What Size Wing Foil Board is Right For You?

Let me guess—you’re brand new to wingsurfing and wingfoiling and you want to get the smallest board you can possibly ride? Board volume is your friend. No matter which way you slice it—beginner wingsurfers, wingfoilers, and wingboarders will almost always appreciate more board volume than less.

More volume equals more stability, which leads to quicker success on the water.

Wing Board Volume and the Learning Timeline

As with any new pursuit, we naturally want to get right to it and become proficient as quickly as possible. With so many new riders looking to undersize their first board, I usually ask them this question: “How soon do you want to learn to wing foil?” Then I follow with some options like this: “Do you want to learn in a week, a month, or a season?”

There’s usually a long pause, to which they respond, letting me know that they want to learn as fast as possible. Yup, I thought you might say that. So let’s get you an appropriately sized board. Which, by default, happens to be right around 20 more than your own weight in kilograms.

For example, a rider who weighs 180lbs is equivalent to 82kg. Therefore, we add 82 and 20 to get a baseline starting point of 102L for this particular scenario. Our customers have had great success when sticking to this formula for their very first wing board purchase, and we hope you will as well.

Don’t Make the Surfboard Mistake

Veteran surfers can easily reflect on their first days of surfing, and their tendency to want to bypass larger surfboards for something smaller. It’s a classic mistake that sends even the most enthusiastic young surfer back to the beach in frustration that they can’t catch any waves—let alone ride a few.

In hindsight, we know that if you spend some time paddling into smaller waves on a longboard, you’ll have way more fun. You’ll catch and ride a ton more waves, and you’re way more likely to get hooked on surfing.

Put Your Ego in Check

Take a deep breath, embrace your newness to wingsurfing, and put your ego in check. Windsports tend to attract a lot of type-A personalities for whatever reason. And with that, come a lot of fragile, mostly male, egos. Yes, I’m throwing myself under that bus as well.

The sooner you can move past your need to be cool, the sooner you will begin having fun as a wingsurfer, or wingfoiler.

Don’t compare yourself to the professional athletes that you see in the videos. Not that you couldn’t get to that ability level in time, but let’s be real—that’s their actual full-time job. They train hard, have access to the best gear, and live in the most ideal places for wind consistency. Of course, they’re going to be riding smaller wingboards than you on average.

In conclusion, just make sure that you’re being realistic with your gear choices. Know your ability level, and consider how much time you can really dedicate to learning how to wing foil.

We hope this has been helpful, and we invite you to give us a call with any questions that you may have. We’re always happy to help!