Taking Flight at Foiling Week in Pensacola, Florida

We reached out to Philip Styne of the Corinthian Yacht Club to hear about the recent Foiling Week held in Pensacola, Florida. Philip sailed in the new, two-person BirdyFish foiling class and was joined by California sailors Riley Gibbs from Long Beach, who topped the Moth class, and Ravi Parent, who works with Newport Beach-based Morelli & Melvin, topping the A-Class Cat fleet. Philip sent the following report: 

Foiling Week Pensacola 2025 was a unique experience for me. It was all foiling with a much more youthful buzz to it. There were 40 Waszps competing in their North American Championship and 16 Moths with some “well-balanced” talent riding high. Boats came from all over the US, including Hawaii, with a significant international presence from Canada and Europe.

This was my first time competing in a foiling event and I stuck to the more stable, two-person, twin-foil monohull BirdyFish designed and built in France. I had never competed on a foiling boat before, so jumping into the BirdyFish was a sharp contrast to my Corsair trimaran on the Bay. Compared to the Moth and Waszp, this boat was far more forgiving. At around $25,000, it lacked the fragility of the Moth or even the Waszp, which I had previously test-sailed at a Helly Hansen event. There I spent about three hours on the water and foiled for a grand total of 200 yards!

The event was held across three venues. The boardsailors launched from the beach at Pensacola Beach Yacht Club, the Moths, Waszps, cats and BirdyFish out of Pensacola Yacht Club in the bay, and a spectator-friendly race village gave Moths and Waszps a chance to impress with fly-bys in front of the shoreside crowd.

The racing format was different from anything I’d done before. Each class remained on the beach until its designated races began. The course setup, reminiscent of M32 catamaran racing, featured a reaching start, a bearaway mark, and windward and leeward gates — two laps with races lasting 20-30 minutes. The 7-minute start sequence — a flag and horn at each minute — kept me on my toes. As an old-school sailor, I’ll admit, it made my head spin! Adding to the mix, the fleet used Vakaros 2 technology for race management, though not yet for OCS calls.

During the event, I had the opportunity to talk with Riley Gibbs and Ravi Parent, two of the top performers of the week. Ravi’s A-Class catamaran sail was designed by Southern Californian Jay Glaser and built by Dominic Marchal, who had recently taken over Glaser’s loft. Jay let me know Dominic Marchal, who moved south from Alameda a few years ago, is now moving back north from Southern California with the Glaser loft.

Both Riley and Ravi were dominant in their respective classes. Riley, an Olympian and America’s Cup athlete, won the Moth fleet, while Ravi clinched victory in the A-Class Catamaran division. They clearly have the skills I never found on my foiling attempts on the Moth and Waszp. The BirdyFish was much more manageable.

Foiling Week Pensacola attracted some solid first-time participation and also the promise of attracting new particpants to sailing. Events like SailGP and this kind of foiling are getting some new attention from the US mainstream. The race village attracted a diverse crowd from outside the normal sailing enthusiasts. Even a local Pensacola family more accustomed to hunting, fishing, and powerboats with three engines was drawn in by the spectacle. Watching the Moths fly just offshore had them hooked.

It was also great to see the teenagers racing in the Waszp fleet. Seeing them compete reinforced my sense that foiling is not just the future of high-performance sailing, it’s happening right now.

In the end, finishing third in the BirdyFish fleet on my first-ever foiling boat felt like a good start.

You can see the very confusing full results page here.