shakabra a écrit:
J’ai fait le constat le week-end dernier comme Fifi que je cite d’un autre post :
-(Le week end dernier j'étais le seul sur l'eau, tout le monde en kite/kitefoil/wing et quelques ailerons.
I sail in one of the urban meccas for windsurfing, the San Francisco Bay Area and its 15-25 daily knots, and the windfoil collapse has been staggering. In just two years Windfoils just disappeared, together with Kites (foiled or otherwise there is almost none left). Everybody is on wings, including a whole new generation of surfers who never sailed anything before. Windsurfing is at 5-15%, depending on conditions. I know of just of two people (!

!) who wind foil regularly. Even racing got a new life because of wings. Around here racing has never been very big, probably due to the tough conditions. Now there is a tiny windsurf/windfoil slalom series left, 5-7 people, and a massive series for wings. Never seen so many people competing. It's too bad, because I think that a wind foil has massively higher performance than a wing, but the verdict cannot be more clear.
It does make me feel a bit better about my dismal experience with windfoil. I am still a beginner, never invested much time in it, but my impression that windfoiling was much harder than windsurfing, and that is was very hard to imagine it as a future for the sport, seems to be validated by facts.
I personally will keep windsurfing and occasionally windfoiling for another 2/3 years, until I wear out my new wonderful AV Modena boards (it is fun to pass the wings as if they were standing still ... only to be taken up if the wind drops

), and sort of justify the $5000 expense for a Flikka and Sabfoil windfoil set up. Then, in my sunset years (I am 64 now), maybe I will have time to jump on a wing!