Defi Wind SuperStars was held a few days ago in Saint-Tropez and some of the biggest names in all 3 mentioned sports competed.
These are overall results: my.raceresult.com/266738/
Kitefoil still seems to be unbeatable compared to windfoil but wingfoil is still far behind. Thought it might be an interesing topic for those who are chasing high speeds on foils.
What are your thoughts? If anyone has some first hand information it would be more than welcome.
Not surprising really. Going fast on foil is a function of the efficiency of the rig and counteracting the lift of the foil as speed increases. Both racing kites and foil sails are proven over many years of development to be fast and efficient. Racing wing development is in its infancy and starts from a lower base
From my limited experience with going for speed on windfoil, it looks like it takes way less cajones to push speeds on the wing as blowing up on wing is much tamer than windfoil.
Although, I believe/hope the right rider windfoil will beat the wing
Not much to say, it's been discussed before on here, how each discipline weighs up against the other.
but I'd love to see a drag race between the worlds best in each discipline, and throw in speed orientated "normal gear" for kites and windsurf as well. Could be done down one of those well known speed strip beaches, with the foilers further out, and the normal gear sailors closer to shore for the flat water.
as for the wingers, I doubt we'll see any real speed matches from them till someone develops a more solid structure for the wing. But if they can manage that, maybe they'll start getting some decent speeds. Coming off at high speeds would still hurt, but crashing/things going pear shaped, would be much less a factor in the back of the riders mind when they go for speed than the other disciplines.
Weymouth Speed Week had kites, fins, foils and wings.
logiqx.github.io/wsw-results/results/2023/index.html
Don't forget the physics.
A sail has all of its power in the horizontal direction. We sail in the horizontal direction.
A kite and a wing have a lot vertical component (kiters jump higher than anybody else). Sure, you can lay the kite and wing down, but they never are quite as horizontal as a sail.
It will be fun to watch the development of the gear going forward.