm2+. Yes they were up and foiling more often than I was, but not in the playfull way that I was and that I'm looking for
Select to expand quoteNicoDC said..
All respect to people who want to use slower wings. It's important to go out and have fun.
+!
I do not wing, but I have read that some people used both the curve and the fluid:
The fluid for just zipping around, the curve when they are in the mood for carving turns all over the place.
Plus you can play with different stabs.
Fluid or Curve seem both OK as the next step after the slow beginner wings like the Gong Rise, depending on what you are after.
