Perf Series Technology: Fiberglass Prepreg

Key Highlights

• High-end prepreg fiberglass construction designed to combine performance, durability, forgiveness, repairability, and an accessible retail price.
• Built using the same design philosophy, tooling, fit-and-finish, quality control, simulation methods, and manufacturing standards as the V3 Atmo Team and Pro Team ranges.
• Fiberglass selected for its outstanding balance of performance, strength, and cost, offering excellent impact resistance, high mechanical tolerance, and straightforward repairs.
• A painted finish replaces exposed clear carbon, reducing retail cost while making repairs easier after impacts.
• Custom-molded high-density hydrophobic foam core reduces weight, provides structural support, improves buoyancy, limits water absorption after impacts, and ensures perfect manufacturing consistency.
• Prepreg reinforcement with precisely controlled fiber content and fiber-to-resin ratio.
• Capability to manufacture our own prepregs in-house: selected dry fibers, resin formulated for the required mechanical properties, controlled resin content, refrigerated storage, precision CNC cutting, and layup according to our laminate schedules.
• Laminate schedules engineered around real-world load cases including bending, torsion, compression, pumping, carving, impacts, connection stresses, and cyclic fatigue.
• Fiber orientations optimized for each section of the wing using UD, 0/90°, ±45°, triaxial fabrics, and localized carbon reinforcements around high-load and connection areas.
• CNC-cut laminate plies ensure perfect geometry, fiber orientation, placement accuracy, and repeatability from one wing to the next.
• Dedicated steel foam molds for every wing model and size, producing the exact core geometry required.
• Ultra-high-precision steel molds for front wings, CNC-machined on 5-axis equipment in our production facility, ensuring identical wings from the first to the last unit.
• High-pressure molding in heated presses with carefully controlled curing and cooling cycles to maximize composite mechanical performance.
• Precision finishing in dedicated workshops, including inspection of trailing edges, surface quality, and connection interfaces.
• V3 SuperLock self-tightening connection system manufactured to extremely tight tolerances for a rigid, reliable, and silent assembly.
• Perf Series technology makes the outstanding V3 Atmo shapes available to a wider audience without compromising manufacturing standards.

Fiberglass: Strength and Easy Repairability

Fiberglass is an excellent material choice for the Perf Series. While more affordable than carbon fiber, it offers several important advantages: excellent impact resistance, high mechanical tolerance, predictable behavior, straightforward repairs, and outstanding long-term durability.

For wings designed to encourage progression, frequent use, occasional contact with the bottom, and the inevitable mistakes that come with learning, this superior impact resistance is a major benefit.

The simplified painted finish also contributes to easier maintenance. Unlike exposed clear carbon finishes, a painted wing is far easier to repair after an impact. This is a deliberate choice, perfectly aligned with a product range that aims to be high-performing, durable, accessible, and easy to maintain over the long term.

Prepreg Technology and Fiber Content Control

All reinforcement fibers used in V3 Atmo foils are processed as prepreg, meaning they are pre-impregnated with resin before layup. We do not use dry layup with resin infusion inside the mold, as this process cannot achieve the level of precision required for a high-performance foil. Prepreg technology allows precise control of the fiber-to-resin ratio, ensuring optimized weight, laminate compaction, stiffness, shear strength, torsional resistance, final thickness, mechanical consistency, and curing quality.

In a composite structure, performance depends directly on the fiber volume fraction. The actual proportion of structural fibers relative to the resin. The fibers carry the loads, while the resin binds them together, transfers forces, and stabilizes the structure without adding unnecessary weight. Excess resin makes the wing heavier and reduces its mechanical efficiency, while insufficient resin creates dry spots, weak areas, or poor bonding. The objective is therefore not to add more resin to make the structure "stronger," but to apply precisely the right amount of resin around correctly oriented fibers.

GONG goes a step further by being able to manufacture its own prepregs in-house. Selected dry fibers are impregnated with resins specifically formulated for the required mechanical properties, with precise control of resin content, refrigerated storage, CNC cutting according to exact ply schedules, and layup following our engineered laminate plans. This capability is exceptionally rare in the foil industry, as it requires a true composite manufacturing infrastructure, controlled storage procedures, tightly managed processing times, and production volumes sufficient to justify the investment. It allows us to define the material itself according to each wing, its intended use, expected loads, and desired riding characteristics, rather than relying on standard off-the-shelf prepregs.

Steel Tooling for Absolute Consistency

V3 Atmo Perf Series front wings are manufactured using ultra-high-precision steel molds.

This is an uncommon industrial choice in the foil industry because steel tooling is significantly more expensive than aluminum molds. The material itself is more costly, machining requires considerably more time, and manufacturing demands a much higher level of expertise.

However, steel provides one decisive advantage: long-term dimensional stability.

Where aluminum molds can gradually wear, lose edge definition, deform, or drift out of tolerance, steel molds maintain their precision over time, allowing every foil to be identical, from the very first production unit to the last.

For GONG, this repeatability is fundamental. Every foil should deliver the same profile, trailing edge geometry, connection fit, and riding characteristics regardless of its production date.

All molds are machined in-house on our 5-axis CNC equipment, ensuring complete quality control while protecting the confidentiality of our designs.

This level of tooling precision is essential for maintaining hydrodynamic profiles, thickness distributions, transitions, connection interfaces, and trailing-edge geometry with extreme accuracy. On a foil, variations of only a few tenths of a millimeter can affect glide efficiency, stall characteristics, noise, ventilation behavior, and overall stability. Tooling precision is therefore a true performance factor, not merely an aesthetic consideration.

V3 SuperLock Connection System

Connection interfaces are manufactured and inspected to equally demanding standards.

The self-tightening V3 SuperLock system requires extremely tight tolerances to function correctly. The wing must fit together precisely, lock securely under load, remain completely rigid while riding, and still be easy to disassemble after the session.

This level of mechanical precision directly influences the rider's feel and confidence on the water.

Test Benches and Proactive Quality Control

GONG also operates mechanical test benches developed specifically for the demands of foil engineering. These systems enable rigorous monitoring of production quality by measuring stiffness, strength, connection integrity, bending, torsional behavior, and manufacturing consistency.

A foil is subjected to enormous and repeated loads throughout its lifetime. Quality therefore cannot rely solely on visual inspection, a final quality check, or warranty analysis. Our approach is proactive: every stage of production is monitored to ensure consistent mechanical performance before the product ever reaches the water.

The GONG Paradox

The Perf Series perfectly illustrates what makes GONG unique: an exceptionally accessible retail price combined with an unusually high level of engineering, tooling, quality control, and manufacturing.

The affordability does not come from lowering our standards. It comes from our production volumes, the size of the global GONG rider community, our direct-to-consumer business model, our industrial choices, our extensive in-house expertise, and the intelligent optimization of materials and finishing processes.

The V3 Atmo Perf Series front wings combine high-performance foil designs with premium prepreg fiberglass construction, delivering outstanding durability, forgiveness, impact resistance, and easy repairability. They feature custom-molded foam cores, engineered laminate schedules, ultra-high-precision steel tooling, tightly controlled manufacturing processes, and the V3 SuperLock mechanical connection standard.

It is this accumulation of countless invisible details that gives the Perf Series wings their distinctive feel on the water: smooth and predictable takeoff, stable flight, controlled stiffness, silent glide, exceptional forgiveness, perfect consistency from one wing to the next, and immediate confidence under your feet.