What Do Wing Foilers Do When Their Lake Freezes Over?

Ice, Wings, and Speed Freaks!

Recently, Michigan has had a two-week spell of cold temperatures and very little snow which has set perfect conditions for black ice on our local lakes. This past summer I learned how to wingfoil and was looking forward to using the wing sail on the snow with skis. I have 10+ years of experience snowkiting on both skis and a snowboard and the thought of mixing it up and using a wing piqued my interest.

Each winter I am very excited about my first snowkiting session when the snowpack and wind align. I track my sessions and as the days in January began to tick away I had yet to get a session in compared to previous years.

As I drove by the two lakes I frequent in the winter hoping for the right conditions, the black ice we had triggered memories back to my days playing hockey. I grew up wanting to be an NHL player and played competitive hockey until my junior year when my dad told me that he did not see me having a career being a professional hockey player.

I had always wanted to use a kite with skates but wind, time, and ice conditions have never aligned until the last two weeks. With the newfound freedom of using a wing, I decided to string 4 days on the ice with skates honing my skills with different size wings and brands.

Smooth ice made for a perfect playground for my first wing skate session. The wind was blowing between 10-14 knots and I inflated a 4 meter. This session was very last minute as my friend Marc had contacted me while I was on my drive home from work that he was going to do some ice board winging. I did not think that the 4m would be enough but I quickly realized it was perfect for my first session. After about three tacks I clocked just shy of 30 mph. Wow! I was so stoked. I am a speed freak and the feeling of gliding across the ice with a wing was such a cool new sensation.

After some speed runs, I worked on upwind/down transitions/“jibs”. It was a great way to work on my hand movement and positions on the staps. I learned a lot about a wing’s flying characteristics as I did not need to focus on my skating. I managed to get 10 miles of skate winging averaging about 10knots before dark.

The next day the wind was blowing between 10-18knots with blue skies and sunshine. Marc, Eric, and I met up at Mona Lake. Eric does not wing yet and he threw up his 8m kite with skates, Marc started on his ice board and wing, and I pumped up a 4m, 5m, and 6m wing. After 23 miles of comparing different wing sizes, I learned a lot about wing positioning and pumping to generate speed. Riding a 4m, 5m, and a 6m back to back I learned that I was able to generate the power needed on the 4m with pumping, the 5m was perfect for the wind conditions, and the 6m was doable by flying the wing higher. I will do a wing comparison in a future post as I learned a tremendous amount as I was able to focus completely on flying the wing.

In the following 2 sessions, I continued to work on generating power, experimenting with different hand positions, transitions, and enjoying the freedom of wing skating upwind and downwind. I wanted to break the 30 mph barrier, but that will have to be experienced in higher wind conditions.

Takeaways from My First Wing Skating Sessions:

• If you are a fairly strong skater you can easily learn and progress using a wing to generate the power needed to glide across the ice. I would suggest elbow and knee pads if you are not as confident on skates and want to limit your risk of injury.
• The ability to focus only on flying the wing greatly increased my winging skills in a short amount of time. It would take far longer on the water foiling.
• The simplicity of just a wing and skates made for easy setup and very little stress.
• The apparent wind speed that you can generate by being powered by the wing while skating is an amazing feeling.
• You can easily dump the power and get yourself out of potentially dangerous situations.
• The places you can explore on your local lake are endless and if the wind dies you can just skate to find the wind, create apparent wind while skating, or simply skate back to your launch site.

Despite having the perfect opportunity to wing skate 4 days in a row, I am eyeing the forecast so that I can lace up my skates, pump up a wing, and push the limits of this new sport.

Good winds,

Jeff

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