Incredible things are happening in the “riding a board on water” segment of the action sports populace. Of course the concept of a hydrofoil board really took off after the infamous sunscreen photo:
Zuckerberg is riding a very expensive electric-powered one that has a tiny propeller on the foil, but it’s also possible to go windpowered like in the top photo. Stand-up paddleboarding (aka SUP) is very popular and hydrofoil boarding is the next level. I have heard it is unbelievably difficult to ride these for longer than a single second without having your board tip dive into the water & eating shit spectacularly.
It is interesting to see what tinkering people are getting up to now that lightweight and relatively cheap/energy-dense batteries + motors are readily available. Quadcopters and e-bikes are only the beginning. Peter Sripol is a pretty cool youtuber who builds lots of things in this genre, mostly model planes.
I’m sure they would, winging seems much more analogus to windsurfing than kiteboarding ever felt (disclaimer you’re hearing this take from a person who last windsurfed at a clinic for teens, and only got up on a kite board once in my early 20s).
With winging you’ve got the flexibility in changing wind conditions by bringing different sized wings & the portability of kite gear, but actions like jibing and tacking with a wing seem more familiar to what you do when windsurfing vs flying a kite. Manipulating the wing & it’s angle of attack into the wind feels like you’re working a windsurf sail, only it’s leading edge is parallel with the water instead of upright & you no longer have a boom flailing about which might concuss you.
Again, I’ve never gotten up on the hydrofoil & I hear you need exacting foot placement/balance in order to not drive it into the drink. I had a hard enough time transitioning from kneeling to standing whenever I caught a big enough gust to pop up on the wing board. However, the best part was having the option of simply letting go of the wing whenever I needed to depower. That’s what makes it feel safer to me than previous windsports