Every once in a while, we get slightly crazy ideas in our heads. This year is no different, and here we are. Wing foil is an exciting and still new water sport that draws influence from windsurfing and kitesurfing. It’s a really great activity anyone can try no matter their previous experience. Naturally, having some knowledge of other water sports helps a lot. In our lovely center, you can learn wing foil, so to teach you guys, we had to learn it first. After a year of steady practice and progress, it became clear that we needed a new challenge. Foil sailing allows you to explore more, so we set for an island-hopping adventure in Šibenik.
The weather conditions were really nice, sunny, and windy. We used a Fanatic Sky Wing Soft top with Aero 2400 foil and a Duotone 4.0 Unit wing. The idea was to have as much lift as possible during island rounding due to wind holes. At the same time, it was important to save up energy, so a smaller wing was a good choice. Even though we thought about doing this for a long time, it took one afternoon to set everything up. We triple-checked the gear, and the forecast, charged the phone, and contacted a support crew to be on standby in case of an emergency.
Martina and Heinrich decided to watch the action from their balcony, so it was just me out there. It was absolutely amazing. Before starting my trip I wasn’t 100% if I would go around the island of Zlarin, so the first goal was to reach a group of smaller islands just on the south-east side of Zlarin.
To my surprise, I got upwind easily, so it was clear that I had to go all the way around. The second part, the downwind leg, didn’t go as planned. I spent way more time going downwind, and waaaay further from Zlarin so I actually ended all the way to the island of Obonjan.
This downwind leg was super challenging. It was hard to maintain focus for so long, but at the end of the day, I was very happy to sail this route. It took me 3.5 hours for 60km. I had 20-minute non-foiling conditions in the beginning and two brakes to relax a bit. It’s hard, to sum up just in a few words this experience, so here’s a short video to illustrate the fun I had. Being out there on my own is something I’ll remember forever…or next year when I find someone to go along on an even longer adventure.
We hope you enjoy the video. Stay salty. 🙂