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Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

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jakemoore
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Re: Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

Postby jakemoore » Wed May 26, 2021 3:10 am

Question for people who wing foil and kite foil:
What is your smallest kite?
What is your biggest wing?
When do you choose to wing instead of kite?

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Re: Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

Postby OzBungy » Wed May 26, 2021 3:39 am

I have kites from 4m to 12m. Wings from 2.8m to 5m.

More interestingly I have a couple of kite foils but I mostly use only the one 950cm foil with a 120cm board in all conditions.

I have 1400,1500 and 1850cm foils for surf and winging. The 1500 is the main wing. The 1850 is new and I have had some success in pumping it up in lighter winds.

In terms of "successful" sessions I am guessing 99% success rate kite foiling. That means a session where I get to ride and don't have to self rescue or walk back or paddle in. Simply put, go, ride, have fun, pack up, go home. Within that there might be 20% of sessions where I go kite foiling and there are no other wind craft on the water, except maybe yachts or foil skiffs. Certainly no wing foilers or wind foilers. Occasionally there's a few windsurfer LTs cruising about.

I would guess that 20-30% of my wing foiling sessions have some kind of "fail". That's usually the wind dropping out to unusable levels. Sometimes there's a walk of shame. Sometimes a paddle, If I'm lucky the wind comes back and I get to continue riding. It's not just me. If I am stuck on the water so is everybody else. Occasionally there are a few people who are better positioned to ride back to the beach. Sometimes I am one of them. Sometimes not.

What is not counted is the number of sessions where I have wing foiled because kite foiling would be dangerous or difficult or inconvenient due to offshore/gusty winds or storms or other things where flying a kite would be inadvisable. There's not a lot of those sessions, but they're still pretty nice to have had. Some of those sessions include the wind dropping down to zero which would account for the large proportion of dud wing sessions.

What I have trouble reconciling is the massive lack of skill of the average wing foiler. Some get it and progress. Many have not progressed over the past year. There's lots of new gear and fancy foils and brand loyalty and the rest. There's also lots of paddling, walking, fiddling with foot straps, and even not going out at all if the wind is strong.

I also have trouble reconciling the claims of wing foiling with small wings in <10 knot winds. I can't do it. I've never seen anybody else go anywhere near it. I've never seen a video of people doing it that had reliable indications of light wind and that didn't have some signs of more wind in the background (wind lines on the surface, other sail craft moving quickly, offshore winds in lagoons with thrashing trees etc)

While we're at it. My total kite foiling kit cost about AUD$8000. There is a fair bit of redundancy in there. In terms of dollars per hour it is by far the best value for money I have ever spent, about $8 an hour. I'm up to around AUD$12,000 on wing foiling gear and can see another few thousand in there (smaller board, bigger and smaller foil, bigger and smaller wing). That's $120 an hour so far. There's a few wing foiling items I could discard. Part of the expense comes from getting into a new sport when the equipment parameters are not yet clearly defined.

In the interests of completeness, I understand the attraction to the safety of wing foiling. I find I get lots of micro-injuries. Scraping skin off knuckles from seams. Various face and hand impacts with the wing when getting thrown off pitching waves. Getting run over by the board and foil. None of it is serious. All of it is annoying. I have had more serious injury events kite foiling, but they are much more rare. Considering that I like to kite foil super powered up and boost and do tacks onto the wave face the energy and aggression of kite foiling is far higher but the injury count is much lower.
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Re: Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

Postby bigtone667 » Wed May 26, 2021 4:29 am

jakemoore wrote:
Wed May 26, 2021 3:10 am
Question for people who wing foil and kite foil:
What is your smallest kite?
What is your biggest wing?
When do you choose to wing instead of kite?
7m Wing ...
10m, 13m, 17m kites ...

11 knots and below I kite, above I wing.
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Re: Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

Postby Peter_Frank » Wed May 26, 2021 5:28 am

4-5-6 m2 wings, 1600 and 1900 cm2 foilwings, 78 kg.

3-4-5-6-8 m2 Peak4 in wind down to 8 knots, and 12 + 15 m2 for light wind below 8 knots.

8) Peter
Last edited by Peter_Frank on Wed May 26, 2021 7:57 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

Postby Peter_Frank » Wed May 26, 2021 5:45 am

Of course, that goes without saying.

My references are for average weights, when no weight given.

If you are bigger/heavier, larger gear is used, just like with kites.

But you don't move the low end down.

And opposite, if light most typically stop at 5 max 6 m2.

But the relative low end, meaning wingfoil versus kitefoil can still be compared.

.......

Sorry, the post I was answering is no longer present, so maybe an odd reply :wink:

8) Peter

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Re: Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

Postby fluidity » Wed May 26, 2021 6:25 am

With a Naish V2 5.3m wing that's closer to a 4m of most other brands I can comfortably wing even when it's squalling. I'd be risking my safety launching or landing in that amount of wind kiting with my smallest (7 meter) kite. I can easily wing with my Ensis 6m in wind that I wouldn't be able to relaunch my heavy Element 14 M in. Depower ability and ability to use energy from the body to get started winging mean I only need two wings to get better coverage in a wider range. Kiting I use 7m, 10m and 14m but not for about 6 months... Winging has consumed my free time.

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Re: Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

Postby OzBungy » Wed May 26, 2021 8:18 am

I think the dangers of kites are massively overstated. There are tens of thousands of people kiting all the time with varying degrees of lack of knowledge and skill. They seem to do just fine. I have personally witnessed and experienced many things that some people would assume the result would be instant death. No injuries. No scares. No nothing. I suspect the scary kites of death ideas come from wind and SUP surfers who have taken up wing foiling.

Kite foiling arguably makes kiting safer. It's fun to be out on a foil with a 4m kite in 25-50 knots of wind. The tiny kite gives a massive amount of head room to handle gusts and squalls. The kite shakes and vibrates a bit in the gusts. Lots of fun is had.

The ability to relaunch a kite in light conditions is largely irrelevant. It's very easy to keep a kite in the air in winds that are strong enough to foil. It's an easy enough skill to acquire. Light wind relaunch is also a reasonably easy skill to acquire. In the event the kite does not relaunch then self rescue is kind of fun. Sitting and sailing along and trimming the downed kite has direct effects to the angle of sail and speed. You can sail upwind with a downed kite.

All this is only a problem in the extremes of offshore winds and lulls to zero knots. Definitely a time to jump on the wing foiling gear. The ability to wait out a lull is a huge benefit. The suggestion that you "just paddle in" is overstated. Yes it is easy for short distances. Yes it is extremely taxing over longer distances.

I am not comfortable with the wind strength numbers people quote. Most light winds cannot be accurately measured. Every hand held wind meter I have owned has shown winds fluctuation by many knots. The number that people call 6 knots can vary from zero to 10 knots. Simply tilting the hand holding the wind meter can change the reading from 5 to 15 knots. What other people' would call 6 knots I would call 10-12 knots.

It remains that nobody is out on the water when I am kite foiling with a 12m kite (Switch Helium). We have expert wing foilers who build their own boards and foils and were noted shapers long before kiting was invented. None of them come to the beach when the wind is truly light. Hardly any wing foilers are out until I am out with an 8m kite.
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Re: Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

Postby jkrug » Wed May 26, 2021 1:21 pm

if i'm overpowered on my 6m Peak while kite foiling, i can start to think about winging. that's usually around 15 knots for me. i truly despise winging underpowered. it's merely an exercise in balance and futility, and the sooner i get to my knees and head to shore, the better. so to all my buds that say 'i'm selling all my kite gear!', good luck with that, i'll wave to you on the beach while i'm kite foiling. btw, regards some comments on the learning curve: i think if you have a solid background in kite foiling and windsurfing, you'll pick it up quickly. you won't necessarily get 'good' quickly, but you'll get going.
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Re: Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

Postby airsail » Thu May 27, 2021 12:37 am

Got to agree with the previous posts, unless it’s close to or above 15 knots winging sucks. So at 80 kg a 4 mtr or smaller wing is all I need. Below 15 knots it’s kitefoil only unless conditions for launch/land are iffy due tide or wind direction.
Wingers struggle to get going in lighter, same as windsurfers.

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Re: Wingfoil versus Kitefoil?

Postby Eltreato » Fri May 28, 2021 12:11 am

Which one would I rather be stuck a kilometer off shore with when the wind dies, a wingfoil or kitefoil setup? I'll take the wingfoil any day which is pretty much why I don't kite that much anymore unless it's too shallow to wingfoil.


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