OzBungy wrote: ↑Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:39 am
^^^ because the company and fan based marketing for wing foiling makes all sorts of half-baked claims that could be true in certain circumstances, but are generally false.
Everybody buys a wing foil, 4m wing, and some kind of small SUP-sized board and expects to ride in <10 knots, with their child and their grandmother, while carving waves, and just paddle in if anything goes wrong.
It's super safe and all kite sports are dangerous because of lines and swimming in and getting dragged to your death.
If they toned back the dodgy claims and stop exaggerating the alleged negatives of kite sports then there wouldn't be a problem.
Wing foiling is a perfectly decent way of having fun with wind and water. It doesn't need the constant exaggeration of how good it is.
What will be interesting to see is that among our local wing foiling crew, with the exception of a few hotshots, nobody is really progressing. There's people who have been doing it for a year and still can't get on the foil. The vast majority can't properly complete a gybe. Thousands are being spent upgrading equipment and lots of chat about what is the best wing/foil/board. It will be interesting to see how long they can sustain enthusiasm with so little reward, other than the pleasure of messing about in the water.
So I thought about your statement for awhile. I’m not sure that marketing and/or claims of winging being better than other wind-board sports is really what draws people in. It’s easy for people to watch a ton of videos these days (of experts and beginners) and decide for themselves if they might pursue that activity. My local area (Outer Banks, NC) has lots of locals and visitors for just about every discipline, ocean, flatwater, surf, windsurf, kite, foil, wing, big names, average Joe’s, you name it. The early adopters here are the typical adventurous types who can’t wait to try a new discipline, and generally get all the basic skill sets figured out on their own. Matt Nuzzo at Real Watersports is a great example with winging. Heck, Matt and Trip did the same thing 20 some years ago with kiteboarding (and pronounced windsurfing’s funeral…..perhaps some subtle irony there….).
I also think the challenge and frustration with progression for many with wing foiling really isn’t that much different than for windsurfing, kiteboarding/surfing, kitefoiling, SUP/prone foiling, and on and on. I’m old enough to have seen the “frenzy hype” phase for windsurfing, then kiteboarding and now all the foiling offshoots. Always seems to follow the same general pattern; early adopters just make it happen and even innovate the discipline, people see the potential and some added hype gets generated attracting a lot of newcomers, the perseverant learners stay with it and eventually get there, albeit at different rates of progression, and a decent number will drop out due to frustration with progressing to reasonable skill level. Heck, the vast majority of visitors/vacationers here are too intimidated by all of these “high level” sports and just rent a kayak, paddleboard, jet ski, or put their kids in a basic surfing lesson, for some low stress fun. Same ole, same ole