So, you are thinking about starting to Wing Foil this year? Or you already have started and wonder why others love it so much!?
Here’s my thinking on the subject:
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The kit is small and fits in a car easily
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One wing has a huge wind range as much as 20knts
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The wings are super light and these days create nice power easily
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Makes kind of rubbish conditions really good fun, like the classic south coast 12-15knts!
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Many wingers including ourselves will happily go out in offshore conditions due to the hydrofoils insane ability to go upwind.
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Inland lakes and reservoirs become playgrounds as even wind with huge holes in, you can just glide through.
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Hydrofoils can surf on really small waves and make downwinding much more fun!
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You don’t really need lessons (although they do help!) and progression can be really fast.
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You can go out where ever there is water, you don’t need a big launch area like kiting. Personally I have been loving getting out in Langstone Harbour.
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Wing foiling can be really friendly for your knees as you don’t feel the chop up through your legs.
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The feeling! Taking off like an aeroplane and everything going silent is addictive.
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The workout. I do actually miss the upperbody workout that Windsurfing gives, but I do find that Winging gives a similar feel. In a short session you can get a really good workout muscular and CV.
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The rigging up time can be extremely fast, if you keep the foil mostly made up (with Teflon Gel on the threads of course) all you have to do is attached the foil and pump up the wing.
- If the wind drops to nothing you can easily paddle the board back.
All in all, Wing Foiling or rather Wing Hydrofoiling or Winging or Wing Wang or whatever you would like to call it, (Wingsurfing is probably the more inclusive name), so yes all in all, when people ask me what wind watersport to get into these days, I say go Winging. It really is so much fun and starting on a nice big board initially makes it really quite easy. Even sessions where you might not get up on the foil are still nice to be out on the water. Of course you can go Winging on a paddleboard with a centre board or one of our strap on dagger boards and that is great fun too.
I hope this page serves to give an insight into why people love Winging so much.
Written by Mark
