Winging is half-assed kite foiling - discuss

[OzBungy]

Not really, I just thought the title would attract a little attention.

I quite like winging. I am putting in the time on the water and gaining skills and it's all going fine. I fully understand the pleasure of gaining new skills, and the various niches that winging can fill.

I've read in several posts of kite foilers selling their kite foiling gear and putting all their efforts into winging. Really?

Winging is a bit like half-assed kite foiling. You have half the speed and half the upwind angle. The boards and foils are twice the size and bulk and roughly twice the cost. It takes roughly twice as much wind to get going, is twice the effort and you can only handle half the power (which is good because that is all you have access to anyway).

Even the much vaunted depowered wave riding is a bit exaggerated. It's great if you've got the conditions, skills and gear. Half the time you turn onto a little wavelet ... and stop unless you keep power in the wing. It is very easy to overrun the wing in a badly timed gybe. I can get a heap of turns on a wave face with a kite foil and 4m kite in strong winds. It's easy and I can quickly go back and hit that wave over and over.

You need to constantly think about anchoring your wing when you're not using it and everything ends up wet at the end of a session. My favourite winging location has a nice grassy bowl with fence posts to tie my wing to. Even then, rotor turbulence can flip the wing into wind. You have to think about that shit when choosing a site.

So, all things being equal, excluding perfect waves and niche conditions, why would a skilled kite foiler switch permanently to winging?

PS We are half way through a hard lockdown. I have access to one good beach which is not suitable for the winds we have been getting. The ability to wing in gusty cross-offshore conditions has been a life saver.

[Peter_Frank]

I think you nailed it spot on.

You almost forgot that winging is twice as fun

The reason why many switch completely, is because having two windsports with different gear, is not practically possible for most riders.

It is a lot easier with say kite TT and waveboards, where many use the same kites and bars.


Will be interesting to see how wingfoil evolves.

Right now wing is really fun, but I often switch to kite, or reverse, same days

Peter

[fluidity]

I'm right at that very early learning stage. For me it's the joy of a new challenge, solving new problems I've never dealt with before. Building new muscle memory, new physics understandings. Incentive to loose weight and something new to keep me motivated to do it.
That said, I fully understand on your upwind angle issues relative to kite foiling. The wing is close to the sea in disturbed air flow. It's not fixed to a harness capable of lifting your weight many meters into the air and the freedom of winging would be severely compromised with a harness. The leading edge is fat for structural integrity to stop folding, it's not possible on a meter foil mast to hold a wing of 15sq meters+ and have control and no wingtip catching. The size of a wing versus the drag in air of a human body is always going to be very limited.
But I'm addicted to that feeling of a new "best day ever!" and designing a hydrofoil, building a hydrofoil and wingsurfing on that hydrofoil is how I live my life in a half hour driving radius as a pioneer.

[juandesooka]

Even the much vaunted depowered wave riding is a bit exaggerated. It's great if you've got the conditions, skills and gear. Half the time you turn onto a little wavelet ... and stop unless you keep power in the wing.

This is the key part. Find the conditions, gain the skills, get the right gear...because without the wave riding, for just lawn mowing i agree you may just as well be kite foiling in many situations.

I also agree with Peter...fun to use both in a session if you have the time and the luxury of a long enough wind window. I'm guessing I'm 50 or so sessions in, I've had 4 or 5 light wind where I switched to kite foil and it was actually a relief...fast and effortless.

[tkaraszewski]

I prefer the wing when the wind range is 12-30 knots like happens often here. I also prefer a wingfoil over a kitefoil for riding waves, even if the wind is good.

[ladomi]

My opinion is based on limited experience of 12 sessions. I agree on a lot of the negatives and believe it will be a niche for me eventually. Most disappointing has been the fact that it takes more wind than I thought it would. I never have issues staying upwind in marginal conditions when kitefoiling. Wingfoiling in marginal conditions gives me upwind anxiety.

However 5 of my sessions have been in 2.8 conditions with 3 - 5 foot lake swell and little by little I've been tasting depowered swell riding. IMO it is a superior experience to kitefoiling when riding swell. My last session I had a 20 second long ride completely flagged out. My longest rides previously had been 10 seconds and were always riding backside down the wave and connecting to another swell. This time I was able to turn all the way to frontside ride it a bit and then return to backside. That was enough to make me forget any downside to winging.

I will still have fun working on my transitions for the time being in lighter wingfoil conditions but eventually I see winging only in 25+ as regular kiting and kitefoiling will be more enjoyable when there isn't good swell.

[edt]

90 percent of wingers look like downing butterflies. I see a lot of surfers who decide to wing surf they don't even know what direction the wind is coming from.


Then there's the 10 percent of wingers who look like some kind of magical ice skating faerie.


My feeling is this is mostly a fad because it's so much harder to do than kite boarding and kiting is already one of the hardest sports to master compared to oh riding a jet ski, wakeboarding or mountain biking.

Props to everyone that sticks to this sport and gets to the point where you have a steezy transition ride the wave back couple pumps head to the back hit the lip do it again.

I just don't see most riders getting there! Sport is just too hard. People in this forum will probably get there but most of those wing surfers are just going to flap flap flap then start swimming.

For sure it would take off if it was easier to do.

[Peter_Frank]

But isnt this precisely the point edt?

It IS easy to do, for any kitefoiler, you will pick it up immediately.

And those never having been associated with any windsports, they can also pick it up, takes longer because of the foil indeed, but really intuitive so easy.

Meaning, around here we see many new riders, we dont even know, totally newcomers starting to wingfoil.

It is almost like back in the veyr early 80s windsurfing when we knew EVERYONE, and if we on occasion saw another windsurfer we drove as long as it took, to say hello and become friends.

Today it is just opposite - there are many new wingfoilers we dont know at all.

So IMO it is quite easy...

The interesting balance will be, how it will evolve in non-wave-swell spots now.

Of course many of the "never had any wind experience" newcomers will love it.

But for TT or Waveboard or Windsurf, or Windfoil, or Kitefoil riders - it will be interesting

Peter

[edt]

Damn man. Just because you pick it up like you're skipping rope doesn't mean the rest of us can. It's hard!

I might pick up wing surfing after I get my unhooked mobe down. Only so many hours in a day

[SimonP]

I go wringing on squally days. Sudden wind changes of + or - 20 knots are not uncommon especially on the leading and trailing edges of fronts. Kiting in that sort of stuff can be stressful, but no problem on a wing.