Author Topic: How many Wingers worldwide?  (Read 2171 times)

SurfIC

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How many Wingers worldwide?
« on: December 11, 2021, 06:40:33 AM »
Interested to know how many Wingers we think there are worldwide. Here in the UK it's still relatively niche and small numbers albeit increasing quickly. At my local beach around 200 regular kiters and now around 15 regular Wingers. If the formula was applied to the whole of the UK around 7.5% of the UK kitesurfing number. 59000 kiters * 7.5%= 4425. I'd be very surprised if that many people are winging in the UK.

What do we reckon on numbers worldwide and when/if will it surpass kitesurfing in numbers. I personally think it will exceed kitesurfing based on what I can see happening locally.
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surfcowboy

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Re: How many Wingers worldwide?
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2021, 02:53:40 PM »
I wonder this as well but have no good way to figure it out. The numbers seem low in SoCal but we weren't a huge kite area compared to some.

Our crew has around 70 members but that's spread over a lot of ground. So I'd guess maybe 200-300 in SoCal tops. Hdip, you agree?

I'm actually thinking not selling my old foil now and leaving it back home in the South next summer. Partially for me and partially to sucker all my friends into trying it. If every lake in America had an ambassador this thing would be huge. I know it.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2021, 02:55:58 PM by surfcowboy »

Hdip

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Re: How many Wingers worldwide?
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2021, 05:24:19 PM »
Count the wings at the local wing beach. Figure out how many wing beaches. Extrapolate. I’d say 70 in Ventura alone.

All the major brands are selling out which I think is a better indicator.

PonoBill

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Re: How many Wingers worldwide?
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2021, 08:42:16 PM »
Last year one of the wing designers for a major brand told me they are short of material to build wings by some stupid number--my memory sucks, but I think he said 15,000. That's one manufacturer and it's just how SHORT they are, he didn't give me the sales number.

At one point I thought this sport was going to be me and five friends. I don't think so now.
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surfcowboy

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Re: How many Wingers worldwide?
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2021, 07:56:00 PM »
I remember that Pono. But I struggle to think one manufacturer is doing those numbers but I don't know. The world is big. But if so, the biggest wingers on YouTube are doing dismal numbers because most videos can't break a couple thousand views.

Ok so real time edit. I was wrong. Damien LeRoy has 198k views on his "how to wing foil" video in 10 months. That could track to a couple hundred thousand actual viewers wingers if you counter the curious vs those who don't use YouTube. Damien's got 17,000 subscribers and you know he's far from capturing the whole audience. Hmmm.

Hdip

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Re: How many Wingers worldwide?
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2021, 08:38:39 PM »
You’re forgetting Germany.

Northern foil monkey

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Re: How many Wingers worldwide?
« Reply #6 on: December 14, 2021, 12:41:02 PM »
New Zealand It seems to be booming compared to any other wind sports, I live in windy Wellington and the wings now are very often outnumbering the windsurfers or kites on any given spot.  Does depend on conditions though, if it's 30+kts and waves the windsurfers all come out of the woodwork, if its blowing and flat the kites appear, but more and more often the wingers are starting to outnumber them both.

I think it is helped by the fact that in the first year or so of winging, the rest of the world spend much of it's time in lockdown, but New Zealand had lots of free time with working from home and not being able to travel overseas, more expendable income as we couldn't travel and have a healthy economy... and had the worlds top foiling athletes and developers in stuck one place for an extended period with Americas Cup.

Maybe New Zealand is not typical, but here I feel that winging is going to overtake windsurfing in numbers quite quickly, and it kiting will not be far behind.

 


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