Surf Cat

The trend of youth sailing has been to refine the execution of instruction, and while this may improve the racing ability of those kids that love competition, what may get forgotten is how unstructured free-play is what builds a lasting connection to the sport.

But as COVID-19 regulations limited much of the organized plans, it opened the door for kids to mess around on something new such as wing foiling. Bay Area Kitesurf, which represents the F-One brand, shares a recent idea that clicked:

One group that we love to see on the water having so much fun are the young ones. And they are having a blast! They don’t need to be advanced kiteboarders or foilers to start doing this, they can pick up wing foiling in no time, and then you turn around and next time you see them they will jump over you.

In the San Francisco area, we are blessed with daily strong wind for a large part of the year and this young group of kids are showing everybody how it’s done. Average age is 14.

We had this idea to bring them all to a place where we could (legally) fly a drone, get some footage from the water (thanks GoPro) + the shore too (check out the whole album here). Treasure Island that day (Saturday September 19, 2020) was the spot to be. There is no beach per say, more like a windsurfing spot, but who needs a beach when you wing foil?

We would give them the footage and each of them would create their own edit during their time off, and voila! they are all big time winners anyway, but still, let’s do a “Vote for the best Video” contest just for the fun of it.

So here are the entry videos (click here), ranked by age, watch them all, rank them and the winner will feature in the F-One social media channels! Only one vote person please!

Do you have a story for how the restrictions in 2020 created an opportunity to try something new? Send to editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com.