A wing for ice and snow

The hand-held wing survived the 1980s on frozen water. In 1986 Sami Tuurna, inspired by Drake’s wing of 1981, began testing home-made prototypes on downhill skis on the ice outside Helsinki.

In 1988 his wing went into production as the SkimBat, made by Tech Center Ltd. In 1994 it won a design prize and was approved by the World Ice and Snow Sailing Association as a new racing class for hand-held wings.

In 2006 Skywings Ltd, Carl-Magnus Fogelholm’s company, was renamed Kitewing Sports and the wing became the Kitewing. Fogelholm’s redesign had fibreglass mast tubes and pre-shaped aluminium battens, and kept the SkimBat’s curved boom for the rear hand. In the 2010s it became popular in Europe on frozen lakes and hard-packed snow. It was fast, but it could not do much else.

On water the hand-held wing was still waiting for a board with less drag. When Slingshot presented its Slingwing in 2019, the Kitewing was named as one of its inspirations.