Wing Foil

A hand-held inflatable sail, a short board and a hydrofoil

170 boards · 13 brands · 867 sizes

Wing foiling pairs a hand-held inflatable wing, held free of the board, with a short board on a hydrofoil. Once the foil lifts the hull out of the water the noise and chop drop away and the ride turns smooth and quiet. Kiters, windsurfers, surfers and plenty of complete beginners took it up after the first production wings appeared in 2019.

A typical wing foil board, 1676 by 550 mm
the typical outline: every board’s shape averaged at the median length and width

The typical board

The typical wing foil board is 1702 × 572 mm, 90 L, with a round tail and its wide point ahead of centre.

1400–2134mm long · median 1702

483–737mm wide · median 572

50–135litres · median 90

2.8length over width, median · derived

Ranges hold the middle 80 % of every size listed · tails: round tail 66, rounded pin tail 51, square tail 31, pin tail 20, swallow tail 2

How It Rides

What moves it

The wing is a small sail held in the hands, with no mast, boom or lines connecting it to the board, so it is the only thing that drives the rider forward. The hydrofoil under the board does the lifting: once the rider has pumped the wing and board up to take-off speed, the front foil wing makes enough lift to raise the hull clear and drag falls sharply. Because nothing ties the wing to the board, the rider can let it go slack and ride a wave hands-free.

Reading the shape

Wing boards are much shorter than the SUP foil boards people first used: F-One's 2019 Rocket Wing ran from 5'0 x 22 in (57 L) to 5'10 x 25 in (90 L). A beginner board is short, wide, thick and flat, which keeps it stable and floating while the rider learns to handle the wing. Bevelled rails (chines) let a board skip off the water on touch-downs instead of catching. The newer mid-lengths are longer and narrower so they glide and take off in lighter wind: F-One's Rocket Midlength runs from 5'10 x 47 cm (72 L) to 6'10 x 62 cm (150 L), with a small step in the hull near the tail to cut drag at take-off. A common rule of thumb for a first board is body weight plus 30–40 L, so about 120 L for an 80 kg rider.

How to read any board: length and width, wide point, tails, rails, rocker

Wind

about 15–24 kn for the common 4–5 m² wings; bigger wings and foils go lighter

Water

flat water to learn, then chop, open-ocean swell and waves

Worth knowing

15–20 kn on flat water is the usual learning window.

The Rack

Every wing foil board, shortest to longest, one scale · from the Slingshot Launch Pad V1 (1270 mm) to the Kalama Gator All Performance 2025 (2616 mm)

All 170 in the catalogue

Good To Know

  1. The World Sailing Speed Record Council has ratified wingfoil records since 2023. The outright 500 m record is 33.55 kn (about 62 km/h), set by Italy's Alessandro Tomasi at La Palme, France, on 1 July 2024. He also holds the nautical-mile record at 30.37 kn. [1]

  2. France's Audrey Marie-Agnès holds the women's wingfoil records: 31.00 kn over 500 m and 29.40 kn over a nautical mile, both set at La Palme on 6 July 2025. [1][2]

  3. In 2022 Chris Bertish wing-foiled solo from Santa Cruz, California, to Honolulu: 2,465 miles (about 3,970 km) in 48 days, 15 hours and 15 minutes, arriving on 17 July 2022. He did it on the ImpiFish, a custom foiling craft built for the trip, not an ordinary board. [3][4]

  4. Guinness lists Greece's Dimitris Apalagakis for the greatest distance on a hydrofoil wingboard in 12 hours: 259 km, from Athens to Crete, on 9 August 2023. In June 2026 Germany's Malik Humeida, aged 20, covered 375 km in 12 hours off Damp on the Baltic coast, an average of about 31 km/h. When it was reported, the record was still waiting for Guinness approval. [5][6]

  5. The first inflatable wing that worked was small. Ken Winner's June 2018 prototype was 2.5 m², and it flew from the first test. Duotone moved to production after its CEO Till Eberle tried the wing on Maui in November 2018. [7][8]

  6. At the 2026 Molokai-2-Oahu, light winds made the wing-foil winner, Livio Menelau (2:14:48), slightly slower across the channel than the paddle-powered SUP foil winner, Edoardo Tanas (2:13:02). [9]

Watch And Read

Who Makes Them

Where And When

Where to watch it

  • Leucate, FranceIts Mondial du Vent opened the GWA tour in April 2021 and is the tour's surf-freestyle stop again in April 2026.
  • La Palme, FranceA flat-water speed lagoon where every ratified wingfoil speed record has been set.
  • Maui, HawaiiFlash Austin's framed wing and Ken Winner's first inflatable prototypes were tested here in 2018.

Where it came from

Hand-held wings are older than the sport. Jim Drake's twin-wing Hand Sail (1981), Tom Magruder's Wind Weapon (1984) and Finland's Kitewing (1986) all came first, and Tony Logosz of Slingshot tried inflatable prototypes from about 2011. The modern version started on Maui in March 2018, when Ken Winner saw Flash Austin foiling a SUP foil board with a framed 3.5 m² wing. Winner tested his own first inflatable wing, a 2.5 m² prototype, in June 2018, and Duotone, Naish, F-One and Slingshot all had production wings on sale within about a year.

More disciplines

Sources

  1. [1]

    Wingfoil Records

    World Sailing Speed Record Council · tier 1 · record

  2. [2]

    WSSR Newsletter: New Records at La Palme 2025

    World Sailing Speed Record Council · tier 1 · record

  3. [3]

    Record-breaking wing foil journey across Pacific reveals ocean pollution crisis

    Hawai'i Public Radio, 2022-07-25 · tier 1 · article

  4. [4]
  5. [5]

    Greatest distance by hydrofoil wingboard in 12 hours

    Guinness World Records, 2023-08-09 · tier 1 · record

  6. [6]
  7. [7]

    Ken Winner - The Toymaker

    Duotone · tier 3 · manufacturer

  8. [8]

    Wingfoil history: Duotone designer Ken Winner - how it all began

    surf Magazin, 2024-03-13 · tier 2 · article

  9. [9]

    2026 Foil Edition

    Molokai 2 Oahu Paddleboard World Championships, 2026-07 · tier 1 · federation

  10. [10]
  11. [11]

    Wing Foiling Boards Explained: How to Choose Your First Board

    Infinity Sport Kitesurfing · tier 3 · manufacturer

  12. [12]

    Rocket Wing Midlength

    F-One · tier 3 · manufacturer

  13. [13]

    How Much Wind for Wing Foiling?

    Poole Harbour Watersports · tier 3 · manufacturer

  14. [14]

    Wingfoil World Tour: This is the GWA calendar for 2026

    surf Magazin, 2026 · tier 2 · article