Looking for advice on gear to progress

I got into wing foiling a little less than a year ago. First I was renting gear to try and then eventually buying my own beginner gear.
In the last couple of months I was actually able to spend more time on the water, got more confident and now thinking about what my next purchase should be.

Current gear:
Aztron 5'10'' , 30'' wide, 110L board
Fanatic 2000cm2 foil (5.9 aspect ratio)
F-one Strike v3 5.5 wing

Skill level:
I usually go out in 15kt+ in a flat water spot (Kyeemagh). Can comfortably go both ways, make 70+% of foiling jibes, can switch feet. Started using a harness which helped a lot in extending sessions. Tried learning tacks in the last session but no success yet. No other experience apart from wingfoiling.

What should be my next progression? I would really appreciate your input.
Should I buy a smaller front-wing? I was thinking 1250 or 1500cm2? Or is it too much of a jump as I am not great at pumping (I didn't have to work on it with my gear/conditions so far). Should I go for a smaller wind wing? A smaller narrower board? Or should I first learn how to tack before getting the new gear.

I never tried anything apart from my gear and don't know what I should be looking for. And the Sydney shop where I bought the gear doesn't have the inventory to demo. My eventual goal is to ride waves.

Thanks for your advice @Taavi. I am 80kg, I am thinking of getting mid aspect 1250cm2 front wing, hope I wouldn't struggle too much stepping down from 2000cm2 :) .

Any step down to smaller foils, boards & wings takes a period of adjustment. Learning to wingfoil is a constant struggle so a few more sessions feeling frustrated won't matter too much but the eventual outcome is worth it. It sounds like you're way ahead of where you should be on the gear you've got. I wouldn't bother about the wing - that's really more to do with wind strength. The foil is the big one. Luckily for you the latest releases from the major players are really good so you can't go wrong. If you're buying a new board I'd look at the new all rounder DW inspired boards out on the market - I pesonally think the days of the wide fat boards is over.

+1 for @microsurfers comment. When you can get your hands on an all around narrow wing board you'll have a blast!

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Sideshore said..
Hi, I'm in a similar situation of the title of the post, but wingfoiling is only the light wind water sport for me (10-17 knots). My main focus is wavesailing and I don't want to push the limits of winging, only to enjoy as many light days as possible. It's a great sport for that. Maybe I'm missing something but the more I ask, the only reason I find to buy an smaller board than +30 litre is reducing its weight. The smaller and narrower board the less stable to stand up in choppy conditions is, though narrowness clearly makes the board take off earlier. I want to be confortable in those conditions and take off by glide planning and few pumps.

I prefer windsurfing for jumping and surfing, but I hope I could surf some small soft waves on winging in mid term. My main focus on chosing a winging board is to make easier learning to jibe in light and choppy days. So far, I've come to the conclusion that for me the best board is rather long and a bit wide, flat hull, small bevels, no kick tail. Any advise is appreciated.

If your goal is to enjoy as many light wind days as possible, then you shouldn't be too worried about chop. A narrow board will not only take off better in light winds, but it will make your jibes dramatically easier, while the length also stabilizes your foot switches. 8' long and 21" wide would be very surfable in small waves/swell and have lightning fast takeoffs in light wind.

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Sideshore said..

BWalnut said..

Sideshore said..
Hi, I'm in a similar situation of the title of the post, but wingfoiling is only the light wind water sport for me (10-17 knots). My main focus is wavesailing and I don't want to push the limits of winging, only to enjoy as many light days as possible. It's a great sport for that. Maybe I'm missing something but the more I ask, the only reason I find to buy an smaller board than +30 litre is reducing its weight. The smaller and narrower board the less stable to stand up in choppy conditions is, though narrowness clearly makes the board take off earlier. I want to be confortable in those conditions and take off by glide planning and few pumps.

I prefer windsurfing for jumping and surfing, but I hope I could surf some small soft waves on winging in mid term. My main focus on chosing a winging board is to make easier learning to jibe in light and choppy days. So far, I've come to the conclusion that for me the best board is rather long and a bit wide, flat hull, small bevels, no kick tail. Any advise is appreciated.

If your goal is to enjoy as many light wind days as possible, then you shouldn't be too worried about chop. A narrow board will not only take off better in light winds, but it will make your jibes dramatically easier, while the length also stabilizes your foot switches. 8' long and 21" wide would be very surfable in small waves/swell and have lightning fast takeoffs in light wind.

Thanks, but I prefer to be a bit more stable and confortable, and, on the other hand, which would be the best kind of board to learn to jibe in light winds? This is my first target.

Narrower is going to help with the jibes because it will undoubtedly turn better.
For example:

Jibing my 5'10"x29" 112l board was harder/slower than jibing my 8'x21" 112l board. The narrow boards slide the tracks forward and it results in so much less swing weight.
I understand your concerns about stability on the water though. That's an issue if you can't get your wing in the air for sure. If you are efficient and getting your wing in the air from your knees, then you should expect to be fine on balance.

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Sideshore said..

BWalnut said..

Sideshore said..
Hi, I'm in a similar situation of the title of the post, but wingfoiling is only the light wind water sport for me (10-17 knots). My main focus is wavesailing and I don't want to push the limits of winging, only to enjoy as many light days as possible. It's a great sport for that. Maybe I'm missing something but the more I ask, the only reason I find to buy an smaller board than +30 litre is reducing its weight. The smaller and narrower board the less stable to stand up in choppy conditions is, though narrowness clearly makes the board take off earlier. I want to be confortable in those conditions and take off by glide planning and few pumps.

I prefer windsurfing for jumping and surfing, but I hope I could surf some small soft waves on winging in mid term. My main focus on chosing a winging board is to make easier learning to jibe in light and choppy days. So far, I've come to the conclusion that for me the best board is rather long and a bit wide, flat hull, small bevels, no kick tail. Any advise is appreciated.

If your goal is to enjoy as many light wind days as possible, then you shouldn't be too worried about chop. A narrow board will not only take off better in light winds, but it will make your jibes dramatically easier, while the length also stabilizes your foot switches. 8' long and 21" wide would be very surfable in small waves/swell and have lightning fast takeoffs in light wind.

Thanks, but I prefer to be a bit more stable and confortable, and, on the other hand, which would be the best kind of board to learn to jibe in light winds? This is my first target.

I'm still a novice ( haven't nailed my gybes consistently) & I've just swapped over from riding a 5'4" x 25" 95l board to a 7'x 20" 107L DW board & want to share for others who are at my level of progress what I think is a misconception with narrow boards. I have very little experience with other boards - started with a 135L tanker then, when could get onto foil swapped for the 95L then, the DW, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

When you aren't gybing consistenly you spend a lot of time in the water - experienced foilers forget this pretty quickly -so how a board behaves during the starting process affects the body's energy levels, moral & can affect the enjoyment aspect of the session.

In chop my 95L 'wide' board was hard to keep in position after mounting & although stable widthwise, took a bit of manouevring to aim & stay consistently across the wind. When taxiing, chop would affect it dramatically especially when slopping over the top of the board. It would stall a lot. I used to swear at it constantly, quite well actually. When on foil it was perfectly fine - not really any complaints, it was just fine. Ok maybe the tendancy to nosedive during touchdown used to piss me off but that was pilot error.

My DW board took a session to get used to the width. It has (relatively) higher squared rails which aid getting onto the board.

Major benefits:

-Although it is slightly tippier sideways the fore/aft stability makes it an easier platform to get the wing in position & aims easily in the direction I want to start- no slopping around. I prefer the slight DW tippiness to the wide board wallowing.
-When I plant my front foot to stand the nose stays buoyant & reduces the chance of nose plant.
- When taxiing it cuts through the water like a yacht in a staight line & isn't as affected by chop. It builds speed quite quickly.
-When up on foil it is super responsive to foot input - takes a couple of sessions to get used to turning with ankle input rather than shifting body weight
- Carves & gybes really well. On my first ride I had carved a gybe without even thinking about it. On my wide board it was a bit of a drawn out process. Surfing down waves is very cool.
- Feels like a small board as there is little board length in front of you. I think the balance helps with the manuoervability.

Disadvantages:
- getting out of the shorebreak onto rocks there is that extra length to consider & lugging it back to car.
-weight, apparently- I dunno, I haven't tried a light weight board so can't compare.
-shortboarders sneering

Light wind winging sucks- lets admit it. So although I would probably go out for a session in lighter winds with my DW board where I wouldn't with my wide board, the local good guys that can pump up easily & stay up on foil with their 40L boards are already out there. I don't think they're a magic bullet for light winds if you haven't got good technique already.

At this stage I don't think I'd go back to wide again. But maybe when next years new thing comes in I might reconsider...

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Microsurfer said..
When you aren't gybing consistently you spend a lot of time in the water - experienced foilers forget this pretty quickly -so how a board behaves during the starting process affects the body's energy levels, moral & can affect the enjoyment aspect of the session.

Those are good points. Also consider that different people learn at a different pace - some guys get the jibe in a few session, others are still struggling after hundreds of sessions, most are somewhere in the middle. It took me almost 120 sessions to get to a 75% dry rate, and to start switching feet while flying without crashing right away.

Some of the things I learned on the way might also be useful to other slow learners. I noticed that my jibe tries usually got worse the longer I was on the water. I find all the getting back up on the board and standing up quite exhausting, and start struggling after getting up about 20 times in a session. In variable or marginal winds, especially with chop, getting back up on the foil could add to the exhaustion on a classical wide shape. I went through a few different boards and foils looking for something that might help, with little success.

Eventually, I remembered that I actually had much fewer crashes when turning on my big, wide, long 140 l beginner board. According to common wisdom, that's a very poor board to learn jibing on - lots of swing weight, slow to turn, mast track too far back. But: when I messed up a jibe, the extra width and volumes meant that I rarely crashed. Typical mistakes like overfoiling or touchdowns were easily recoverable. On the smaller wing board that theoretically should be easier to jibe, overfoiling was near-impossible to recover from, and touchdowns often led to rapid stops or nose dives, resulting in crashes.

Besides reducing crashes in jibe tries, the other good thing the huge board did for me was to slow things down. For me, that's a great thing. One of the best pieces of advice I got was to use a bigger tail wing, which also slowed any reactions by the board down. That allows me to process what's going on, and fix any little wobbles and mistakes in the middle which would cause a crash with a more reactive setup. Compared to my lovely wife, who is a much better winger than I'll ever be (and learned the jibe at least 10x faster), my jibes take twice as long, and have a turn radius that 2-3 times bigger (50-70 m vs. 20-30). But that's not just fine with me, I think it's essential. Once I really got the mechanics of moving the wing, turning to a new course, and switching the feet dialed in, it should be easy enough to speed things up with a smaller board, stab, and front wing - without crashing thousands of times trying.

Different strokes for different folks - but I probably should have taken a closer look at the gear my wife used to learn the jibe. She learned to jibe on a long, plus 50 l board. Her quick progress allowed her to move to a 50 l board and work on backwinding and Flakas in the same time I needed to learn to jibe.

I thought I would post my experience after following the advice and buying the new foil.

I now had 5 sessions on the 1250 Fanatic Free front wing which is a big step down from my original Fanatic 2000 HA wing (it is called HA but its aspect ratio is just 5.9). In the first 3 sessions I used the new front wing and the old tail (300cm2) and in the last 2 I used both the new tail (250cm2) and the front wing.

In 4 out of the 5 sessions the wind was strong so I had no troubles getting on foil. In one of the sessions I struggled a bit. Overall I feel I need extra 3-4kt of wind compared to the old foil. Hopefully as I improve my pumping technique I would be able to get up in less wind. Might also buy a narrower board in the future to help.

I was quite surprised how stable things felt in the sessions when I used the new front wing and the old tail. I was able to gybe and switch feet with about the same success rate as before (70%). I think this is mostly because the wind was strong and it helped to offset small errors.

Overall the new front wing is a bit faster than the old one. Before my fastest 1k had an average speed of 21.3km/h with the new set it was 23.4k/h. I expected more of a speed difference, maybe it is my technique that limits the speed, I also had the same top speed in the fastest km with both my old tail and the new tail, albeit the old tail had .5degree shim.


The new foil together with the new tail feels much looser and pitchy. I need to pay a bit more attention to regulate the high. I had a bit of footage of me riding and I noticed I was going up and down and not keeping constant height. Something that I still need to improve, I wonder if there are any tips/tricks to improve this fast. The strong wind and flat water meant that I was still gybing quite ok.

My plan now is to get more confident on the new gear, learn how to tack and then start looking into buying a narrower board.