My Wingjourney

A Windsurfer starts Wingfoiling

I am passionated Freestyle Windsurfer – you know that. But this year I  found a new passion Wingsurfing. What I like about Winging? Jumps and Freestyle with almost no Wind – I could not even get planing with my big Freestyle Gear. Now I wanna take you on a journey from my first contact with a wing to my first jumped 360. 

I still believe that learning Winging as a Windsurfer is easier as as a Kitesurfer. Before I touched a Wingboard for the first time this spring, I made quite some experience with Windsurf-Foiling the last two seasons. But back to the start. My dayjob is being a videographer (www.visionstorm.net), why I tell you this? Because this was exactly my motivation to get started. LastWinter I was shooting an ION-Commercial with my friend Stefan Spiessberger on Traunlake.. He pulled of the craziest freestyle tricks with his Wingfoil in light winds and the windsurfers were not even planing. I was pretty impressed. But you know the delivery situation due to covid. The winter arrived hard and my ACL did not help either – but only two Lockdowns later I finally stood with my own Wingequipment on the beach in Podersdorf. 

The First Wingsession

My friend Bertl (from Surfshop Upsidedown now teaching his passion at Wing2Fly) showed me quick how to handle a wing on land and we hit the water. To be honest I did not want to take part in a proper course, but it was super nice to have someone with me to coach me a bit. So I kneed on my board -as Bertl showed me on the beach), and the rest was pretty intuitive. My Windsurffoiling helped me a lot I think. As I was already foiling after 5m (Metres! not Minutes). But to say the truth I had no control haha and could hardly go downwind as I was so powered up. After my first session I could foil savely had control but jibing was quite difficult, altough for a Windsurfer its quite intuitive – especially when you understood you need to keep the board straight as on a Windsurf-Foil. 

The Second and Third Wingsession

When I hit the water for the second time – just a few days after, I already foiled through my first jibes. Then I tried to tack the first time! I straight lost my board (haha). Pro Tipp: Use a leash in the beginning. Ok not real talk. After the the 3rd session or during the 3rd session (with no straps) I was already quite bored, I thought maybe Wingfoiling is not the right thing for me. I mean also on the Windsurfkit I hate going straight, waiting doing more or less freeride… I could already do Jibes both ways, normal and swich, and tacking on one side. 

The Gamechanger in Wingsurfing

I told this to Stefan Spiessberger. He said: „Go for Straps, go for Tricks, I had the same feeling in the beginning!“ I did. I mounted straps and went on the water in Neusiedl with a light Southwind. That day I started jumping. I never thoguht that would be so much fun! I jumped and jumped. I was on the water 6h that day, I just could not stop. I started to do Swich 180 and tried 360 and I was really hooked from that moment on. What I like about the straps beside jumping, you have much more control over the board and you never loose the board without leash – just if you kick it to the lee-side – just don’t do that! 😉

The next Chapter in my Wingfoiling

Now you will ask yourself – Whats next?

After starting jumping, you realize Winging with a bit more pressure in the Wing is fun too. More power in the Wing, the higher you can go. To be honest with the support of Surfshop Upsidedown and Fanatic Austria I could always try smaller foils. I started with a 2000 Surf Front Wing which has almost no take of Speed, after the first session I swiched to the 2000 High Aspect which is already a lot faster and looking back I would say thats a really good Frontwing to get started and even do some big jumps in lightwind! With more speed tacking and jibing is easier! After that I changed to a 1500 High Ascpect Frontwing which I am riding now almost all the time! (Update 2022: I am now riding a 1250 High Aspect as a biggest Frontwing and a Aero Carve 900 as a Highwind Wing)

After I had control in straight jumps, and riding swich for a Freestyle Windsurfer is almost the most normal thing on the plang I decided to try swich 180 first. I also tried 360 quickly, but that was diffictult on the first tries. A few sessions later (2-3) I landed the first ones. The bigger you go the harder it gets to control it! 

A question I got often asked: With what kit I started. I started with a 5m Duotone Echo and quickly upgraded to the Slick (Update 2022: I am riding a Slick SLS now). The Board was a Fanatic Sky Wing with 95l 

And the those whole Journey took of! Winging under the bridge, riding a smaller board, using smaller wings, using smaller foilwings and pushing my self to go bigger…

A Comeback Season

Puh. I was working hard for that. After the break up with my ACL – I was struggling a lot. Anyways more Covid Restrictions made it travelling this Winter difficult anyways. So I launched into the news season super early. 29th of February. 6 Weeks after I was using crutches. And oh man. I could not resist going all in again….haha. Sailing in the cold was quite nice for my knee as it got less swolen but my fingers, face and toes did not like it soo much. I was still struggling a lot in going swich as I could hardly twist. The spring went by super fast. I started Winging (maybe I give you a quick update on my Wingstory here aswell). I did a Video about one of my favourite spots: the bridge. 

Despite a lot of personal problems I went to Fuerte with my friends. First real Windsurftrips for ages. We had so much fun on this boystrip. Max Matissek and me pushing back to bounderies in Freestyle. And I realized for the first time in ages that I still have a lot in the tank and I wanna push more and more. So here we are. Short before changing my Life to more Windsurfing again. As a sidenote over the last years I got a fulltime filmmaker/cinematograher and I really enjoy my job: if you wanna follow my journey check out: https://www.visionstorm.net.

The Lake season btw was pretty good with the added Wingsport I could be more on the water than ever. But check out a few of my pics…

I just came back from Garda Lake working as a Videographer for Duotone Windsurfing for the first time. I stayed one day longer and got some nice Winging done there aswell. Anyways Winter is approaching fast so it’s finally time for my first winterescape since almost forever. I am hyped. 

I will end up the Year with an amazing trip to Brazil…but more in the next post…

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2020 – A Covid Season

Year 2020. Where should I begin. That was probably the most unexpected year for everyone – with a lot of changes for me. 

Anyways back to the start. The 2020 Season I started in Capetown as the year before. Actually it was a pretty good trip with lots of good conditions, nice light, shootings, Freestyle Sessions and of course fighting some massive 3.7 Wave Conditions with my friends.

Arriving home mid of March the shit collapsed. I mean you all now that those Covid took over our whole life – changing everything. So it was on my end as well. Almost all of my projects got cancelled and I got more and more dissapointed. As it wouldn’t be enough they did even forbid us to go Windsurfing on our Lake for more than two months. 

But then I got at least my Windsurfing Back. And I sailed more and longer than ever which will be forever the best Neusiedler Lake Season in my mind. You never know when the next wind is arriving or you will be allowed to go Windsurfing the day after. 

What followed was the first summer since I can remember where I did not go on a real trip. Something I promised to myself when I got selfemployed – that I will always go on trips and sail as much as possible. Surf-Work Balance. Anyways I ende up doing two very short trips to Denmark and Lake Garda. On Lake Garda I scored some good sessions to get back in shape for the Austrian Championships – BUT also tored my ACL. This year was getting better and better. 

The week after we had Austrian Championships, super hard light wind conditions and I had some very good heats – but still in the semi final – I was struggling with the swich power moves….so I could not make it through and finished the small final with a very strong heat (especially when you remember that I was without an ACL), landing 3 Powermoves on each side, securing me the podium with at least the highest scored heat of that day. 

Afterwards the struggle started again and even more. Lockdowns. Travelrestriction. Pain. Crutches. 

Hopefully 2021 will be a better one. With more Travelling, more Windsurfing, more Waves, more Freestyle and less negative Vibes

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Spring Season in Austria

An awesome Springseason here in Austria comes to an end, I guess this was one of the best years I can remember. Podersdorf and the Bridge were delivering! You name it, we had it. 3.6 full power for days? YES! 4.4 perfect freestyle conditions and warm water?! Yes, 5.2 lonely Foiling yes!!!
One of my personal highlights: winning the Austrian Champonships again. So I can call myself at least for one more year Austrian Freestyle Champion #twoinarow. check my short insta360 edit below…

Changes: Boardwise, we started quite early with developing the Freestyle Board further. After Capetown (and almost 3 seasons without changes) I had some ideas and wishes to make the Freestyle compact better. I was testing a few boards and was really conviced that I need more control but wanna keep the Skateboardfeeling – as some of the productionboards were quite boring. We introduced a wider square nose and more parallel rails. Further more we changed the length fromn 207 to 211 to get a bit more control in gnarly conditions into the board, to achieve that also the bottom got a slightly work over. Well, it works pretty good. After testing some days and changing boards run per run, tuning the setup I am convinced that this is my weapon of choice.

Foil: Yes I am going Foiling a lot lately, as it increases my Windsurfdays on Lake Neusiedl to almost 100% if I am keen. As many of you keep asking me through instagram. The biggest sail I use is the Duotone Idol 5.2 My Board is a custom Flikka Foil Board with a length of 204 and 74 wide and has 105l. I would describe it as a easy freeride board, perfect for learning. I made some fast progress on and can really recommend you a pure foilboard. If I feel ready for more advanced freestyle (I already do 360, Duckjibes, Jumps, riding fullspeed back….) I think I gonna change to something different, a bit more agile – but for now this board is perfect for me.
I use a Fanatic Foil with the „smaller“ 900 Frontwing. This is enough for me to fly when there is almost no wind (15m kites not working on a waveboard). I found out with my weight this has more control than a bigger frontwing.

Future Plans:
I gonna travel to Mauritius soon, will try to boost my level one more. Let’s see. Beside that I will put a lot of effort in my Media Project „Visionstorm“. I also realized my first TV Show for A1 now this spring which includes also some portrait of me – will let you know as soon it’s watchable!

Max

Surfgames 2019

After probably the best Springseason we ever had in Austria - the Austrian Freestyle Championships took place in Podersdorf during the Surfgames in the End of May. Unfortunatly there was just one very windy day (4.4 powered up) were we could Windsurf - so the format was a Super-Session. I could win in front of Chris Sammer with some solid Powermoves. Afterwards we run some Towin the whole weekend - but counted the contest already after just a few runs...so I had not such good moves counting (after many years without towin) and got 2nd. But with all those trainingsrun it would look totally different on the last day, as I landed Airfunnel Funnels and pushed for double Airfunnels... Anyways I had a super nice time with all the boys and can't wait to sail with them again soon. I got some proper Coverage in Austrian biggest newspaper (Kronenzeitung) and AustrianTV aswell. As it is still windy every week I will continue to chase the storms here and go a bit foiling between! Thanks for your support and see you soon.

Max