NZ Wing Foiling Nationals are landing at Worser Bay Boating Club - March 13-15 2026

NZ Wing Foil Nationals will be sailed at Worser Bay - March 13-15, 2026 © Mel Parkin, Widelens Photography

The 2026 Wing Foiling Nationals are landing at Worser Bay Boating Club — and it’s going to be fast.

Stand on the deck at Worser Bay on a windy afternoon and you’ll see it before you fully compute it.

Boards lifting. Riders hovering. Wings carving clean lines against a sky that rarely does subtle.

From 13-15 March, that everyday spectacle sharpens into something more deliberate, the 2026 New Zealand Wing Foiling Nationals at Worser Bay Boating Club.

For three days, the Bay trades its usual rhythm for start sequences, tight mark roundings and flat-out sprints to the finish, sometimes running straight toward the clubhouse. Close enough to hear the calls. Close enough to see who committed and who hesitated.

NZ Wing Foil Nationals will be sailed at Worser Bay - March 13-15, 2026 - photo © Mel Parkin, Widelens Photography

Wing foiling has shifted from fringe to front-line in just a few seasons. A handheld wing. A hydrofoil lifting the board clear of the surface.

Reduced drag. Elevated consequences.

It’s part sailing, part balance, part calculated send.

Across New Zealand, sailors and board riders have crossed over in numbers. The hook is simple: once you’ve felt that moment of clean lift, the hum of the foil locking in, you don’t really want to go back to pushing water around.

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.

NZ Wing Foil Nationals will be sailed at Worser Bay - March 13-15, 2026 - photo © Mel Parkin, Widelens Photography

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.

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.

Links:

Registrations: www.wbbc.org.nz/events/2026-predictwind-wingfoil-nationals

Instagram: www.instagram.com/worserbayboatclub?igsh=MWd5bmU5YmR2aXNsZQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr