Ken Winner's inflatable wing

After watching Flash Austin at Kanaha in March 2018, Ken Winner, a designer for the Duotone brand, started building a wing of his own. His version had inflatable tubes, like a kite, instead of a frame.

“In June of 2018 I tried my first wing and I was able to just get on the board and go immediately,” he said. His first prototype measured 2.5 square metres.

Not everyone was convinced. When he showed a prototype at an event in the Columbia River Gorge, nobody paid any attention. The turning point came when he got Till Eberle, head of Duotone’s parent company, to try it on Maui. “Wingfoiling is easy, lots of people can do it!” Eberle said. Winner recalls that this test, in November 2018, was the point at which they decided to go into production.

Duotone started selling its Foil Wing, designed by Winner, in the spring of 2019, among the first inflatable wings on the market.