can’t speak to the prone world but wing foiling has really taken over in the Gorge, nearly 10-1 over kites and windsurf. Weekdays it is not uncommon to see 30-50 wingers, mostly gray haired at the public beach in HR. Many are refugees from those tools but many newcomers as well and lots of women, old and young. Downwind is still growing and a lot of the really good wingers are on parawing this season. Launches are getting crowded again tho much more efficient in space than kiting . I’ve had more close encounters with charging slalom windsurfers than kiters. Certainly doesn’t appear to be saturated yet. Used Windsurf and kite gear is cheap to free at the swap meets. 2-3 year old wing gear is extremely cheap as well locally.See very few powered boards.
Hdip comments made me think…
One area that foiling hasnt hit a plateau is the ease of foil configuration for the regular joe.
There is so much foil compagnies, designs, configurations that its easy to get lost in it and have an unbalanced setup and ride the gear wrongly.
I think KT made a huge improvment with their shims systems. It take one variable away.
Having said that, in my local, people are still converting from kiting to winging at a constant rate since the last 4 year..
Yeah, I ping ponged from windsurf to kite, to surf, wave kite, kite foil, prone foil, wing so learning each one was EASY with the foundations I had. Watching someone start from scratch is BRUTAL!
Funny, I am one of those who is trying to relearn to kite after many years wing foiling. Sort of got boring for me at my current level. I will still go out and do it when it’s windy but the challenge of relearning something is hard to beat.
In the last 15 months kiteboard college sub count is up 16k 137->153k and Damien Leroy is up 32k subs 51->83k.
I’m still the only foiler at my spot, but the kiter is trying to learn kite foiling. People are way more apt to try sup winging. It’s not as cool, but would sell tons of wings if it caught on.
Man I took my kite foil kit on a trip and the kite felt soooo sketch after winging! I was a kiter for more than a decade and it felt scary. I could do all my old stuff easy enough there just was so much input delay and consequence in everything that was happenin
Each of the disciplines offer so much variation in style - it’s part of the reason why foiling is so great. I went out for a kitefoil last week in balmy 12-16 knots and it was so much fun. Pocket board, light weight kite, really low aspect ratio foil - nothing better for that wind-range.
I’ll have different aims and expectations based on conditions.
It could be a location specific phenomenon. Our beach is hard. We had a Hawaiian guy who was already proficient at prone move here and vowed never to prone here again. He just wings now I think. Which makes me more able to cope with failure btw.
Yeah that’s an interesting point, I personally have realised that for prone, I have zero interest in proning in places that aren’t at the least a reasonable surf wave. I think it was an early myth that prone surfing would open up non-surfable places, but I just don’t see it happening.
Prone foil is only really worth it in a super narrow specific set of conditions, and they are pretty much exactly the same as what a beginner surfer needs. Small, weak, long running waves without rocks, shorebreak, closeouts etc. So if the local spots are not surfable, then likely they will be terrible in the medium term for foiling. (there are exceptions, weird chip-in waves into unsurfable deeper water waves, but those are also pretty rare and challenging)
Winging is really a breakthrough for expanding the market, downwind opens things up further, and now parawing really opens up a market, but I think prone does not really open up new locations as much as I had thought it might… maybe wrong here.
As for foiling in general, I thought it was crazy how many likes Ridge Lenny got on his IG post, clearly people think this thing is interesting and novel and that speaks to how much bigger it can get!
It’s a great surf break, particularly for longboards. And there’s one guy at least who has his way with it prone, but I’m coming to realize it’s actually pretty hard due to breaking in shallow sand, often requiring immediate pop up, pumping up to speed in shallow water, then over ww, and navigating hordes of logs. There’s actually multiple good surfers I’ve heard of that gave it a go and didn’t stick with it. I for one tried for years, getting maybe 5 double dips. I’m thinking I’ll go all in on sup now.
Give long skinny sup foiling a try again. Now more than ever, I’m riding where nobody else is. I’m catching the waves way out back and peeling off them to pump back out well before a surfer even can get them.
Are you talking a DW board? I’m always wondering if I’d be able to catch anything on my one as the swell move quite quick.
Ya this was me for the last 2 years on the SUP in the surf, it’s a good point, but I’m still doing it in or around a surf area, and don’t really see anyone doing it outside surf zones (speaking locally, thinking if there are any new “unlocks”)
yeah this is exactly what is terrible to foil in, which adds nuance to the point I made above, even if there are surfers, it is likely still terrible to foil
The quality of a foil spot is easily determined by how many surf schools are at said spot. 2 surf schools there? Probably a foil spot. 3+ surf schools there. Then it’s an amazing foil surf spot.
Great point, I never thought of it that way but it’s true. For example the waves in Waikiki would be epic for foiling if it wasn’t banned/crowded, same with every other perfect beginner wave like you describe
Is foiling banned in Waikiki now?