New packs SUP First 2025

Ride-back guarantee: test your GONG kite!

Test your GONG kite!

2025 TEAM SERIES WINGS NOW AVAILABLE!

Discover the first pieces of the Swell collection!

Cart

Cart0

Your cart is empty !

It's flat around here...

Packs Wingfoil

Packs SUP

NEWS: THE KEYS OF FREE FLY

News
Wing

03 march 2022 0

Surfing endlessly on swell bumps without using the wing is the Holy Grail in wave riding. To get there, the right gear will help you, but that’s not all, as L’Ours explains on our GONG Galaxy Facebook group.

“Whatever the gear I use, I have about the same performance. Whether on different types of foils or different sizes. The REAL difference is firstly your ability to read the bumps and secondly the bumps ? For that you have to practice as much as possible. If I had one key piece of advice to give: fly as high as possible. And the second would be: never go down a bump. The third advice would be to always predict how the body of water will evolve, where you should anticipate to move to to find power and know where the dead zones are. And overall if you have to pump it’s because your reading is bad. One or two strokes of pumping is ok, but ten isn’t. A short mast is disabling because you have no room for maneuver. But using the high stall is a great relaunch tool because the cavitation causes a sudden acceleration.

Wing foiler: Malo, GONG team rider, in Lemon FSP Pro and Neutra 2022.

Obviously it’s easier with a Fluid XL-T for example, but even with the L-S and my 100kg I don’t find myself ridiculous ? So do some downwinds and learn to read the water. All those I see not really succeeding are flying too low: if more than a third of your mast is wet, it’s dead. But for fear of stalling, they place their foil UNDER the bump’s power and tilt zone. Big mistake. The other error is that they just go straight, their mistake is to confuse a vertical face with a power/lift zone: the power is in the volume of water, not in the vertical section

Wing foiler: Patrice Guénolé, Boss & Shaper GONG, on the Lethal FSP Pro and Neutra 2022.

Be careful with a high ratio foil because it will go even faster and will require an even more precise reading since you will find yourself quickly stuck at the bottom of the wave. Each level has its ratio!!! A pro will kill the game with a high ratio, but he will put less real turns. Is the pleasure to go full throttle to the end of the spot on a swell bump or to carve like you would in surfing? It’s up to you, we offer all the ratios imaginable. But don’t be fooled by the latest novelty. It is great but for whom and for what? A low ratio won’t bring you to the bottom of the bump and will allow you to fly much longer without pumping when you don’t have a high level that can read and connect the bumps.”

Find all our tips for free flying on swell bumps in this full how to.

-20%

Preorder