Wingsurfmag Blog. 31/05 session report

Ovepwered Wing Foiling is doable and fun. Here’s our editor perspective.

As an avid kitefoiler and windsurfer, I hate riding overpowered even though it’s a skill that can be greatly improved through practice.

IMHO one of the biggest advantages of Wing Foiling over Kite Foiling and Windsurfing is that you can have fun even when overpowered. Case in point, yesterday’s session.

Perfect conditions for a while then …

Yesterday’s session was kind of weird. Pretty good conditions for the first 40 minutes or so, perfect for my kit consisting of the Duotone Echo 5 and Gong Lemon Pro 4’8’’ with Allwator Pro Clear XL (with 100 cm mast). In fact, the wind was ranging between 10 and 18 Knots and the water was just slightly choppy. Then the wind picked up abruptly so I was left with two options: A) switching the 5 with the 4 (extremely time consuming) or B) trimming the wing by lengthening the boom. I went for option B as I thought that that session was a good opportunity to find out more about the top end performance of the Duotone Echo 5.

My findings

First things first, Duotone claims that the Echo 5 wind range for an expert rider is 12-22 Knots.

Back home I checked the wind readings on the local weather station/webcam website and found out that the wind was averaging at 24 Knots with gusts up to 29 Knots after picking up.

The windrange of the Duotone Echo 5 is impressive and even for a light rider (I weigh 64 Kilos) it is still usable well beyond 22 Knots. Again, in Wing Foiling you can always count on real, instant depower by luffing the wing and that makes this new watersport stand apart from Kite Foiling and Windsurfing when it comes to riding overpowered. In short, you have more range, more latitude, more fun. Also, when overpowered and in very choppy conditions, using a longer mast helps a lot and I believe that a 100 cm mast is a real game changer. The same goes for using the straps. Staying locked in while blasting around with a Wing Foiling kit is a hell of fun! At the end of the day, the session turned out to be quite intense yet fun.

More session reports coming up. Stay tuned on https://www.wingsurfmag.it

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