Larger wings have made wonderful advances and are now enjoyable to use and session savers for when the wind gets really light.
I found the first couple generations of bigger wings (6+ meter) to be hard on my body and difficult to manage, the F-one Strike CWC design changed this for me.
Here is a video report wing foiling with the 8 meter F-one Strike CWC:
Here is a image of the wind graph during my session with the 8m in Alameda on a south wind day. I was out between 2 and 4pm, wind averaging in the low teens. Riding an Axis 1150 foil. One thing I don’t mention in the video is how difficult it is to flip this wing over right side up. Last session I had several difficult flips, I have learned to hang on to the handles when I fall and to quickly grab the front handle if I left go, reducing the chance of the wing being flipped upside down. I am a relatively big strong guy and it’s noticeably difficult to flip this 8m wing, I wonder if a smaller lighter rider could even do it in the water? Not a deal breaker for me, just something to be very aware of. Here on the Wing Handling tutorial page I show how I flip over this big 8 meter wing while sitting on my board.
And here is a wind graph from a lighter wind session I had this morning, wind was averaging around 10 and I was using a larger 2450 foil. The wind was clearing wind from a passing storm, west wind and fading. I could easily get up in the gusts and sustain flights through the lulls both on my strong and weak side. In the lulls I could not get up on foil, I was out between 9 and 10am and during that final fade I could not get up on foil, the wing being so big I could sail back towards the beach until that final fade hit and I had to drop the wing and swim the last 10 yards. Schlogging cross wind back to the beach is pretty easy compared to spinnaker straight downwind. So it seems wind averaging 10 is what I need with this 8m. I could have used the 1150 foil but I think I would have had trouble getting up on my weak side and toeside, and jibes would have been much harder to stay on foil.
In the fall of 2021 the wind was often 8-10 and just below a fun usable range for the 8m, so if they come out with a 9m I will be very interested. If not I am thinking a large high aspect wing like the Eagle 1090 or Seven Seas 1200 or 1400 would make really light wind more fun for me.
On the Knee Start tutorial page are a couple of no pump take offs with the 8 meter wing on a body weight board. Also a weak side no pump take off with the 8m on the Switch Stance tutorial page.
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