For a place with a lot of foilers and a LOT of surfers, I think the vibes on Oahu are pretty good. I started a couple years ago and got the occasional negative comment back then, but it seems to have become more positive, not less. Surfers chat me up all the time.
The average foiler is more competent than the average surfer and they keep some distance, but weʻre definitely in the mix. Iʻd say itʻs more dangerous to surf Waikiki on the average day and they keep trying to cram people in who are gonna send a board at your head and giggle afterwards.
Everybody just gotta watch Dave Westʻs rules of priority video, keep your eyes open, and e-foilers stay way outside of everyone.
Just got back from Hawaii: Maui and Big Island. I wasn’t hitting popular foiling spots, just going to hotels, and beaches good for little kids. Only saw one foiler the whole time, highly skilled, but at a small crowded surf break. If I were a surfer, I would have been unhappy about it. But I saw so much untapped opportunity for wingfoil and downwinding.
My dream is still a travel setup with single large wing for pumpfoil, small wave SUPfoil, and light wind wingfoil. One small pump board, and one large inflatable board. Maximum versatility. But I don’t have the skills to pull it off…
Agreed. I travelled there last fall and it was out of hand. No matter where I rode the salmon kept cutting off my line causing a huge safety hazard. Can we ban salmon from the Columbia this year?
I’m not trying to draw attention to it. The attention is already here. I’m talking about what happens when a growing sport starts overlapping with established surf culture.
Just keep making the non-surf types of foiling look good, so people learn those instead!
Winging, DownWind, FlatwaterPump. And keep developing the tech for those diciplines, to keep softening the learning curves…
