So I'm looking to get my first rigid board. Maybe a little smaller than my first board, a Gong Hipe 85l.

Is another Gong board(maybe the Lemon or Lethal) the only cheap option, or are there others out there?

Fanatic Sky Wing was among the least expensive hard boards at least here in the USA, but prices have jumped ~20% for 2022.

Smik, Starboard , and a Suns all came in at under $1400 AUS

Since you asked about cheapest, I'll be the contrarian. Wing boards are among the simplest and least technical of any surf or wind related boards. That makes it one of the easier options out there for DIY. $300-400 in materials gets you a nice platform over your foil. Plus the satisfaction of riding a board you made!

Or a conversion: find an old kite race board or windsurfer that is gathering dust in someone's garage rafters, a little chopping and glassing, inserts tracks, close to free.

Or used: last year's super rad must-have board still works just fine this year, even though it's not as sexy any more. In buying a board, I'd prefer a used brand name that had good user feedback over a new lower echelon brand or no-namer off aliexpress. As construction quality does vary. Also, beware of claims of "light and strong"....from what I've seen, at anything other than the highest quality, those two things don't go together.

I've wondered about this exact point. When they're so simple to make, why are they so damn expensive? Especially with the new and simpler straight edge designs?

I might look into the DIY thing, looks like a fun project. Unfortunately not the best second hand marked here in Norway.

Takoon

Select to expand quote

Bennis123 said..
I've wondered about this exact point. When they're so simple to make, why are they so damn expensive? Especially with the new and simpler straight edge designs? I might look into the DIY thing, looks like a fun project. Unfortunately not the best second hand marked here in Norway.

I will qualify my remark before I get my head bit off -- as there's some high end builders on this forum. It is fairly simple and straightforward to make a "good enough" board. Chunky, floaty, not pretty, but solid. The high-end boards use space age materials and high-tech processes to make amazing pieces of kit ... and for those willing to part with the $$, I am sure they are a pleasure to ride. And for the pros who can use every slight edge they can get, those benefits may be justified. For the average rider doing average riding, meh, I am unconvinced how much difference it makes.

For $400ish in materials you can make an EPS board with carbon, glass, and epoxy -- but that's with bargain hunting for materials (eg gluing EPS insulatation, scraps, or hotwiring salvaged blocks). It would cost more at full retail. Add in extra for innegra and divinicel and fancy stuff...so up to $1000ish maybe. I figure the next $1000-1500 pays for labour (Thailand? Malaysia? China?), recoveries (R&D, marketing, overhead), and profit. I don't begrudge anyone trying to make a buck ... if there was no money in it,why would they bother? And if people are willing to pay $2500, they'd be foolish to sell them cheaper.

Anyways, the expense of foil boards 4-5 years ago pushed me to learn to build them. I'd always wanted to build surfboards, but way too intimidated. Foil boards were a lot less scary, as the finer details of hydrodynamics and fluid mechanics hardly matter. It has become a fun hobby. I went on a camping trip last week and was pretty stoked to realize that all the boards we brought for surf, foil, and wing were home made.

For a "good enough" board, just glue some styrofoam under a wood plank!

Brands spend a lot of R&D designing wing boards for maximum performance (ease of takeoff, stability in the water, lightness, reduced swing weight, recovering from touchdowns). This has a cost. Is it worth it for you? it depends on your expectations (and budget).

Diy route




20 year old kite board I can't even give away for someone's 7 or 8 year old to learn to surf on.

a grinder, pencil, dust mask, Stanley knife, tape measure, 200mls of epoxy resin ($20), foil tracks($70)and an hour later.

needs a sand and another layer of 6oz over the entire bottom. Going to kite it with an old foil and rope from foil to leg rope plug in case the foil falls off! glass the bottom/ seal the chopped off tail(not there yet).

Recycling stations are closed in nsw. have lots of plastic bottles, planning a 17mm form ply deck deck and plastic bottles to fill void, box with 4mm ply then glass to make a 100l board(volume less weight) @ 6 kgs it will be heavy. A bung to monitor water ingress. Thinking leave a 'cut out' so foil mounts directly to form ply deck for a direct feel and can move and fill holes as required.

*using dry plastic bottles to mix resin in.

*using 7/11 sticks to mix resin.

rant over, Simon.

Decathlon has a beginner surffoil board for under 400?. It is 6 feet with 50l,would work for winging but not ideal.
I think they will eventually make wingboards.

Gong used to sell the surffoil Matata EPS at 300?, a steal for a sweet board.I have one :)
But very small for winging unless you ride strong wind only.

Ask local shapers who work epoxy, unknown guys might make a non carbon wingfoiler for about 600? or so.

DIY from scratch gets pricey(and very messy) quick ,you need work space, supplies and tools.And for newbies it is possible to really screw up a lamination or curing stage,money gone.

Modding a cutoff old SUP or similar with foil boxes is another option.

Even an old 2005 starboard go 155L makes a good board once chopped up ! Enough bouancy for my 75kgs , 5 foot / 34 inch wide , a tuttle box so no need to mess around finding the foil position , flat, straight rear , so easy lift off , all my mates riding shop boards love it but find it much To large ! So do i but i haven't got round to chopping off the sides.

Loving the DIY ingenuity! Gluing styrofoam to plywood...saw one experiment posted of just that, and it worked -- xps so it doesn't absorb water. Bolt directly to plywood, no tracks or tuttle needed.

The varying degrees of finish will also have varied performance benefits and drawbacks ... but IMHO an intermediate wingfoiler mowing the lawn or riding small wind swell would barely notice a difference. [though I also recognize that some local 'gear-head' friends would disagree, as they find the 1/16th" difference in width dramatically affects their performance on their slow-motion touchdown gybes ]

Simon: caution about installing tracks directly in low density eps. There's quite a bit of force side to side and up and down, which means the underlying soft eps will likely deform over time, leading to wiggle and then eventually failure. So if you go this route, definitely use a tether so you don't lose your foil if (when) it fails! Binderdundat! You want them seated in higher density foam, ideally all the way to the deck glass, or at least pillars to the deck. And make sure that you have enough glass over top, first layer a foot around, then 2-3 more layers on top, each a little narrower. This video is informative:

I think this method could produce foil boards VERY easily:
thewoodbuddha.blogspot.com/2014/04/building-foam-core-wood-shortboard-yang.html?m=1

Notice they don't use any glass cloth and technically the epoxy coat isn't required for pelownia since it's naturally waterproof.

Thanks Juan some good ideas there. I am concerned about strength, but I will not really know till I give it a go.

I really like the router idea. To start with two solid plastic blocks glass them in and then router out the entire mounting track would save time. (30mins of removing resin from track!)

so next time I will use two blocks of timbre, glass them to the deck. Let it dry, sand flush with the bottom and glass. Then just predrill holes and screw foil to timbre. When I have decided where I want the foil, will buy inside and out threaded inserts and epoxy in place plus fill redundant holes. That will eliminate the fiddling around trying to aline nuts and bolts to mount foil.





a little sanding to do and might brush a filler coat over the patch.

I will post photos of failure if it occurs for the entertainment of all.

So in the mean time no news is good news!