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This video explains wing foil basics, from wing handling to your first flights on the foil.
Learn wing foil basics from wing handling to first flights, including safety, steering, paddling, and standing techniques.
Key Takeaways
- Proper wing handling and understanding angle of attack are crucial for generating and controlling power.
- Steering and positioning the wing correctly helps avoid hitting the surface and improves stability.
- Safety precautions with gear handling and water entry reduce risk of injury and equipment damage.
- Knee taxiing is an essential step before standing to build control and confidence.
- Weight distribution on the board controls foil lift and stability during rides.
Summary
- Introduction to wing foil basics including wing handling and first flights.
- Explanation of angle of attack and how to generate force with the wing.
- How to control the wing using leading and trailing hands for power and steering.
- Techniques to flip the wing back over and pump the wing for more force.
- Safety tips for carrying gear and entering the water to avoid injury and damage.
- Paddling techniques to navigate and importance of paddling upwind.
- Knee taxiing skills to stabilize the board and learn steering and turning while kneeling.
- Transition from kneeling to standing with foot placement and weight distribution tips.
- How to ride without foiling and control the foil lift by shifting weight.
- Advanced tips on turning, balancing, and managing power to avoid crashes.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Wing Foil Basics
- 00:53Understanding Angle of Attack
- 01:19Hand Positions and Power Control
- 02:12Steering the Wing
- 02:49Wing Position and Surface Avoidance
- 03:31Flipping the Wing Back Over
- 05:03Pumping the Wing for More Force
- 05:37Carrying Gear and Water Entry Safety
- 06:12Paddling Techniques and Upwind Navigation
- 07:20Knee Taxiing and Board Stabilization
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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First, practice controlling your wing. Inflate to the correct pressure. Connect your leash. Hold the wing by the handle on the leading edge, also known as the neutral handle.
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When held by the leading edge, only the wing lines up with the wind and flaps with the wind.
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The wing should not pull. This is known as flagging out. To generate force with your wing, you need to hold it at an angle across the wind.
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This angle is known as angle of attack. Lined up with the wind, the wing generates minimal force.
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As you increase the angle across the wind, the wing starts to generate more force.
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The wing presses more on the airflow and, of course, the airflow pushes harder on your wing.
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When controlling angle of attack, one hand holds the strut or boom near the leading edge.
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This is your leading hand, also known as front hand. The other hand holds closer to the trailing edge.
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This is your trailing hand, also known as back hand. Push away the trailing hand for less power.
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Pull in the trailing hand for more power. At a certain point, however, pulling the back hand in further won’t create any extra force; it will just angle that force more downwind, which will cause problems and make the wing feel less stable.
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So be careful not to pull too much with the trailing hand like this. Note, to quickly depower your wing, you can release the trailing hand and the wing will flag out.
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As well as angle of attack, we can also steer the wing by moving hands sideways from the strut.
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If you push the leading hand down and the trailing hand up, this will steer the wing lower.
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If you push the leading hand up and trailing hand down, this will steer the wing above your head.
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This control is important for a number of reasons. With the wing lower, you are more likely to hit the surface, which can happen easily.
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Being able to steer well will help you bring the wing back up. Try to keep the front hand higher than the back hand to avoid hitting the surface with your wing.
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Wing position also changes the direction of its pull. With the wing higher, its force gives more lift but less sideways pull.
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This can help you slow down or limit speed. With the wing lower, its force gives more sideways pull and less lift.
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This can help you speed up. You must also learn to move the wing from one side to the other.
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Guide the wing higher until it’s pretty much above your head. Release the trailing hand.
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Then swap the leading hand. You can then place the new trailing hand and the wing will pull in the new direction.
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When winging, it’s easy to catch the surface and for the wing to flip. So you should also learn to flip the wing back over.
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Practice this in a kneeling position as this more closely mimics being in the water.
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It’s difficult to flip the wing from the center of the leading edge. You will simply be pushing the wing tips into the surface.
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Rather, shuffle towards a wing tip. You can then lift the leading edge and let the wind do some of the work for you.
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One final skill to start working on at this stage is pumping your wing. Extend your arms up and downwind.
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Then contract your arms down and in. This should be a large continuous movement, with your hands tracing an oval path.
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As you start to bring in the wing, you should feel a lot more force from it.
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Pumping is less effective if it’s a small movement, or if it’s a jerky in and out movement.
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Or an up and down movement. Now we’ll look at getting into the water and paddling into position.
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When carrying your gear, remember that the stabilizer of your foil has the potential to cut your wing.
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To avoid this, keep the foil board upwind and the wing downwind. There are a few ways to carry your gear depending on which board you’re using and which way you’re heading.
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In all cases, however, keep the wing as far downwind of the foil as possible.
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Of course, the foil can hurt you as well as your wing, so it helps to have full safety gear and someone watching over you.
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As you enter the water, avoid hard objects, such as rocks, that could damage your gear or cause injury.
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When you’re in the shallows, the board can float with the foil up. If you have to get clear of weeds, you can also paddle with the foil up.
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When you have enough depth of water, you can flip the foil under the board.
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You should then learn to navigate by paddling. You can hold the wing by your feet to stop it jumping around on the leash.
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It’s essential you’re able to paddle upwind quickly. When learning, you’ll typically go downwind, so it’s essential you’re able to paddle upwind.
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In this location, you can return to the beach and walk upwind, of course, but it’s still essential you learn to paddle upwind.
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Next we’ll look at knee taxiing. Riding without foiling is known as taxiing. Knee pads or a padded deck will make this more comfortable.
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Slide yourself onto the board. Get into kneeling position. Once kneeling, you can lift the wing from the water.
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You may need to flip the wing, of course, as explained earlier. Place your leading hand on the boom or strut.
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Place your trailing hand, and pull in enough to get moving. The moment your board starts moving, it should feel more stable.
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Your foil, or fins if you’re practicing with a non-foil board, will stabilize the board only when it’s moving.
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Once stabilized, it’s easier to stand, but before that, there are some critical skills to practice while kneeling.
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You can learn how to steer in kneeling position. To turn downwind, twist your upper body to shift the wing towards the nose.
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The force on the wing will then act to pull the nose of your board downwind.
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To turn upwind, twist your body to shift the wing towards the tail. The force of the wing will then act to pull the tail downwind and nose upwind.
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Where you’re positioned on the board also has an effect. Being nearer the nose will naturally turn you downwind.
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Being nearer the tail will make it easier to turn upwind. Bear in mind you naturally drift downwind while getting ready, so you should try to get the board pointing crosswind as soon as you have control of the wing.
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You should also learn to do a turn, or jibe, while kneeling. Start by twisting your upper body to shift the wing towards the nose.
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This will start you moving downwind. Steer the wing high above your head, then swap leading hands.
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As you place the new trailing hand, the force from the wing will pull you around the remainder of the turn.
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If you’re feeling confident after some kneeling practice and probably a few upwind paddles, you can start standing on your board.
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From kneeling position, get moving crosswind to stabilize the board. Before standing, it can help to have your knees at a skew angle, with your knees pointed slightly downwind and feet slightly upwind.
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This makes it easier to manage the wing without twisting your body, and it also means you can place your feet in the correct position without being blocked by the other leg.
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Lift your front foot and place it. Try to get the ball of your front foot over the center line.
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Close to the footstrap inserts or slightly forwards for foiling beginners. Next, lift yourself and place the back foot.
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You should lift yourself mainly using your front leg. Try to get the arch of your back foot over the center line.
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Also, place it near the back footstrap inserts. For foiling beginners, it may help to place your foot slightly forwards of this to help you prevent the foil from climbing too easily.
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More about that later. Now you’re standing, you should get comfortable riding without foiling. To avoid foiling, you need to keep enough weight shifted onto your front foot.
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Shifting weight backwards towards the tail, or onto your back foot, would enable the foil to climb.
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So keep extra weight on your front foot, especially if you feel the foil climbing.
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While taxiing, you should learn to turn upwind or downwind. To turn downwind, rotate your upper body to shift the wing towards the nose.
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To turn upwind, rotate your upper body to
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Also, if the wind is light and you aim too far downwind it will feel like the wind has disappeared.
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You should also be able to turn around, or jibe, while taxiing. Push the wing towards the nose to start moving downwind.
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Before you turn fully downwind guide the wing above your head and release the trailing hand.
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Swap leading hands. Then as you place the new trailing hand, the force from the wing will pull you around the remainder of the jibe.
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Once you start moving crosswind the board will stabilize and then you have a better chance of swapping stance.
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You can hop and swap stance from toeside to heelside in one go. But it’s probably easier to make a few small movements like this.
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Shuffle your feet closer. Then you only need a tiny hop to get into heelside.
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It’s important to note that while doing a footswap you should try and keep your feet centred around the same point.
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This will make sure there’s no major change in your weight distribution on the board.
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If your feet move away from this original center point you are likely to loose balance.
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We will now look at your first flights on the foil. Initially, we are aiming to foil briefly and then return to a taxi under control.
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This will help you develop the skill of controlling a foil’s height, also returning to a taxi will help you stop and slow down in a controlled fashion.
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Let’s briefly look at how we make a foil ascend or descend. If you shift weight towards the tail, the front wing of the hydrofoil will start to angle upwards and lift more.
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If you shift weight towards the nose, the wing will start to angle downwards and loose lift This is all about shifting weight nearer to the tail or nearer to the nose.
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With that in mind let’s look at a small flight on the foil. First taxi crosswind as this will help you gain speed.
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You do this with weight on the front foot to keep the foil down. Once you have enough speed, briefly pressure the back foot to start climbing.
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You only shift a little extra weight onto the back foot, so board stays fairly level and climbs gradually.
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If you do keep climbing, shift slightly onto the front foot to fly level. When foiling you need less power from your wing, so you should also push out the trailing hand.
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To return to a taxi shift a bit more weight to the front foot and you will descend.
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You could also guide the wing to a higher angle for less horizontal pull. If you shift too much weight to the back foot the board and wing underneath it will angle upwards and you could easily keep climbing and breach the surface.
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So, when taking off, make sure to gently shift weight to the back foot and climb slowly.
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You might struggle to take off for a number of reasons. If you are under the minimum foiling speed and you try to pressure the back foot the foil won’t lift.
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Or it may lift for a moment then loose speed and stall. Trying to increase upwards pitch and foil, before reaching adequate speed, will just slow you down.
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If you try to take off aiming upwind you might not reach the required speed.
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Remember you loose speed when aiming too far upwind. If you try to take off riding downwind you will also struggle.
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Because you’re moving with the wind it feels like you have less wind in your wing.
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The wing will stop pulling you as much and stop supporting you. It’s best to build crosswind speed first.
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While building speed keep front foot pressure to keep the board and foil horizontal and create less drag.
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Only when you have speed do you pressure the back foot and try to take off.
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If you’re struggling to take off due to light wind you might need to pump, of course.
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More about that later. The first moment you rise up on a foil can be tricky, because the way you control your board while foiling is different to how you controlled it while taxiing.
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That means you need to make a few changes within seconds of foiling. One big difference is the amount of drag.
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While taxiing you have lots of drag from the water acting on your board. You’ll be powering the wing, pulling hard with the trailing hand, just to overcome that drag.
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But the moment you foil, almost all of that drag disappears. If you then keep powering up the wing to the same amount you can easily accelerate to a speed that’s unsafe for beginners.
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You will almost always need to depower the wing. Pulling less on the trailing hand.
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The way you steer the board also changes the moment you start to foil. While taxiing we’ve been shifting the wing towards the nose or the tail to rotate the board.
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When foiling, however, you can now turn with a tiny lean away from center. Leaning toeside will turn downwind rapidly.
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Leaning heelside will turn the nose upwind rapidly. You should be pretty much upright and in line with the mast to avoid turning.
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When foiling the board is suddenly very sensitive to any lean. A common problem, therefore, is that while taxiing you are powering the wing and to balance that force you lean heelside significantly.
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Then as you start to foil you’ll probably keep that firm heelside lean. This will make the foil carve upwind sharply, you may carve so much you start to turn around, then the wind pushes more on the topside of your wing, instead of the underside, and knocks you over.
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To avoid carving the board like this as you begin to foil, you must reduce your heelside lean.
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You can have a tiny heelside lean just to balance the force of the wing.
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This slight heelside lean will be plenty to maintain balance and even to ride upwind.
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Of course, you might over compensate, and end up with a slight toeside lean that carves you downwind.
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It takes a while to get used to the sudden changes that happen when you go from taxing to foiling.
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By doing lots of short flights you can get used to this transition and hopefully do so without crashing too much.
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As you build foil control skills you can easily extend your flights. If you have enough wind, you can reach minimum foiling speed by pulling with the back hand and aiming the board crosswind or very slightly downwind.
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If you can’t quite reach foiling speed, but you are close, then a few simple pumps of just the wing can give you enough power to take off.
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Aim crosswind. Reach your highest speed. Wait for a gust, then try a few pumps of the wing.
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If the wind is much lighter then you will need a more advanced version where you coordinate wing and foil pumping.
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Pumping and many other wing foil fundamentals are covered in detail in separate tutorials. Access the wing foiling playlist on screen or below for the full series of lessons.
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Thanks for watching and good luck learning to wing foil.
Topics:wing foilwingfoilingfoilboardingfoil kitekitefoilwater sportsfoilboarding basicswing handlingfoil safetypaddling techniques
