What are your tips for someone to progress in wing surfing? Any golden pieces of advice?
Really learning how the wing works, even if that’s standing on the beach on a windy day and just moving it around, trying different handles… kind of feeling out what the wing does when you hold it a certain way. The more comfortable you can be with the wing on land, the better off you’ll be once you get onto the water. When I was leaning that really helped me out. I was literally spending hours on the beach when it was really windy and seeing how the wing reacted to different handle positions and learning to depower and how to maneuver it for jibing or tacking.
Secondly, I would say get comfortable getting on foil on a stand-up foil board before moving to a small board. Take baby steps in terms of starting out on a big board first. Definitely don’t just leap from the beach to the small board. It can be really tricky and frustrating at first, trying to get up on 4’2’”.
Try to go with someone else that is also doing it and just get a ton of reps in—that’s what I was doing with Matt and it was really helpful to figure it all out together. It was helpful to be able to go with someone and see what they were doing, what was working, what was not working so well.
I spent most of the time learning in the flatwater sound side since there’s not much consequence as compared to the ocean. It’s a great way to set yourself up for success. If you get completely comfortable and confident in low-consequence flatwater and then take the wing to the ocean, you’ll be thankful you put in the time in an environment without three-foot shorebreak.
When you’re learning, one of the big things is you gotta learn how to stay upwind, how to get back upwind. Learning in the sound, I had my fair share of walks of shame: ending up three miles downwind of my car… gotta walk all the way back with the SUP, the wing, everything. It’s definitely a good idea to learn in a place where it’s okay if you get sucked downwind three miles and not getting stuck out in some inlet or in the middle of the ocean.