Matt Kaufmann: "Matt on Foil"
| Test fleet | 18 parawings ranked across brands, with no single sponsor setup published in our sources |
| Top verdicts | F-One Frigate (top pick) · Gong Lowkite Plus (budget) · Triple777 (speed/value) |
| Channels | Up On Foil Podcast · Instagram @mattonfoil |
Tips library: attributed, timestamped
“Remember, it's a different sport. You need more balance, more wind per square meter of cloth and also more nerves.”
Stand Up Magazin interview with Matthias Kaufmann, September 2025; verified verbatim against the published interview
“Parawings free the hands and eliminate the wing flying around your ears in freefly wave riding.”
Paraphrased from Kaufmann's published commentary; the original outlet and episode are not specified in our research
Parawing gear database → What is parawing foiling? → All riders we track
Matt Kaufmann, “Matt on Foil,” is the closest thing parawinging has to an independent test lab. He splits his time between Silvaplana and Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, hosts the Up On Foil Podcast, and built his reputation on measured, data-driven gear reviews in a sport where most buying advice comes from sponsored riders. Among the riders we track he sits in the educator tier. No race results behind his standing. Just measurements.
One correction, because it keeps circulating wrong: Kaufmann hosts the Up On Foil Podcast, not the Foil Life Podcast. Foil Life is the SFT’s official podcast with a different host (Luc Moore); Kaufmann appears on its gear-review shows as a guest.
The testing method
He weighs wings on grocery-store vegetable scales. He measures leading-edge thickness. He has ranked 18 parawings against each other (bar weight, bridle length, pre-flight behavior, pumpability, upwind performance) and published the result as an infographic. In a roughly two-year-old sport where over a dozen brands shipped parawings within months of the Maliko V1, side-by-side ranking at that scale is rare and worth a lot; the usual coverage reviews one wing at a time, written by a team rider.
His verdicts
Three stand out: the F-One Frigate as his top pick overall, the Gong Lowkite Plus as a budget standout, and the Triple777 as a favorite for speed and value. Shopping? Cross-reference those against our parawing gear database. And carry his broader skepticism with you: he considers the industry’s annual model churn unsustainable, a useful counterweight to launch-season hype.
What he tells beginners
His most-quoted caution is blunt: “Remember, it’s a different sport. You need more balance, more wind per square meter of cloth and also more nerves.” Other independent voices (Bowen Dwelle, Duotone’s own guidance) line up with that: parawinging is harder than wing foiling and should not be your first foil sport. He also flags one specific safety failure mode: dying wind. A parawing cannot restart in dropping wind the way a paddle can. Plan sessions around the forecast tail, not the peak.
He is equally clear on why the sport exists at all: parawings free your hands and get rid of the wing “flying around your ears” when you ride waves freefly.
What we don’t know
Nothing in our sources covers Kaufmann’s personal competition results, his own regular setup (as opposed to his test fleet), his age, or follower counts. He does not appear on any 2026 SFT Downwind Parawing podium or in the published overall top ten. That fits the role: reviewer and podcaster, not racer, and this profile deliberately claims nothing beyond it.
Where to find his work
The Up On Foil Podcast for long-form gear discussion; Instagram @mattonfoil for test notes and the ranking infographics. For text, start with his interviews. The Stand Up Magazin one is the best entry point into his testing method.