If you were anywhere near the action at Moth Worlds 2025, you’ll remember the buzz around one piece of kit: the Mackay Bieker’s steel vertical foil. It didn’t just look fast, it delivered, with nine of the top ten sailors choosing to run it (and 17 of the top 20). That same design thinking, surface-finish obsession, and repeatable production know-how has now been channelled into wing foiling. The result is the Mackay Hybrid FWM-V1: a hybrid built carbon-steel mast for wing foil racers obsessed with speed.
Built Unlike Others
At 1.16 m long, the Mackay Hybrid is built with a thin section and a dramatically reduced chord. Less frontal area means less wetted surface and less drag so when you’re up and flying, more of your effort goes into speed, not resistance.
Structurally, the Mackay Hybrid blends a high-modulus carbon upper structure with a high-grade stainless-steel lower section. Steel brings exceptional stiffness, strength, and torsional control while carbon keeps the structure efficient for its size. Yes, steel is a trade-off as there’s weight to pay for the stiffness. But once you’re on the foil, drag is a bigger enemy than mass, and the Mackay Hybrid is engineered to keep the water flow clean when it matters most.
Ventilation is the speed killer every foiler knows. It can be sudden, noisy, and instantly expensive in metres per second. So serious focus also went into reducing the chance of it happening with the Mackay Hybrid, that included optimising the mast’s geometry along with meticulous sanding and high paint quality to help keep the flow attached.
The Mackay Hybrid also features a precision-machined steel foot designed to align cleanly with leading fuselage brands. The join between both foot and fuselage is ultra-smooth, which helps create a stronger, stiffer connection and keep the foil tracking true under load.
The mast is machined in one piece to maximise accuracy, repeatability, and finish quality. This means that the mast you bolt on is the mast the designers intended.
Manufacturing something like the Mackay Hybrid is no small feat. One of the biggest technical challenges is joining dissimilar materials such as bonding steel to carbon while keeping stiffness transitions smooth and predictable. Mackay’s proprietary build processes that were developed for the Mackay Bieker foils and also used for the F50 light air foils build, is used to build the Mackay Hybrid. The result; a stronger, stiffer, hydrodynamic optimised mast with near-perfect surface finishes.
For foilers who like to tune their gear to their technique, the Mackay Hybrid steel section can be customised to better suit weight, stance, and riding style.
Mackay Hybrid FWM-V1 key performance features
- Hybrid, carbon / steel mast that optimises hydrodynamics
- Narrow, low-drag mast section for higher top speed
- Design focus on reducing the chance of ventilation
- High-grade stainless steel for stiffness and torsional stability
- One-piece machining for accuracy and consistency
- Exceptionally smooth mast-to-fuselage interface for a stronger, stiffer connection
- Customisable lower section
Availability
Mackay Hybrid customisation options are available on request.