In the first SUPboarder Pro Test for 2020 we’re going to be testing the newest accessory for any SUPer wanting to increase their water time… Wings. So if you want to hear our thoughts about the latest Wings and find out which Wing would best suit you sign up to SUPboarder Pro.
Thanks Michelle. We are going to be putting together some ‘How to Wing’ videos. If thats what you mean?
Hum3
5 years ago
Finally! Some head to head comparisons! I’ve been scouring the net for this sort of info, and chuffed that you guys have delivered. Well worth the subscription – great work guys!
Great to hear it. We all worked hard on this and we’re really glad you found it useful. Thanks for the support.
sj257
5 years ago
Great to see. Well done getting that together. Have you tied the wings with iSUP’s particularly thinking of lighter wind cruising off the plane? Much as the performance side looks like fun I’m interested in the touring side and lower performance too.
Hey Simon , We have done some basic test but they aren’t the best with iSUPs. Unless you’re really not that worried about going up wind. I have heard of a few Pro Subscribes using these drift stoppers https://shop.duotonesports.com/en-gb/add-on-drift-stopper-14200–8010 . I will send them a mail and see if they can send us some to see if they work. Will let you know. I think you will love it and it will be great for fishing too!
I did wonder if an iSUP would have sufficed lateral resistance. Like a windsurfing longboard without the dagger. Would add appeal if the wing was a useful light wind tool as well as high wind/foil. That add on looks like it might do the trick.
I went out 2 weekends ago with Will Rogers on a 12foot ISUP with a middle (dagger board) fin in 8-15 knots. I was using my own prototype wing. I could get Upwind okay after some practice but it would of been impossible without the middle fin as you cant get the rail to bite against. A hard board is deffinatley a bit nicer as they are also thinner height wise so a little bit easier to keep your balance. For light winds though they are still fun and its nice to not have the faff of a windsurf rig… Read more »
Thanks Andy. Some helpful info. Some added lateral resistance seems key. I would love to see a wing that took the Duotone idea and blended the paddle. Can’t be difficult to make a wing that attaches to your paddle so you can pump up the wing when touring, and paddle when you’re going up wind. If I could get my hands on a Duotone sail I’d be tempted to try to prototype something up.
shakahouse@gmail.com
5 years ago
Great test. Thank you. I’ve had the Slingshot Slingwing for the past four months and I’m very happy with it. In 15-25 knots it works great with my Moses tortuga foil (873 front wing) and Naish 95L foilboard. It works great in gusty conditions in my local waters of San Francisco Bay. I’d be curious to find out if you’ve seen any performance difference between the Slingwing’s trailing edge bladder fully pumped and the other wings. Does less trailing edge flapping mean more power? There seems to be a power/performance trade-off between having more weight vs. lower weight and less… Read more »
Thanks a lot for your feedback on the Slingshot. The trailing edge should have a big effect to the efficiency to the wing. It would be great to see this sort of thing in a wind tunnel with smoke. I don’t think it can release the air flow as cleanly as a normal edge. But like you said this would be different with a badly designed flapping trailing edge. But as far as all sails go the inflatable trailing edge is not the norm! We would need to do more tests but my gut feeling is its not as efficient.… Read more »
The Slingwing is very powerful and the inflatable trailing edge is interesting. It is deffinatley not great on the aero side but does stabalise the structure which does help it keeping the power on. I think that why the duotone works so well, in a aero situation as it has no middle bladder to mess with the aeroflow in the middle of wing and its shape is very stable, it dosent deform too much in gusts and encourages you to trim it right which is very easy with the bar over handles. The naish I found very ‘gutless’ it required… Read more »
The slingwing is very interesting, very powerful and they have worked hard to achieve stability in its shape (thus the inflatable rear) and in some ways it has worked but I think its outclassed by the Duotone, the lack of central bladder produces a much better aero shape in the middle which I think is definite performance advantage over all the other wings, and the large amounts of dihedral produces a very stable planform without the weight of inflatble back edge, added to this the bar over handles makes trimming it much easier over all the other wings. The F-One… Read more »
burchas
5 years ago
Great review! Lots of insights. I think you covered just about everything. My only comment would be the final awards. I think you have too many and It’s somewhat confusing and makes it harder to make a choice.
The Pros & Cons are super helpful and detailed enough that you could do away with 3 awards, just to sum it up concisely, so we could focus after ingesting heavy load of information:)
Great to hear your feedback. We wanted to have less awards but we were struggling for which ones to not have. When we were discussing about them we were trying to make sure we covered an award for all types of riders and there needs and budgets. We would love to hear other peoples thoughts and which awards we could drop? Thanks so much for your feedback its so important, keep it coming.
If I had to choose which I can do without I’d say drop the “Best Value” and the “Best Flat Water Foiling”.
The first one is just very obvious and on the price difference alone would sway me over if I’m not too sure about this sport. I think that’s why the Gong wing does so well. I also think it’s an oversight on their part not to send you equipment for review and I messaged them about it.
The second one is just too specific of an award in my opinion.
OK, great to hear which ones you would drop. Its hard because we have had lots of lakes Wing riders saying how much they liked the flat water award because a surfing wing really isn’t for them. Yeah, its a shame about Gong and how they didn’t want to get involved. But its their loss, hundreds of other wings will be sold to other riders now because of this video. Thanks again for the feedback we will be talking about it with the Team.
Grafix
5 years ago
I’d agree that there are too many awards here to totally clarify your thoughts. A question I also have is to understand why the F-one is better upwind but loses out on power to the Duotone. It’s just awesome to see such a good comparison of the wings and I can see the care that has gone in to it but I think it just needs a little bit of reduction to really hit the bullseye. I love the Pro content and am not trying to be a smart-a#se – just joining in the discussions!
Please do its what we want to hear. It’s really important so we can make these test better in future. We will be taking the comments on and discussing with the team. I will get Andy to answer the question about the Fone wing shape. Im sure he will explain it better than me. Thanks again it really good stuff so keep the comments coming. Also which award/s would you drop?
Thanks Reuben. I think I’d just have best flat water wing and best wave wing – but with a top 3 ‘podium’ for each award. Finally an editor’s choice award with a 3 medal podium again – which crowns the overall winner.
Ok this could be a good move. I can see it will still give everybody a good idea of how the gear sits in the awards. Thanks again for the comment really great feedback.
BeTheEngine
5 years ago
Thank You Thank You Thank You! This is incredibly useful to the many of us that are considering a wing and really have no clue how they compare to each other. And good on ya for staying out there and on task in what looked like a pretty nasty day. As fantastic as the reviews were I have to admit my favorite part, that had me laughing SO hard, were the bloopers at the end. You should definitely include those in all reviews whenever possible…hilarious and entertaining. You guys are doing an amazing job overall so please keep up the… Read more »
Thanks for your feedback its great to hear that it really helped you because thats what its all about. Yeah we will be including more funny bits in our videos in the future for sure. Thanks to you for the support by signing up to Pro. Any questions let us know.
wipeoutstummi
4 years ago
Yeah! Great overall test and valuable remarks. I have been testing all of them, except the Takuma and Duotone, for foiling purposes, and would classify them in same way like you did. Keep on the good work!
I’m selling them all at http://www.whatsupberlin.de in Berlin/ Germany. Personally I would choose the Ozone or the F-One, as they offer the most versatile and complete package – both on flat water, and in the ocean. Being a larger/ heavier rider, I would go for a 5m, or even 6m to foil here on local rivers (mostly with turning and gusty winds). I would choose a 4m or 5m to go foiling on the ocean. The Slingshot is a power machine, but might not being the right choice for everyone and everywhere. The Naish is for smaller pilots, a nice… Read more »
Yeah agree. The Ozone and F-One are great all round wings. I haven’t used any of the bigger sized wings yet.
Juju
4 years ago
Hi, After having pay the monthly PRO, I didn’t succeed in getting access to PRO Contents. For instance, I have no Access to the full “wing test 2020”, only the preview (even after disconnecting/reconnecting, again and again). I feel a little bit frustrated. Could you please advise? Thank you Julien
Hi Reuben, awesome review as ever. Please can you comment on your experiences with the boards and foils you used? I have had distinctly mixed success with a variety of isups and have essentially concluded it’s time to move on! So I was wondering what sup worked best in your tests and what foil you would recommend for a foiling novice? Cheers Kid
Hi Kiddo, Thanks for the comment – Reubens away right now but i’ll get back to you on his behalf – he will also jump in on this one later. ISUPs lack of a sharp rail mean you really need a drift stopper or centre fin. On composite all round touring boards we found that rail length was best to help upwind performance rather than width – so longer boards are good. We had all done a bit of windsurfing before as well as kiting, and generally surf small SUPs and were using 9′ boards. We think that 10’6 All… Read more »
Outstanding. Thanks Will. I was tending towards a fanatic fly bamboo 10’6” so it doesn’t sound like I was too far off.
I have used a driftstopper. It was fine for the first few tries and upwind is easy enough. However, it’s a bit like driving with the handbrake on and there is next to no chance of planing. I had a couple of great rides without it on a red ride 9’8” but I have struggled with less than consistent strong winds and pretty flat water as it’s hard to get onto a meaningful edge.
Hey Will. I have a F ONE Swing on a 11′ Tom Caroll Outer Reef SUP. I am still having difficulty going upwind. And in general anything less than 12 kts steady wind is kinda hopeless. Would be great if you did a how to video on proper wing/sup technique.
On a side note, would a different fin setup help? Thanks!
Hi – yes, it will be hard to go upwind in the lighter winds, but not impossible. We will certainly look to try and make a tuitional on this soon.
Drift stoppers would be useful for you as something you can retro fit. A larger rear fin technically should help as well, but centre fins (middle of the length of the board) are what really will help.
Keep working on it and keep us updated 🙂
OlympiqueSuisse
4 years ago
Hi there, this is a really helpful review (and the reason I subscribed!) I agree with most of the comments below, especially simplified categories at the end would be clearer. I think it would be helpful also to mention the date at the beginning when you are giving the prices (and maybe clarify how you are calculating the price – eg average of 3 online retailers) having it in 1 currency is fine. Also a few summary charts could be really helpful (you could use so-called spider charts) which would show all the ratings side by side. Keep up the… Read more »
Thanks for the comment and feedback. Yes, we will certainly be looking forward to improving the test for 2021 and already have some ideas. This was the first head to head test we did and certainly learnt some lessons. We cant wait to bring you guys more! Thanks for subscribing. Will – SUPboarder
iluesby@rogers.com
4 years ago
Have y’all tried the stick sUP wINDER stick dagger board from Slingshot yet?
No we haven’t but I can see that it will work and help you stay up wind a little more when you are starting out. We have use dagger boards in the passed when teaching people it does help but as soon as they have got the basics it’s faster and more fun without the centre dagger board. If you have an old board it could be worth sticking it on though.
Rossbiking
4 years ago
Hi Ruben and gang are you soon to do another wing test or have you done it and about to release the video. Also I saw you had the Duotone echo do you also have the Duotone Unit as I have a 5m I can lend if you need one.
Hey Ross. Yes the 2021 Wing test is going to be getting underway in October we could have up to 12 wings this year…. Video will be live at the start of November. Thanks for the offer.
– to access more content and expert support, check out 
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Great feature on the wings….are you looking at a how too sections for wings??
Thanks Michelle. We are going to be putting together some ‘How to Wing’ videos. If thats what you mean?
Finally! Some head to head comparisons! I’ve been scouring the net for this sort of info, and chuffed that you guys have delivered. Well worth the subscription – great work guys!
Great to hear it. We all worked hard on this and we’re really glad you found it useful. Thanks for the support.
Great to see. Well done getting that together. Have you tied the wings with iSUP’s particularly thinking of lighter wind cruising off the plane? Much as the performance side looks like fun I’m interested in the touring side and lower performance too.
Hey Simon , We have done some basic test but they aren’t the best with iSUPs. Unless you’re really not that worried about going up wind. I have heard of a few Pro Subscribes using these drift stoppers https://shop.duotonesports.com/en-gb/add-on-drift-stopper-14200–8010 . I will send them a mail and see if they can send us some to see if they work. Will let you know. I think you will love it and it will be great for fishing too!
I did wonder if an iSUP would have sufficed lateral resistance. Like a windsurfing longboard without the dagger. Would add appeal if the wing was a useful light wind tool as well as high wind/foil. That add on looks like it might do the trick.
I went out 2 weekends ago with Will Rogers on a 12foot ISUP with a middle (dagger board) fin in 8-15 knots. I was using my own prototype wing. I could get Upwind okay after some practice but it would of been impossible without the middle fin as you cant get the rail to bite against. A hard board is deffinatley a bit nicer as they are also thinner height wise so a little bit easier to keep your balance. For light winds though they are still fun and its nice to not have the faff of a windsurf rig… Read more »
Thanks Andy. Some helpful info. Some added lateral resistance seems key. I would love to see a wing that took the Duotone idea and blended the paddle. Can’t be difficult to make a wing that attaches to your paddle so you can pump up the wing when touring, and paddle when you’re going up wind. If I could get my hands on a Duotone sail I’d be tempted to try to prototype something up.
Great test. Thank you. I’ve had the Slingshot Slingwing for the past four months and I’m very happy with it. In 15-25 knots it works great with my Moses tortuga foil (873 front wing) and Naish 95L foilboard. It works great in gusty conditions in my local waters of San Francisco Bay. I’d be curious to find out if you’ve seen any performance difference between the Slingwing’s trailing edge bladder fully pumped and the other wings. Does less trailing edge flapping mean more power? There seems to be a power/performance trade-off between having more weight vs. lower weight and less… Read more »
Thanks a lot for your feedback on the Slingshot. The trailing edge should have a big effect to the efficiency to the wing. It would be great to see this sort of thing in a wind tunnel with smoke. I don’t think it can release the air flow as cleanly as a normal edge. But like you said this would be different with a badly designed flapping trailing edge. But as far as all sails go the inflatable trailing edge is not the norm! We would need to do more tests but my gut feeling is its not as efficient.… Read more »
The Slingwing is very powerful and the inflatable trailing edge is interesting. It is deffinatley not great on the aero side but does stabalise the structure which does help it keeping the power on. I think that why the duotone works so well, in a aero situation as it has no middle bladder to mess with the aeroflow in the middle of wing and its shape is very stable, it dosent deform too much in gusts and encourages you to trim it right which is very easy with the bar over handles. The naish I found very ‘gutless’ it required… Read more »
Great feedback Andrew, thanks for sharing
The slingwing is very interesting, very powerful and they have worked hard to achieve stability in its shape (thus the inflatable rear) and in some ways it has worked but I think its outclassed by the Duotone, the lack of central bladder produces a much better aero shape in the middle which I think is definite performance advantage over all the other wings, and the large amounts of dihedral produces a very stable planform without the weight of inflatble back edge, added to this the bar over handles makes trimming it much easier over all the other wings. The F-One… Read more »
Great review! Lots of insights. I think you covered just about everything. My only comment would be the final awards. I think you have too many and It’s somewhat confusing and makes it harder to make a choice.
The Pros & Cons are super helpful and detailed enough that you could do away with 3 awards, just to sum it up concisely, so we could focus after ingesting heavy load of information:)
Keep them coming. Great work!
Great to hear your feedback. We wanted to have less awards but we were struggling for which ones to not have. When we were discussing about them we were trying to make sure we covered an award for all types of riders and there needs and budgets. We would love to hear other peoples thoughts and which awards we could drop? Thanks so much for your feedback its so important, keep it coming.
If I had to choose which I can do without I’d say drop the “Best Value” and the “Best Flat Water Foiling”.
The first one is just very obvious and on the price difference alone would sway me over if I’m not too sure about this sport. I think that’s why the Gong wing does so well. I also think it’s an oversight on their part not to send you equipment for review and I messaged them about it.
The second one is just too specific of an award in my opinion.
OK, great to hear which ones you would drop. Its hard because we have had lots of lakes Wing riders saying how much they liked the flat water award because a surfing wing really isn’t for them. Yeah, its a shame about Gong and how they didn’t want to get involved. But its their loss, hundreds of other wings will be sold to other riders now because of this video. Thanks again for the feedback we will be talking about it with the Team.
I’d agree that there are too many awards here to totally clarify your thoughts. A question I also have is to understand why the F-one is better upwind but loses out on power to the Duotone. It’s just awesome to see such a good comparison of the wings and I can see the care that has gone in to it but I think it just needs a little bit of reduction to really hit the bullseye. I love the Pro content and am not trying to be a smart-a#se – just joining in the discussions!
Please do its what we want to hear. It’s really important so we can make these test better in future. We will be taking the comments on and discussing with the team. I will get Andy to answer the question about the Fone wing shape. Im sure he will explain it better than me. Thanks again it really good stuff so keep the comments coming. Also which award/s would you drop?
Thanks Reuben. I think I’d just have best flat water wing and best wave wing – but with a top 3 ‘podium’ for each award. Finally an editor’s choice award with a 3 medal podium again – which crowns the overall winner.
Ok this could be a good move. I can see it will still give everybody a good idea of how the gear sits in the awards. Thanks again for the comment really great feedback.
Thank You Thank You Thank You! This is incredibly useful to the many of us that are considering a wing and really have no clue how they compare to each other. And good on ya for staying out there and on task in what looked like a pretty nasty day. As fantastic as the reviews were I have to admit my favorite part, that had me laughing SO hard, were the bloopers at the end. You should definitely include those in all reviews whenever possible…hilarious and entertaining. You guys are doing an amazing job overall so please keep up the… Read more »
Thanks for your feedback its great to hear that it really helped you because thats what its all about. Yeah we will be including more funny bits in our videos in the future for sure. Thanks to you for the support by signing up to Pro. Any questions let us know.
Yeah! Great overall test and valuable remarks. I have been testing all of them, except the Takuma and Duotone, for foiling purposes, and would classify them in same way like you did. Keep on the good work!
Thanks for sharing your comment. It’s amazing how different they all are. The question is, which one do you/would you have?
I’m selling them all at http://www.whatsupberlin.de in Berlin/ Germany. Personally I would choose the Ozone or the F-One, as they offer the most versatile and complete package – both on flat water, and in the ocean. Being a larger/ heavier rider, I would go for a 5m, or even 6m to foil here on local rivers (mostly with turning and gusty winds). I would choose a 4m or 5m to go foiling on the ocean. The Slingshot is a power machine, but might not being the right choice for everyone and everywhere. The Naish is for smaller pilots, a nice… Read more »
Yeah agree. The Ozone and F-One are great all round wings. I haven’t used any of the bigger sized wings yet.
Hi,
After having pay the monthly PRO, I didn’t succeed in getting access to PRO Contents. For instance, I have no Access to the full “wing test 2020”, only the preview (even after disconnecting/reconnecting, again and again).
I feel a little bit frustrated.
Could you please advise?
Thank you
Julien
Julien – sorry for the problems – we have fixed the problem for you and emailed you. If you don’t have the email, please check your junk / spam.
Damn good review, been wanting to see to a proper comparison. Can’t been that for thorough! Excellent.
I hope it has helped you Alex. Thanks
Hi Reuben, awesome review as ever. Please can you comment on your experiences with the boards and foils you used? I have had distinctly mixed success with a variety of isups and have essentially concluded it’s time to move on! So I was wondering what sup worked best in your tests and what foil you would recommend for a foiling novice? Cheers Kid
Hi Kiddo, Thanks for the comment – Reubens away right now but i’ll get back to you on his behalf – he will also jump in on this one later. ISUPs lack of a sharp rail mean you really need a drift stopper or centre fin. On composite all round touring boards we found that rail length was best to help upwind performance rather than width – so longer boards are good. We had all done a bit of windsurfing before as well as kiting, and generally surf small SUPs and were using 9′ boards. We think that 10’6 All… Read more »
Outstanding. Thanks Will. I was tending towards a fanatic fly bamboo 10’6” so it doesn’t sound like I was too far off.
I have used a driftstopper. It was fine for the first few tries and upwind is easy enough. However, it’s a bit like driving with the handbrake on and there is next to no chance of planing. I had a couple of great rides without it on a red ride 9’8” but I have struggled with less than consistent strong winds and pretty flat water as it’s hard to get onto a meaningful edge.
Hey kiddo , Will has pretty much nailed it. And I agree and think Fly bamboo would be a great move.
Nice one thank you Reuben.
Hey Will. I have a F ONE Swing on a 11′ Tom Caroll Outer Reef SUP. I am still having difficulty going upwind. And in general anything less than 12 kts steady wind is kinda hopeless. Would be great if you did a how to video on proper wing/sup technique.
On a side note, would a different fin setup help? Thanks!
Hi – yes, it will be hard to go upwind in the lighter winds, but not impossible. We will certainly look to try and make a tuitional on this soon.
Drift stoppers would be useful for you as something you can retro fit. A larger rear fin technically should help as well, but centre fins (middle of the length of the board) are what really will help.
Keep working on it and keep us updated 🙂
Hi there, this is a really helpful review (and the reason I subscribed!) I agree with most of the comments below, especially simplified categories at the end would be clearer. I think it would be helpful also to mention the date at the beginning when you are giving the prices (and maybe clarify how you are calculating the price – eg average of 3 online retailers) having it in 1 currency is fine. Also a few summary charts could be really helpful (you could use so-called spider charts) which would show all the ratings side by side. Keep up the… Read more »
Thanks for the comment and feedback. Yes, we will certainly be looking forward to improving the test for 2021 and already have some ideas. This was the first head to head test we did and certainly learnt some lessons. We cant wait to bring you guys more! Thanks for subscribing. Will – SUPboarder
Have y’all tried the stick sUP wINDER stick dagger board from Slingshot yet?
No we haven’t but I can see that it will work and help you stay up wind a little more when you are starting out. We have use dagger boards in the passed when teaching people it does help but as soon as they have got the basics it’s faster and more fun without the centre dagger board. If you have an old board it could be worth sticking it on though.
Hi Ruben and gang are you soon to do another wing test or have you done it and about to release the video.
Also I saw you had the Duotone echo do you also have the Duotone Unit as I have a 5m I can lend if you need one.
Hey Ross. Yes the 2021 Wing test is going to be getting underway in October we could have up to 12 wings this year…. Video will be live at the start of November. Thanks for the offer.