Duotone Float

Duotone are well established in the wing market now, with a strong line of products. The popular Unit now sits as the allrounder, and whilst capable in waves, there’s definitely a place for a wave-specific wing. This year, designer Ken Winner has provided with the Float, with Finn and Jeffrey Spencer providing the feedback and testing. It comes in seven sizes from 2.5 to 5.5m2 in half-meter increments.

The Float is an interesting design, specific to the task in hand. It has a mid-level of canopy tension in the front of the profile behind the leading edge and quite squared wingtips and a fairly extended strut. The canopy tension has been individually tuned for each size to maintain consistency throughout the range. To minimize weight, the Float comes with a boom-only option (two different sizes span the range) rather than a twin set of handles, as this slims four fixed points down to two. It also means one-handed control is fairly easy as you can hold that balance point. Windows have been omitted from the design as well, providing further weight saving and a smoother canopy. Materials employed are carried over from the rest of the range with a MOD3 S canopy material in the rear of the sail and a 50G ripstop in the front section. Two battens per side help control the leech and minimize flapping, which seems very effective even when overpowered: there’s very little vibration.

What’s immediately noticeable is that the wing flies off the front arm, with the rear arm pressure fairly light comparatively, enabling easy and accurate sheeting. Its power generation is instant enough and it feels positive to pump against. Around points of sail, whilst capable upwind, it’s nothing particularly spectacular, but the magic comes when it’s on the neutral handle flagged out. As you’d expect it trails behind you very well, almost using the downturned strut as a rudder to help point the wing directly behind your direction of travel. In this position it runs very neutrally, not lifting or pushing down and requiring any correction or much attention, exactly what you want when you’re concentrating on wave positioning. Rather than go for the loose billowy canopy as some brands opt for their wave wing, the Float feels a little more dynamic and snappy, and pops into place positively when you come out of a tack, this is particularly noticeable when it’s offshore; the sail doesn’t vibrate much when running hard into wind on a wave.

The front-flagging handle is quite large and stiff, important to control a wing whose primary function is wave riding. If you are passing the wing behind your back during a tack in offshore conditions this is very easy to grab blind, you can almost get two hands on it at once, and it sports an enormous neoprene knuckle guard for comfort. The other great news is that at no point does the wing feel like it wants to flip over whilst flagged, which was one of the less endearing features of the legacy Unit models.

The Float is very specific to the wave discipline as you’d expect, and does a great job for the rider that likes to flag the wing behind them with a minimum of fuss and concentrate on the wave and manage their positioning well. This would obviously carry over well into a downwind situation where, as long as the bump is faster than the wind, the Float is quite passive. If waves are your primary discipline, and you live in a location where the wave is faster than the wind, then the Float makes a good job of being unobtrusive.