Winging on Ice

When the water freezes over...

-2° Celsius, light snowfall, moderate wind from the southeast - I could have gone wing foiling that day, but I’d already waited a few years to finally get out on the ice with a wing. So I had to turn down the invitation to join my colleagues for a session on the Baltic Sea in Damp.

Temperatures have been below freezing for over a week now, but the ice just wouldn’t form on the large lakes around Kiel. The last time that happened was in February 2021, but I couldn’t go ice skating with a wing back then because I didn’t have skates. I’ve got them now, but so far I’ve only been to indoor rinks.

Is the ice thick enough? Even the smaller bodies of water didn't look very safe last week; even at our village pond, the ice near the shore was clearly too thin.

During spot checks on Thursday and Saturday at a lake north of Kiel that’s popular with ice skaters, some skaters still ended up falling through the ice (into knee-deep water). So I skipped those opportunities, even though the wind conditions would have been good. But two more cold days, with temperatures dropping to double digits below freezing at times, were enough to make it safe to go out on the ice there.

Monday morning had another advantage: instead of the 200 people who had been there over the weekend, there were now just a dozen or so skaters on the ice. That meant there was plenty of room to zoom across the ice with the wing.

Here's a short video of the wing foil session on ice

The wind was gusty, but just strong enough to get me moving with a 5-square-meter wing. Pumping it up on the ice was a bit of a challenge: with my skates already on, I had to wedge the pump between the blades. Just standing on it, like you would on the beach, doesn’t work - unless you’re an ice-skating princess.

Then I got started - my first time sledding on the frozen lake. It’s easy to get going because of the low initial resistance, even though natural ice is anything but smooth. The ice surface was groomed more like a mogul slope, but you get used to it quickly. Once you’re up to speed, you can glide for a long time and even perform maneuvers similar to those in wing foiling.

Bottom line: More wind and smoother ice would have been better, but it was still a lot of fun. An interesting variation - though sliding on ice doesn’t quite compare to the sensation of foiling.

Being able to skate is an advantage; if you know how to skate, you can hit the ice right away even as a beginner at wing. The reverse isn’t true: even experienced wing players without skating experience are likely to have a much harder time...

Text: Jürgen Schall Photos/Videos: Jürgen Schall DE

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