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Just to clarify, I ride strapless and my board is a quattro 5.8 115L so not one of these SUP size board. Just wide and thick. And I’m not at the point where I’m thinking going down in board size! I stil enjoy the stability for water start.

And I’m not after the same upwind capabilities as my kite foil. Just enough to start in one spot, cruise upwind a few km and come back.

I think the point on « posture » and standing straight in the axis of the mast os a good advice. I need to pay attention to that.

I’m by no means an expert but I’m on the same board and can go upwind without much issue. One thing that helped me was focusing on keeping the strut in front of me as much as possible. I found I was losing board control when I would put the wing overhead and I could find a better balance of speed and upwind angle when the strut was in front. At first I was putting the wing overhead to control speed but now I’ve found that I can improve control if I take that upward lift out of the equation, keep the strut lower and isolate the wing power and board/body angles.

The tip someone gave you on pumping your upwind angle is another good one. You can get better angles if you pulse your speed by turning a bit cross wind and then edging up.

In terms of upwind capability:

1. kite foiling is better upwind than wing foiling
2. wing foiling is better upwind than a twin tip

This may change in the future if wings become as efficient as kites.

1. High aspect, Fast foil, makes huge difference.
2. Use a harness. Harness drives all power through your legs. No let off, always on.
3. Tall mast, to heel it over.



Straps have no affect. You can drive just as hard strapless, with shoes on.

A few times I've tried bringing the wing close to the centreline of the board. It feels like the speed and upwind angle increases quite a lot. Alan Cadiz briefly mentions this in one of his videos and in the Blue Planet interview towards the end.

It's easy enough to do but feels a little awkward riding with arms very bent and the wing close to your chest. I think it might be a lot easier with a harness.

I haven't tried to isolate any of these sections on my GPS tracks to see if there is a measurable improvement.

I am a bit puzzled by the advice to heel the board over. Wing boards do heel over but the angle is relatively negligible compared to kite foiling. There's simply not enough power in the wing to support you at a steep angle, and the lines (your arms) are far too short. Maybe with a harness and a lot of power in the wing you could get a decent amount of heel.

Even with power and a long mast, the very wide foils we're riding would stick out of the water if you heeled over a long way.

Heeling,even if not as much as a kitefoil,makes a world of difference in upwind efficiency.
With the foil flat lateral resistance is provided by the mast acting like a huge fin.
But the mast is a symmetrycal foil profile,it creates lift with a big price in drag.

But if you lean and direct some of your foil's lift upwind you get huge lateral resistance with little added drag.

Another plus: once we are up on foil we are almost always riding a much bigger front wing than we need to stay up, leaning over reduces the upwards lift component and you can go faster without feeling overfoiled.

The limit is,as said above, our huge wingspans breaching the tip out of the water.