Chris MacDonald

AT 17, A LOCAL WINGFOILER IS PUSHING THE SPORT TO NEW HEIGHTS

CHRIS MACDONALD IS ONE of the few wingfoilers who can land a 1080 — three full rotations in the air. Think a whirling top, a spinner dolphin. At 17 and currently ranked second in the surf-freestyle category of the

Global Wingsports Association (GWA) Wingfoil World Tour, MacDonald has been diligently working on this latest trick so he can wow the judges when he competes in June in the Canary Islands, Spain.

The use of a wing-shaped sail with a board can be traced to the early 1980s when windsurfing pioneers Jim Drake and Uli Stanciu took inspiration from flying fish and their ability to launch themselves out of the water using their fins. They designed and patented a wing rig for use on top of a surfboard. A few years later Tom Magruder took his invention, the “wind weapon” — a wing sail attached to a mast that was attached to a surfboard — out in the Gorge. But the foil technology wasn’t there yet, and instead windsurfing began to gain traction.

It took another thirty years for the wing to resurface, and the story is murky. According to Wingsurfing Magazine, Slingshot co-founder Tony Logosz of Hood River was experimenting with an inflatable wing-shaped sail and came out with prototypes for what he called the “Slingwing” in 2011. Another local trailblazer, Ken Winner, was also designing inflatable wings. Still, not much happened for a few years until surf foiling emerged in Hawaii and watersports legend Kai Lenny combined hydrofoils and wings. In an April 2019 video, Lenny holds a foil board and wing, walks toward the beach, and says, “I’m about to chart something really fun. I’m not sure what to call it. It’s kind of something between windsurfing and kiting.” The video went viral, and the sport took off.

Some attribute the popularity of winging to its relative ease of use and versatility. Compared to kiting, wingfoiling is safer, simpler and less cumbersome. It’s easier to learn than kiteboarding or windsurfing, but it can also be as extreme as you want it to be; experienced wingfoilers like MacDonald use the wing to launch high into the air and push the sport to new levels.

Sponsored by F-One, a French company, MacDonald is one of the few American riders in the GWA. This year, he is competing in numerous events around the world, from Cape Town, South Africa, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Last year, MacDonald placed first in the 2022 surf-freestyle competition in Silvaplana, Switzerland, and he won the event again at this year’s competition in Tauranga, New Zealand, in March.

When he isn’t competing, MacDonald trains mostly at the Hatchery and in La Ventana, Mexico. He has the passion, skill, and what his father calls the “it” to potentially win the world title. His father, also named Chris, attributes some of his son’s natural ability to years spent jumping on the trampoline and learning to maneuver his body without hurting himself. He also has the tenacity to practice a trick over and over again. In addition, the support of his parents has been key. “I’m just the caddy, now,” his father jokes, but in the beginning, he and his wife, Nicole, were instrumental in paving the road for his success.

For many teenagers, the Covid pandemic stunted their growth. But for MacDonald, who kited at the age of 12, the pandemic provided him the opportunity to take his middle school classes online in the morning and then beeline it from his home in Fairfax, Calif., to Crissy Field near the mouth of San Francisco Bay. With no tra c, the father-son duo could be on the water in less than thirty minutes.

It just so happened that a group of talented riders also would nish their work or school early and they, too, would sneak their gear into the Presidio (the park was o cially shuttered for a few months early in the pandemic) to play on the bay. Like many young kiters, MacDonald, 14 at the time, thought winging was “lame,” calling it “an old-person’s sport.”

But his dad was eager to get him to transition from kiting to winging after Chris Sr. had a “kitemare” at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. On an extremely windy day, his leash line came undone while he was self-landing his kite. e kite lines wrapped around his left index nger, severing it in half. Miraculously, someone found his nger in the sand and brought it to the hospital just in time for doctors to reattach it.

After the accident, Chris convinced his son to give winging a try. It took MacDonald about four days at Crissy Field to learn to stay upwind. In a short time, he was riding the swell at Fort Point and mastering front and back ips. He no longer thought winging was

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Best Running & Outdoor Store in the Gorge lame. It gave him freedom — freedom from the Covid lockdown and freedom to play on the water. “It’s hard to describe winging,” MacDonald says. “It’s like ying or snowboarding on a fresh powder day.” at summer, the MacDonald family packed their RV for their annual pilgrimage north to the Gorge. ey camped in a friend’s meadow and played on the river daily. MacDonald continued to spend hours