I am keen to kite foil again but windwing keeps distracting me.
I have late model UFOs 7 and 11 and love them, a rage of foils - everything I need but a little short on motivation due to windwing foiling. I like light wind foiling for both but now windwing down to 6 to 7 kn wind.
Any motivational advice?
You've spent the money, use the gear. Maybe tell your wife how much you've spent on gear, and she tell you to either use it or sell it.
I kite foil about 1/4 of my sessions, about 50 kite hours a year.
Like you, I have the gear, it's great gear, I used to use it all the time.
Possibly also like you, I got into a mindset of "I'll just wing. It's easier in the conditions." forgetting that I used to kite foil very happily in any and every conditions.
I've sort of turned that around now. Yes there are conditions where wing foiling nails it, and those conditions could be challenging with a kite (particularly offshore-ish turbulent winds). But there's times when a kite foil is absolutely the right thing to use. I'm guessing you already know that.
Now I use the kite foiling gear:
- when I can't be bothered loading the car with a pile of much larger wing foiling gear. (120cm board, 1 foil, 1-2 kites, all in the boot of the car)
- if I can't bothered dealing with borderline too light conditions for winging.
- if I'm tired and lazy and just want to blast around effortlessly.
- if the EPA has issued a poor water quality alert after heavy rains and I want a dry session.
- if I want to feel the unique blast of speed and power coming from riding a kite foil at full speed (add big kite foil boosts, and powered tacks into that).
- if there's a gnarly shorebreak that I can drag out with a kite and whatever kind of board.
- if I want to be an arsehole and zoom past my winging mates stuck on the surface.
I've also bought a couple of heavily discounted Flysurfer Hybrid kites so it's fun playing with waves that are not all that productive with a wing foil but just fine with a kite.
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Do whatever floats your boat. Whatever gives you the feeling we all chase.
I typically look at dingers as I speed past and feel vaguely sorry for them, standing on their ridiculously huge 100l boards peering around a big sight screen they're holding in front of their faces. The whole experience seems... worse.
But looking from the outside I can't guess the feelings, and I guess the feelings are pretty good. Enough to swing you over to the dark side.
Of the 3 kite foilers I know personally who tried the ding, 2 have sold their ding gear in favour of e-assist prone foil (+ still kite foil), and one other still does both fairly evenly.
Just loading my gear into the car for this afternoon's session. Kitefoiling because we had a day of torrential rain and there's EPA warnings.
There's a certain amount of habit in what gear goes in the car. Usually the wing gear is in the car so that's what gets used. I hate taking both wing and kite gear because I prefer keeping the quantity of gear minimalist. There's also a risk of forgetting something when you're mixing two different sets of gear.
It simplifies things to choose the one activity for the day and load that gear in early and commit to using it no matter what. There's not much risk of missing out on a session if you're experienced enough. The whole reason this discussion exists is that there's a huge overlap in capacity of wing and kite gear now.
We live on the Sunshine Coast and come down to Kirra or Cooley once or twice a year. I have a van, I can easily fit two mountain bikes in it plus two pocket boards with mast and foil (Triton monowings) fully assembled. Three kites and bars complete the package.
My son used to wing before he got bored with it and switched to prone only (saving for an FoilDrive), so I know how large his kit was even disassembled. There's just no way that would all fit.
At the end of the day though, the only thing that counts is what you want to do! Have fun with either. Or both!
