Postby fluidity » Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:29 pm
For me its about tackling a new sport, designing and building my own foils and seeing what's possible. With kiting through the harness you can litterally harness the full power of a kite moving across the wind faster than you can. The physical exertion kiting is better than sitting in a coutch watching a thriller movie but not by a lot. Winging you can do with 2 wings in more wind range than would take 4 kites. The difference is the foil and your own physical input. When there's a lull and you would be sine waving your kite to capture more wind power, on a wing you engage with your whole body in pumping the kite and the hydrofoil. This is the clincher for me, I'm 54 and I spend a lot of time designing and building projects so I need my sports time to be properly active.
As far as excitement level, it all changes with your level of proficiency but you will never jump nearly as high with a wing as you can with a kite. Waves certainly increase the challenge and adrenaline input, so does moving down in foil size. For me a big part of the fun is my own input to make the best of any conditions be they super windy or barely enough to pump up on foil. Every time you are out in marginal conditions the challenge is to coordinate pumping and gusts and to pump through lulls. The reward may be mowing the lawn, but you had a burst of physical activity to get there and will likely need to do it again soon.
People get poetic about the being up on foil. In my own words, as you pick up speed the first thing you notice is the silence, the noise of the chop slapping under the board ends and it goes smoooooth. With a heavy front wing you will hardly feel the waves but with a lighter one you will tune into the waves far more obviously. This is a rythm under your feet that in time becomes just like the rocking of a boat in the swell under your feet that you will automatically adjust to. Some of the advantages of the foil do come in bigger waves for sure, I can cruise out over big breaking waves easily on my foil with only a 650mm long mast, it's much easier than windsurfing and it's much easier to recover and restart your gear winging than windsurfing when you down it in the waves.
Vs Kiting, there are limited places I can set up my kite and launch, land. Winging I'm catching up on visiting my old wind surfing spots too...
For your local spots with small waves you can make your starting board last longer too, I'm finally about to transition to the sinker board I've just completed, it will have bouyancy 20 litres less than my weight and is 5'6 instead of 7'6
I need this for the waves because the long board sticks out too far in front!