Billy is the all-round action and sales weapon for F-One in America. In January he made his first visit to Cape Town to see what all the fuss was about – and to push his wingsurfing skills to the next level.
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This is the third and final blog on my Wingsurfers Guide Through Progression. If you missed the two earlier blogs on getting started you can review them here. They will help to give some context on my experience during the early days (funny, just 3 months ago) and lead up to this final blog. Thanks in advance for reviewing and hopefully this will help some of you out that are learning this relatively new sport. Now well into my efforts to become better at winging I’m very happy with the progress to date. As mentioned in previous blogs, it’s a quick learn if you can keep at it. I’ve had the luxury of getting to try a good amount of the F-One Winging lineup and finding the right gear for the right conditions is helpful and makes the learning curve much quicker. With the right gear you’ll spend way more time up foiling and avoid getting exhausted trying to get up or stay up on foil. After a few months of practice, I can now competently get up on foil, stay upwind, tack, jibe, surf swell and have a great time out on the water doing it. Throughout this time, I started on larger boards, foils and wings and moved to smaller ones as my skills progressed. Here’s what I found works well for me now.
Brian Friedmann, foilboards, foils, foneswing, Gravity Foils, Swing
This is part two in a three-part series on the experiences of a wingsurfers guide through progression. We had a bit of a break in the wind here in La Ventana allowing for some rest and reflection.
As mentioned in part one , I started this winging journey recently and wanted to pass along some of the experiences as new people learn about this exciting sport. Now, with roughly a month of solid riding behind me there has been a lot that has been learned and still more to know. I’m spending this season in La Ventana, a well-known kiting destination that I’ve visited many times over the past 14 years. It’s the perfect learning grounds for wing surfing. Coming from a strong kite surf background and focused purely on wave riding, I’m excited how winging has transformed my perception of a place like La Ventana that has “no waves”. This is true, there is very little in the way of “surf” here but there’s a good amount of deep water swell. Swell that can be easily ridden with a foil and wing which has made La Ventana, do I dare say it, a “surf destination” when viewed through the lens of riding swell with a wing and foil
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23 years of trying out new things
18 years of trips around the world
2019 – We are One –
18 years ago we were going on trips to kiteboard
We were looking for places for one particular discipline
Then we added surfboards and SUPs to our boardbags
Foils changed completely our ways to ride and today Wingsurfing has brought a whole new world of opportunities
By bringing all the riders, no matter their speciality on the same spot at the same time, together we are one
We share that one passion which drives everything we do.
We have entered a new chapter and it is all about sharing
Rider: Billy Ackerman
I wanted to take a minute and fill everyone in on the new 2020 F-One Wing Board series and my experiences so far. Get excited, because this series is going to be a HIT and will be available soon! We are just back from a week in Punta San Carlos for our annual Kitesurfing camp hosted by Solosports, and I had a great time with the Swing, the Gravity foils and the new Rocket Wing we had received a few days prior. So much fun wing surfing the waves of PSC!
F-One Kite Ambassador and local Wadell (well known kite surfing spot near Santa Cruz) resident Brian Friedmann is fleeing the upcoming cold and often windless Pacific North West Coast and will be spending the winter in La Ventana, Baja Mexico. La Ventana is a fantastic destination in the winter, with strong daily thermal wind, great vibes, good food, and plenty of outdoor things to do. Brian recently started winging and he is telling us his progression from bigger board to smaller ones, including the rocket air surf, the F-One inflatable foilboard series. Not everybody are or will be able to ride very small boards (<50L) when winging, but that being said the smaller you can deal with, the more freedom you have, whether wing surfing or not. The Wing revolution is marching on and we are all having so much fun with it
WSW hears from Raphael Salles, founder and CEO of F-ONE International, at the July distributor meeting in Mauritius, where the crew was introduced to wing surfing with the F-One Swing.
