Flight Mode: Wing Foiling Nationals Land at Worser Bay Boating Club March 13-15 2026

More and more now if you stand on the deck at Worser Bay on a windy afternoon you’ll see it before you fully compute it. Boards lifting. Riders hovering. Wings carving clean lines against a sky that rarely does subtle. Wing Foiling is slowly taking over. While there are no official statistics there are multiple indicators pointing to a strong growing interest.

From 13-15 March, The 2026 New Zealand Wing Foiling Nationals are landing at Worser Bay Boating Club – three days of flight, speed and the occasional very public yard sale.

The Sport That’s Hooked Everyone

Wing foiling is the love child of windsurfing, kiting and hydrofoiling — minus the rigging drama. A hand-held wing, a foil board, and suddenly you’re levitating above the chop.

It’s one of the fastest-growing water sports in New Zealand. Why? Because once you feel that lift — that silent, frictionless glide — you’re done. Sailors, kiters, dinghy racers… they’re all crossing over.

When it works, it looks effortless.

When it doesn’t, everyone finds out quickly.

Nationals With Edge

This year’s event will see Open (Gold and Silver), Masters and Social fleets share the course.

Open and Masters riders are targeting up to 14 races across the regatta. The Social fleet will line up for six, competitive, but welcoming for those newer to racing and keen to test themselves.

Courses will rotate between slalom, course racing and downwind formats. In the Worser Bay ‘colosseum’, that means tactical decisions matter. So does nerve.

Worser Bay doesn’t hand out soft days. It rewards timing and punishes indecision. It has a personality, and it tends to favour the committed.

Backed by Experience

The Nationals are powered by the one and only premier sponsor PredictWind, fitting in a city where wind direction is both strategy and small talk.

Fleet sponsors Armstrong Foils, Axis Foils and PCC are backing the riders, while Waterspeed brings the numbers, prizes on offer and two months of PRO access for competitors. Every run tracked. Every knot logged. No inflated sea stories.

Two Waterspeed online pre-Nationals challenges are already live. Early bragging rights, with data to back them up.

International and Trans-Tasman Heat, Local Grit

Riders are travelling from around New Zealand, Australia and a bit wider, to line up in the Bay. The water may feel fresher than home for some, but the racing won’t lack warmth. With the 2025 vice world champion, Kamil Manowiecki from Poland, as well as kiwi Jeremiah McDonald who just won the Aussie Nats and whom also competes on the world tour.

Entries show a strong spread across women and men, Open and Masters, alongside a growing Social fleet that reflects just how accessible the sport has become.

Younger riders who’ve recently featured in development programmes around the latest SailGP event in Auckland are also in the mix. They’ve been throwing freestyle moves, backflips, front rolls and combinations that ignore sensible risk management, and getting straight back up.

The Masters bring experience.The youth bring bounce.

It’s a tidy equation.

The Quiet One to Watch

Among the fleet is WBBC’s own foiling coach, Hugo Appleby. Fresh off a 13th-place finish at the Australian Nationals, he’s been quietly putting in the hours at home.

No noise. No hype.

Just a dark horse building form in conditions he knows well.

Built for Spectators

One of the event’s strengths is proximity. Worser Bay Boating Club sits directly on the shoreline, giving supporters front-row access. All finishes will run right into the club frontage, high-speed approaches with very little margin.

The club has a history of hosting performance fleets and brings an experienced volunteer team to the operation. Tight race management. Efficient turnarounds. A focus on the sailing.

Follow the Action

Event photography and media coverage will be delivered by Widelens Photography, with support from Live Sail Die.

Expect daily imagery, race summaries, rider profiles and results across social channels and the WBBC website.

The goal is simple: if it flies, it gets captured. If it ends in a dramatic splashdown, that probably makes the edit too.

For those not on the shoreline, the story will still unfold in real time.

Ready to Launch

Event organisers remain in close contact with authorities regarding Wellington’s wastewater situation. Ongoing monitoring provides strong confidence that water quality will not impact the regatta, with updates shared if required.

Now it’s down to wind, timing and execution.

Three days. One Bay. No ceiling.

The 2026 Wing Foiling Nationals are ready to lift.

Registrations

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