James Casey- Foil athlete, waterman- interview on the Blue Planet Show episode 25

18 Mar 2023 · The Blue Planet Show

01:21:02

Aloha Friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to the third season of the Blue Planet Show. I started this show a couple years ago in my home office, in the garage during the pandemic, just to get to know other wing foilers find out more what drives them, what inspires them. And as always, I like to find a little bit more about their background and just get to know them a little bit better and learn for my own benefit.

And I'm stoked to be able to share it with all of you. I get people coming up to me all the time saying I'll watch your shows all the way to the end. So I'm one of the 5% that watches the whole thing. So stoked to hear that. And I know many of you are also listening to it as a podcast while you're driving to the beach or going foiling and getting stoked or just listening to it while you can't go in the water because it's too cold, or you're traveling or whatnot.

Stoked. Always to hear that kind of stuff, super stoked. And today's guest is James Casey, who also has a great podcast. So if you haven't listened to that, it's all about downwind foiling. You should check it out. And he also has a coaching club that you can join to learn about downwind foiling.

He's an amazing athlete. He holds the record for the most kilometers foiled in one day. And a great coach for any of you who want to get into downwind foiling. And he also invented the sport of winging upwind and then deflating and foiling downwind. Really cool stuff that he's doing and pioneering also designing and testing equipment and so on.

Without further ado, here is James Casey. Okay, James Casey. Welcome to the Blue Planet Show. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. I've watched a bunch of these shows and yeah, it's cool to be on here myself now. Yeah. And I've been listening to your shows while I'm driving and getting stoked and motivated to do more downwind foiling.

So thanks for doing that. A lot of really good information on your show. And I want to get into that, like Doman foiling, your Casey crew or the coaching crew, and then also the Moloka race, and then your announcement about joining Code foils and all kinds of stuff. Your record 213 kilometer record on a foil all that kind of stuff.

But before we get into all those things, let's talk a little bit about your background. Let's go into a little bit like where, where you were born, how you grew up, and how you got into water sports and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So yeah, James Casey. I was born in Sydney, Australia, and it's basically the east coast.

And my mom and dad both surfed as a kid. They took me out surfing and like a boogie boarding first and then surfing. And I think I got my, I remember vividly actually gave you my first surfboard when I was like, probably a bit of a late starter compared to people nowadays, but I was like 10 or 11.

I got like this PCUs, four Finn, super nineties board, skinny nose, like super pointy, heaps of rocker. But that was my first board. This was just one of my dad's old boards that he didn't use anymore. Yeah, this is your board now. You can, you can take this here, this out. And yeah, pretty much surfed all through my teenage years.

I competed in like board riders, so I was I won the juniors movale board riders season sort of competition. But then I got 18, 19, I started getting worn in my rugby union. So I was playing a lot of rugby. Played for the, I guess the local club, the Ringer Rats, and was, I played a couple games in first grade, but I was basically just too small to be to be, following that dream as a, as an athlete in rugby.

I was also competing against basically , who's now the Wallabies captain, Michael Hooper. So like in people who watch rugby would know what I'm talking about. But yeah, I was playing rugby against him a lot, so rugby was always, I was always second field to him, but I just loved it. It was great camaraderie and that sort of stuff and, but I was still juggling my rugby and surfing and basically as a rugby player you're pretty big and bulky and so it's not the best for surfing.

But I got into standup paddling in my sort of I guess it was, I don't know the exact date, but I was. Pretty young. I was probably like 14 or 15. We, we were in Hawaii and I sprained my ankle kite surfing. And wait, so when, how did you get into kite surfing? Yeah, I was thinking that when I said that.

Gotta explain that, . So I got into kite surfing. I used to go to Maui a lot. Basically my dad was a wind surfer and basically every July we'd go over to Hawaii to f as a family holiday to windsurf. And I was learning to windsurf and then all of a sudden all these kite around and I'd just nailed for windsurfing, I'd nailed my like water starts.

So on the small sort of wave riding board, I was water starting, I was just starting into wave riding. And then I cut my foot on the reef out at uppers at Kaha. . And so I was outta the water for a bit and when I was outta the water, my brother, younger brother and sister learned to kite surf and then I was all fired up.

I wanna learn to kite surf, it looks easier and you're on a smaller board. And so basically going backwards, I guess windsurfing my dad, cause he windsurf, he took us out in the lake a lot. Just a local Naraine lake. And we'd learned to windsurf on a big, we used to call it the island.

Just a massive, it was a starboard, I think a massive starboard and you can get three people on it. It was super stable for us kids as well. So we did that. Then, so then I learned on a smaller board, wave, wave sailing and never really nailed it. I one or two trips down to OA and then Hawaii was almost there and then I cut my foot outta the water for a week.

Then went to kite surf and kite surfing was what we loved to do as a family. Like my brother, my dad, and myself would all go out kite surfing at home and then me when it was sick. But yeah, then I sprained my ankle. Kite surfing this one time. I guess it was, it must have not been July cause there was some waves.

Must have been, winter. And there were heaps of good. It was good surf that year too. So I cut my foot so sprained my ankle kiting and I couldn't pop up on a surfboard like, like regular surfing because my, an basically res sprained my ankle. So we went to the local shop what's it called?

High Tech in Maui. And we rented Hawaii Paddle Surf, like standup paddle board. Cause we'd seen lad do it, we were in hook keep and Lad was doing his helicopters and that looks pretty cool. Yeah, we went down the hike. So can you, do you guys sell these salmon paddle boards? Yeah, we got a couple.

So we rented two of those and we're actually staying at like near Mama's Fish house. , and there's a few reefs out there and basically, When there's no wind. We managed to score some really good sessions out there on the standup paddle board, just like glassy and like four to six foot kind of thing.

And I was on a standup paddle board on these outer reefs and it was like, oh, this is pretty legit. And on the standup paddle board was easier because you're paddling out to his outer east and instead you're comfortable. So I'm like, this is cool. So he went home and St.

Paddling wasn't really a thing yet. Went home and the local shop, I came in Sydney WSS boards. Sam Parker had, didn't have any production boards, but he did have a custom one that he, a local builder had built him just basically a big longboard. And so we grabbed that off him for a week and just was roughing out on that.

No ankle is now better now. So it was just like, it was just cuz we liked it. And basically we, when the stock came in, we bought one, but be between that we were I actually grabbed my dad's windsurf board and we'd never paddled, so we had a rake and we cut the prongs off the rake, the plastic rakes, and we were paddling around the local spot on this windsurf board, like a smaller windsurf board had the full sandpaper deck.

So we got all, got smoked rashed up on the stomach. But yeah, that was, and then, basically once the production stuff was out in Australia, we were riding it, but I was never really competing. So like I did all this is all like, 13, 14 or whatever, what's that sort of age?

And so I was paddling it, but I didn't know there was competitions and my brother worked in the local shop WSS boards. And there was, I went to one competition at Long ra and I wasn't really, it was fun, but it wasn't really something I was motivated to, to pursue. We did a race, actually the fir, my first s race was Movale to Collary, which is like eight Ks.

and it was a nice little northeast Lee Breeze. My I'd never paddled a race board before my brother working at the shop had organized a board for my himself, my dad and me. And there was two 14 footers and 1 12 6 and somehow I got stitched up and was put on the 12 six. So we're doing the race and it's all like a little down window.

We just cruising cause we don't know how to race. We're just paddling like we are surfing, looking for little bumps to catch. And all of a sudden this storm comes through and we're about halfway through the race, we're at the back cause we're this cruising and this hail it starts hailing on us. So we, the massive storm, the wind was northeast hailstorm comes through the winds now south.

And so we're all lying on our boards paddling into the winds like prone style. And because I had a 12 six I could keep it pointed into the wind easier. I wasn't getting blown around as much. So I, I remember vividly beating my brother. And he was all off it because he is oh, it was because you were the shorter board.

It was easier for you to, paddle into the window. Mate, a shorter board should go slower. So it was, the competitive spirit was always there, but I didn't touch another race board for a very long time. So that was that was interesting. That was a not the best start to to the whole racing stuff.

It wasn't until my now brother-in-law Grant Hardiman got into ums racing that I really got into thes racing stuff. But in the meantime, I was stop surfing heaps. So I still stop surfed a lot when the waves were small back home, I'd stop surf heaps, wasn't really competing, but just loved it. On the small days and you can then, you can just pedal out.

The same as in, in Maui were ping out to these outer reefs and surfing waves by ourselves rather than sitting in the pack of 20 or 30 on a shortboard waiting for that one that came through. That's a muddled history, . Once I got into this, I actually got into the subs surfing, went down to an event in Marula it, so called the Maru Classic.

Quite a famous event here in us here in Australia. Anyway, yeah had like guys like Rob Robby Nash come over in the history of it all. And, but I met two, two good friends now, JC Schara and Toby k Cracknell and Kai Bates as well, actually, and Sam Williams. And those sort of four people got me into the competitive side of s cause I didn't even know like the, a PPP world tour or the whatever it was called before that.

I didn't know what it, I didn't know what it exist. I didn't know you could compete on a standup paddle board. I didn't know there were races. I just was just doing it for fun. Wasn't really in the scene. So they, I went over to Hawaii, did the sunset event trials, got into the main event and basically from there Tristan was like, oh, you've qualified for the whole tour now if you wanna come to Brazil and France.

And I was like, oh, this is pretty cool. So I rallied. And, you I'd just finished uni at this time, so I was like, okay, I've got a bit of time. I haven't really locked myself into a job yet. So I just did that for, two, three years competing on the, the sup surf and race circuit doing, Molokai to Oahu and a bunch of races in did a few races in Europe, did a few surf events in Morocco and Hawaii and France, and went to the wave pool in Abu Dhabi.

And yeah, it was a pretty cool, time and then Brun, I was doing that until Covid hit and then now Covid hit up. We basically, it's all, it all stopped all the racings on the stop stuff. And yeah. So here's I wanted to share this video. This was oh, sorry. Definitely. This was when I first met you that this was like at the mall.

Mochi race. And you had a yeah, it was you and Marcus. Yeah. Marcus harder with Yeah. Talking about the dugout. I was just curious about it and interviewed you and that. So this was in 2016, was it the first time you did the mobile Kai race? This is the second time I did it. Yeah.

This is the second time I, yeah and it was my third season competing, like racing over in Hawaii, but I didn't get in the first year to to do Molokai. Cause I hadn't done enough races, basically. And that. And you were one of the first guys to use the dugout in the Molokai race, I think too.

Or, and you did really well with it, right? So everybody started being curious about the dugout boards. Yeah, so dugout boards were, pretty common on 14 foot boards. But for for the unlimited boards, Not many people were using them. So yeah, it's probably good to talk about this.

I was writing for JP and basically JP had said, oh, we don't make unlimited boards. You can get, one made from s i c, you can get one made wherever you want. And basically the year before I used a s I see. And Marcus had spoken to Matt Knowledge and said, oh, I think I can make something faster than your s i c what do you think?

And he was like, yeah, Matt was keen. And then I got caught winded oh, if you are getting one, Matt, he was my like, sparring partner. I was like, I want one too. So we both, paid Marcus to design a board for us. And deep sort of made the boards and yeah, these are the first, unlimited dugouts that that we'd used.

and basically it certainly caused a bit of a stir in Hawaii when people saw him. It was like the world's biggest bathtub when they filled up. But Yeah, it was, they were super quick and, this relationship with Marcus, stems all the way through, like within us and Simon son over the following year.

And and then I, won Moloka in 2019 on a board that Marcus and I actually built like in, in his backyard. And and that was the last, that was the last time the race was held. So you're the defending champion, theoretically. . Yeah. Look, four years, , I only have to race once.

Yeah. So yeah, no, it's it was a little project that for sure. Yeah. So I just wanted to share that. That's a classic older video. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. That's the main, yeah. Marcus is now all clean cut too. He is. Got his hash and he is shaved and he wouldn't recognize him. . Yeah.

And just so I'm in the background, so are you staying at his place right now or? Yes. I'm just, I'm over here in wa I was just cause we've just we're working together now with fun code foil, so it's been set started there that year deep that's, and then sent over and now with code foils and so it's pretty cool.

But yeah, I marks my good mates and yeah, I'm over here in wa I was just doing a foil camp up in Exmouth and so I've flowed back down. get back to your history though. Okay. So then you started doing the kind of the racing and also computing as a subs, surfer subs, surfery competition.

. Yeah. Yeah. my, my best result in the subs surfing stuff was the second place at Sunset. I lost a ca vaz , but it was basically I got the, it was a good year for me. Like the surf was good, my ball was good. And that was, yeah, second place and that was, I was pretty stoked.

And that year I won the overall race and surf sup champion, there wasn't an official world champion sort of thing, but it was like a thing they're trying to award, overall athletes, not just thes athletes, not just the races race athletes, but the overall. So I think that was 20 must have been like 2016 kind of time where I won that sort of thing.

And that's probably the biggest, sup sort of world champion sort of thing I've done in that. But yeah, I did all that until until Covid hit really, I was doing all the s sub surf events and a lot of the supp race events and then foiling came out. It stalled the momentum, with the sup stuff because foiling the reason I got into the sup racing was because I I'm a surfer first, so I've always, I've, I still surf short boards longboards foils now, obviously and standups.

But surfing was where it all started. And when I got into sap, competing in standup was all about s surfing and downwind racing, because to me, downwind racing was like longboarding out to sea and you're just trimming the whole time. So it's kinda like the longboard sort of style. . And then when the foils came out and you were, I started down winding them pretty early.

I was like, this is like short boarding out to sea. I'm not long boarding anymore. I'm like, we are surfing now. And so that to me was like a real light bulb moment. And a lot of people are like, oh, you don'ts race anymore. And I'm like, oh, I still do the local events. Like I, I was at the Aussie champs last year and still do a bunch of the local events.

But yeah the foiling is and the downwind foiling especially is mind blowing honestly. It's it's pretty crazy. And I guess my foil history I started, I actually met Alex Aue when I was over in Maui for a ppp race event. And I was introduced him through the Spencers. So Jeffrey and Finn were testing ups to go for stuff Me.

Oh Jimmy, you gotta meet Alex, you're gonna love this foiling stuff. And so I was actually staying with Vinny and Vinny Martinez and j Jake Jensen. And we were all in a house together. Cause we're doing a race and because I was introduced to Alex basically, but Vinny and I were both slopping boards and so we only had one foil set up.

Cause Alex lent us a board and a foil, like one of the original cars. And we were out at Kaha lowers trying out then a bunch of other spots between there and who keep and just if one of us was on the fall, the other one would be on like a bigger surf up just filming each other with a GoPro.

And we were just trying to get the shot of us flying above the water. And that was the, and as soon as we left there, we were like, man, I said to Alex, I gotta buy one, like when can I buy one? And he's, okay. That must have been like a sep September sort of time of year. It's 2016 and then maybe it was 2017 but around that time and I ordered probably the first go fall to ever arrive in Australia,

It arrived in like November just before the event, the ISA event in Fiji. And I remember going over there, I was over there to race the distance race on the standup, but I brought this foil with me and on the, when we were all surfing cloud break and whatnot in between the events and I was towing behind the boat.

on the drive out on my gofoil set up. And people are losing their shit. Oh, everyone's having a go. And that was the start of, the foil brain and the downwind stuff. And yeah, it's been a cool, it's been a whirlwind four years, since then, or I guess five years, six years since then.

But yeah then I was, and I heard like the first time you tried to do a downwind foil downwind, was it with the ca foil? Yeah, so it would've been just after I got from Fiji, I went over to Western Australia and there's a race called King of the Cut and all those, so it's really good downwind run cause the, you get these sea breeze and it's like super consistent.

And basically one day we went out with my square JP board and the gofoil and must have been, the board must have been like seven two by 26, but a square not like the boards nowadays had this kind of pointy tails and stuff. Pointy noses, not long and skinny and . We went out the Mandra run and we paddled, A friend of mine, Matt and I we were swapping boards, so one of us on the foil set up, one of us was on a race board stuff.

And basically we did the run I think is about 10 kilometers, 10 or 11 Ks. We did half the run and we swapped out and I got up twice, which looking back, I'm actually pretty stoked, could get up. I got up twice for about a total of like maybe 50, 60 meters up on Foil . And I was like, man, this is hard.

Cause we'd seen Kyle Leni do it on his, longer board. Oh, he must just need a longer board longer skinnier board at that time. And cuz Kai was on a sorn off race board, it's 12 foot kind of thing. It's funny how in the foiling world everything just comes back, right?

So like and then, cause now we're going back to that, but this was in 20, it must have been 2016 or 17. . But anyway, it doesn't really. And then I said to Alex, I think I need a bigger foil. So he sent me over the original malico the blue one that isn't curved down. It's like a flatter one.

It was actually ahead of its time because it was it was higher aspect, than the macOS were. And like when I got that one, I got home and I did a downwind run from maybe I was, anyway I started downwind once I got that foil and once I had that bigger foil, I was getting up pretty much straight away because of my my, my sort of s racing and downwind knowledge.

I could read the bumps well enough and was powerful enough to get up and foil and once up, I think I was just chasing bumps and it was, yeah, it was sick, but I had the, yeah that one definitely humbling moment where we got five Ks and 50 meters of foiling, , so yeah.

Yeah, . But even for you, it wasn't easy to get started, but yeah, no way. No way. But the right equipment makes a big difference for sure. Yeah even just the slightly bigger foil was the biggest, the difference for me. I think I was still on the same board more or less. I can't remember my first successful downwind run actually because I definitely had gone to Maui again and I did a downwind run with Finn and Jeffrey on a prone board.

We went from Kua to Sugar Cove and we were paddling into waves and then falling around. And then Alex had this 10 foot, it was like a square board. It was a like just a, he called it the aircraft carrier. It was super long and he'd just put a little bit more rocker in it. Yeah, super light. And I paddled that thing up easy and once I was up I was like, I was good to go thing.

Cause the downwind knowledge I had from racing standups just translated straight across. But I remember that first run of that big board and it was like, oh, this is pretty cool. , this is pretty epic. Boiling down wind is, As I said before, short boarding and like surfing down the coast rather than, trimming on the longer, unlimited or 14 foot stops.

Six. Wait, did you say you were prone foiling on a 10 foot board? Is that what it was? Nah, so I was, I was, I'll stand up, I'll stand up paddling on that one. Yeah, that was the aircraft carrier. It was like nine or 10 foot. long, long, but it was like square. It literally it was like this shape.

Yeah. The early kma boards were like that too, right? That's at the time everyone thought that's how you get it as short as possible by just cutting off the nose and tail and like its square . Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting that one Alex made actually and, and it was it was like looking back at it if he just refined that shape.

It was long and it it wasn't super skinny. It was probably like 25 or 26 wide, but it was like eight foot and just it was square for stability while going. Narrow for speed and long for speed. Looking back, like there's a lot of things that led us to, the latest design that, Dave has famously invented, the Barracuda style boards.

Yeah. And then you're still a team writer for Sunova, right? So when did that relationship start with Sunova? So just that video you shared before was the year after? So it was it was just as when I got my Go Foil I started on JP boards, so that was November. And then the following year, January, February, I signed with Sunova.

And the first thing I did was like, okay, we need to get on, we need to make foil boards because foiling is where it's gonna be. And so I went over to Thailand and we tested a bunch of staff and we drew up with Bert Berger. He was over there and Marcus was back here. So we didn't, but Bert and I drew up our first sort of, Foil board range, and it was long, they basically weren't thick enough.

So I, my first s foil board that I did with them was seven two by 24 and a half, which like is a pretty good dimensions looking back like how it's aged. But it was super thin. Yeah. So it was only like, it was only like 80 liters or something. And for me it was fine. But I remember going, starting on that and then Marcus took over designing the FOIL awards cause he was head starter foiling too.

And it made sense cause he understood it. And so we basically the rails on Bert's board were like super pointy like this. Yeah. And then Marcus just made him thicker and had the, added the chime in and that extra volume allowed us to go shorter. And a bit narrower. Yeah. And a bit narrower too with the same sort of volume.

But yeah, I guess our the Sunova relationship was, has been, is epic. , we're still designing a bunch of boards. We've got a bunch of prototypes coming. And yeah, there's, because I persuaded them to build these foil boards, I said, ah, and then I built like a, created the Casey brand.

They're like, okay we'll put the Casey logo on it. And, it's your job to curate the design with Marcus and make sure you write the design specs and the, the website, outline, explain to people what it is. So yeah, that relation relationship with Suno has been really good.

And obviously like racing, they were helping me fly around the world and travel and and the stop surfing stuff. And yeah, it's been a very healthy relationship with the boys in Thailand. The over. . Yeah. And then for, regarding the foil, so I guess you were writing for Gold Foil and then at some point you tried a whole bunch of different foils and you ended up writing for access.

So how did that ha all happen and what was yeah. Sorry. I was writing for Gofo for five years so Gofo for five years and basically, started with the Kai and then the MACO came out and then the EVA and the maico 200 and all that sort of stuff came out. And then the GLS came out, which was like mind blowing cuz they were these higher aspect things.

Then the P 180 and basically I've all the way up to the RS and the GT wings. I was a part of the team and it was just, yeah, it was, I was just craving a bit more input in the design process because go for guys are just like fully Maui based and they've got a pretty good test team in Maui. They've got Dave and they've got.

Jeremy Rigs and they got, Alex himself is great at testing too, so they didn't really need me. And unless I was there, and when I was there, I was heavily involved in the testing stuff. And remember vividly testing shimming the tail wing. We were out, off or out of Kalu Harbor in Alex's boat.

And Connor and I were both testing some Damon wings for the, there was an oli, the Oli race was coming up. And so we were testing like how to shim, like basically we're tuning our foils to get 'em as fast as we could for the race. And unfortunately that year the wind was blowing like straight on shore, so it was just a course race.

But the race we did was they dropped us out outside basically between uppers and lowers at Kaha. And we raced all the way back into shore. And I remember that, was that where there was a huge surf too coming in or was that huge surf? Yeah. Yeah. And a few guys, I think I got up last. , but I think Austin climber fell off in the surf

This got maxed out. You got a bomb coming through and it was a, that was a pretty cool race that was just like full, like figuring it out, yeah, and it was a bit murky water coming through. I hit something coming in through at the end, but it was sick. It was a cool race. But yeah, so we I'd worked a lot with Alex and Alex was literally I've got a house over in Maui and my family is a house over in Maui and he's actually, we actually share a boundary with Alex.

We're not direct next door neighbors, but like over the back fence, like Alex is our neighbor, so it's oh, cool. There's a pretty cool relationship. When I was in Maui, like last time I was in Maui Alex had literally picked me up and we'd go, okay, we're gonna go test this thing, James. Come on, let's go.

And yeah, it was super cool to be doing that. But the problem was when I wasn't in Maui, I couldn't test anything and I was only really in Maui, maybe one or. once or twice a year, and only really for maybe a total of three weeks. So I just, I was craving more input in the design and pushing the envelope to race the wings.

But also I guess with my coaching stuff I wanted to be able to, have input to help people learn to. So yeah, about 18 months ago, I, announced I was leaving Gofoil and tried a bunch of different foils. was trying lift stuff, I was trying uni foil stuff access Armstrong.

What else did I try? I felt like there was some cloud nine stuff too. And basically I, and I spoke to 'em all and basically the access guys were really keen to work on a range of foils with me. And basically in the last 18 months with access, I reckon I prototyped. probably 50 sets of gear, wow.

It was kinda like, be careful what you wish for , because then my job was like, one of the things they sent out six different towel wings. They didn't tell me what they did, but they said, go out and try them and tell me what you feel. And basically little examples like that.

And, so we tried a bunch of different stuff and it was an awesome relationship with Evan and Adrian. And I was on the phone to Adrian after every session. And that was exactly what I craved, like with Gofo, I did the same thing, but I only spoke to Alex every now and then.

Cause I only got prototypes every, once or twice a year. Whereas with access, I was getting like every month they were sending out a box of gear and saying, test this stuff for us, test that for us. And it was epic. And if fast forward to now, I guess I'm, I've just announced that I'm working with basically a few mates of mine, Marcus, Ben, and Dan.

And. basically creating our own brand, which is super exciting. Working with Code Falls and look, if this hadn't come up, I'd definitely still be working with Access because there was, there's basically, there's no bad blood with access. Like we're there we're still mates.

Adrian's actually coming up. I'm just gonna miss him in Perth, but he's coming over and I've left a bunch of gear for him cause, given some of the gear back and yeah, they want me to come over. Adrian wants to come over to New Zealand and do a downwind foil clinic and yeah, but they were cool, especially like going know when I told them about when I told them about joining code about a month ago, they were obviously a bit upset, but they were super cool and they're like, they were stoked for me that we, that I was creating my own thing.

So they weren't they weren't angry at me, and the beauty is we're still mates I guess. So it's it's cool. But as I said, like the relationship with Code Falls was really good. So it's, I'm sorry. Talk a little bit about that. So code photos, like who's behind it and what's the business plan and so on.

Yeah, so basically Marcus and Ben basically ha they're brothers. They, their Batard brothers and they've been designing their own or basically in the sunova range. Marcus has been doing all the foil and stuff boards for a while and Ben Tark has been doing the same for one and basically for them to be working together.

It's pretty cool cuz they've got some seriously good design brains and yeah, they just, they asked me did I wanna be a part of this company they're building and yeah, I was like, yeah, let's do it. Because I've worked with Marcus for, I guess five or six years now and I've known Ben for a bit longer and Basically the plan is to, just create foils for, for sorry, the dog's just done a fart.

the plan is stinks, stubby . The plan is to create foils that that we want to use, you know and that I can teach with too. Cause my coaching business is super important thing too. So at the moment we've just had one, we've had two prototypes. Basically we've got a sort of surf wing and think it's around eight 50 square centimeters.

And we've just had a prototype race wing that literally, I've only tried it twice, two or three times now, and it's been. Really positive. Like the whole philosophy I guess behind it is we want our stuff to be stiff and solid and the mast and the connection to the base plate, to the mast, it's all one.

But like the connection point is overbuilt, but it feels so nice and stiff. And then likewise the master to the fuse. The fuse is thick and so that's, I'm seeing if I have one actually I've got a mask just here. I can show that. Yeah. Why don't you show us? Is it all one, you said it.

The fuselage and front wing and tail wing are all one piece. No. So the don't think I've got a, a tail wing or No, there's none around to you. They must markers, must took it . But yeah. Yeah. Show the mask. So yeah, you can see like the, see how that's pretty chunky down the bottom here. But we just find it adds extra stiffness.

And even the base plate's pretty, pretty chunky too. Uhhuh . And then the connection to the. , this is a thicker it's just like probably 30% thicker than the, like most other brands. , just, this just allows more Fuse to get onto. So that makes the fuse a bit chunkier. Yeah. What we found straight away was that it was just super stiff, even though like our first prototype, but everything was just so well connected.

So yeah. The base plate things that I was talking about and then the fuse connection was just super solid. And that to us was a really important thing coming out with a brand now and like after seeing a bunch of brands, work on certain things, then realizing their mask is a bit stiff, isn't stiff enough.

And having the connections to the front fall or the rear fall a bit, basically don't want any flex. So having that able to see what other fall brands have done, we've learned from that and basically created a pretty. Pretty what I'm loving, especially in the surf, the eight 50, it's super well connected and a lot of people, so is it, is the fuselage like aluminum like the access foils or is it more like the lift flows where it's like a front piece together with the Yeah, it's yeah, more like the lift and uni foil sort of stuff.

How it's just like the front one goes on and then the fuse bolts on. Like a lot of people are comparing it to the cab, how it's on the angle, so Oh, you kind, yeah. So it's it's a super snug connection. , I can't, there was one just on the couch there, but Marcus just took off with it.

No worries. Show on the shop . But yeah, we're super So you, so are you actually a partner in the business or a team writer and r and d? Or like how does that work? Yeah. More of a partner not just team riders, which is why it's like an exciting. Sort of project.

So there's, we're building a brand up from nothing, so it's, yeah, four. then, so Marcus is, designer Sonova. Ben was a designer of one, no, is the designer of one. And then Dan, he's actually a, he lives three doors down and he's an architects builder, but he's really good at basically drawing everything up and making it all, so the designs, he puts it into software that makes the, it can blend everything so super clean and, slick looking connections.

And he's actually, he's been working the hardest of late trying to get all the files ready to build. It's been a, it's been a, it's been a busy month, that's for sure. Yeah. And that's why you're in Perth right now? I was actually over here to do a foil camp up in Exmouth, and I extended two days before and two days after, just so I could catch up with the team and.

and, talk about a lot of things and get some footage and just work on all things code as, as well as do a bit of work up the coast here. Just, it was good timing, it wasn't planned, it was just good timing. Cool. Yeah, like when we look at Australia on a Globe or something, it looks like a small little island, but to fly from Sydney to Perth is like a six hour flight or something, like three time zones, or what is it, three or four time zones?

Yeah. Yes. It's, I think it's a four and a half, five hour flight, depending on the winds. And yeah, it's a, it's three hours difference. Yeah. So back home when I chat to my wife, she's, at home now it's nine o'clock here and it's midday in, in Sydney. So yeah, it's a big country. It's a big country, that's for sure.

Yeah. I haven't been over and during Covid we actually couldn't fly to Perth Bec because. Everything was locked down, so it was, yeah, it's it was almost like a new country over here in Western Australia for a while. Yeah. Everything, everything went yeah. Starting new for company, with like access, they have so many different foils and design, like shapes, like different, so many different wings you can choose from and stuff like that.

So starting a new company, I guess one of the hard things is the tooling costs are pretty expensive. Every time you make a new wing you have to make a mold for it and all that. Yeah. And then if it doesn't work, you have to like toss that mold and make another one or whatever yeah, exactly. Yep.

It's not easy. Yeah, it's not easy at all. Yeah. The plan for the Rangers at the moment is we've got our surf wing all round, surf wing and downwind wing, which is the eight 50. So I've been surfing and down winding it , and it's been unreal in terms of size, it's. , I feel like the area's not that good a guide.

Cause we all know the one 20 probably surfs a bit bigger than what, or down winds a bit bigger than what the area is. . But it's, it, this eight 50 feels somewhere between the one 20 and the one 70. Probably like a one 30 or one 40 sort of size. If you were to compare in the lift range in the access range, it feels like an 8 99, so that's the kind of size that the one we have now. And we've got plans to build one bigger and one smaller , at the very least. And we're probably gonna go at least two bigger. So probably have five or six foils within that range. And then we're gonna do an, a race range, which we are busily working on now to get ready for mochi because it may only be March, but it takes time to build molds and test stuff.

And so we've got our first one here and we've it, it's great, but there's things we can improve upon it. So we're back to the drawing board and try to make it, better. And then we're gonna do like a more of a, lower aspect sort of style foil for basically bay runs, small, slow surf and just a sl a foil that goes slower so you can so especially for me when I'm teaching, I want, I wanna fall that I can teach with that isn't going so fast that it's like scaring people, and it doesn't have to be a really big foil to go slow. You can make us foil that is still like compact, that goes slow. So we they're the kind of the three rangers that we're working on. But really we're just focusing on getting everything released and the launch date, I guess for shops to, to have these code falls in shops for the eight 50 and I guess, and that's first surf range is or the all round range is the 1st of June.

So that's what we're working towards, which doesn't seem that far away. For us, but for everyone else, we're like, oh, June, that's like March, April, may, June. It's three months. But I think Robert, you probably know it, it takes more than just, the stuff is good now. We're just getting stuff, ordering like our, the manufacturing and logistics and stuff.

Yeah, just three months is not a long time. Not at all. So three, four months. Yeah, we're pushing hard, but it's and obviously we're hoping to have to release the bigger and smaller wings in that range. But it probably won't be till after June. So the first one will be the eight 50 that sort of slightly bigger than the lift one 20 sort of size 8 99 axis sort of size.

And then the rest will come after that. But yeah, baby steps because it all, the need a cost a bit, but it takes a lot of time too. So it's, yeah, it's been a. Spend a bit of a journey already. Just I'm only one, officially one week in . Cool. And then what about boards? Are you con gonna continue with Sonova making, like the Casey labeled boards or that, or are you gonna make code foil boards also, or?

No, at this stage we're gonna, like Ben still works for One Ocean Sports and Marcus and I still work for Sunova. So it just, it makes sense for us to stick with them, for the, yeah. For the time being because it's we've got great relationships with Ben's got a great relationship with Jacko at one and Mark and I have a great relationship with, Tino and Dylan at Sunova.

We don't wanna, we don't wanna break that relationship and Sure we've got good products and we're super happy with how it's all working. As is and the foils, are they made at the Sunova factory or where are they made? The fos are made in China. Yeah. So they're, that we've different factory, the Sunova.

Don't really do carbon fiber. I guess they're more of the bolser and polonia skins, which for a foil doesn't really work. . Yeah. It's a, it is a very specialized manufacturing process and yeah. Definitely not simple. You have to have Yeah. Get everything right. Especially like to make the mass stiff and torsional and all that, all that kind of different kind of things to consider.

But anyway, yeah. Cool. Congratulations. That's pretty exciting. Yeah. Super exciting. It's been, and let's talk about the Moloka race. Since 2019 we haven't had it. And then this year it's gonna be on July 30th, I think. And I got to see the list of people for the for the foil race.

And it's a pretty, pretty impressive list. A lot of people are entered. Yeah, including you and Kailan and a bunch of other really top top writers are doing the foil race, so I almost feel like that's gonna be like the main event, almost like the down one foiling, yeah. But yeah, talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. Obviously 20 Montana wanna 'em a stand up and uh, basically that was my goal. That was when I first started stop Racing, my goal was to win Malachi to Oahu when I was stoked to be able to do that. And I dedicated to my dad who's now passed away. And that was a really emotional, experience to be doing that.

But I feel like to me, like a lot of people are like, oh, you gotta do it again. Go back to back on the s And to me, I feel like it's almost not that chapter's done, but it's like I've achieved what I wanted to achieve on the standup. Not only that, since I started racing mochi on a sap, like the first year I did that, there were 15 to 20 big names.

And probably of those we five people could have won it. The previous year, the year I won, there were probably only like probably five or six people that were like really racing it com like super competitively with a win. And of that sort of five or six, there was probably only two or three or four that were real serious contenders.

So it, what I've seen is the s downwind supp racing has declined a bit, or a lot. Yeah, for sure. Like all the guys that were downwind, downwind, standup paddling are now supp foiling or just, prone or they're downwind foiling now.

So to me the sport that I was interested in has shifted to foiling, so for me, the foil stuff, it was even in 2019, I was foiling like a lot. And for Malachi, I put my, gave myself a bit of a foil band and Marcus was foiling and training for the foiling and He was like, come on, Jimmy, come on the phone.

I'm like, nah man, I just gotta, I just gotta tick this off. I gotta win this race on the standup and I just wanna, I wanna get that done. And yeah, I'm stoked I did that because then it wasn't on for 20 20, 20 21, 20 22, and it's just come back in 2023. I could have been I could have been, still wanting to win it on a standup and, not having it mean for a while.

They were talking about maybe doing the the foil event on a Saturday and then the paddle and prone event on the Sunday. If they would do that, would you do try to do both or would you just Only on foiling? Oh, I'd focus on foiling, but like the factors on the day before, I'd do both because I'm over there, so I, and I still have all my gear over there. It's all ready to go. The only thing is the extra cost. The moloka to a race is not a cheap event, and an escort boat is super expensive. And hard to find. That's one of the biggest challenges I think like this year especially. Cuz during the pandemic, a lot of the escort boats got out of the business or they, sold their boats or got into fishing or doing other things and then, yeah.

So it's actually gonna be really hard to find escort boats for all the competitors I think. Big time. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah that, I'm lucky enough, I've got the same boat captain and Andrew he actually hit me up. He goes, I got a few people asking you doing mochi cuz people are hitting me up to do their escorting on it.

Your first, you won it last year so last time we did it. So you are, you're my first guy and he is like, and he goes, and I hope you're foiling . Cause obviously for a boat it's quicker on a foil. Yeah. You need a fast boat to it, . Yeah, exactly. So yeah. Yeah. I signed up to do it on a wing foil this year, so I'm excited to, to be wing foiling.

Yes. It's so cool that they did a wing event too. I assume. The wings should win. Like the wings should be the quickest really. But it'd be interesting to see how they go on the final bit. That up win leg could be pretty, there'd be a bit of tacking going on, and if there's no win, yeah.

Going into the finish is gonna be tricky. But for you to, for you guys too, going into the wind with a Yeah, it's the same. Yeah, it's, yeah. And the foil board's gonna be super cheeky yeah. But yeah, last year we had that blue water race where jack hole came in like third overall I think the first two finishers were wing foyers and then he came in third, so he beat a lot of wing foyers on the standup foil board, yeah, pretty fast.

Cuz you can go straight down wind versus on a wing, you have to angle more, a little bit angle off. Yeah. Yeah that's a big question. Can you go quick enough over further distance to, to beat the sub guys? We're going more direct I guess, but Yeah, I think you said you did the king of the cut with where there was wingers and standup foyers, a king of the cut race or something. Yeah. I haven't done it when there's wingers because it wasn't on last year and the year before. In 2019, winging wasn't a thing, wasn't a, what, people weren't racing. So the last time I did King of the Cup was 2019 and then Covid hit, so we couldn't get over here.

And then when everything opened up last year, end of 2022, the King of the Cup wasn't on anymore. Basically all the volunteers, but they couldn't get enough volunteers together. But have you competed in any doman races that have both wingers and standup foil? I don't think I have actually. Yeah. I don't think I have.

Yeah. I haven't competed again or rice against. It'll be interesting to see. Yeah. Who's faster . Yeah. You would think, definitely like with the Wing, you do have an unfair advantage and you can probably use a smaller, faster foil, yeah. But yeah, I think it, I think there's Yeah. A lot of, yeah.

Yeah. A lot of animals that go into, I've had the Marcus about this, and he did the race when speaking of the cup when there were wingers and foyers and the wingers smoked them, not only because they were from the start, they were up and going. But smaller foils, they're using small foils.

They're using big wings, like big sails and yeah. They're just, , they're moving. Yeah. The wings were quicker, even though they were having to go a little bit further distance. They were faster by, by fair bit, actually, five, 10 minutes I think it was. Okay. That's good to know.

Yeah. Cool. So yeah, I think that's gonna be super exciting. We're gonna try to interview some more people that are in that race and yeah, it should be fun to be part of it, the first time they're doing wing foiling too, yeah. So actually, have you done much wing foiling or just more focused on down winding and surf foiling?

Yeah, more focused on down winning and surf oiling. But I, I've done the, I guess the stuff the wing that I do is mainly around wave riding. So I'm, and not even heirs. So I'm, I do a few, hes, but I'm not a trickster. Like I don't, I'm I'm not as interested in the big jumps and the flips as I am, like the calves and, the re-entries and the cutbacks and that sort of stuff.

So to me winging, winging is like poor man's towing, it's like toe falling cuz you can to toe yourself into the wave and then you just drop it in the back end and you're just surfing like you would anyway. So it's And then talk a little bit about I know you've done like upwind on the wing and then deflate and then just go down one with the wing under your arm or something like that.

Or put on your back. Yeah. The wings is, talk a little bit about that. It's such an epic tool for that. So in Sydney especially, we get a lot of days where the wind is in winter we get offshore breezes, so it's like howling like 30 knots offshore. And we can go into sort of harbors or bays or river entrances and we can like big river entrance and we can what we do is we wing up wind, like five ks up wind, which is like almost 10 Ks cuz you have to z and zag up wind.

You attacking. And then I'll I, in what a lot of guys were doing was they were going on onto the shore, deflating their wing on a beach, rolling it up, putting the backpack, and then paddling up. And I was like, why are we doing this? Why don't we just deflate it on the water? So I started deflating on the water wrapping up trail on the backpack.

It was a bit wet, bit soggy, but it was still doable. . And then I was like why am I sitting down and doing, why don't I just deflate it whilst en foil? So I deflate it whilst en foil and then hold it under your arm until you stop. And then you've got your paddle on your back knee. You pull that out once you're ready.

But yeah, and then I was chatting with mate and I'm like cuz it's this run we do it's in a river and basically there's a national park so you can't drive. It's hard. It's like a bit of a, it's like a two or three K hike to get to the beach that you'd start at. . So instead of going there, we actually just start at the finish point and we wing up wind and then we do our pack down, however you wanna do it.

And then we'd go like most of the way back to the finish. But you can go, there's two options you need to pull in to this little bay where the car is, where you can go around this headland and there's like, it's just a peninsula, so it's a sand spit and you can go around the other side so you get like an extra three or four kilometers.

So I guess two, three miles of down winding and it's just it's like a kilometer. Upwind back to the beach. And so what I was doing was I was de like doing my deflate, like wing up wind deflate at the top of the run, and then I'd wing all the way down to the bottom of the run and I rigged up this soda stream bottle so I could use press a button and it reinflated the wing whilst I was up on fo.

So instead of sitting down and pump, I was actually pumping up the wing. Prior to this, I was pumping up the wing of the water. Yeah. And I'd I sort do it that way. But yeah, the soda stream bottle is pretty sick. So you also don't have to carry that big pumper around, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly right.

Yeah. But I heard someone say that the carbon dioxide is like not good for your bladder or something like that, that they used to do that with kites and it wasn't good for the bladder or something like that. Have you had any problems, like with your bladders or anything like that from the, I've only done it like three or four times.

The soda, I use a soda stream bottle and I just rigged that up. So it's just a big, like a big CO2 canister. And yeah, I'm sure it's not great for it, but it was I still pump up on the water a lot of the time because to set up the Soda Stream bottles is a pretty specific thing, whereas I can just grab my pump and a dry bag and I'm good to go.

, whereas the soda stream, gotta, you gotta attach it onto the boom and, have the hose. And it was just a cool it was an idea that Matt made of on Grant Perry and I worked on for a little while and yeah he, he's on a, he's on an E four, so he filmed it all.

It was a pretty cool little clip. Yeah, it still has a lot of function, but yeah, the biggest thing that we noticed was when you did the co2 the wing itself got really cold. So the CO2 was a really super cold air. And it like sort frosted the now the outside of the.

The canopy or the inflatable edge of the stratt. Yeah. The leading edge was like, freezing around the belt, probably especially, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not sure how good it is for the long term . I haven't tested it enough times to know, but I've done it four or five or three or four times and it was fine.

Prob actually probably four or five times. It didn't it didn't blow anything up. We tested it on land first because we were worried about that. What's gonna happen here? But yeah, it was sweet. It was sweet. Nice. There's I'm sure there'll be like, there's, I feel like there's a bit of a, there's a bit of a potentially a cool market in that, like if you can cuz winging down wind is epic.

Yeah. But it takes a bit of wing management. So like I find it easier to downwind with a paddle than I do with a wing. Cause once I have the wing and I'm like letting go of it and it's just, flagged out, it's behind me. , it's all in front of me, I've got, if I change directions, , there's a bit of technique to either, you either swap hands or you've gotta bring it behind you and drop it down behind you and try to, it's there's a bit of, there's a bit of admin to, to keep the wing out of the way and not yes.

To be able to go the same lines. Cuz what I find is when I'm wing it, I'm gonna cut across the wind a lot more than I would when I downwind. Even if I've just got flagged out to go straight down wind, the wing wants to blindfold you, essentially. So that's where it came from. The whole deflate thing.

I I love the downwind thing, but, and I winging up wind was the free shuttle, but the downwind part, I was like, man, this wing just doesn't get, doesn't get outta the way and back home I'm using a four or five meter wing most of the time when I'm down winding. It'd be easier with a two or a three obviously.

it's even easier for you to stay Flighted. . Yeah. What I've been doing for if you're doing, if you're racing downwind, what you can do is just put the wing up over your head and have it almost level so that if you're going faster than the wind, straight down wind it's just of been neutral over your head, so that works pretty well too, but it's, yeah, but it's not really, your sounds get tired. Yeah. Your arms get tired, right? Yeah, not so much cuz you can't really stay in that po you can do that when you're on a good bump and you go really fast, straight down wind. But then once you of come off the bump and you catch the wind again, so you bring the wind, bring it back down, wind, wind back down and stuff like that.

But yeah, that makes a lot of sense for like speed going down wind, because you're like, I was thinking too, like the electric pumps are getting pretty good, like battery powered electric pumps. I wonder if you could set up something like that, but then you have they probably can't get wet, so be hard to make that waterproof.

So yeah, I've had so many people hit me up and say, oh, you should try this electric pump. And I'm like, yeah, but electric I'm in the water. Like it's going to get wet. If I fall off all of a sudden that's 30, 40 bucks down the drain and electricity and water is something I don't really wanna be too close to.

Yeah. Yeahium battery and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. The other, I think even better options, you just get a decent pump. Like electric pumps are great, but like you get good pumps that, like hand pumps instead of the ones we stand on and get hand pumps. Yeah. And you can just pump it up. It doesn't take that long.

And a lot of the time I'll just deflate the leading edge and leave the middle strut inflated. So it's just pumping up the leading edge. So it's not the end of the world. And water in a pump is a lot less. It's less worse, it's less bad than water in a electric pump . Yeah.

And you can make 'em pretty small to the hand pumps maybe. Yeah. Actually it's cause you definitely don't want something that you have to push against your board or something like that cuz it's like everything's moving around. It's more almost like you want two handles that you can push together or something like that.

Yeah. Accordion style pump. That'd be pretty serious. Yeah. Oh, there you go. . Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I just think it's all coming. It's all part of the evolution and I think I was probably people think it's a bit, hard to do or whatever, but I promise you any wingers out there who wanna learn a downwind like and downwind like we do on a sap or.

it's way easy to learn to daylight your wing than it is to learn to paddle up . I guarantee you. Yeah. There's this guy, Paul, that he wants to do like channel crossings and stuff like that. And like one of the risks is that your paddle breaks, right? So he's thinking as a backup, he's gonna take a wing and a pump with him, so that just paddle breaks or you can't, the, you can, as long as there's wind you can, wing with it, so yeah. I think a better backup plan is the hand paddles. Have you guys seen those? Oh yeah. They just, you can, cause they're much smaller, like a wing and a pump gets pretty heavy. And that's gonna, that's gonna limit your ability to paddle up, which is probably gonna increase the chances of you breaking your paddle

Cause the more you're paddling and the more weight you have to paddle. That's the biggest disadvantage of the deflate downwind. Is that once you wrap it all up and put it in a backpack, The extra weight of the wing, like it's probably maybe five or six kilos.

So it's a lot of water weight too, if it's still wet, right? Yeah, it's a lot of water weight and so I've actually done some of my fastest ever like downwind runs when I've had the wing in my backpack because the extra weight, I can just go faster, but it's way harder to get up. Oh, that, that's an interesting point actually.

And I wanted to talk about that as well. And cuz Dave Klo also says in the down windows, when he is going fast, he likes a little bit heavier board just for better, more momentum and stability and more. Yeah. And I found that too actually, that sometimes weight is a good thing and lot of people I talk to is no weight is never good.

You just wanted the lightest gear possible, you and it totally depends, like in my experience that's not really true. But what, how do you feel about weight in the board and the foil and so on? Like you said, like wearing weight on your back actually helps with going faster. Yeah, no big time.

So the only thing is so Dave, for example, if it's only 10 knots, Dave being heavier compared to me will have a harder time getting up than I will if we're on the exact same foil. If Dave gets up and then, so let's change it up. So let's say it's a really windy day and Dave and I are on the same foil, the same setup, exactly the same, but he's heavier.

Once we're up on foil, he should be faster. Ju just based on, and this is not taking into account how you read a bump or how you do all that, and you're pumping ability or any of that. But just on the, if you were going in a straight line together then, and you're next to each other on the exact same bump, Dave should be able to go faster than I can in big conditions, but in smaller conditions on the same foil.

If he's slightly under foil, I'm just right, then I'm gonna go quicker. So the weight is a big thing and it's a hard thing to plan for because look, you're not gonna, you're not know for mochi, Oahu, the start of the race is generally a lot lighter than it is at the, in the middle.

. So if I'm to, if I'm to wait my board for the start of the race, I'm gonna have a harder time to paddle up. But if I can get up with that heavier board, it's gonna be better for me in the middle. . But the other thing with Malachi is you got the off wind at the end. So you, I think for a race like Malachi where there's lots of different conditions, there's definitely an advantage for the lighter guys and lighter equipment, but not in the middle of the channel, just for the beginning and end.

Yeah. Because for the middle of the channel, a big guy can probably make up a lot of ground on the guys that are smaller, but they've gotta be able to get up early and then foil as far as they can, as close they can to the finish. So it's interesting, there's a few things going on fo I can't wait to get into this foil racing because I've done a bunch of downwind fall races here in Australia, but mainly against surf skis in ri canoes and a few mates who are learning.

I have, the best race I've had has been over here in Western Australia against the all the WA crew and Marcus and then Z Westwood, but there was heaps of seaweed, so it was like, it was who could foil through the seaweed best and bit of a like, it it was like a obstacle course, but yeah, I'm looking forward to getting outta Hawaii and getting some.

Some good rising and good conditions for sure. Should be fun. Yeah. Not too much seaweed in Hawaii, but yeah, sometimes I've noticed like just a little tiny thing that stuck on your foot makes a big difference in your speed, so huge. Yeah. Yeah, I was just thinking the way too, like I remember, back in the windsurf racing days, like slalom racing and stuff guys would wear like weighted jackets, like weighted life jackets so they can hold a bigger w sale basically, yeah. So that's another interesting thing, like yeah, where you wouldn't think that it doesn't really make sense, but when you're using he heavy equipment sometimes it's wow, this is nice, yeah. Anyway, but uh, you've seen the, to the to foil guys do it a bunch too lids on a big weighted heavy board putting lead, lead weights on their boards and stuff like that.

Yeah. And that just means they can get away with a Basically going faster with the same foil, because I think especially in the toe falling and stuff, we're just in the, tip of the iceberg. There's a whole bunch of stuff that's gonna be like, basically I think toe oil is gonna be a lot smaller than what they are, so you shouldn't have to weight it up.

You should just be able to use a smaller foil. But at the moment, the foils have too much lift, and we've gotta weight our gear up to make them work. So it's, I just think the fo they aren't enough. There aren't enough iterations of it yet. I think it's similar to also, it's similar kind of to having a longer fuselage.

It's less pitch sensitive. So if you have a heavier board, it balances out that pitch sensitivity, yeah. True. Lightboard will just, Harder to control the pitch and the heavier board just has so much momentum that you don't have to make as many adjustments, it's like more comfortable ride in a way, absolutely. Absolutely. But there, I think there's something to it, I, I would say lighter is not always better. That's what some people think, but it's not true. Yeah. I don't, I feel like for what most of us are using, like in, in smaller waves the lighter stuff is epic.

Cuz a light set up is gonna be really reactive. . But when you start to get too much power and too much speed and that's when you want the heavy stuff, that's when you wanna dull everything down. Yeah. It's like having a nicer suspension or something, like a smoother, smoother ride or something like that.

I don't know. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. All right let's talk a little bit more about equipment, like the foils. What have you learned from riding all these different foils and and what, now you're developing the quote foils, like what, what kind of things are you trying to put together and what, I guess when you're down with foiling, you're always trying to create a foil that's easy to pump up on and then fast and easy to control at the maximum speed or, has a high top end speed.

So how do you do that? What's, how do you achieve that compromise? Yeah, so I guess if we talk about the range, like we've got our, like the planned range for co, the planned range for code foils is a race wing, which is obviously gonna be super as high aspect as we can get it because we want to be going, be able to go really slow and really fast.

with the one foil, like for a race like mochi, you start in pretty much, no bumps. It's like howling offshore, but it's, there's no fetch in the middle. So at the beginning you need that foil that can paddle up easily, and then in the middle you wanna fall. That can go fast cause you're out in the middle of the ocean.

There's a lot of stuff going on. And then at the end of the race, you've got an upwind pump. So like you need a foil that can pretty much do it all. And that's what we see a race wing is, I, it's something that it doesn't necessarily we don't want it to turn really well. Like we prefer to add another, two kilometers on the low end and two kilometers on the top end, rather than have it be able to do really nice roundhouse cutbacks.

. Because for racing it's not so much about turning, it's more about speed. It's the first across the line. It's not who's the most stylish along the way. And then we have our sort of all round range, which is that more combination of. Yeah, we wanted to go quick. We wanted to be able to paddle it up pretty slow too, but we wanna be able to turn it too.

And so that's what the eight 50 is like. It's the one that we're releasing first. It's an all round wing. You like, we've used it for down winding and done some pretty quick times. And then we've done it. We've used it in the surf and it's super fun. So all the clips, I, the one that, that video I shared that was all on the eight 50 and I've gone as fast as two minute kilometers, like two minute flat and as slow as like 3, 3 15.

So the range on that foil is pretty good from what we've tried so far. Which so super pleasing. So going from a race foil to a more carving, surfing foil, is it just like the aspect ratio? Is it the wing tips? Like how do you make it turn easier and versus being more efficient, or going faster?

Yeah, it's there's a few things, right? There's the foil section's probably the most important thing, and you're probably not gonna use the same foil section for a race wing as you are. a sort of more all round wing, and then you've got the outline of the wings. That's the span and the cord.

And so obviously, a more all round foil is gonna be, lower aspect. It's gonna be, instead of being like, it basically it's high, it's as high as you can get it without, with it still being usable, and then the all round wing is something that's something that's still like high-ish aspect but it's, you don't wanna be so high aspect that you can't turn it.

So it's just finding that, that happy medium, it's hard to, and that's what the testing's all about, that's what we're playing around with now with the, we're really happy with the aspect ratio of the eight 50 actually don't have, all I know is the square centimeters. I don't know the span or the cord or anything, but, we'll, when release it, all that stuff will come out.

And then obviously the race swing's much, much higher aspect. And then the third range is the sort of, the. I guess this, you can use it for downwind, but it's main thing is it wants to go slow. Like it, it's designed to go slow and to turn really well. So basically the stall speed is much lower, which comes at the cost of, top speed.

But because it turns so well and it can go slow, you're just, it's more of a small wave, surf wing and down, learn to downwind wing and learn to wing w like just, it's not necessarily a learner's wing, cuz I still want to use it. I'm really excited to use it for, small bay runs or, top small surf or light wind wing days.

But it's the best foil. If you're getting into it, it's the best fall to. , but we don't wanna build it as a learn learner wing because it's not that it's gonna turn really well. So it's, and then that one probably has a little bit of a thicker foil section kind of thing or the problem. Yeah it, yeah we literally were just drawing it up last night and Yeah, it's gonna have, yeah, it's gonna have a, it's gonna be lower aspect again.

So basically high the race w's gonna be the highest aspect. The all rounders in the middle and the surf wings the lowest aspect. It's probably not gonna pump as well as the other ones, but it's gonna turn better, and that's, and it's gonna go slow really well. So that's our vision, that's, we feel like if we do those three fours, it covers everything that you need.

And yeah, so we, we've got the benefit of seeing other brands, do stuff like that too. And the uni foil progression and the new Armstrong mid aspect, it's that's the kind of that's the sort of area that I guess, Brands are pushing now. It's like that just surf.

It's not just about going fast, it's about going slow and being able to turn. Yeah. It's interesting how it went, like from, super boards went super short and then going longer again, super high aspect. And then going, now we're going short again, medium aspect again. So we got but I'm gonna share the screen of your this was the, your record paddle distance paddle.

Oh yeah. Yeah. This is, and so maybe let's talk about that a little bit and I guess like your wife was there with your baby. Yeah. Six, six week old son at this point. He was yeah, it was a journey and it was something that was organized and, obviously my wife was pregnant at the time.

We were organizing it and then, we had. Put it on ice while, the birth and everything happened, . And then once everything was our life was back in order, we're like, okay, let's have a look at, let's have a look at what we can organize. And yeah. So the goal was to go as far as you could in, in one day basically.

Yeah. So I was actually on, I was like just looking through the Guinness World record stuff. Cause I'm like, I wonder if there's like a foil, like a downwind foil record. And I was looking through it and lo and behold I found this this the record was furthest distance on a hydrofoil paddle board in 12 hours.

So basically we are like, okay, let's do it. So there's a bit of admin to get, like you need three witnesses on the boat. You need a, obviously you need a boat to get to the start point. You need to line it up with weather. And this was like a six month project that kind of came. Came all came together.

This is basically just six weeks after my son was born, which was yeah, which was cool to have it all come together. And was using the axis a r t 10 99. I would've loved to use a smaller fall, but as you can see, the start was pretty light conditions. The wind was actually pretty offshore at the beginning, , and there was a little bit of swell, which you can see, I'm just trying to tap into just here.

But at about three or four hours in the wind really kicked up and I wished I was on a smaller foil then. So at the beginning I wish I was on a bigger foil and at the end I wish I was on a smaller foil. And that's like what we're just talking about, the range of a foil.

Yeah. You want to be out. So right now, this is towards the end and I'm fully maxed out and you can see my stance changes. I get really far forward, get really square and yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of different conditions to negotiate that's for sure. So by square you mean like your toe is more pointed forward and more of that kind of stance?

Yeah. Like more offset, like my hips are forward, especially toward the last clip of me foiling in at the end was like my hip even now, look how look my hips are fully forward. That's cause I'm over foiled basically. Yeah. I'm just hanging on and because my, I've probably been standing for 10 hours.

My, your feet go pins and needles in your feet and you just, and your mus some muscles are not working anymore and yeah, it was tricky. Yeah. I can't even imagine pa like just standing that long and pumping and oh my god, it must have been pretty exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. This is, I hear you switching your bag

Yeah, the food changeover, we almost had it. So that's Zane Westwood, he was on the boat as my, foiling. He was a good, great foiling mate and he understands what I'm doing. So everyone to educate everyone else on the boat and. We just missed that little changeover.

We, we hadn't practiced it. We should have practiced it beforehand, but it ended up just when I came down, they just throw, throw me a big swap packs over and it's a pretty big escort boat too. , it's a huge escort boat, basically. We it was really hard to find an escort boat for this. And I had a mate who does whale watching tours and because we were filming it, he's oh, you gonna want a decent boat?

He had a smaller boat, but he is like to have, the production team plus support, plus the witnesses for Guinness to watch it. We needed a boat that could handle like, having eight to nine, even 10 people on board. So yeah, it was a full production. That's why it was so hard to organize, Yeah. Yeah. So I know you, you have a limited amount of time, so I don't want to keep you too long. But let's talk a little bit about do wind foiling and the technique. Can you give some pointers to people that are getting into how to get up on foil? And I've been doing it a bunch.

I, I wouldn't say I'm very good at it. I'm getting better at getting up on foil and we've done we have a training group where we do like the pop-up training and flat water, and I'm actually able to do it with just a little bit of push from some sw ground swell. But and so getting up for me wasn't too hard on a big foil, but then I guess keeping it going a lot of times I just felt like my, the foil wouldn't go fast enough to stay with the bump, so it kick out and then sometimes I would just lose momentum before I can catch the next one.

And so it just, yeah, maybe some pointers on downwind foiling. Yeah, I think the first thing is a lot of people say downwind foiling is the hardest thing you'll ever do, and. I'm not gonna say it's not, but I think a lot of people are just surround themselves straight into the deep end. Like conditions like we're watching now.

Like I wouldn't wanna be learning in conditions like that, but there's no way you wanna be learning in like back out in my coaching group, like the coach, I've got a club, I guess an online community with the coach Casey Club, where we talk about this every Tuesday, but like the, basically you want, there's bay runs which are basically shorter period shorter period bumps with just wind bumps and that happens in, harbors, rivers, lakes botany Bay and Sydney is one of the, one of the awesome places to, to do it.

And basically the advantage of that is it's easier to balance because you start in pretty much flat water and the flat water allows you to work on your. Your paddle skills and your balance without working your paddle skills and balance it's really very difficult because you're not gonna be able to stand on your board and be able to put power down to get going.

So I even say you should go for a paddle on your board just in Flatwater as like the first thing to do. Because if, cuz if you go out straight into downwind conditions, it's gonna be really hard to just to stand on your board especially with these new like long skinny boards, yeah, they make it easier to get up.

But being, something like 21 or eight, 19 or 18 wide, they're really had to stand on no matter how long they are. Like, there's a level of balance that is needed to be going into downward bump. So just to start out, my, my biggest tip is get your downwind set up and take it to a.

Piece of flat water, the flattest water you can find and just work on your paddle stroke, your paddle technique and work on activating the foil. You don't have to learn to paddle up onto foil, but you have to know how to paddle to a speed that your foil feels like it's doing something under you. And if your foil isn't activated you're probably not going fast enough to then get it up in bumps.

You don't have to learn to paddle up in flat water, in my opinion, to be able to downwind foil. It definitely doesn't hurt, but it's not the be all and end all. From there, once I've done a bit of time and I'm confident I can activate the foil and get that sort of pumping motion down, I'll then go into, like I said, like a protected zone as my son.

Yeah, he's so little cute. He's just started, he's just started walking now he's a tens one in a couple days. I'm sorry. I fly home tonight. Oh, nice. So that miss his birthday. But yeah, in terms of the bay runs, you wanna get out and bay runs so that basically that it's not that choppy.

And you want all the bumps going one direction. What a lot, what I've seen a lot of people do is when they're struggling is they go out into an ocean run and they got, the swell coming from the east and the wind coming from the south and there's waves going one direction and wind bumps going the other direction.

And that's really hard to learn to foil. And that's even hard for people that know how to foil to do it. But ideally you want all the wind going one direction. You want it to be shorter period. Shorter period. Bumps are much easier. Once you can successfully do an entire bay run so you can foil for, eight, nine Ks downwind in a bay, then you can think about going into the ocean, in the ocean, as you can see here.

There's lots of different bumps going every different direction. There's it. It's not clean. It's wild. And classify it, you've got your. Your bay runs, which I call like green runs, they are groomers. If you're on, in, on the mountain you'll start, when you learn to, when you learn to ski or snowboard, you're gonna start at, the training zone that's pretty much flat.

So that's our flatwater. Then you go to your green run and the green runs they're groomers. It's all nice and clean and easy and they, it's like corduroy bumps, right? Like corduroy bumps, slow moving. Yeah. . Yeah, exactly. Slow moving. And then once you get, once you do that, you then go to your blue runs.

And your blue runs is getting a bit steeper terrain, but it's still groomed. And that's an ocean run with no swell. So if you do an ocean run, obviously there's, it's hard to get no waves, but if there's just wind bumps, it's gonna make it much easier. So that's our blue runs. And then you go to your black diamond runs and that's when there's wind and waves going every other direction.

And that's just, it's not groomed. It's the opposite. It's wild. It's it's all over the place. They're the, that's the sort of the guide I guess. And like the, I mentioned before with the Coach Casey Club, I go through all that sort of stuff. And step people through it.

And it's it's a really cool community cuz a lot of people are going through the pain together. , a lot of people struggle learning to downwind foil and I can guide them into, even have a look at their local spot and say, okay, when the wind's blowing this direction, go check out go check out this spot.

Yeah. And if the winds blowing in this direction and what conditions you should be looking for and all that sort of stuff. So the KC Club is at K C A U s.com. Yeah. And so talk a little bit about that. If somebody wanted to yeah. Once you get into Darwin foiling, what kind of stuff do you offer on your coach Kiy club?

Yeah, so there's, I have two different parts within my, like my, my, my online or like my coaching business I guess I've got like in person. So if people are in Sydney or in Australia at some point, . They can join me for like a private session. I'll do one-on-ones, but also do like clinics.

I'm actually doing a bunch of camps overseas this year. I'm going to the Maldives with noon tours and gonna do more of that in the future. But during Covid where this business started, it was just like we're doing a few little foil camps up and down the coast, then a few private sessions.

Then the other one that I dreamt up during Covid was the online community. And that was obvious why you do that during Covid. We couldn't go anywhere, so I was like we should have, like, how do I coach people who can't come to me and I can't go to them? So I created this online course basically where it goes through the step-by-step guide of how to downwind foil, how to surf foil, how to wing foil, and actually a bunch of stuff on supp racing, like paddle technique, which has actually helped a lot for the people learning to, to downwind foil.

And that's the coach Casey club, that online stuff and basically throughout the course. And then I was, then I wanted to engage with my clients more. So I did a, I introduced a weekly call, so every Tuesday I call it talk Back Tuesday I do a call with all members like a Zoom call we're doing now, Robert, and we're looking at, instead of looking at just us talking we bring up videos and everyone loads it up into a Facebook page and we, when you go through all the videos, and so I give them feedback on the, on what they're doing.

So a lot of people upload go GoPro stuff, just selfie stuff. Some people set up a camera on the beach, some people have mates film them, and they do it as a team. So two guys wanna learn down and foil, they'll just film each other while they're out there, and then they can get a lot of feedback from me every week.

And then I've got the final sort of piece of the chapter was what I call Friday wins. And it's just a bit of goal setting. So when people are planning their week they talk about, okay, what have I achieved this week? What do I want to achieve in the week ahead and how am I gonna get there?

, that's that's the package, it's the online course. It's the weekly coaching call. Talk back Tuesday. Then it's the Friday wins, which you go through your y you basically your goals and go through what you achieved in the, what you've achieved in the last week, and then what you wanna do for the week ahead.

It's been a really cool, been a cool project, really. It's been unreal and so many people I've, I feel like I've taught so many people to downwind foil now and opened up this new this new form of exercise or, enjoyment and it's yeah, look it, it started out as just being like a sub race sort of thing, but with, cuz I was passionate about it and there weren't many other people do it.

I did downwind foil first and I've introduced surf ball and wing fo since. But downwind foil is definitely the main thing on main people, main thing people are coming to me for. A lot of people, a lot of wingers join up to learn how to jive or learn how to tack or or learn how to downwind with the wing.

And so that's the other stuff that I've of worked on. And, I've got a bit of a how to jump stuff, but I'm not pretending I'm a trickster. I'm not the best at jumping, but I do, I can teach the basics of jumping. So yeah, that's the kind of stuff. And e even I guess for me, when I drew up the course, it was like beginner all the way through to advanced, not super not like elite, but like I, on there, I've got a lot of stuff for people who wanna learn to wing.

Once you have your equipment, you can jump online and I've got a step by step guide like how to hold the wing, how to pump up the wing, how to choose your equipment and all that sort of stuff. So it, it's more than just downwind foiling. But in the coaching calls, the downwind foiling probably takes up the most time cuz the downwind foil crew are very frothy.

like to ask a lot of questions and, which is awesome. Yeah, it's been great. . . Yeah. Super cool. Yeah. So all right. I think you, you get gonna have to go soon, but appreciate your time. That, it's really, it was really cool to chat and catch up and looks like a quite a few of your crew is coming to the Molo Kay race this summer, right?

Yeah. I just got a text this morning from the from a mate and he was like, that is involved with Moloka Tao. And he is there's a few guys signed up from your neck of the woods. Do you think that do you think that they're up to it? And it was like, names like Zane Westwood who actually started up as coach Casey club member, and I coached him with that.

And now we're just mates just froing out, falling down, wind together all the time. Guys like Oscar Hansen, who's, the guy's got the surf pump floor record and Josh Coo, who's also a coach Casey club member. So it's pretty cool that guys I've coached now. I'm looking to do Malachi Oahu, and I'm actually I'm just in the early stages of writing up a bit of a Malachi Oahu foil program so that people who are aspiring to do Malachi Oahu can, I can sort point them in the right direction and give them the best advice on how to train for it and, get nutrition sorted because it's like, it's a, it's 52 Ks it's a long way.

It's a big passenger water. It's not as far on a foil as it is on the sap. As long as you're up on foil. If you're coming down, it's probably gonna be longer than a sup. You gotta be ready. It's gonna be a lot of it comes down to having a good strategy and the rate nutrition and the rate support and logistics and Oh, that kind of stuff, oh, they, all the, all that stuff can make or break the race basically, yeah.

I think that a lot of people talk about malaka, tohu, like the race. It's, if you made it to the start line, , you've done a good job. Like you, you can now enjoy it cuz it's so much admin and training and when you get there it's hey just relax and enjoy. But yeah, thanks so much for having me, Robert.

It's been on really coming to show actually one thing I wanted to ask, like they were talking about the event organizers maybe having a different finish line for the foil racers. So if you could have if you could choose where to finish where would that be? Like, where would you say you would like to have a finish line for foiling if, oh, or do you think probably a good challenge to have to go upwind look, I think it's should, they've gotta be clear because obviously if you're designing a fo that needs to go upwind, you're gonna, if you're, you want know about it. Whereas if you're designing a foil but you're gonna finish like somewhere at the Outrigger Canoe Club, you'd be using a very different foil for the entire race.

And I think to me, the Outrigger Canoe Club would be an epic place to finish. That's where the boys finish their local runs, right? So it's to me that's the obvious spot that I'm up for anything, even last year. Yeah, the wind sock. Exactly. But last year I was actually looking at coming over to the Blue Water Classic and start through the prone and sub guys started.

I was up for the challenge. I think it's, downwind, fallings, epic. But I think, flatwater like foil racing is something that's gonna grow as well. And even like when conditions are only five or 10 knots or there's just swell, that's something you can race in and like foils are now good enough that you can paddle up in next to nothing.

Like guys are flatwater foiling in a lot of places. And so to be able to I don't think you need to change it just to make it easy for everyone. I think the challenge is half the fun, 52 ks in the foil now is only about, if it was all down wind, it's only about two hours, so by making that up wind stretch makes, it, makes it, it is not a nice finish, but it's a real finish and it makes it comparable to all the supp and prone guys that do it too. Yeah, but even if they had to finish outside black Point, that would make it a lot easier too. But to finish.

But yeah, I don't know. I guess it makes it more challenging to have to go all the way to the keyhole for sure. y Yeah. I think, yeah, probably the, the most obvious one would be having it there and just having a deepwater start out of China wall. And then you can just then people can just limp into the finish line.

maybe have a boat to tow people in or something because Oh, you got, everyone's got an escort boat, so you can just jump on your escort boat and go in from there. Yeah. But maybe that's the obvious one, cuz then it's at least everyone's finishing the same spot. I like that. I think the race should finish in the same spot as everyone, as long as we're all competing on the same day.

was a different day then we're doing a different race. Yeah. All right. Thank you James. I really appreciate it. And thanks for sharing your stoke and your knowledge and so yeah, I mean I've been listening, so if you're interested in that one foiling, definitely check out the Casey show and then also the Casey Coaching Club.

Yeah, thanks for your time and maybe we'll talk again after the MOK race or while we're over there or something like that. Sounds good. Definitely have to catch up when we're over there. Yeah, that'd be fun to show you the code foils too. Haha. Yeah, I'm definitely interested. I wanna try 'em.

Yeah. Cool. He is cool to try different things, but yeah, I've been using the Mike's lab foil and that, that thing's so fast. It's pretty amazing. You got it. That's the benchmark, right? Yeah. I'll have to try that. Yeah. Pretty amazing how fast they are. Like the drag, the controllability at speed is pretty cool.

That's the important thing. So a lot of progress being made, I think. Absolutely. Yeah. It's exciting times. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks so much Robert, and speak soon. Yeah, have a great day. Yeah. Cheers. See you. Okay, friends, thank you so much for watching all the way to the end. As I appreciate everyone that watches the whole thing on YouTube.

It's only about 5% of the people who click on the video in the beginning watch the whole thing. But I do know that a lot of you also listen to it as a podcast all the way through. And I always appreciate when people tell me I watch the whole thing. So thanks so much. I know it's been a while since my last interview in December had Ken Winter and also Mike's Labs, Stephan and Mike from Mike's lab.

So those were great interviews and I'm always. Into doing more interviews. So I'm just gonna have to keep at it get people on the show. I tried to get Ken and Johnny Hyken on the show, but I haven't been able to get them to come on yet, so I'm still working on that. If Johnny Heineken, tell 'em to respond to my email and set up a time to talk, I would really like to talk to him, especially about wing fo racing, which I'm really into.

So yeah, that's it for the show. Hope you enjoyed it. We do have a great sale right now at Blue Planet on foil boards especially. We got blue planet foil boards, all standup and wing floorboards for 7 99 for the bamboo carbon construction, bamboo with carbon debt construction, and full carbon for 9 99.

So that's a great deal. We're gonna basically have a closeout sale for of whatever's left in stock so we can make room for new things for next season. . We also have 20% off the Armstrong Forward geometry boards both prone and standup foil boards and wing FO boards. And then we also have 20% off the PPC boards, PPC SOAR boards, which are also excellent construction.

Very nice boards for wing foiling. Yeah, so thank you for your support. Basically, this show is made possible by customers of us just like you, who support Blue. Support our retail operation, which allows me to make these podcasts and videos. So thanks so much for watching. Really appreciate you. Have a great time.

See you on the water. .

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Episoder

Robby Naish Interview on the Blue Planet Show, Episode 32
11 May· The Blue Planet Show
What an honor to have Robby Naish on the show! He really needs no introduction: 27 times windsurfing world champion and a pioneer in kite surfing, Stand Up Paddle boarding, foiling and wing foiling. The first time he became a windsurfing world champion was at only 13 years old, traveling by himself to the Bahamas. This interview gives you insight of how Robbie Naish grew up and how he lives his life today.
Show transcript:
Aloha friends! It's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show. Today's show is extra special. I know it's been a while since the last episode, but I ran into Robbie Naish a few weeks ago at a race in Kailua and he agreed to come onto the show. So I'm super stoked to have him as a guest.
Really interesting stories. Robby Naish really needs no introduction. 27 times windsurfing world champion, pioneer. First time he became a windsurfing world champion was when he was 13 years old, traveling by himself to the Bahamas. Great stories. I found a few new things about him. For example, He was going to study art at UC Santa Cruz if he hadn't become a professional wind surfer.
And he also designed the first Naish logo when his dad started making boards under the Naish label. So I think this interview gives you a really nice insight of how Robbie Naish He lives his life today and hope to get some more time with him soon. As I always like to ask a lot of questions.
So he had to go to a photo shoot. I didn't get to ask all the questions I wanted. So hopefully I can get Robbie back again. But for now without further ado, please enjoy this interview with Robbie Naish. All right, Robbie Naish. So good to have you on the Blue Planet show. Welcome. Right on. Thanks, Robert.
Good to be here. Yeah. So a couple of weeks ago I just ran into you and Kailua. They had the race over there and that was super fun. And then I saw you were on a wing foil board with a seven meter wing, even though it was like a really windy day. So just let's talk a little bit about that.
How was that experience? It was fun. I was over there anyway and Dez and the crew were like, Oh, you should join this fun race they're doing. I didn't want to actually enter, but figured I'd go over and, chase people around. So I did the course sorta. And, I'm not really into racing, so to speak, but obviously, I'm old school, like I'm not doing loops and fricking spins and everything on the foil.
My body's not as forgiving as it used to be. And I know I'll hurt myself. An injury at this point is something I'm really trying to avoid. So I'm blasting around. I'm trying to go as fast as I can. I'm jumping high, but just not doing rotations, really enjoying winging and pushing the envelope of what I would call free ride gear.
So You know, not full on speed or race gear, but taking gear that I can use for anything and trying to make it go as fast as it can go. And in terms of wing size is that pretty much always means like windsurfing. If you're really going fast, you're going to use as big. a wing as possible even to the point where most guys are out on fours and you'll be on a seven.
It's just the way that, aerodynamics work in power and efficiency of foils. So you ride pretty lit when you're trying, especially upwind, you can handle a really big wing. Feathering upwind at a real high angle of attack. There's a point at which you just can't keep the thing in the water anymore reaching, and you've got to scale down the size of your foil at least.
But I tend to ride pretty big wings here. Yeah, even back in the days of wing wind surfing I remember you were always more on a bigger sail than most of the other guys, right? Yeah Wave sailing is different even here. It's the same like most guys would be out at he'll keep on like a 4.0 or 3.0. And I'll be historically on a five, Oh, four, seven, that's changed.
I've scaled down to where I'm writing smaller sales than I used to. Like my average sale now over here is a four or five. I'll hardly ever even go on a four, seven, just cause the way the equipment has evolved, it's changed. The boards are shorter, they're easily overpowered. You ride a bigger sale.
And you'll tend to stuff the nose a lot. They just balance better with a smaller sail. But it's more the difference between, say, wave sailing and slalom racing or course racing, where even today on the really short, really wide slalom boards, The guys are using seven meters when you'd be on a five, a wave sail, four or five way.
They're carrying giant rigs and then most of the guys are a hundred kilos as well to hold them down. So it's really different when you're trying to go fast, you'll use a. A flatter, bigger sail and then just get up on the fin or as it may be up on the foil. All right. Cool. Yeah, like my interviews can tend to go pretty long, but you just told me that you have a photo shoot today.
I guess this week you're doing some photo shoots for Naish. I'll try to respect. I'll try to respect that. Keep it to an hour or so. But, I always like to start at the very beginning. Talk a little bit, and for me, I grew up in Germany and I'm, I guess about five years younger than you.
And and you were like my idol, so cool for me to be able to just have a conversation with you and all that. But in, and it's a big reason why I got, came to Maui to windsurf and ended up living here too. So thanks for that. But yeah, so talk a little bit about growing up in Kailua and, like you had, you won your first world title at 13 years old.
And talk a little bit about that time, like growing up and how you got into windsurfing and or you actually your very first earliest memories of just like enjoying water sports or getting into the ocean and that you remember. Yeah it was about a five hour story. I'll try to give you the consultative version.
I got plenty of time. My whole life has been a series of right place, right time. I've just been blessed and lucky. Very lucky many times over. So my dad, both my parents are from California. My dad grew up in La Jolla and he was a surfer lifeguard at wind and sea. Started coming to Hawaii in the fifties to surf, was one of the first guys to surf Waimea, Makaha, places like that.
He's actually in the first surfer magazine ever published dropping in at Waimea. And so he was an ocean guy and moved to Hawaii, three kids already. My brother, Randy, who's a year and a half older than I am, myself and my sister when they moved to Hawaii, when I was, I think almost four years old, fortunately.
Basically, he took a teaching job at Roosevelt High School. And was a science teacher and packed up the family, moved to Hawaii so he could surf. So I don't really remember, much as a kid in California, my whole childhood memories. I've got a strange mind too, like my parents remember everything from their whole life.
My brother remembers everything. And I've got this strange selective memory where, there's all periods. I don't remember anything at all. But I certainly remember growing up in Kailua. Which was the world's best place for a kid to grow up. My dad surfed, so we grew up at the beach.
He got one of the first Hobie cats in Hawaii when Hobies were launched. So he had a Hobie 14 and was racing Hobies for years and years. He was. He's a state champion in the Hobie 14 like five times. And when they launched the Hobie 16, started racing 16s. And I don't know how many times on that he was national champion on the Hobie 16 in 1972.
And it was really a good Hobie sailor. And so we were pretty much at the beach all the time. We lived up right up from Lani Kai boat ramp in Kailua next to Lani Kai elementary school. My parents still live there and so I could walk to the beach and surf Kailua shore break. My dad let us surf Flat Island.
Once we, Could show that we could swim from the boat ramp to flat and back. Then we were allowed to surf the flat. And that was when I was in, I don't know, third grade, fourth grade. And it was the only time flat was ever really good was when it was super windy trade. So then you paddle out and back then it was before leashes.
You lose your board. And by the time you swimming in your board, it's halfway to the boat ramp. But just love growing up in Kailua. I didn't even own a pair of slippers until I was in like the third grade. It was barefoot, everything, barefoot, flag football, barefoot basketball, barefoot track, barefoot to school.
Didn't have a lot of money. My dad had. Three kids pretty quickly after four kids, on a high school public school teacher's job. But you would never know it, as a kid and in Hawaii, at least at that point, you didn't need a lot of money to have an amazing life. A lot of high water pants, that kind of thing where you have to wear your pants and you're still wearing them to school and you got all your ankles showing.
But growing up in Kailua at that point was amazing best place in the world that I think the best time in the world. So really lucky. And then got into windsurfing. Fortunately, when I was in the sixth grade, 1974, discovered it, my brother and I had a little Hobie 12, that little semi catamaran monohull.
thing that Hobie made. We had it down at Kailua one day and there were a few windsurfers in Hawaii at the time. Mike Corgan, Larry Stanley, Ken Clyde, a few other guys and they set some buoys and they were doing little triangle races and asked if Randy, my brother, and I wanted to race with them on our Hobie.
And that's how we met. And so I was 11 years old at the time and we became friends. I asked if I could try the windsurfer. I couldn't even pull the sail out of the water. It wasn't tall enough. There's a whole leverage thing in the beginning. Cause at that point there was only one wind surfer.
There was the 12 foot plastic board, one size sail, one boom, one dagger board. It wasn't an industry yet. Yeah. It was hard to pull that sail out of the water, right? Yeah. 72 pounds or whatever. But I just loved it. I went with Thor and Stan, they'd sail with me inside of them and let go and I could, ride along for a bit.
Got that, that feel of gliding on the water. And I was absolutely hooked, it's everything I loved. It was surfing, skimboarding, sailing, just that first feeling of being able to grab the wind and go and make it all work was just absolutely addicting. And from that point forward. I was just on a mission.
I'd go down to the beach after school. I go down on weekends and those guys were like teaching windsurfing. And so guys would of course drift down the beach and then I'd spend my day walking down and so they didn't have to drag their gear back up the beach upwind. I'd go down and say, Hey, I'm going to sail your board back up for you.
And so I'd take their board, I'd sail it back up, wait for the next guy, sail it back out, go, Hey, can I borrow your windsurfer for a bit? So I was that pestery little kid who was just. At the beach all the time, honing my skills and trying to get as much time on the water as I could. And then, of course, still surfing a lot at the same time and shore break and whatnot.
Paddling canoe, paddled from Lonnie Kipe Canoe Club to Steersman in the, I don't know what the youngest bracket was, 10, 11, 12 years old. And Started saving my money. I made paper shell necklaces. I airbrushed t shirts. I babysat whatever to make money to buy my own board. And in late 74 bought my own windsurfer for 340, which was a lot of money back then, but for a complete rig.
And that was the beginning won the Hawai'i regional championships in 76 that got me an air ticket from windsurfer international to the national championships in Berkeley, California. And a group of guys from Hawai'i went to that. I think Thor, Larry Stanley, Dennis Davidson, Pat Love, some of the local Kailua guys.
And so I traveled with them and I got second in Berkeley to Mike Waltz and he already had a ticket to the world somehow from the year before, and I ended up getting his ticket, so that's what got me to the Bahamas in 1976 to the world championship. And, as conditions was that would have it, I was really fast when the wind was light because I was small and light had a real advantage over the heavy guys. And I won in the Bahamas and that got me an airfare to the next year's world championship in Sardinia in 77 went to Sardinia, I won there, which gave me a ticket to Cancun in 78. I won there and it gave me a ticket to the next year. And so I went from free airfare to free airfare.
Until I graduated from Punahou, I was public school, went to Lanikai Elementary, Kailua Intermediate, Kalaheo in freshman year, and then luckily I somehow got into Punahou for my last three years. So 10, 11, 12th grade, I went to Punahou, graduated in 81. Okay. Sorry to interrupt you, but let's go. I just want to go back to you going to, to the Bahamas when you're 13 year old.
I guess your parents didn't come with you. You were just on, on your own as a 13 year old. Just talk a little bit about that experience. That just seems. So far removed from what most 13 year olds get to experience. Yeah. In hindsight, I don't know how my parents let me do that. I think the world was a different place, man, cell phones, no internet. It was like, you're fricking gone the world, but they let me go. I Wilkings, who was a local photographer from Honolulu, who was a surf photographer, windsurf photographer in the early days. And he went to be the staff photographer for Windsurfer International in the Bahamas.
And so I flew with him and slept on his floor. You got a free hotel room there. So I slept on his floor and did the event and yeah, I just can't believe my parents let me go there. I was a pretty responsible kid, but yeah, I was still 13. And everyone else is older than you and you just showed up and got to the start and just took off where, what happened, how was it?
How was the racing? It was, it was a regatta, sailing regatta. So triangle races, you usually did. Three, three to four races a day, right? You do a morning race and then you'd go and do a back to back race after that Olympic triangle racing. So upwind reach upward, downwind upwind finish.
And in those days they had weight classes and an overall, so they'd race the different weight race weight classes against each other. And I was a lightweight, obviously. And Conditions were pretty light in the Bahamas, fortunately. And I was really fast and technically pretty good. My dad taught me, a lot of tactics, how to start, different rules and back then that was a big part of it was quite tactical, especially light wind course racing.
And so yeah, I won after that, they stopped doing weight classes cause the heavy guys were like, forget it. I don't want to race against the light guys like that anymore. And then from then on, it was just divisional weight class titles. Yeah, it was an amazing experience cruising around. I hung out with Mike Waltz and Matt Schweitzer and guys like that.
There were, a few years older than me, but at the time, if you're 13 and you're hanging out with a 16 year old, it's like, Oh, the guy's so old, guys in their twenties are like ancient when you're a little kid. So it was quite an experience. Really enjoyed it. And again, just incredibly lucky to have even had the opportunity, one, to have got the free air ticket there because I couldn't have gone otherwise.
And the fact that my parents somehow let me go as well. Yeah, so that's awesome. And then you were able to just parlay that into more and more tickets to more and more events and just kept going from there. But what would you say did you have a secret to your success?
Like, How did you just keep winning and stay on top of the game? Like what was your special sauce that you, is there something you can share? At that point as an amateur racing windsurfer glass, I think luck was a big part of it that I often had conditions that just perfectly suited My weight, cause I was really light compared to most guys, even in the classes, but I also had a pretty unfair advantage of training in Hawaii, where we've got, a pretty short period of time between 74 and 76.
I probably had twice as much water time as almost everybody else in the event who came from places where it's seasonal, or cold and, not very much wind, in Hawaii, you've got that trade wind. At least enough for a, an old Winster where you could sell every day. And so then the hours that I had under my belt, even as a little kid.
I think really helped and then I'm just pretty focused as well. I wasn't there for the fun. I wasn't there for the social aspect. I was there to do the best I could do. And I hated losing even as a little kid. And so I was pretty driven to try to succeed, to avoid that feeling of losing. It wasn't the thrill of winning.
It was really that the fear of losing that was a big driver for me. But again just lucky good conditions. I was really good at picking up boards. Like you show up at the event and there's this huge pile of boards cause it's a one design, right? Everybody's racing with, here's a sail, here's a dagger board, here's a mast, a boom.
Base and go pick up a board out of the pile. And it wasn't really super technological. Then they had a plastic shell. They'd stick a big metal rod in the back of the board and pump it full of expanding foam, pull the rod out and the board blows up into the mold. And so some boards would weigh 40 pounds.
Some boards would weigh like 45 pounds. The rockers were different. And most people didn't even have a clue. And I'd spend a half an hour in the board area, picking it up, every board, looking at the rockers and trying to find the lightest board that I could. Usually the lightest boards were underblown and also then had the flattest rails and flatter rocker as they're overblown, they'd get round.
And I was just amazed that, all these adults running around hadn't a clue. No idea that was the case, but I'd go around and look for that magic board. And go, Oh, this is the one. And then I refoiled my dagger boards. The dagger boards were made out of wood and they were just like super Mickey mouse.
And so I'd refoil my dagger board. I'd travel with a rasp and a file and sandpaper and make my dagger board, like a really nice foil. So yeah, just, I don't know, maybe took it more seriously than a lot of the guys that were there to just have fun.
I just listened to another podcast of and you talked about. That you actually learned German at Punahou school when you're at school. I always assumed that you learned it from your parents or something like that. Growing up, but you actually learned in school. And I guess that's because you could speak German that like Germans always loved you and you're like a big sports star in Germany.
When I was growing up, like everybody knew Robbie Naish, yeah, again, it was lucky to be, to have those three years at Punahou. And then I was saying earlier, windsurfing turned pro through all those years on winds class I was in amateur. And in those days, amateur professional was this absolute black line.
If you earned $1 as an athlete, you were a pro and you couldn't go to the Olympics. And the wind went in the Olympics in 1984, so I graduated in 81. And it happened to be the year that the sport turned professional. There are all these manufacturers now there was money, there were pro events, and I had to make that decision.
Do I stay an amateur, go to college and then try to get to the Olympics in 84 on the wind glider, which was a piece of crap. Different brand at Windsor, or do I turn pro and see where that takes me? So I deferred admissions to college for a year and went pro, but yeah, again, it was luck I went to Punahou and it's you had Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, German, French, and all these options for foreign language.
And I'm like I knew some Germans, through windsurfing, I had some like pen pals some German friends that started writing me early on. But the 1770s were all taking German and everyone was like, oh you're crazy German's so hard. I don't know. It made sense and again it was luck. I had this teacher, Frau Nehler at Puno Frau Nehler's so hard.
She's so mean and I thought she was just awesome and I actually learned, from her, I, or so much. And so I use that, through the eighties, windsurfing just boomed in Europe, as Germany was, and then still is always the world's biggest market for these sports. And so it really gave me an advantage, promotionally connecting with fans and going to the German events, going to ISPO, going to Dusseldorf Messe.
And And I had fun with it as well, like I'd sit around and listen and people didn't, in the beginning, know, even realize that I knew what they were saying. And then slowly started speaking, get to go on German TV shows and slowly, speak more and more. And now I'm, I wouldn't say I'm fluent, but I'm pretty much conversationally at least fluent.
And it's helped my career again, just right place, right time, lucky decision. And yeah. Yeah, I guess it's funny because my our kid goes to Puno, they're going to graduate this year and Puno always brags about how high their percentage of kids are that go to go on to college. So you're probably one of those failures that didn't make it to college.
Never made it, fortunately. But yeah, I wouldn't say that you're a failure though in life. So I can't see that. Yeah, sometimes going to college is not necessarily the best thing for everybody, right? Yeah, I certainly wouldn't be where I am today if I had gone to college. Okay.
So let's talk a little bit about starting your professional career. So I guess you were torn between becoming professional, going to the Olympics and then what, when did you start making money with windsurfing? Like when did that become your job? Yeah, pretty much before I graduated from high school, even we had our first pro prize money events.
So I wasn't taking any sponsor money, but we had two events, the Maui speed crossing, which Arnaud Derozenay put together, which was a race from Fleming Beach on Maui over to Molokai around that little, rock island on the east coast. Yeah. Coast of Molokai, a little bit like I don't know, a little Mokomanu, and then back to Maui.
It was a full on open channel race and he thought he was going to smoke everybody. A bunch of us flew over from Oahu and I won that and it was a thousand dollars prize money. And so I'm like, Oh, I didn't know what to do. So I donated half of it to the U. S. Olympic Committee and half of it to the U. S.
Olympic I can't remember, but I donated all the prize money so that I could retain my amateur status because I was still trying to figure out what to do. And then it, almost immediately there were announcements of other pro windsurfing events with prize money around the world. And I had at that point, again, luckily at the same time sponsors offering me contracts.
My first paid sponsor was O'Neill Wetsuits. And then Mistral and then Gastrin had just, everything started to fall into place where I said, okay, forget it. I was going to go to University of Santa Cruz, UC Santa Cruz. And deferred. Said, okay, I'll give it a year, see where this takes me. And fortunately, I'm still giving it a year.
Every year and seeing where it takes me. Did you did you have an idea of what you wanted to study if you went to UC Santa Cruz? Yeah, I was really into art and did a lot of art through school, sculpture, glassblowing. I've been airbrush painting since I was a little kid, but I knew I couldn't major in art.
So I was going to major in child psychology. I really like little kids. I like to babysit. I was like that weird boy that did the babysitting in the neighborhood because the girls were all irresponsible and I was responsible. That's I was going to, at least the idea was I was going to major in child psychology and minor in art.
Wow. Okay. Yeah, that's cool. Okay. So then you got sponsored and then I guess then also Quicksilver became a big sponsor, right? Like how did that come about? , same thing. I got connected with Quicksilver because some of the first big events in the sport were in Australia. We had the Rip Curl Quicksilver Classic in Torquay.
And that started in about 82, 83, 84. We ran for several years. In Torquay, Australia, which was this tiny little surf town. If you go there now, you don't even recognize it compared to what it was in the early eighties, it's just giant, like everything else in the world. But Rip Curl and Quicksilver were right next to each other.
Rip Curl only did wetsuits. Quicksilver only did board shorts and t shirts. I met the guys and at that point, obviously you could be. O'Neill and Quicksilver because O'Neill only made wetsuits. That was it. No t shirts, no clothing, no nothing. And Quicksilver only made clothing. So I was O'Neill Quicksilver for many years until they both grew and both started, Quicksilver started doing wetsuits, O'Neill started doing clothing.
And after, several years of being sponsored by both, I had to make a decision to go with one or the other and yeah. Was really good friends with the O'Neill family, Jack O'Neill, Pat O'Neill. It was tough to leave those guys, but made sense economically because at that point I had become an initial investment partner in the license for Quicksilver Europe.
Four friends. And myself brought Quicksilver to Europe and formed a company in France called Napoli. And we had the license for Quicksilver Europe. And so I was one of the founding partners in that. And that grew and grew. We were the first Quicksilver in the world to really start doing non surf clothing.
There was a short summer, so we started doing jackets and we started doing ski stuff. And I remember the neon clothing and all that. Yeah, the war paint overalls and all that stuff. That was a fun time. And we grew that company, to a pretty big company before we finally sold it to Quicksilver Inc, Quicksilver USA in 1981.
And Yeah, again, nice. Yeah. Okay. We don't really have time to talk about everything, but let's go into I guess the sponsorship thing, and actually when did your parents start that actual Naish brand? Because I know you didn't actually start Naish, the Naish brand, but like, how did that come about?
Get started. Like, how did your parents get into making boards and all that? Yeah my, my dad started making boards in the garage, not even a garage, carport, at our house in Kailua, almost right away. He started windsurfing maybe, I don't know, eight or nine months after I did. He he took sabbatical from teaching, which is where, a teacher takes the year off and goes and gets further education and does stuff.
And so he took my windsurfer every day that I was at school and was down at Kailua learning how, and he got really into it. And at that point there was a lot of room for improvement, especially in Hawaiian conditions on that big plastic windsurfer. So he started making boards in the garage. In 77 already and experimenting and playing around.
And it was not long thereafter 79. He started, shaping more, doing more boards. And he did the Minstrel Naish board and the Minstrel Kailua which were put into production by Minstrel in Switzerland. It was a Swiss company at that point. And then in 1980, quit teaching and started working for them full time.
And it was, I think they moved out of the garage and into the little warehouse on Hikili street in Kailua in 79, and that's when Naish forwarded it. Was formerly started doing custom boards for other people and the custom board market grew and grew and grew and ended up making a factory on Hikili street, full on custom board, every single one by hand, really different than today.
But at one point where they were doing a thousand boards a year out of that little factory in Kailua and shipping them all over the world was, an amazing period in windsurfing during that boom through the late 80s early 90s and everyone hand airbrushed and It's a cool period.
So they definitely started the brand and I was lucky to have, through my entire pro career, the days of the Pan Am cup days into the world cup days. Always the best boards in the world from Harold Leakey, who started working with my dad and my dad as a team. And it wasn't until the winter of 95, 96, that I started Naish sales Hawaii and started doing my own windsurfing sales.
And the logo that you're still using today is basically the original logo. I mean that from the very beginning, right? That kind of that Naish. No, the script, the scripty Naish with the sail. I did for my parents. Oh, that was your artwork. And then the new one is different. It's not a script. But yeah, that was actually a little complicated because we had the awesome local, custom board business.
And then I started that international sale business and called it the same thing. And there were trademark issues and whatnot in the beginning, but it eventually all worked itself out and became. One, one entity, one brand. Yeah, I've got a sticker drawer right here. Let me grab one. So these are some of the current, currently used logos, but Robbie's gonna pull out an old sticker of his original logo. That's awesome. So yeah, these are the Remember the rice papers? Yeah.
Oh, it's backwards for you guys, no? No, I can see it. Yeah. That's so cool. So you actually drew this when you were probably an art student at Punahou school. Yeah. Yeah, good days. Yeah. Really lucky. Okay, so you were a professional windsurfer traveling around the world and, Sponsored by you got plenty sponsorship money coming in.
So what made you decide, okay, I'm going to just start making my own sales or start my own business. Like how did that happen? I was certainly not because I ever want to do. It was more of a necessity. The sales sponsor that I had been with my entire pro career, Gastra, at that time had been bought and sold and bought and sold several times.
And. It got to the point where it got sold again and the new owners were just taking it in a direction that I wasn't comfortable with and we had a team of guys, myself, Pete Cabrini, Don Montague Pat Correll, an administrative guy. And we were all doing the work for gastro based here on Maui and these new owners were going to just dismantle it and move everything to Hong Kong and do all the development there, basically, get rid of the team guys.
And I just was like, wow, this is, it sounds super lame. I don't want to do that. And I didn't, it would have been weird to go to Neil pride, for example. After, years and years of one sponsor to switch. I wasn't that kind of guy. I never switched sponsors. And so I just said, fuck it.
Let's do our own thing. And I'll just bite the bullet, keep the team together, continue making stuff the way we want to do it. And sorry to interrupt, but so Pete Cabrinha was part of that team and then he started his own brand later or like how? Yeah several years later, once we started doing kites, So Pete was marketing, it was obviously still involved with R and D and whatnot.
So Don Montague was the main sale designer. Pete did marketing, graphics. He was always really I would say a gifted artist. He still is, now he's pretty much out of the industry and just pursuing his art and doing really well, but he's always been really creative. And yeah, for the first several years, we, we started Naish Sales Hawaii basically in, in 96 and it wasn't until 99 that we started doing kites and that's where everything really exploded for the 2000 season.
And it was just after that, that Pete got approached by Neil Pride to start doing Cabrini cause they wanted to do kiting, but they didn't want to do it with the Neil Pride brand. Because it was like this at that point between windsurfers and, oh, kiting's bad. And like in the first couple of years, we were the only ones in the industry, and of course they all came in after the fact, but for a while they were all pissed at me for doing kites because they thought it was bad for the windsurfing industry.
So yeah. And Pete Cabrino was basically grew up with you in Kailua. Like you guys were always winging and working together in Kailua and stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah, he's a couple of years older than me. You're like my brother's age, which when you're little is a lot, but of course, as we grew up, grew older, we became partners in crime, did the tour together.
He did the it was not the PWA tour. It started out as WSMA tour. And then the WBA tour had a lot of name changes over the years. But in the first several years of professional windsurfing, Pete was, you The Mistral gastro team with me, we traveled around and had lots of fun together. And then I guess most of your boards in the beginning were shaped by your dad, right?
And then I think, when did Harold Iggy start making Naish boards? And I think Jerry Lopez made some boards too, right? Yeah Jerry was later on when we were doing stand up. And so 2000, after 2008, once we got into stand up, we worked together for several years. Still really good for friends, but you have Harold that you started working with my dad quite early on.
Early eighties and, they were an unbelievable team, they kind of shape and come up with concepts and whatnot together. And then Harold would do the shapes and Rick would do everything after that, all the sandwich and laminations and sanding and whatnot, and then they were literally amazing, the two of them worked so well together, personality wise, craftsmanship wise, it was It was amazing.
And then Harold, unfortunately passed in 2012. Yeah. So who who does the board design now? Do you, are you directly involved or like how closely are you involved with design and so on? Yeah. Since I sold the operating companies a little over a year ago, I'm less hands on every single thing that happens as there was before, but Mickey Schweiger and I have been doing pretty much all the board designs for anything directional.
Like I was doing all the directional kite boards and then Mickey and I were doing all the standups and all the windsurf boards the last several years. Different guys do the twin tips, Des Walsh and some of the engineers do the twin tip stuff. And, Mickey's gotten to the point where he's really good and doesn't really need me overseeing what he does.
We've got such an incredible template of stuff, a legacy of shapes that we're building from. And the way everything is digital now, there's no more hand shaping foam. There hasn't been, for really a long time, well over a decade. Yeah. So when you say that you designed the directional boards, like you actually sit in front of the computer and design the shapes and everything.
Yeah. Cause yeah, really your design. I did every directional kite board for years. And, after Harold passed, we've pretty much been doing the boards. Digitally ever since. And even a little bit before that, there was a transition from hand shape as technology improved. And we were able to duplicate things a lot more accurately doing it.
On a shaping machine and sending digital files rather than sending plugs to the factory, having to digitize the plugs and then hope that the molds afterwards come out something like the plug that you had sent. And so it's much more precise now. And add a little bit of rocker or change the rocker line slightly or being able to do stuff like that.
You can't really do that. Hand shaping it, obviously. Yeah. You can, especially on bigger boards, it's a bit harder, when you're doing a five, one kite board, things are compact enough that you can make micro changes pretty easily without affecting other stuff, but we were doing it now.
You can make incremental changes. You can make three prototypes. They're exactly the same except for one specific change on each one. And know that you're not throwing in a bunch of other variables where you're like was it that was different or that was different? Then that kind of accuracy is.
Yeah, it is amazing to have and, yeah, so Mickey's handling the majority of the designs now and he just sends them to me and I check them over and we'll tweak them. But he's the one that's sitting, in front of the computer the vast majority of the time and I'm just giving him some checks going, yeah, you should have bought that tail or I think we should, carry that rocker a little further.
Whatever. And I still really enjoy that aspect of it. The design aspect has always been fun. As long as it doesn't become work. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about business. You were obviously very hands on and the running the business. You're basically the CEO. And then you said you sold a lot of it a year ago.
So what's your involvement now? And are you still a part owner? Do you like, yeah. So what is your role in the business now? Yeah it's complicated. I just, I got to the point, cause we grew and grew over the years and it was always fun. It was never my priority. I was always in my head, a pro athlete, and I also had this business.
And I wasn't living and dying from the business. I was living and dying from my pro athlete income. And I don't know if it was age or just time. You start to look at things differently as you get older, risk starts to become different, stress you handle differently. We were always successful.
We always made money, but I was just getting really worn down with the pressure of the business side of the business. I'm the only shareholder. I was self financed. I had no bank LC. I had no investment partners. So I was floating millions of dollars. Of risk capital in an industry where your margins are pretty fine.
You're living and dying by a couple of percent. We're always successful and it didn't matter, but life changed. I got divorced. It changed my whole outlook on life and my financial situation as well getting older and looking at how much risk you're willing to take, and I just said, God, I've worked my whole life to get here.
Liability risks becomes a factor that you worry about where you don't really worry about that when you're younger. And the stress became unhealthy and, importers owing you money and dealing with factories and, just having that much money in limbo all the time. The employees I love, but at some point you start to worry about your employees too and their livelihood.
And if you make a mistake, it affects them and their whole families. And it just became this vicious circle of stress. And I became I think too conservative in my approach, my outlook, I became really protectionary, operating through fear rather than through through enjoyment on the financial side and on the risk assessment side and just decided it was time to pull the plug on that aspect of it.
I love design. I love working with the guys. I love the sports. I love riding. I love testing, but It started to become real work and real stress. And so I found a way out where I basically sold the operating companies. I sold Nalukai Incorporated, Pacific Border Sports. So I sold my US distribution company and I sold the main international business.
I still own the Naish trademarks I still own the brand and can do, clothing and whatnot. And I'm looking at doing some different things there that seem fun. And working with the new owners under license. Kubis Sports out of the Netherlands, out of Holland, now runs the operating companies.
And they work under license and I work with them, just helping them in any way that I can, trying to guide them, especially in these first few years to keep what I hope is the right trajectory and keep the team stoked. And obviously they're changing a lot of things administratively and whatnot, but I think we'll be good in the end.
So yeah, it left all the fun stuff. I get to work with Mickey and Des and Noah and the crew. I get to, enjoy all the fun stuff. Testing and writing and doing photo shoots. But somebody else has the headache of financing the business and dealing with the importers and dealing with the deadlines and dealing with all the tech sheets and all that stuff that was dragging me down.
That sounds like a great great solution. And you probably still get the percentage for the licensing fee, right? So like you said, the real profit margin is only like a few percent anyway. So if you can make that same percentage without doing, having all the risk and the work, then that sounds great.
Yeah. Good, good for you. So you enjoying life a little bit more. I just watched a YouTube video yesterday where you were super charging your engine on your VW bus and took a couple of days. It looked like of tinkering in your garage. To be able to have time to do stuff like that, that stuff you enjoy and you're passionate about, that's super important too.
Yeah. Yeah, the quality of life for me personally, it just, it was literally like popping the cork. On a bottle that was about to explode. And so I'm really enjoying riding again, everything. I'm kiting a lot, windsurfing a lot. I'm still, I'm doing standup a lot. I'm the only guy out there on standup sometimes, winging, winging all the time, foiling so really enjoying the sporting side.
I'm way healthier. I'm more fit. I'm certainly mentally more fit. by not having to carry around the stress 24 hours a day that I was carrying around. Spending, a lot of time with the family, flying to Kailua a lot, spending time with my parents who are both still around and doing great.
My daughter Nani and my granddaughters live in Kailua, my brothers are still in Kailua. So going back and forth to Oahu a lot again. So yeah, in general, knock on wood, again, it was the right decision at the right time. Really lucky to have been able to do it. While I'm still young enough and healthy enough to do it.
To be able to continue to love what I do and have the passion for the sports that are driving me through my whole life and so yeah, i'm Super blessed super stoked and having a lot of fun at the moment. Yeah, that's awesome And it's so cool to when I look at your facebook page. You just still Actively involved in everything, windsurfing, kiting, stand up paddling, foiling, it's like you do it all and still doing it really well.
So it's just a good, you're a good role model for a lot of older guys like, like myself too, but just like to be able to do all of that. And I think also, obviously a lot of the people that, the older windsurfers that kind of. Participating a lot now are getting into wing foiling.
And and this is supposed to be a wing full podcast, so we haven't really talked about wing foiling at all yet, but let's talk a little bit about that. How did you get into it? And then where do you think it's going? I was just thinking, the, that whole progression of wind surfing from the wind surfer to like foot straps and going shorter and riding waves.
And that, and then doing the first four loop or something like that, it took like decades. And now in wing foiling, it's not even one season, they're going from like single rotation to now they're doing like triple rotation jumps and stuff like that. It's The progression is like so much faster.
It's like on steroids. Yeah, so And then I guess wind surfing a lot of people said that it became too high performance for the average person, you know Where early on it was just like people just enjoyed cruising on a lake back going back and forth and light wind or whatever now That's not really cool anymore and so it that whole side of the sport died off and there's no easy entry into the sport Do you see the same thing happening in wing foiling or like how?
Yeah. So where do you see when wing fulling going? Yeah. It's doing energy yesterday and it was the same thing where, you know, windsurfing grew up in the time of magazines and trade shows and development was nice and methodical and slow. You'd start working on something and you'd finish it, implement it into production and six months.
It would be. At a trade show a few months later, it'd be in the magazines. The first time someone would see it when they'd get the magazine and, open it up and check it out. Kiting was a transition from that into the beginnings of the internet. Stand up pretty much same thing. Most of the people in the beginning got their news and their information from magazines and.
Wing foiling is the only one that's from start to finish. Sorry. Photo shoot guys. Does that mean we're running into our deadline here, ? I know, I was just calling wing foiling from the very beginning like that, that first shot of me riding up wind at Kaha on our first four six original wing surfer.
went around the entire world that night, right? And that's what started it all. And every single progression is instant now. It's like you test something new, it's on the internet that night, the guys around the world are already, trying to do it the next day, both in terms of the gear and in terms of the writing.
So the progression is so fast and we've got an entire information packet from a construction standpoint, from a development standpoint of all the other sports behind us, technically that are helping to advance the wing foiling equipment too. So the experimentation is starting with a really high knowledge base.
And I was hoping it would say simple, stupid for a long time because the longer a support stays like basic one model, slow changes, the healthier it grows, right? But man, within I used to be the only guy at Kanawha. I'd be Mickey and I down there testing and trying stuff.
There was nobody winging. It was like just us. And within a year, there were like 20 guys. And now you go down there, there's a hundred guys. It's everybody's wing foiling. It's amazing how fast it's grown. And if you look at the progression, like you said, of the moves, what the kids are doing. You see a kid who started winging five months ago and he's already doing back loops and trying all the rotations and it's super awesome.
But it is unfortunately with 60 brands already worldwide, everyone's stand up in the beginning where it was like, Oh yeah, here, I'm going to get into this business. It's already so flooded and so crazy. That, it is what it is, and it's helping to grow it even faster.
It's a shit show at the moment in this race to advance and make it higher tech and higher performance and more expensive and more complicated and more technical. And I'm like, Oh, slow it down. But you can't, once that genie's out of the bottle, it's gone. And the stuff is getting higher and higher tech, more and more complicated, more and more expensive, higher and higher performance.
But of course, there's still the basic, most people are going to get on a board. They're going to get a simple wing and they're. They're going to mow the lawn back and forth and that essence of just gliding on the water using the wind and especially how accessible winging is that you can do it with almost no wind.
You can have really good fun in dead flat water. You don't need any waves at all. Like kiting in the beginning, but even more accessible, I think, because you don't need. 30 meters of area. You don't have this, arc of death with your kite. You don't have trees and buildings and power lines that are an issue.
Winging is just so easy and accessible that aspect of it, I freaking love the fact that it's getting people on the water, like you said, older guys, it's the only sport at the moment where you see 70 year old guys getting into it and seven year old kids getting into it and everything in between and all of them stoked and.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, unlike standup paddling, that was like never really a cool thing with young kids or whatever, but it's like wing foiling, like surfers are getting into foiling and then that gets them into wing foiling and just like the, yeah, wing foiling just seems to have a much broader appeal to everybody.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's just so much more. I think also just having the wing not attached to the board. It's just so much more freedom to do things and do new moves that you can't even think about doing on a windsurfer, right? Yeah, it's really opened up the playing field. Racing is unbelievable.
So high performance. It's the most accessible foil. Sailboat in the world by far, and even in racing stuff is cheap compared to if you're going to go, look at the price of a moth or something like that, and the complexity of most foil sailing craft, so super fast, super high performance, easy to learn, quick to learn.
And then just what you can do with it, from racing and speed to the wave stuff is absolutely insane. When you see what Cash and these guys are doing on actual breaking waves I want to stay the fuck away from white water. It scared the hell out of me on a foil, foil surfing.
I want to be out on the shoulder on a nice flowing bump, but I don't think foil should be in the surf with surfers. I think that's freaking crazy. And even on a wing, I want to stay as far away from surfers as I can because even the good guys are going to eventually make a mistake and surfing with Ginsu knives is a bit scary.
But just that realm of options that you have with this sport of just going out on a lake and. I love just going out on a big wing of 556070 and almost no wind at all. And just cruising around and exploring. That's still super fun. And you can do that anywhere, any little lake, Bay, whatever.
So yeah it's an awesome sport. Yeah. Yeah, no. And it's interesting to how stand up paddling blew up during the financial crisis, like 2008, 2009 and stuff. And then wing foiling blew up during the pandemic and became super big, really fast, probably faster than any other sport.
The growth rate, but it seems like also this the whole cycle is accelerating. Like you said now It's like kind of everybody has like piles of inventory and the in the market has Seemed like it plateaued really quickly. And and now it's like it's a it just changed so much in the last two years that how is that I guess you, you don't have to worry about it too much business wise, but but we've seen it, at our shop we went from having 50 percent of our sales being foil equipment.
Now it's maybe 10 percent and we're doing more standup again, which is interesting, like it seems like that's making a comeback. Is that the same for you guys or? Yeah, ours has been pretty balanced and, we're, we were the first in winging, so we were doing a lot of wings from the very beginning and I anticipated the glut that was coming after COVID, you could tell that everybody was bumping up production at the factories.
And you could see that there was going to be way too much inventory. Because when everybody was home with free time and free money from the government, not just in America, but all over the world, they're sitting around. They weren't allowed to travel. They weren't allowed to spend money on other things.
They had to do something close to home. Getting, Like here's some free time and some free money. So everybody bought, new tires for their truck and a lift kit and, wing stuff and foil stuff. And of course that had to end at some point, people have to work again. They don't have the free time anymore.
So a lot of people that wanted to buy those toys had already bought them. But how many, you're not going to buy a new oil every single year. And yet all these companies were just pumping as much as they could to, you get it on the ground. I think there was, by about, eight, nine months ago, there was like a three year supply of wings on the ground around the world, right?
All the major brands, three for nine 99, like crazy, close out stuff, cause they just needed to turn up the inventory into cash. Naish wasn't so bad because there was an anticipation that it was coming. It was still not great. There was still, of course, when everybody else goes on closeout, You're expecting to go on and close out as well, regardless of how much stock you have.
And that's already healing itself. Some of the bigger brands are having real hard times now because they thought that trajectory was going to continue. And of course it doesn't. I was always really pessimistic in business. I'd always plan for the worst and hope for the best. And a lot of other people just go, yeah, we're all in.
And that's not a healthy way to run things, so there's some unhealthy brands out there at the moment even some pretty big ones. So it's not going to be this way forever. It's like snowboarding and being everybody gets in, stand up at the beginning, everybody gets in and they do a couple of containers of stuff and then they realize, wow, business isn't as easy as I thought it was going to be.
And it settles back down. But yeah, stand up, like I love stand up, I don't understand how all these guys that used to go stand up aren't doing it anymore. It's just as much fun now as it was in 2010. It's just less crowded. All good. And like you were saying how accessible wing foiling is, but in comparison to that, stand up is 10 times easier.
Like any, but any overweight old American tourist on the stand of paddleboard and paddle in flat water. If the board's wide enough and big enough. So it's not like foiling is definitely a little bit more take some skills and some water. knowledge or you have to be a little bit into it, terms of accessibility, I think stand up is still probably the most accessible sport for almost anybody, right?
Yeah. It's a recreational activity more than a sport at this point. So about 90 percent of the boards being sold in the world are inflatable. If you go to Europe, it's all inflatable. I was in Austria last Last summer there were like a thousand standups out on this one tiny lake that I was doing a thing on and it's awesome It's getting people on the water and a certain percentage of those people stay with it end up buying a composite board or you know they're Associated then with board riding water sports and they get into other things whether it be kiting or winging or whatever So whatever is getting people out on the water is a good thing It's a good thing.
But I also, I hate having people associate an inflatable water toy with standup paddling to me. It's just not the same thing, but yeah, I guess I just get people out on the water and just putz it around on the lake. Yeah. You might as well, there's no reason for it to have a 3, 000. Carbon race boards might as well take an inflatable.
It's going to do 90 percent the same thing out in the waves, like what we have, totally different story. Yeah. And then it sits in the garage for the rest of the year. After, I use it one or two weekends in the summer. So yeah, for that, I guess it does make sense. Can see that. Yeah. Do you feel like when wing foiling has already plateaued or what where's it going?
Is it growing? It's still growing. It's not growing at the pace. There's always that explosion in the beginning where you get that people coming in from other sports. That the crossover guys like, like me that are coming from kiting or windsurfing or whatever, and they're always the first in.
And then you get that boom of the next guys and we've had that. And now it's slowed down to what's I think a more constant flow. But the fact that the demographic is so proud is it's going to continue. The fact that kids want to do it. Middle aged people want to do it, older guys want to do it, girls want to do it, women want to do it.
I mean it's absolutely appealing to the broadest group of people that any of the sports that I've ever done has. And that lends itself to a pretty healthy future. You're not going to tap out your demographic quickly. It's not all 60 year old guys with money. It's not all the fact that so many young people want to do it shows really good promise for a healthy future.
Yeah, and it's such a great way to get into foiling too. People that are curious about foiling, I always tell 'em like, obviously maybe going toying behind a boat or jet ski and maybe e foiling is a little bit easier for total beginners, but then wing foiling is really the next natural choice to, to figure out how to use a foil, right?
Yes, I, to me, it's the easiest way to learn. I've gotten people up on a foil in half an hour, a few times back and forth on a stand up paddle board, telling them the right things, getting them on the foil board and they're up and riding, in that first day. But yeah, we have some recommendations.
Prone or stand up is so much harder than winging. Yeah. Yeah. So what are some recommendations like for total beginners in terms of equipment and some tips that you give people when, like you said, first, learn the wing handling on a standup and with a dagger board ideally.
Yeah. You even not just, most people just want to jump on the water and jump on the board too quick. You spend a lot of time with the wing on the beach until you really understand the dynamic in both directions. When the tip starts coming down, how do you get it back up? Just learning that feel of the wing and the wind.
And then getting on a board and combining it without the foil. So you're doing two things at once, not three. And then once you've got it where you can go in and out, both directions comfortably, and you're not fumbling with the wing all the time, then you move on to the foil. And then remember to keep, keeping that pressure straight down on the foil.
I was trying to tell people, you're not trying to take off like an airplane. You're trying to pressurize the foil. And that's really different about getting that, that wing loaded under your feet. So any lateral pressure, like windsurfing is bad. You don't want to pull to the side, you want all your pressure straight up and you're just trying to load the foil and not power it up and take off like that.
That's where people just, crash and you'll see him doing the same mistakes for days and days. Or if you just. Dial them into what the feeling is that you're looking for. It can come really quick. And so just the main mistakes people are making is trying to go too small, too quick. Don't learn the wing yet and try and get on the board.
And then using too small a board, too small a foil too quickly, let it, come to you and you'll outgrow your stuff relatively quickly, but there's always a friend that wants to learn. That'll take your bigger, older stuff. Especially having a big stable board that you can stand on comfortably without having to like water start underwater or whatever.
That's You've been on this prone foil board or something like that. It's yeah, a lot of guys say, Oh, I gotta be on a little board. It's way more cool. I'm still writing a floater. Most of the time, obviously I can write a 30 or 40, a 50, a 60. I've got whatever I want. And the vast majority of the time I'm on a 72 liter.
Cause I want to get up. If I fall between waves, I want to get up before the next wave. I don't want to be up to my chest, bouncing my wing off the reef, trying to get going. And so there's, yeah, I mean to each their own, but there's definitely that, that oh yeah, smaller is better, which isn't necessarily the case unless you're doing rotations.
And of course you want as little board as possible. And then, yeah I watched that video where you're riding the South Shore I think La Perouse Bay, and you said, look, you like to have the foil really far forward using actually a fairly bigger size foil, so you can pump back out and and then you, and your back foot's way behind the mast and stuff like that.
So talk a little bit about how you like to set up your gear that's different from how other people use it, yeah, it's really hard to generalize because with so many brands of foils back there in the market there's really a difference in lift. I can say, oh yeah, I ride an 840 most of the time, but my 840 and that 840 might be really different.
Where the wing lines up on the fuselage, where the lift point is in comparison to the mast is really different from brand to brand. Yeah. But in general, I like to have I want to have my feet. and my weight on that pendulum point, like a teeter totter, right? You can put a sandbag way over here on the teeter totter and stand here and balance it, right?
But you're not gonna be able to do it too quickly. You're putting your weight here to balance that weight out that's here. And you can do it. And that's how most people are falling. Or you can put it here. And have really quick control of your fore and aft movement to follow the chop to catch things, when you're, and it's not just Whoa, leaning back and then it's going to come up.
And then I just like to be behind the mask with my foot so I can really quickly make those lift adjustments. I've noticed that a lot of beginners ride with too much, like where they have to put too much pressure on their back foot. Where as you get better, you realize you want to have just equal pressure on both feet.
You don't want to have to lean on your back foot all the time. You get to get tired and you're not balanced, right? Exactly. It's just trim, just having that comfortable between the feet balance so you can carve. You're not using the rail, but, so to speak, you can. you can control that pitch fore and aft side to side really easily when you find that balance point like standing on a ball and if you can stand right on the middle of the ball and have quick access control in every direction for me at least it makes it way more fun than being back here And having it fast in one direction, but slow in the other.
And then foils, I still ride a pretty big foil. Most of the time, my guys will be out on five 50, 600. And I'm most of the time on an eight 49, 14, even lighter winds, a 10 40. If I'm going on a lake and cruising around, I'm not trying to race anyone, it's flat water, there's little bumps, I'm going to catch that little bump and have more fun on it with a 10 40 than I am on a 700.
Yeah, again it's not that race to be as small as possible, but bragging range. Oh, I'm on a 450 and a 30 liter board. All right. You're just going back and forth the same as I am. It depends on your weight, depending on your conditions, depends on the wind, depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
The good thing is it's all good. It all works, so another thing I wanted to ask you is right now it seems like the hottest thing in foiling is down, downwind foiling, like everyone's getting into that, buying the long boards and bigger foils, that kind of stuff. And what's your take on that?
What, how do you feel about downwind foiling? Do you do it at all? Or not really? I'd rather. poke myself in the eye with this, but that's just me. I never understood the appeal. Obviously, I could do it. I'll go and I'll go with Mickey. I'll test, but I've never been a downwind guy, even in the days of stand up.
I'd go, I'd test boards, I'd write a 14, I'd get on an unlimited and just not understand the appeal. I've just never been. And even now with foiling, you're flying. Guys are coming down the coast. It looks like they're getting pulled by a spaceship. They're going so fast. Then when you go and do it, to me, you're still just trying to keep up with the ocean and the ocean's like trying to pass me.
It just doesn't feel fast. It looks fast watching other guys do it, but then I'll go and do it and we'll do a full on downwinder on a 40 knot day. And it still just doesn't feel. I don't know. I'm too spoiled of being powered by the wind, I think. And it's too much work, not enough reward. The whole drop the car there, drop the car there thing.
It's too much time. I get it. I understand the appeal. It's awesome. That's so many people are doing it. Maui is just a constant flow of guys. I know when I went to Oahu, Diamondhead all day long, guys are coming down from Black Point around to Tongs. It's fricking cool. But I personally, yeah, maybe I'm just not old enough yet when I get older, I'll get into downwinding another, when I'm 70 I'll embrace it.
But right now I'm having too much fun just blasting around. Yeah. And I think a lot of people don't realize how difficult it is. They're like all gung ho about it. And then they end up buying the longer board and the bigger foil because they can't do it on the. The equipment they got first and then they realize, Oh, and then, it's, it can be so frustrating if you can't get up on foil and you're just like paddling this tippy foil board all the way down when it's like, Oh yeah, talk about a heart attack.
Yeah. So it's not as easy as it looks, I would say to people that wing foiling is definitely the The easier way to have fun more, more quickly. A lot less work. And then you can do downwinders winging, and then at least if you come off the foil, you're right back up. Yeah, it's still cool.
Thanks so much. I know you have to go, but I guess just give let's talk a little bit about your time management. Like we talked earlier, like you make time to fix your car for two days and, do things like that. So how do you Yeah. How do you make time to, to have a conversation like this and with your busy schedule and and how do you prioritize things and right now, just, trying to put as little on the calendar in the future as possible, I used to have just commitments all year long, like I, okay.
September, I'm there in October, I'm there in November, I'm there. And I'm being a lot more selective to what I commit to so that I can be flexible. I love being able to wake up in the morning and not even look at the forecast. I'm not fucking hunting wind grew and looking for this. Going back to how it was before.
See what the day brings. And then make the most of it to a certain degree. Be on the computer as little as possible. And everyone's Oh, you see that swell coming Monday? No, I haven't looked. So how's it look? Awesome. Just trying to be more stoked and fluid and be flexible. Which I'm really enjoying, okay, let's go to a while.
Oh, my daughter's doing a volleyball game there. I'm going to go to that. Yeah just try to be organic, flexible, make time for not just bringing relentless testing, testing all the time. But no, I'm not going to work on my car today. Like I've got one of my cars semi taken apart right now.
And that's be my next project. A lot of work in the yard, enjoying working around here. Got a little orchard, watching the fruit grow. Watch our first harvest of avocados on the way. Just, yeah, trying to enjoy life. Try and be a good friend. Good boyfriend, good dad, good son, good grandpa.
All those things that you can lose track of. And, knock on wood, I'm in the luxurious position where I can do that. A lot of people can't, they're, they have to just fucking work two jobs all day, every day and have a hard time getting their head above water. And I appreciate that.
And I know how lucky I am to be in the position that I'm in that I can enjoy those other aspects of life. And in my head, like I said, I'm still a pro athlete. I'm 61 years old. I do a lot for Red Bull. I love working with them. It's like a family at this point. I've been with them for so long.
And I love I, I heard in another interview that you actually got into Red Bull because it benefited like the vitamin D or something like that. And then I just wanted some free products to start with. Yeah. So that's that's where it started. I drink it every single day. I've drank more Red Bull in the last 30 years.
And it's I absolutely love it. But I love everything the company is all about as well. And so I do a lot of sharing it like internally speaking to athletes around the world, doing athlete summits and whatnot, sharing about the functionality of the product and how to use it to your benefit. And just the legacy and the history and where we came from.
Yeah, it's an amazing story with an amazing founder. Yeah. Enjoying being an athlete and still being able to do what I love. My mind and body are allowing me to keep basically playing and having fun. So I'm sharing it with other people. Sharing with Stoke is important to me now too. Sending positive messages.
I don't drink, I don't smoke, don't do drugs, try and live clean. Live life honorably. And that, that seems to be difficult for a lot of people these days, I know it sounds like you have a really good balance between, your professional life, your work life, and then also personal family and enjoying, enjoying things.
So when you go out in the water, is it more for fun or you feel like you're also, like you say, pro athlete and marketing and all that kind of stuff? A lot of fun because I don't really put pressure on myself. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to post on youtube. I don't have to so like you'll see periods of time where I don't do anything at all And i'll get into it and post a bunch of stuff and it's fun Okay, I don't want to do that anymore.
I don't want I don't want to be part of that whole Freaking me, it can Become unhealthy. I don't think it's a positive thing personality wise. Going, Oh, how many legs do I have? And I just, it brings out the worst in us. Arrogance is not a positive trait. Self promotion is not a positive trait.
Humility is a positive trait. Humility doesn't get you very far in the world of social media. So if you want to sponsor it, like that's the thing that a lot of sponsors want to see how many followers do you have and whatever. That's what athletes today have to be on social media and stuff like that.
Yeah. And I heard you talking about that too, like how you dislike social media and so one of the kind of sometimes disconnect from your cell phone and stuff like that. And I think that's such a big thing now for the young people, especially during the pandemic, everybody got hooked on their devices and it's a huge social issue, I think.
But yeah. And back in the day when you first went. As a 13 year old went to Bahamas, there's like I remember those days when you traveling, you can't be like, Oh yeah, just text me or call me when you get there. It's you don't know, like you have to have a place and a time to meet. And if the person's not there, then you're like, okay, maybe I can send a letter or call, call someone somewhere else.
Yeah. It was really different. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of benefits to it, but there's some disadvantages to it as well. It's certainly in many ways, not healthy. The amount of communication and yeah, but it is what it is. Got to deal with it. Make the best, navigate that path in as healthy a way as possible.
Yeah, so I know we're going over time already. So what's your plan today? What are you doing? I'm heading down right now to cool out and go shoot. Wing foiling actually we're doing some video over The last week into this next week for next year's stuff and it's it's sunny and windy and flat because here on Oahu, it seems like there's no wind at all right now.
So I guess, yeah, it's always windy here. Yeah. Maui always gets windy. So cool. Yeah. Thanks so much for your time and really enjoy the conversation. And maybe we can do it again one day. A lot more questions. Maybe when I come over to Oahu, we can do some of the beach. This is. You sitting in your office?
In my office? Yeah. I started the podcast during the pandemic, so Zoom was like, great way to talk to people, but don't really have to do that anymore. So yeah. Let's do it in person next time. Yeah I was even gonna say in, I'll just come over to M and come along in the photo shoot and check it out and take some pictures or whatever, but yeah.
There you go. Yeah. Next time. Right on. Okay. Have a great rest of your day. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. All right. Any, any last met last minute message to the weight and folders out there or the water sports world you want to say to everyone? No every day on the water is a good day. So Yeah, get out there.
Don't be a wave hog, but yeah, have fun and hopefully we'll see you out there Yeah, share and enjoy Right on. Thank you, Robbie. Yeah, stoked. I gotta go get it. Right on. Alright, so as always, I really appreciate everyone that watches the show all the way to the end on YouTube, or listens to it as a podcast.
I really appreciate you guys and girls out there, all the wing foilers and water sports enthusiasts. I hope I'm keeping the stoke alive for you and I'm hoping to do more in person interviews as well in the future. I've been super busy doing stuff so not as much time for the shows but I do have some people I still want to interview.
Some of the big names in the sport, so I'm not done with this show yet. I'm going to keep it coming. I was super stoked to get Robbie Naish on the show. I'm going to try to meet up with him again, hopefully in person next time. So yeah, just keeping the information flowing and the stoke going.
And this summer is going to be super exciting for me. I'm doing the I'm going to do Maui to Molokai to Oahu races on a wing foil board. And then the following week, I'm also going to do the Molokai to Oahu on a regular stand up paddle stock race board. Stay tuned. Busy training right now.
Also working on a book, stand up paddling for dummies. So that's going to come out in the future. And I have a little bit less time for the show, but just trying to do everything and live life to the fullest and get out on the water as much as I can. Hope you stay stoked out there.
Thanks so much again for watching. See you on the water. Aloha.
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Jimmy Lewis Board Workshop tour and interview, Episode #31
25 Feb· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Blue Planet Show. Today's show is extra special. I got to meet with Jimmy Lewis. Derek and Lucas and I visited his workshop in Haiku in Maui, where We, he showed us his whole workshop, gave us a full tour, showed us his house as well. He even gave us t shirts and signed them.
This is the t shirt he gave me. So that was a super fun trip and I highly recommend watching this one on YouTube. I'll post it as a podcast as well if you're doing other things. But the visuals are great. He shows us the full tour of his factory, his dust collection system, how to shape a board from basically hot cutting it with a hot wire cutting the blanks installing inserts foil tracks his philosophy on shaping and how he was inspired by sea planes when he developed some of the early foil boards.
and showed us a hydrodynamic plate mount that he developed for the air chair and then how to get sharp edges when you're glassing, how to shape a twisted V tail. So he's not holding back, sharing whatever he knows. So cool of Jimmy to give us all the details. And at the end of the interview, I'll also make some special announcements about the Molokai race, a couple other things.
Stay tuned to the very end. Thanks so much for watching, and without further ado, here is Jimmy Lewis. Tell me again about the design and how you came up with that kind of, the, this guy, Vitor Marcal, he's a lifeguard captain on the North Shore now, right? And he's been a lifeguard for as long as I've known him.
I've known him for a little over 20 years. And he was one of the first guys foiling when Laird first started foiling and using the boots, to bolt themselves onto the board and those air chair foils. They had like snowboard bindings, right? Yeah. So they just And so Vitor was pretty progressive on it, to know that he needed to adjust his foot straps sometimes or his bindings.
So he had me put these tracks on. And, Vitor was really good. He could do jumps and backflips on a wave with that air chair, and he'd said, Yeah, when I jump up, jump, and I come down for a landing, my board would always stick. And he asked me what kind of shape could I do so it wouldn't stick so much. And the first thing I thought of was a seaplane, because they're made to land on water.
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Wing Foil interview- Spencer Brothers on the Blue Planet Show Episode #30
26 Aug 2023· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show where I interview foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders. I talk not just about the equipment technique and so on. but also try to find out a little bit more about their background, what inspires them and their plans for the future and so on.You can watch this show right here on YouTube or listen to it on your favorite podcast app. Just search for the Blue Planet Show.
I've been trying for a long time to get the Spencer brothers to come on the show and I finally met up with them after the Molokai To Oahu race and I got them both on the show today.
So really stoked about that. Finn recently won the Maui to Molokai race and the Molokai to Oahu race, even though he had a major infection on his foot. So congrats on that. And they are both amazing athletes, not just in wing foiling, but also downwind foiling, prone foiling, surfing. They do everything.
Really great guys to talk to. Hope you enjoy the show. So without further ado, here are Finn and Jeffrey Spencer. Alright, Finn and Jeffrey, welcome to the Blue Planet show. It's great to have you here. I've been trying to get you for quite a while. And then I finally ran into your dad at the finish of the Molokai Toahu race.
And then Jeffrey gave me your text your cell phone number. So finally getting you guys on the show. Stoked. Yeah. Thank you for having us. Yeah. So you're on Maui. I'm on Oahu. And on Maui, just, since the Molokai race and not too long ago, I was in Lahaina like right before the Maui to Molokai race and everything was fine and now it's all gone.
So can you talk a little bit about the fires on Maui and what, and. If you know anyone that got affected by it totally, yeah, we we had this storm that was passing to the south of the islands and it was like, usually it's not too concerning because it didn't look like it was actually going to hit us.
But what happened was it ended up generating extremely crazy strong winds, like through the whole thing, but there was no rain or anything. So it's just. Like the most windy it's ever been, especially over on the West side in Lahaina. And they're just not used to having, that crazy amount of wind.
So tons of stuff was getting knocked down. And I think just in the chaos, like the fire started, it was, there was ones on both sides of the island. There was some up country up in Kula and then also in Lahaina. So it was probably pretty difficult to be able to actually like. Control everything, especially in that amount of wind.
It spread extremely quickly. And yeah, it's pretty devastating, but yeah, most the entire town of Lahaina pretty much burnt. Quite a few places up country as well, but look, it wasn't as bad up there. Yeah, it's not as densely populated now, at least but yeah, I was just reading in the paper this morning that there was some like live video of the power lines getting knocked over and then just falling into the grass and just like a line of fire starting instantly.
Stuff like that. And then yeah, the wind was so strong that day that it just spread super fast and I guess people didn't even have time to. To get away, it's pretty, pretty tragic. It's like probably the big, the worst fire in, in recent history. Yeah. And then, so do you know anybody that got affected by it or lost their home or?
Yeah. A bunch of our friends on the West side that we know and grew up with Santa paddling and foiling and surfing and just lost everything like lost their homes and pretty much everything. Yeah.
Anyway, yeah, so if yeah, and then I guess I talked to Zane yesterday who lives over on that side too and Zane Schweitzer, he, and he said like they don't need more clothes and stuff like that. Everybody's been sending clothes, but they just need like certain things like VHF radios and containers and things like that.
They need it quickly. So because shipping stuff there, it takes a while, so anyway. Probably the best way to support Maui's is by making a donation. Absolutely. Yeah. The best way is like supporting the families directly. If I know personally, like the Clayton's and the flex from paddling, they're good family friends and there's tons of others.
We're able to find them on there, especially social media has been a really good way for people to communicate through all this and the Maui strong foundation as well as a really good resource that they're able to take the funds and use them wherever's most needed at the current moment. That's another really good one to donate to.
All right. Yeah. Best wishes for everyone on Maui. That's just a tough situation to be in for sure. But anyways, let's talk a little bit about you guys. How, where did you, have you always lived on Maui or how did you grow up? And, what, how did you get into water sports and all that kind of stuff?
Yeah, since we were, We've lived here since we were babies. We were born in Canada, but basically our entire lives was here. We weren't even a couple of years old when we moved here. So yeah, it's just been my way. But interestingly, it took us a while to get super into water sports. We did a bunch of, the average like school sports growing up team ones, like basketball, volleyball, stuff like that.
And then we started stand up paddling around. Probably 10 years ago, actually, at this point, but then just from there, like we always had fun bodyboarding and surfing and Santa paddling and then got into it from there. Yeah, right on. Who's older or what are your ages? I'm older and 19, 22 and 19.
All right. So I guess when you started, you were. Like around, I was probably 13. We'd always play in like the shore break with boogie boards and, when we were really young, but we didn't really start like getting into it more. Until, yeah, until I was 13 and you were probably like 10, 11.
Yeah. Yeah. And that was that your dad taking you down, down to the beach and putting you on a board or did you just show interest in it or like, how did that work out? We would actually, we'd go over to the west side near Lahaina, we'd go to Laniopoko and the waves there are super fleet friendly, the best place for any, anyone to learn.
We just take long boards and stand up paddle boards and spend the days over there in the summer. Nice. Nice. Okay. And then how did you start getting into foiling? What was how did you first start foiling? I think it was a while ago now. I think before it all started, we talked to Alex Aguero about just trying some surf foils.
Cause he was making kite foils at the time. And then it was funny, he said he had just started working with Kai Lenny on the same thing. So then we started doing that with them, just went to Sugar Co. and had the first GoFoil prototype that we tried and then just started going to the west side a bit and just getting into it and then Kai put out that video of him downwinding and that just exploded it.
Yeah.
Then everyone was like, Oh, I want to try this. But you were basically tried some of the very first prototypes that Alex was making him. Totally. Yeah. We just be like us in the beach down here, just going with Kai and on this old sub board with a tunnel box drilled into it and Yeah, just testing stuff.
It was fun. Yeah. And then where are you mostly trying to do downwinders or more in the surf or both or what were you guys doing? Most part, it was in the surf. For the first couple of months. And then we started to try a couple of downwinders and realize that it was super fun. So then we started doing that a lot more too.
Yeah. The foils quickly evolved to be good enough for downwinding. Yeah. And then in the beginning you were using GoFoils and then I guess at some point you got sponsored by Slingshot or or how did that evolve? We'd run GoFoils as well and it was great. And then we had an opportunity to.
To try the slingshot stuff as well and it worked really well for us. So yeah, we, we met with Tony Ligo. She's a awesome designer and Yeah wrote with them for a while, which was amazing. Okay. And then did you have like influence in the design and things like that? Developing products or not so much.
They just would send you stuff and you'd play with it. We'd help them test stuff, but we're a lot of new stuff and the wings and then all the coils and boards. And so it was super fun. Learned a lot from that for sure. We're definitely still very early on in like our experience though.
So it's not like we were saying like, oh, this is. What you should do to make it good, it's like more just Feeling it out and helping as much as we could. Yeah. And then probably the equipment you were using on Maui was like smaller and you guys are lightweight too, right? It's probably like smaller than what they could sell to the average consumer, right?
So yeah, and then you were some of the, I think, were you the first to do a back loop on a wing foil board or yeah. That's awesome. I remember seeing that video and I was wow, that's insane. Yeah, I just remember we were doing them surf foiling off of waves. You could come back out and hit the ramp.
And I'm just thinking oh, I think this would probably work with the wing after I just had a wave session. And then right after that, I'm like, in my mind, I could see how it would work. And then after that, I went straight back out that night and tried it for a few hours. And then. The next didn't get it, but I got like close.
I like fully saw the potential. And then the next day I yeah, went out and tried again and somehow made it work, which was honestly really strange. Like usually if you're trying a new trick, it takes a lot longer to learn. Like even for me, it I usually take weeks to figure some stuff out. But I think the backflip is just so it's such a natural movement on the wing of the foil with that, that it it worked out pretty well.
So what are, after people say, are you doing it? Then a lot of people figure it out how to do it, but, I'm still doing it, being the first to do it is always you don't have someone else's videos you can watch to figure out how to do it. So what are the biggest challenges of doing a back flip with a wing?
I think a lot of it's very mental because it's it's difficult to, see yourself actually going upside down with the foil, especially. And I think the most important thing safety wise is just to keep your feet like in the straps with the foil facing away from you. Cause as long as that's good, it's not, you're not going to connect with the foil, which is pretty much the main way to hurt yourself if you're trying it.
And after, after time of doing it to the biggest. Things that I've learned to help is if you're able to do one surf foiling or even start with a backflip on a trampoline and then transition to do one surf one, so you get the feel of how you move through the air with the foil on your feet.
And then, after all that, if you can transition to doing it with the wing, make sure you have enough speed, really stay strong, it's easy to get disconnected with your legs and your upper body when you're going through it. Yeah, if you're able to work on all those things, it makes it a.
Much, much more possible. Nice. Okay. Those are some good pointers. What about the wing handling? It seems if you don't get the wing right on the landing, you end up getting backwinded and falling into the wing. Like, how do you deal with that? Totally, yeah. A lot of it's for a lot of wing tricks, so much of it's in the takeoff which, or how much speed you have and what direction you jump when you get in the air.
So for that one, it's really about Making sure you get enough height and angling off the window a little bit, because if you turn up too much, you'll come around and that's when it'll backwind. So if you're a little more angled down away from it, when you get that height and then suck your knees in and pull it around, it'll really focus on just pulling that top hand up.
It'll not catch as easily when you're coming out of it. Yeah. You guys have amazing Instagram accounts. I'm just looking through it. I'm going to actually screen share this a little bit and maybe you can tell me how far back I need to go to find that when you first started doing backflips, it's pretty close a little further, I'd say.
What is this? You're wearing a plastic bag. That was a ghost costume for Halloween. But yeah, a lot of it was not easy to breathe in if you ended up in the water. I think right there. I think, yeah, with the red board on the left and this one. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So let's watch this. Oh yeah. I remember what, Watching this and being blown away, and you have a really small wing too, I guess that, that helps too, right?
Absolutely, if especially if you're learning, the smaller the wing, the easier it is just to maneuver. I'd fully recommend if you're beginning, if you can get a good bump or ramp of a wave to go off of, and then a small wing, it's by far the easiest way to learn. That one right there is a three meter wing.
Yeah. Just having less wingspan makes it easier. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. That compact style definitely helps as well. Not like you getting a huge amount of air, but that probably helps to getting high, the higher you get, the more time you have to rotate. But then I guess there's also more risk of injury, right?
Probably, yeah. It's tough because sometimes you think so, but giving yourself more time to rotate in the air, actually, it just makes it easier. That's one of the things now I always work on with, especially the backflip, is I just try and get as high as possible. And you don't actually, unless you're going off a massive ramp, you don't end up going that high, just because you have to consider up.
But then also as soon as you start pulling the wing back, you, you stop going up, it you just want to give yourselves as much time as possible to come around. Okay. Is there like a, another video you would, that one, your mouth is on right now is a pretty light. This one. Yeah. I'd say this is when I've got it consistent. I'm still using a bit of ramps, still not that much height. It's still pretty early on, but this was, I was feeling more comfortable with the double. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. And then you're doing it, on the way into the beach, just cause that's your natural your natural regular foot or why is it that you're doing it on this tack?
We're both regular footed. So we pretty much all our tricks going in, which is a bit of a bar for here. Cause. If we were goofy footed, we'd have way better ramps, but yeah, we try and make it work going in. It's good for surfing here since you're with the window a lot of the time, but yeah, for the wind sports, it's not as not as easy to find a good ramp.
And then what about you, Finn? I guess you probably picked up the backflip pretty soon after your brother, or how long did it take you to figure it out? A while, actually. I started trying them pretty soon after, but I had never really done a backflip doing anything before. So I was doing them very weird and not going over backwards, like doing them sideways a bit.
And then I went to a trampoline park and learned and then felt comfortable doing them and then went surf foiling and learned them going out off of waves. And then the next time I went, I was getting them down a lot more. Yeah. Finn was funny. His first attempts were so sketchy, which is why I say it's so important to keep the foil away from you and learn all the backflip stuff because he would get straight upside down and then just fold in half and land on top of the wing.
But as soon as as soon as he figured it out on the surf foil, it was like night and day compared, for his technique compared to what it was before. I think it was later. It's so important to do this. All your backflip flips? Yeah. Yeah. I've seen, I've had friends who are trying it and it just yeah, like the board coming off their feet in the middle of the jump and there's like the foil landing on their wing and getting, trashing many wings and all that kind of stuff.
And plus, yeah, it looked dangerous. What is this move? That looks nuts. But a backflip without the, without using the wing basically. Yeah, just going out and then you drift the wing and then do a flip off the wave. Wow. Yeah. So you guys are definitely on the forefront of all these tricks, but let's talk a little bit about the races.
There was a lot of races over the last month. And and you guys both of you guys did really well in in these races. So let's talk first, I guess about the Maui to Molokai race. I, I was there and experienced it and just saw, I saw you, Finn like I was wing foiling too, and I saw you just disappearing on the horizon, just going it seemed like you were just going in a straight line as fast as you could locked into like a real steady, fast downwind angle.
Yeah, the wind angle was pretty good. We were able to pretty much shoot straight from the start to, the Kanakakai buoy or the Kamalabouyam, the Kamalabouyam, yeah, and it was just weaving a bit downwind from there. But yeah, that first leg was pretty straight and just. Going super fast the whole time.
So then, yeah, and I talked to Bobo Gallagher. He said that he didn't really see you until clo until you guys got close to Molokai. So did you see Bobo at all or after maybe 10, 15 minutes into the start? I think I did a turn and he kept going, and then I just lost sight of him for the, until around the buoy.
But that whole race, I couldn't, or that whole section of the race, I couldn't really see anybody, so I had no idea where I was. And then . When I got to the booty I saw him a fair bit ahead of me and I was like, oh, shoot I gotta speed up. So then I just worked super hard and was going as fast as I can to catch up.
And then we're, that gap was staying pretty similar to him ahead of me. And then I think once the wind got a bit lighter, I had a bit bigger wing and was able to pull up to him and then pull ahead to the, towards the finish. . So what size wing were you on? I was on a six meter. Yeah. And then Bobo was on like a 5'5 or something.
Yeah. Yeah. And then, and you were both on the same foil. Like he showed me the duotone foil. He was using like a kite surfing, kite foil. Yeah, we were both on the Daytona race foil they have. Yeah. Daytona race. Yeah. That thing was, I think probably the foil is the most important thing for going fast.
And, but of course also the wing is important for, because that's what powers you along basically. All pretty fast foil and then just a big, powerful wind. You can go as downward as possible. Yeah, and then when and you finished in 114 or something like that. Is that right? Yeah Which is amazingly fast for whatever it was 28 miles or something like that, right?
Do you know what your average speed was on that run? I don't I think until the wind got lighter is probably around 28 to 30 miles an hour and then once you got lighter, it really slowed down a lot So at the end when I came towards the end, like everyone that was in my kind of around me just came to completely came off the focus, it wouldn't just completely died for a while.
And then after a bit, then there was another gust and I was able to get back up on foil and fly over the line. But how was it for you guys? Did you have the wind completely die and you have to like just pump or how was it at the end? It got pretty light. I think even on the six, I was pretty underpowered and probably for Bobo on the five, five too.
But we were both able to pump our way into the finish. Yeah. Yeah. So then, and you ended up finishing all I guess it was pretty close to like he was a minute or two behind you only or something like that. Yeah. So yeah. And from what I could tell is it seemed like you had more of a straight line and Bobo was trying to go more downwind on the way to Molokai.
Yeah. So what's I know, like when, cause when the more downwind angle you have, the less power you have in your wing, basically. So how did you figure out your ideal angle to the wind and to the waves? And did you just go on a straight line or did you try to use the energy of the ocean or like how do you maximize your speed?
It was mostly just using the winds and just trying to go as downwind as I could. And then just, Yeah. To keep enough power in the wing that I was able to go pretty fast. And then when it got lighter, I had to bear, go a bit slightly more upwind. And then, yeah, just trying to have as much power as possible.
So yeah, you have to do that to keep some pressure in your wing. But do you try to weave a little bit to use the bumps or do you just go straight? Do you make any adjustments? When I, when the wind gets lighter. Then you can use the bumps a bit more, but when it's really windy, you're going a lot faster than them.
So you're just cutting straight through. Okay. Or like it, you have to stay super focused when you're doing that. Cause you have to go up and down and try not to over foil or hit your board on a bump. And then. Yeah, especially when you're overtaking a bump, then it's easy to overfoil behind it, right?
As you're coming down the face. What size mask were you using? I was on a 105. Okay, so pretty long mask, too. And then that, that foil, the Daytona, what's the how many square inches, do you know, like the the surface area? It's around a five. 60 square centimeters. Yeah. And it's not like a super high aspect shape, right?
It's almost more like a little bit. Yeah. Like you can control and really just really locked in at high speeds. Yeah. So what do you think makes that foil so fast? I don't know. What is it that, is it a thinner profile or just like the overall, I think it's just. The mast is really slim and fast and then all the connect.
It's a full one piece lower, so it's super. Sleep like the fuselage really thin and the wing connections and then the wings are really good shape and good profiles. So Just a lot of that makes it just super fast and low drag all right, and then jeffrey you did the maui to mulukai on a standard foil board, right?
So yeah, so talk a little bit about how that went and and the whole experience Yeah, that was good. I same type of thing with Finn. After the start you get going for a bit and then you, it's, the bumps are, even though, it was a good day, there's just so much swell and water in the channel that you don't really see.
Anyone else, like even if they have boats and everything, it's actually hard to tell where you are in relation to to everyone. So I was just coming and I had no idea where I was basically, but the run was really good. I think at the start, I had a pretty good line, but then definitely, Were you able to get up on full right away, right from the start or?
Yeah, I was able to get going right away, which definitely is important in the races. You can lose quite a bit of time If you're off oil, which I figured out at the end, but about halfway, I think I went too close to the island and I would, the bumps just weren't as fast as they would have been further out.
And I was worried about the wind angle being tough to fight against at the end, but it turned out to just get light. It wasn't actually hard to come in. So I think if I was, yeah, to do it again, I would have. Taking a much wider line especially through the finish where near the end, I accidentally, or I actually went too far over the reef and my wingtip came out on just a little accident as I was pumping in.
And it was right before the finish where the wind was the lightest and the bumps were super, super small and I did my best to get back up on foil and got up for a second. But it was, if I had stayed further out, I would have had the energy to keep it going to stay in. But. On the inside, it was not the move.
I lost tons of time there. Did you, and I was shallow. So you hit the reef or did you go around the reef? It wasn't too bad. I wasn't like all the way inside. I think the tide was pretty high when we were coming in. So I. I luckily didn't hit it. I hit it I was paddling on my stomach coming in, but it was just, once you get over that shelf, the, even the little bumps that you would have just outside of it, just aren't even there.
so I just flattened out the bumps basically. Yeah. Yeah. And then you ended up finishing like in 14th place or something like that. Huh? You said 14, but and then what kind of what kind of foil were you on and board and foil? I'm just curious. Yeah, I was on a, just some prototype, a foil board we're working on.
And a same thing with the front wing. It's about an 800 square centimeter size, but all the rest of the stuff is production stuff. I was using the mast and fuselage and all that. Like how long of a mass we're using on a standard flow board. I've been actually liking the shorter stuff. I've been using a 75 centimeter mast.
Maybe when the conditions get really crazy, it can be nice to ride. A bit longer, so you have a bit more forgiveness just in that trimming and that height. But otherwise, yeah, the 75 is really nice. It feels like you have really good control and that's honestly one of my favorite parts about the whole duotone setup is how stiff it is.
So you really feel like you have really good control the entire time when you're riding. Yeah. And then for stand up foiling, it seems like with the shorter mass, it's a little bit easier to pump up on foil too, right? And then you also have less drag from the mass, right? The shorter it is, the less drag is in the water.
Cause when you're getting going, that whole mass is just sitting down in the water. So any length you're adding on is just. Pure drag when you're getting going. So that's probably a big reason. But it just helps with being a little bit more comfortable and having more control and more margin of error when you're, especially on wing foiling, I like to, I have a one or three mass and it just gives you that a little bit of extra time to react to, to like getting too high or whatever yeah, but cause when you're on a shorter mass, you really have to follow the contours of the water.
Like you always have to go up and down. over every little bump versus the longer mass. Sometimes you can fly over the smaller chop without making too many adjustments, yeah, exactly. Interesting though. I like how, I think it is a little bit different in wing foiling than in standup foiling, like the, or downwind foiling, what size mast you're using.
Totally. With the wing, it's nice to have that length. So you can just like, because you don't want to have to worry about going up and down. You just want to cut straight through everything. And then for downwind. Like that control you get from the shorter mass is definitely worth it. So even if you have to change your angle a bit, it's, I think it's nice.
Yeah. So when you, when Jeffrey, when you wingfo, do you use the same size mass or do you use a different, or do you wingfo race at all? Or yeah, absolutely. I would use the same setup and was on, if I was doing. Yeah, interesting. Right on. And then the next day was the Molokai Holokai, and I guess only you stayed stuck around on Molokai Jeffrey.
And then, yeah, so how did that next day go, the race, just on the Molokai coast? Yeah, it was great. Our our friends had a place for me to stay. So it was really easy for me over there. And it was great. There was tons of the people that live over there that were into doing the canoe race and everything.
And the conditions I think were actually, yeah, it was a little lighter. And I think the the whole race was super interesting. Like we paddled way out to the Camelot buoy and which is just offshore near the the start of the run down the coast. And then we, yeah, basically started pumped up the bumps were really slow, which was, it was like kind of work to keep it going, but it was very like, they're just lined up and even it was hard to really gain a bunch of grounds.
And when I started the race, the two other people who were really fast and that was Oscar Johansson and Aiden Nichols. And we all took super different lines like. Me from the day before I was thinking, okay, no matter what, I don't want to be too far in. So I went really wide into the middle of the channel and Oscar went in the middle and then Aiden went really close.
And I think just the style of the bumps kept us all like really close. We were like super spread out the whole race and then we were coming into the finish and it was crazy after the whole, I forget how long it was exactly. But after that whole time, after the 10 miles or whatever it was, we were all basically in a line next to each other, like almost on the same bump.
Basically. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So it became like a super hard pumping race and both goes, both those guys are super, strong and super good at pumping, especially like. Oscars of machine when it comes to that stuff. So it's very much for me. I knew I really have to focus on the technical part of it and really make sure I'm like taking the best line to each bump, making sure I save as much energy as possible.
But I was still pumping as hard as I could some of the times. And just before the end, luckily, I think Oscar said he made a couple. Like bump mistakes. And then I was able to just pull ahead of them by 10 seconds before the finish. And then Oscar and Aiden were, I think it was 0. 4 seconds apart across the finish, which is extremely close for a race, right?
Over 10 miles. Yeah. Yeah. It's unheard of. I think it was just because the conditions out there and the type of bumps were. They were so lined up. It was so hard to actually make distance on anyone, even though like we all took completely different lines. So it really doesn't make sense that we were right next to each other at the finish.
Yeah. Yeah. That's just how it went, which it was pretty fun. It was like, I, it was the hardest I worked. I think in most of the races, just because they were right next to me, I just had something to really push for and really like really focus on to that was the most I focused in, or the most I had to focus in any of the race scenarios.
From the past couple of weeks. Yeah. And then that, that just, that length of that race, it's almost, yeah, it's more like you can really go all out the whole way. It's not like you have to conserve for the last part, like on the mobile or whatever. It's really tough on the longer ones to know how much energy you should use at the start.
Especially for M2O, that's the scariest part, is that basically, flat water pop up at the start and just thinking okay, if I use this much energy here, how much am I going to have for the end? And so for the Molokai Holokai race, it was like much more of a sprint the whole way. So yeah, it was a full grind.
But yeah, it was really fun. Yeah. So yeah, so the Molokai or Maui to Molokai race and the Molokai Holokai, that was like two weeks before the M2O race. And then I think the following weekend there was the gorge challenge in Hood River and also the paddling mua on Maui, right? Finn, which one did you do again?
I went to the gorge and then Jeffrey stayed here for Paddleamua. Okay, so how did the gorge, how was the gorge challenge? It was super fun. It was decently windy, a lot lighter than it usually is in the gorge, and then they ran both the wing downwind race and the sub downwind race on the same day, but they were, luckily this year they spaced it out by three or four hours, so we had time to do that one and then go back up to the second.
So which ones did you compete in? Which races? I did the wing foiling downwind and course race, and then the sub downwind race. Sub foiling, right? Okay. So how, and then, yeah. So tell us a little bit about how those races went. So the first day they did all the downwinders, so at, in around 10 in the morning, they started the wing one and it was pretty light.
We were all, everybody was just on their biggest wings, pretty much. I had a 6'5 and the, everyone started super close. And then these two guys, Johnny Heineken and Joey Pasquale, who are really good kite racers or kite foil racers, and now wing foil racers, they pulled a bit ahead. And then. I was trying, I was keeping with them a lot and then just slowly falling back and then just stayed like that the whole way down and just came in third in that one, maybe 15, 20 seconds behind Johnny and first and then 10 seconds.
Wow. So that was a super close race too. Then how, what distance is that? Like how long is it? I think that one's not eight or nine miles. And what was the time on that one? 24. And you're going against the river current too, right? So that, that makes it a little bit slower then. Yeah. If you, yeah.
Yeah. When it was super light. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess obviously if the wind was stronger, the how it is a lot of times, then you guys would have had faster times, right? And then in terms of the foils, we're using the same one that used in the M2M or? For the wing race, I was using that same Daytona foil. Yeah, so I guess depending on the wind conditions, you just use a bigger hand wing, but not necessarily a bigger foil.
Yeah, usually. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There's also a 6'5 unit D Lab for that one. Do you know what what kind of wing Johnny Heineken was on foil? I think both him and Joey were on the Mike's Lab foils. Do you know what size by any chance? No. I think the, either the 540 or the 600. Yeah, and those are super fast foils as well.
But interesting. Okay. And then how did the Paddle in Mura go? You stayed on Maui, Jeffrey, right? And then how was that? Paddle in Mura was awesome. That event is a fundraiser to support kids with special was. I think 300 people registered to do the race and they had to close registration because it was so full, which was just, yeah, it was so incredible to see the race launches from legal gulch.
So having everyone down in there, like the whole. Canoe paddling community. And then all the oil community as well was like, just so incredible to see, and yeah, the race itself was really fun. The conditions were good. We had all had a nice, good start out in the wind line and went down to Kanawha and it was, yeah, pretty good race.
I was feeling good. The other guys, there's some other really fast guys. I think James. Casey Andrew, I was where they got a bit ahead of me through the middle of the race. And then I was coming in next to Kai. And then I did the same thing that I did in a M2M where my wingtip came out and I fell and I had to grind back up to get up.
And then Oscar came in and passed me just before the finish. And then I was able to like, run past him on the beach to the end. Cause it was like this crazy beach run finish, but it was a super fun race. And also I will mention Edo ended up like just coming out just to be part of it. He wasn't even able to get in just because it was so full, but he was faster than anyone, which was pretty cool to see.
Oh, so Edo actually won the race, but he wasn't officially registered kind of thing. Interesting. That was pretty cool. And then, those guys are the ones who've finished in the front on the M2O race as well. Yeah. So that's interesting. But yeah, so let's talk about that. The big one, the paddle board world championships, the Molokai Toahu race that one you guys both did.
And so how did that go for you guys? That was good. I think it went very well for me. Yeah, it was super fun. Except for one thing. Yeah, we had good wind and then pretty good bumps the whole way, but it was a bummer for me. A couple days before I started getting this weird pain in my heel and was having a hard time walking.
And then the day or two before the race, it just, this weird spot started coming in. And then up until the morning of the race, it just kept growing until a big blister on my heel. And I still just couldn't really put any weight on it. And then did the race. Luckily I had footstraps on my board, so I was able to.
Kind of not put much pressure on it and use my toes on my foot a bit more. And then when I got to the finish, I just had to go to the doctor and they like drained it all out and then had to cut all the skin away. And yeah, I saw you briefly at the finish and you were limping and I was like, what's going on?
And you showed me, and it's it was almost like a tennis ball size blister on your heel. It was huge, ugly looking too. It's yeah, the night before we were looking at it, wondering should we try and drain it and bandage up now or we ended up just yeah, I talked to Scott Trudeau, and who's Kai's, Scott Sanchez, sorry, who's Kai Lenny's trainer and he just said that I should probably wait to drain it because I don't want getting infected, which was good advice because I think if we had tried to pop it, it might not have been able to race.
And then, but luckily made it and then just had to go to the doctor right after. Yeah. And then they basically just cut off all the skin and just cleaned up the infection kind of thing, or did they, do they know what kind of infection or what would happen? No, not really. I think it just, I got like a weird bruise inside and then it was bleeding a little maybe, and then got infected.
So are you still healing up from that? Or is that all done now? Yeah, still healing, I think. Still on crutches right now trying not to put much weight on it. And then I think it's maybe another couple weeks before I can do stuff again. And you're taking like some, you probably had to go through some heavy antibiotics and stuff?
I had to go through a week after. Yeah. And yeah, wow. But yeah, it was the first time they had the wing flow division at the at the Molokai Molokai Tuawa race. So I always get those mixed up, but anyway so it's cool that you were able to win that one. And it was a really good battle with Bobo and then Aiden Nicholas.
Yeah. Most of the whole way, I think. Did you see them? Did you see them going across? Or I know that you guys were all pretty close, but yeah how was that? Yeah, we all started really close and we're pretty much on the same line, all in a pretty tight pack going towards Molokai. And then once the wind got a bit lighter, I think I had a bit more power in my wing and I was able to just drop a bit below them further downwind and pull ahead.
And then. Once we got a lot closer to Oahu and further up the coast and we had to start weaving downwind, then I think I really pulled ahead a lot just because I had more power and was able to ride the bumps a bit more when it got really light. And then I think. But before that we were all super close.
Yeah, and that's something to mention too that I mean I guess at the start the wind was actually pretty decent but then in the middle of the channel it got really light in some spots and then and it didn't really get seemed like it maybe got a little bit windier again towards the end towards Oahu, but And then once you got around the corner, then it was light again, right?
Did you get any lulls coming in towards the finish or? I think I came about as close to coming down as I could have, and then just got another puff of wind, as I was about to come down and kept going, but it was, yeah, it was close coming around the point where there's this big dead zone of wind before you got the wind coming from Hawaii.
And then I guess Bobo is a natural goofy footer, which is helps in the Molokai race because you're going in that stance most of the way. So for you, do you feel like you can go faster in your regular stance than in your in when you switch feet in the goofy foot stance or how do you, it's pretty similar right now.
And then I will, I need to spend more time going goofy though, cause I think it would be faster, but. With my foot to that race I, it was like, he was my back foot. So I didn't have to put as much weight on it. I had to use that as my front foot. It would have felt a lot worse, but yeah, both, both Bobo and Aiden were goofy footed.
So on the. The kind of first reach over to a Wahoo, I think it was a lot more comfortable for them. And then Aiden is from New Zealand, right? And he's on a, he was on the Armstrong foil, right? Yeah. What kind of foil he was on or what size and I think he just had a prototype one. He said it was around 470.
Oh, so even smaller than yours, huh? A fair bit smaller than ours, which I think it helped him when it was windier. And then when the wind got lighter, he was just having a hard time going as downwind. So that's another thing to to mention too, like basically on a really small foil. Yeah. Like sometimes you can't get the same downwind angle because yeah, it starts dropping off foil.
So you need a little bit more pressure in your wing. Yeah. So it's always like a gamble a little bit. If you are too small. It helps going faster, but then you're also taking a risk at when the wind gets lighter. So yeah, for sure. Cause that's what happened was at the start he was super fast and actually pulling ahead a bit when it was windier.
And then once he got lighter, I caught up a lot to him and then was just able to go more downwind and the same speed towards the finish, just put a big gap on him because it was really light. And I was able to go more downwind. And then what handling were you on? It was the duotone. I was on the duotone unit D lab six meter, which I think I would've preferred to have a six five, but it's so hard to tell what the wind is doing.
Apart from, do you mind sharing what your weight, your body weight? I think like one 40 to one 45. Okay. So yeah, so six meters, pretty big for you, for your body weight. And what about your board size? What's, what were the dimensions of the board you were using? Four, four, 35 liter sky free board or sky.
It's a pretty small board, like basically a sink sinker, right? So it's nice for the weighing down one to just use something that. Cause you're using such a big wing. You don't really need a ton of board to get you going. And then you want something that once you're up is just really out of the way, so you're not catching it on other bumps. And there's a lot of moments there. I feel like they make it a lot easier to control the foil at high speeds. And then, yeah, you're not really too worried about it catching. And you didn't fall at all during the whole way across or did you have any, right at the start, maybe a minute or two in, I was.
I think I just hit a weird warble and then the nose started going down and I tried to put weight on my back foot and put it right on my heel where it really hurt and then just. Stuff that knows I've been flying and then luckily God pretty fast, like 10, 15 seconds and was going again. Oh, good.
Yeah. That's I always like to use a little bit longer and board higher volume board for racing, because yeah if you do fall or come off and it's light, then it just makes it so much easier to get back on foil for like course racing and then if the wind's lighter, that's definitely the way to go.
Cause then it's the worst when you're just stuck down in the water and everyone's passing you and. Yeah, I can't get going again now. All right. Jeffrey, talk about your experience at the Mali to Molokaris. I heard from A lot of stand up foilers that the start was tough.
And then all the wing full escort boats went across or, made wakes and chop and world up the water and stuff like that. So yeah, talk a little bit about how the start was and then, yeah, how the whole channel crossing went for you. Totally. Yeah. The start of the race is always difficult since you start just below the island.
Time to. Generate as big as they'll be in the middle of the channel yet. And the wind at your back definitely helps. It's, it makes it like much easier than a completely flat water pop up. But the hardest part is you're able to grind up and get going. And that's something I practice a lot, especially like in flat water stuff, but just staying up for that time until you actually get into the bumps that you're able to relax and regain some energy is definitely the difficult part.
So my focus on the start was just getting up, getting going and then keeping my heart rate as low as possible and trying to ride as efficiently as possible to not. Burn so much energy. So about how long did it take the pumping in the beginning where you just couldn't even rest at all, like until you reach some bumps where you could just take a little breather, you can take like tiny rest.
Cause there was like a little bit of motion, especially like with all the boats going around. Some of it was bad. Some of it, you had to pump through, but then some of it, you could use to, to ride a little bit, I ended up. On the south side of the line at the start. So the boats actually cut across me really quickly, which was bad because it was right at the start and I hadn't gotten on a glide yet.
But then I got to the other side of this boat wake and got a tiny bit of rest, which actually might've helped me a little bit. It didn't last very long. It was probably a few minutes before any good rest and then several more until you were like. You could actually ride a bump for a bit. Yeah.
Yeah. But my friend Eli was saying he had a couple times where boats went like right in front of him and I think that's something that they need to educate the escort captains on that when we just can't go through a boat wake when it's all turned up. It's not, we just, the foil doesn't work in that, yeah, it makes it super difficult to divide when those currents are moving in the water off the prop. Yeah, it's definitely tough. I'm sure next year we'll have it all figured out, because... It's tough starting the wing and the sub at the exact same time as well. Yeah, there's... Yeah. I guess there's talk of doing the foiling on a different day than the paddling.
What do you think of that? Do you think that would be a good way to do it? Yeah, I think that could be awesome. And I'm sure even if they do that, there'll be separate starts for the wing and foil, or maybe the boats will start further out for the wing since they have to like... If they let, if the wingboats let the going to catch up with how fast the wings are going, especially like this year was pretty light winds and which is easier for the boats to drive in and makes the rider slower.
But if it's strong, it's going to be even more difficult. So I think I think a separate day in general could be awesome. It would. I think give them more customizability for the race course and just start further on the wind. And then there's maybe talk of finishing down at like Waikiki area.
So you have bumps all the way to the finish. And then it's still a cool, like finishing the run that all the guys do over there. And I think it could be nice for like their Just managing everyone in the water. It won't be so many people on one day which is always good for safety as well.
Yeah. And then, we were talking about do we really, does every foiler really need an escort boat? Cause it's not like you have to switch out hydration packs or whatever. It's, usually. You don't have that much interaction with your boat. It's for safety, but everyone also had the satellite tracker and whatever.
So if they had enough safety boats, maybe not every foiler needs to have their own escort boat. I feel like that's overkill. What do you think about that? I don't think any of the foilers or especially the ones that were going fast had any interaction at all with their boats unless something went wrong, like you said.
And I heard that a couple of spoilers, the boats didn't even find them, like they basically went across the whole channel without their escort boat. Oh man. Yeah, I think there were a couple of guys that they didn't find them until they were coming in at the finish. That's crazy. It's tough with so many people out there.
Yeah. Yeah. And then you said you... Yeah, pretty good positioning at the end, like you were like around fifth place or something like that coming towards the China walls, Portlock, and then what happened like that. That last part is always so challenging. So how did that go for you? Yeah, I was coming in and I was like, I'd saved enough energy coming into the end that I'm like, okay, I want to save a good amount for the finish here because you always know how tough it is, especially when the swell is small, you're just going to have to pump quite a bit.
And I tried coming in. I ended up just on the back of a swell along the wall where the wave breaks. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to make it over this thing. I should just try and pull off, catch another wave. And then when I tried to pull off on the one behind me, it just wasn't breaking. So I ended up going over to the other boil next to it and did catch a wave.
And then, but it was too big and I fell on it. And just, yeah, just messed around, wasted tons of time doing it. Was it, sorry, this was at China Walls or further down? China Walls, okay. Yeah, right after I finished, me and my mom and dad went back out on our boat and then was just watching him come in. And, oh, it was such a bummer because he was doing so well and like up with, like up ahead of Kai and Mateo, I think.
Mateo was like next to me coming in. Yeah, I think he was running like fourth or fifth. Was just in between two waves coming around, like right at China wall and then came down and then there, there just weren't many ways to catch. So it was, yeah, it was a moment. Yeah. There wasn't that much energy.
There wasn't many waves coming through that day. And then and then where did you just paddle straight towards the finish from there? Or what was your strategy after that? Were you trying to catch another bump or were you prone paddling the whole way? Or what, how did it go after that?
I decided to wait and catch a bump just because I, there was enough swell that I figured something would come and I did get, I got one first one and then just couldn't hold on to it when I first caught it. And that would have been like good. I wouldn't have lost that much time if I got on that one, but then I had to wait for another one, got on that.
And I think it might have actually been faster if I just paddled in, but. I guess I saved a little bit of energy and then I ended up catching another wave at the next reef inside and pumping as far as I could on that. And then, yeah, just paddling all the way in. Yeah. And then just prone paddling or did you paddle on standing up or both?
I prone paddled most of the way. I know a bunch of people were actually like doing the knee paddle thing which might've been faster, but I don't know if it was. For me personally, I felt like I could grind pretty well laying down. And then once I got close to the finish where it wasn't as windy, I stood up and paddled in.
Yeah, because standing up or kneeling also has more you have more surface area and it's a really strong offshore wind there. So yeah, it's but yeah, it's funny how that the last part is a little bit anticlimactic where it turns into a paddle race, right? But yeah, it's definitely challenging.
A lot. Yeah, a lot can change in that last, not even a mile, really, I think even for first place, I think Oscar was actually the first one to the point. And then James was a little behind and even came down, but luckily got back up on a wave just at China wall and then was able to pump like the connection was really good.
And he was he's really good at pumping as well. So he's able to like pump further in. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I think he caught a wave further in. He like, he pumped out to like pillars. Yeah, and then caught a wave there and then was able to connect it all the way over the reef and into the channel. So that's how you want it.
So yeah. Cool. Yeah. So that so that was a bunch of exciting races and in a couple of weeks. Yeah. And what's next? Are did you guys know we're doing a wing full race here on Oahu on August 26th? That's like the, we're calling it the Hawaii wing full state championship. So I don't know if you guys can come to that, but that would be.
Another somewhere else plan, but if not, yeah, we're certainly considering it because that could be super fun. You should come over for that Yeah, that'd be cool to have you guys But any do you have any other races planned or doing other competition stuff currently? I think you were considering going.
Yeah, there's a kind of wing wave event in Morocco that I think I'm gonna go do and then Yeah, after that, not much. Yeah, otherwise we're considering other downwind races if they happen, but yeah, we'll see what comes. Yeah, right on. When is that race in, or the wave event in Morocco, when is that?
I think it's end of September. Okay. So if you could design your own competition what would you include? Would it be like racing and freestyle or wave riding or yeah. What would, or does it, would it combine different? Like standup foiling and wing foiling, or what would you like what would be like your ideal race?
If you could pick and choose. Everything would be pretty fun. Definitely a downwind subfoil section and then maybe downwind wing and then maybe some surf foiling and wing freestyle wing and waves. Just everything would be super cool. So like almost like four different division four different competitions and then have a combined score for every, everything.
That would be cool. Yeah. Thanks. I'd be crazy. Yeah, that'd be super fun. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We're thinking about maybe trying to put something like that together for Oahu. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about, about your equipment. So after you, after your sponsorship with Slingshot Energy you're both writing for Duotone Fanatic now, or yeah.
So how did that come about and how's that going? We were just talking to those guys and it. It ended up working out really well because their design team is based on MAUI, which makes it really easy for us to work with them for testing and designing and everything like that. It's really nice to be able to like, meet with people and actually go and ride together sky Solbeck, who's done a lot of the wing boards, and then Ken Winter, who does all the wings, pretty much. They live super close to us, so it makes it really easy. And yeah, it's been awesome working with them on everything. Yeah. And I interviewed Ken and Alan Cadiz and I guess they, they go together on like upwind and downwind to test the wings and see which wing is faster going upwind, which wing is faster going downwind and things like that.
Do you guys go out with them too, or do you, are you part of that kind of the testing crew for the wings? Absolutely. We do a bit of that with them. And then I think a lot of reason why we came in was to test the wings for kind of freestyle and jumping too. Because I guess they don't do that a lot.
Yeah. Yeah, they don't like I know I don't get this doesn't jump at all that's and I think that's pretty smart because yeah for me too like I like to jump but it seems like I always get hurt when I jump that's how I end up getting hurt so I try to avoid it too lately but Yeah.
So what have you guys had any serious injuries? I would, I guess that the infection doesn't really count as a foiling injury, but like what kind of injuries have you had from foiling or water sports? I've had a couple pretty bad, like knee injuries. One a couple of years ago, we were towing and then.
I like fell with one of my feet in the straps and got a little rolled and just twisted my knee super weird. I think I'm, I think I strained my MCL. So that was, I was out of the water for two or three months. And then another time, I think it was the first time I was trying front flips winging. I just landed one super weird and tweaked my knee again.
And then was out the water for another couple months after that. So actually the front flip the forward loop. If we can't, let's is there like a good video that you can maybe talk about that a little bit? Jeffrey will have a lot more video. I think you posted the one where you hurt yourself.
Oh, yeah, I think yeah, it shouldn't be too far down. Maybe Pass this a little further Did you post it? Yeah. Okay. I think yeah the one in the center at the bottom. No, yeah this one Oh, yeah, that's the one I heard myself on. Okay first time trying. Oh, that was your first attempt Yeah. Oh, yeah. It looks like a kind of a rough landing.
So what happened, your knees got discontinued, got tweaked forward or something like that? My front knee, I think I just jammed it super hard into the board and then just tweaked it weird. Okay. So that's what, that's, yeah, I guess for somebody trying it, they don't want to visualize it where you hurt yourself, right?
So let's I. Okay. So do you have a one that you can, is this a forward loop? I think you should go to Jeffrey's page. He's got a lot. Yeah, tell us which one was a good video that you, where you can talk about the doing. Probably. Yeah. A little up. Oh, wait. Yeah. Back a little. The one at the bottom of the center.
That one's actually, yeah, that one's good. This one? Yep. I think the one before might be the first one I posted. Okay. And it was, I don't think like when I was doing this one, I don't think anyone was doing it this style. Like a lot of guys we're doing very like forward loop style ones which were good, but that's when you get like those super hard landings, which can be really tough on the knees and on it.
Like when I was first trying this, I didn't actually like. The rotation is much harder for landing than the backflip, because when you come around the backflip, the board's moving forward, so it's very easy to plane out and get right back on foil. But with the forward, you really have to like, slow yourself down in the air so you have a soft landing.
So I was pretty happy when this kind of all worked and it all made sense. I actually to learn this one, I wasn't completely blind. Wyatt Miller, who's this really good wind surfer was doing basically forwards on a wing. And I like watched his videos and saw his body movement and saw what like I could adjust a little bit.
And yeah, then it all worked out, which was nice. Did you guys ever windsurf? Or before, before starting wing foiling? I can, but I Not a single Not like a single jump windsurfing Is that like how you tuck in on this one it looks A lot like windsurfing like a forward forward loop and wing foiling Like that tucked in Yeah, totally.
I'd say the biggest difference is I'm looking like under my right shoulder instead of back up and over it. But they're very similar for sure. Yeah. So yeah. So give us some pointers on or is there another video we can play here? Yeah, near the top there should be some good ones. Okay. Let's look further up.
At the very top, I've been posting lots of downward stuff. That one on the right, right there. Yeah. Perfect. Okay. So there's, oh yeah, that's a high one. Oh, over rotated. Yeah. So talk, give us some pointers on how to do this move. Totally. Yeah. So the biggest thing I look for is a decent gust.
And that's like for the day you want to make sure when you're in the air, you're not going to hit a hole in the wind and lose power. Cause that's The sketchiest thing and the sketchiest thing is like committing to that forward rotation, right? So as long as you get up and have the power I find it's very consistent to get around.
And yeah, once you get over, it's not it doesn't feel dangerous anymore. Like you can land on your stomach or back even, but the foil under you or to the side of you and it's fine. So yeah, I go, I focus on finding a decent gust. Try and get a good amount of height.
It's the same as the backflip, where if you give yourself a little more time to come around, you're generally going to have it's generally going to be easier to actually make it. And then the biggest thing is I, so I jumped, get in the air, like a, just a big straighter. But then as I'm coming up, I tuck my legs up under me and keep the board pretty like flat.
And then I wouldn't say flat, but like foil facing down. And then once you're at the apex, it's really all about pointing the nose of the wing, just straight down and holding your whole body, like compact and together and strong and then obviously coming out of it, once you feel like you're halfway through the rotation, then you start to extend your legs, trying to reach out and feel for the water on your landing because with front flips you're blind when you're coming in.
Like you don't have the, when you're doing a back flip, you can. Look up and you actually get to see how far you are from the water when you're coming into touch. But on front flips, it's like mostly all about feel. So the more you can reach your legs out and feel that water, the like easier time you're going to have.
Absorbing the impact of the landing.
So I guess, yeah, like for tricks in general it's always good to use like the smallest wing possible handling possible, right? It seems having a smaller wing but at the, it's obviously you don't want to be overpowered and stuff, but you're saying like, yeah, use it basically use a small wing, wait for a good gust.
And then. But yeah, I guess this is saying it's you don't want to be like probably overpowered with a wing that's going to be too big or whatever. And yeah, yeah, the bigger wings just make it more like you more technical, I'd say, like your technique has to be a little more on point because otherwise it'll pull you or throw you in a weird direction that you weren't expecting.
And with the smaller wings, you just get a bit more of that control which definitely makes it easier to learn. Okay. Cool. Yeah, and then I guess, and also you don't really have that issue where you get back winded, like in the back loop, like if you get the wing in the wrong position, it's not like you're going to get back winded or whatever, but what are some of the potential mistakes or things to avoid when you're doing it?
Yeah. It's a funny thing. Cause a lot of. A lot of people that do front flips are they do end up shutting the power off and going much more like over the front and then you can have points where it can potentially backwing but I like to try and keep the power in it just so I don't have that problem.
But yeah, the definite, what are the things that I'd say people struggle with the most? I think a big thing is just keeping your legs really connected to your upper body because a lot of times, especially when I was learning them, I would go with the wing and then just leave my legs and the board a bit behind and then just get stretched out during the rotation.
Yeah, it's really easy to leave the board and foil behind because there's quite a bit of even though the stuff is super high performance and super lightweight, there still is like volume and weight with everything that's on your feet there. So being like focusing on, you get that jump and you're focusing on the height, really just sucking your feet into your or just your knees up and your knees to your chest basically.
And it's not even that much. It's just enough so that you have a good connection. Finn was saying and accusing it all tucked in a little bit, keeping your legs close to your body. The other thing I do is same with backflips. I make sure to not turn too much up into the wind when I'm doing it.
And I think that very, like that allows me to keep the power in the wing a lot easier. And it really makes it so that when you're up in the air and you go to point the wing down, that it really like. throws you around and gives you that rotation because it's easy to come up and Force yourself over, but it doesn't throw you around the same way that it does when you're able to turn off the wind a little bit and really open up that wing to the wind and have it throw you around.
Yeah, but it seems like also like you always pop up and try to get some height before you throw yourself forward, right? Like you don't want to just instantly throw yourself forward as soon as you come off the water, right? Totally. Especially for front flips, it's a lot easier to get a high jump than for back flips.
Because of the way you're holding the wing and the rotation of it. So I always like focus, I jump and then pause for a second and think okay, I want to keep going up here. And then when I feel that I'm high enough for the rotation, then I'll commit to the point in the window and talking and going for it.
Yeah. So how about some tips for landing? Not just and when you're doing flips, but just in general, what's, what are some tips for make sticking a landing and making the landing. Totally. Yeah. And in general, foiling is actually really nice for landing because you get.
Yeah, the front wing and tail wing extended off that mass. So you get like a nice kind of cushion when you're coming in, as opposed to just straight windsurfing, you land so much harder without the foil. Breaking your fall on the water for basically any foil trick. The most important thing is to reach out as you're coming in and you don't want to reach out to the point where you're overextending your knees because then you could hurt them in another way, but you want to reach out enough just so you get elongated when you're coming in. And then as soon as you feel that water coming up, then you want to start compressing and compress as much as you can coming in, using the wing to support your weight as much as possible. That's especially with the front flips. That's one thing I try and work on is.
Making sure I have power as I'm coming down to because it's really easy to jump and do a trick and then not have the wing like supporting you as you're coming down. So you just, you land really hard. So having like doing the rotation, then catching the wind again, as once you're right side up makes the landing so much softer.
Yeah, that makes sense. And then do you like on this jump, you're coming in usually tail first, right? With the foil. Is that, do you feel like that makes the landing softer if you coming in with your tail first? Absolutely. Touching the tail wing first and then the front wing gives it a nice transition when you're landing.
Yeah. I've seen other, some guys sometimes like pointing the nose down, doing like a nose down landing, but yeah, I don't know, it seems like breaking the surface tension with the tail, it's a little bit easier than with the, you definitely don't want to land flat, cause then that can be hard impact, right? Oh, yeah. Given it a bit of angle really yeah. Breaks the surface tension. Like you said, it makes it much more comfortable. Yeah, cool. So talk a little bit about what you guys do when you're when you're not on the water, like what, what are some, do you do any other things like cross training or what do you do for fun and what are your plans and yeah, talk a little bit.
We do quite a bit of training, especially for the races that were coming up. Like. All of that is, it's so much endurance and strength, for connecting the bumps. So we do a lot of, gym workouts, running, all stuff like that. And spend a lot of time surfing, but that's also in the water. Yeah.
Yeah. Regular surfing without a foil or both? Yeah, mostly regular. Both. Totally, yeah. It's tough it's, we're really lucky, here just, you have so many options of stuff to do in the water that you're pretty much there's always something to do. If you're trying, is it a little surf surfing way of getting barreled?
Yeah, it's funny on Maui. Like it's rare to have conditions like that, but we'll add that spot per se. But yeah, we We had a pretty fun winner. It was nice. Yeah, so cool. And here's, A little bit, Finn won the There was trials to get, qualify for the Pan Am Games for 2023. So the picture's just a little lower of Finn in the red jersey.
That's a subsurfing competition. Oh, yeah. We both made the final in and then he won. Which is pretty crazy. Awesome. Surf surfing as well as one of your disciplines, huh? Oh, and then you started. I hadn't really done it in a couple years and then just decided to go to that event. But I think because we've been surfing a fair bit, it came back pretty quick.
Yeah, the surfing helps a lot. Like even surfing helps foiling technique a lot. I feel like it makes it much easier to, know how to transition your weight for certain turns and certain moves. And everything helps everything. I think the foiling strength helps. You're surfing and the surfing helps your foiling and yeah, it's all good.
Yeah. So do you have a favorite sport that you like to do or is it just depending on the conditions, like you just choose your weapon and depending on the conditions or how does that work? I think that's my favorite thing is just there's so many things to choose from. So whenever, whatever the conditions are, you can do something and have fun.
I think especially being on Maui, you need to like, you need to have those options because it's not like the. You're not going to get glassy surfing conditions all the time, and you're definitely not going to get you get strong wind all the time, but there's so many times where it's not as well.
So being able to have the option and go from surf oiling to to winging or anything like that is, is great. So do you think being like being brothers, does that help you like competitively, like where you egg each other on and like watch. Watch the other, your brother and they're doing something.
So you're going to do this, try to copy them or try to keep up with each other. Is that helped you be more competitive? You think? I think it's definitely an advantage. Like always having someone to go with, it was really nice. And then also, like you were saying, you want to, if you want to practice as much as you can.
So having two people out there figuring stuff out and trying, it makes it like, makes it really easy and nice. Yeah, and then when you both compete in the same competition, is it like on purpose that you're trying to do different divisions so you're not competing against each other or do you like competing against each other or yeah, how does that work?
Yeah, I like competing against each other, but I think for all these races, it was just fun to. Do the separate divisions and try to do well in each of them. And then if we could have done both of both, if I could have winged in to him and also done the stuff, like we, we both would have been in both divisions and would have been like totally fine competing against each other.
Vin also is super fast in the SUP oil. He finished second in the gorge race when he was there with, half the community was there and they're all super fast. Yeah. And so he is like as fast as me and I'm as fast as him winging I'd say so. , it'd be like, yeah, it'd be, honestly, we just wish we could do everything.
It'd be fun. Just work out. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So do you have any kind of coaching? Do you have somebody who coaches you or gives you like some. pointers or tips you were mentioning earlier. Kylenny has his personal coach and looking at your infection and stuff. But do you have any, anything that you do like with more like kind of professional sports coach or something like that?
Yeah, it's tough because for foiling, it's also new, and with everything growing, it's not like there's tons of people out there that have. Tons of experience, like specifically in the foil stuff. So for that we don't really have a coach at all. We just work together to figure stuff out, maybe coaches would be like for wing racing, there's mentors from because they win surf race and everything like that. Like I know Alan and Ken have tons of knowledge and that we definitely talk to him about stuff like that. And surfing we get to when we're doing Canadian surf team stuff.
This guy, Shannon Brown, who's amazing to work with. But yeah, in terms of and then we do some gym stuff. There's a, the place deep relief up here, but that's more it's less coaching and more just like workout coaching. How to do the moves correctly without hurting yourself and stuff like that.
So do you focus more on strength training or cardio or both, or what do you do at the gym? Just everything really a lot of, and then working on a lot of kind of small, the smaller muscle groups that you really use a lot kind of surfing and foiling. Yeah, they're really good up there, like focusing on yeah, just working on all the muscles that you don't think you use that much.
But when it comes to all these water sports, there's so many weird situations that you get in that those supporting muscles actually play a huge role for everything like that. Yeah. Yeah, and then also your shoulder, like things like your shoulder rotator cuff muscles and things like that, where that can prevent injury too, if you strengthen those certain muscles and yeah, I guess your knees too and everything, it's important.
And also it's to stay limber and stretch and all that kind of stuff. What about do you watch your nutrition and try to get enough sleep or are you just like. Teenagers that party all night and then go show up the next morning to do a race. Yeah, we definitely just trying to eat healthy, good food and then sleep and sleep a lot.
Yeah we're not like super specific on, specific foods or stuff like that, but we make sure to, that it's at least just healthy that we're eating. And yeah. Definitely not careless with it. Yeah. We're very much thoughtful about it. Yeah. And then what about like you guys, what are your plans for the future?
Are you just going to be professional athletes or do you have any other interests or are you doing any studies or interested in going to college? Or what's your plans? We just started doing all the board designs for fanatic and now we did. We were working with Sky on the new Downwinder boards, and then now this year we're working on all the new wing boards, and then which are going to come out for the next ones.
Yeah, we're basically just seeing how this goes so far and seeing how far we can how far we can go with it and it's been good so far. And yeah, I'm open to stuff, but yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah, I was really impressed by came to wild. He does a lot of computer, computer work and designing foils and boards and all that kind of stuff.
So do you work with Sky on the design or do you actually work the shaping software yourself? Or have you learned how to work with Sky a bunch? And then now we're doing more of the design stuff on our own. Yeah. And you, what do you use shape 3d or what do you program to use?
It's shape 3d and then a little bit of Rhino, but most people use shape 3d. So that's what we've been mostly. . Yeah. And then have you done any wing designing too? Or just work with Ken on the wings or that seems to be even more complex than designing a board. Yeah. Yeah. The boards are definitely easier compared to the foils and the and the wings.
And we've learned a bit about it, but we're not at the point where we're actually doing any of the design stuff. , yeah. Yeah. Yeah, obviously Ken's pretty pretty into that and making all these different prototypes to test. And yeah, it's it's interesting on a wing.
Like you change one little thing and it makes it work or not work. And you don't even really know until you try it. And so if you change like four things, you don't really know which thing made the difference. So it's you have to be very deliberate and test it. Yeah, it's a super specific process and especially working with the wings is a soft materials when it comes out. So it's sometimes, you try and put one thing in, but it doesn't come out exactly how you thought or how even the file said to how it comes. So it's very, it's a lot of yeah, just working, to like that experience that Ken has means so much when it comes to stuff like that, because he can, you can figure out why exactly stuff's happening, even if, it's not exactly what was.
Supposed to be built or anything like that. So it looks like, I think windsurfing is going to be an Olympic sport, windsurf racing if wing foil racing becomes a sport, would you be interested in trying to be in the Olympics? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be cool to have that in the Olympics. I think that might happen actually soon from what I hear from the the racing stuff be amazing.
I think, yeah, it's such a fun type of racing and it it's pretty accessible winging especially So many people that I know when it comes to getting into learning one of the water sports, for them, winging is actually the easiest out of, windsurfing or kiting or anything like that. Even compared to surf foiling, like a lot of people have their first foil experience with the wing, which is pretty, pretty crazy that it's able to teach people so well.
And it's nice that it's so intuitive, which hopefully, yeah, will make it popular and so we can get into those events. Yeah. It's pretty amazing how fast the wing foiling has grown from not existing to now it seems like it's already made a lot of progress. Is there like a dark side to being addicted to foiling and yeah, like just, is there.
I guess for you guys, that's how you make a living too. But is there like a downside to like, where you miss things because you're out on the water or forget something because you're like, is there any thing that you would say is a downside of being much, much less formatted than a lot of other stuff.
Cause you're very dependent on conditions and stuff like that. Especially if you're like doing a competition or something, it's not all there's so many factors that aren't in your control. I was like with other sports, where it's the same gymnastics set up every time or the same skate ramp every time.
So the ocean always is like that, but I think that's why a lot of people love it too. It's like always unique and interesting. So like every session, yeah, every session is its own and it's fun. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. No, no downsides. Yeah, no downsides. Okay. And then I was gonna ask you like Basically when you they always say if you make your passion into your livelihood, then you never have to work.
But is there is there like an aspect to it that, be working basically as a professional athlete and doing it to make a living too, does that take away from the fun part of it? Does it make it more like work or do you guys just always love it? Sometimes you can take it a bit too seriously, but.
You're always you want to work hard and but also keep it fun and just Have a good balance there. Yeah, I think it totally can if you end up having to work super hard on one point and it maybe it gets a Monotonous, but I think the nice thing about foiling especially is like there's all the different parts of it, which keep it very interesting there's circling and downwind and actually even with for downwind foiling specifically i'd say I was You know, not as motivated, maybe six months ago before all these races came through as I had been before, just because I had done it a lot, but after so many, like more fast people came in, the races were super competitive.
I found myself getting like much, much more passionate about it than I used to be like, it was yeah, reignited and wanted to do really well after that. So it like, it can happen, but I think. Just with how healthy the sport is right now and how many people are into it. It's it's going to take a while for it to get like that.
Okay good. So is there, are there any people that you want to thank for getting you to, to where you are today? Yeah, like who, who supported you over the years? We can think of our parents, first of all. Done everything for us pretty much and yeah, we wouldn't be able to be doing any of this without them So yeah, they've been super supportive.
Especially our dad. He's so into winging out himself, which is pretty funny he absolutely loves it. I think he's gone right now. Yeah to thank all our sponsors that we had before all the people we worked with even from alex aguerra to so like Peter Letter and then Tony , Slingshot and all the people there.
Keith Debo a lot. Keith. He a lot the boards. Keith. Yeah. Yeah. And then now with with Duotone, with Ken and Sky and then, yeah. Yeah. We've been very lucky. Like everyone that we've worked with has, is just amazing, , those are all Yeah. People that are still making stuff and still doing really well and, who do you think would be a good good one to interview next on my show here about foiling and wing foiling? That's a good question. I know some of the new kids coming up in Downwind are really cool. Like we just had Mala'e and Brady Hurley over here. They spent a lot of time on the North Shore on Oahu and they're two super passionate, like super fun kids that yeah, that are into it.
They're, yeah, they're great. They'd be super fun to have on. Yeah. And then I'm not too sure everyone you've had in the past, but maybe Keith or something. And yeah, I think. Oh yeah. Cool. Yeah. And you've had Penn on the show. Yeah, I did. It took me a long time to get him. He's hard to get out of his shell, but yeah, it's finally got him on the show and he was great actually.
It's super fun to talk to. Cool. All right. So any, anything else any message you want to send out there to the foil world, like anything else you want to say or mention or talk about? I think just to keep it fun and always to try new things, whether it's. If you haven't downwinded before to go try downwinding or if you don't, if you think you wouldn't like winging, but just to try everything and keep an open mind.
Yeah, I'll say too especially with the the races going on in Hawaii the past few months, the community that has, even before that, the community that's evolved around even each specific aspect of foiling, like there's a super strong wing community. There's a super strong surf foil community.
I'm sure that over on Oahu. And there's a super strong downwind community here and just seeing everyone's, passion for it is incredible. Everyone's super friendly. If you get into the sport, it's really hard not to make friends, when you're out there doing it. And I'm sure it's the same thing all over the world with every FOIL.
community that's out there. So yeah, maybe another good guy to have on the show would be Andrew Gibbons. If you haven't had him on, he just, he like just came up this year doing all the downwinders and he was so fast and he's been here for a couple of months, like all summer and working really hard too.
It's been cool to see. Cool. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really cool that you you guys are involved in all the different disciplines. Sometimes I think people get too narrow minded about just one doing one discipline and then everything else is crap or whatever.
That's their attitude. And yeah, it's good to keep an open mind and yeah try all the different ways of enjoying it, plus you have more days you can go out, right? You can do something else. So yeah, that's a good point. And yeah, I think just because everyone's having so much fun that it's easy to share that stoke with others.
And just keeping it friendly. And also, I guess foiling is not Yeah, it's not as like sometimes when you're surfing, it gets pretty competitive or it's almost like playing chess to be at the right spot and to catch the wave and get the right, get, be at the point or whatever.
So boiling is a lot more Oh yeah, there's room for another guy. Or, it's not as it's not as people don't get as aggro about it. Yeah. That's the best part downwinding is everyone's just happy to see everyone else out there. Yeah, the more the better really. Yeah, if you pull up the surf and there's 50 people out, you're going to be pretty bummed.
But if you're, if it's that scenario for a downwind or you're stoked. Yeah. You're like, Oh, if there's 300 people at Malico Gulch and it's yeah, let's go. Yeah. No, that's cool. It definitely makes it easier. Thanks so much for your time, guys. I really appreciate you coming on the show and then maybe we can catch up again in a year or two and see what you guys are up to then.
Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. All right. Good luck. I'm definitely going to keep following you guys, but see what you guys are up to. Oh, by the way I guess the best way to follow you guys is on Instagram probably or So just tell us how can people find you? What's your Instagram handle?
I'm at fin underscore spencer and i'm jeffrey underscore spencer. That's not very original. I'm, just kidding Yeah. It's funny how sometimes people are like, Oh, you're so and so the Instagram handle, right? You're full of fever right now. It's like kind of funny. But yeah, you guys are just your names with underscores in between.
Very easy to remember. Okay. Nobody was, it was taken. So what was taken? Sorry. Oh, the username with no underscore. Oh, I see. Okay. All right. Yeah. Thanks again so much. Have a great rest of your day. You're going to get in the water today. You think probably. I think, yeah, with the fires. Oh, not Finn, because you're still healing up, right?
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I've been trying to get over it. I might have a friend that I might go help with setting up a shelter for for the fire stuff, or people, displaced from the fire. Might do that as well. Oh, good. Yeah, good. Yeah, definitely. I was actually even thinking about heading over there myself, but then I don't know how.
There's probably no, no transportation and all that kind of stuff. How would it help out? But anyway, but so actually, Finn, I was going to ask you since you can't get on the water what do you do to You. Stay occupied or keep your, yeah what do you do to stay happy? But been working on a lot of boards recently to just new prototype ones, so that's been keeping me busy, luckily, and trying to keep, stay sane, and then, yeah.
What kind of these board designers, like your biggest challenge is like downwind foiling standup foiling or wing foiling, or what kind of boards are you working on? Working on all of those pretty much the biggest challenge ones were the downwind boards when we started working on them last year.
And then there's just so much to learn when, cause it was all pretty new with Dave coming out with those longer Barracuda boards. And then he'd come up with those and we still went through the whole process of we thought we. Cause we tried so much stuff and yeah, it just ended up like, yeah, I don't know, learning a lot through all that.
Yeah. So that was definitely a challenge, but also a really cool learning process and just to get to the point where we got to and learn. Yeah. I learned a lot. So what's something that's surprising, like on, on board shape that surprised you or something you learned from making a mistake or something like that?
Is there any, anything you can share like that design wise? Yeah. I think there's a lot just. Just how many aspects of it there are that like just the outline and then the bottom shape and the rails and there, yeah, it's like everything's, yeah, everything's super important you can make, yeah, like you're saying a few changes and it's a completely different board, definitely still not as complicated as the foils or wings.
Yeah, most of it's at this point, it's very subtle stuff, like you change the rocker a little bit and it just completely stalls the nose or it makes it ride super well. So A lot of stuff like that. Things like that. So in terms of volume, like what what kind of, like on a downwind board, what do you ride?
Like how many liters, like compared to your body weight? Like how do you gauge the volume of your boards? We're riding around like 80 or 85 liters. And I think I weigh like 140, 145 and Jeffrey's around 150 maybe. So you're quite a bit, have extra volume basically in the boards more than you need to float, right?
Yeah, we, I could probably float like on a 70 liter. Yeah, I think my subsurf board, which I it's at the top of the water for me is around 63 liters. So it's nice. It's nice to have that bit that a fair bit extra volume. Just for getting going. That's about like maybe 30% more volume than you need to float.
Basically, something like that, maybe. Probably, yeah. Honestly, it comes around the small side for our weight still compared to what everyone else is riding. And then what about length and width? What do you like to use? I think we're like, we have a couple of different boards. We have some we're in like a 6'4 to 6'10 range just for what we're riding.
And the around 19 wide 19 to 20 wide. And what about the Molokai race? What length board were you on? Basically that it was actually I wrote a longer one for that race. I wrote a seven. Six. Six? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I think most guys wear on seven, six or even longer, right? It's because of the start and the finish.
Once you're up, the shorter stuff's nice, but getting going, that length helps so much. And then obviously paddling all the way in, it's a little easier on the longer one. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Good. That's good. Good feedback. Good information. All right. I'll let you go.
Have a great rest of your day guys. And yeah, take care. Talk to you later. Yeah. All right. Thanks so much for watching another episode of the blue planet show. All the way to the end. You're one of the 5% of the people who start the video and finish it all the way to the end. I know some of you also listened to it as a podcast and probably more than 5% listened to the whole thing.
So I do appreciate everyone that listens or watches the show. Hope to see you again soon. Stay stoked. Maybe I'll see you at the, Hawaii wing full championship race on August 26. We're still planning to hold that. So hopefully we'll get some wind and so on. And we'll make it a fun party afterwards as well.
So hopefully we'll get a good turnout and make that into an annual event. So thanks again, everyone for watching. See you on the water. Aloha.
- Lytte Lytte igjen Fortsette Lytter...
- Lytte senere Lytte senere
Molokai to Oahu Race Recap Audio only- M2O 2023 -Episode #29
5 Aug 2023· The Blue Planet Show
Please also watch the video version of this show on the blueplanetsurf youtube channel for lots of cool footage- video by Lucas Purcell
Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show. Today's show is not an interview, but rather a recap where I talk about my experience at the Molokai to Oahu race and what I heard from other competitors at the race. So let's get into it.
Okay. So after a three year break for the pandemic and so on, the Molokai race, It finally happened again in 2023 and for the first time it had a wing foil division. So I was really excited about that and signed up for the Wingfo division, as well as a bunch of us from Oahu. And a couple weeks ago we went over to Maui and winged from Maui to Molokai, and then did the Molokai Holokai, and then Molokai to Oahu, a little training run.
A couple of weeks before, and then the day before the Molokai race, we flew over and stayed at Kalua Koi, at our friend Eli's place. Beautiful place, right on the water. Here's Derek taking a little cruise on his bike down the path. And at Kalua Koi, the wind is pretty offshore, so the water's smooth on the inside.
And the day before the race, the wind was pretty light on the inside, but once you got a little bit offshore, it was pretty strong winds. And Eli and Derek were decided to use our new prototype wings. We had a six meter and a seven meter version of our new wings and Eli was using the seven and Derek, the six meter.
And then I opted to choose the, my tried and tested seven meter alien wing that I've been using. Here's Nani. So we're just warming up a little bit the day before the race, getting out there, feeling the water, and so on. Of course on the inside it's pretty smooth, and then once you get further out in the channel, the the water gets a lot rougher.
So the evening before the race, there was a little race meeting, everybody meeting on the lawn. at Koala Koi and then they served up a nice dinner afterwards. So for us the energy at this event was amazing. People come in from all over the world, a lot of people from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Japan.
It's great to see everyone again after like years of not having this event, to see all the top paddlers and foilers from all over the world. It's really cool and to see familiar faces from previous events and so on. So for me personally, this was I think it was like the 11th or maybe the 12th time I did this event.
I did it, mostly on stand up paddle boards, or all on stand up paddle boards. I think I did it eight times solo, two times as a team, and then this is the first time I did it as a wing foiler. Derek Hama was collecting signatures for his poster, so that was a really cool idea, and he got a ton of signatures during the event.
And this is Terry from Virgin Islands, Alan Cadiz from Maui, just hanging out, chatting, and getting excited about the next morning. And then you can see water is... Pretty calm nice sunset, of course, lots of escort boats. Usually the evening before, escort boats will come close to the beach. There's no harbor there you have to swim out to the boat to get your equipment.
Usually the boats take over the equipment. come over from Oahu on the boat. But I usually opt to take a plane because that ride from Oahu to Molokai can be pretty rough when you're going into the wind and into the chop. So it's a pretty rough ride, but many people come over on the boat, but I always prefer to fly over.
And then, yeah, you pick up your gear like you I picked up my board and wing from the boat the night before. And here you see a lot of escort boats the morning of the event. Then they have the pre race pule prayer, Hawaiian prayer. And then everyone's getting pretty excited for a safe and fun crossing.
And yeah, the pule is always... A great great way to get ready in the morning. Everybody picks up a satellite tracking chip that tracks the race. So that's a good way for people to follow the race live. You can see where everyone's position is. Here are the two start buoys in the bay at Kalua Koi.
And then this was the first start at... I think it was 7 30 a. m. I want to say it was the prone paddle board start Drones in the air and here's the Start everyone charges off It's of course a long race, but still you don't want to be left behind at the finish So everyone always paddles hard right from the beginning you definitely want to conserve your energy because it's a long race.
And yeah, the beginning, the water was pretty calm. Pretty smooth water. Not a lot of chop in the water. So for, especially for the stand up foilers. You can see these conditions are not ideal for getting up on foil or pumping. So it's pretty much, there, there was some wind at our backs, but pretty much the stand up foilers had to pump up onto, up on foil and then pump pretty far to get to where it started to get a little bit easier with some bumps pushing them along.
So this is the prone division. Of course, the... M2O is known as the Paddleboard World Championships, and that's how it all started. Surfers looking for something to do in the summertime in the North Shore, they started to pick up longer surfboards and paddle distances and found it was really good training for the winter.
So for a long time, the Molokai Race Paddleboard Division was dominated by Jamie Mitchell. who's won it many times, but he hasn't been competing the last few times. It's still dominated by Australian paddlers. The top three male Unlimited and top three male stock division were all Australians.
And the winner this year was Charlie Vercoe from, 22 year old from Australia winning the race on an Unlimited board in 453. And especially considering these difficult conditions, that's quite the accomplishment to paddle it in under five hours many. took much longer than that. It was definitely a challenging race at the end with the northerly currents pulling against you.
The stand up division was a little bit smaller this year, still a good contingent of paddlers
though, but a lot of the pro racers that used to compete in stand up paddling are now on stand up foil boards, including people like James Casey, who won the stand up unlimited in 2019 Kai Lenny, and many others that used to compete in stand up racing are now stand up foiling. So that seems to be the big competitive division now.
But Mo Freitas from Oahu competed in the unlimited division. And so it, it was a competitive race for stand up paddling but a smaller field than before. And then here in the... That NSP, blue and green NSP board, is the paddler from Japan who was this year's champion in the Unlimited for the first time, a Japanese paddler winning the Molokai to Oahu race.
Yusuke Hyogo, 36 year old from Japan, won the Unlimited stand up paddleboard division in 445. So that's an impressive time considering especially the... The difficult conditions as you see a couple of the blue planet bump rider boards really proud of All the competitors that used our blue planet boards.
They did really well, so I'll talk about that some more later You can see here that the water on the inside was pretty smooth and it's just there was some wind from the back, but it's it's not, there weren't a lot of bumps pushing you along because, the wind's offshore.
You can see all the escort boats lined up. They are supposed to wait for 30 minutes before joining the paddlers to keep the wakes and the churned up water to a minimum. But you can see how these conditions are definitely challenging for foiling because, yeah, the stand up foilers have to pump up on foil in these pretty calm waters with not much wind from their back.
Here you see Moe Freitas. And this is the start of the foil division. So like I said, yeah, the water was pretty smooth on the inside, so stand up foilers had to really work to get up on foil basically flat water start and then pump pretty far out. Versus wing foilers we were able to take off pretty quick.
There was a decent amount of wind, it was pretty light, but seemed like there was a little bit of a gust in the early on. And that helped us get going in the beginning, had a decent start, and pretty good wind in the beginning, and then later on during the race it got a little bit lighter.
And I, we don't, didn't get drone footage from the start, but you can see the prone foilers, the stand up foilers pumping along, working hard, and then the wing foilers. Flying off to a good start. I was on a Blue Planet Wing Racer board 5'10 5'10 by 21 inches, so a longer, narrower board, and a 7 meter wing, and then a Mike's Lab.
600 foil with a 103 centimeter mast and you know that combo worked out pretty well. Had a good amount of speed right from the start. Trying to chase the faster paddlers ahead of me. So there was yeah, a few ahead of me. Especially Alan Cadiz who I was trying to keep up with. He was on a Mike's Lab 540.
Which I think had a little bit higher speed, but then maybe with my 600, I was able to go a little bit steeper, a little bit steeper downwind angle, which was important because yeah, but that northerly current we ended up having to crisscross quite a bit. You just, you couldn't just take a straight line to the, to portlock.
And Yeah, here we're already getting close to Oahu. It's skipped a bunch, but the middle of the channel got a little bit light. There were a good amount of bumps, and pretty steep bumps, and a lot of good riding, but just the wind got a little light, so even with the 7 meter wing, I find myself pumping the wing and the foil quite a bit, trying to keep a good angle.
And then I'm a regular foot. Winger. And I just find that I'm not very good at switching my feet. I'm not as fast if I try to, put my feet the other way. I was basically riding most of the way with my body kind of twisted toe, my, my toe side direction. And then, at the very end, I started catching up to Alan Cadiz.
He got quite a bit ahead of me, but then I caught him at the end. And then, I made it into the bay and I was like pushing hard upwind and then I just caught an edge and crashed and I fell and then Alan passed me again. But, overall I was pretty happy. I finished the race in an hour 55.
I lost a little bit of probably another five minutes at the end, but I was definitely stoked to finish. And excited about my time that I finished fifth overall. And the winners in the wing flow division were Finn Spencer, 19 year old from Maui. In 131, amazingly fast time. And then second place was Aidan Nicholas from Auckland, New Zealand.
And 137, and then third place Bobo Gallagher, 14, from Lahaina. And then fourth place was Alan Cadiz from Maui. And fifth place was myself. And Alan and myself were the first and second in the 40 and over division. I think Alan is already 60 and I'm 55, cool that us older guys can still be up there and mix it up with the young pros.
Pretty stoked. And then in the female division Nani from Oahu, who's been winging with our group won the won the female race in 2. 10, so she also had a very fast time. So congrats, Nani, on a really good crossing. And then in first place in the wing foil team division were my friends Eli and Derek that we've been training together with so stoked that they finished right up there as well.
And they did the team division as a two person team, but they both did the whole race, so they basically shared the escort boat and started together and finished together it's a cool way to do the race, just basically staying together and basically you're only going to be as fast as the slower winger.
And then after the race, I got a chance to interview James Casey, so you should definitely check out that interview. He won the stand up foil division. I also interviewed Nani, and then Derek and Eli. Those interviews are posting soon. Here are the overall results again. Like the wing floaters definitely dominated the top, top ten fastest times.
But we also finished at the blinker buoy versus the, everybody else had to paddle into the bay. So with the prone boards that was definitely a challenge to paddle all the way into the bay. James Casey shared a pretty cool story about that, how that all went down, so you might want to check that out.
So I added a few more photos of the award ceremony after the event. Every time the Molokai Toaho race is held, they have an award ceremony at the Outrigger Canoe Club. It's always a nice event, it makes it a legitimate world championship event. Here are Eli and Derek who won the team Wingfoil Division on the Blue Planet Wings.
Good job guys. These are the top female finishers. This time Olivia Piana came in first over Annie Reichard who finished first at the Maui to Molokai race. These are the top finishes in the sub stock division and I'm really stoked because they were all on Blue Planet bump rider boards. This is Kiyomi she was, and they were all on 14 foot bump riders, so stoked about that.
And here's our Blue Planet team so had some really good results and not really. happy with the results of the You know the whole blue planet team and get to see our gear working well in these conditions and then here are the all the top stand up foilers James Casey won the stand up foil division, which was a close finish, and he was he was able to catch a little bump, he said, by by pillars.
And pump it all the way over the reef, which is definitely a risky move because if you come off foil over the shallow reef, you can get stuck there and, have to paddle with the foil upside down, but he was able to pull off the wind. So congratulations, James, and congratulations, Finn Spencer.
I'm going to interview the Spencer brothers soon. Finn Spencer, by the way, had a... Injury on his heel and big infection and he pulled through with it, but he came up on stage with crutches. So congratulations Finn and stay tuned for more blue planet shows. We bring out some more interviews from this race and many more interviews to come.
So thanks for watching. See you on the water. Aloha.
- Lytte Lytte igjen Fortsette Lytter...
- Lytte senere Lytte senere
Voyager x Wet Feet Foil Race- Blue Planet Show Episode #28
1 Jul 2023· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show, which is all about foiling. Today's video is basically a recap of the Voyager X Wet Feet downwind race here on Oahu. It was probably the biggest foil race we've had here on Oahu anyways, maybe anywhere. I'm not sure, over a hundred participants.
So it's cool to see so many people entering. Standup paddle racing has been shrinking, but foiling is definitely growing fast. I'm talking with Brian Tricario and Derek Hamasaki. Who finished first and second in this race, in the wing foil division. And we got some really great footage from many different people filming along the way, so I really appreciate everyone submitting their footage, sending it to me so we could put together this video for you.
We have the first part, which is a quicker recap of the race, put together by Lucas who also was flying the drone and so on. And then the second part we go into a little bit more detail and showing a lot of footage of the race itself. Harold was in a dinghy following the whole race with this camera, so got some good footage from along the race, so I hope you enjoy it.
Without further ado, here is the Voyager Downwind race.
Aloha friends, it's Robert with Planet Surf and I have Alex Aguera with me here getting ready to get on the water for the maybe the biggest down wind foil race ever. What do you think? I don't know about that, but it's got quite a lot of participants. I heard there's a hundred people competing today, so it's big.
Yeah. And it's all foiling. Standup foiling, wing foiling, and then also some guys are doing prone foiling from Cromwell to the finish, which is by Suicides. Yeah. What are you using today? I think I'm gonna use a 6.5M and a 600 foil
96 liter board. Good float board. There you go. A big combo. Yeah. And then the wind, it's windy today, so that kind of is good for a bit heavier guys. Yeah. Hopefully I don't get lit up too much. Sometimes I really light guys like Derek are really good at light wind. But then, I don't know, Derek. You say something too.
What were you talking about? Talk about your equipment. What you got. Oh, I got a same like Alex 600 front wing hand wing is six meter and a 10 inch tail. Trying to go as fast as you guys. They should have a category of their own, oh yeah. Listen to you. It's called oil company owners.
So yeah. We'll add that next time. Oh yeah. So we see you. And then hope you enjoy the race.
Okay, so I got Derek Kawasaki and Brian Rio here with me, and we're gonna do a little voiceover of this race. So thanks for joining me guys. Yeah, no problem. Awesome. Thanks for having us. Yeah. So we're gonna talk a little bit about. The race. Do a little race recap, talk about who is in the race, the equipment strategy, technique, conditions, training the upcoming races in July.
And then also, how, how standup foiling compares with the wing foiling. And the first part of the video is a shorter recap of the race with some cool drone footage from several sources. So we got Lucas filming at the beginning for some. Water shots from Derek and also Jeff Chang.
And then Harold is the guy in that dingy who's, who filmed the whole race with his cell phone. So we got some cool footage of the whole race. In the second part of the video, we're gonna show a little bit more detail and go into like more detailed stuff about racing and winging and. Standup foiling and all that.
I tried to get Kane to Wild on to join us too, but I didn't hear back from him, unfortunately. So I'm trying to get this video up by tomorrow, Saturday, a week later after the race. Pretty exciting. So maybe you guys talk a little bit about the start, right?
Go ahead, Derek. Okay. The start was Pretty, it was pretty organized. People was spread apart, wingers were drifting further up, wind. We could fly up wind and then just sit with the sub guys going down. So we all just hung out. They gave us a one minute prior to they said we're ready to go.
And then Everybody's sitting down on their boards or crouching down on the boards. And once it said go, it was on the wind was cranking out there. It was nice and it was a steady flow. I know a lot of people said they had a hard time getting up in the beginning cuz the bumps was outrageous, which is good.
Yeah. What, how was your start, Brian? Yeah, it was good. It was hectic. A lot of people around A lot of people, you got your wingers starting, some are going right, some are going left, and then you have your sub coilers pretty much starting straight down swell. So if you weren't on the end and you were in the middle of the pack, there was a lot of traffic.
So getting up fast was critical. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You definitely wanna get up quick and get going in front of everybody. That way you don't have to dodge everyone. And then also whatever boats or safety, and vessels was out there, the skis or whatever. Sometimes you gotta go chew their things and then you cannot push it.
You want to just get through and whatnot. But it was, yeah, it was real. Get up and try to stay in front, yeah. I thought one thing about the start that went worked well compared to last year that at the Blue Water race, it was really spread out the start line, right? This time they had like a couple jet skis going back and forth.
So they made a line like where nobody could get way ahead of everyone else. So that, and plus everyone had to sit on their boards at the start. So I thought the start, it was a pretty, pretty fair start for everyone. Like you said, you did have to make sure you don't have someone right your way as you're take trying to take off.
Otherwise you're like especially cuz Yeah, the. Boiler, the standup boilers, we're going straight down wind, and we have to go a little bit at an angle to the wind, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think next time, like when sitting at the dinner table, you go with somebody that's getting up on one right?
Reach and you get the other person sitting up on the opposite reach, you don't wanna be going crossing, right? Yep. True. So this is Kane the wild harold followed Kane pretty much the whole race with his dingy. So we got a lot of footage of Kane and then I think this is you Derek.
Yeah. Yeah, I think you and I crossing back and forth in between. Yeah. And then this is getting close to the finish line, and as you can see, there was like a buoy on the outside of the waves. But then there was the wave, the surf was pretty big. And you couldn't really see where the finish was.
Yeah, I couldn't, there was like, I was right. I came in first. I had no idea. I like, I just didn't know the area very well. But you can see here, there's that channel and I ended up too far. Upwind coming in too far. Upwind of the channel. And then you also came up in too far up when yet Derek? Yeah, I hooked around the buoy and then I, but I came in cause I saw you.
So I pulled back up when, and I came into the finish line, but. Unfortunately when we were in that channel, there was no buoys. Oh crap. And yeah. So then all of a sudden there's both of us didn't see the finish line and went to the wrong, cuz you went too far upwind. And then and then Brian.
Yeah. What happened when you came in? You saw us too? Or what? What happened? No, I thought you guys finished already. I came in before I hit that red buoy I fell cause I was too busy looking at where the channel was cuz you couldn't see anything. I was just focusing on where's the channel looking right?
And I wound up breaching, falling. It's on the video too. And then I'm scrambling to get back up and made the right and I shot straight for the white condos. And then at the top of the swell I saw Jeff on the inside on the ski. And I just tried to shoot for the ski when I could see it. And I barely snuck in on the town side of the channel.
I wound up going right at the pilings dry reef area and Saw that last second and hooked right. And snuck in there. But it was definitely a, it was tough to spot that channel. Yeah. Yeah. Congrats on that. So Brian won the race and then Derek came in second. Yeah, I guess so Derek, you were able to turn around and go back out and back in again?
Or like how did you end up finish? Yeah. Yeah, so initially when I first came in, I saw you and I was like, okay, right on Robert first, and then I'll just come in behind, and because I didn't see any of the suppers too, so I was like, oh, okay. Awesome. But. When I was coming in, there was set waves, so in front of me was all white water.
I couldn't see the reef, nothing at all. And then behind me, the wave was overhead, so I just had to hold onto my wing and just hope for the best, yeah. You just focusing on me at all. Yeah. I didn't wanna fall and get cleaned out by the. White water behind me. So just went in and then once we went in and realized, okay, this is the wrong spot.
Went to turn, hit the reef and went down, I'm like, oh, crap. And then while I was in the water trying to get up, I looked over towards the west and I noticed the ski and the other buoys and go, oh, crap, too early. Okay. So I was able, there's enough wind coming in that area for the foil that I was on and my weight.
Get back on foil. Come up and fly around. And then when I was coming around, I saw Brian's wing that was inside. So I was like, oh, okay that's it. So came in like just skirted the reef on that channel and then just came around and then passed the boy evening and then did that. Cool. All right.
So here we have the start again. So we doing a little bit extended version of the race again here, and then Harold's following Kane to Wild, and you can see he got a really good start, like pretty much on the second bump that went under Hemi. He was able to take off and then he just took off at high speed.
I, he has a lift 900 foil, I think. So really pretty small foil for standup foiling. And he was flying, he was making really good time. Yeah, it's actually I was amazed how fast he was going. Cuz I, I thought I was going pretty fast with the Mike's lab five 40, which is a pretty fast foil.
And the wing and the, the wind was pretty strong. But he was right there. He was like, we were just head to head for quite a while and then, Actually the only other person I saw Rami was Derek. And you were more on the inside, right? Yes. You took more of an inside line, right?
Yes. But let's talk a little bit about the difference between wing foiling and standup downward foiling. So I guess one of the things is definitely that you can tell is that you can see I'm like zigzagging a little bit back and forth. I. And then the more I turn down wind, the less wind I have in the wing and Kane is just going straight down wind in a straight line almost, like doing some turns and stuff.
But I guess that's one of the things that we can probably go faster, but it's harder for us to go straight down, win, right? Yeah, we cover more distance, but yeah they they can just go, we go faster and more distance, but they can just go straight, straight or line. Yeah. I think if it was windier.
If it was windier and we can actually go straight down wind, that's another story but's, it's gotta blow real hard for that with a big wing, but Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is also that once you're going straight down wind, Then no matter how windy does it usually, like you end up going faster than the wind.
A lot. If you're on a bump going straight down wind, basically the wind is almost there's just no wind in your sail. So no matter how big your wing is, it's gonna be in the way. Actually in the bigger the wing is, the more drag it has too. Yeah that one training run I tried using an eight meter wing and it did have more power, so I could go a little bit steeper angle down one, but then once you are going faster than the wind, then it's such a big wing and it's in the way more, it's harder to jive and handle in the air.
So in this race I was using a six meter, which that's the size you were using too, Derek, right? How is it? Yes. How is six meters for you? It was perfect. I was able to use it as a almost an umbrella holding down wind and use it as straight, they didn't really need to go left and right, could just hold it up and down like the center truck.
Just straight up and down and just, I just had to make sure I wasn't going through a trough or, not in anybody's way. But yeah, it was pretty good. Really good. What about you Brian? What was your strategy for trying to go fast? I. Just I tried to go farther outside hoping the wind was a little better out there.
It was still good everywhere, but yeah, I just, I tried to go left a little more and just try to go get as far outside without going too crazy. And then just whatever bumps I ride, continue left and just keep trying to go left. So when it's time to go down, wind it's a little easier for me, but, Yeah, I was looking for you guys outside thinking your way outside and I didn't, I wasn't seeing you.
So then I finally, I looked on the inside and I was like, oh, there's Derek and Rob. But yeah. Did you feel like, it seemed to me like in the middle of the race, like closer as we were getting closer to Diamond at, it seemed like it was like flattened out a little bit. Yeah, it would the bumps were really nice in the beginning.
Yeah. And then there was a little, there kinda a middle part that was not as good. Yeah, I felt to having, I had to pump the wing a lot just to keep the same speed as I had in the beginning between pumping the foil and pumping the wing. Yeah, there was definitely a little bit of a lighter in the middle.
Yeah. I think the ground as well was, actually, let me talk about this real quick. I'm sorry. Kane. Oh, Kane this is where Kane fell in. I didn't see it happening, but he said he thought he hit a fish maybe underwater, like it just his foil just stopped and he, so he went over the handlebars and then his board is like super narrow on the bottom.
It just pretty much just rounded off bottom with a very small flat area. And and that, and then this was all, and it was Derek, so yeah, I was like, oh, come on Kane, go. So the board is so tippy and narrow. And then this was the area where it was a little bit flatter, not as, the bumps were a little bit and the wind was lighter.
So it was actually, he said it was pretty hard for him to get going again and he actually like pulled himself off the board here trying to get on one. But, so it's actually pretty impressive that even though he fell in, he was still able to win the race. And then that was also cause.
You can see here that several guys passed him and then, but then he was still able to pull, catch him at the end. Yeah. And just get him in the end. And so you really, you can tell how big of a difference it makes if you just fall in or a anything, get delayed for a little bit.
Can't get up on foot right away. Cuz everyone's so close together, moving so fast that yeah, just a small. And everyone else is like now way ahead of him. Like you can see our our wings are like kind of way in the distance. Yeah. Yeah. So what about your Derek what was your strategy?
I noticed you were a little bit more on the inside, right? Yeah. Never really had a strategy. It just was follow you. That's pretty much how I was doing so, but the one thing I learned is when I was coming by Diamond Ed, I felt fell in actually I fell three, three times I fell.
Oh. And one thing I learned was don't use polarized glasses out there. Cause it, it gives you a false sense of depth perception. Oh I can see, I could see through the wave and a few times I went left to go over that swell and to the next one. And my rail was just caught into the wave and I was like, what the heck?
Fell, get back up, go in again. And then as soon as I fell twice, I took off Myla, put my glasses on top of my hat, and then I was like, okay, now I can see the, through the true, Height the depth of the wave. And then I was good and then the last time I fell was inside on that shallow reef and then had to fly again.
But yeah just follow the line. Sometimes it's hard. I know even when it is doing regular Santa braces and when you're in a front, it's hard because you don't have anything really pushing you. But sometimes when you behind somebody, you can just trail 'em and find their good stuff.
But I did learn not to follow Rob to the ending because he never had, he didn't have his, he usually don't have his glasses and he. Wrong turn or whatever. Then you follow him and you're like, oh man, what's going on? Yeah. When I'm driving, I'm wearing glasses cuz my vision is not the best. So Yeah.
Don't follow me at the finish, especially if I have no one else to follow. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But that was good. It was a strategy. I just went on the inside, the fastest line, and then even when it got lighter on the inside, when I seen you got, people was breaking away, I was able to just hold my wing straight up and down and just pump it that way and then try to get going.
So I, instead of switching hands how like you would go hill side, toe side, whatever, I would just stay. Side and just raise the wing straight up and down with the leading edge up, point it up to the sky and hold it that way. And then go angle it left a little bit if I wanted to or Right.
And then that way I don't waste time switching hands and stuff like that. Okay. Yeah. So basically you always keep your hands in the same position. You just even if you turn out a little bit, Turn in, majority of the time. Yes. Yeah. That's a good strategy basically. And then the more you can go straight towards the finish, the better.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brian and Robert were you guys using your extra leash or the long leash to catch more when deal? Like a kite ish reach. No, I wasn't. Just cuz I've had, I've fallen a couple times when I let the front handle go and use the leash. It works fantastic, but I have to pay too much attention to the wing when a gust comes and then less attention to the swell and the waves and then I wind up crashing or something.
I have less control of the wing with it in the, in these down, in the bigger down winter days. But like surfing, absolutely like surf when we go out in the White planes, whatever. Absolutely. But not this situation. No. No. Ok. Yeah, same here. I've tried that in the past where I just let the wing fly a little bit higher cuz you can, it seems like you can catch a little bit more wind up higher.
But yeah, like Brian said, you just don't have as much control of the wing, especially like I find myself going faster than the wind, a lot of times, like I said, when I turn straight down wind and I'm going on a fast bump, I'm actually holding the wing up, up on top of my head, flatten air, and sometimes with the leading edge.
Pointing forward, because that's where the apparent wind is coming from, and then as I slow down, then I turn back in, then I turn it back into the wind, so doing a little bit of a dance with the wing and you need to have really good control of the wing to do that, obviously.
Yeah. So you gotta hold it, hold onto it real tight. Yeah. Using those sharp handles. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And what about the foils? Let's talk a little bit about the foil. The foil wings you guys were using, you, you were both on the same go foils wings? No. I think Derek had the 600, I had the six 50 I had the six 50 with the 12 long tail.
Derek, what did you have? I had R six. 600 front wing and a 10 inch long tail. So a lot, little bit faster, but more stability than the shorter ones. The shorter feizer, especially since we wanted to, just overtake bumps and stuff like that. Yeah, we wasn't really surfing that one bump or going right and left.
I found it more just going over and keeping, like leapfrogging kind of stuff. Especially in a way if the wind allows you, in your wing to catch bumps versus riding swells. Yeah. And then here along, along Diamond head, the bumps got really nice again. Yeah.
There were some good fast moving bumps right here. Yeah. Yeah. Great conditions on me. Hit diamond head. Yeah. So you was I noticed Rob, you were on an outside ish and then you shot in, Slingshot in right? Yeah. I kept looking for, I trying to look for where the wind was. And it seemed like the, just the wind line was, to me it's, it looked like it was windier further out.
So I tried to stay further out. And then at the end, I figured it's probably better to stay a little bit further out until I get closer and then come in, to avoid any like light wind areas close to diamond after Diamond Lighthouse. Yeah.
Cause we did the days before, we did couple trial runs and into the original. So on the race day, they changed the. Channel to a further one further west, which is more towards Waikiki, which is more wind shadowed. So we practice at one. Came out the second day when we came to practice and Jeff said, no, that's not it.
It's the next one over. So we went to the next one over and we went in and out a few times and were like, okay, this is gonna be a breeze. We got it. Okay. We lined up the park and all that. And then the restate, I said, no, not those ones. The next one. So yeah, and by the way, there's huge surf and you can't really see where you're going, so yeah.
But it was a good call. But they did tell us, actually they did tell us aim for that first building. Like Brian was saying, he aim at the condo building, which was smart. And then I remember. Also Todd Bradley's telling us before the race to make sure you don't go too early, cuz then you get stuck by the reef at suicides and sure enough, that's where we ended up.
Yeah. Remember Todd saying, do not cut the corner. It's okay. Don't cut the corner. Yeah. So when you get your shot, go Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Ahead. No, but that was a good call because the waves were large. There were surfers in the water, the wind around the corner, but what, was like it, it did a little funkiness, so it was a good call for them to move everything little bit further down the coast, but it still was black, pretty black diamond ish that day of the race.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So the finish like coming in through the surf. Yeah, that was Also a little bit scary, right? You don't want to get don't wanna end up in the wrong place coming in through big surf. But here you can see everybody lined up in front of him.
So there's what are their names? I think one of them is Nick. And Nick. When he got in the surf, he, I think he fell and broke his paddle. Oh I read that and then that's how Kane was able to pass him and win the race. But you can see I think Derek and me in the front there.
Yeah. But yeah, so that it just like the, just because you're leading the race doesn't mean you're gonna win it. So just making it to the finish line is important. Not just in, in racing, but in life as well. So gotta, yeah. Yeah. Make it to the right goal. Not just get ahead. So anyway.
And then, but it's kinda cool. Cool. Brian, for you to win this race, cuz you, you're in the Coast Guard, right? And you you're mo getting moved soon, right? Yeah, I'm moving in one week to Sitco Alaska. Yeah. Sunny Tropical, warm Sitco, Alaska. Yeah. He is taking his trophy with him, bragging right.
Everything. Yeah, it's awesome. So yeah, it's awesome that you were able to win this race and it's cool too cause we've been all been winging, practicing together. We did a bunch of long runs together. Yeah. And so it's cool that all of us did well and then E Eli as well, Eli was always coming with us too, and just, yeah.
Yeah. To have all of us in the front is, was pretty cool. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Fun times. Yeah. Yeah. It is the end. That was definitely a hectic end. Yeah. Yeah. The ending. So some parts of the ending I that I see and then what I noticed was there would probably be, and this was the first one, so you know, like we can only improve from here, is just tell the guys, and I see it in the sub world, the a, the o C one canoes.
As soon as you pass, just keep going. Like what happened a bunch of times, and I know some of the wingers were saying that the guys would pump to the end and as soon as they crossed the booth, they would stop and sit down and be right in away. And we're coming in and we're like, oh shucks, you guys gotta move.
And then not a clear path to, to come in. Cause that channel was fairly small. Yeah. The width of it wasn't too wide at all. Yeah. So when you sit down right at the finish line, you're blocking the entrance of the channel, basically. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. And if, especially if you had a wing or something, oh man. Yeah. No, you're right. And then so Harold was obviously didn't want to go inside the surf with his dingy, but he stayed outside by that orange buoy and kept filming until he said until his phone died. Good footage of everyone going in there. Coming true. Yeah. Yeah.
It was definitely pretty hectic. And like you can see that there's, it's hard to see where the, even where the finish line is. You can see that orange buoy, which is good that they put that out. But that's me falling right there. Oh, that was you? That's me flipping the wing back over and getting back up right there.
Okay. So I fell right before the, and I thought that was it, but I managed to get back up fairly quick. Yeah and I think there was like, I think there was three standup foils that came in front ahead of you, right? Yeah. There was a couple sitting in the finish line channel and yeah, it was definitely tight.
Yeah. And there was hard, there was no good escape either. You went in and you had to, if you wanted to go back out, you had to go back out the same small way you went in. And it was hard cause everyone else was coming in. So you just had to Eddie, Eddie passed me once we were in, he passed me and went right to the beach on foil.
Went over the shallow reef. I was like, oh, that's a great idea. So I just followed Eddie once I got back up on to the beach. Oh, okay. I ended up, oh I think I ended up just going back out and heading up to Diamondhead, cuz that's where we parked our cars. Yeah. Here's Eli coming in and I think.
Yeah, so I guess Derek I'm still on the inside. I was getting worked by the waves. I couldn't really get up back up on foil cuz the waves kept pushing me in and the reef was shallow, so I had to go out drifting around the reef and then it took me probably five minutes to get to the finish line, which I was so bummed out.
Yeah. That was super unfortunate. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he was, yeah, the whole way he was up there and then you went in Yeah. And then I guess you came in yeah. You can't see Derek, but you came in, you went back out and then came in and finished second, right. Derrick? Yes. And then you could just Josh was the son that turquoise wing and I was just drifting in and he came in before I did.
And then I came in and then next was Nani. I think This is Nani. Yeah. Nani was the first female finisher, so she was she also won the blue water race last year. She's really fast, so I wouldn't be surprised if she's She's one of the top contenders for the races moloka and moloka Ma Moloka and Moloka.
Tohu, I think were the females. Yeah. And then I'm not sure who this was. Do you know? No. Set, maybe.
Anyway. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, so the, this finish was definitely a little bit challenging for me especially. I think this was, is this Eddie with the PPC Wing? Yeah. He's got a ppc. Yeah, might have been. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I know the first, the couple days that we went be prior to it was like you coming in and it was.
Pretty much flat, no waves at all. Yeah. And we would be flying in and going okay, there's a reef. There's a reef. Okay, I can come in here. Okay, I can get as close as I can and, cut this corner here and whatnot. The day of the race, as you can see with all that white water there, it was, there's no even if you was to cut it or go wide or go whatevers, you couldn't see the reef, before, before days before.
You look at the, whitewater and you go, okay, I know Reef is there. Saturday, man, there was white water everywhere. It was pretty much had closed all sets from Diamond Head all the way to what is that? Suicides or Kaimana Beach or something. Yeah. And then there's like breaking white water right behind you.
So you're like, who don't, I don't wanna fall, don't breathe, don't preach. And it's like the last thing you looking for is where's the finish line? It's just just make it in through the surf, right? Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Once you made that turn, you were committed. And if you, a lot of people missed the channel, passed it on the town side, and yeah.
You couldn't turn around That was it. Like they, I don't think anyone tried to really turn around cause they couldn't. Yeah. By the time they realized Brad, I think I tried. Yeah. I think on the list, if you look at the official listing, there's a lot of people that had d n s did not. I don't know what it was, start or finish, but Jeff didn't clock anybody that didn't come in front of the buoy and in front of the jet ski.
So all the guys who passed him and went over the reef. And had to walk, on the sand and whatnot. He didn't, he just didn't have time to look around and clock him. So pretty much everybody finished, like they did the whole course. They came in, nobody had to be rescued. But if you didn't go in front of the jet ski, the official one, then you did not get a official okay you finished the race.
Yeah, I noticed that too. Only about half of the participants had a time next, next to their name, right? Yes. Like on both the wing foiling and the standup foiling. But yeah. In terms of total racers, I think this might be a record. A number of racers here at the Voyager race Voyager wet Feet race, they had over a hundred people signed up for the race.
Oh, nice. Pretty impressive. How many people were at the starting line now. It was cool seeing, yes. Yeah, it was cool seeing everybody out there. Yeah. Yeah. I did notice I don't know if you guys knew other people, but I did notice people from Maui, Kauai, Oahu, and I did hear somebody came from the mainland that was just in town and they're like, yeah I'll participate.
But I'm not sure if any international travelers have ever here. Not sure. I wouldn't be surprised if people come to this race in the future cuz it's it was, yeah, it was definitely a cool event for sure. Yeah. Good conditions. Good. Heck hectic, beginning, hectic end, but great downwind conditions.
Yeah, for sure. What is do you think that there could be a different format or scenario for. Like for the finish or just overall champion or would it be just fine that one and done kind of deal? I don't know. What do you think? I, the, I guess the finish was part of the challenge of this race, I would say.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I just was thinking like out of the box if they do it again. Like different classes, everybody go. Yeah, definitely different classes cuz you want to include everyone. You don't want the guys to pay, their entry fee and then they come in 10, but that's their personal goal when they get it and you don't, you just want to like, yeah, you did great or whatevers.
But I always thinking the first crew goal, the first, everybody go one time and then from there, the top 10 people that cross you take them up and say, okay, now we're gonna do another run. And then you eliminate that, then this way, you know what wing works for you. You know where the finish line is, you know where this is.
So you can do a elimination thing and if even if you wanted to, you could go from the top 10 people take, okay? The last round, which is gonna be a finals, will be the top five or four or three. And then from there you'll be like, okay, whoever win this, come in. And then by that time, If everybody's still interested, they're gonna be on the beach with cameras and watching and like they're gonna fully focus on this last crew of five people coming in, which, which could be really interesting, yeah. If you get dedicated shuttle drivers, it could all happen pretty quick, I think too. That's a great idea. Just cause it's a 25 minute run, so Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Cause how long it took for us to get our gear together, pump up, screw everything, do this, drive up, drive back, and then we was on the water like shock so quick.
Yeah. But yeah, that would be,
yeah, that's an interesting concept for sure. Yeah. Yeah, because like this one, if you known, if we known it, it might have been a different result. And then we could also choose, okay, we can change the different foil, we can get a bigger hand wing follow this guy. Go way outside, go way inside.
It could, you could have varies, but you could also just had that little elimination kind of deal. Yeah, I know right now we're just in the infant stages of it, this is the way that you could would show great competition kind of deal. Yeah. It's almost like the prone, the pros I think just kept doing runs and runs and they could have changed gear and did whatever they wanted between runs and the airport so he could get his plate.
Yeah, something like that. But like a little bit of an elimination too. Yeah. Cuz that's the prone, the prones were un right? Like you said they could just go from 1230 to four and doing as fast as they can. The wind, if the wind changes, the flow change or whatever, and, it's you're fastest timing.
That's it. Now you're the champ, but. Yeah. You can do multiple runs and do whatever whatever it takes out. And I think that's a cool idea. So this was after the race you got you guys went to to go ride some waves, huh? Oh, yes, for sure. Yeah, that definitely was like after the race, it like, Okay.
What now? There's waves, there's wind, we gotta go. So we, we packed up a few people. We just went down to by the airport and we just rode some waves. Yeah, I was too beat. I, like when I came in at Diamond, I, it hit the reef with my new foil and I was like so bummed out. But the finish and then banging my foil, I was like, okay, I'm gonna go home.
Yeah, we saw that. We inspected your foil that was up there. Oh man. Yeah, that was, that's a rough one. Yeah. Yeah. But then I was, I came out with you guys the next day and surfed a spot and that was super fun. Big waves. Clean waves and strong wind. It was a nice combination right there. Yes. Yeah.
And it was stress free, no. Gotta, we can just take your time coming out. Let the wave come to you, surf it, blast and Alex from Maui was in town too. He came for the race. So he was able to surf some of our south shore spots. Yeah. Your sponsor, foil sponsor, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And he was pretty stoked that, that the team, like he was still on the camaraderie of all the different four and everybody else, but also the, how, the, how well the team did. So that was good too. Show for sure. Cause I think the Gofoil team got like the, it was Brian, Derek, and then Eli top three spots you got right.
All on go foils. Yes. Yeah. Congrats Brian. Brian carried the team for us. Brian got lucky. Yeah. Yeah. Lucky Brian got very lucky. You got it.
Yeah. But that was awesome. Not just luck. Yeah. So follow the right path. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk this spot right there. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the races coming up. So we I'm super excited about Maui in a couple weeks. Derek, you wanna talk a little bit about what we're planning to do?
Yeah, so they got the moca coming up, which is a race from Maui, Fleming Beach to. AKA Kai, I believe, AKA Molokai. And that's another channel crossing between the islands. I believe it's 27 miles. So we're a bunch of, there's a bunch of people that's gonna do that race on wings, on standup boards, race boards, canoes, then whatnot.
But our plan is to go up on Thursday, do a couple Mako runs on Friday, do the race crossover. Hang out on Molokai on Friday and then Saturday there's another Kamala Run, which is a 10 mile run, and we're gonna participate in that too.
Yeah. And then on the day after that race, we were planning to just wing back from Molokai back to Oahu. Yes. And we got like an escort boat to go with us as well, with our group. Yeah. Sunday, maybe two depending on Yeah I guess two escort boats on that Sunday. So yeah I'm super excited about that, that basically we were just gonna fly to Mali and then Wing back to, yeah, wing back from Maui to Molokai to Oahu.
Pretty exciting. Yeah. And then, yeah, maybe we can meet up with some of the Maui crew on that Thursday before the race and just do some winging or foiling, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we got what, 27 miles in the length of moca and then another 32 miles to Oahu. So it's gonna be a pretty long trip, but.
The good part. There's Harold. That's Harold right there. Harold's the guy in the dingy. Yeah. Yeah. He is the dingy. Yeah. But the good part is the last stretch, which is the longest. We're gonna just be cruising to get back home. We're, we won't be like pushing the limits. We're just going go as fast as the slowest person yeah.
Yeah, we can relax, yeah, and that was really fun too when we did that. White planes run that. We also made a video about that. It was cool to be able to just take our time and but also, and it's not that you can't go fast, it's just that you can still go fast. You just turn around and then if you're ahead of people, you just wait.
And yes, if you get way behind, then you try to go a little bit faster, right? Catch up. Yeah. So catch up or slow down, go upwind a little bit, whatever, so circle around. Yeah. Yeah. Not that hard to stick together as a group. No. With the wings for sure. Yeah, definitely. We can all share, if we had a stop board, then it would be unless you're one of the wonder ones that can pump up wind, then yeah.
It'll be hard to stay together. But It'll be good too. Cause after Sunday, once we get back, we'll watch the boat and whatnot. Then we can probably take a few days off. I don't know about you Rob, but because we have a, we have the next crossing the Molokai to Oahu coming up right after. I, in two weeks after.
Two weeks after that. Yeah. Yeah. So then that's really the biggest race of the year probably for foiling. The moca race is the. The big one. Yeah. So yeah, I definitely wanna be ready for that. Yeah. Yeah. Rest up for that. And then hopefully next year we'll have a race in Alaska that we can do, and Brian will coordinate that, right?
Yeah. Foil group one guy. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, no, I'll hopefully get back here for that next year. Come for a visit. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. We can get the, we can do a team stuff too, if God will just, try to save up on, on the cost of the boat and whatnot, whatnot.
But can definitely do teams or however do make it work. Maybe you can do a crossing from Hawaii to Alaska or the other way around Alaska to Hawaii. Yeah. Straight down, right? Oh, man. Definitely. At least we know some Coast Guard guys, yeah. If we have to have a escort yeah. Right there.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Any last words actually, do you wanna mention anything about safety being from with the Coast Guard, Brian? Oh. Nothing that's not already been mentioned already by you and Derek before the white planes run. You covered, you, you covered everything on the beach before.
The white planes run between just always have, the biggest things just have a way to signal people carry the radio, a phone something. So when everything goes wrong, you can get in touch with somebody. For multiple reasons, but yeah, pH phones are huge. It's get a waterproof bag. We always all carry phones in our, however, and carry a phone.
Nine one one works fantastic. Yeah, a good backup would be vhf. But for, at least for this area, everything's within a couple miles of the beach. Phones always pretty much always have reception here. Yeah, for the channel races, it's probably better to rely on a V HF radio or e or something like that.
Or something satellite E vhf or, yeah. They, like when I go to Alaska the Garmin's got the satellite texting device. I forgot what it's called, but that's what's gonna be in my pocket cause there's no cell service up there and, yeah. Go. I forgot what it's called, but they work fantastic.
I know which one you talking about. Yeah. Yeah, like a small handheld gps. Yeah. Yeah. Holy smokes. There's a lot of change coming from here, huh? Oh, who me? Yeah. Oh yeah. It's yeah, it's gonna be interesting. I don't know what's gonna go in like my pack, but. It's gonna be a lot more, you'll be wearing a thick wetsuit and booties and gloves and the hood.
Yeah. Five mil boots. Not gonna be able to feel the board. Cause the seven mil of rubber between my heel and the board and the fitting, my hand in the wing loop is gonna be another. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see how that works. And then yeah, I think just the, like the mitigating the safety risk.
Because there's no, there's very little rescue assets out there. Like there are, there's tons here. And it's, you have exposure problems out there. You don't have that, yeah. You don't last that long if something goes wrong. Yeah. Yeah. No, here you can, you can last a long time out there and just put it in first gear and paddle and, but you can't really do that out there.
Come up, see what we got and come up with a plan and try and maybe convince people to foil out there that's not, yeah, no, that would be a great, be who wants to go, Phil? Yeah. So if anyone's watching here on YouTube from Alaska, that is anywhere close to Brian, maybe reach out. Yeah. What is your Brian, what is your Instagram Brian Trick?
I think Brian, t r i c, like a underscore in between or something? Or just Brian, t r i c. One minute I don't look. Yeah, you look at yourself. And what about you, Derek? Where, how can people find you online? Oh, just on Instagram at Derek comma no spaces. D e r e k h a m a. Okay. I just wanted to say too, Derek recently won the subs surfing US championships, right?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. For that and you massive stand paddle anymore, so that's pretty, pretty impressive that you still got it, yeah. Yeah. Just gotta go. You just got two moves and it can just, just go keep to the two moves, don't get fancy. And then, the rest will just take care of itself.
Yeah. I guess your cutbacks, you still do on this foil too, right? It's the same move almost. Oh yeah. Similar. Yeah. Apply the same surfing back. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I've been trying to do in a ways, is try to apply. The same surfing maneuvers, bottom turn, top turns, hit the whitewater full on roundhouse and with the wings and foils, which I know is doable.
It's just so tricky because you get the chance of cavitation or just breaching and whatnot. But yeah, I think if you just trust yourself and push the fo the foil you. Should be able to make those kind of maneuvers. I've seen you do it, so I know you can. Oh yeah. Thanks.
Thanks. Alright. What is Brian? Brian, what is your quick one? What was your Instagram Brian so that they you up? It's Brian trick with underscore after the C of the last letter, okay. Okay. That's perfect. Brian Underscore. Do you know if there's any a community, foiling community or any kind of gear for sale up on in Sitka?
So right now I saw one Foil for sale on Facebook a couple months ago. I haven't seen it lately. So that might be it. FOILING community might the one, foiling community might be gone, but, oh yeah. No, I. Jack has a friend who left said, who did wing foil when he was up there. So I gotta get in contact with him just to get some info about the area so I don't start from scratch.
Ok. With conditions and everything and just conditions and zones and safety and see, just pick his brain. But he said he was the only one there doing it, so Yeah. Oh, nice. It'll be fun. Nice. And you have some gear too, like if somebody does want to join you, you'd be able to. Bring them along. At least I have plenty of extra stuff.
Yeah. Oh, okay. Hit 'em up, hit Brian out. Probably sell some to be alone. Yeah, plenty of extra gear. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Awesome. All right, guys. Any last words? No thanks. Just get out there, get on the water. Yeah. Thank you. All right I'm gonna wrap this up and put it on YouTube so people can watch it tomorrow.
Awesome. Yeah, thanks for joining me. All right. Congratulations, Brian, once again. Keep in touch, man. We'll get out there and try to get stationed back to Hawaii so we can, again. There you go. Absolutely. All right, take care guys. Thanks for joining me. Have a good night. Aloha all.
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Olivia Piana Foiling Interview- Blue Planet Show Episode 27
17 Jun 2023· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show, which I record right here in my home office and talking to wing foil athletes, designers, thought leaders, anyone who has something interesting to say. And today's interview is with Olivia Piana. She's an amazing world class athlete, not just in wing foiling and surf foiling and downward foiling, but also in standup paddle surfing, standup paddle racing, wind foiling, kiting and more.
She has several world titles in her name. She talks a little bit about the challenges of competing as a woman in these male dominated sports and her about her goals. And then this summer, the moca Oahu race is coming up. We talk about that she's entered to race in that one of the few women doing the downward foiling.
I'm entered in that race as well, so I'm looking forward to doing more interviews. Talking to athletes that are entered in this race before and after. So hope you can join me for some of those interviews. As always, you can watch it right here on YouTube or listen to it on your favorite podcast app. Just search for the Blue Planet Show.
So without further ado, here is Olivia Piana. Okay, Olivia, welcome to the Blue Planet Show. It's great to have you here. Thank you. Hello, Robert? Yeah, so it's you're in Portugal. I guess it's 7:00 PM for you, for me. It's eight o'clock in the morning and Hawaii. Yeah, thanks for joining me and from the other side of the world.
It's pretty cool that we can talk like this on Zoom, yeah. I've never talked to you before, so it's good to meet you virtually. But can you talk a little bit about like, how. Start from the very beginning. Where were you born? How did you get into water sports and what, how did you get into what you do today?
I was born in Marsai in south, south France. Then I grew up in ban a very small city in the beginning of the Alps. So I was an hour and a half away from the coast, from the Mediterranean Sea. And I, so I grew up on a very natural place with the mountains and I play many different sport.
When I was kid, I had the luck to have my parents that really gave me the opportunity to discover many things. And my mom is a windsurf fan. And when I was kid she brought me on the windsurf and yeah, I just totally fallen in love to a windsurf thing when I was 12 in in the Mediterranean Sea.
And I wanted to dedicate my life to it. It was my dream to be wind surf for pro and to compete around the world and to win titles. And I had my my like some champions that I really loved. And yeah, that's that's how I discovered the patient for the ocean, the wind and the wave and wind surfing is my first sport.
Okay. And then, so like you started at 12 years old and then you got into windsurf racing right away or like competing with windsurfing or, yeah, I started with windsurfing P dub race, slalom race. And so I went with my mom. My mom helped me on the competition and she really loved it too.
And I start to travel a bit more. I never compete a lot on the wave, even if I really loved the wind surfing on the wave. But I guess, racing is much more easy to compete than wave riding. And when I was from the Mediterranean Sea in France, it's not really wavy. So yeah I had more opportunity to race and to do slalom.
And and yeah, it was the only thing I will be more lucky to be a man a man that, a woman in windsurfing because it was not that easy to have a sponsor and help to compete and to, but I did it anyway and I really loved it. So you like yeah. You're basically, you're saying that the sponsors were not as helpful when you, for women, like they didn't support women as much as men?
Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think it's it's a system that the industry is mainly men and then they think the women don't buy the product and then they design the product for the men. And then there is no woman into the sport. But it's more about the history of the sport and the mentality and the vibe on the beach and everything.
It's not so welcoming for women and it's like it is, but some women try to make changes, but it's not so easy. Luckily with standard paddling and today with wing foiling, it's really different and there is more opportunity for women to, to compete. But it's changing slowly, but it's not that easy to to improve it.
Yeah. Yeah, that's, so I was kid and I was on the beach like, Hey guys, can I really windsurf with you? But yeah, it was basically my most of the people get help for the, from the family or they work to pay everything because windsurfing is super Super expensive. But yeah, it's, it was not so easy, but I did my best and I'm super happy anyway.
Okay. And then what came next? Cuz I know you got into all kinds of sports. Standup paddling and then foiling, wing foiling and I, what else? Yeah, and then I discover standard paddling in 2011. It was the day that it was not windy. And then I went with friends with this long and big boards on the waves.
And yeah, it was the first time actually that I surf a wave without a sail. And and then thanks to my friend Fred Bonne that. So I live in tar that I met there in Spain. I this guy really pushed me to go into the racing and to compete and we were like a team to go to the event. And it, the funniest thing is I already wanted to compete in wave stopping and the first World Cup was in latter in 2012.
And there was also the racing, the surfing and the racing were together. And the title there, there was the overall for was, I think it was the eight, no it was the standard war two before. And there was this overall title for surfing and race and racing. And then I did also the racing, but I was not so motivated to do it.
And I won the race. I was like, oh, wow. Actually, it's pretty cool. And I discover how fun is it to race? And it's not only boring, to paddle, paddle, paddle for 15 kilometer. And it was pretty technical. The day after the distance race, we went on the wave to do the technical race.
And it was a mix of racing and surfing. And I really love it. And I won again, like it was a bigger crash on the way with all the girls, like surfing and at the mark, like with the racing board. But yeah, it was so fun. And yeah, I got better opportunity in surfing than windsurfing.
From the same brands. That's what it was. Very strange. Like the same brands on the windsurfing and stand up industry gave more money to women in surfing. So I was like, okay. And I had the opportunity to compete in standardizing more easy. Okay. So what, who was your sponsor at that time?
Who was sponsor? Yeah, sorry to say it, but it was fanatic. Fanatic, okay. But maybe it's the situation, maybe it was more, it give more visibility if, it was just at this time more easy to have a good contract in s than wind surfing. So basically they were probably making more money with standup paddle board, so they wanted to promote that more than windsurfing.
Is that basically fanatic, they sell a lot of windsurf boards, but maybe for a woman it was easily, it was more easy to give the good image to sail boards, to sell subs sub boards than wind surfboard. Okay. Yeah. So it was like it was it was like this. So yeah, I start like this.
And so that was, so the first time you competed in standup paddling, you basically, you won the racing and then you also won the surfing. So you were the o or No, I didn't won the surfing. The surfing was on the very small waves and I got lost, I think. So I was thinking okay. It was Surfing in competition is not easy because it's very rare that you have the good condition and you can express yourself.
And then racing make it much more easy. You just have the start and the finish. And also about the judgment. It's judgment in racing is pretty easy. Just you paddle and you cross the finish line and you have your position. And yeah, and I, and then I got some prize money with this competition and that permit me to go to the next competition and I start like this.
Nice. I'm gonna, I'm gonna screen share a little bit from your Facebook page or Instagram or Facebook where they st. Like way in, in the past, but yeah, this was like, I guess you were writing fanatic boards and, but yeah, I guess even early on you were getting like stories in magazines and everything, right?
Yeah. This was in the Sri Lanka. This was in Sri Lanka, my first barrel, let's say. Oh. And yeah it has an amazing streak. We were surfing on the wave on the morning and wind surfing on the afternoon. And to have a fanatic as a sponsor on this trip was really cool to do both sports.
Okay. Yeah. So after you won your first Santa Paddle race, then what happened? You went to more contests and then traveled, like what? Yeah, basically I really traveled a lot thanks to sap. Standard, bring me everywhere in the world and make me meet a lots of amazing people. And I am super grateful for that.
It's so easy and versatile. You can go everywhere. You can go like the picture that you see with many people on the board. I think it's in Leon, in France. On the river. On the river run. Yeah. And yeah, was really the beginning. The very beginning. This picture. Yeah. 2014. And then there was a races on, inflatable boards on in Europe.
That's funny that, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The inflatable board there are definitely not as performance as the rigid one, but it's so easy to travel with. Yeah. Is, are the European market, is it still like most people using inflatable boards in Europe on when there go standard path?
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. There is a lot of inflatable boards for beginner or for people that don't paddles that much. They really love to go on the inflatable board and enjoy their time. Yeah. Makes sense. And actually, they are better and better. They are not good for surfing, for example, but for just paddling on in France for example, we have a lot of beautiful place for just paddle under crystal clear water.
Super nice. Yeah, I mean it's just convenient cuz you can pack 'em up small, you can travel with it, take it on the airplane, all that kinda stuff, right? So definitely has some advantages. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then, okay. And then you got more, more and more into standup paddle racing or surfing and both Or what was Yeah.
What were you up to? Yeah, I get more and more in racing. I broke my ankle in 2015 and this was very hard because I had to, no, I broke my feet windsurfing in, in Morocco in 2015 and and then it takes six months to recover. And yeah, this was a bit hard, but then I recover, I change sponsor as well to starboard in 2016.
And then, yeah, I guess it was 2000 because me, sometime with the years I get I get lost, but thousand 16 I had a little down with the injury and then little by little up and then I was very performance in 2017, 18 and 19. At the PPG in California Pacific game and the I S A I won the, from 2013 to 2017.
I got seven time this world champion. Of isa vice versa in technical rates and distance race. Okay. And I was like, what happened to me? I'm always, I'm a lot of time second then I take care. Like I really take care of every little detail and everything. And in 2018 in China I got were the champion of distance race for the first time.
Congrats was so amazing. After seven time. Second I was like, finally. Yeah. With the French team. Tell us a little bit about that injury you had in 2016 in Morocco. You said did you get, your foot was stuck in the foot strapp or something? Or did you get Yeah, I was too. I was too late on the wave.
I was like behind the lip, and then the lip catch me, and instead of my feet to go away like this, the board just turn on the other way. And then my, the I had the feet be between the mast and the board. It was like very bad. Then I just all my body just twist. And my, my, my foot was still on the strap.
And then I just couldn't swim. My gear went away with the wave and somebody helped me with the windsurf to go back to the shore and they didn't discover immediately that it was broken. That's why it was very long to recover. And then when I discovered that it was actually broken was one month, so one month and a half after, because I still had the pain on the foot.
And then I just had to rest and to, and I did outer rigor kinda, yeah. Outrigger paddle at, yeah. At that time. In France, we have some clubs from from and I learned a lot during this time how to paddle well with the ian on the typical canoe. And it was actually very good for the training to, to have this injury.
Interesting. So basically, and then you came back stronger a after that. What are some things that you learned from the Ians and like for paddle stroke technique that helped you with standup paddle racing? Curious. The same with the Titian is they don't explain, they just show you. And they tell you, but it's like that, look at me, it's the technician. They're the, they have the feeling on the water, they, this is the emotion, this is the, what they feel more that what they think. And yeah, just spend a lot of time on the water with them watching them. And it, it was still not perfect, but for surfing was was good enough.
And I, we train on the canoe with six girls and solo. And yeah, on the, we like the different way to train was super interesting that you can do also on the stop with the break and with no break with yeah, difference. Sometimes it was super hard and too much sometimes.
But very good to open our mind to to this technique. Interesting. Okay. Okay. And then, so then you came back from your injury and you started then you started winning the races not coming in second or the overall world title like, or Yeah. Talk a little bit about that. I came back, the first race I won again was the race in Paris.
In the TIC show. So it was the beginning of December in the winter, and it was the only race of the year that, for the first place there was one plane ticket for the 80, for the award. Oh, nice. Of this race. And I was so happy to win it. Then I went to TA next April, 2017, and I don't remember it was 16 or 17.
But anyway, it was around this time. And then when you, when I went to Tahi, when you win the race there, you win a flight ticket again from Paris to Taai to Tahi. So I won the race. And I won another ticket and I was like, wow. So I will, and then I went to Te Eiti like this six, sixth time during three years.
And I went twice the year, like on April and December to race there. Okay. Maybe you find some picture from TE here or, yeah. I don't know. Maybe it was already the time of Instagram.
And then you were writing for star boards and I guess Yeah. You were on the starboard team. Yeah. At that time I was racing for Star, for starboard. Okay. And yeah, I had some boards there. And what was really cool that it's in, in Titi, we had some Darwin conditions, some canoe. This is in France with the girls.
Your canoe team. Yeah. Became, which position were you paddling in? I was in the fourth. Okay. I was the motor, as they call it. Yeah. The power. Okay. This is the clinic I really love to, to teach as well. Yeah. At that time, do you have the date? 2016, at that time I was I was sailing actually boats for starboard.
I was wor working on the boat show. I had this job because I was starting again to be a athlete after the injury. And then I got paid by representing the brand on the boat show on the 10th, on the stand. And then when it was the time, Of the race. I just escape from the tent and I went racing and that's how I was able to pay and to travel again.
Okay. Yeah. This is in Paris. This is in Paris. And in this kind of boat show the people, they ask you a coffee when you are a woman. I was like, oh, do you wanna know about the boards? Or they, the guys about the boards and the girls are supposed to be puffy. And it was so funny cause there's some people they just don't know.
They just like, and I was wearing this blue jackets that is the jacket of the girl that's just bring the coffee and pouring chestain, yeah. Yeah. It was after the winning, yeah. Thousand, yeah. Thousand 15. I won in 2015 and then I went back in 2016. So I went to TE for the first time in 2016. Yeah.
Okay. Okay, cool. And
all right, so then, so two trips to Tahiti, that where you won tickets, that's a long trip home from France to Tahiti. Yeah. That's 24 hour of flight. Okay. There is LA and then La Tahiti. Okay. And when was the first time you came to Hawaii? I went to Hawaii for the first time in 2013. Okay. After the Battle of the Paddle.
It was the first time I went to the US and after the Bachelor of the Paddle, there was the Standard Paddle War in Oahu in Turtle Bay. Then I traveled first to Maui. Then no, actually I'm wrong. The first time I went to. To Maui was for the triathlon the ex ter world championship in 2000.
Must be thousand 12 maybe. I'm lost with the years. Yeah. And I compete in triathlon Oh, in Maui. So you also Yeah, I was, because I was living on the mountain and then I couldn't go on the water and I did yeah, trilon for three years and I was selected for the ter world championship and I compete, and actually a friend of mine was was world champion of 2008 in 2008 in Maui.
So this guy helped me a lot to go into the, sorry, my dog. To go into the Trilon scene and I, and actually went to Maui to compete in Trilon, but mostly to Windsurf in OK Kipa. And it was the excuse to go there. Okay. That's cool. So how far did you go in the triathlon scene in the three years you were doing it?
Did you get win anything or? I got second and junior TER world championship, but it was not so much competitive. I was not so competitive in I'm most competitive in in standup or water sports. But it probably helped you with the endurance, and with the endurance for racing, right?
Yeah. Very lot. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then standard paddler racing was just a mix of windsurfing and trilon. The endurance and the glide. Yeah. And the paddle technique from outrigger paddling, yeah. You learned? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay. So then you're doing, you're competing in standup paddle racing, and then what happened next?
You, yeah, what's happened next? I get, I got two other world title in China in 2019 at the World Championship World title. I got the, I got second on the distance race. I got first on the technical and then the big surprise, I won the sprint race, the 200 meter race. But it was my first time I compete on this format.
And on the interview I say, okay guys, I think it's just the foing that helped me a lot to paddle hard to take off the board. Cause I never train on the sprinter format because I really prefer to go on the ocean and to play and to enjoy the, what the ocean has to give you, to just compete.
Sprint was not so much my what I love to do. And then I got into stand surf oil first in 2017. I got my first board and then into standup foil in Portugal where I live. There is a really nice wave long and smooth wave for foiling. And a bit of current. So it's much better to go there with the step than with the surf.
And yeah, I just got addict, addict into filing. But I was really thinking that at the beginning I still train in both race suppress and support because actually my job was to suppress, and the covid arrives 2020. And the actually helped at some point it helped me to stop suppressing because I, it was when you are, when you win races and when you are the leader of one sport, it's super hard to quit and to say, okay guys no, it's my time to.
To do something else. And surprising was really my second family. I have so many friends that I met on the competition and I traveled everywhere in the world with, and it's, it was really not easy to stop this and to have another life. But yeah, at some point the covid help making the transition.
And it seems like that was a pretty common thing that like the top people in Santa paddle racing discovered foiling, and especially for down winding it's so much more efficient to be on a foil. And it seemed like the whole kind of standup racing scene.
Kinda fell apart a little bit because of that, I think. And because of Covid, like there weren't any races for a while and then, and it seems like now, it never got its momentum back too, right? Like it's seems like there's just not as, there's not as many races and not as many people competing anymore in stand paddling.
Is that true or is that just my perception? I think so. Yeah. There is a, yeah, and it, I think it, it also depends where you live. If you live on a spot that you can practice downwind for sure you go into sub, sub fo. But there are some athletes there are still sub surprising maybe because they want to continue and they have the will to keep training very hard.
And. And yeah, there is Casey. There is some athletes from France, in France that we have many eraser that get into sub foil. It's still it's still not so popular because sub subdominant, like we sub to do subin, to sub surf with the foil. But subin foil at the beginning is very hard, especially two years ago or three years ago.
Yeah. Very challeng. So let's talk a little bit about that. What was it like to get, your first time you tried it or like, how, talk a little bit about how challenging it is, yeah. The first, my first unwin with the Sub Foy, I borrowed a board in France from a shop from a friend of mine.
It was a Robert Tale bought. Huge one, like 2034 wide, maybe six, two long. And it was a cargo board, it was like this, a bubble. And when is I, it's not about the board, it's about the rider always, but to take off. And when you take off, you are about to fly and you paddle super hard.
And then when you are about to take, to serve the swell, you actually don't know what to do. And you take really a while to go, like full commitment to take off the board and let's see what's next? And yeah I think it's real today with the new boards, the long boards, Yeah, it's this is one of my first boards.
So this was like in 2019, yeah. 2019. Yeah. And yeah, at the beginning was very tough. Very tough. Yeah. To stop down in fo like in, so in France, the, my first dunin, I didn't take off. Maybe I just take off off for a kilometer for eight kilometer. I had a ten second of foiling.
And yeah, just kept going. And I remember in Portugal, my first I tried to go for a 28 kilometer run with the Kayak east. With the kayak guys. And I, maybe I fly for half an hour in total, and I did it in three hour and a half. Wow. I was like, exhausted. I was like, what the fuck?
And now this run, I do it in an hour and 30 minutes. Yeah. So more than two hour less. It's when there is really a big difference when you fly and when you don't fly, it's it's huge difference. It's lot. Yeah. And then if you paddling the whole way with a small board and a foil underneath, it's hard worker.
It's very hard. Yeah. It's so hard. But, now with the big long again, it's it make it much more easy and. It's so cool because I think many people can get in into the sport and have more opportunity to enjoy it. And we are already at the start of something really cool. Yeah. Sport and also the foils that getting better and Yeah.
And then, but you do need to have good conditions. It's not like you can go out in super light wind or Yeah. Like in any kind of conditions. That's one thing about standup paddling that I think is it's just more accessible to more people, right? Like pretty much anybody that can standup, paddle, with the right equipment and any, pretty much any kind of water you mean?
Standard paddle classic. The, yeah the yeah. For sure. For sure. And for sub foil, for certain mean for, you really need the more knowledge about the ocean. And about the safety. And it's is really the next step, but it's the freedom that you feel. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. No it's an amazing sport.
Okay. So then, and then you also, it looks like from your you also got into windsurf foiling a little bit, it looks like. Yeah. Yeah. So you didn't some race? Yeah. This was the racing with that, this was when one year 2020 summer. 2020 to summer 2021. And I was born in Marsai, and then I felt, okay, the Olympic Games will be in Marsai in 2024.
I am a windsurf in love. And I really want to try at least to know what it is and to get into it. And I did one year of Olympic training with the French team. It, and then I actually discovered the Olympic world that I just know from far, because the, let's say that the outdoor sports standard pad surfing is now into the Olympics, but windsurfing was really there.
There was like one big step between Olympic windsurfing and what windsurfing is for. We are in the industry, but with foiling, it's much more, let's say it's much more similar because. Falling first is really more fun than classic windsurfing that than classic Olympic windsurfing in my point of view.
And yeah, it was super interesting and I really got a lot of knowledge about falling, doing Olympic windsurfing training. It was at the end I, I prefer to to focus in one sport and to choose one sport that is sub subdominant fo or windfall as well. I did one year of world Cup in windfall and it's very hard to do everything you really have to choose.
But I didn't want to have a regrets and I. I could I think I could do it if I will meet or attract the people, the team that can bring you to the Olympic. But I guess I am, it's not my profile of athletes. I'm, I prefer the freedom, I prefer to go sub subin for and to do the moloca and in, instead of doing the Olympic games.
And, but to know it, I really needed to experiment it and to feel it. And to be born on on the city that will host the sailing Olympic games was very elect, and then I really wanted to try it. But you never competed in, in what you did, it looks like you did do some competition right on with the windsurf?
Yeah, I did a IQ foil the Olympic windsurf win foiling class. Okay. I did a few competition. I got some pretty nice reason because before I never compete in Olympic format in my life. And I also I got some help from the French team, but I was not the best at athlete, so I was not on the main training group.
But I still had some help about how to race and how to go up upward because it's all about how to go, how to read the wind, and how to go up. Wind the wind. And this is a science, this is really a lot of knowledge, a lot of feeling. And a lot of years underwater to know how to do it.
And yeah. I still got 20 20 on the iq I international IQ for games. Okay. And everyone told me, yeah, Olivia, you did pretty well because you never compete in racing Olympic before. Like this, yeah. To make the good decision. And you can lose so quickly, many space, like many place like this, you take the wrong decision child your last Yeah.
And it's a lot of races. It's 20 races in or sometime more in a few days. Yeah. It's pretty exhausted. Okay. And then and then how did you get into the wing foiling? Like when, when did you start wing foiling and what was your progression in that? Wing foiling, I start in 2000.
September, 2019. I was already sub foiling on the waves, and I was thinking it's just about to add the sail when it's wind. And I got the support of tycoon first a French brand. And then in 2020, the, there was the first competition the G the G W V A and I really wanted to go to Haifa.
It was at the end of the year during Christmas and New Year. Yeah. December 20. Oh, this is 21. 20, yeah. 21. Oh, no. And then it was 20 maybe. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Sorry. It was, no, I start in September 20 Uhhuh, and then, yeah. This is the first picture with tycoon. Yeah. 2020, sorry. Yeah. I start in 2020 September, and then I compete in December, 2020 in tar.
Oh, okay. It was my, my first competition and I knew a bit tour because I went there for windsurfing and for standard paddling before, and I got it was freestyle. It was just, It was freestyle and the race was for fun. And I got served on the face, on the freestyle. My first trip broke during my, the final eat.
It was it was a little bit a mess, but experience of competition. That foil looks huge for you. I guess in those days, people were using, I had with I was doing freestyle with 1,600 centimeter square. Oh, wow. But is really big. Yeah. Yeah. Really? The mask didn't like it. Yeah. Wow. Okay. And and then yet 2021, I compete again.
Did a few workup in Wingfield. Went to France Switzerland. Brazil and and Spain. That's it, I think. And it was really different from what I knew instead pad because I was from racing. That is really re that was, and I was thinking, wow, we are lucky in Standard Island. And I we really live the same situation that's on the windsurf competition with the wind foil about men and women.
But it was at the beginning, it was a new beginning of a new sport managed by Kit surfing kit Surfer. So yeah, it was it was a bit special. It's not easy to talk about it because everything has a beginning. And of course you need to create something and to, and it's super cool for the G V A to organize events.
It's a lot of work to do what they do, that they do what they know and they do it how they know how to do it. And with the habits we are, we just, we are just our habits. And then it's true that they reproduce the same thing that they did with the kite surfing competition.
And it was really different from what we do in standard paling in term of equality, gender. About the more about the image, about the video and photo production that for women was really a few comparing to men. And then the image is what makes everything, if you don't see any image of women on the water, you think it's a spot for only for men.
And then it's the same. It's the same thing. You don't have image of women and it was also a water tour organized by brands that pay, that give the PGE for the G W V A. And these brands have mostly men riders. That they pay and they pay the travel expense to go to the competition, to go to the world tour.
And then you have this situation that most of the competitor are men and you are like, hello. It us, the women and some, a few women come from the industry that has maybe 10% of the fleet and a few women come from them, their self, like paying everything the themself. And also many are rider, men, pay, pay, everything themself.
But yeah we really try to find a way to give more, like the same amount of visibility to both gender, to attract more. More participants of women into the sport and to make it fair to have the same prize money. Because of course when you have, let's say 80 men competing and five women competing, it's not the same competition.
That's completely true. But it's the problem is deeper than that. It comes from actually. But yeah, it was interesting to, to find a solution about this and Is there also hectic sometime when there's a wing full contest and the wind's kind of light do they send out the women's heat because the, it's not windy enough for the men or something like that?
Do is it stuff like that too? Or Can be Yeah, can be, but can be. But the most important is to make the effort to make images of the competitor. And this is the most hard, the most hardest thing to do. To really coach to manage your production team to say, okay guys, because the filmmaker and the photograph, they are used also to shoot more performance of men that are impressive than women.
And then it's just, that's why I said just the habits. It's not, we don't want women in the sport. It's not this, it's just we do what we used to do that we do it for a long time, and then we just reproduce what we are used to do. And to give image to women, it's it's it's something that's it's not so natural, it's not so it's you have to shake with the people to say, Hey, we are here.
Yes. Yeah. So what are you, what are some things that you have been trying to do to help the the status of women in those kind of sports? Like what do you do to try to get rattle the cage a little bit? I have to decrease pleasure to organize the She wins events with venue.
This is events dedicated for women to, to learn how to wing foil and to improve the wind foiling technique. And we are doing the first sheet done wings. So we go also on the don winds with the wing for it, with the shoe wings. And it's, so we start last year mostly in France. We did one, one event in Portugal in the beginning of this year, in April.
And it's a big success. It's really impressive. The we act we gonna do one event this Sunday in France. And we are 20, we are 25 women in total. And the registration we're full in less than 24 hour. So I'm super, super happy and it's all about finding a way like to like to organize events, like to grow the logistic of the event, to welcome more women on the event because we are really had to stop the registration of the girls.
And and then the idea is to produce major content to, for the social media and to do this kind of to help doing this and to inspire to give, to, to produce a positive image for women windfall and to show that it's super cool to win for when you are a woman. Yeah. No, that's great. And Wing foiling is really not so much about strength, but it's more about finesse and technique, so it's not Yeah, absolutely. Very strong. It seems like we, we see there's a pretty good amount of women getting into wing foiling too now, which is, it's good. It's cool to see that. But it did, it does seem especially in the media, it's definitely male do male dominated sports still right now.
Okay. Yeah, it's let's talk a little bit about this this summer. So you, I know you signed up for the moca Tohu race and you're doing it as on wing foiling, right? So on sub Oh, you're doing on sub foil. Oh, okay. I thought you were wing foil. Ok. On foiling and also the Maui to Molokai race, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm super excited. Yeah. So talk a little bit about that. What kind of equipment are you planning to use and and the Strat your strategy and your training and stuff like that for those races this summer the equipment I am going to use is the axis done in the board.
I have 1, 6 11 by 19 inch. And it's a 90 liter, it's a custom board. That axis made for me, it's a bump. I really love this board. It really make a big difference. It's this one. Yeah. Okay. And yeah, I did my first takeoff on the flat water with this board and the Foil Art Pro 12 0 1.
What, which is pretty big. I don't think I'm gonna use this for the moca only If it's very light wind. I gonna use a smaller size that I have for now that is not on the projection yet, but will be soon. So it's a little surprise about the front wing and, but I use a, I'm good on a versatile foil.
I like to, I for now, I don't use a very small foil. I use a 1000 centimeter square. And because I am, I like to take off in an easily. And to be able to do mistake and don't lose the flight. And I play more, let's say I, I like to go fast. I have one medium average of 23 kilometer per hour, which is pretty nice.
On this I did it on 30 kilometer or something like that. So it's pretty, pretty long. And yeah, instead of going with a very small foil and if you lose the flight, it's another story and another story. And and I train mostly in Portugal where I live, where I have sometime nice condition for now.
I don't have much wind and much wave so I train differently. But when it's and. Windy is just a paradise to train. It's really tir tiring every day. So much opportunity to push the limit. Yeah. And then the mo chi race, it's basically sometimes the start, at the start it can be pretty light wind and not very good bumps.
And then of course, also the finish is like upwind, like you're going into the wind in monologue bay in Hawaii, Kai. And so you, for tho for that, the beginning at the end, you want a big bigger foil that's easier to stay up on, foil on. But then in the middle of the race you have sometimes huge bumps and very fast speeds, right?
So it's hard to have a setup that can handle both, so yeah, that's why this year for my first time I will go with with a 1000 some semester square. And then I can take off almost on the flat. And I actually, my wing is in my front. This foot is in France getting prepared by a guy that will prepare the fo and make, because after one year there are some things.
Oh, scratches proper. Like he make it perfect. Yeah. And I can't push this forward until my maximum speed was 42 kilometer k a kilometer per hour. And in, how much is that in, in miles per hour? I'm just trying to think. 40. It's fast. Yeah, it's very fast. Yeah. And then after that I just fell because it was like one big bumps and then a second, big bumps.
And then the third, I was like, wow, I count more 42 kilometer per hour. I don't know how much it in Yeah, it's like about, I think, is it 2.2? I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, that's pretty, that's really fast. I, and then my my, my strategy will be if it's too big, I just find the line that allow me to fly as fast as I can.
And actually I just I go there because I, of course I will do it. I will give it all, and I will try to win and everything. But it's all also about to be part of the race and to be part of the history of the sport, and to share it with many new, and to be there, it's just amazing.
I, I have the experience that less expectation you have, like when you have a, when you're on the good flow and on the lightness better you are. So I don't push, I don't put me so much pressure of results. Of course I go there to do my best, but it's more about the experience and to enjoy it at the top.
So who do you think is your biggest competition and the women's dwin. Foiling? Who, who do you think is gonna the, like the favorite? I think it's always everybody. Yeah. Cause you don't know. It's a new sport and you don't know, and you can have black horses. And everyone is able to make surprises for, of course Annie is very strong and we know that she's from Hawaii and she know very well the race and the spots and and she will be back after the her shoulder problems.
And and yeah, I guess our main competitor is ourself. Like always. It's you push yourself and you go for it. And this is one opportunity to go over the comfort zone and to push. To pressure our limits. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when you are in the middle of nowhere. We will be, I guess with the escort boat.
Maybe we don't know who is where, because we have different line or I don't know if we can really be close to each other, and it's pretty long I in, in filing less because to be two hour and a half, three hour of flight. But before, in like when you race in the classics race, it's four hour something.
So it's not the, you have time to it's enough time for things to happen. Yeah so you never know. See in the mo areas, the finish, like everything can change. Yeah. Cuz if you get a nice wave or something and you versus having to paddle for the last mile almost, or whatever, so that's can be that can make a big difference too, I think, to finish.
But yeah, the China War, yeah, that's big challenge. Challenge I think. But yeah, I think this year there's actually, I think there's more people on foils than on standup paddle boards, maybe in the moca race. I have to Oh yeah. Check it. Yeah. But there's a pretty big it's pretty, the pretty big group of That's cool.
Of foyers. Yeah. So it's really and it's really the first time the race has held since the beginning of Covid, since 2019, it'll be interesting to see. Yeah. Yeah. It should be a big race of the race. Because back then, yeah, like in 2019 it was, foiling was still pretty new and it's a lot of things have changed since then, really, I think it's really exciting to see and then wing foiling for the first time too. In the race. Yeah. And then so what are your plans after that? Are you gonna focus focus on down wind, standup foiling, or what are your plans? Are you still gonna do standup racing or wing foiling, or what are your plans?
My plans after the moloca? After this summer? Yes. I have the project, it would be maybe before or after the moloca, depending on the wind conditions. I want to set record in Portugal of Subin foil. I, so it's really, nobody knows about this for now. You are the first one to be aware of that.
Oh, cool. Except my sponsor, I will start from Panish in Portugal and I will go to where I am able to go with the North wind. Okay. It means that I have a distance of two, two hundred and seventy five kilometer to cigarettes until c guess this is the point the point of the southwest of Portia.
And it's about if I flight in my average speed, which is a 23 kilometer per hour, what I do in in a 60 k. I can fly, I can do it in one day of summer, of European summer, which is a 15 hour of flight. It's it's about 12, 12 hour and a half of fo of, and we have 15 hour of flight in from, so basically it's from 6:00 AM to eight to 6:00 PM six 7:00 PM wow. And nuclear. So if you complete that, it's longer than James. James Casey's one day record. I think he did it a hundred miles or something like that. So 275 kilometers would be more than that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a great experience. It's it's the adventure and with foiling today, with the new boards and the new foils, every single very fast, the improvement of the gear of the gear make everything much more like really go break the boundaries, go over the what we do.
Last year the one, one year after with the new year, it's nothing about, it's we are reliving one, one time of the sport that is incredible, yeah. Yeah. Things are changing very quickly and improving. And I do it for association, Portuguese association that protect the nature.
That actually like at this moment, Portuguese is very suffering from lux tourism with many golf on the gyms, on the nature parks that are just it's not just one or two golf, it's maybe six or more golf in a very smaller area in almost on the beach, let's say, where there is not much water.
And then the intensive agriculture and then other project that, I mean that Portugal is really leaving an expansion, like at this moment with the, after the covid. Many people want to go and live there, and then it's an opportunity for the politics to have a opportunity in the other businesses.
And then the respect of the nature is a bit forgotten in this story. Then I was think I'm seeking to do this for, to support association that, that try to share the good message that try to find the balance between development and respect of the nature and what we can do to find the right way to, to evolve and to make business, let's say.
Because it's all about money. And yeah. So we are gonna do a documentary about this. We're gonna show you guys how beautiful is Portugal, how beautiful is the culture that you are already, and what is happening right now in the coast and in land and and to get support. To reach money for the people that need to like to stop legally.
Some people that don't respect the law. Yeah. Basically overdevelop the story. Yeah. So you're raising funds, you're raising funds for a nonprofit. That's cool. Awesome. Yeah. Cause I love Portugal so much. So how long have you been living in Portugal now? How many years have you been living there?
Five years. Okay. So you, your mother tongue is French and then you speak Portuguese and English. What do you speak any other languages? Frank Frankish. I speak French and Portuguese. French. Yeah. No, but I speak enough for the people to understand what I want to say. Yeah.
And then I speak a bit of Spanish too. French, Spanish and Portuguese. When you know a bit how to speak it's easy. And when you have friends, when you live in the country, if you make the effort, it's okay. You can. Yeah. For me, it don't make sense to live in a country and don't speak the language.
So it was not easy, but at the end I speak a bit of Portuguese. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Let's talk a little bit about wing foiling. So are you gonna keep competing as a wing foiler? And what, and I just wanted to ask you too about your wings, the value wings and so on. So you wanna talk a little bit about your Yeah I will keep competing in wing fighting.
I, I love to do don windows and we have one race in France, the cardinal wing foil event in September that is don't win races in wing foiling. So I have this races on my calendar. And I hope for new don't win wing for race to. To, yeah, to appear and and to be able to compete in the format.
Okay. Yeah. This is why you so nice. So you're you, I love it. Yeah. Talk a little bit about the wings. Like what wings do you use and what do you like about the, these wings and so on? So these wings on the screen is the wing v2. Now I use the V3 for, and like when it's flat and on the wave, I use the aura and I will soon I will use the Aura X.
This is the aula? Yeah. This one, this beauty, I will use the Aura X the new best wing of value that is really rigid and. And very nice on the wave and also on the racing. Apparently I did I did one race beginning of April in north of France, and it was very fun. And yeah I still compete on on the fun event of foing and I, and man, I really prefer to compete in, in the Darwin for the Moloca.
I do it on the sub, but I have the feeling that more and more races will be Darwin also not only racing or office type. For for downwind foiling or standup foiling or wing foiling, are you talking about now? Wing wing foiling. Special events made for wing foiling. Do, yeah.
That's what I really like. Yeah. So what kind of equipment do you use for downwind wing foiling? I use the, so the wing depend on the wing on the wind. I use the aura by your wing. And then I, for the body, it also depend on the wind, but I mostly use the Axis 55 liter with the 90 centimeter ma iModules carbon mast.
For the sage, I used the ultra short, which is 64 centimeter long. And for the front wing, I used to use the art, the a r t. And now I gotta use the a R T Pro in different size. And for the rear wing, I used the progressive the 300 Progressive. I still didn't try the skinny rear, but it looks super cool.
Need to train more on that to make my choice. But you have to, I've been using the A R T wings access a r t. So what's the difference between a r t and a R T pro? Like how are they different? How do they handle differently and so on? For now, for the, for what I tried with the 12 0 1, it's really about like the 12 0 1.
It's much bigger and much I I expect it's 11. Ratio. So it's really more, oh longer. So you take of more easy with this thing, but it's always the same goal. It's to, I have better lift and go faster, it's this balance and the uproar is the next level.
It's, you have a better lift. So it means that you can take off more easily. And when you make mistake and you are about to lose the flight the force still keep you up. And then when you push and you go fast, the foil accept to go fast and to to be in control and to, it's and this is the main goal.
For the, for for the foiling development. But the apple is really made for done winding. That's why the lift for downwind is super important because if you don't fly, you don't do any downwind. Is it, what about the thickness of the profile? Is it about the same as the a r t or do you know the 12 0 1 is a bit more thicker on the front, and it's it's like the a r t, the last like the last version it's more like flat, let's say.
And the A R T pro is more like how to say that in English? I don't know. But it's I think it's a little bit thicker on the front. And then less on the the evacuation of the water is from the center, it like this. Yeah. And then just higher aspect I guess, too. Yeah. So are are they planning to come out with more sizes in the a r T Pro, do you know?
Or like what's, have you been able to test? Yeah. I'm gonna receive a smaller size. I just received one text message this morning from telling me that she gonna sh ship new sizes. So I can't tell you yet, but yeah, we're gonna have a I can tell you the exact size.
Sure. But we gonna have a smaller size. Yeah. And then which is really cool for me cause the 12 0 1 for me is really big for my weight. So in, in the MOK race, if it, if the conditions are good, you might use something a little bit smaller probably, but Absolutely. But that seems probably the a R T pro kind of same style foil.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Cool. And then what about the boards? Talk a little bit about the the dwin fo wing standup foil boards. I guess a r t makes makes them is your, is yours a standard standard production model? Or is this one, one of your I have this shape, the done wind.
Yeah. But in 11. It's made for my weight. The 100 liter will be a bit big for me. So they just built a smaller border adapted, and also it's, yeah, it's 19 wa I'm also on a 19 inch wipe. Yeah, I've heard the, it works really well, right? Even for just catching waves easily and things like that.
Do you ever use it for other, for in the surf or only for down wind? For now, I didn't use it on the surf because unfortunately we, it's flat for a few days and I used the Eid, now I used the e, the six O on the wave, but it was also super small. It was like really ankle high.
And super nice. Like the dun wind is really made for the dun wind and for surfing I use the hybrid, but I guess the dun wind can be also nice for for small waves. So yeah, I use the 90 liter, the six O. Is that what, and then for what do you use for wing foiling?
Is that the same board you use for wing foiling or for wing foiling? I use the, both the 85 liter. But if, let's say if I will be a client, I will use the ebra also in wing foiling. Cause that's true that I think so many boards that I am I'm so lucky to be a pro athlete and to have a, as much girl as I need.
But I used the froth carbon fo board a five liter. Okay. When it's light, when it's very light in Portugal. Otherwise I use the 55 liter when it's windy. This port is I order it for sapping. And then I discovered that it was pretty nice when it was windy, but not enough to have a small board.
And when it's when there is some current and big waves, you don't want to get watch and you want to go away very fast. So this board is very nice to take off easily and go away. So let's, and they're quite so compared, they're quite wide compared to the hybrid or the Oh, especially the dominant.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. But then it's really maneuverable because it's a very short, yeah. Short and Stuy five. It's a five. Oh. So yeah. Pretty nice on the surf. Cool. Yeah. This is my sub foil for the waves. And don't mean for the Yeah I'm super happy with the new board, the new sub.
That's really amazing to, to see sub boards in the foiling industry, like official shapes for the first time. Yeah. When you're a pad, it's yes. And it's, it seems to be a fast growing thing right now too. I was just at a factory where they were making foil boards and almost everything in production right now it was all dom wind foil boards.
A lot of companies are coming out with them and. So we'll see. And but yeah, it is such a challenging sport and I think it's, it is very much of a niche sport, so we'll see how widely it gets adopted, cuz I think it's just for a lot of people it's just not something they can do every day, but we'll see. Yeah, I mean it's for sure it's a niche but the equipment make it much more accessible and it's also about many people did wing foiling and then what next? Yeah. Have many friends, they're like, yeah, we wing foil on the, when it's flat and when you did a 360 and jump and, when you really know how to wing foil, you're like, okay, then what I do now.
Yeah. And there are many people able to sub win foil. Yeah. That do. Yeah, no, for sure. Do wing. Yeah. And it's a cool challenge. I've been, I I was down with standup foiling before I got into wing foiling, and then once the wings came out, and then I was like, oh, this is so much easier, and so then I got really into wing foiling, and then lately I've been trying to get back into downward foiling, but then I remembered how hard it is, yeah, it's definitely not that easy to get going and then stay up on foil and stuff like that, so it's a challenge. But yeah. So do you I was gonna ask are you regular foot or goofy foot, like not your natural stance. Regular. Regular. And then when you're wing foiling, do you switch your feet or do you stay in the same position? You switch? I switch, yeah. Staying to to windsurfing, I'm used to switch.
So if if Wing Foing becomes an Olympic sport, do you think you would compete in, in Wing for Olympic racing? I don't think so. No. I don't know that I, I don't, yeah I really prefer, and it's also about my, the timing in my life that I live in Portugal, I bought my home. I'm, I am doing a lot of gardening.
I am completely fun of of taking care of the nature, of the land, of the plants. And this take a lot of time. It's my weight. It's one kind of therapy and anyway, it's something that I really love to do. And when I, like when you are Olympic athlete, you just do it, you don't do anything else.
And this, I did it when I was 22, 27 years old. And I did stop for, I did stand up race racing twice a day, three, three times a week gym. And I got World Champion three times. And I'm like, yeah, so cool. But I know what is it to be professional at athlete Olympic? It's crazy. And and I also discovered the sailing community and the, like how it is to compete in sailing.
And I prefer to be a free rider. A don't mean foer, yeah, because it gives you more, more freedom and it's more expression than just it's not just like a and I also want to go into the big wave. I want to go to NRA with the, before this winter, I want to experiment. I want to do crazy challenge.
And I, and since always I am more free people. And when you do the Olympic, it's not you don't decide so much. You train a lot. You have a team around you and then, it's another way of life. And I'm aware that I am living in Portugal. I'm good here.
And yeah. But it's really amazing if we finally go to the Olympics. And it'll go for sure. Yeah. I think so too. I think that's, it is just a matter of time. Such a, such a cool thing. But and you go to the Olympic? No, I'm 55, so I'm over the hill, but I still enjoy it though, and I like to go faster than young guys, so if I can Yeah.
It's so competitive. Yeah. But yeah, I'm actually like the course racing I'm not that interested in it really, because Yeah, it's it depends so much on the conditions and the equipment and so technical, so definitely more fun to just go out in the waves and have fun and all that kind of stuff.
But let's talk a little bit about the state of mind. Like you're talking about, like a little bit about like how sometimes it's better to not be. Or just to let your mind wander a little bit or just have like more of that not be too, sometimes if you're trying too hard, it's like it doesn't work, right?
Like you have to go with the flow and then let it happen. And then when that, but talk a little bit. How do you get into the right frame of mind to get to do your water sports? What comes natural to you? Do you have any tips on how to get into the right state of mind, to where everything flows and comes naturally?
I have the flow that we call the flow in psychology. It's when you are really on the moment. This is the hardest thing to do. It's really simple, but it's really hard at the same time because when you are competing or when you are pushing yourself, you are really focused on the result.
And when you are focused on the result, you are no more focused on what you are doing. Because, and then, and I, when I was com, like since I was competing in, in, in suppressing, I was, and also I think it's very important to, to train the mind to be here now. It's sometime you are thinking about so many stuff, what I will do tomorrow, what I will do next month, what I will do December in Hawaii, and what I did before.
But if you are not here now, you won't be here after. When I will be in Hawaii, maybe I won't be there. I will be thinking about what I will do in a month when I go back to Europe, so if I really try to focus to be here. And then of course, it's very important to, to plan and to be organized and this kind of stuff.
But the experience I had recently, I, my garing watch was not working anymore, and then I to, to my speed and my distance, I put I put it on my phone on Strava. Then I put my phone in my pocket, then I did my don window, put out my phone sometime calling the friend on, but my phone was mostly on my pocket.
And then I arrived there. I cut the Strava off. I stop the time I go to the parking and I check and I reached p is pretty good and the condition was not that Yeah. Was okay. Then I got this beautiful Garin watch, and then I was the condition were super good and I was feeling, I had the good speed and I was sure that my average speed was much better, but I was always watching the speed wow, 40 kilometer hour.
Nice. No. Then I, when I finished my average speed was not that better because maybe because I was not really focused on the ocean and on the, on what I, on, on what I was doing. I was just checking the number distracted. Yeah. And. And this is very interesting. And also the experience I had was doing apna.
I did one one camp of Apna in south of France. And it was my first experience doing APNA. So I was very beginner. I went with this guy that was word champion Stefan mi apnea is breath breath holding, right? Holding your breath or diving deep or like what? Yeah. Yeah. He is word champion of static apnea.
And he is 11 minute, 50 seconds. 11 minutes in the water without laughing crazy. And the guy super amber teaching us how to do. And I really discovered doing apna, which is super simple as well, you just have to relax and to be focused on yourself and to don't think about anything else. And I really realized how it costs you to just watch how many minutes you are under the water or to be like in little tiny stress how you can be like, whoa.
And then after a few times I did three, two or three days of up now with this guy. Then I went and the water to did a 17 meter for the first time was pretty nice. Then stay a bit down there and you have your distress to, to think, okay, I have to go up now I have to be able to, to reach the surface, face and breathe and to.
Completely relaxed and to be it's incredible. It's incredible how you ma how you, how much your mind has an impact on yourself and how much the stress can kill you. You when you are you, the stress costs a lot of energy. So of course the stress is important to, to be awake and to push us.
But it's really a balance between when you are doing your race, nothing else exists and you are so lucky to be here. Yeah. You are so fucking lucky to like to be her wife, for example, with many cool people around you. And just leave this moment. Just enjoy it and do your best and you come do better than your best anywhere.
Yeah. Yeah, I think for the, especially the, for standup paddling, the, I've done the Moloka race like 10 times and it's such a mental thing, if you're not in the right state of mind, it's, it can be a very difficult race to, to do it, yeah. Because hard to stay, always stay positive the whole way across.
When you stand up paddling it for five hours or six hours, it's uhhuh. Yeah. It's definitely a challenge. So I'm curious how so in the, how long can you hold your breath? Like how long can you stay underwater? No, I was very beginner. I did two minutes. Okay. It was really, I was very starting and I, it was my only training, but I want to train more for the next winter.
Have you tried the Wim Hof breathing? Swim breathing. I know. Yeah, I know what it is. I did a very few times, but it's super interesting. Yeah, I do that like regularly in the morning, like after I get up, I just do the breathing exercise and breath hold exercises. And it's, yeah it's good for the mind, or just also just I think when you do something that's difficult or challenging, like for when I do it first thing in the morning, then the rest of the day is easy after that. So you do a couple hard things in the morning and then after that everything's pretty easy.
So Uhhuh absolutely, it's it's really short, but it's, it has a big effect. Yeah. A way off. Okay. So do you have I think we've had a pretty long interview, but do you have anything you wanna share with the foiling world? And any message, you already talked about Getting more women into the sport and stuff like that.
But do you wanna, do you have any other messages you wanna put out there? It's it's very large thing, but yeah I guess that the ocean and the nature in general, it's it's so amazing and that as many people we can bring into it, it's like it's our therapy. It's it's our it's our way of life.
But I would like to say that it's for me, it's my to say that in English, it's my, what I live for. And sometime I'm thinking about the people that don't have the opportunity to experiment it, to get in contact with the water and with the, with this element. And like to put it more and more popular and accessible.
It's it's so cool and I am super happy to help the industry to promote and to show what is possible and to share it with as many people as possible. That when I will be on the moloca, I will think about my friend Sonny, that you know, that he is leaving a very hard time at the moment about the mind health.
And we, it's really important to take care of us, thanks to the ocean, because the ocean can accept, can take so many thing. It's not only about the physical health. It's also about the mental health and and yeah, it's I feel so grateful for it to be in contact with this element and yeah, for sure.
I can talk about it for another hour. The Me Too. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's really, it's a luck and it's not a luck because we went volun, like we went into it, so we make it happen. And sometimes the ocean is very hard with us as well. It's not always fun that it's so much, it's so much learning and so much so much happiness.
Yeah. Yeah. And you're right about the ocean is, it's, it always humbles you if you're, if you If you feel like invincible sometimes, then at some point you get the Yeah, you stay very humble. Yeah. You stay back in your place, so yeah, it's a good teacher for sure. Yeah. All right. Great.
Yeah, so I'm, I was just thinking like what is something that we can all do to, like to protect the environment to, to be better, shepherds of the world, of the earth, you're talking about, like your, f raising funds for nonprofit to protect the protect the ocean or protect the land from overdevelopment and so on.
But like being in the surfing industry, like it's not exactly like. The products we use are environmentally friendly and traveling all over the world on jet planes is not really environmentally friendly. That's, but but by going in the ocean, we, it is like the way, yeah. The way I justify it is a way to feel closer to it and wanting to protect it.
Like we are the ocean protectors cuz we love the ocean. But what are some things that you do? What are some things that other people can do to be better shepherds of the earth, yeah. What I think it's all about daily leads thing. That we do every day about saving the water and being careful with the plastic that we bought, and all of these things that most of us know.
But I am, we can discover that there is a long way to, to share this message to many people that are not aware about this or don't imagine the impact that we can have us little citizen and then for sure to get into the action, to influence the bigger industry that sometimes take a terrible decision like the deep meaning on the ocean.
All this projects that is About to ha to happen in your in Europe. That is pretty not nice for the ocean and for the nature. And yeah, like I, I also study it's nothing about but it's I also study Chinese medicine and in Chinese medicine they say that little, a little action sometime can have a big effect.
It means when you see Kiy taking a plastic bottle on the beach, which is not something that's it's just normal, the people that will watch him will be like, wow, this is Kailin doing it. So sometime you can have just little action that can have a big influence into other people and.
And I think it's it's important to take it in consideration and to, to just act as best as we can. And but for sure it's a very complex complex story for all of us human that we love the comfort, we love the, we love to travel to Hawaii. We stand up at our board and we, everyone in our level, we are responsible.
But I guess it's very hard to be perfect. Some of us maybe are, but the most important is to do our best and to keep improving and to think about the solution. Like some like finding maybe new. Type of construction or like most of the branded in the industry to remove the plastic and the packing and the packaging of the board.
This is a huge like this is really good. To do. To do it. Yeah. Then when I do Don Window, I really go, I don't go with the boat because I'm not used to it, but, this little thing that can, by the way, I'm looking for a boat escort in, in M two. Okay. But I would love to do the M two without the boat with the foil.
I guess It's okay. It's just a two or three hour of foiling, but it's Yeah. The mo moca you can do without a boat, but the mo Molokai tohu ha they require escort boat. You can't do it without an escort. Yeah, of course. Because it's super dangerous. Yeah. Between two in a very dangerous channel.
So it's it's it's really much more safe to do it this way. But yeah, it's and I think everything it's also about sometime when you give, it's more, it's, it has more value that when you receive you, so when you give, when you work, when you give something, when you contribute to the society or to the environment, it's super good for you.
Whatever. Sometime me, I'm planting trees and planting the garden and feeding the chicken and doing some stuff like this that don't give me any money, but it give me so much that I have a little impact doing doing this and planting trees that maybe they will be big when I will die because they are super small.
Yeah, no, that's rewarding to do things like that. I just feel good doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way to and the interview. I think so. Yeah. Thanks so much Olivia. And looking forward to seeing you in Hawaii this summer. Pretty soon, actually. Next month. Thank you. Thank you, Robert.
I'm super excited. It's good wine to see you and as writer, so Nice. Okay. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you a good night. See you soon. Okay. See you soon. Aha. Thank you, Chicha. All right. Thanks so much everyone for watching. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for watching all the way to the end. Next weekend I'm gonna post a little video about a downwind wink foil training session.
We had Alan was in town here on Oahu, so we did a long run from Hawaii Kai all the way to White Plains, which was over 30 miles of winging and talked a little bit about safety op when you are out in the open water and going out with a group and so on. And some good stuff. I think good learning experience and a great training run.
That'll be next weekend. And then I'm also planning to post more interviews before and after the Moloca race. So I'm super excited about that, being entered in that myself, keeps me motivated, and keeps me getting in the water to train. So thanks so much for watching. I hope you liked it. Please give it a thumbs up if you liked it and come back for the next show.
Make sure to subscribe and we'll see you on the water. Aloha.
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Jimmy Lewis interview-surf, windsurf, kite, foil and wingfoil shaper on the Blue Planet Show #26
22 Apr 2023· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show. Today's interview is with none other than Jimmy Lewis, who is a legendary shaper. He got started at a young age shaping surfboards and then moved to Maui where he got into making windsurf boards. And at one point he was making windsurf speed needles for some of the fastest world record breaking sailors in the world at speed sailing events.
And then he got into kite surfing and kite boards, and then standup paddle boards, and now foil boards. So he's a very versatile shaper. Some great stories to tell, and really interesting interview and entertaining as well. So you'll learn more about his design philosophy, board construction, and lots of good stories.
So it's a longer interview, so take your time, re kick back and relax. Watch it here on YouTube with some visuals, or you can also listen to it as a podcast on your favorite podcast app. So without it further ado, here is Jimmy.
Okay, Jimmy Lewis, it's a real honor to have you on the show. Thanks so much for making the time to talk to me and the guests. So I'm just stoked to be able to talk to you for extended period of time and ask you all the questions I have. And so yeah, thank you for coming to the show. Oh, I'm happy to be here finally. I've seen the other ones. I go, why doesn't he call me? I appreciate that. Thanks. So yeah, so we'll get into all this stuff that's currently going on, at eventually I want to talk about your board shapes and your foil boards and equipment and all that kind of stuff.
But I, first of all, I wanna start with just going into some background, I know you have a long history in the sports of water sports Tell us a little bit about, start at the very beginning, like how you grew up, where, where were you born, how did you grow up and how did you get into water sports and how did you start shaping boards and all that stuff.
Yeah. My dad was in the Air Force, so I was born in Canada, I think after World War ii. My mom and my dad moved around a lot. My dad met my mom after World War ii. My mom's brother was a Air Force buddy of his, and they he brought my dad over to their house after the war. And then he met my mom, and I guess we moved around.
They moved around quite a few years. Eventually we moved to Redlands, California. I believe it was in 1956. So I was I was born in 51, so that would make me five years old. And went into kindergarten there, went to grade school and stuff. And then in I don't know if you're old enough to remember the sixties, but that's when the surfing craze really was going crazy in the early sixties and we lived inland.
But my older brother, I have two older brothers, two years apart. So my older brother I think was, if I was like 11 or 12, he was 15 or 16. And he he had a transistor radio that my dad had brought back from Germany. And I remember listening to all the rock music and the surf music on the radio coming outta his room.
And he started getting interested in surfing and so he bought a surfboard. And so naturally me and my other brother wanted to do what he did. So we all started surfing and I think I bought my first surfboard. It was a pop out vessy and it was like a pig board, that vessie pig shape. And started surfing, I think.
In the summer of my sixth grade, and I remember my mom took us down, took me and a friend of mine, just us two, down to Cardiff, which was quite a ways from, we, like Newport Beach was 60 miles in away. Redlands was like 60 miles directly inland from Newport. And anyway, when we really started getting into surfing a lot, we would drive down to Cardiff, but I don't know why my mom brought us down to Cardiff that day.
Me and a friend of mine, Hanson Surfboards, was across the street, not directly from Carter Reef, but just a little south of that. There was a restaurant on the beach there called Sea Barn. It was like a little old diner of those sixties type diners Okay. Where all the surfers would go in there and eat sometimes.
And there was a, they called that beach break right across, right out from sea Barn, right across the street from there was Hanon Surfboards the shop. And me and my friend went and snooping around behind there. And there was this sha, this little shack, I think it was just a single standing shape room.
But we went in there and this guy, John Price was in there. He was later on to own Surfboards Hawaii. He bought the franchise from Dick Brewer on in the Man On in California. But he was in there shaping. And I had forgotten. But this friend of mine from Redlands, who was at the beach with me that day, reminded me about a year or two ago that I had gotten a couple pieces of the rail cutoffs.
And that's, I took 'em home and made two little surfboards. I think they were about a foot long. I shaped some longboards, glassed 'em, I can't remember where I even got the glass and resin, but I shaped them, glassed them, got some logos out of the magazine. I remember one was at Jacobs and one was at Dewey Weber.
And I glassed them for boards. And I remember bringing 'em to school and showing people. And then this other friend of mine was so impressed. So just like small model shapes, model pieces threw away from, okay. Yeah. I remember this friend of mine was so impressed with one of 'em. I just gave it to 'em.
I don't know why I did that. I wish I still had one of those, or both of 'em. But I think that's been a thing all my life. I like to give stuff away to people that like it, especially something I've made. Anyway, that's how I started surfing. And then we would, I remember my mom used to give us 50 cents a day for lunch to buy the lunch at school.
And the guys that went surfing who had cars, I was still like 13, 14, and 15 years old in those junior high and high school years. Fortunately I was for some reason, guys that are 16 and 17 don't want to hang around with 13 and 14 year old kids, and but I was able to go with those guys surfing and we had to pay gas money to get down to the beach with these guys that had cars.
So I'd save my 50 cents all week long to have $2 and 50 cents for the weekend to go surfing. And I'd starve at school for all week long, not having lunch. And then would go to the beach, pay a dollar 50 for gas, and then I'd have another dollar or a dollar 50 depending on who charged what for a bag of Dale Donuts from Speedy Mart, which was like a precursor to seven-eleven.
Down in Cardiff and then whatever else food we'd get and would just, all I cared about was surfing. I didn't do very well in school. I didn't fail, but I got like seas, but I was naturally good at math, algebra, and geometry, so I didn't, that was, I hated reading. I hated reading history. I hated reading any of that stuff.
Just couldn't concentrate. I'd read it, I'd re, when I'd be doing my homework, I'd be reading a paragraph over and over again thinking about surfing or something. And finally I just put the book away how I even passed. I can't, I don't remember how I could do that because I didn't really study.
And like I said, na, the math stuff was semi-natural, so I got pretty good grades in algebra, geometry, math, stuff like that. And then my mom moved to Berkeley in 67. She wanted, she was working at the library in Redlands and then she wanted to become a librarian, so she needed to go to the university, moved up to Berkeley.
And I remember my older brother was already in college and my other brother just graduated in 67, so it was just me and my mom and my sister. And I was thinking, shoot up in San Francisco area, there's icebergs in the water up there. I just had this impression. It's it's so cold. What a pi. I just hated moving up there because that was the end of my surfing career, and then once I got up there, after a little while, I think my oldest brother came and visited and we decided to drive down to Santa Cruz and Reali and found that it wasn't as cold as we thought and it was doable. And then I made a couple surfers there and we started going over to Belinas, which is north of the Golden Gate Bridge.
And surfing over there. And then one day, it was probably in the late, it was like late 68 maybe. And we went to Belinas and I saw this homemade surfboard. And this is the time when short boards first started being made. And there were, there weren't, it wasn't longboard surfing anymore. Nat Young and Dick Brewer were making short boards, the first short boards in the late sixties there.
And I saw this homemade surfboard there that this guy made on the beach. And I go, shoot, I could do that. And so I drove down to Santa Cruz to the O'Neill shop. They used to make surfboards, they, they had a surfboard brand as well as their wetsuit thing. And I bought a blank, a gallon of residence, some glass, and came back and turned one of the rooms in our apartment into the shaping room and shaped that board.
And then out on the out on the, what do you call it? The roof of the house. I started glassing boards up there, and that's how I started making boards. And then we chopped down all our old classic long, long boards, stripped them, and I reshaped those and then started making boards. Okay. So that was like late sixties or early 1968 was the first full size board I made.
Okay. I actually forgot to mention that when I got into seventh grade, I wanted to make a belly board, which is like a boogie board, but we used to call them belly boards and it was shaped like a surfboard, uhhuh, and a longboard. And so when I got into seventh grade wood shop, I told the teacher I wanted to, you could make, they give you assignments of what you have to make to teach you how to work with wood.
But I had I wanted to make this belly board. It was four feet long, glued up, shaped with rocker and stuff, and. He said that's way too big of a project for a seventh grader. So for the, I had to wait till ninth grade. So the next two years, all I thought about was making that belly board. So when I got into ninth grade wood shop, I did it.
I bought some balsa wood from the hot, we called 'em hobby shops back then with model airplanes and stuff. But they had these pieces of balsa wood that were three feet long. And I think I bought two of em and then glued on cuz they weren't long enough. I wanted it to be four feet long. So they were, I remember having to, to but 'em end on end to make it long enough.
And I couldn't afford to buy all four pieces to make it wide enough. So the rails were solid pine. So the thing weighed a lot. But the, I remember the two pieces of wood that I bought were eight bucks, which was a fortune back then for me. And so that's why I couldn't make the whole thing balsa.
And I shaped it and my plan was to take, and back then it was like we'd have wood shop Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the next week it was Tuesday and Wednesday. And so I made the board and I got it done shaped just before Christmas vacation. Back then we had two weeks off for Christmas vacation.
My plan was to take it home, last it, and take it to the beach to ride over Christmas vacation. And the shop teacher said, oh, I want you to glass it. I want you to do it here and show the kids how you do that. And I go, this ain't a glass shop, it's a wood shop. And if I do it, if I had to wait till after Christmas, it would take two months to do it Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and then Tuesday and Thursday.
And it's I was so pissed, and so what I did on the very last day before the Christmas vacation on Friday, I stuck it behind the shop door, leaning up behind the shop door. And then as I got outta school, I just went and grabbed it and took it home. The lead teacher was pissed. He failed me for that quarter.
So I had an for the first quarter f for the next quarter. So my the semester grade was a c the average. And he was pissed, but that's what I did. So anyway, I glassed that and then it wasn't until I saw that board in Bess that I wanted to make real surfboards. Okay. And then other than your shop teacher which shop teacher, did you have any, anybody like showing you, like mentoring you or did you talk to any other shapers or watch anybody else?
I didn't know what a shaper was. Yeah. Except that first experience when I was in summer of sixth grade looking at John Price and that shaping room. And then you just shaped it with like a surf form rasp or did you have a power cleaner or the blank? The first surfboard I made.
Yeah. Yeah. It was they got, the surf forms are the 10 inch surf forms. Yeah. I don't know if they have a seven inch one, a small one, or six or seven inch one. Shaped the first 17 boards with that small surf form. Oh, wow. Big one existed. And I certainly didn't know what a planer was, I don't think, or had access to one.
And have you ever tried to skin a blank with a Sure. Formm, the crust on the blank? I, yeah. I actually, the first board I shaped was the same way. I didn't have a planer or anything. I had to do it all by hand. But yeah it's very hard to get that the skin off right now. Yeah, it was, that was a nightmare.
But for some reason though, I remember the boards. I've got one of my old board. One of the first surfboards I made down in my shop, this friend of mine from Berkeley Yeah. Told me he had it several years ago. And so I said send it to me and I'll send your son a new surfboard that I shaped him. But yeah, they're pretty clean, nice. Yeah. So that's how I started. I wasn't a very good Glasser until I saw somebody do it or shaping. I came to Hawaii in 69 right after high school. This friend, my brother had already moved to Maui in 68, I believe. So at, I graduated in 69 and a friend of mine got a job painting a friend of his family's house over the summer.
So me and him painted that house to earn money to come to Hawaii. So we came to Maui in, in the fall of 69. And there was this sh guy that had a little shape and room in PA down here. And I was gonna shape a board and so he had a planer. And so I got the blank and I had no idea how to do, to walk around the board shaping it like you're mowing a lawn, right?
I was making crazy s cuts down the middle of the blank and I did a few cuts and then I go, Jesus Christ, this is terrible. And then I asked him, Hey, can you come and show me how to, how you hold the plane or, so he did a few passes and I didn't really get it. And after I, I mean it used to take me like the 17 boards I had done with the Sure Form, it would take me a week to shape those cuz I would do a little bit every day after school or something.
And you've shaped a board with the Sure. Form yourself so you know how long it takes. And doing it with this planner, I was done in a couple hours and I just felt. I'm never gonna learn this. This is terrible. I just was depressed and, what's it called? Dis disen, non en disenchanted, but what's the word?
Yeah, discouraged. I just felt discouraged of ever learning to shape. But then I got a planner anyway I only stayed in Santa Cruz, sorry, Maui for three months cuz it was the first time I was away from home and it wasn't as easy living in Hawaii as I thought. I just imagine. Yeah, I'd find a house, a really cool house right near the beach or something for $50 a month and it wasn't like that, and so anyway, I moved back to Berkeley, stayed at my mom's house for a couple months, I think I shaped a surfboard there and then moved to Santa Cruz and I lived in Santa Cruz for a year. And in the house we lived in, there was this guy that had this back bedroom when he moved out, I turned that bedroom into a sh a shaping room, and then I was glassing up on the front porch.
And I O'Neill, like I said, they had a shop where they made boards too, and they also had a showroom there. And so they had, they were gonna stop their making surfboards. They were gonna close down their shop. So I went over there and Mike O'Neill, who's Pat's brother, had this box with a planter in a bunch of pieces and he sold it to me for 10 bucks.
So I hitchhiked up to San Francisco to the Skill factory and gave it to him and told 'em, put it together and fix it. So for 75 bucks, they put it all together and made it almost like brand new. And so now I had a planner for 85 bucks basically. And then I started shaping and learning how to use it, but my glassing wasn't very good.
Every, the thing is I've gotten good at glassing because every board I shaped, I glance. So I'm just as good at glassing as I am at shaping still to this day. You glassed all the boards yourself? There's been long periods where I didn't glass 'em all right. But now I do everything. I glass 'em, sand 'em, everything.
But yeah, so I wasn't a very good Glasser. I didn't know, I was okay. The finished product was okay sometimes, but sometimes the resident would go off on me because I didn't have a technique. And anyway, I went up to, to house surfboards and there was this guy Bob Kates, I think is his name.
He was a super good Glasser, and I saw him, how he would squeegee nose detail. I was going middle out from the stringer out, and that just takes so much time. And I just saw how he did it. I go, man, that's so much different. And that's as soon as I just saw his technique, I could glass, I started glassing a lot better.
And then but nobody ever sat with me and taught me anything. But I could definitely say watching Bob Kate's glass aboard was how I learned how to really, squeegee in the right directions and stuff. And then after it was just, sorry. Oh, I just wanted to ask you about using a, the planer cuz I mean I found that, yeah, going from the little hand tool to the planer, it's like easy to take off too much material and make, keeping it even and you can't hold it.
You don't wanna hold it exactly square. You'll wanna hold it slightly diagonally. Can you give us, just give some pointers on like how, what your technique is with the planer when you're shaping? That's exactly, over the period of time you just, sometimes over the years I've showed people how to shape, a lot of people and when they get the planer, I mean it's I don't know how much shaping you've done, but to me it's just so natural.
I can be walking down the board with the planter and I can trip, but it doesn't, the trip of my feet and the the movement of my body doesn't change my hands. I can trip almost fall down, but it doesn't my hands are still even, yeah, it's just something you get. It's like unbelievable surfers who never fall off.
Whereas I'd fall off on a certain little soup hitting me or something, or kiting, windsurfing, whatever. It's just something from after shaping hundreds and hundreds of boards. But yeah, at first it wasn't easy, but watching people do it. And then a few people over my, mainly I would think Steve Licey showed me a couple things and I'm watching him in the early seventies when he came to Maui.
Do you know who he ever heard of? Steve Scheyer? No, I don't think so. He was a super good surfer. He was, I think he rode for Bing back in the, in longboard days. And then he was still I think When short boards came out. He was a super good surfer, super good shaper, but he was always really open with me about techniques on shaping and stuff.
He showed me some things to modify the front of my, where the depth adjuster is? He's got that slot. Do you have a scale? I don't have a anymore, but I used a planter before. Yeah. But anyway, the skill 100 planter is the best planter there is. It's got a depth adjuster in the front with a little lever that goes back and forth in this slot.
When you're shaping boards, foam gets stuffed up into that shoe part. And then at the either end, the depth adjuster has a range of motion where it's a zero cut and it goes up to an eighth inch cut. Steve taught me to drill a big hole on the either end of that little slot so foam doesn't get packed in there.
Cuz over the while, while you're shaping a board foam will get packed into either end and it won't allow the depth adjuster to come to zero. And it also doesn't allow it to get to an eighth inch because it's getting stuffed up. So he taught me, like on the open end where you wanna make it deeper, I drill a really big hole.
So you can actually make the planer cut even deeper than a eighth inch, which was good. And then you put a cut, drill a hole in the other end so the foam doesn't get built up there, so you can actually close it onto a zero cut. And he also taught me one thing I don't know what the dynamics of this is.
When you use, when you skin a blank, usually you skin it with a full cut on both sides. You go down one side. Working over to the stringer and then you plane the stringer down in a real clean cut and then you go to the other side with the exact same depth cut and work your way to the center again. And don't ask me why the cuts don't come out perfectly level.
They're like this when you finally reach the center. And I used to always, and then I asked Steve, why is it like that? And he goes, I don't know, but all you do is back the planer off on your final cut instead of doing the full cut on the other side. And so ever since I learned that from Steve, the blank comes out perfectly flat after I've skinned it.
Interesting. It's just little things like that Steve Licey showed me when I was, and I remember, you know how to, you, you change the depth of the cut as you're walking because like in the tail, when you're doing, when you're beveling your first cut on the rail, for example, you started a zero cut and then you increase the cut in the middle cuz the blank is usually thin in the tail, thicker in the middle and thinner in the nose.
So you need to take more foam outta the middle. So you adjust the cut as you're walking. And so Steve, I saw how well he did that and I just copied it and then like shaping the v you don't start with an eighth inch cut and just start whacking away. You want a tapered cut. So you start with zero and then increase the cut as you go toward the tail that makes the V bottom cause you want more V in the back.
Just little things like that. And then over and over you the shape it more and more. But anyway, like I, I was saying when I was showing other people, it's so natural for me to, and then also on the. You have the planter like this and the blades are right here. So you get a feel about where those blades are.
So where you're gonna cut, it's not right in the middle, it's not in the front where it's like on a sure form you can go like that and shape what the front, the blades are here you have to learn where that cutting part is cuz you can't see it, it's underneath. And I would teach people how to shape and they would just like butcher the blank and I would get so frustrated thinking they should be able to do what I'm doing.
But then I realized that it ain't easy to be able to learn that you gotta shape, you gotta take a long time to get the feel of the plant or where it cuts for sure. And yeah, I've just learned that from experience. It's nothing special about my skill. I think every shaper that's shaped a lot of boards.
Matt Keena, he's a shaper here on Maui who does ka I've seen a lot of his videos on YouTube. He is unbelievable with his planer. Just really neat to watch him, his videos. And I've heard Timmy Patterson is good too. Unbelievable. With the planer.
Yeah. That's so cool. All right you, so then you shaped your first surfboards and then what happened? People would see I was making surfboards, like for example, in Berkeley when I was making my first surfboards. And a couple of guys would get blanks and bring 'em over and I'd make their boards.
And that was like in the late sixties when the backyard underground type shapers were coming into being and all the major manufacturers being Dewey Weber, Jacobs. Who else? Hansen. And back then, most of the boards used in the sixties were like kind of pop outs or whatever. Mo no, not pop outs, no vey.
I was, the vey was the only one that I remember having a pop out board. Okay. It was a good board. It was just not cool to have a pop out. But I didn't know at the time and I didn't care, but all the other manufacturers were all custom handmade boards. Okay. And but anyway, in the sixties, I think it was partly the culture thing of, everybody was smoking pot every, and the music, the Stones, the Beatles and all that stuff.
It was cool to be an underground shaper. And a lot of the bigger manufacturers I don't know if they struggled, but it wasn't quite the same as it was in the sixties, where in the mid sixties, during the golden era of surfboard making and long boarding where over the winter some of these manufacturers would produce 10, 10,000 boards, 5,000 boards for the summer rush to get ahead of it.
They'd sell 'em all in the summertime. And in the sixties, I remember Dewey Weber had Nat Young on their team rider thing, and Nat was shaping a board. They called the ski and it had belly in the b in the nose, but with a down rail on the back like we do today. But nowadays the rails are down all the way front to back anyway, after a short period of time.
Cuz things were evolving so quickly in the Shortboard era in the late sixties Dewey Weber produced a ton of those. Bei ski boards. And then a few months later, Nat realized that down rails were better. I think Mike Henson was the first guy to do a down rail board nose detail. And then Nat Young realized that was the best thing for its shaping.
It was evolving. Dewey Weber wouldn't change cuz they already made a ton of them, it was economics. So by down, down rails, you mean the tucked under little edge, like below the, yeah. This is the shape of a longboard rail. Just rounded. Yeah. Yeah. Like they call it 50 50.
So then when short boards came along, they tan, they turned like this shaping down and had more of a edge down here. I can't remember the they, it wasn't a total edge, but it was just down that's the expression we use by Unreal. Yeah. Down rail. Okay. And so what happened was, like in the rails, like even that board I got in my shop that I said I made a friend of mine in Berkeley that's in my shop, it's got a belly in the nose.
And so we used to call it a high to low rail line low in the back. And then it got high in the front cuz of the belly in the nose. Then it got flatter and flatter in the back into a v in the ba in the back. And so then they changed to have the down rail all the way around. Mike Hanson was the first guy to do that.
Okay. So when people saw that, how much better that was flat bottom nose with a down rail. Nat Young told Dewey, whoever, we gotta change 'em. And he goes, we can, we've already made thousands of these other ones and so he wasn't about to lose all that money, but that's just a little thing, yeah.
That's here nor there as far as I'm concerned.
Okay, so then people started asking you to make boards for them. You made underground boards for your friends or like how did you start? Yeah, just people that knew I made boards. It wasn't a lot. It was like three or four or five or six, I don't know, maybe it might have been 10 in Berkeley.
And then and then Santa Cruz too when I moved to there. Anyway, I moved back to Maui in 71. I only lived in Santa Cruz for a year. And like I, I learned a lot in Santa Cruz cuz I'd go up to the house shop, watch guys use their planter, and and I'd learned that how to squeegee the glass and resin from Bob Kates watching him glass.
And I also, there was a guy who did the gloss coats, I think, and mainly the pin lines at the out shop. I don't know, I, I can't remember his last name or even if I ever knew it, but his nickname was Nuclear Norman because his pin lines were so psychedelic. And that was right at that, it was in 1970 where, acid rock and all that stuff.
He did the coolest pen lines I've ever seen and I've always tried to copy his style. Mainly it was how he tapered them. Everybody does a tapered pen line in the ends, but how he floated, he didn't do a narrow pin line and then a real quick taper at the very front. They were tapered really a long taper and do, he did all these little tape offs that were just so impressive.
And I've always copied his style even to this day, pretty much Brian, I remember what the look of his pen lining was. And anyway, when I moved to, to back to Maui, 1971, I think it was early 71, I moved to Laina. And in the can Laina Cannery, there was a bunch of surf shops in there. There was a Maui Surfboards, which is where Les Pots shaped, and this guy Mike Carlson and Terry McCabe, I think they owned the shop.
They were the Glasser. And then next door there was Jamie McLaughlin and Wally Bashard and Neil Norris had outer Island. I don't know if you remember the shop called Inner Island on Oahu. Anyway, that was just a take off of their name. Outer Island, right? So anyway, I went over to the Maui Surfboards shop where Les Work was shaping, and Mike Carlson and Terry McCabe had it, told them I could make boards and could I have a job.
And so they hired me to sand cuz I could sand, I could do every step equally as well, cuz I did 'em all, every board I made up to that time, I did everything on it, shaped it, glassed it, I coated it, put the fin on, sanded it, glossed it. Never polished back then though. So anyway, I remember sanding a few boards, not very many, and then they just told me that they needed to work themselves and they couldn't have afford to pay me anymore.
And it was something like five bucks a board back then, for sanding. Yeah. Anyway, so I just walked next door to Jamie's shop and told him yeah, I, they fired me or laid me off so I can make boards if you need anybody. And he goes, all right, we'll hire you to polish. Anyway, I never polished a board.
I didn't know it at the time, but Jamie was doing a lot of coat and so I was in there one day and he was sitting there trying to do pen lines on a board. And I just loved hanging around surf shops, whether I was working or not. I loved the smell of resin and. He was jacked out of his brain. I had no idea what was happening, and what was, and he goes, Hey, can you do pin lines?
And I go, yeah. He goes Here, he hands me the roll of tape. He goes, I gotta split anyway, he leaves and I do all the pin lines on a couple boards. And as I, like I said, I could do 'em really good. Even at that stage of my early career. And I, and obviously, copying Nuclear Norman's style, Jamie came back the next day and goes, Jesus Christ, these are unreal.
You're hired. So now I was the pen liner at that shop. A couple days later he was jacked out of his mind again, trying to tape off a lamination to glass aboard. And he says hey, can you glass? I go, yeah, I can glass. He goes, here, do these boards. I gotta split. And I didn't know what, what was going on. All I know is shoot, I'm a glass.
And so I glass those boards. He saw that I was a super good Glasser and now I was the Glasser there, the Glasser and the pin line. So back in the early seventies, I got known more as a Glasser because I was glasson not only those boards, but there was another shaper, Carl Hoke in LA more toward La Haina town who was making boards.
But I was a better Glasser than most people. So I got to glass a lot of the boards around, and then even when Les Pots started shaping him in a different place, they'd send their glass jobs to me cuz I was a real good Glasser. I think Li Les gave me a nickname, Luigi Squeegee. And then some guys would call me Pin Line Louie.
And I remember those two nicknames back in the seventies. Anyway there was a, we lived in this Filipino camp, which is just north of the cannery. There was four. Houses, there were U-shaped buildings with just seven rooms in each one. There was four of 'em down the street in the back. There was two kitchens and two showers and bathrooms out in the back, like old cane style houses, right?
And in the back where I had her, I was renting a room in one of those places. I wanted to build a shaping room back there. So I did. And us howley guys, we were moving into those, that Filipino camp all, there was a lot of Filipino guys living there, older guys working in the, either the pineapple fields or the can fields.
And they didn't like us cuz we were disrespectful, especially this one guy. And me and a couple of the guys. We weren't bad, but this one guy was a real dick to those guys and they hated us being there. They're, they work, they get up super early in the morning, they work all day and then they come home early.
They want to sleep and work partying and stuff. And it was, thinking back on it, we were just those poor guys. But anyway, they were friends with this building inspector, some of those guys. So I built this shaping room and it was almost done. And so the building inspector come and told me, oh, you gotta have a permit for that.
And so I applied for the permit, gave him $4 if I remember what it was. Super cheap, gave him the $4. And then he gave me the permit, but he said I had to cha fix the roof cuz it wasn't built sturdy enough. So I fixed that and then he came back again another week later, said I had to fix this.
I fixed something else. And finally I told him, just tell me everything I need to fix one time. And and I'll. And then he came back a couple weeks later and said, Nope, you have to tear it down. You're too close to the property line and too close to the building, which I'm sure was true. But back then, nothing mattered.
There was really no codes that anybody really needed to follow. And I just knew that some of the guys in the neighborhood told him to not to let me do that because that was just gonna be even more upsetting to their life. Their what was left of their peace and tranquility in their own house.
So I had to take the thing down and I told gimme the goddamn $4 back. And he goes, Nope, you don't get your money back cuz you have to get a permit to tear it down too. And that cost $4. But anyway, that, but I still glass. I had a glassing rack I think up on the front porch or something, and a pin line room in the storage room.
But I still did. Anyway, over in the cannery, I remember there was this the caretaker of the cannery was this old Hawaiian guy, and I think he was the father of the landlord of our house, and he was the caretaker of the cannery. And there was this single corrugated 10 building over there on the side over there.
And I asked him, I was looking at it one day, I go, Hey, what is this? And he goes, just a room. I go, Hey, can I rent it? And he goes yeah. I go, how much? He goes, I'll tell you what, every once in a while, just gimme a case of beer. I goes, so I cleaned the place up and made a bitch and shaping room in there.
And that was my shaping room for a long time. And then behind this building right next to mine, it was just a single building by itself. By itself, away from the main cannery part. Was this guy that we painted, I painted houses with this guy who owned, who had that workshop. He let me build a little lean to in the back of his shop that was next to my shaping room, the glass boards.
I had a lock on the shaping room, but I remember the glass room was always open. Anybody could go back there and I would shape the boards and then leave 'em on the racks glass 'em, and never had any problems with theft or nothing. So anyway, yeah, I was, and then I started, I then I'd been making boards.
I was getting pretty good at shaping and then really good at glassing. Cause I was glassing a lot more boards than I was shaping. And so I was, like I said, I was mainly more known as a Glasser. And so you basically went into business for yourself. You were basically just had your own glassing business.
Other people would shape the blanks and give 'em to you and you would glass them, or you were also building. Yeah. Yeah. But also the thing is I'd also worked in hotels too. I was a busboy for a while and a waiter, and I also painted houses with this guy. That was my main thing, really. Painting houses and condos and working in the hotels.
Surfboards were always, at least back then, a side thing. I never really thought of it as a main income, and partly was just because the irresponsibility, my, my life was so irresponsible back then it was all just surfing. And I tend to maybe put all surfers in that category, but I guess it's not necessarily true.
But generally surfers aren't very reliable people and punctual, especially surfboard makers, surf good. You don't go to work. Yeah. Yeah. And our whole thing revolved around surfing. I remember one, me and this friend of mine, I was a little more what do you call it, responsible than him, but we were both bus boys up at the Royal Ohio.
And there had been like a drought of surf in Laina that summer, like maybe a month or a month and a half with not even a ripple. And then one day it got two feet waist high or something like that at Laa Harbor. It was so small. Mala wasn't breaking or the, I don't need anything.
The break wall was breaking. It was so small. And we go out and we have to be at thr at work at three o'clock to set up the restaurant cuz we're bus boys, right? And so we're out there surfing and then we go, okay, we better go in pretty soon to get to work at three. And they go, ah, let's get one more wave.
And we kept doing it. He goes let's just go to work late. And so we'll get a couple more waves. And then finally we just said let's just not go today. Fuck it. Let's just quit. So we just stayed in the water till evening and quit and then a couple days later went and picked up our paychecks.
That's how irresponsible I was. And my friend too. But that's, I never took surfboard making seriously as a job until windsurfing came along. Okay. So then, yeah. So what happened when windsurfing came along? It was like in the, actually in 1977, I think I moved to the mainland. I moved to Hermosa Beach and for a year, and Steve Licey was living back on the mainland at this time.
And he was shaping in this one shaping room across the street from this glass shop called South Shore, I think. And this guy, Wayne Miata, was the Gloucester pin liner. And Mike, this guy, Mike Collins, owned the shop, I think. And I told, I asked Steve to introduce me to somebody so I can get a job in a glass shop or something, and he always was real hesitant about doing it and Steve was taking a lot of drugs back then, and he had a real bad reputation of, so he had told me later that was the reason he didn't want to introduce me to these guys because it would've looked bad for me if he walked, if I walked in with Steve.
That's what a nice guy Steve was, even in his heavy drug use. He was considerate of what would happen with me. Finally, I bugged him enough that he finally went to that shop and, Hey Mike, you know this guy, he is a really good Glasser from Hawaii and he is a really good Glasser, the best.
And then he walked out and then, so I don't know what that did, but I started going to that shop every day and just hanging around. And then finally one day I also was going to Santa Monica City College. I don't know why I was going there and I took weightlifting and I took PE or something, just, I dunno what I, why I even did that.
But there was this guy in the weightlifting class, the teacher, in fact, I'm still in contact with that guy a little bit every few years when he comes to Maui, he emails me, but he wanted me to make, I told him I was a board maker and he, I had, he had me make him, I think a seven foot or a seven, six. Er, pintail, surfboard.
So I, I got a blank shaped it for him. The place where Steve Licey was shaping, he introduced me to the guy and the guy was so nice to let me shape there too. So I shaped the board and then I told the guy in the glass shop, I got a board to glass. I can buy the materials from you. Let me glass it here and you can see what I do.
And so I took that board in the sh in the glassing room. He let me do it really unbelievable now that I think about it for them to let me do that, and their shop where they're running a business. And so anyway, I pulled the, I taped the board off, pulled the glass out, and he sat there and he goes, okay, I'm gonna make you feel real nervous now, watching right over your shoulder.
I didn't feel nervous cuz I was good, so I glassed the board. Perfect. He was stoked. I got hired the next day. Nice. So I was doing six boards a day. That no, maybe it was, yeah, only six, six or eight boards a day. They had five ranks. So they wanted you to They wanted me to do well, I was in the wintertime, I think so I think I was doing how many boards?
Was it six or eight boards a day? I'd line up three or four, pull the glass out, laminate each one by the time they were done. And then we'd have lunch and then it was time to flip 'em over and do the decks. And I had to have 'em done for the evening for the guy to come and hot coat and put the fin boxes in.
So I got so good at glassing, and doing all of those boards day after day where I'd mix up the. Right when I was finished glassing, and I don't know if you've ever seen anybody glass, you drip a drop a resin over the nose and tail to fill up the air holes. I had it down so well that right when I was finished glassing and dropping that drip a resin onto the nose, it was gelling every time I had it down, perfect. And to give you an example of how some people, how when I get, for example, how my, I feel like it's so natural and I, if I teach somebody, they should be able to do this too. This kid wanted to learn how to glass aboard. So I brought him in and like I said, there's five boards in a row, five boards on the rack.
I'm masking taped off each one in a row. And I told him the exact same thing over and over again four times. So he'd get it in his head how to do it, and then I pulled out the fiberglass on all four boards, cut 'em, told him what I did four times in a row, and then I laminated all these boards four or five in a row with the resin.
And then I said, okay, now you do your board. And he did it, set it up, took a while to set it up, and then when he mixed up the resin, he just froze. He didn't know what to do. And I just freaked. I go, sh the board, the resins gonna go off on him. If he doesn't move, I go move squeegee the resin. And he just started kinda doing it a little bit, but not much.
And anyway, I just grabbed the squeegee out of his hand and finished it for him because he, his board would've been ruined. But Yeah. Yeah. The, it's so time sensitive, especially with the polyester rein. You only had so many minutes to get it done. So you had to have Exactly the timing down, yeah. Yeah. But I got real, real good at glassing. In those days, were you using respirators and all that kind of safety equipment? Yeah. Yeah. But not religiously, and yeah, I think I had a mask. My another thing I gotta mention about what Steve Slick Ameer taught me too, I used to wear my mask when I was planning.
And when you plane the drum I have on my planter now is an abrasive drum. So it makes real fine dust. It doesn't make fits like so when you're planning with a regular blade, with a regular blades on your planter, it, it shoots off big chunks. Bigger chunks, right? And then when you're fine shaping with sandpaper, it makes real fine dust.
I used to shape with my mask on with the planter, and after I was done with the planter, I'd take my mask off and shape with the sandpaper. And Steve said, Jesus, Jimmy, if you're gonna take your mask off at some stage, do it when you're abusing the planter. Those are big chunks. It's not gonna go on your nose and your lungs as easy as that fine shaping.
So I've learned to, I'd learned to not take my mask off when I find shape, but still, it wasn't until like at least 20 or 25 years ago, but I started really paying attention to always wear my paper mask. And I always wear the ma respirator anytime I mix up any kind of resin. Mainly when I open up the acetone.
Acetone is worse, I think, than resin on your nervous system than resin fumes. But I always am real, real vigilant about it now. Good. And I have been for years and years, specifically with the paper, You can't see it in the glassing room, but there's all these little diamond, you ever seen a reflection, sun reflection coming through a window and dust in the air.
Glassing room. It's little sh shiny things. That's all the fiberglass dust in the glassing room that you don't see unless the a sun beam is coming through the window. So that's why I know I need to wear that paper mask every time I'm in that shop, in my shop. Okay. So you're in still 1977 Hermosa Beach.
Like what made you go back to Maui in the first place, and then what made you go back to California? Like what motivated you to move back and forth? The first time I came to Maui was the first time I was away from home. Went back to, it was like right after high school.
And then I moved back to Santa Cruz by the ti a year later. I was a year older, a year of living on my own already again in Santa Cruz, away from my mom's house. And then I wanted to be in Hawaii again. The same reason I wanted to be for the first time for surfing and for surfing. And my brother, he was the influence on that cuz he moved there first for surfing.
Okay. So I moved back for surfing. I can't remember why I moved back to the mainland for a year, but did that. And then after a year I wanted to go back to Hawaii, but I think bef I was maybe in Hermosa for six months, then I moved back to Berkeley at my mom's house. And then I got a job this friend of my sisters was working with this rich guy, remodeling this big building.
And so I got a job working there, construction, saved up a bunch of money, and then moved back to Maui. And where did I live? I think I moved to this side, the north side here, and got a job painting houses with a friend of mine. And then I was also shaping surfboards for this shop called Monte Surfboards.
And I think it was in 1978 that Mike Walsh and this guy named Mark Robinson, who was a well known Florida windsurfer back when, windsurfer brand that was 12 foot plastic boards. That's, that was what the windsurfing sport was all about. Those boards. But Mike and a few other guys were starting to make shorter custom boards.
And so when he came to Maui, Mike came by this shop cuz it was a surf shop. And where else would you go to get a custom board made? So I don't know why the owner of the shop, John Su let me shape the board cuz he was the owner and he was a shaper also. But somehow I, I shaped Mike's board and I think I had some pictures of that somewhere.
But it was like a 12 foot race board. And then I made him maybe a nine foot, what they called a jump board back then, cuz they weren't really surfing on waves. They were going out and jumping over waves and then riding them straight off. They were, cause a lot of the boards back then, before they started making surfboard shape wind surfers were like boats or more like a boat than a surfboard.
So I made those a couple boards there. And then at the house in KeHE, I that I lived at I thought windsurfing is gonna maybe be a big thing and maybe I can actually make a living making windsurfer. Shaping, right? So I was starting to build a a shaping room in the garage at my house, and the guy that was managing that house for a rental for us, told me, the landlord told me to take that down.
I couldn't build a shaping room in the garage. So I had all this lumber. And then right at that time, Fred Haywood, Mike Walson, bill King started, had, were starting sail boards, Maui, I think in 1980. Fred had his old family house in Kalu there that they converted into a showroom. And there was an old garage in the back, a separate building.
And Fred told me, why don't you bring all your lumber over here and build the shape and room in this garage here? So I did. And then right then was when the Windsurfer company, oil Schweitzer they wanted to make some short boards. And they made what the board, they called the Rocket 99, which was kinda like a pig shape, like the Vessy pig shape board, a narrower nose, a wide round, not round squi.
It was a little squash tail with a real hippie back. And then another one, a nine one, and what was that called? The rocket? A Rocket 88. And I think it was a nine foot surfboard shape, round pin. Ainger Pintail, sorry, a Ainger Pintail. So the guy, this guy in California had the templates for those two boards.
And so I, they had me shape them the plugs that Hoyle Schweitzer was gonna make the molds off of. And right at that time, there was this big windsurfing race on Oahu called the PanAm Cup. There was a big triangle race. I don't know if you know what the triangle race format is, where they have a buoy, straight up wind.
So it's a lot of tacking to get up to that buoy. And then there's a broad reach and then a downwind leg. So it's a triangle course where all these guys on race boards, race around it. There was no wave surfing at that time, really Not much. And so Robbie Nash was pretty much starting to be the king at that time of racing.
And so when the PanAm Cup was there one year, I think it was the same year we started making those two plugs at sail boards, Maui. And so people were coming to Maui because they were realizing that Maui was a much, much better spot for windsurfing than Oahu. Yeah, I guess at the time, like Diamond and Kailua were the epicenter of windsurfing in Hawaii, right?
Bef Kailua was, I don't know so much about Diamond Head maybe, I can't remember cause I wasn't really even windsurfing. I was windsurf boards for a little bit before I even started windsurfing. But yeah, we made those boards and then I never stopped working. People would come and start ordering custom boards, so we made the glassing room and the shaping room was already there cuz I made the shaping room to, to shape those two boards for windsurfer surfer.
And then we just started making boards and those were the, some of the first sinkers. And I think at that same time, Mike Walz had Jerry Lopez shape him a little, I think it was an eight foot board or something like that, 20 inches wide. Thin, thin for a windsurfer, but had three stringers in it. Jerry shaped it and then they brought it down and I glassed it.
And that was one of the very first shortboard boards that they had to water start. And they were just learning to water start at that time. And then it just exploded for Maui because Maui was such a good spot. Sail boards, Maui was getting all the attention that it deserved, and we were in the epicenter of windsurfing in the world.
And fortunately for me, I was there with Mike Wal and Fred Haywood, couple of the biggest stars in windsurfing at the time, and that was, that's the first time I ever made a living shaping, and I never did anything else. Actually, let's see. Yeah, I never did anything else after that.
Shaped and glass boards and yeah, we made boards for three or two or three years before I went off on my own. All right. Yeah. So I remember those days when I was just trying to find some pictures here. I'm gonna screen share this real quick. Back then the the boards were like, yeah, he, you went to really small boards and then like the booms were longer than the board sometimes and stuff like that.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there's that picture. See that picture on the right? Yeah. Top that's that first wind surfer I made for Mike Walz. Oh, okay. I guess it's not 12 feet. Maybe it was 10 feet. Because somebody, I posted that picture one time in that, on that Facebook page, I think it's old School Winds, surfers, it's called or something.
Oh, windsurfing Hall of Fame is what I'm looking at here. Yeah. But I think there's a Facebook page called Old School Winds. Surfers. Okay. And I put that picture of that that one, that race board I made Mike. Yeah. Okay, cool. Some of these pictures are modern, more modern, you can see they got r a f sales, but there was one.
See that one right where your mouse is right now? Yeah, that's, I know. Windsurfer logo. See how far the mass step is up there and stuff. Yeah. Really f close to the nose and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when, so sail boards, Maori became a well-known brand and people were ordering custom boards. I got known around the world because of windsurfing and anyway, how I got into speed was I was shaping this one wave board.
It was an eight six, I don't know how wide they were back then. It was a three stringer board, and I was taking the stringer down with my block plane in the middle. And back at that time, and maybe a couple years before, Dick Brewer was making this little concave right under the wide point and the rocker part of the board of his surfboards.
It was like a concave, I think it was about like five or four or five, six inches wide. And just a couple feet long, just a tear drop. And it was maybe a gimmick or whatever. I don't know what it really did. I don't know if I ever made him on a surfboard, but I gouged the foam when I was shaping this, taking the stringer down on this eight, six round pen board I was making.
And so I go shoot, it had this big gouge in the foam and I go, oh, I'm just gonna do one of those little concaves, like Brewer did. So I taped it off and shaped a concave into it. That board was sitting on the shaper room I'm in, in the showroom floor. Pascal Market came and bought it off the showroom floor.
And at the time, the only, there was, I think only two speed events in the world at the time. One in Weymouth and one in this town called Breast. In France. And so Pascal took that board to Weymouth and Wind Surfers were going to Weymouth and Breast for a few years already, and they were going like 22, 23 knots at the best.
And at the time there was a boat called Crossbo, which was a big catamaran that these English guys made that had what we call the absolute world speed sailing record. That means the fastest sailing craft powered by a sale. Obviously powered by a sale regardless of sale size, board, boat size, anything.
Whoever can sail the fastest has the world record. Now in these events, they had different classes of sale size, like they had a 10 square meter and then a, I don't know, on and up, depending on what size sale you had. But you could still have the absolute world speed sailing record regardless of what class you were in.
It's whoever went the fastest. But then there were speed records for each class too. So anyway, Pascal took this board that had that little concave in it over to Weymouth, and I think in 1982, and he broke the windsurfing speed record. It wasn't a world record, it was like 27 point, I think eight two knots, and it was huge news.
Yeah, I think that picture right there, Ellie Z, that might have been Weymouth. I don't know. Yeah, it says 1982, so it's probably, yeah, that was, that looks like Weymouth to me, but yeah. Interesting. Okay. But anyway, so Pascal made that record and so it was big news and I remember it was done on a Neil Pride.
Maui sales. Barry Spanier and Jeff born were making Maui sales at the time. And it was just on a stock Neil Pride, Maui sales sale too. And so it was huge news in the windsurfing world and in the Windsurfing magazine, big articles on it. And so that put the focus on speed on my boards and on Neil Pride Sales, Maui sales specifically.
And the next year Fred wanted to go to Weymouth and see about doing a speed trial seeing about going for the world record or whatever, or a speed record. Yeah. There's a picture of Fred on the board I made with a wing mask. That was 83. So I shaped Fred two boards. One was a nine footer, I think it could have been I don't know, 2021 inches wide.
And then also that one that's in that picture you're showing, that was eight nine, I believe. And maybe it was 18 and a half or 18 inches wide. And I did that concave on the bottom, going into a double concave on the, on, in the back. But the concave was a lot wider. I think it was almost rail to rail and a lot more flowing all the way through the bottom of the board.
Fred did 30 point something knots, which was even bigger news than what Pascal did cuz Fred broke the 30 knot barrier. And that was a front page picture of Windsurf Magazine. Yeah. See Fred Haywood Bus 30 knot. But that nine foot board, this is this is one of my claims to fame and claims.
The geometry of my boards, Barry Span, span, you called it the imperceptible geometry of the shapes I was doing Fred had a nine foot board that he sold the nine I made him the eight, nine, and the nine footer. He wasn't going to use the nine footer cuz that eight nine was so good and it was smaller.
So he sold the nine footer to Robert Terra to how I know you know who he was. Robert's a good surfer and he, back then, shoot, I think he was my 15 or 16 years old back at that Weymouth event. So on that world record, not the world record day, but that day Fred did 30 knots. Robert went from, I don't know what place he was in, but second place in the entire event when Fred sold him, my board, the board I shaped.
So it was, it's pretty objective. It's pretty easily to say objectively that board helped Robert get that speed. Not his sale, nothing else because when he got that board I made, he went up to second place on it. But anyway, that really catapulted sail board's, Maui Neil Pride, Maui sales, and me into the big spotlight of windsurfing surfing.
For the next several years, all I cared really, I was making wave boards too and but speed boards was our main thing. So the next year, 1984, I started traveling. I think that picture you showed of me holding that red board, might have been 84, maybe 85. But I started going to speed trials too, and I was okay, but I wasn.
There was 60 people at each speed sailing event. They only allowed 60 people to enter. And I was always in all the events around 30, at the end of the event, I was right in the middle of the pack. I wasn't anything exceptional, but I had potential. But the the speed trials, the top people were only separated by tenths of a knot.
Like 38.2 or 38.1, real minuscule amounts of speed. Would determine who was first, second, and third and fourth. So I was always in the middle of the pack. I wasn't like 10 knots slower than the first place people, but but anyway, each event I would go to mainly it was just Weymouth in France in those first few years.
And I go to, people would order speed boards from me, from all over the world. And then the next event I would come, I'd bring four or five or six boards to people. Yeah. And then and then one year, this guy Julian Kendall had he had gone to the Canary Islands a lot and he said there was this one spot down there in Ford of Ventura that the average wind speed was like 25 or 30 knots a day during the summertime.
And it was a killer place to have a speed trial. Like for speed sailing, you want offshore wind so you can sail right next to the beach and have it real smooth, cuz the farther out you get the choppier it gets. So ideally you want butter, smooth water. With a lot of wind. And this place in the Canaries, he said was just epic.
So a lot of us went that in that June of 1986. And I remember Joey Cabbel was getting interested in speed sailing and unfortunately he did not go to that event. That was at the same time there was gonna have a slalom event in Hood River Gorge. And I remember talking to Joey and he goes, yeah, I'm not sure where I want to go, whether I want to go to the Gorge event or this Canary Islands event.
And unfortunately for him, he didn't go, cuz I know he would've been good, at speed. And so anyway, we all went over there and then the, there was a week long the, at the time actually at one of the previous France speed events. Fred didn't want to go to that event for some reason. And this German guy named Michael Puer broke Fred's 30 knot record.
He didn't break the world record, but he did 32 something. 32 knots. And so now there was a rivalry between Fred and this guy. Like they wanna, it was just for publicity, and they took some pictures of Fred and him looking at they wanted a fight, although they were friends, it was just a kind of a, what do you call, a publicity thing, right? And so anyway, we all go to the Canaries and the first week there was a trial period, there was a two week long event, a main event was a week long. And the first week was a trial event. So we were all there for the trial event. We could sail in the trial event.
The trial event was to get other people qualified to be in the main event. And I think, I don't know how many people were already qualified. Me and most of the people that were on the speed circuit got seated. And then I don't know how many people there were gonna take from the qualifying rounds. New people that are on the speed sailing. So whoever got into that event that qualifying round and did a certain amount, the top, how many got to go in the man event? So during that first event the trial part, Reinhard Ishka, this friend of ours here on Maui, he was really a young guy too from Austria, who's been on the speed.
He broke Michael's record. Meanwhile, Michael's on the north side of word of Venturas riding waves. He was seated in the main event. So now his record is broken by Reinhardt already, even though it's just the trial event. Anyway, the main event starts and we're all sailing and I'm as usual in the middle of the pack, like number 30 or 28 or 32, okay. Never up near the top. But all the top guys are writing your boards basically, right? A lot of people were. Yeah. There was a lot of people were. Yeah. Yeah. And I had a 13 inch wide board. In fact, it was interesting, Eric Beal is the first guy who started making narrow boards. I remember at one of those French events, he had me make him a 16 inch wide board, and we thought he was nuts.
16 inches wide, how are you gonna ride it? And Eric, I think won the event on that board. And anyway, when it came time to come to futa, we were all making, Eric was making 13, 12 inch wide boards. Eric was narrower than anybody all the time. Eric wasn't as, he was a little lighter than me, taller than me, but his technique.
And was just incredible. And back then it was like, if you're not big, you're not gonna go fast. And Eric wasn't big. He was taller than me, but not thick and heavy. But it was just his technique. But, so anyway, when Pascal, at the last minute, he was riding other people's boards up until far of Ventura and not doing anything exceptional, and then he asked me, he says, okay, make me a board. And I said, okay, let's make it thir 13 and a half. I talked him into making it narrow and he didn't wanna make it narrow at the time, but anyway, I made him a 13 and a half inch wide. Eight, six. My board was an 8, 1 13. I forgot what Eric's were, but Fred was tired of carrying so much equipment with him to all these events.
So he only brought one board, which was a nine foot, I believe, 19 inches wide board that I made him. And he only brought a Neil Pride, r a f sale. And we all had Canberra induced sales, right? And so one time on Maui before this event, Eric was riding asy sails and as he made this killer Canberra induced sail.
And so I tried it one day down at the beach at SP freckles. And I couldn't believe the acceleration with that Canberra induced sale, right? And it was much better than the Neil Pride, r a f sales. And so I asked Barry if they were gonna make some Canberra induced sales, and Neil Pride didn't want to make 'em at that time because of the financial thing.
They had already invested in the R a F. And I go, shoot, I wanna ride Canberra and do sales, So I contacted Jeff Magna from Gastra, who was Pascal. They were sponsoring Pascal and asked him if I could be get some sales. And they were stoked, even though they didn't, even though I wasn't one of the top riders, I just had the reputation of the board maker and they thought it'd be good if they gave me some sales.
So they sent me a bunch of Canberra induced sales, and I was riding the five meter a lot on Maui. Then the day before the, we left on the plane to go to the Canaries. It was super windy and I had my 13 inch wide board down there and I rigged up the 4.3 gas sale for the first time. And I took off the beach and it's choppy there, but still you can feel your equipment.
And I just was, couldn't believe the acceleration and the speed I was getting. And I came in and I go, Jesus Christ, if we have wind, I might have a chance. This is just night and day feeling that I've ever had of the acceleration of this sale. So anyway, we go to the Canaries and the whole event, everybody's sailing and doing what, and like I said, people are doing this and that.
The record was already broken up to about 35 knots, I think already, but we hadn't broken cross ball's record of 36 knots. Not us, but anybody. But I think Reinhart and Pascal had already done 35 knots up till the second to the last day of the event. Anyway, the second to the last day of the event was ridiculously windy.
Something like 40, 45 knots, just perfect direction. Butter smooth, not a ripple near the beach. And then it got super windy out, choppy outside, but it was just dead flat water, no surf, nothing. It was like those pictures you were just showing. But radical wind. And so we all knew something was gonna happen that day.
So they also made a, they have a rescue boat. But anyway if you've ever been to a speed event, you sail down the course and then you jive and then you sail, you tack way back up. Wind long, far enough up so you can tack back in and then make your run all speed events at a start line where they got the camera or the guy with the stopwatch and 500 meters down the road there's another stopwatch or a camera.
So before I don't know how far before, maybe 50 yards before the start line, there's another buoy. And so the rule is, and then there's another buoy before that, whoever gets to the second buoy outside as priority. And so the next person, just so it doesn't screw up the timers as the guy, the people are sailing to the second, the first buoy before the starting line.
You can't go past that first buoy that's 50 yards before the starting line, until the guy in front goes past the start line. That's to space the riders. So one rider doesn't overtake another one down the line, you mean the finish line? They have to cross the finish line or the start line? No, say the start line.
There's two buoy. There's two before the start line. Whoever gets to the se, the first buoy outside has priorities. So sometimes you're racing a guy to get to that first buoy so you can go Yeah. Whoever gets there first. The second guy, even if you're right next to each other, the second guy has to back off.
Not past that second buoy until he, this other guy is already at the start line. Okay, got it. So anyway, I'm sailing, if I'm sailing along and somebody beats me to that long, that first buoy that, that I have to lu my sail and stall and not go by this one buoy until he started past the start line.
Anyway, the point of all this is, it was so windy, the organizers of the event said it was too dangerous for us to sail back up wind. Cuz if somebody ate it somewhere along the line outside there, the rescue boat might not be able to get 'em in time. So we had to all walk back up the beach and I remember Fred used to always say trees on the beach or screwing up the wind and all this.
And I thought, that's just nonsense, but it does. Any little obstacle on the beach can affect the wind coming across, especially since we're sa this event was so perfect. The tide was right up to the edge of the sand. We were sailing like three feet off the sand. It was so clean. So anyway, the first me and Pascal and Fred and a few of us other was, we were the first ones in the water when the things started.
And I was so freaked out about getting pitched, hooked in. I did my first run unhooked. Cause I, I didn't know if I could even sail in that much wind without eating shit. So I did my first run unhooked and I made it and I go, okay, I can hook in the next time. Anyway, I found out later that Fred's best run, Eric's best run Pascal's World record run and my run were in the first few runs we did.
And I think I'm attributing that to after the whole 60 people started making their runs and walking on the beach back up, we were just walking. Our board would be in the water, and we would be walking with our sail. The board would just be in the water up six inches. And the riders coming down the course were like four or five feet away, right out, away from the beach coming down the course.
So I think after a period of time, a couple runs, when all the people were walking up the beach, it was affecting the wind turbulence and stuff. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. But I don't know, I just know I heard from the timekeeper, all of our four best runs were in the first like half hour or so of the event.
But anyway during that day, I had a 19 inch wide board in my 13 inch wide board. There was a German girl who I loaned my 19 orange inch wide board to because I wasn't gonna use it. And everybody was real friendly back then and wanting to help each other, and as we were walking up the beach during that event, I remember all of us cheering everybody on as they were sailing by.
Oh, go, everybody, nobody was in competition with anybody. It was all just a beautiful thing. But anyway at the end of the day somebody was saying, yeah, the world record got broken that day. And which was, wow, we beat Crossbo. And then one of the org, the timekeeper's wife told me that, Jimmy, you're number three.
And I just couldn't believe it. What me, number three, it was the best feeling I ever had. As far as that stuff, because I've just never, I was always in the middle of the pack. So anyway, that night they announced, it wasn't the end of the event, but that night they announced all the results of that day.
Pascal did 38.82, which was like, he just smashed the 36. Not barrier, that was just ridiculous. And then Eric was second, I think Eric was 32, or sorry, 30. He was 36, 3 1. I was 36. No, I was 36, 3 1. I think Eric was 36. Me, Fred and Eric did 36 something, right? Fred was 36, 13. I was 36, 31.
That's how close it was. And Eric was like 36, 8, something like that. But see what Pascal did? 38, 86. But that just, this was 8 19 86. That was the event, right? The, yeah. 86. That's it. Yeah. It just shows Fred's skill cuz he did the same speed as Eric and I on a 19 inch wide board with an r a f sale.
But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have done what I did without that gastro sale. So anyway, all of that happened. Now Michael Puer, the ar the former world record holder who had 32 knots, who was sailing waves on the north of Ford, of Ventura during the qualifying event. He didn't even, I don't even know what place he was in.
He didn't make the top 10 way. He was like maybe 20 or something after that world record day. Anyway, the next day was just as windy, but just victory at sea. Terrible conditions. There was little surf coming. It was super choppy with the surf little, one foot waves just ruined that perfectly smooth speed course.
So the next day, I think there's no way in hell I'm doing 36 knots on a day like today. And I was so elated that I was number three in the world at that time, and I just, I was just confident. There's the standings are not gonna change on this day. We had the most epic conditions possible the day before.
Nobody's gonna do anything on this day. So I loaned Michael Poer my personal board. He got seventh place in the world ranking on my board that he wouldn't have done sh and that was on a terrible day. So the final ranking and that German girl who I loaned my 19 inch wide board to, did several knots quicker than what her board previous board was doing in that event.
Now, seven out of the top 10 times on that day were on my board. And the only four boards that broke the world record were my boards. Eric, Fred, and myself, and Pascal broke cross bows record, but obviously, Fred, myself, and Eric we don't have the world the absolute world speed re sailing record Pascal did, but that didn't matter.
All four of us broke the crossbow record. Yeah. And you sent me this picture with on, it's like a magazine article where they called you the magician. And with the board term for Eric Bees or Beal. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about the boards. What was the kind of, what were the secret ingredients to making the board super fast?
Other than the width and then you talked a little bit about the concaves and so on. So yeah tell us a little bit about the shapes and what made them work. I think it's like that term Barry Spanner had used once called the imperceptible geometry of it. I looked at, everybody was copying the boards I was making, and they all looked like mine.
But for some reason mine were different and I have no idea why. When I was first shaping boards in Berkeley and I was designing my own, you ever seen those triangle rulers? They're white and they got three different measurement things on each angle of the ruler? Yeah. I think they're called engineer rulers, but on one side of the ruler, there's a one inch equals one foot scale.
Okay. So I was designing like a seven, six board. I would take that ruler and seven and a half inches is seven feet, six inches, and it had one inch, it had one inch marks on that ruler and fractions of inches. I would sketch out a template on paper to scale, and then I'd measure with that ruler what it was in feet and inches and transfer that onto a bigger piece of paper.
For my actual size template. And so I was naturally good at drawing lines or good flowing templates. And in Santa Cruz, I think I've seen this phenomena before with other shapers. Mainly I was. I saw it in kite boarding where people said, yeah you make it straight in the middle and it's gonna go faster and straight on the outline, it's gonna go faster, which is opposite of what water wants to see.
Or an airplane wing, you never see a flat. You remember when we were first windsurfing, the fins that they made back then had a flat in the middle of the fin. And it had a round leading edge, and they sharpened the back, and those fins would spin out radically. I was one of the first ones to put a full foil on the fin, and that cured the spinouts to a certain extent.
And so I had this genius idea that if I made it straight in the middle, whereas instead of having the curve in the middle of the rocker and a parallel outline, it would go faster. And I'd put hips in the tail to turn better. So I made a surfboard like that. I shaped all the rocker out of the middle, made a little nose rocker straight in the middle, and a little tail kick.
And then I did the same thing on the outline, and the board just did not work. I could turn it sometimes, and then sometimes I would just drop in and it would just go on the rail and I'd fall off. And I remember this friend of mine said that, do you know who Greg Griffin was? Yeah. He's a guy.
He died a year or so ago, unfortunately. But he was on the, he was a super good surfboard designer. He understood hydrodynamics and physics and and water hydrodynamic design, right? And he was on the cliff at the hook where I was surfing, talking to this friend, other friend of mine, explaining to this friend of our.
What was wrong with my shape. And he said, now watch him when he is dropping in and when he turns, and then I'd turn and fall off. He says, the board the water's loading up around that area right there instead of flowing. And and then one day Greg explained to me how a basic curve should be. The curve should be mostly in the middle.
And he called it a basic I think I remember this, but he said it's a basic foil principle is the lines in the front are straighter and they go, there's curve in the middle or at the wide point. And then it, the, the lines get straighter and straighter as they go toward the nose and straighter as you go toward the tail.
Not dead straight, but that's how a basic curve works. And if you look at any airplane wing, any tail shape on a airplane or anything, that's how they are. So from then on I started making good boards. Now we're all hand shaping. This is before machines and I can only attribute my shapes to what I see when I'm shaping cuz the blanks at that time I had to reshape the bottom curve cuz they had too much rocker in 'em.
And so I always, every board I ever made, I just kept in mind what Greg Griffin had told me about what basic design is and how it should flow and how the wide point should be the thick point. You don't put the wide point, say three inches forward a center and put the six, the thick 0.3 back a. That shape's not gonna work.
They all, he called it, all the lines on the board need to parallel each other. Meaning if you got the wide point back, the thick point's gotta be back. The thickest part of the rail should be right there too, all flowing naturally to the nose and tail. And I've just practiced that all ever since Greg taught me that.
And that's the only thing I can say about why my boards, I think did what they did at that time. Just what my eye saw. It's like an artist painting a picture or something. Some artist paint a picture that looks nice and some artist paint a picture that ain't so nice. And it's depending on what, I can't, I can teach people techniques on how I shape and what to look for, but I always tell them, it's ultimately up to you to look for that line.
What as a clean line might be different than what I see as a clean line. And that's the only thing I can attribute it to. Yeah. So back then, I guess you were still making boards with Clark Foam and fiberglass and the polyester resin. When did you start using like composites and I guess epoxy e p s form and sandwich construction and all that kind of stuff?
Yeah, I think during that time we made a few epoxy boards. I know Eric had a few before any of us did. But when we started, I think when the World Cup I think it was in the late, let me see, maybe around the mid eighties I think, or the later eighties when World Cup, the World Cup tour started getting real popular and speed sailing was fading a little bit.
After Pascal broke the Eric, the ne I think it was 1987, no, 88 maybe Eric Beal did 40 knots on that canal. And after that, I don't know if it was just because me and Fred and Eric and most of us from Hawaii became a little less interested in speed sailing. We, and I think other people were interested, but the World Cups started getting more popular, if I remember.
And so that's, I think, around that time when other people started making epoxy boards with styrofoam, that's when I didn't start doing it be, I think I followed the people doing that. And it was in the later eighties. And but I started doing that and I learned how to do it just like everything else.
Learning from other people how to do it, it was definitely, I didn't read something about it. It was watching somebody else do it and somebody teaching me. Everything I've learned about making boards has come from somebody else. I think, I may have adjusted some of my techniques, but basically I'm doing the same thing that I learned back in the sixties on how to do it and from watching other people do it.
And but it sounds like you've always been very open to changing and following new trends or new ideas and just sta keeping an open mind. You di didn't, you weren't so specialized that you wouldn't try new things. So Yeah, I don't, I was not so much into gimmicks though. I don't know, remember ever doing too many gimmicks.
I remember Fred one time wanted me to put all these funny little concaves all over the board, and I just did. I go, he just wanted a flashy looking board. And I never liked, for example, The golf ball dimple type of thing, like they had for a while. Yeah. I did one or two of those boards, but as you see, nobody's doing those anymore.
If they were so good why are they totally non-existent? Yeah. But in the early eight, in the mid, I think it was maybe 84 or 85 when I was first making fins, when I first realized making a full foil fin was happening. So I was laying up my own fin panels and I was making Malta simmer fins. Malta was one of the best wave riders at HOA and windsurfers.
And so I was making him fins that worked better than anything else on the market. And he was friends with Glen Dewitt who owned Rainbow Fins, and they wanted to make some Malta simmer models. So Malta introduced me to Glen. So I started, I was making slalom fins and speed fins, and I was also making Malta wave fins.
So they, we did a contract with rainbow Malta did, and he got me in on it that Malta would make some wave fins for their line. And I would make some slalom fins and speed fins. And then we would get a dollar each fin that they would sell. And so I was only making the slalom fins and Malta was making the wave fins.
Turns out the slalom market and the speed market was much bigger than the wave market. So my royalty checks were way bigger than the simmer ones. And Klaus at that time got involved with Malta's business, their business, the simmer business. And Klaus renegotiated. With Glen to give $2 a fin and also to let simmer make some slalom fins.
And I go if you're gonna let them make slalom fins, you gotta let me make wave fins. So they did. And so then the royalties got better because we're getting $2 instead of one. And I remember this is how quickly windsurfing grew. The first check I got, they were giving us monthly checks. The first check I got was $33, cuz they made 33 of my fins the first month.
The next month I got a check for 333, and then the next month I got a check for 900 and something. And then for the next three years I, the, my check never got below two a thousand dollars. And then oftentimes it was 2000 or somewhere in between. And I think for the next three years I was getting like six, 16,000.
I guess today isn't so much, but man, back then that was a goldmine. Yeah. Of free money, wow. Anyway, the point of all that, sorry for that long, ridiculous story. Next, the next year, rainbow had Dave Colma, who was a, one of the best windsurfers at that time too. And Mark Angulo designed some fins and basically it was the same leading edge.
And then they put those ridiculous curly cue shit at the back. My fins had that cutout that was definitely functional. I did not invent that. I think some New Zealand guy did, if I remember correctly. I can't remember his name. But definitely I copied somebody else on that. I remember specifically, it might have been Mike Tinkler told me about it, but as some New Zealand guy was doing that cutout in the back.
So we tried it and it just made the. Boards turned so much easier, but it didn't seem to side slip or spin out any e any worse, right? So Mark and Dave came out with these curly q fins on the back, these bat trailing edges, and it's I just wasn't about to do some stupid gimmick to make a few bucks, and so my royalty checks were getting smaller and smaller.
And finally, maybe the next year, I just didn't even submit any new templates because I would still basically use that same template today. And that's how many, 40 years later, nothing's really changed, and a lot of the, a lot of the stuff we do, but I'm not, I guess maybe I'm open-minded on some stuff, but some stuff I'm not, I ain't about to sell out to make a few bucks on something.
I let my shapes, yeah, I just Google down Jimmy Lewis Rainbow Fin. So these are some of your old shapes? Yeah, there's there one with the the ones with the sharks on 'em, yeah. Like this one. Yeah, I remember those kind of fins were popular for back then, for sure. Yeah.
That was probably a speed sailing or a speed slalom fan maybe we called it. Yeah, you can buy one on eBay used for $53. Damn righteous. All right, Jimmy. So yeah, thanks for sharing all that detailed history. I find it super fascinating and I'm sure the listeners will too. But anyways we still haven't even gotten to kite surfing and everything else you've done.
So let's yeah, let's keep moving. So we're like, I guess now in the nineties, And then, yeah, so yeah, so I was shaping wind surfers and then I bought this land that I have my house on now, and my plan was to make a shop here. And which I did built the house and was still making winds, surfers, but I vaguely remember back in the early nineties, I was fading out of windsurfing because Ho Kippa wasn't good all the time.
And we used to go to freckles and Speed sail down there, go off the wind, down toward Camp one. And it was, and then like Eric and some of the guys that I used to do it with weren't going down there like we used to. And I'd go down there by myself and make a few runs. And this is when people started getting into what they called freestyle windsurfing, just doing fricks on flat water or something.
And it seemed like speed sailing was fading out and going fast and stuff, except for the World Cup stuff. When Ho Kippa got good, I would always go up there and ride waves, but I slowly faded out of windsurfing a little bit and and so I started making surfboards again, longboards. And then I started surfing a little bit more.
And not paddle surfing, just prone surfing. And I wasn't windsurfing very much anymore. And and then in the, I think in the late nineties or maybe 2000 or something Lou Wayman moved to Hawaii specifically to Windsurf I think he had said. And he was working down at this shop here called Hawaiian Island.
And it was right at that time, kiting started to get more popular. And so I was in the shop one day and Lenny introduced me to Lou. And I I always tell people if you ever want a board maid, a kite board, I, I'd never made one before. But I told him I could probably do it and then shoot, a week or two later, he showed up and I'm thinking, Jesus, why did I open my big mouth?
An offer to make a kite board. So anyway, we made one, he had a Tony Lache board that he got from the Tony Lagotian La Gorge. And I made him a board there. Like that one, I forgot. It might have been a five foot twin tip. And we put fin boxes. It was so much different than the twin tips we eventually made.
And so anyway I started making a few kite boards for Lou, but I wasn't kiting, I wasn't doing nothing. I didn't even go down to the beach to watch them. And so it would take me a month or so to make him aboard cuz I wasn't really interested. And then one day I think I went down to the beach and watched those guys kiting and I thought, man, that's cool.
I should take this more seriously. So then I started making his boards a little faster, like in a couple weeks or instead of a couple months. And what was amazing to me, or actually whether it was amazing or not, what happened was Lou's progression into his board design and length and stuff progressed so quickly.
Like from that five foot board, I made him down to the like, how long? Like a 1 42. It's interesting how we call. The twin tips cent. We used centimeters instead of inches. But anyway, it went really small and narrow quickly. Lou progressed that quickly and he was by far one of the best kite borders at the time.
Him and a guy, Elliot Lebo, and maybe Mauricio Abru. And then I started making all those guys boards and like with windsurfing, I was at the right place at the right time with the right guys, like with Mike Wal and Fred Haywood and sail boards, Maui, but, and then with Lou Wayman, Elliott Lebo and Maurizio Abru with kite surfing, or yeah, kite boarding. But in my defense a little bit is I knew how to make boards. People didn't come to me just outta random. They knew I knew what I was doing, and so I could produce something. And I attribute that to my basic knowledge that I got from Greg Griffin about what a foil design is, basic principles of water flow, and how to keep that in virtually every single board I make, whether it's a kite board, windsurf board, surfboard, standup board, foil board, everything.
So anyway, that went so it's basically that philosophy of keep keeping like a constant curve throughout the board and then keeping the wide point in the same place as the volume center volume and so on, those kind of things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Basic principles, so yesterday I asked you about those posters behind you, where the the girl, the ads with the girls showing off the type boards. Yeah. So you sent them, sent me photos of them. So you wanna talk a little bit this is one of those twin tips. Yeah, that's one that was called The Bitch Witch.
There was a friend of mine in Cal in Oregon Dale Inskeep, who's a, who was a Kite borderer. He was friends with Lopez over there. And cuz Jerry lives in Oregon. And it was a slightly different, it had a little more curve toward the ends of the boards were narrower and he had an idea to call it the Bitch Witch.
I guess it, it's a takeoff of that that tool called the Ditch Witch. They got a tool called the Ditch Witch that did digs ditches, so anyway, we called that the Bitch Witch. And then so that was just an ad I did. And the other one this one a woman in Florida who was getting some boards from me had a bunch of ideas for some names of boards, and she sent them to me and one of them caught my eye about, and it was dorix, but I already had the pickle fork.
I had the bitch Witch. I had the model, I forgot the names of some of my boards, but I thought, what about this dominatrix, what can I call the dominatrix? So anyway, at the original kite boards I made were just flat bottoms with a razor sharp edge the whole way. Anyway, at one point, maybe a year or two into my kite boarding, making this German guy came by the shop and told me, yeah, you kite boarders are doing the same thing that a slalom water skier does.
You're trying to hold an edge at high speed. And he goes all, every, he said, virtually every slalom ski on the market is basically a single concave all the way through, and the edges are around. They're not. And that's a, that's the design that holds the water. And so the first one I made, I go, I'm gonna do that.
So I shaped a concave in the board, railed to rail, not quite rail to rail. I left a one inch flat spot. And then I did the edge rounded front to back, not round in the front, and going hard to each end like a surfboard. But it was round all the way. And later on when I had go to, I'd go to trade shows, I went over to the ski department of the trade show, or not department, whatever, the ski the ski hall.
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James Casey- Foil athlete, waterman- interview on the Blue Planet Show episode 25
18 Mar 2023· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha Friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to the third season of the Blue Planet Show. I started this show a couple years ago in my home office, in the garage during the pandemic, just to get to know other wing foilers find out more what drives them, what inspires them. And as always, I like to find a little bit more about their background and just get to know them a little bit better and learn for my own benefit.
And I'm stoked to be able to share it with all of you. I get people coming up to me all the time saying I'll watch your shows all the way to the end. So I'm one of the 5% that watches the whole thing. So stoked to hear that. And I know many of you are also listening to it as a podcast while you're driving to the beach or going foiling and getting stoked or just listening to it while you can't go in the water because it's too cold, or you're traveling or whatnot.
Stoked. Always to hear that kind of stuff, super stoked. And today's guest is James Casey, who also has a great podcast. So if you haven't listened to that, it's all about downwind foiling. You should check it out. And he also has a coaching club that you can join to learn about downwind foiling.
He's an amazing athlete. He holds the record for the most kilometers foiled in one day. And a great coach for any of you who want to get into downwind foiling. And he also invented the sport of winging upwind and then deflating and foiling downwind. Really cool stuff that he's doing and pioneering also designing and testing equipment and so on.
Without further ado, here is James Casey. Okay, James Casey. Welcome to the Blue Planet Show. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. I've watched a bunch of these shows and yeah, it's cool to be on here myself now. Yeah. And I've been listening to your shows while I'm driving and getting stoked and motivated to do more downwind foiling.
So thanks for doing that. A lot of really good information on your show. And I want to get into that, like Doman foiling, your Casey crew or the coaching crew, and then also the Moloka race, and then your announcement about joining Code foils and all kinds of stuff. Your record 213 kilometer record on a foil all that kind of stuff.
But before we get into all those things, let's talk a little bit about your background. Let's go into a little bit like where, where you were born, how you grew up, and how you got into water sports and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So yeah, James Casey. I was born in Sydney, Australia, and it's basically the east coast.
And my mom and dad both surfed as a kid. They took me out surfing and like a boogie boarding first and then surfing. And I think I got my, I remember vividly actually gave you my first surfboard when I was like, probably a bit of a late starter compared to people nowadays, but I was like 10 or 11.
I got like this PCUs, four Finn, super nineties board, skinny nose, like super pointy, heaps of rocker. But that was my first board. This was just one of my dad's old boards that he didn't use anymore. Yeah, this is your board now. You can, you can take this here, this out. And yeah, pretty much surfed all through my teenage years.
I competed in like board riders, so I was I won the juniors movale board riders season sort of competition. But then I got 18, 19, I started getting worn in my rugby union. So I was playing a lot of rugby. Played for the, I guess the local club, the Ringer Rats, and was, I played a couple games in first grade, but I was basically just too small to be to be, following that dream as a, as an athlete in rugby.
I was also competing against basically , who's now the Wallabies captain, Michael Hooper. So like in people who watch rugby would know what I'm talking about. But yeah, I was playing rugby against him a lot, so rugby was always, I was always second field to him, but I just loved it. It was great camaraderie and that sort of stuff and, but I was still juggling my rugby and surfing and basically as a rugby player you're pretty big and bulky and so it's not the best for surfing.
But I got into standup paddling in my sort of I guess it was, I don't know the exact date, but I was. Pretty young. I was probably like 14 or 15. We, we were in Hawaii and I sprained my ankle kite surfing. And wait, so when, how did you get into kite surfing? Yeah, I was thinking that when I said that.
Gotta explain that, . So I got into kite surfing. I used to go to Maui a lot. Basically my dad was a wind surfer and basically every July we'd go over to Hawaii to f as a family holiday to windsurf. And I was learning to windsurf and then all of a sudden all these kite around and I'd just nailed for windsurfing, I'd nailed my like water starts.
So on the small sort of wave riding board, I was water starting, I was just starting into wave riding. And then I cut my foot on the reef out at uppers at Kaha. . And so I was outta the water for a bit and when I was outta the water, my brother, younger brother and sister learned to kite surf and then I was all fired up.
I wanna learn to kite surf, it looks easier and you're on a smaller board. And so basically going backwards, I guess windsurfing my dad, cause he windsurf, he took us out in the lake a lot. Just a local Naraine lake. And we'd learned to windsurf on a big, we used to call it the island.
Just a massive, it was a starboard, I think a massive starboard and you can get three people on it. It was super stable for us kids as well. So we did that. Then, so then I learned on a smaller board, wave, wave sailing and never really nailed it. I one or two trips down to OA and then Hawaii was almost there and then I cut my foot outta the water for a week.
Then went to kite surf and kite surfing was what we loved to do as a family. Like my brother, my dad, and myself would all go out kite surfing at home and then me when it was sick. But yeah, then I sprained my ankle. Kite surfing this one time. I guess it was, it must have not been July cause there was some waves.
Must have been, winter. And there were heaps of good. It was good surf that year too. So I cut my foot so sprained my ankle kiting and I couldn't pop up on a surfboard like, like regular surfing because my, an basically res sprained my ankle. So we went to the local shop what's it called?
High Tech in Maui. And we rented Hawaii Paddle Surf, like standup paddle board. Cause we'd seen lad do it, we were in hook keep and Lad was doing his helicopters and that looks pretty cool. Yeah, we went down the hike. So can you, do you guys sell these salmon paddle boards? Yeah, we got a couple.
So we rented two of those and we're actually staying at like near Mama's Fish house. , and there's a few reefs out there and basically, When there's no wind. We managed to score some really good sessions out there on the standup paddle board, just like glassy and like four to six foot kind of thing.
And I was on a standup paddle board on these outer reefs and it was like, oh, this is pretty legit. And on the standup paddle board was easier because you're paddling out to his outer east and instead you're comfortable. So I'm like, this is cool. So he went home and St.
Paddling wasn't really a thing yet. Went home and the local shop, I came in Sydney WSS boards. Sam Parker had, didn't have any production boards, but he did have a custom one that he, a local builder had built him just basically a big longboard. And so we grabbed that off him for a week and just was roughing out on that.
No ankle is now better now. So it was just like, it was just cuz we liked it. And basically we, when the stock came in, we bought one, but be between that we were I actually grabbed my dad's windsurf board and we'd never paddled, so we had a rake and we cut the prongs off the rake, the plastic rakes, and we were paddling around the local spot on this windsurf board, like a smaller windsurf board had the full sandpaper deck.
So we got all, got smoked rashed up on the stomach. But yeah, that was, and then, basically once the production stuff was out in Australia, we were riding it, but I was never really competing. So like I did all this is all like, 13, 14 or whatever, what's that sort of age?
And so I was paddling it, but I didn't know there was competitions and my brother worked in the local shop WSS boards. And there was, I went to one competition at Long ra and I wasn't really, it was fun, but it wasn't really something I was motivated to, to pursue. We did a race, actually the fir, my first s race was Movale to Collary, which is like eight Ks.
and it was a nice little northeast Lee Breeze. My I'd never paddled a race board before my brother working at the shop had organized a board for my himself, my dad and me. And there was two 14 footers and 1 12 6 and somehow I got stitched up and was put on the 12 six. So we're doing the race and it's all like a little down window.
We just cruising cause we don't know how to race. We're just paddling like we are surfing, looking for little bumps to catch. And all of a sudden this storm comes through and we're about halfway through the race, we're at the back cause we're this cruising and this hail it starts hailing on us. So we, the massive storm, the wind was northeast hailstorm comes through the winds now south.
And so we're all lying on our boards paddling into the winds like prone style. And because I had a 12 six I could keep it pointed into the wind easier. I wasn't getting blown around as much. So I, I remember vividly beating my brother. And he was all off it because he is oh, it was because you were the shorter board.
It was easier for you to, paddle into the window. Mate, a shorter board should go slower. So it was, the competitive spirit was always there, but I didn't touch another race board for a very long time. So that was that was interesting. That was a not the best start to to the whole racing stuff.
It wasn't until my now brother-in-law Grant Hardiman got into ums racing that I really got into thes racing stuff. But in the meantime, I was stop surfing heaps. So I still stop surfed a lot when the waves were small back home, I'd stop surf heaps, wasn't really competing, but just loved it. On the small days and you can then, you can just pedal out.
The same as in, in Maui were ping out to these outer reefs and surfing waves by ourselves rather than sitting in the pack of 20 or 30 on a shortboard waiting for that one that came through. That's a muddled history, . Once I got into this, I actually got into the subs surfing, went down to an event in Marula it, so called the Maru Classic.
Quite a famous event here in us here in Australia. Anyway, yeah had like guys like Rob Robby Nash come over in the history of it all. And, but I met two, two good friends now, JC Schara and Toby k Cracknell and Kai Bates as well, actually, and Sam Williams. And those sort of four people got me into the competitive side of s cause I didn't even know like the, a PPP world tour or the whatever it was called before that.
I didn't know what it, I didn't know what it exist. I didn't know you could compete on a standup paddle board. I didn't know there were races. I just was just doing it for fun. Wasn't really in the scene. So they, I went over to Hawaii, did the sunset event trials, got into the main event and basically from there Tristan was like, oh, you've qualified for the whole tour now if you wanna come to Brazil and France.
And I was like, oh, this is pretty cool. So I rallied. And, you I'd just finished uni at this time, so I was like, okay, I've got a bit of time. I haven't really locked myself into a job yet. So I just did that for, two, three years competing on the, the sup surf and race circuit doing, Molokai to Oahu and a bunch of races in did a few races in Europe, did a few surf events in Morocco and Hawaii and France, and went to the wave pool in Abu Dhabi.
And yeah, it was a pretty cool, time and then Brun, I was doing that until Covid hit and then now Covid hit up. We basically, it's all, it all stopped all the racings on the stop stuff. And yeah. So here's I wanted to share this video. This was oh, sorry. Definitely. This was when I first met you that this was like at the mall.
Mochi race. And you had a yeah, it was you and Marcus. Yeah. Marcus harder with Yeah. Talking about the dugout. I was just curious about it and interviewed you and that. So this was in 2016, was it the first time you did the mobile Kai race? This is the second time I did it. Yeah.
This is the second time I, yeah and it was my third season competing, like racing over in Hawaii, but I didn't get in the first year to to do Molokai. Cause I hadn't done enough races, basically. And that. And you were one of the first guys to use the dugout in the Molokai race, I think too.
Or, and you did really well with it, right? So everybody started being curious about the dugout boards. Yeah, so dugout boards were, pretty common on 14 foot boards. But for for the unlimited boards, Not many people were using them. So yeah, it's probably good to talk about this.
I was writing for JP and basically JP had said, oh, we don't make unlimited boards. You can get, one made from s i c, you can get one made wherever you want. And basically the year before I used a s I see. And Marcus had spoken to Matt Knowledge and said, oh, I think I can make something faster than your s i c what do you think?
And he was like, yeah, Matt was keen. And then I got caught winded oh, if you are getting one, Matt, he was my like, sparring partner. I was like, I want one too. So we both, paid Marcus to design a board for us. And deep sort of made the boards and yeah, these are the first, unlimited dugouts that that we'd used.
and basically it certainly caused a bit of a stir in Hawaii when people saw him. It was like the world's biggest bathtub when they filled up. But Yeah, it was, they were super quick and, this relationship with Marcus, stems all the way through, like within us and Simon son over the following year.
And and then I, won Moloka in 2019 on a board that Marcus and I actually built like in, in his backyard. And and that was the last, that was the last time the race was held. So you're the defending champion, theoretically. . Yeah. Look, four years, , I only have to race once.
Yeah. So yeah, no, it's it was a little project that for sure. Yeah. So I just wanted to share that. That's a classic older video. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. That's the main, yeah. Marcus is now all clean cut too. He is. Got his hash and he is shaved and he wouldn't recognize him. . Yeah.
And just so I'm in the background, so are you staying at his place right now or? Yes. I'm just, I'm over here in wa I was just cause we've just we're working together now with fun code foil, so it's been set started there that year deep that's, and then sent over and now with code foils and so it's pretty cool.
But yeah, I marks my good mates and yeah, I'm over here in wa I was just doing a foil camp up in Exmouth and so I've flowed back down. get back to your history though. Okay. So then you started doing the kind of the racing and also computing as a subs, surfer subs, surfery competition.
. Yeah. Yeah. my, my best result in the subs surfing stuff was the second place at Sunset. I lost a ca vaz , but it was basically I got the, it was a good year for me. Like the surf was good, my ball was good. And that was, yeah, second place and that was, I was pretty stoked.
And that year I won the overall race and surf sup champion, there wasn't an official world champion sort of thing, but it was like a thing they're trying to award, overall athletes, not just thes athletes, not just the races race athletes, but the overall. So I think that was 20 must have been like 2016 kind of time where I won that sort of thing.
And that's probably the biggest, sup sort of world champion sort of thing I've done in that. But yeah, I did all that until until Covid hit really, I was doing all the s sub surf events and a lot of the supp race events and then foiling came out. It stalled the momentum, with the sup stuff because foiling the reason I got into the sup racing was because I I'm a surfer first, so I've always, I've, I still surf short boards longboards foils now, obviously and standups.
But surfing was where it all started. And when I got into sap, competing in standup was all about s surfing and downwind racing, because to me, downwind racing was like longboarding out to sea and you're just trimming the whole time. So it's kinda like the longboard sort of style. . And then when the foils came out and you were, I started down winding them pretty early.
I was like, this is like short boarding out to sea. I'm not long boarding anymore. I'm like, we are surfing now. And so that to me was like a real light bulb moment. And a lot of people are like, oh, you don'ts race anymore. And I'm like, oh, I still do the local events. Like I, I was at the Aussie champs last year and still do a bunch of the local events.
But yeah the foiling is and the downwind foiling especially is mind blowing honestly. It's it's pretty crazy. And I guess my foil history I started, I actually met Alex Aue when I was over in Maui for a ppp race event. And I was introduced him through the Spencers. So Jeffrey and Finn were testing ups to go for stuff Me.
Oh Jimmy, you gotta meet Alex, you're gonna love this foiling stuff. And so I was actually staying with Vinny and Vinny Martinez and j Jake Jensen. And we were all in a house together. Cause we're doing a race and because I was introduced to Alex basically, but Vinny and I were both slopping boards and so we only had one foil set up.
Cause Alex lent us a board and a foil, like one of the original cars. And we were out at Kaha lowers trying out then a bunch of other spots between there and who keep and just if one of us was on the fall, the other one would be on like a bigger surf up just filming each other with a GoPro.
And we were just trying to get the shot of us flying above the water. And that was the, and as soon as we left there, we were like, man, I said to Alex, I gotta buy one, like when can I buy one? And he's, okay. That must have been like a sep September sort of time of year. It's 2016 and then maybe it was 2017 but around that time and I ordered probably the first go fall to ever arrive in Australia,
It arrived in like November just before the event, the ISA event in Fiji. And I remember going over there, I was over there to race the distance race on the standup, but I brought this foil with me and on the, when we were all surfing cloud break and whatnot in between the events and I was towing behind the boat.
on the drive out on my gofoil set up. And people are losing their shit. Oh, everyone's having a go. And that was the start of, the foil brain and the downwind stuff. And yeah, it's been a cool, it's been a whirlwind four years, since then, or I guess five years, six years since then.
But yeah then I was, and I heard like the first time you tried to do a downwind foil downwind, was it with the ca foil? Yeah, so it would've been just after I got from Fiji, I went over to Western Australia and there's a race called King of the Cut and all those, so it's really good downwind run cause the, you get these sea breeze and it's like super consistent.
And basically one day we went out with my square JP board and the gofoil and must have been, the board must have been like seven two by 26, but a square not like the boards nowadays had this kind of pointy tails and stuff. Pointy noses, not long and skinny and . We went out the Mandra run and we paddled, A friend of mine, Matt and I we were swapping boards, so one of us on the foil set up, one of us was on a race board stuff.
And basically we did the run I think is about 10 kilometers, 10 or 11 Ks. We did half the run and we swapped out and I got up twice, which looking back, I'm actually pretty stoked, could get up. I got up twice for about a total of like maybe 50, 60 meters up on Foil . And I was like, man, this is hard.
Cause we'd seen Kyle Leni do it on his, longer board. Oh, he must just need a longer board longer skinnier board at that time. And cuz Kai was on a sorn off race board, it's 12 foot kind of thing. It's funny how in the foiling world everything just comes back, right?
So like and then, cause now we're going back to that, but this was in 20, it must have been 2016 or 17. . But anyway, it doesn't really. And then I said to Alex, I think I need a bigger foil. So he sent me over the original malico the blue one that isn't curved down. It's like a flatter one.
It was actually ahead of its time because it was it was higher aspect, than the macOS were. And like when I got that one, I got home and I did a downwind run from maybe I was, anyway I started downwind once I got that foil and once I had that bigger foil, I was getting up pretty much straight away because of my my, my sort of s racing and downwind knowledge.
I could read the bumps well enough and was powerful enough to get up and foil and once up, I think I was just chasing bumps and it was, yeah, it was sick, but I had the, yeah that one definitely humbling moment where we got five Ks and 50 meters of foiling, , so yeah.
Yeah, . But even for you, it wasn't easy to get started, but yeah, no way. No way. But the right equipment makes a big difference for sure. Yeah even just the slightly bigger foil was the biggest, the difference for me. I think I was still on the same board more or less. I can't remember my first successful downwind run actually because I definitely had gone to Maui again and I did a downwind run with Finn and Jeffrey on a prone board.
We went from Kua to Sugar Cove and we were paddling into waves and then falling around. And then Alex had this 10 foot, it was like a square board. It was a like just a, he called it the aircraft carrier. It was super long and he'd just put a little bit more rocker in it. Yeah, super light. And I paddled that thing up easy and once I was up I was like, I was good to go thing.
Cause the downwind knowledge I had from racing standups just translated straight across. But I remember that first run of that big board and it was like, oh, this is pretty cool. , this is pretty epic. Boiling down wind is, As I said before, short boarding and like surfing down the coast rather than, trimming on the longer, unlimited or 14 foot stops.
Six. Wait, did you say you were prone foiling on a 10 foot board? Is that what it was? Nah, so I was, I was, I'll stand up, I'll stand up paddling on that one. Yeah, that was the aircraft carrier. It was like nine or 10 foot. long, long, but it was like square. It literally it was like this shape.
Yeah. The early kma boards were like that too, right? That's at the time everyone thought that's how you get it as short as possible by just cutting off the nose and tail and like its square . Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting that one Alex made actually and, and it was it was like looking back at it if he just refined that shape.
It was long and it it wasn't super skinny. It was probably like 25 or 26 wide, but it was like eight foot and just it was square for stability while going. Narrow for speed and long for speed. Looking back, like there's a lot of things that led us to, the latest design that, Dave has famously invented, the Barracuda style boards.
Yeah. And then you're still a team writer for Sunova, right? So when did that relationship start with Sunova? So just that video you shared before was the year after? So it was it was just as when I got my Go Foil I started on JP boards, so that was November. And then the following year, January, February, I signed with Sunova.
And the first thing I did was like, okay, we need to get on, we need to make foil boards because foiling is where it's gonna be. And so I went over to Thailand and we tested a bunch of staff and we drew up with Bert Berger. He was over there and Marcus was back here. So we didn't, but Bert and I drew up our first sort of, Foil board range, and it was long, they basically weren't thick enough.
So I, my first s foil board that I did with them was seven two by 24 and a half, which like is a pretty good dimensions looking back like how it's aged. But it was super thin. Yeah. So it was only like, it was only like 80 liters or something. And for me it was fine. But I remember going, starting on that and then Marcus took over designing the FOIL awards cause he was head starter foiling too.
And it made sense cause he understood it. And so we basically the rails on Bert's board were like super pointy like this. Yeah. And then Marcus just made him thicker and had the, added the chime in and that extra volume allowed us to go shorter. And a bit narrower. Yeah. And a bit narrower too with the same sort of volume.
But yeah, I guess our the Sunova relationship was, has been, is epic. , we're still designing a bunch of boards. We've got a bunch of prototypes coming. And yeah, there's, because I persuaded them to build these foil boards, I said, ah, and then I built like a, created the Casey brand.
They're like, okay we'll put the Casey logo on it. And, it's your job to curate the design with Marcus and make sure you write the design specs and the, the website, outline, explain to people what it is. So yeah, that relation relationship with Suno has been really good.
And obviously like racing, they were helping me fly around the world and travel and and the stop surfing stuff. And yeah, it's been a very healthy relationship with the boys in Thailand. The over. . Yeah. And then for, regarding the foil, so I guess you were writing for Gold Foil and then at some point you tried a whole bunch of different foils and you ended up writing for access.
So how did that ha all happen and what was yeah. Sorry. I was writing for Gofo for five years so Gofo for five years and basically, started with the Kai and then the MACO came out and then the EVA and the maico 200 and all that sort of stuff came out. And then the GLS came out, which was like mind blowing cuz they were these higher aspect things.
Then the P 180 and basically I've all the way up to the RS and the GT wings. I was a part of the team and it was just, yeah, it was, I was just craving a bit more input in the design process because go for guys are just like fully Maui based and they've got a pretty good test team in Maui. They've got Dave and they've got.
Jeremy Rigs and they got, Alex himself is great at testing too, so they didn't really need me. And unless I was there, and when I was there, I was heavily involved in the testing stuff. And remember vividly testing shimming the tail wing. We were out, off or out of Kalu Harbor in Alex's boat.
And Connor and I were both testing some Damon wings for the, there was an oli, the Oli race was coming up. And so we were testing like how to shim, like basically we're tuning our foils to get 'em as fast as we could for the race. And unfortunately that year the wind was blowing like straight on shore, so it was just a course race.
But the race we did was they dropped us out outside basically between uppers and lowers at Kaha. And we raced all the way back into shore. And I remember that, was that where there was a huge surf too coming in or was that huge surf? Yeah. Yeah. And a few guys, I think I got up last. , but I think Austin climber fell off in the surf
This got maxed out. You got a bomb coming through and it was a, that was a pretty cool race that was just like full, like figuring it out, yeah, and it was a bit murky water coming through. I hit something coming in through at the end, but it was sick. It was a cool race. But yeah, so we I'd worked a lot with Alex and Alex was literally I've got a house over in Maui and my family is a house over in Maui and he's actually, we actually share a boundary with Alex.
We're not direct next door neighbors, but like over the back fence, like Alex is our neighbor, so it's oh, cool. There's a pretty cool relationship. When I was in Maui, like last time I was in Maui Alex had literally picked me up and we'd go, okay, we're gonna go test this thing, James. Come on, let's go.
And yeah, it was super cool to be doing that. But the problem was when I wasn't in Maui, I couldn't test anything and I was only really in Maui, maybe one or. once or twice a year, and only really for maybe a total of three weeks. So I just, I was craving more input in the design and pushing the envelope to race the wings.
But also I guess with my coaching stuff I wanted to be able to, have input to help people learn to. So yeah, about 18 months ago, I, announced I was leaving Gofoil and tried a bunch of different foils. was trying lift stuff, I was trying uni foil stuff access Armstrong.
What else did I try? I felt like there was some cloud nine stuff too. And basically I, and I spoke to 'em all and basically the access guys were really keen to work on a range of foils with me. And basically in the last 18 months with access, I reckon I prototyped. probably 50 sets of gear, wow.
It was kinda like, be careful what you wish for , because then my job was like, one of the things they sent out six different towel wings. They didn't tell me what they did, but they said, go out and try them and tell me what you feel. And basically little examples like that.
And, so we tried a bunch of different stuff and it was an awesome relationship with Evan and Adrian. And I was on the phone to Adrian after every session. And that was exactly what I craved, like with Gofo, I did the same thing, but I only spoke to Alex every now and then.
Cause I only got prototypes every, once or twice a year. Whereas with access, I was getting like every month they were sending out a box of gear and saying, test this stuff for us, test that for us. And it was epic. And if fast forward to now, I guess I'm, I've just announced that I'm working with basically a few mates of mine, Marcus, Ben, and Dan.
And. basically creating our own brand, which is super exciting. Working with Code Falls and look, if this hadn't come up, I'd definitely still be working with Access because there was, there's basically, there's no bad blood with access. Like we're there we're still mates.
Adrian's actually coming up. I'm just gonna miss him in Perth, but he's coming over and I've left a bunch of gear for him cause, given some of the gear back and yeah, they want me to come over. Adrian wants to come over to New Zealand and do a downwind foil clinic and yeah, but they were cool, especially like going know when I told them about when I told them about joining code about a month ago, they were obviously a bit upset, but they were super cool and they're like, they were stoked for me that we, that I was creating my own thing.
So they weren't they weren't angry at me, and the beauty is we're still mates I guess. So it's it's cool. But as I said, like the relationship with Code Falls was really good. So it's, I'm sorry. Talk a little bit about that. So code photos, like who's behind it and what's the business plan and so on.
Yeah, so basically Marcus and Ben basically ha they're brothers. They, their Batard brothers and they've been designing their own or basically in the sunova range. Marcus has been doing all the foil and stuff boards for a while and Ben Tark has been doing the same for one and basically for them to be working together.
It's pretty cool cuz they've got some seriously good design brains and yeah, they just, they asked me did I wanna be a part of this company they're building and yeah, I was like, yeah, let's do it. Because I've worked with Marcus for, I guess five or six years now and I've known Ben for a bit longer and Basically the plan is to, just create foils for, for sorry, the dog's just done a fart.
the plan is stinks, stubby . The plan is to create foils that that we want to use, you know and that I can teach with too. Cause my coaching business is super important thing too. So at the moment we've just had one, we've had two prototypes. Basically we've got a sort of surf wing and think it's around eight 50 square centimeters.
And we've just had a prototype race wing that literally, I've only tried it twice, two or three times now, and it's been. Really positive. Like the whole philosophy I guess behind it is we want our stuff to be stiff and solid and the mast and the connection to the base plate, to the mast, it's all one.
But like the connection point is overbuilt, but it feels so nice and stiff. And then likewise the master to the fuse. The fuse is thick and so that's, I'm seeing if I have one actually I've got a mask just here. I can show that. Yeah. Why don't you show us? Is it all one, you said it.
The fuselage and front wing and tail wing are all one piece. No. So the don't think I've got a, a tail wing or No, there's none around to you. They must markers, must took it . But yeah. Yeah. Show the mask. So yeah, you can see like the, see how that's pretty chunky down the bottom here. But we just find it adds extra stiffness.
And even the base plate's pretty, pretty chunky too. Uhhuh . And then the connection to the. , this is a thicker it's just like probably 30% thicker than the, like most other brands. , just, this just allows more Fuse to get onto. So that makes the fuse a bit chunkier. Yeah. What we found straight away was that it was just super stiff, even though like our first prototype, but everything was just so well connected.
So yeah. The base plate things that I was talking about and then the fuse connection was just super solid. And that to us was a really important thing coming out with a brand now and like after seeing a bunch of brands, work on certain things, then realizing their mask is a bit stiff, isn't stiff enough.
And having the connections to the front fall or the rear fall a bit, basically don't want any flex. So having that able to see what other fall brands have done, we've learned from that and basically created a pretty. Pretty what I'm loving, especially in the surf, the eight 50, it's super well connected and a lot of people, so is it, is the fuselage like aluminum like the access foils or is it more like the lift flows where it's like a front piece together with the Yeah, it's yeah, more like the lift and uni foil sort of stuff.
How it's just like the front one goes on and then the fuse bolts on. Like a lot of people are comparing it to the cab, how it's on the angle, so Oh, you kind, yeah. So it's it's a super snug connection. , I can't, there was one just on the couch there, but Marcus just took off with it.
No worries. Show on the shop . But yeah, we're super So you, so are you actually a partner in the business or a team writer and r and d? Or like how does that work? Yeah. More of a partner not just team riders, which is why it's like an exciting. Sort of project.
So there's, we're building a brand up from nothing, so it's, yeah, four. then, so Marcus is, designer Sonova. Ben was a designer of one, no, is the designer of one. And then Dan, he's actually a, he lives three doors down and he's an architects builder, but he's really good at basically drawing everything up and making it all, so the designs, he puts it into software that makes the, it can blend everything so super clean and, slick looking connections.
And he's actually, he's been working the hardest of late trying to get all the files ready to build. It's been a, it's been a, it's been a busy month, that's for sure. Yeah. And that's why you're in Perth right now? I was actually over here to do a foil camp up in Exmouth, and I extended two days before and two days after, just so I could catch up with the team and.
and, talk about a lot of things and get some footage and just work on all things code as, as well as do a bit of work up the coast here. Just, it was good timing, it wasn't planned, it was just good timing. Cool. Yeah, like when we look at Australia on a Globe or something, it looks like a small little island, but to fly from Sydney to Perth is like a six hour flight or something, like three time zones, or what is it, three or four time zones?
Yeah. Yes. It's, I think it's a four and a half, five hour flight, depending on the winds. And yeah, it's a, it's three hours difference. Yeah. So back home when I chat to my wife, she's, at home now it's nine o'clock here and it's midday in, in Sydney. So yeah, it's a big country. It's a big country, that's for sure.
Yeah. I haven't been over and during Covid we actually couldn't fly to Perth Bec because. Everything was locked down, so it was, yeah, it's it was almost like a new country over here in Western Australia for a while. Yeah. Everything, everything went yeah. Starting new for company, with like access, they have so many different foils and design, like shapes, like different, so many different wings you can choose from and stuff like that.
So starting a new company, I guess one of the hard things is the tooling costs are pretty expensive. Every time you make a new wing you have to make a mold for it and all that. Yeah. And then if it doesn't work, you have to like toss that mold and make another one or whatever yeah, exactly. Yep.
It's not easy. Yeah, it's not easy at all. Yeah. The plan for the Rangers at the moment is we've got our surf wing all round, surf wing and downwind wing, which is the eight 50. So I've been surfing and down winding it , and it's been unreal in terms of size, it's. , I feel like the area's not that good a guide.
Cause we all know the one 20 probably surfs a bit bigger than what, or down winds a bit bigger than what the area is. . But it's, it, this eight 50 feels somewhere between the one 20 and the one 70. Probably like a one 30 or one 40 sort of size. If you were to compare in the lift range in the access range, it feels like an 8 99, so that's the kind of size that the one we have now. And we've got plans to build one bigger and one smaller , at the very least. And we're probably gonna go at least two bigger. So probably have five or six foils within that range. And then we're gonna do an, a race range, which we are busily working on now to get ready for mochi because it may only be March, but it takes time to build molds and test stuff.
And so we've got our first one here and we've it, it's great, but there's things we can improve upon it. So we're back to the drawing board and try to make it, better. And then we're gonna do like a more of a, lower aspect sort of style foil for basically bay runs, small, slow surf and just a sl a foil that goes slower so you can so especially for me when I'm teaching, I want, I wanna fall that I can teach with that isn't going so fast that it's like scaring people, and it doesn't have to be a really big foil to go slow. You can make us foil that is still like compact, that goes slow. So we they're the kind of the three rangers that we're working on. But really we're just focusing on getting everything released and the launch date, I guess for shops to, to have these code falls in shops for the eight 50 and I guess, and that's first surf range is or the all round range is the 1st of June.
So that's what we're working towards, which doesn't seem that far away. For us, but for everyone else, we're like, oh, June, that's like March, April, may, June. It's three months. But I think Robert, you probably know it, it takes more than just, the stuff is good now. We're just getting stuff, ordering like our, the manufacturing and logistics and stuff.
Yeah, just three months is not a long time. Not at all. So three, four months. Yeah, we're pushing hard, but it's and obviously we're hoping to have to release the bigger and smaller wings in that range. But it probably won't be till after June. So the first one will be the eight 50 that sort of slightly bigger than the lift one 20 sort of size 8 99 axis sort of size.
And then the rest will come after that. But yeah, baby steps because it all, the need a cost a bit, but it takes a lot of time too. So it's, yeah, it's been a. Spend a bit of a journey already. Just I'm only one, officially one week in . Cool. And then what about boards? Are you con gonna continue with Sonova making, like the Casey labeled boards or that, or are you gonna make code foil boards also, or?
No, at this stage we're gonna, like Ben still works for One Ocean Sports and Marcus and I still work for Sunova. So it just, it makes sense for us to stick with them, for the, yeah. For the time being because it's we've got great relationships with Ben's got a great relationship with Jacko at one and Mark and I have a great relationship with, Tino and Dylan at Sunova.
We don't wanna, we don't wanna break that relationship and Sure we've got good products and we're super happy with how it's all working. As is and the foils, are they made at the Sunova factory or where are they made? The fos are made in China. Yeah. So they're, that we've different factory, the Sunova.
Don't really do carbon fiber. I guess they're more of the bolser and polonia skins, which for a foil doesn't really work. . Yeah. It's a, it is a very specialized manufacturing process and yeah. Definitely not simple. You have to have Yeah. Get everything right. Especially like to make the mass stiff and torsional and all that, all that kind of different kind of things to consider.
But anyway, yeah. Cool. Congratulations. That's pretty exciting. Yeah. Super exciting. It's been, and let's talk about the Moloka race. Since 2019 we haven't had it. And then this year it's gonna be on July 30th, I think. And I got to see the list of people for the for the foil race.
And it's a pretty, pretty impressive list. A lot of people are entered. Yeah, including you and Kailan and a bunch of other really top top writers are doing the foil race, so I almost feel like that's gonna be like the main event, almost like the down one foiling, yeah. But yeah, talk a little bit about that.
Yeah. Obviously 20 Montana wanna 'em a stand up and uh, basically that was my goal. That was when I first started stop Racing, my goal was to win Malachi to Oahu when I was stoked to be able to do that. And I dedicated to my dad who's now passed away. And that was a really emotional, experience to be doing that.
But I feel like to me, like a lot of people are like, oh, you gotta do it again. Go back to back on the s And to me, I feel like it's almost not that chapter's done, but it's like I've achieved what I wanted to achieve on the standup. Not only that, since I started racing mochi on a sap, like the first year I did that, there were 15 to 20 big names.
And probably of those we five people could have won it. The previous year, the year I won, there were probably only like probably five or six people that were like really racing it com like super competitively with a win. And of that sort of five or six, there was probably only two or three or four that were real serious contenders.
So it, what I've seen is the s downwind supp racing has declined a bit, or a lot. Yeah, for sure. Like all the guys that were downwind, downwind, standup paddling are now supp foiling or just, prone or they're downwind foiling now.
So to me the sport that I was interested in has shifted to foiling, so for me, the foil stuff, it was even in 2019, I was foiling like a lot. And for Malachi, I put my, gave myself a bit of a foil band and Marcus was foiling and training for the foiling and He was like, come on, Jimmy, come on the phone.
I'm like, nah man, I just gotta, I just gotta tick this off. I gotta win this race on the standup and I just wanna, I wanna get that done. And yeah, I'm stoked I did that because then it wasn't on for 20 20, 20 21, 20 22, and it's just come back in 2023. I could have been I could have been, still wanting to win it on a standup and, not having it mean for a while.
They were talking about maybe doing the the foil event on a Saturday and then the paddle and prone event on the Sunday. If they would do that, would you do try to do both or would you just Only on foiling? Oh, I'd focus on foiling, but like the factors on the day before, I'd do both because I'm over there, so I, and I still have all my gear over there. It's all ready to go. The only thing is the extra cost. The moloka to a race is not a cheap event, and an escort boat is super expensive. And hard to find. That's one of the biggest challenges I think like this year especially. Cuz during the pandemic, a lot of the escort boats got out of the business or they, sold their boats or got into fishing or doing other things and then, yeah.
So it's actually gonna be really hard to find escort boats for all the competitors I think. Big time. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah that, I'm lucky enough, I've got the same boat captain and Andrew he actually hit me up. He goes, I got a few people asking you doing mochi cuz people are hitting me up to do their escorting on it.
Your first, you won it last year so last time we did it. So you are, you're my first guy and he is like, and he goes, and I hope you're foiling . Cause obviously for a boat it's quicker on a foil. Yeah. You need a fast boat to it, . Yeah, exactly. So yeah. Yeah. I signed up to do it on a wing foil this year, so I'm excited to, to be wing foiling.
Yes. It's so cool that they did a wing event too. I assume. The wings should win. Like the wings should be the quickest really. But it'd be interesting to see how they go on the final bit. That up win leg could be pretty, there'd be a bit of tacking going on, and if there's no win, yeah.
Going into the finish is gonna be tricky. But for you to, for you guys too, going into the wind with a Yeah, it's the same. Yeah, it's, yeah. And the foil board's gonna be super cheeky yeah. But yeah, last year we had that blue water race where jack hole came in like third overall I think the first two finishers were wing foyers and then he came in third, so he beat a lot of wing foyers on the standup foil board, yeah, pretty fast.
Cuz you can go straight down wind versus on a wing, you have to angle more, a little bit angle off. Yeah. Yeah that's a big question. Can you go quick enough over further distance to, to beat the sub guys? We're going more direct I guess, but Yeah, I think you said you did the king of the cut with where there was wingers and standup foyers, a king of the cut race or something. Yeah. I haven't done it when there's wingers because it wasn't on last year and the year before. In 2019, winging wasn't a thing, wasn't a, what, people weren't racing. So the last time I did King of the Cup was 2019 and then Covid hit, so we couldn't get over here.
And then when everything opened up last year, end of 2022, the King of the Cup wasn't on anymore. Basically all the volunteers, but they couldn't get enough volunteers together. But have you competed in any doman races that have both wingers and standup foil? I don't think I have actually. Yeah. I don't think I have.
Yeah. I haven't competed again or rice against. It'll be interesting to see. Yeah. Who's faster . Yeah. You would think, definitely like with the Wing, you do have an unfair advantage and you can probably use a smaller, faster foil, yeah. But yeah, I think it, I think there's Yeah. A lot of, yeah.
Yeah. A lot of animals that go into, I've had the Marcus about this, and he did the race when speaking of the cup when there were wingers and foyers and the wingers smoked them, not only because they were from the start, they were up and going. But smaller foils, they're using small foils.
They're using big wings, like big sails and yeah. They're just, , they're moving. Yeah. The wings were quicker, even though they were having to go a little bit further distance. They were faster by, by fair bit, actually, five, 10 minutes I think it was. Okay. That's good to know.
Yeah. Cool. So yeah, I think that's gonna be super exciting. We're gonna try to interview some more people that are in that race and yeah, it should be fun to be part of it, the first time they're doing wing foiling too, yeah. So actually, have you done much wing foiling or just more focused on down winding and surf foiling?
Yeah, more focused on down winning and surf oiling. But I, I've done the, I guess the stuff the wing that I do is mainly around wave riding. So I'm, and not even heirs. So I'm, I do a few, hes, but I'm not a trickster. Like I don't, I'm I'm not as interested in the big jumps and the flips as I am, like the calves and, the re-entries and the cutbacks and that sort of stuff.
So to me winging, winging is like poor man's towing, it's like toe falling cuz you can to toe yourself into the wave and then you just drop it in the back end and you're just surfing like you would anyway. So it's And then talk a little bit about I know you've done like upwind on the wing and then deflate and then just go down one with the wing under your arm or something like that.
Or put on your back. Yeah. The wings is, talk a little bit about that. It's such an epic tool for that. So in Sydney especially, we get a lot of days where the wind is in winter we get offshore breezes, so it's like howling like 30 knots offshore. And we can go into sort of harbors or bays or river entrances and we can like big river entrance and we can what we do is we wing up wind, like five ks up wind, which is like almost 10 Ks cuz you have to z and zag up wind.
You attacking. And then I'll I, in what a lot of guys were doing was they were going on onto the shore, deflating their wing on a beach, rolling it up, putting the backpack, and then paddling up. And I was like, why are we doing this? Why don't we just deflate it on the water? So I started deflating on the water wrapping up trail on the backpack.
It was a bit wet, bit soggy, but it was still doable. . And then I was like why am I sitting down and doing, why don't I just deflate it whilst en foil? So I deflate it whilst en foil and then hold it under your arm until you stop. And then you've got your paddle on your back knee. You pull that out once you're ready.
But yeah, and then I was chatting with mate and I'm like cuz it's this run we do it's in a river and basically there's a national park so you can't drive. It's hard. It's like a bit of a, it's like a two or three K hike to get to the beach that you'd start at. . So instead of going there, we actually just start at the finish point and we wing up wind and then we do our pack down, however you wanna do it.
And then we'd go like most of the way back to the finish. But you can go, there's two options you need to pull in to this little bay where the car is, where you can go around this headland and there's like, it's just a peninsula, so it's a sand spit and you can go around the other side so you get like an extra three or four kilometers.
So I guess two, three miles of down winding and it's just it's like a kilometer. Upwind back to the beach. And so what I was doing was I was de like doing my deflate, like wing up wind deflate at the top of the run, and then I'd wing all the way down to the bottom of the run and I rigged up this soda stream bottle so I could use press a button and it reinflated the wing whilst I was up on fo.
So instead of sitting down and pump, I was actually pumping up the wing. Prior to this, I was pumping up the wing of the water. Yeah. And I'd I sort do it that way. But yeah, the soda stream bottle is pretty sick. So you also don't have to carry that big pumper around, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly right.
Yeah. But I heard someone say that the carbon dioxide is like not good for your bladder or something like that, that they used to do that with kites and it wasn't good for the bladder or something like that. Have you had any problems, like with your bladders or anything like that from the, I've only done it like three or four times.
The soda, I use a soda stream bottle and I just rigged that up. So it's just a big, like a big CO2 canister. And yeah, I'm sure it's not great for it, but it was I still pump up on the water a lot of the time because to set up the Soda Stream bottles is a pretty specific thing, whereas I can just grab my pump and a dry bag and I'm good to go.
, whereas the soda stream, gotta, you gotta attach it onto the boom and, have the hose. And it was just a cool it was an idea that Matt made of on Grant Perry and I worked on for a little while and yeah he, he's on a, he's on an E four, so he filmed it all.
It was a pretty cool little clip. Yeah, it still has a lot of function, but yeah, the biggest thing that we noticed was when you did the co2 the wing itself got really cold. So the CO2 was a really super cold air. And it like sort frosted the now the outside of the.
The canopy or the inflatable edge of the stratt. Yeah. The leading edge was like, freezing around the belt, probably especially, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not sure how good it is for the long term . I haven't tested it enough times to know, but I've done it four or five or three or four times and it was fine.
Prob actually probably four or five times. It didn't it didn't blow anything up. We tested it on land first because we were worried about that. What's gonna happen here? But yeah, it was sweet. It was sweet. Nice. There's I'm sure there'll be like, there's, I feel like there's a bit of a, there's a bit of a potentially a cool market in that, like if you can cuz winging down wind is epic.
Yeah. But it takes a bit of wing management. So like I find it easier to downwind with a paddle than I do with a wing. Cause once I have the wing and I'm like letting go of it and it's just, flagged out, it's behind me. , it's all in front of me, I've got, if I change directions, , there's a bit of technique to either, you either swap hands or you've gotta bring it behind you and drop it down behind you and try to, it's there's a bit of, there's a bit of admin to, to keep the wing out of the way and not yes.
To be able to go the same lines. Cuz what I find is when I'm wing it, I'm gonna cut across the wind a lot more than I would when I downwind. Even if I've just got flagged out to go straight down wind, the wing wants to blindfold you, essentially. So that's where it came from. The whole deflate thing.
I I love the downwind thing, but, and I winging up wind was the free shuttle, but the downwind part, I was like, man, this wing just doesn't get, doesn't get outta the way and back home I'm using a four or five meter wing most of the time when I'm down winding. It'd be easier with a two or a three obviously.
it's even easier for you to stay Flighted. . Yeah. What I've been doing for if you're doing, if you're racing downwind, what you can do is just put the wing up over your head and have it almost level so that if you're going faster than the wind, straight down wind it's just of been neutral over your head, so that works pretty well too, but it's, yeah, but it's not really, your sounds get tired. Yeah. Your arms get tired, right? Yeah, not so much cuz you can't really stay in that po you can do that when you're on a good bump and you go really fast, straight down wind. But then once you of come off the bump and you catch the wind again, so you bring the wind, bring it back down, wind, wind back down and stuff like that.
But yeah, that makes a lot of sense for like speed going down wind, because you're like, I was thinking too, like the electric pumps are getting pretty good, like battery powered electric pumps. I wonder if you could set up something like that, but then you have they probably can't get wet, so be hard to make that waterproof.
So yeah, I've had so many people hit me up and say, oh, you should try this electric pump. And I'm like, yeah, but electric I'm in the water. Like it's going to get wet. If I fall off all of a sudden that's 30, 40 bucks down the drain and electricity and water is something I don't really wanna be too close to.
Yeah. Yeahium battery and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. The other, I think even better options, you just get a decent pump. Like electric pumps are great, but like you get good pumps that, like hand pumps instead of the ones we stand on and get hand pumps. Yeah. And you can just pump it up. It doesn't take that long.
And a lot of the time I'll just deflate the leading edge and leave the middle strut inflated. So it's just pumping up the leading edge. So it's not the end of the world. And water in a pump is a lot less. It's less worse, it's less bad than water in a electric pump . Yeah.
And you can make 'em pretty small to the hand pumps maybe. Yeah. Actually it's cause you definitely don't want something that you have to push against your board or something like that cuz it's like everything's moving around. It's more almost like you want two handles that you can push together or something like that.
Yeah. Accordion style pump. That'd be pretty serious. Yeah. Oh, there you go. . Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I just think it's all coming. It's all part of the evolution and I think I was probably people think it's a bit, hard to do or whatever, but I promise you any wingers out there who wanna learn a downwind like and downwind like we do on a sap or.
it's way easy to learn to daylight your wing than it is to learn to paddle up . I guarantee you. Yeah. There's this guy, Paul, that he wants to do like channel crossings and stuff like that. And like one of the risks is that your paddle breaks, right? So he's thinking as a backup, he's gonna take a wing and a pump with him, so that just paddle breaks or you can't, the, you can, as long as there's wind you can, wing with it, so yeah. I think a better backup plan is the hand paddles. Have you guys seen those? Oh yeah. They just, you can, cause they're much smaller, like a wing and a pump gets pretty heavy. And that's gonna, that's gonna limit your ability to paddle up, which is probably gonna increase the chances of you breaking your paddle
Cause the more you're paddling and the more weight you have to paddle. That's the biggest disadvantage of the deflate downwind. Is that once you wrap it all up and put it in a backpack, The extra weight of the wing, like it's probably maybe five or six kilos.
So it's a lot of water weight too, if it's still wet, right? Yeah, it's a lot of water weight and so I've actually done some of my fastest ever like downwind runs when I've had the wing in my backpack because the extra weight, I can just go faster, but it's way harder to get up. Oh, that, that's an interesting point actually.
And I wanted to talk about that as well. And cuz Dave Klo also says in the down windows, when he is going fast, he likes a little bit heavier board just for better, more momentum and stability and more. Yeah. And I found that too actually, that sometimes weight is a good thing and lot of people I talk to is no weight is never good.
You just wanted the lightest gear possible, you and it totally depends, like in my experience that's not really true. But what, how do you feel about weight in the board and the foil and so on? Like you said, like wearing weight on your back actually helps with going faster. Yeah, no big time.
So the only thing is so Dave, for example, if it's only 10 knots, Dave being heavier compared to me will have a harder time getting up than I will if we're on the exact same foil. If Dave gets up and then, so let's change it up. So let's say it's a really windy day and Dave and I are on the same foil, the same setup, exactly the same, but he's heavier.
Once we're up on foil, he should be faster. Ju just based on, and this is not taking into account how you read a bump or how you do all that, and you're pumping ability or any of that. But just on the, if you were going in a straight line together then, and you're next to each other on the exact same bump, Dave should be able to go faster than I can in big conditions, but in smaller conditions on the same foil.
If he's slightly under foil, I'm just right, then I'm gonna go quicker. So the weight is a big thing and it's a hard thing to plan for because look, you're not gonna, you're not know for mochi, Oahu, the start of the race is generally a lot lighter than it is at the, in the middle.
. So if I'm to, if I'm to wait my board for the start of the race, I'm gonna have a harder time to paddle up. But if I can get up with that heavier board, it's gonna be better for me in the middle. . But the other thing with Malachi is you got the off wind at the end. So you, I think for a race like Malachi where there's lots of different conditions, there's definitely an advantage for the lighter guys and lighter equipment, but not in the middle of the channel, just for the beginning and end.
Yeah. Because for the middle of the channel, a big guy can probably make up a lot of ground on the guys that are smaller, but they've gotta be able to get up early and then foil as far as they can, as close they can to the finish. So it's interesting, there's a few things going on fo I can't wait to get into this foil racing because I've done a bunch of downwind fall races here in Australia, but mainly against surf skis in ri canoes and a few mates who are learning.
I have, the best race I've had has been over here in Western Australia against the all the WA crew and Marcus and then Z Westwood, but there was heaps of seaweed, so it was like, it was who could foil through the seaweed best and bit of a like, it it was like a obstacle course, but yeah, I'm looking forward to getting outta Hawaii and getting some.
Some good rising and good conditions for sure. Should be fun. Yeah. Not too much seaweed in Hawaii, but yeah, sometimes I've noticed like just a little tiny thing that stuck on your foot makes a big difference in your speed, so huge. Yeah. Yeah, I was just thinking the way too, like I remember, back in the windsurf racing days, like slalom racing and stuff guys would wear like weighted jackets, like weighted life jackets so they can hold a bigger w sale basically, yeah. So that's another interesting thing, like yeah, where you wouldn't think that it doesn't really make sense, but when you're using he heavy equipment sometimes it's wow, this is nice, yeah. Anyway, but uh, you've seen the, to the to foil guys do it a bunch too lids on a big weighted heavy board putting lead, lead weights on their boards and stuff like that.
Yeah. And that just means they can get away with a Basically going faster with the same foil, because I think especially in the toe falling and stuff, we're just in the, tip of the iceberg. There's a whole bunch of stuff that's gonna be like, basically I think toe oil is gonna be a lot smaller than what they are, so you shouldn't have to weight it up.
You should just be able to use a smaller foil. But at the moment, the foils have too much lift, and we've gotta weight our gear up to make them work. So it's, I just think the fo they aren't enough. There aren't enough iterations of it yet. I think it's similar to also, it's similar kind of to having a longer fuselage.
It's less pitch sensitive. So if you have a heavier board, it balances out that pitch sensitivity, yeah. True. Lightboard will just, Harder to control the pitch and the heavier board just has so much momentum that you don't have to make as many adjustments, it's like more comfortable ride in a way, absolutely. Absolutely. But there, I think there's something to it, I, I would say lighter is not always better. That's what some people think, but it's not true. Yeah. I don't, I feel like for what most of us are using, like in, in smaller waves the lighter stuff is epic.
Cuz a light set up is gonna be really reactive. . But when you start to get too much power and too much speed and that's when you want the heavy stuff, that's when you wanna dull everything down. Yeah. It's like having a nicer suspension or something, like a smoother, smoother ride or something like that.
I don't know. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. All right let's talk a little bit more about equipment, like the foils. What have you learned from riding all these different foils and and what, now you're developing the quote foils, like what, what kind of things are you trying to put together and what, I guess when you're down with foiling, you're always trying to create a foil that's easy to pump up on and then fast and easy to control at the maximum speed or, has a high top end speed.
So how do you do that? What's, how do you achieve that compromise? Yeah, so I guess if we talk about the range, like we've got our, like the planned range for co, the planned range for code foils is a race wing, which is obviously gonna be super as high aspect as we can get it because we want to be going, be able to go really slow and really fast.
with the one foil, like for a race like mochi, you start in pretty much, no bumps. It's like howling offshore, but it's, there's no fetch in the middle. So at the beginning you need that foil that can paddle up easily, and then in the middle you wanna fall. That can go fast cause you're out in the middle of the ocean.
There's a lot of stuff going on. And then at the end of the race, you've got an upwind pump. So like you need a foil that can pretty much do it all. And that's what we see a race wing is, I, it's something that it doesn't necessarily we don't want it to turn really well. Like we prefer to add another, two kilometers on the low end and two kilometers on the top end, rather than have it be able to do really nice roundhouse cutbacks.
. Because for racing it's not so much about turning, it's more about speed. It's the first across the line. It's not who's the most stylish along the way. And then we have our sort of all round range, which is that more combination of. Yeah, we wanted to go quick. We wanted to be able to paddle it up pretty slow too, but we wanna be able to turn it too.
And so that's what the eight 50 is like. It's the one that we're releasing first. It's an all round wing. You like, we've used it for down winding and done some pretty quick times. And then we've done it. We've used it in the surf and it's super fun. So all the clips, I, the one that, that video I shared that was all on the eight 50 and I've gone as fast as two minute kilometers, like two minute flat and as slow as like 3, 3 15.
So the range on that foil is pretty good from what we've tried so far. Which so super pleasing. So going from a race foil to a more carving, surfing foil, is it just like the aspect ratio? Is it the wing tips? Like how do you make it turn easier and versus being more efficient, or going faster?
Yeah, it's there's a few things, right? There's the foil section's probably the most important thing, and you're probably not gonna use the same foil section for a race wing as you are. a sort of more all round wing, and then you've got the outline of the wings. That's the span and the cord.
And so obviously, a more all round foil is gonna be, lower aspect. It's gonna be, instead of being like, it basically it's high, it's as high as you can get it without, with it still being usable, and then the all round wing is something that's something that's still like high-ish aspect but it's, you don't wanna be so high aspect that you can't turn it.
So it's just finding that, that happy medium, it's hard to, and that's what the testing's all about, that's what we're playing around with now with the, we're really happy with the aspect ratio of the eight 50 actually don't have, all I know is the square centimeters. I don't know the span or the cord or anything, but, we'll, when release it, all that stuff will come out.
And then obviously the race swing's much, much higher aspect. And then the third range is the sort of, the. I guess this, you can use it for downwind, but it's main thing is it wants to go slow. Like it, it's designed to go slow and to turn really well. So basically the stall speed is much lower, which comes at the cost of, top speed.
But because it turns so well and it can go slow, you're just, it's more of a small wave, surf wing and down, learn to downwind wing and learn to wing w like just, it's not necessarily a learner's wing, cuz I still want to use it. I'm really excited to use it for, small bay runs or, top small surf or light wind wing days.
But it's the best foil. If you're getting into it, it's the best fall to. , but we don't wanna build it as a learn learner wing because it's not that it's gonna turn really well. So it's, and then that one probably has a little bit of a thicker foil section kind of thing or the problem. Yeah it, yeah we literally were just drawing it up last night and Yeah, it's gonna have, yeah, it's gonna have a, it's gonna be lower aspect again.
So basically high the race w's gonna be the highest aspect. The all rounders in the middle and the surf wings the lowest aspect. It's probably not gonna pump as well as the other ones, but it's gonna turn better, and that's, and it's gonna go slow really well. So that's our vision, that's, we feel like if we do those three fours, it covers everything that you need.
And yeah, so we, we've got the benefit of seeing other brands, do stuff like that too. And the uni foil progression and the new Armstrong mid aspect, it's that's the kind of that's the sort of area that I guess, Brands are pushing now. It's like that just surf.
It's not just about going fast, it's about going slow and being able to turn. Yeah. It's interesting how it went, like from, super boards went super short and then going longer again, super high aspect. And then going, now we're going short again, medium aspect again. So we got but I'm gonna share the screen of your this was the, your record paddle distance paddle.
Oh yeah. Yeah. This is, and so maybe let's talk about that a little bit and I guess like your wife was there with your baby. Yeah. Six, six week old son at this point. He was yeah, it was a journey and it was something that was organized and, obviously my wife was pregnant at the time.
We were organizing it and then, we had. Put it on ice while, the birth and everything happened, . And then once everything was our life was back in order, we're like, okay, let's have a look at, let's have a look at what we can organize. And yeah. So the goal was to go as far as you could in, in one day basically.
Yeah. So I was actually on, I was like just looking through the Guinness World record stuff. Cause I'm like, I wonder if there's like a foil, like a downwind foil record. And I was looking through it and lo and behold I found this this the record was furthest distance on a hydrofoil paddle board in 12 hours.
So basically we are like, okay, let's do it. So there's a bit of admin to get, like you need three witnesses on the boat. You need a, obviously you need a boat to get to the start point. You need to line it up with weather. And this was like a six month project that kind of came. Came all came together.
This is basically just six weeks after my son was born, which was yeah, which was cool to have it all come together. And was using the axis a r t 10 99. I would've loved to use a smaller fall, but as you can see, the start was pretty light conditions. The wind was actually pretty offshore at the beginning, , and there was a little bit of swell, which you can see, I'm just trying to tap into just here.
But at about three or four hours in the wind really kicked up and I wished I was on a smaller foil then. So at the beginning I wish I was on a bigger foil and at the end I wish I was on a smaller foil. And that's like what we're just talking about, the range of a foil.
Yeah. You want to be out. So right now, this is towards the end and I'm fully maxed out and you can see my stance changes. I get really far forward, get really square and yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of different conditions to negotiate that's for sure. So by square you mean like your toe is more pointed forward and more of that kind of stance?
Yeah. Like more offset, like my hips are forward, especially toward the last clip of me foiling in at the end was like my hip even now, look how look my hips are fully forward. That's cause I'm over foiled basically. Yeah. I'm just hanging on and because my, I've probably been standing for 10 hours.
My, your feet go pins and needles in your feet and you just, and your mus some muscles are not working anymore and yeah, it was tricky. Yeah. I can't even imagine pa like just standing that long and pumping and oh my god, it must have been pretty exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. This is, I hear you switching your bag
Yeah, the food changeover, we almost had it. So that's Zane Westwood, he was on the boat as my, foiling. He was a good, great foiling mate and he understands what I'm doing. So everyone to educate everyone else on the boat and. We just missed that little changeover.
We, we hadn't practiced it. We should have practiced it beforehand, but it ended up just when I came down, they just throw, throw me a big swap packs over and it's a pretty big escort boat too. , it's a huge escort boat, basically. We it was really hard to find an escort boat for this. And I had a mate who does whale watching tours and because we were filming it, he's oh, you gonna want a decent boat?
He had a smaller boat, but he is like to have, the production team plus support, plus the witnesses for Guinness to watch it. We needed a boat that could handle like, having eight to nine, even 10 people on board. So yeah, it was a full production. That's why it was so hard to organize, Yeah. Yeah. So I know you, you have a limited amount of time, so I don't want to keep you too long. But let's talk a little bit about do wind foiling and the technique. Can you give some pointers to people that are getting into how to get up on foil? And I've been doing it a bunch.
I, I wouldn't say I'm very good at it. I'm getting better at getting up on foil and we've done we have a training group where we do like the pop-up training and flat water, and I'm actually able to do it with just a little bit of push from some sw ground swell. But and so getting up for me wasn't too hard on a big foil, but then I guess keeping it going a lot of times I just felt like my, the foil wouldn't go fast enough to stay with the bump, so it kick out and then sometimes I would just lose momentum before I can catch the next one.
And so it just, yeah, maybe some pointers on downwind foiling. Yeah, I think the first thing is a lot of people say downwind foiling is the hardest thing you'll ever do, and. I'm not gonna say it's not, but I think a lot of people are just surround themselves straight into the deep end. Like conditions like we're watching now.
Like I wouldn't wanna be learning in conditions like that, but there's no way you wanna be learning in like back out in my coaching group, like the coach, I've got a club, I guess an online community with the coach Casey Club, where we talk about this every Tuesday, but like the, basically you want, there's bay runs which are basically shorter period shorter period bumps with just wind bumps and that happens in, harbors, rivers, lakes botany Bay and Sydney is one of the, one of the awesome places to, to do it.
And basically the advantage of that is it's easier to balance because you start in pretty much flat water and the flat water allows you to work on your. Your paddle skills and your balance without working your paddle skills and balance it's really very difficult because you're not gonna be able to stand on your board and be able to put power down to get going.
So I even say you should go for a paddle on your board just in Flatwater as like the first thing to do. Because if, cuz if you go out straight into downwind conditions, it's gonna be really hard to just to stand on your board especially with these new like long skinny boards, yeah, they make it easier to get up.
But being, something like 21 or eight, 19 or 18 wide, they're really had to stand on no matter how long they are. Like, there's a level of balance that is needed to be going into downward bump. So just to start out, my, my biggest tip is get your downwind set up and take it to a.
Piece of flat water, the flattest water you can find and just work on your paddle stroke, your paddle technique and work on activating the foil. You don't have to learn to paddle up onto foil, but you have to know how to paddle to a speed that your foil feels like it's doing something under you. And if your foil isn't activated you're probably not going fast enough to then get it up in bumps.
You don't have to learn to paddle up in flat water, in my opinion, to be able to downwind foil. It definitely doesn't hurt, but it's not the be all and end all. From there, once I've done a bit of time and I'm confident I can activate the foil and get that sort of pumping motion down, I'll then go into, like I said, like a protected zone as my son.
Yeah, he's so little cute. He's just started, he's just started walking now he's a tens one in a couple days. I'm sorry. I fly home tonight. Oh, nice. So that miss his birthday. But yeah, in terms of the bay runs, you wanna get out and bay runs so that basically that it's not that choppy.
And you want all the bumps going one direction. What a lot, what I've seen a lot of people do is when they're struggling is they go out into an ocean run and they got, the swell coming from the east and the wind coming from the south and there's waves going one direction and wind bumps going the other direction.
And that's really hard to learn to foil. And that's even hard for people that know how to foil to do it. But ideally you want all the wind going one direction. You want it to be shorter period. Shorter period. Bumps are much easier. Once you can successfully do an entire bay run so you can foil for, eight, nine Ks downwind in a bay, then you can think about going into the ocean, in the ocean, as you can see here.
There's lots of different bumps going every different direction. There's it. It's not clean. It's wild. And classify it, you've got your. Your bay runs, which I call like green runs, they are groomers. If you're on, in, on the mountain you'll start, when you learn to, when you learn to ski or snowboard, you're gonna start at, the training zone that's pretty much flat.
So that's our flatwater. Then you go to your green run and the green runs they're groomers. It's all nice and clean and easy and they, it's like corduroy bumps, right? Like corduroy bumps, slow moving. Yeah. . Yeah, exactly. Slow moving. And then once you get, once you do that, you then go to your blue runs.
And your blue runs is getting a bit steeper terrain, but it's still groomed. And that's an ocean run with no swell. So if you do an ocean run, obviously there's, it's hard to get no waves, but if there's just wind bumps, it's gonna make it much easier. So that's our blue runs. And then you go to your black diamond runs and that's when there's wind and waves going every other direction.
And that's just, it's not groomed. It's the opposite. It's wild. It's it's all over the place. They're the, that's the sort of the guide I guess. And like the, I mentioned before with the Coach Casey Club, I go through all that sort of stuff. And step people through it.
And it's it's a really cool community cuz a lot of people are going through the pain together. , a lot of people struggle learning to downwind foil and I can guide them into, even have a look at their local spot and say, okay, when the wind's blowing this direction, go check out go check out this spot.
Yeah. And if the winds blowing in this direction and what conditions you should be looking for and all that sort of stuff. So the KC Club is at K C A U s.com. Yeah. And so talk a little bit about that. If somebody wanted to yeah. Once you get into Darwin foiling, what kind of stuff do you offer on your coach Kiy club?
Yeah, so there's, I have two different parts within my, like my, my, my online or like my coaching business I guess I've got like in person. So if people are in Sydney or in Australia at some point, . They can join me for like a private session. I'll do one-on-ones, but also do like clinics.
I'm actually doing a bunch of camps overseas this year. I'm going to the Maldives with noon tours and gonna do more of that in the future. But during Covid where this business started, it was just like we're doing a few little foil camps up and down the coast, then a few private sessions.
Then the other one that I dreamt up during Covid was the online community. And that was obvious why you do that during Covid. We couldn't go anywhere, so I was like we should have, like, how do I coach people who can't come to me and I can't go to them? So I created this online course basically where it goes through the step-by-step guide of how to downwind foil, how to surf foil, how to wing foil, and actually a bunch of stuff on supp racing, like paddle technique, which has actually helped a lot for the people learning to, to downwind foil.
And that's the coach Casey club, that online stuff and basically throughout the course. And then I was, then I wanted to engage with my clients more. So I did a, I introduced a weekly call, so every Tuesday I call it talk Back Tuesday I do a call with all members like a Zoom call we're doing now, Robert, and we're looking at, instead of looking at just us talking we bring up videos and everyone loads it up into a Facebook page and we, when you go through all the videos, and so I give them feedback on the, on what they're doing.
So a lot of people upload go GoPro stuff, just selfie stuff. Some people set up a camera on the beach, some people have mates film them, and they do it as a team. So two guys wanna learn down and foil, they'll just film each other while they're out there, and then they can get a lot of feedback from me every week.
And then I've got the final sort of piece of the chapter was what I call Friday wins. And it's just a bit of goal setting. So when people are planning their week they talk about, okay, what have I achieved this week? What do I want to achieve in the week ahead and how am I gonna get there?
, that's that's the package, it's the online course. It's the weekly coaching call. Talk back Tuesday. Then it's the Friday wins, which you go through your y you basically your goals and go through what you achieved in the, what you've achieved in the last week, and then what you wanna do for the week ahead.
It's been a really cool, been a cool project, really. It's been unreal and so many people I've, I feel like I've taught so many people to downwind foil now and opened up this new this new form of exercise or, enjoyment and it's yeah, look it, it started out as just being like a sub race sort of thing, but with, cuz I was passionate about it and there weren't many other people do it.
I did downwind foil first and I've introduced surf ball and wing fo since. But downwind foil is definitely the main thing on main people, main thing people are coming to me for. A lot of people, a lot of wingers join up to learn how to jive or learn how to tack or or learn how to downwind with the wing.
And so that's the other stuff that I've of worked on. And, I've got a bit of a how to jump stuff, but I'm not pretending I'm a trickster. I'm not the best at jumping, but I do, I can teach the basics of jumping. So yeah, that's the kind of stuff. And e even I guess for me, when I drew up the course, it was like beginner all the way through to advanced, not super not like elite, but like I, on there, I've got a lot of stuff for people who wanna learn to wing.
Once you have your equipment, you can jump online and I've got a step by step guide like how to hold the wing, how to pump up the wing, how to choose your equipment and all that sort of stuff. So it, it's more than just downwind foiling. But in the coaching calls, the downwind foiling probably takes up the most time cuz the downwind foil crew are very frothy.
like to ask a lot of questions and, which is awesome. Yeah, it's been great. . . Yeah. Super cool. Yeah. So all right. I think you, you get gonna have to go soon, but appreciate your time. That, it's really, it was really cool to chat and catch up and looks like a quite a few of your crew is coming to the Molo Kay race this summer, right?
Yeah. I just got a text this morning from the from a mate and he was like, that is involved with Moloka Tao. And he is there's a few guys signed up from your neck of the woods. Do you think that do you think that they're up to it? And it was like, names like Zane Westwood who actually started up as coach Casey club member, and I coached him with that.
And now we're just mates just froing out, falling down, wind together all the time. Guys like Oscar Hansen, who's, the guy's got the surf pump floor record and Josh Coo, who's also a coach Casey club member. So it's pretty cool that guys I've coached now. I'm looking to do Malachi Oahu, and I'm actually I'm just in the early stages of writing up a bit of a Malachi Oahu foil program so that people who are aspiring to do Malachi Oahu can, I can sort point them in the right direction and give them the best advice on how to train for it and, get nutrition sorted because it's like, it's a, it's 52 Ks it's a long way.
It's a big passenger water. It's not as far on a foil as it is on the sap. As long as you're up on foil. If you're coming down, it's probably gonna be longer than a sup. You gotta be ready. It's gonna be a lot of it comes down to having a good strategy and the rate nutrition and the rate support and logistics and Oh, that kind of stuff, oh, they, all the, all that stuff can make or break the race basically, yeah.
I think that a lot of people talk about malaka, tohu, like the race. It's, if you made it to the start line, , you've done a good job. Like you, you can now enjoy it cuz it's so much admin and training and when you get there it's hey just relax and enjoy. But yeah, thanks so much for having me, Robert.
It's been on really coming to show actually one thing I wanted to ask, like they were talking about the event organizers maybe having a different finish line for the foil racers. So if you could have if you could choose where to finish where would that be? Like, where would you say you would like to have a finish line for foiling if, oh, or do you think probably a good challenge to have to go upwind look, I think it's should, they've gotta be clear because obviously if you're designing a fo that needs to go upwind, you're gonna, if you're, you want know about it. Whereas if you're designing a foil but you're gonna finish like somewhere at the Outrigger Canoe Club, you'd be using a very different foil for the entire race.
And I think to me, the Outrigger Canoe Club would be an epic place to finish. That's where the boys finish their local runs, right? So it's to me that's the obvious spot that I'm up for anything, even last year. Yeah, the wind sock. Exactly. But last year I was actually looking at coming over to the Blue Water Classic and start through the prone and sub guys started.
I was up for the challenge. I think it's, downwind, fallings, epic. But I think, flatwater like foil racing is something that's gonna grow as well. And even like when conditions are only five or 10 knots or there's just swell, that's something you can race in and like foils are now good enough that you can paddle up in next to nothing.
Like guys are flatwater foiling in a lot of places. And so to be able to I don't think you need to change it just to make it easy for everyone. I think the challenge is half the fun, 52 ks in the foil now is only about, if it was all down wind, it's only about two hours, so by making that up wind stretch makes, it, makes it, it is not a nice finish, but it's a real finish and it makes it comparable to all the supp and prone guys that do it too. Yeah, but even if they had to finish outside black Point, that would make it a lot easier too. But to finish.
But yeah, I don't know. I guess it makes it more challenging to have to go all the way to the keyhole for sure. y Yeah. I think, yeah, probably the, the most obvious one would be having it there and just having a deepwater start out of China wall. And then you can just then people can just limp into the finish line.
maybe have a boat to tow people in or something because Oh, you got, everyone's got an escort boat, so you can just jump on your escort boat and go in from there. Yeah. But maybe that's the obvious one, cuz then it's at least everyone's finishing the same spot. I like that. I think the race should finish in the same spot as everyone, as long as we're all competing on the same day.
was a different day then we're doing a different race. Yeah. All right. Thank you James. I really appreciate it. And thanks for sharing your stoke and your knowledge and so yeah, I mean I've been listening, so if you're interested in that one foiling, definitely check out the Casey show and then also the Casey Coaching Club.
Yeah, thanks for your time and maybe we'll talk again after the MOK race or while we're over there or something like that. Sounds good. Definitely have to catch up when we're over there. Yeah, that'd be fun to show you the code foils too. Haha. Yeah, I'm definitely interested. I wanna try 'em.
Yeah. Cool. He is cool to try different things, but yeah, I've been using the Mike's lab foil and that, that thing's so fast. It's pretty amazing. You got it. That's the benchmark, right? Yeah. I'll have to try that. Yeah. Pretty amazing how fast they are. Like the drag, the controllability at speed is pretty cool.
That's the important thing. So a lot of progress being made, I think. Absolutely. Yeah. It's exciting times. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks so much Robert, and speak soon. Yeah, have a great day. Yeah. Cheers. See you. Okay, friends, thank you so much for watching all the way to the end. As I appreciate everyone that watches the whole thing on YouTube.
It's only about 5% of the people who click on the video in the beginning watch the whole thing. But I do know that a lot of you also listen to it as a podcast all the way through. And I always appreciate when people tell me I watch the whole thing. So thanks so much. I know it's been a while since my last interview in December had Ken Winter and also Mike's Labs, Stephan and Mike from Mike's lab.
So those were great interviews and I'm always. Into doing more interviews. So I'm just gonna have to keep at it get people on the show. I tried to get Ken and Johnny Hyken on the show, but I haven't been able to get them to come on yet, so I'm still working on that. If Johnny Heineken, tell 'em to respond to my email and set up a time to talk, I would really like to talk to him, especially about wing fo racing, which I'm really into.
So yeah, that's it for the show. Hope you enjoyed it. We do have a great sale right now at Blue Planet on foil boards especially. We got blue planet foil boards, all standup and wing floorboards for 7 99 for the bamboo carbon construction, bamboo with carbon debt construction, and full carbon for 9 99.
So that's a great deal. We're gonna basically have a closeout sale for of whatever's left in stock so we can make room for new things for next season. . We also have 20% off the Armstrong Forward geometry boards both prone and standup foil boards and wing FO boards. And then we also have 20% off the PPC boards, PPC SOAR boards, which are also excellent construction.
Very nice boards for wing foiling. Yeah, so thank you for your support. Basically, this show is made possible by customers of us just like you, who support Blue. Support our retail operation, which allows me to make these podcasts and videos. So thanks so much for watching. Really appreciate you. Have a great time.
See you on the water. .
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Ken Winner on the Blue Planet Show- Wing Foil Interview episode 24
24 Dec 2022· The Blue Planet Show
Ken Winner, wing foil designer extraordinaire talks about his background as a pro windsurfer and how he became a designer at Duotone and developed the first inflatable handheld wing for foiling. At first there was little interest in his invention but once a few people tried it, the sport of wing foiling really took off.
Transcript of the interview:
Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik. Thank you for tuning into another episode of the Blue Planet Show, where I interview foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders. You can watch this show right here on YouTube or listen to it on your favorite podcast app. Today's interview is with Ken Winter, the designer at Duotone wing designer extraordinaire.
And as always, I ask questions, not just about equipment and technique, but also try to find out more about his background, what inspires him and how he got into water sports. So Ken was really open in this interview, shared a lot of information about wing design, even showed his computer screen where he designs wings.
So that's at the very end of the interview. So you don't want to miss that part. It's really cool if you're into Wing design and wanna know more about the materials and the construction, the design and Ken's philosophy. This is a really good show for all that kind of information. During this interview, I'm gonna play a little bit of footage of Alan Cadiz Wing foiling in Kailua.
I got some drone footage of him, which was after this interview, but he's using the 2023 Duotone unit Wing 4.5 meter wing. I'll play some of that in the background. Thank you so much for your time, Ken, and for sharing all the detailed information. So without further ado, here is Ken Winner.
Okay. Good morning, Ken. How are you doing today? Good morning. I'm pretty good. All right. It's a little bit of a rainy and windy day here on Oahu. How's the weather on Maui? Same. Same. Yeah. Yep. So have you had super stormy winds the last few days? It's been crazy windy here. Yeah, it's been gusting 45 at times.
Do you actually go out in those kind of conditions or do you wait? Yeah. Windy days. Yeah. It's pretty fun. Yeah. So you've been doing what you, what do you do on days like that? You go on a down window or you just go go off? I only do down windows with my wife nowadays. That's her favorite thing.
Otherwise I from a friend's house over on Stable Road and Peter actually lives on Stable Road and so we launched there, go out race around a bit, test different wings, hydrofoils. Nice. What kind of equipment were you on in, on those super windy days? Anything from a two to a four.
Sometimes we go out pretty overpowered just cause we have something we wanna try and we don't have many choices. Some days we just have to go and do what we can with what we have. We do a lot of prototyping in the four and five meter size. We do a fair amount in the three meter size and then smaller and bigger.
We also prototype and test quite a bit, but maybe not as intensely. Nice. Okay. But before we get more into all the equipment and stuff like that, I wanted to get talk a little bit about your background. So tell us a little bit about start in the beginning, like wh how, where you grew up and how you got into water sports and all that kind of stuff.
was born a long time ago, 1955, so there's a lot of history there. You don't wanna hear it all. Grew up near Annapolis, Maryland. Did a fair amount of recreational cruising type sailing. My dad owned boats. Built a lot of stuff when I was a kid. Owned a couple boats when I was a teenager.
Started windsurfing in 75. How extensive do you want this to be? Started windsurfing in 75, won the world championship in 77. We won again, 80 in 81. We had the right there on Oahu, where you are. We had the World Cup, the PanAm World Cup, which I. Actually, yeah don't worry about making it short.
Like we, we got time. So just actually like how did you get into windsurfing? What was your first experience with that? Or what were you doing? Anything other like surfing or water sports before windsurfing? Yeah. No, I've never actually surfed. As I said, I grew up sailing I, when I was a teenager, maybe 17 or 16, I bought a old wooden boat, a little wooden boat, a Bahamas fixed it sailed around, kept it house else.
I also bought a shark catamaran sail out bit. So I was into sailing and I, I saw an ad for a windsurfer and thought that would be a good thing for me to try. So wind, Also about the same time bought a hang glider. So I taught myself to hang glide and but I really enjoyed the windsurfing more so sold everything else and just focused on windsurfing.
So that you were around 20 years old? Yeah. About 20. Yeah. Did you you have any like formal education or did you go like straight into wind surfing? Yeah, it's funny, I was gonna University of Maryland when I started windsurf, and I might have stuck with that, but I started windsurf and thinking, oh, I can go to college little, a little time windsurfing.
And and then when I'm ready to quit, I can go back to school. But I never did actually go back to school, kept wind surfing. For the next forever , 23 years, but ba So basically you're self-taught, like all the knowledge you have on with computers and aerodynamics or, all that is basically from experience and self-taught kind of thing or?
Yeah, I do a lot of reading. I remember in, sometime in the early eighties Barry Spanner, I think got a book. The title was The Aerodynamics of Sailing. And I, I heard him make a comment about it, so I got it and I read from cover to cover several times and really absorbed, I think the lessons of that.
And did a lot of other reading after that. But that was sort my foundation for learning about the technical side of sailing. , nowadays, of course, it's super easy to get a lot of information online, really good information. So unless you're pursuing a career like attorney or doctor or degreed engineer or PhD scientist, you don't need formal education as much as you used to.
If you need it at all, I don't know. But yeah, I think as long as you're a lifelong learner, you can pretty much teach yourself almost anything. . Yeah. Okay. Yeah, a lot of things, for sure. Yeah. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do some screen sharing here from the windsurfing Hall of Fame.
There's little bit of information about you online here. So in the, so you started windsurfing in 1975. That's, this was the day, days when they, the booms were still made out of wood and so on, right? Talk a little bit about your first first wind windsurfing set up bought a used board for 300 bucks and went out, taught myself to use it, and just became hooked like most people.
Did it every chance I had. And at first all I focused on was trying to improve my skills. That was hundred percent of my effort. But then gradually over time, I got more interested in improving the equipment. So over time I did some things like. Built my own boards and built my own rigs, masks spoons.
Yeah. And you start, you started winning a lot of races, so you were very focused on the com racing side of windsurfing or also I guess freestyle as well, right? Yeah. So I won the freestyle world two or three times, and that was back, it was a much simpler affair than it's now. Of course, the guys who do freestyle nowadays circles around all of us who did freestyle back then.
yeah. Around. But you gotta start somewhere in every sport. And so that, that's a picture of Robbie and Jurgen in me at the pan, the Panta actually which was right there on Wahoo. Over in Kai. Yeah. And you were able to beat Robbie, I guess at that point. Still, and you have several world world titles right?
In Windsurf racing. Yeah. Robbie and I were rivals to some extent, but he was younger and when he got to be when he achieved his full adult strength, he was extremely hard. I started when I was 20. He started when he was nine. And it's surprise that he dominated the sport so much for so many years.
He's a amazing athlete and really great guy. Good entrepreneurs, got a great business. And and we're still rivals. , it's been a good, it's been a good 40 some years. . And then you started build, you said you started building your own boards and making smaller and smaller boards, right?
Yeah. So I, excuse me. Yeah I built a a nine foot board. Actually prior to that I had a board shaped for me and glass, and that was a board I would say. I basically invented carving, jives, cause everybody had boards back then. I had a round tail board, which carve through my, instead of skid through them.
And basically from that point on, I focused a lot on trying to improve my equipment. I you're showing a picture of the Transatlantic Windsurf race, which was a pretty funny. That was in about 98, I think. But this has gotta be pretty boring for anybody watching. People are interested in what's happening now.
Yeah. No, I don't think so. I don't think so at all. I don't think any, what he's gonna find is boring at all, but, , yeah, just yeah. And then I guess you yeah, I tell us a little bit about how you got into the Wing, wing des, or were you designing w windsurfing sales for duo to before kites, or like how, or, and then, yeah.
Just tell us a little bit about how you got Yeah. So I went surfed intensely for three years. I guess in 97, I think I won the US Racing Championships. And then just shortly after that I tried kiting for the first time. And basically after I tried kiting for the first time, I I sold on my windsurfing gear and got straight into kiting.
My, my first kite experience was with Don Monague right off Stable Road on Maui. He was out kiting. I was out windsurfing and I told him I wanted to try that, so he handed me his control bar and the leashed, his board to my ankle, and he told me how to secure the kite. And I, so I kited back and forth down to Kaha for the next half hour.
And so that was my, that's how I got hooked on kiting. And so from the very first session, you were able to stay upwind and everything and no, I didn't stay upwind. I ended up down at Kaha, so starting at camp one, ending up at Kaha. Oh, okay. And yeah and when, not long after that, I spent a week on Maui hiding every day.
And and then a few months after that I did some, I did a how kite video. Cause there were no schools, hardly anybody knew how to learn. So I did some videos. Robbie was saying needed somehow to kite videos. So took the opportunity to do that. We sold about 30,000 videos and then of course, schools came along and the internet came along.
So that was, there's, you don't need that kinda stuff anymore. It's all online. Yeah. Oh, so you had a, like a VHS tape on how to kite and sold it like through magazines and stuff like that. But I actually, I used the Nash distributor network to the dealer network to sell boxes of videos to dealers who would then them, to 'em, to customers.
And I had a website so I could retail videos directly to the customers. And we actually did a total of three howto videos over a couple years time. And then I helped convince boards and more, which is the parent company of Duotone and fanatic to get into kite boarding kit, making kites.
. And so that was about the year 2000. And we tried to hire people to do the job of designing kites, but there were so few kit designers at the time that I ended up taking it on. So I had learning design kit weeks and in China working 16 hours a day learning how to use computer aid design software, CAD software, and then pumping up existing kites and trying to figure out the geometry and trying to figure out how to do that on the Ultimately it worked, so we ended up with a decent and started growing the company from that point. Okay. So boards and more at that time, they had Brand was fanatic and or what were their brands that they were run? It, I'm just gonna say Boards and More is the parent company of the, the parent company that I work for now.
, which is we produce Duotone kites and Fanatic windsurfing gear and kites surfing and surfing gear and, sub foiling gear. Boards and More is the company I've been working for the last 22 years. And right now what is your official role at Duotone? I know, I just wanted to say I've been waiting such a long time to get you on the show because you're always so busy.
You said you have to, come up with a whole new line of wings and kites and everything, so you were too busy to meet with me. But Yeah, tell me a little bit about like your job, like your role and how you were able to make time today to come here, . Yeah. Yeah, great question.
I I tend to overcom commit and try to do more things than I can reasonably do. So years I was designing kites, but I also decided to start designing hydrofoils and that turned into a lot of work. And then I started designing wings and that turned into more work. So I was to foil design work off on some very capable guys that we in Mauritius and Germany.
And then more recently I've been able to push the kite design work off on Sky now. Sky's been working with me for 18 years. We've both been learning a lot about kite design and in the last year, so I've been helping him master the software that we use for kit design. And so now he's doing the kite design.
And I would say that he's for sure one of the most experienced and capable designers in the world, even though he hasn't been the lead on kite design until recently, but he's now and he's doing a great job. He's making some really great improvements. So having a good teacher, right? Hope . So having so now I'm just focused on maintenance, so that, like your job basically at duo tone right now is wing designer?
Yeah. I'm focused on wing design now, and we have two main wing models the unit has handled, boom. And. The unit is more focused on wave riding and down winding. The slick is more free ride and freestyle. Unit has a little bit more Wingspan Slick has a little less the okay. So before we go into the current gear let's go back to when you first started winging and like how you came up with The Wing.
I interviewed mark Rappa Horse and Alan Ez as well on the show. And they both talked about how, you guys used to go out downwind together with the standup paddle foil boards and and then, when one day you showed up with the wing. So can you talk a little bit about.
Like how you first came up with the wing and the inflatable wing design and so on. Yeah, I was trying to downwind hydrofoil with these guys, and I wasn't doing it that well, was having great success and I was getting a sore shoulder. So I was trying to figure out how could I do downwind hydrofoiling and not get a shoulder?
And I, by chance, I saw a video of Flash Austin with his homemade handheld wing that he was using on a hydrofoil at Kaha. And I thought eight years before I had designed some inflatable handheld wings for suffering. Not with a hydro, but just for, and so I thought I wonder if something like that would work.
It fits my skillset because I do inflatable adult toys. And so I, I went home, got on the computer, designed crude. Another crude, handheld, inflatable wing. So those designs are you sent me an email with some pictures. Is that from that time when you designed your first wings?
Yeah. That, that blue and black wing was my first effort to do a handheld inflatable wing. My idea was to use it on aboard, and that was back in two 10 Sky and I tried it. So this one was the one the original one that you made for for basically wind windsurfing on or on a regular windsurf board?
Well, a sub board, yeah. Board. Ok. Yeah. And so it was very similar to what we have today, actually, you yeah. It has some similarities. Yeah. And then you would, hold one hand would go here on one hand here. Yeah, that's how it was at first. Okay. And I tried another one a month or two later and Sky and I didn't, we tried and we didn't really think it was that much fun.
Another guy who designs for us took the idea and made a inflatable rig. We call it the I rig, which was pretty nice for kids, very low impact. So I remember that. So in that picture of six wings, you can see the first two in two 10, 2011. And then in 2018, I tried something. I just yeah, just very quickly threw something together.
I modified an existing neo design and like a Neo's, one of our kites. And sent that off to the factory. And then when I took it to the beach and stepped on the board and sailed away, it popped up. I popped up on the foil immediately and sailed right out to the reef. Turning around, I fell and I had trouble getting going again.
But basically I considered that a success and I figured that would allow me to do down windows without stressing my shoulders. I kept building prototypes after that sky went, this was June of 2018. Sky went to a dealer meeting in there and demonstrated it for everybody. Everybody there and nobody was interested.
And then we took it to the SI show in August and nobody was interested. But then finally in November, people started getting interested. I got our ceo Alber. He's a, he used to be a snowboarder on the German national team, so hes really good. And he had thought it looked too complicated and difficult, but then when he tried it, he discovered that it's not too complicated and difficult.
Maybe we make some of these and people will buy 'em. So at that point we decided we were gonna go into production with wings, and I think some other brands decided at that point. Interesting concept. Of your of your wife, and then you also sent me this little video. So she was the fir you said probably the first woman to wing Foil. Is that, Yeah. Sky's wife, Christine and Julie both tried it out. I think right around Christmas time of 2018. And then after that Julie got very interested in it.
And I took her out at KEG quite a few times, and I think this was her first time on the North Shore , and she was a little excited by the size of the swell . So nowadays she, she really enjoys doing downs from to the harbor and she can do it in about 35 minutes if she's in a hurry.
And it's her favorite sport. Cool. Yeah. And then this was your first wing design? The foil wing. And I actually got one of those. I've been, I was waiting for a long time and then finally got the wing and I think it was a three meter, the first one I got. And it was yeah, it was super cool because same as you were, we were trying to do the foil doman runs and Really kind. It's really hard actually. But talk a little bit about this first wing design and because it had a boom and no strut and then it had full battens and so on. So talk a little bit about the swing. Your first Yeah. Starting from scratch, we had no, I had no idea really what to do with it.
We, we tried differentl angles and different patterns. I put bats in it because that reduces the fluttering by quite a bit. Nowadays we don't have belong bats because we've found other ways to reduce the flutter. Some of us have a lot of brands go ahead and continue making wing wings with a lot of flutter, but I don't really care for that.
The boom I made my first few wings with handles as you saw in the photo, and I really hated the handles. Then I went to a kind of a strap on rigid handle. And then after that I thought why should I have a strut and a boom or strut and a handle and I can just have this one boom or long tube and potentially save money and hassle.
So that was the reasoning there, but, It turns out the strut is really nice for stabilizing draft. And so we went back to using a strut sometime later. Yeah. Like I know the, that first wing, it was it did that TikTok thing right? When you held it by the front handle it, it didn't really behave very well.
Just lefting behind you. It didn't yeah. So was that, I guess part of the reason for that was because it didn't have that strut to of stabilize it. Yeah. I think the strut kinda acts like a ruter in some respects helped stabilize the it's really hard to know what's gonna be important to people when you're starting with something new.
One of the, one of the things I have to do is I have. I can't just pay attention to the things I like to do. I have to pay attention to what other people like to do. At first, to me, the idea of holding the wing by the front handle I just never did it. I would hold it by the boom. So never really noticed that instability when I was using it myself.
Yeah, but basically, yeah, that's what, how when I used it on a wave, I would just hold the front of the boom and it worked fine. But but then, yeah, I guess some of the other wings were really stable, just holding it in the front handle and you'd be able to surf with it, just holding the front handle, which, which then I guess so yeah. So another thing that's kinda interesting is if you wanting, that will be pretty stable when you're just on the, we experimented with. And the thing we found is that if I let the air out of my wing and let it get a little bit floppy, take it down to three or four psi, it will fly on the leash.
Really stable. But then if I pump it back up to eight psi and I haven't really tight 12 canopy, which is something I like, then it's no longer really stable on the leash. So far we kinda have to make the choice. Do we wanna, do we want our wing more floppy and therefore it'll fly on the, or do we want our wing more stable?
Which it's less stable on the leash, but it's more stable otherwise. And so basic, so that's basically why you have those two different wings. One is the unit for more that's more, I guess more stable being on supplying by itself. And then the unit is more, has more of a profile. And is that kind of the thought behind it?
We go for a lot of canopy tension on both models of wings. We're not gonna compromise on canopy tension cause it gives, it helps give lift to the, when it's, and it improves power when you're pumping. It improves de power and stability when you're overpowered. So we're not gonna compromise on canopy tension but the difference, one of the differences between the slick and the unit is the unit has more sleep. In the leading edge, and that helps improve the stability. While it's, if you're surfing a wave and holding it by the front handle, the fact that it has more sweep than the slick makes it a little more stable in that respect than the slick.
But then the downside is you have more wingspan, so it's easier to catch a wing tip, by sweep. You're saying like the leading edge in the front is a little bit more like this versus that kind of thing? Or, but what do you mean by sweep? Sweep is the you know how some airplanes, like a fighter jet will have wings that are swept back.
And some wings, like a sail plane will have wings that are not swept back. . So sleep is that back angle in the leading edge. Understood. Okay. And DL is the up angle in the leading edge. So we've done quite a bit with different DL patterns and some things I thought would be better weren't.
So I thought a progressive DL would be more stable than a linear dl. And a linear DL is actually more stable. So the new unit has a very linear DL shape and uhno. Another thing that's kinda interesting is some wings have very little dl and the advantage of that is when the wing is lying flat on the water, it's less likely to flip over.
The disadvantage of that is it's hard to have a, with a deep canopy and with a lot of canopy tension when you have little, so again we're giving up the fact that. . Our wings when they're lying belly down on the water, are more likely to flip over than somebody else's mic. But on the other hand, we have the ability to put in more depth while maintaining really good canopy tension cause we have more behavioral.
So would you say there's a downside to having more canopy tension? Like to, to me it seems like the more tension you have, the, the better the profile works, but I guess like sometimes on a wave or whatever, when you're luing it, it has a little bit more drag, right? Is that, or like what's your experience with a tension?
The canopy tension gives you less drag if you have, if more canopy tension gives you less drag when you're, but the wing is more stable while if it has A bit less canopy tension. If I let some air pressure out my wing and make it have less canopy tension, it'll flutter more. And that makes it drier and sad to say it makes it more stable.
Yeah. Cause it basically when it doesn't have a lot of attention, it can just completely flatten out and just flutter flat. Versus attention has, it still has that profile. Yeah. So thet thing you can have is a wing that flaps and flutters and loves, but that drag impart a certain amount of stability.
I see. This is one of those things where you, it's hard. It's hard to get, it's hard to get everything you want. Divorce, trade offs. Okay. So maybe talk a little bit about things you've tried early on that were that ended up on the trash tape and versus, like things that, I guess like the full battens, you said in the beginning you tried them or used them to reduce the flutter, but I remember those battens used to break really easily too in the waves, right?
So the, they're thin battens. Yeah. So early on I never really even imagined I would be using a wing in the waves, which is why I didn't mind putting bats in . They don't, they're not really compatible that way. It's, I did make a three strut wing early on. My, my fourth wing in 2005th wing in 2018 was a three stru wing.
And it was, perceptively heavier. So I didn't make any more three str wings for a while. So by, sorry, by three struts you mean three inflatable struts? Like this kind of Yeah. So the blue one? Yeah. The 3.0 from July of two 18. Yeah. Yeah. I tried that and it was, not a great wing and a little on the heavy side.
So I decided I was gonna try to stick with just one strut, and then actually went to a home after that. For the simplicity and the low cost and so forth. So the three stru is something I abandoned early on, but it does have potential advantages. So we've been doing more work with that. F1 has a nice three wing.
It has its pros and cons, but there are people who like it. And one of the reasons is the fact that you have strut takes away the corner, the the back corner at the tip of a wing, and that's the place people drag most often when they're trying to get going. Getting rid that, I'm sorry, screen.
Share that again. So what you're saying, like this corner is what drags in the water when you're to get foiling, right? Yeah. And so a certain arrangement of three strut, I certain three strut geometry will get rid of that corner. . So I think F1 actually has like a patent a patent or a patent pending for that third strut.
But it looks like you were the first one to develop that. So how does that work? They They, if they came to contesting it with us, I don't think they could win. But I don't think either of us or them are interested in having a fight. So I don't think it'll be a problem for us.
So basically when, I know Duotone is also has a, I think you, I know you have a patent for the hand, the rigid handles on the unit. Are there any other patents that you're, you've gotten or applied for and Yeah, we've, and the question is like, why didn't you apply for a patent for the inflatable wings in the first place?
Or did you? Because I think in part you have to do it pretty quickly and it can't really be in the public domain. So these wings that I made in 2000 10, 2 11 From what I understand is they were out there in the public domain and they were, they happened many years before.
And so just trying to patent an inflatable wing I don't think that was an option. But we've tried to, we've applied for patents on various aspects of the inflatable wing design as, things related to the DL and boom. And trying to think, what can I mention? What can I not, there's some things we do that we don't even talk about because some people.
Aren't aware and we don't wanna give them ideas. Yeah, you don't wanna give away your secret sauce. So I understand. Not too, it's not too soon. Yeah. . Yeah. Okay. So actually I had a question from a friend, my friend Steve. He was asking, have you ch or about basically, on windsurf sales where the can doer and stuff, they have a left tube to improve the laminar flow on the bottom side of the, have you tried that?
Have you tried playing with that and or what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, that, that's a popular topic. It came up in in connection with kite design years ago, and I think when I was picking up. The first kite that I actually owned from Don Monague, he was talking about that very idea and doing it in connection with kites.
And Don Monague has done amazing amount of work along those lines in connection with kites. And if you were to see PDFs, he put all the things you tried, you would be astonished. Don would be a really interesting guy for you to talk to on this. Don Monague. Okay. Yeah. . Yeah, he was the kit designer for Nash 20 years ago, or 23 years ago.
, he's moved on to a lot of really interesting things. But he was talking about it then he worked with it then, and it, it's never really worked for kites for a variety of reasons. There's weight, there's the tendency for. Water to get in and weigh down the kite. Complexity, cost and the actual benefit is hard to find.
I've also tried to do elliptical, leading edges in kites and where I have two leading edges side by side. Kinda two bladders next to each other kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. Trying to thin out the shape of the wing and make it stiffer. And that, that's been really hard to make it work. There are people who, tried this stuff and they, know, somebody's probably gonna succeed at some point someday, but so far hasn't One of the problems with double surface on a wing is that the lower surface tends to keep the flow attached, and that attached flow sucks the second surface down. And actually tends to suck the whole wing down. So we spent a lot of time making sure our wings always lift. If you're locking the wing, it lifts if it, if you get hit by a lifts every, all the time, our wings are lifting.
If you add that second surface, boom, your lift goes away. The flow remains attached on the bottom of the wing. As it passes, the leading edge sucks the lower surface down and sucks the whole wing down with it. And this is something I've actually experimented with and tried and observed, so I'm not just speculating here.
Interesting. Again, I'm not saying it'll never work, but it's not a slam dunk. It's not an obvious, easy thing to do. And the benefits aren't obvious either, so Yeah. And it's more weight, it's more cost. So we and with wings in particular, we have to worry about weight.
Wind surfers don't worry about weight nearly as much as we do apparently. Tis are, you have to hold it, hold that thing up in, in your hand, and light wind especially then the weight really makes a difference. It does. Yeah, for sure. What about rigid wings? I know people have been making rigid wings for on the ice and stuff like that, but and forever, have you played around with that or have you tested rigid wings?
Yeah. Yeah. I saw early on I'd like to have a rigid wing that opened up like an umbrella. . And I actually have tried some rigid and hybrid prototype. But the problem you run into there is you lose one of the greatest attractions of wings, inflatable wings, which is the simplicity in the fact that you just blow 'em up and go and when you have rigid components, elements.
You make a more complex, harder to rig up. They're less robust because something like a carbon fiber tube can break pretty easily, especially in the waves. And I question whether a lot of people would want give up the simplicity and the robustness of inflatable in order speed or higher or whatever tructure might give you.
That's priority for Right.
Would working on that for kids and people who aren't fanatical wingers, people who wanna get into it, but aren't gonna be doing it every day, I would, I'm interested in making it better for families rather than, Better for Kailin . Yeah. But obviously you're also very interested in going fast and testing.
I know ANCA has told me that you guys go out and race each other and see what's faster and test equipment and that's, he told me about the Mike's lab foil that he let you know, you let him try your foil and then he got one himself and I just got one recently.
So those are, yeah, just having a fast foil makes a big difference that alone, right? I do going fast up to a point about the Mike's slab, what happened was during the pandemic we had a shortage of fanatic hydrofoils. We weren't getting the latest stuff. We weren't even able to get anything out China for a while.
My wife is pretty into getting the latest stuff. So she ordered Mike's lab hydrofoil and she got it and she actually had a hard time with it, so I started using it. So I used it a fair amount. But she went to an 1100 Mike's Slab and that worked really well for her. Then she moved to 800, which worked well for her.
Then she went to a and that worked well for her, and now she's, now, she now, I dunno she's in the five 40 to 800 range nowadays, depending on what she wants to and so through all that I've been using her hydros as well. But I also use, fanatic has some new stuff that I also use. Peter Slate, who I sail with a lot, is using fanatics and he's going really fast with, he's hard to keep up with.
And Alan, of course is very hard to keep up with too. Yeah. And I, sorry, should, when we're talking about fast and I should say don't try to go faster race, because I think that but I'm not sure how to put this. I think that racing with slow equipment is actually more interesting than racing with fast equipment.
In the old days of windsurfing, we raced with really slow boards. Didn't matter that we were going slow. Cause the important thing was trying to use the wind and the waves and whatever we found out there to go a little bit faster or to take a slightly shorter course than the next person. So I don't of speed as requisite on the, and.
just getting on the water and racing with the stuff you have is pretty interesting. . Yeah, I that's I guess the beauty of one design racing where everybody uses the same equipment and it's not an arms race and it's more about this, your skill and sta strategy and so on, right? Yeah, exactly.
And I think of it as the most social form of winging on the water because you're actually doing something with other people. And it's a very sort of a responsive thing where you do one thing and somebody will do another thing in response. So you're, there's interaction that you don't have pretty much any other time, except when you're wanting people to stay outta your way on wave, which is different kinda interaction.
But getting back to the winging that Alan or Peter and I do if we're racing around side by side, Trying to go faster. What the main thing I'm doing is I'm trying to assess the performance of the wing. I'm trying to, the power delivery, I'm trying to, is the power consistent hit?
Does easy to deal with gust? Is it difficult to deal with the gust when a gust hits, do I accelerate or do I just slow down because there's so much drag? And then, we'll go upwind and we'll go downwind. And if we're going downwind, we can, whether we can deeper with one wing rather than another.
This all translate into performance that even someone who's not racing is gonna appreciate. And you can notice subtle differences between wings when you're side by side with somebody of equal ability. But you can't notice if you're just out there cruising by yourself. So that, that, I think that's a real valuable thing for us.
But the other thing we do is we've got Finn and Jeffrey Spencer out there on our wings. They test every prototype that comes in. They write our little report and every wing that that comes in, they go out, they loop 'em and spin 'em and race around with them. Do everything that anybody does with them and evaluate them in very thorough, in a very thorough manner, I think.
Yeah. I think originally they used to ride for what's it called? They used to write for Slingshot. Slingshot, yeah. So how long have they been writing for Duotone? The last few months. Okay. Yeah, they're amazing wingers. Talk a little bit about the r and d process. I guess it's like you can't really make too many changes at once yet, right?
You have to change one, one variable at a time, and then like how many prototypes go into like how many prototypes do you have to make to come up with next year's wing, kind of thing. I'm just curious about that. Yeah, so for the 22 4 meter unit i, I design I name every prototype with a, from the alphabet.
So I got down to Q on that one. I'm not sure how many. That's maybe 20 or so. And each one is one that you actually made. Is it just a, do they all make it to the, to be actually samples, or those are all actual samples that you made or that's a good question. I might starting design and try five different variations on my computer.
, but they'll all be the same letter. That might be, it might be, okay. Four B dash one or four B dash two and I'll, okay. I'll look at all those and then I'll decide which one I wanna try and in person. And I'll send the, I'll generate patterns. Send the patterns to the factory. The factory, ship it out a week later, or five days later.
And then we'll test it. But, I can go through dozens and dozens of prototypes before we finalize a line like, The unit from size two to size 6.5, which is 10 sizes. And we do build and test every size before we put any big into production. Yeah. But I guess on Maui, like basically the four meter is your, like that's the one you start with and then once you have a good four meter, then you start working on the other sizes.
Is that kind of how you do it or? Usually I'll do a four or a five in a lot of iterations. I'll also do some sixes. I'll also do threes. I did quite a few threes on the latest slick design because it can be hard to get a three meter working really well. So we , we made six or seven threes before we felt like we were in the right ballpark with with the slick.
Yeah, because you can't really use the same design and just make it bigger and smaller because obviously the bigger wings the, one of the issues is that they have too much wingspan, so you have to make 'em kind of lower aspect and then, but the smaller wings, it's not, the wingspan isn't so much of an issue.
So can you talk a little bit about that? Like the differences be from your bigger swing to your smallest w in the same lineup, or is that Yeah, that's exactly right. The wingspan, the aspect ratio can be a little bit higher in the smaller wings. With the bigger wings, we haven't really gone over seven and we haven't adjusted the aspect ratio that much up to there.
But in the future we'll probably have a seven and an eight with a little bit lower aspect ratio. Another thing you can't scale exactly is. Pretty much everything. You can't scale. Exactly. You have to make adjustments with everything. So if you take a five meter that you like and you wanna go smaller, you actually as a percentage have to go bigger with diameter of the leading edge.
And because if you were to scale those down exactly to a, like a three meter, the leading edge wouldn't be big enough in diameter to get the stiffness you want. And then it goes small wing. You really want a stiff leading edge. Cuz otherwise when you're winging and gusty wind, it'll just bend.
Yeah. And that, let's talk a little bit about that, the leading edge diameter, like the what you learned about that from all your designing and where, what are your thoughts on that and also the different materials. I know you're doing the unit D-lab with the a Lula fabric and stuff like that, and can you make the diameter thinner with the different fabric if you have more pressure and so on.
Just go talk a little bit about that. Yeah. At first of course I was trying a lot of different diameters to see what seemed to work OK at my weight. And one of, one of the issues we have is people of all different weights are doing the sport. And we have to optimize around the average weight of the average writer wrap.
So why are you showing that? Oh, I just wanted to bring up some of the wings and the different I was gonna show the aula wings and stuff like that. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Distract you there. Yeah. So leading edge diameter is a huge topic and most of us who test are in the one 40 to one 90 weight range.
So we tend to optimize for that weight range. And a four meter wing has a diameter of about 10 inches at the center. And at eight psi or eight and nine psi, that seems to enough,
we've. Tried going smaller diameter. When we go to our ULA wings or glab wings are made outta right now and is great cause it's very light. It's very, and you would think that since it's so you could go smaller in diameter, but after making quite a few prototypes with smaller leading edge we see both advantages and disadvantages.
So you can have a little less drag if you're going up wind or if you're in a lot of wind, you get less drag with a smaller leading edge. But if you lose a little bit of air pressure, then you have a softer leading edge. And the smaller, the leading edge, the more sensitive it's to small losses and air pressure.
So with our DLA wings, our Lulu wings, we've decided to just keep the diameter about the same. And anybody that wants a little bit softer leading edge can run a little air out. And then bigger riders, the 200 pounders or 210 pound riders will have something that's fully stiff enough to handle their weight.
That's one of the tradeoffs we've made with leading edge diameter. Another thing, so basically you found that you can't really even though the all Lula can handle more pressure, you can't really reduce the the leading edge diameter by much? Not yet. We can. It's just when we do it, we find that we're not happy with the tradeoffs.
. And so we're leaning toward being conservative. We won't, we don't want. We don't want people to have unreasonable we don't want their expectations to be stymied. Yeah we're getting the best all around performance by keeping the leading edge diameter pretty substantial.
Recently, for example, we made two identical slick prototypes. One with standard leading edge diameter. One with maybe a not quite a 2% drop up a about a two centimeter reduction from about 10 inches to a little over nine inches. And the smaller leading edge diameter had advantages as we expected. If we were going up wind and a lot of wind, the guy on the smaller levy edge had a, had an advantage.
But overall it had a little less power, little less grunt. And if we lost a little bit of air pressure, it had a little less stiffness. And we felt like those were big enough problems to keep us away from that. Okay. So can you talk a little, sorry, go ahead. Another thing we did related to leading edge stiffness is we put a two 30 gram Dacron in the center.
That white panel, those white panels in the center are a heavier, stiffer Dacron. So we put those in a place where there's a lot of stress on the leading edge and both in terms of point loading where the strut attaches and that leading edge handle attaches and the leash touches. And it's also a point where there's a lot of bending load.
So that helps make our leading edge differ. I know a lot of brands will double up on their clock there. , which we did at one point, but we really prefer the single layer of two 30 gram Dacron. It's very robust. Interesting. Can you explain like how, why you recommend different pressures for, depending on the size of the wing, like I, I see you're the 2.0, you're recommending 12 psi and then for the 5.5 7.5 and kind of in between.
So can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. The load on the seams, first I should say the closing sea of a leading edge has the most load on it. Of all the seams, it has twice the load on it. Segment, the inter segment seems are the ones between panels of, so we do a lot of testing to try and maximize the strength of our closing.
But one thing about closing seams is the load on the closing sea is related to, it's proportional to the pressure times the diameter. So if you have a small diameter, you can have higher pressure without overloading the closing sea. But if you have a big diameter, have to have lower pressure to avoid overloading the closing scene.
And think every, everybody understands this in the business. They're all recommending higher pressure for small and lower pressure for big, and it's all related to how much load the closing can handle without breaking. I. I see. Okay. Do you our standard Dacron construction can handle 15 or 18 PSI in a four meter size before it breaks.
And I've, I. Done test tubes. I do a lot of test tubes where we test the strength of seam and I've done test tubes where I've taken it up to five psi in the standard diameter for four meter before its, so we do actually quite a bit of lab testing and bench testing on things like strength and cloth strength.
So the difference between the unit and the D-lab unit is basically just the material of the leading edge and the str. Is that correct? Otherwise? Yeah, that's correct. Another difference is that the materials stretch a little differently and they require different seam construction. So I can't use the same patterns for the D-lab that I use for the unit.
Customize the patterns for the D-lab wings. To make adjustments to allow for a different, not just different stretch, but also different shrinkage because different scene construction will take up more cloth. know, One scene construction might take up X amount and the other scene construction will take up 1.5 x amount.
So I have to make those adjustments in the patterns. And then I've noticed let's talk a little bit about the flutter in, in wings. I noticed looks like the unit has like this little tiny Batten thing versus the D-lab doesn't have that. Is that what's the reason for that? No. The D-lab has it.
They just didn't put it in the graphic. Okay. They both have it. But that's one thing I noticed, like the first generation wings, they would get really baggy quickly or after a few months of using them, they would get all bagged out and and you would lose a lot of performance and there would be a lot of flutter in the, in especially in the trailing edge.
So how did you, do you eliminate that? Or how are you able to get away without battens in the trailing edge and avoid fluter stuff like that? About a year and a half ago we decided we were gonna attack that problem and we built some wings with different materials stronger rip stop materials for the canopy, and we sent 'em out to team writers in schools around the world and got feedback on how durable the different materials were.
And so the material we use in the canopy, the white material in the canopy of the, no, not that one. That, so that one has standard kite rip stop, which is 50 gram rip stop, which is pretty good, especially if you get this panel alignments right. And you get the warp orientation. But then the wing, you're showing now the 2023 D-lab which I think is coming up tomorrow.
Oh wow. That has our, what we're calling mod three for modules, three ripstop material in the canopy. So the white material in that canopy has three times the bias stretch resistance of the standard kite style. Rip stop and. That makes it not only more resistant to things like rips when you drop it on your hydrofoil, but really makes it more durable and a higher performance material.
It makes our standard unit feel more like a D unit because it's more solid and when you're pumping it, you get better response. It's not a spongy response, it's a, it's more rigid response when you hit a gust. The draft is really super stable. So all around it's a big improvement. There's a small weight penalty of course.
But we've, we did some testing where we built three nearly identical six meter wings and we put different amounts of this mod three material in the canopy of each one. So they would in weight by bit. And we founded the canopy with the most, with the largest amount of this material in it was far and away the best performers.
So we decided to put in all of our wings for 2020
canopy. So that, so basically that combats that bagginess after, after using it for a while. That doesn't stretch as much, basically. Exactly. Yeah. I just noticed that. Okay. Yeah. So this is the traditional canopy, the mod three. You just have less stretch and especially in the d diagonal direction, right?
Yes, exactly. So I just noticed that for the unit. You recommend, the D-lab wings, you recommend a lower pressure than the regular unit wings. Why? Why is that? You get more stiffness for the pressure, know, whatever you're given pressure is. The D-lab gives you more stiffness, but the thing about all is it's incredibly strong and stiff.
It's incredibly strong everywhere except where you put a hole in it. So if we have to sew these things together so they have thousands of holes in them, and we do a lot of reinforcement on the seams with materials that are not alu. , but our testing shows us that these are the numbers we should be using for inflation to be safe.
And so even though you might pump a five meter to seven instead of eight, it's gonna be stiffer at seven than Aron wing at eight. Okay. So you, you just said, so tomorrow you're gonna release the new the 2023 wings. I think on your website, this is still your 2022 model, right? So what is the no that DLA you're pointing at is the 2020.
Oh, I'm wrong. It's the 2022. You're right. It's got the windows for 2022. So what has changed? I think I've seen Alan with some wings that have two windows here. Is that like one of the ways you can tell, or? Yeah. So the new units. Have windows that are more like the current slick, the 2022 Slick has four windows, not just two of them.
Ok. And that improved our, that improves the visibility quite a bit. So talk a little bit about the seam orientation. Because it seems like the seams have a little bit more they don't stretch as much as the fabric, right? So is that, is that you're trying to use the seams to add more basically more tension to the canopy?
Is that what your thought is on that or? What I'm doing there is I'm trying with the wing design in general, I'm trying to get more tension from tip to tip across the canopy. And in order to deal with that tension, I'm, or I'm making the thread orientation run tip to tip. So it's more about getting the thread orientation.
The aligned with the loads that I'm trying to put in the, and that's actually evolved a bit. Those same angles have changed for 2023. And I surprised there's no photo anywhere of the 2020 threes. They've been out for a while now. . So the Duotone Sports website doesn't have the New Wings.
Yeah, I dunno. But yeah, so talk a little bit about the changes that you did make in the wings from 22 to 23 other, I guess the windows, the seams, but what else has changed? Yeah the cloth is a huge thing. It's a really big thing.
And up to now, the leading edge materials have lasted longer than the can materials, and you really want everything to break all at once, ideally. So we change the windows, we change the, we increase the depth and the power of the wing a bit. The profile depth is greater. So we are getting more power, but the canopy cloth itself also improves the top end, so we have more wind range overall.
We we refined the tip angles, tip angles, tip twist has a lot of influence on wing performance. And so we've been, we've gone through a lot of prototypes trying to find the tip angles that are best. So I'd say we have an improvement in overall power delivery in part cause we've got better control over tip twist.
Trying to think what else we've done is I know I'm forgetting something. So the, this wing that Alan Kiddas is using is probably the 23 right? As that's probably A2 three prototype. Correct. That's one of our prototypes where we were trying different canopy materials. Material is one of the materials we tested for use production.
And we, we decided not to use it, but it's a very good material. We might use it in the future as possible. Okay. Interesting. Cool. That's cool that , you're able to talk about that it's gonna be released shortly for wing design. What's your philosophy and what are you trying to accomplish when you're designing a wing?
I guess for this slick, I really like a wing that delivers power as, very consistently across the wind range. And, I've ridden a lot of wings. I've, I've ridden wings that don't do that. Most wings in the past haven't done that. And we're getting better and better at keeping the power on at all times.
I like a, that's always lifting. A lot of people don't have that yet. I like a wing with good canopy tension for low flutter good pumping. Never want, I never really want have to move my hands cause I'm in a, the old days of windsurfing and the old days of winging, you hit a, you have back, wind, move back.
You used move handle, or, which is one reasons I liked having a boom at first because I could just slide my hand back. I didn't have to let go and grab another handle. Nowadays the wings, our wings are so stable that I never really have to move my hands back or when lull hits, they're always in the right place.
So that's really important to me and I think it's important to everyone when I'm thinking about the sport in general and how to, how to make the sport appealing to more people. I think about the fact that we get families doing winging. We get. No, my, the guy who actually runs our wing brand guy named in Germany, lives just off the Baltic Sea, near Keel.
He has a seven year old son who started when he was five. And yeah, I think that's awesome. I love the idea being able to do the sport. So I don't ever wanna lose focus on making it easy, making it accessible, making it affordable. We're a high end brand, so we don't tend to go for the bargain basement type wings.
But we do wanna make quality wings at a reasonable price, and I don't wanna lose sight. Yeah. And like in terms of price, like obviously the, a Lula wing is much more expensive, the material like, and like what, how much of a performance advantage do you actually get out of that material and is it, only like someone noticed that, is it just for high performance wing foiling or do you think the average user, it's a big advantage for them to go with a Lula fabric?
Yeah, I mean anybody that can afford it will benefit from it. It's just a question of do you wanna spend the money and, know, where are your priorities? You have three kids you have to worry about until spending my wife likes them cause they're light and she doesn't need the stiffness, but she likes the low weight, so she always wants to be on, if possible bigger rider like the.
Someone who weighs 200 pounds is gonna really benefit from the stiffness or somebody who likes to jump, who benefit from the stiffness. Most people, it's totally a matter of whether they wanna spend the money or not. You, there's always a benefit and the bigger the wing, the greater the benefit.
So a six meter gives you more benefit in aula than a three five in Aula for sure. So let's talk a little bit about the equipment that you use personally. What's your go-to wing like on Maui? I know you have, what, which wing do you use the most, on. We use s scores and fives here a lot.
Three. Three fives scores and fives a lot. . On a sea breeze days, sea breeze day when it's blowing six, eight knots, I can be on a seven or eight pretty easily. And. Of course if it's blowing like it has last week, I can easily be on it too. And do you prefer the unit or the the slick wing for your personal use?
I really like booms a lot because I can, it's easier to locate my harness lines precisely and I can put my hands anywhere and I can fly one handed. When I say I'm getting from my, from a sitting position to a kneeling position I can one hand the boom and that makes it easier.
One hand. But, I used to hate handled wings, but we, our handles are good enough that I like the units also. So what I, it's pretty much whatever I'm working on is what I'm writing. So lately I've been working on slicks mostly and I've been writing slicks mostly. But in the coming few months I'll be working on units entirely and I'll be writing units.
So what changes have you made to the slick wing for 2023? What have been? So we did a lot of the things on the new slick that we did on the unit. So we went to the mod canopy, we four windows. We have gone with more canopy depth and more power. We fine tune the tip twist and we had some reflex, quite a bit of reflex in the strut of the 2022 slick.
With the new canopy cloth. First I should point out that the thing the reflex did was made it so that the back of the canopy didn't bag out so much when you get gust or if you're out in high wind. So the reflex in the stru improved the top end performance of the slick. By however, with our new canopy, We don't have that bagginess in the cloth.
So we were able to tone down the reflex by quite a bit. It's just a maybe three degrees now of reflex in the strut. I should point out also that the wider tips of the flick make it so that the slick benefits more from a little bit of reflex than the unit. The unit has narrower tips and it works different.
What else on the slick? We've changed the shape of the strut a little bit. And yeah, o overall it's a lift smoother, lift wing, smoother wing. The power development is actually the smoothest of any I've tried. So when we're sailing along through Guston walls, we feel the gusts less with the slick than we have with any other wing we've ever tried.
Okay. And then what about your board and your foils? Like what are your go, what's your go-to equipment on that? Yeah, so I I don't use small boards. I did a little bit a while ago, but I don't jump, so I don't really need a small board. I've been using 75 liter five foot boards quite a bit for the last year or two.
And lately I've been on a five four, that's 24 wide and we're trending narrower. Some of us are trending narrower, just cause if you're on a small hydrofoil, if you have a little bit longer narrower board, you can pop up on the foil more easily. But. A longer board isn't necessarily good for waves, so anybody who's on, heavily into waves isn't gonna be on the longer board.
I see. There's probably, I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, sorry. I was just gonna say the ta tail shape, I mean I know it people used to have all the kick tails and all that, but it seems like with the, the smaller, faster foils high aspect foils you need, it's almost like you don't want to pop up at a steep angle.
You want to keep that board as flat as possible on the takeoff. So do you still use that kick tail or is it just a flat tail in your Yeah, I haven't used kick tail in quite a while. And I think those were mostly valuable in the bigger boards cause it was hard to some lift.
Sinking the tail and getting the nose up is easy. So I think you don't really need any kick for a small board. , the boards I use my mask is about six or seven inches from the tail of the board. So there's just not much back there to keep it from kicking up in the nose. And then how long is your mask?
What mass length do you like? I've been using in the 90 to 95 range a lot. And I've used longer, but there's a lot of shallow water around here. Yeah, I was gonna ask what's the disadvantage? So a lot of times it's, it is just like you don't want to hit the reef, right? ? Yeah. The longer, longer mass are either they're, to keep 'em stiff, they have to be a bit heavier and maybe a little thick, which.
Not necessarily attractive. And then there's, you always have to look at what the tide's doing. Where I ride I don't like to go out. If there's less than a foot of water a foot above mean water. And if it's two feet, that's better . And sometimes I'll just go to the harbor. If it's a super low tide time of day and I need to test something, I might go to the harbor.
Cause at least I know they can get away from the beach without hitting the bottom. I'm curious cuz you've done a lot of testing, like when you get scratches on your foil from the, like hitting the reef a few times all my fos are pretty scratched up. How much does it affect the performance, like in your experience?
Hugely. Hugely. Yeah. Yeah. It's terrible. I feel it. I've had, I won't say bad luck, but I have had collisions with things in the water that have destroyed my foils. And you really notice yeah, you notice everything. If you're, if you're sailing with somebody else, you notice because you're going slower all of a sudden, if you're not, yeah.
Do you repair it? Scratch, do you try to repair scratches in your foils? Or is there a way to Oh yeah. Fix it. Like how do you repair scratches on the bottom of the foil? I usually try to keep the scratching to a minimum and I'll just use a little tiny bit of two epoxy to fill the scratch.
Just, just enough to fill it and then sand it smooth. , I wanna get some epoxy paint so that I can, do a proper paint and sand job on some foils. But I haven't got around to that yet. You can't get a shipp here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that would be like a two-part paint epoxy paint kind of thing.
Yeah, there's stuff called DPO out Think Australia that America's Cup campaigns use for their hydrofoils and boats. That's supposed to be really good, but you have to ship it by boat probably, or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, . Okay. And then what we talked a little bit about the Mike's lab foils, but like what foils do you use the most and what sizes and so on?
Yeah, so we have a phone has a really nice five 90. It's, I don't think it's in the shop. It's a five 90 front wing that I really like. They, we have a seven, we, we've got an eight 50. We've got sizes, I guess the, I really dunno what's on the website. Okay. You just have a look real quick, but okay.
So that's pretty small for you. You have five 90 is pretty small foil size for your you're not, probably not as light as Alan could is or someone like that, right? Yeah, Alan and I use a Mike five 40 sometimes my wife uses it too. And so Alan and I can sail around both being on five 40, but 60 pounds, 50 pounds.
So work for most days around here, something like a five 90 is a really nice size for me. Lighter wind days. The seven five is good. It's a very powerful for size. I was looking at the so are they the duotone foils or the fanatic foils did you say? Use those are Oh, the ones you're showing the, there's those are kite hydrofoils.
Oh, duo Kite hydrofoils. Okay. And they're not the, they're not the latest stuff. I don't know if we have the latest stuff on the website. Cause it's been quite the challenge to get the new stuff outta Asia. It's basically not in available yet, basically. Yeah, I think so. Okay. So probably by spring on the mainland.
Okay. And that, but the, so the foil that. Five 90 that you're saying using, I assume that's a pretty high aspect pretty thin fast foil. Is that kind of what you, how you would describe it? Yeah. It's, yeah, high. It's probably 10 to one aspect ratio and designed to be fast. We have cfd Computational Fluid dynamic in Germany who does, we work for a lot of projects, likeer America's Cup campaigns, and he's designed some profiles for us, for our mask and for our wings that we think are really very competitive.
I, Peter rides his stuff all the time and he's extremely hard to keep up with, so I have no doubt that it's fast. , yeah. It's pretty amazing how much the foils have improved over the last couple, or, last three years or so. Coming from the early goal foils, what foils did you start on?
I was designing our kite hydrofoils and our windsurf hydrofoils, and we had some decent trading windsurf, hydrofoils. And then when I started making 'em bigger, they weren't very good at first. So I started on some real crap foils. Very difficult to ride hydrofoils. . Then over time they got better and and became pretty easy to ride over the period of some months and maybe a year.
Okay. So I just want some of the, a lot of those hydrofoils you just showed on the website or things that I designed Oh, a couple years ago. . Yeah. So actually, let's talk a little bit about the challenges that, during the pandemic, the whole supply chain issues and logistics, shipping issues and things like that, and delays and the demand, obviously during the pandemic when everybody was like staying, could, couldn't, people couldn't go to work, so they added more free time.
It seemed like that's when winging just took off, like I know here on Oahu it was like, you just couldn't, we couldn't get enough stuff, there was like more, way more demand than supply. And then now it seems like where it's almost like the op opposite way where there's everything's back in stock and people are back in at work and not buying as much.
I don't know, just can you talk a little bit about that and your experience with that? You pretty much said it all except for the fact that when pandemic was. Paradise. There was no traffic, there was no people on the beaches. It was amazing time in so respects sad in many respects, but not for everyone.
Not for everyone. My workload didn't diminish at all. I had a lot of design work to do and a lot of testing to do, and so life didn't change for me. It did change for a lot of, obviously for a lot of people. And yeah, the supply problems were an issue. We couldn't get prototypes. Were a time for a short time, but the people in the factories, they were very aggressive about getting back to work.
And I, I think we were lucky that they were able to do that. Okay, Ken, sorry about that. I my computer just shut down all of a sudden. I think I had maybe a power surge or something like that. But we're back on. And while we're trying to get back on you, you did a little screen share of your software that you used to design design Your Wing.
So if you're willing to share some of that's pretty cool stuff. We'd love to see that. Of course. Yeah. Can see your screen now? Yes. Tell us about what you're doing there. So this is
Alab three, five, and I don't usually let, always have handles on the model, but I'm putting a handle on the model now. And so I can put another handle on there. Make it about. 300 millimeters long. And so there you have the wing, the leading edge handle, and that's too far back.
Yeah. So what do you shoot for with the handle locations? Like when you're winging, do you want your hands to be right in the middle of those rigid handles or is it something where you more towards the front, more towards the back? Like how do you determine where to put these handles?
Yeah. We, I get feedback from a variety of people who weigh different amounts and Right in different ways and just try to position 'em so that nobody ever complains about running outta handle when they are in Yeah, guess that's mostly if you look at these little dots that I'm highlighting running likeor around, I see those represent places I found where my hands work pretty well.
That scale, those does dots scale with every wing so that if it's a 3.5, you've got 'em. If you've got a 6.5, you've got 'em. So going back to the five, this is the this is the model that developed to create for 3.5 meter D-lab unit. And ok. You can see it looks a lot like the actual pictures.
If you ever find a picture of it. Yeah. Nice. Can you talk a little bit about what you were saying earlier about the reflex? Can you explain what you mean by reflex? And changing the reflex depending on the, like cuz of the changed fabrics and so on. Can you explain that a little bit? Yeah. That we would wanna look at a slightly different wing.
We're on this one. Maybe just talk about did you have that the left pocket, that orange lu pocket in the front and then in the back the wing is connected directly to the bladder or the strut and like what's the reasoning behind that? Or So sorry. Go. Yeah.
On, so this is model.
This is a wing that has some reflex in the strut. You can see how it, it bends up in the back and , that's just something that helps maintain tension in the belly of the canopy, in the, this area of the canopy in a August, instead of getting a big baggy bit of cloth back here, that moves the center of effort back.
We manage to keep tension in this cloth that tends to stretch a lot anyway. We manage to keep tension in there and so it handles gusts better. Ok. As for whether to have a, an info panel here or not? With the slick, we have to have the boom attaching. To the, of the, so the front of the strut has to be down here.
It can't be way up there. So we have to have a attaches to the canopy by means of infill panel, have infill panel, all maintain control, the Ofop center. So it's like having the strut there without actually having the strut there with the unit. We didn't really want the handles to be at steep angles to each other we, we couldn't have the strut angled way up to the canopy and coming back down.
So we made the infill panel longer. And why do you have that little bend in this strut, like where it goes up a little bit and then back down again. Is there, what's the reason for that instead of ha just having all go all the way across straight? Yeah, so we've ex, especially lately, we've experimented a lot with the ergonomics and we find that a little bit of angle, six to 11, maybe 12 degrees of angle, somewhere in that range between the two handles is really comfortable for the hands.
So on the unit, that's something we wanna maintain. We're experimenting with quite a few different ways of arranging the handles to try and get like a really more intuitive and natural and comfortable feel when you're uh, riding. . . Okay. And then have you played around with trying to make the center of gravity a little bit lower?
Like I've like wings that have the strut almost a little bit lower where it feels more stable at with having a lower center of gravity, yeah, there's something be said for that. An airplane with a low center of gravity and highl will be inherently more stable.
And yeah, there's something be said for that, but I've also noticed that with the handle essentially being a little closer to the strut, there are advantages to that too , yeah, I we're, we kinda go back and forth on that.
I think the ergonomics of it is an extremely important issue and we put a lot of attention on that. Okay. Can you talk a little bit about the back of the lead of the strut? It's pretty fat. It's, it seems like you, you'd going thicker than most other brands I've seen.
What's the reason for that? Why do you keep it thick all the way to the back? The I'm, I guess we want it to be stiff. We don't want, we don't want the wings to be too floppy. , this helps maintain, leach tension if the stru is stiff, that helps keep the canopy shape that we want.
And going thinner doesn't, part of it is perception because, I dunno this is a six five, and. As a percentage, the stru is a little thinner on the six five cause you gain stiffness so quickly as you go bigger in diameter that we don't need the stru on a six five to have the same thickness as a percent as the stru on five.
I've noticed that some wings when you jump or something, you really put a lot of pull on your back hand. This part of the stre, like right above the back hand is where it can bend a little bit. So that needs to be pretty strong actually. Yeah. Yeah. We want that to be stiff and strong.
Yeah. And then the other part where the leading edge tends to flex where the strut connect connects to the leading edge on some wings I've noticed. So . And then you said basically you try to combat that with different Dacron material as well, right? In the right, in the front of the, yeah.
On our Dacron wings. Yeah. We have a heavier cloth in these two panels. And what about on top? I noticed there's like a different the black panel on top. Is that also a different material that, that part? Yeah. So yeah, the, this gray panel is it's Dacron and we put it there to prevent with kites.
We had. A tendency fors to rub against the canopy and wear on the canopy. And we have this one pump here that could wear on the canopy. So we put dacron there to that. I see. Yeah, it's the detail. Yeah. Amazing. How yeah, how perfect it looks just on the computer like that. That must have taken quite a while to get to that point where you have yeah.
Yeah. In beautiful, in four and a half years, I've gone through a lot of wings for sure. . . And then all the seams on the front leading edge it seems do you need that many seams or I guess that, that way you just get a nicer, smoother curve than if you did less seams or what's the reasoning behind having that many seams?
Yeah for time I thought having fewer seams was nice cause it could help keep the cost down, less work at the factory keeps the cost down and makes it more affordable for the customer. But there are certain performance advantages to having more seams and I'm not, I don't think I wanna say why
Okay, fair enough. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that, sharing all that information. I You're al already sharing probably more, more than you should I'm thinking but awesome stuff and I'm sure people are gonna love getting all that information directly from you, the designer.
One thing we, one thing we do is we've been keeping the closing scene on the bottom of the leading edge and some brands are rolling it back, behind the leading edge. , but there, there are pros and cons with that. Also there, there're, there's some clear advantages to keeping it at the bottom of the leading edge and drag is a disadvantage.
So there's a little extra drag from this, but there are other advantages that have to do withing shaping and aerodynamics that cause us to leave it where it is. Interesting. It's not an accident, but it's there. . . Yeah. What about bladders? I know in the early generations of wings there, there was a lot of issues with the bladder, the, especially the strut bladder, the, where it connects to the deleting edge where, you know, if it folds a little bit or twist a little bit, it would pop, Yeah.
If that, that happened a alana of the early ozone wings and stuff. But how do you keep that strep bladder in place so it doesn't I know, and then there were some wings that had strings attached to the bladders and so on. So how do you combat the Yeah. The twisting and so on. Yeah. So one thing is we double up the thickness of the bladder at the front, the back, and we pull it in with two strings, a string at the top and a string at the bottom.
. So the is forced to fulfill the spaces that need to be filled. And yeah, we had problems at first cause we were using bigger diameters than we ever used with kites and bigger diameter leading edges than we ever used with kites. So there were some challenge challenges to overcome there for fortunately, I think pretty solid in nut area now.
. So I, I just noticed on the slick wing, the center strut is actually sticking out of the top of the wing. Like basically the, instead of the the wing just being attached to the top of it, it's actually go, going down to the center of it. It's interesting. What's your thought? What were your thoughts behind that?
That's just the model. I'm, I modeled the strut to have a little bit of reflex , but in reality, the canopy attaches to the top of the strut. It's just, oh yeah. And the amount of reflex you see there isn't, it's not really representative reality. Cause the way the cloth stretches and the way the sea shrink the cloth a little bit and whatnot, know for any number of reasons, it turns out a little different in reality.
, but in reality, the canopy is attached to the top of the strap. Yeah. And then when the wing is under loader and the gusts the wing tips will twist a little bit, from from the pressure and then the and you said that's of des you designed the amount of twist that, that it has and so on.
So can you talk a little bit about that, like what you learned about the wingtip and the importance of the different angles and so on? Yeah. Suddenly right now don't work way winding actually do. and they look great. Our wings don't do that. What, when gets loaded up, the twist happens here, like the canopy opens halfway out or two thirds of the way out from the center, and that actually doesn't, the way these inflatable tips work, they don't actually twist.
They might bend in a little towards the center. So when I talk about tip twist, I'm talking about something that's really static. So if you're looking at the wing from the side, you might, this isn't actually representative of reality, but you might build in a certain amount of angle in the tip and comes out.
The, or the tip of the wing. So you might build the wing with exaggerated tip twist by the,
doesn't change in a desirable way while you're riding the way it'll change with a winder sail while you're riding. That's because your leading edge too, is it's equally stiff in, I shouldn't say equally stiff in all directions, but it doesn't have a huge stiffness in the leach direction that a winder sale has, and the softness in the angle of attack direction that a winder sale has.
So the way it, the way it works is really different from what we would like it to work. and something we hope to overcome someday. That's actually something I wanted to ask you too. In windsurfing sales you have usually have a leach line that you can adjust. Like you can adjust the tension in the trailing edge of that line.
And have you played around with that? Have you tested that? Is that something that could make sense for wings or not really? Yeah, I don't think many windsurfing have that nowadays. Maybe they haven't at lately. But no, I don't, I put a little edge bit of, so that keeps flutter down.
But I, I don't want on each line really. Yeah. I've what we've noticed is like when you have a kind of an older wing that's a little bit stretched out, and if you hold it up against a newer wing, a lot of times the wing tips will just be a little bit wider because I guess the material stretches and then the wing tips are wider than when on a brand new wing.
Have you noticed that? I that, that particular observation I haven't personally read. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thanks so much for going into all this detail. I really appreciate that. I know we've been talking for a long time, so do you have anything that you wanna leave people with, like any comments on wining foiling or the community and so on?
I'm just really pleased to be part of it. Enjoying it every day. And I've been doing this basically for 47 years, and I plan to keep at it for a bit longer. And I really enjoy meeting all the different people I meet in this sport. And and it is been a pleasure talking with you about it.
Thanks so much, Ken. And thank you for bringing this sport to, into the world, really. The whole inflatable wing, you definitely have a big role in, in bringing it to the market and just making it better and better. And the amount of progression is just it's of mind blowing how quickly wing foiling has gone from just a brand new sport to a super high performance sport.
I'm amazed every day. Yeah. It seems like that whole progression and wind windsurfing, it probably took 20 years to get to the point where wing foiling is now. I guess it's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's still a lot more to come, I'm sure. It's just like a, we're still at the very beginning of it, so yeah.
Awesome. Yep. Okay. Okay, Robert, it's been a pleasure talking. Yep. Thanks so much, Ken. Have a great rest of your day. You too. Bye. Take care. Okay, so I hope you enjoyed this interview with Ken Winter. Please remember to give it a thumbs up if you like the show subscribe to the Blue Planet YouTube channel and so on.
I really appreciate everyone that's still watching or listening to the very end. You're the ones I'm making the show for the hardcore foyers that can't get enough information and today's interview with all that information on the wings, I think was really special. I think it's just gonna drive the sport forward.
For me personally I'm super interested in this kind of stuff and I know other people are as well, so this show gives me the opportunity to speak to people like Ken and find out more about what they're up to, which I think there's a lot of people out there that are just as interested in that as I am.
So thank you for sticking around and. We'll see you next year. Happy holidays and happy New Year. I'll see you in 2023 with more Blue Planet shows. All right. Thanks for watching. Aloha, and see you on the water.
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- Lytte senere Lytte senere
Wing Foil interview: Mike’s Lab- Mike Zajicek and Stefano Moris on the Blue Planet Show episode 23
17 Dec 2022· The Blue Planet Show
Mike Zajicek and Stefano Moris make some of the world's fastest foils. When I researched their foils to use for wing foiling, I could not find much information online. After many months of waiting, they were finally able to make time for an interview. The timing was great since I just received the 600 Mike's lab Foil from them that I ordered months ago. We talk about their background, how they started designing and making foils and go into detail on their foil design theories and construction. For more information on their foils, please visit: http://www.mikeslab.com
Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show, where I interview foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders and get lots of good information for all those foil crazy people out there, like you and me. This year I didn't post a lot of interviews, but I'm ending this year, 2022 with a bang, with two really good interviews.
Today's interview is with Mike's lab founder Mike and partner Stefano. They make some of the best foils in the world, the fastest foils in the world, hand-built in San Francisco and in Italy. The story, background story is really cool as well. know, Mike grew up in Czechoslovakia, communist Czechoslovakia, where he started building windsurf equipment and making it for his friends.
And then escaping over the border, risking his life to escape Communist Czechoslovakia, and ended up in the West and eventually in San Francisco, started making windsurf boards again for some of the top athletes in the world, and then getting. Foils at the time of the interview. I only had one quick session on my 600 mike slab foil.
Since then, I've been able to try it more and also use it on a really long downwind run in epic conditions from Hawaii Kai to White Plains where we winged like about 40 miles downwind. Super fun. And that's why I could really tell how fast this foil is. I went out with some really fast guys and was able to of smoke them in some of the runs just because the foil was really quick and easy to control and I was just able to make these big drops on these big bumps.
And so I had a great time with it. I might include some of that footage in this during this interview. And then also I have some really nice footage of Alan Kez using his five, I think it's a five 40 Mike's lab foil in Kailua. And got some cool drone footage of him going super fast on that foil as well.
I hope you enjoy the, this interview and next week's interview is gonna be with Ken Winter. He's the designer at Duotone and making some of the best wings on the market and also was really the first one to make inflatable wings for foiling. He's definitely a pioneer and a really good story.
Started. Windsurf professional, and then got into the design side of things. And he really shared a lot about the, his wing designs and philosophy and et cetera. So that's a really good show as well. And I'm gonna post that the following Saturday, which is December 24th, and wishing everyone happy holidays.
And without further ado, here is Mike and Stefano with Mike's lab. So welcome, Stefano and Mike to the Blue Planet Show. Today's show is about Mike's Lab foils. Thanks so much for joining me. I've been waiting for quite a while to get you on the show. And I finally got my own Mike's lab foil.
I've only tried it one time, unfortunately, but really really excited about it. So welcome to the show. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. And actually, let's start with where you are joining from, so we're spread out all over the world here. All right. I'm in Sienna, Italy, and I'm close to San Francisco.
Yeah. And then I'm in Honolulu where it's morning time. And I think for you it's Mike is midday and for Stephano, it's late in the evening. So thanks for making the time to, to join the Blue Planet Show. , my, my video is, Doing funky stuff, but, so anyway let's talk a little bit about your background.
I just heard Mike saying that you you basically had to escape from, or Yeah. Tell us about, a little bit about your background how you got to where you're now. Maybe start with Mike. Yeah, so obviously I have went grade school, then apprentice training for cabinet making, but high end cabinet making, the European stuff, which you make, eat for generations rather than the, whatever I learned here.
Kitchen cabinets with a staple gun, , very different. And then I went to like high school with kinda orientation for architecture, interior design and furniture design. And after that I worked for about a year in interior design in the office and also in the what is it? Shop shop. And we were catering to diplomats in Prague, taking care of the residences, preparing all that and.
About 1978 actually. Exactly. I started making windsurfing boards because that was one thing we were allowed to do because my brother took on hang gliding and that was a no-no, especially close to the border. So that quickly became somewhat outlawed except one little hill in center of Czech Republic.
So that's why me and my friends, we picked up wind surfing and, so 78 I made the first one, and that's how I actually introduced myself into epoxy and all that. And I kept making boards until 2012, actually more, that was the end of windsurfing boards, and then the kit boards went on for another, I would say three to four years.
But during the end of that time the foil came on and I was able to jump on probably the first sword foil, which was imported into America by Brian Lake. And he left for a week somewhere and he said, yeah, Mike, hey, he have at it and I, it was a very interesting time. He couldn't quite do it yet. It was a skim board.
I put footsteps on it so I can even try because I hate boards without footsteps. And yeah, it was difficult. He thought he wasted his money soon, very soon after he came back, he learned enough that he was doing the, I think it was Friday night races on kite boards. And very quickly he started winning the weather mark.
And so we knew this is the way to go. And so sorry to interrupt you, but this was all still in the Czech Republic, right? No. I escape in 1983. And what are we are talking about now? Maybe 2014. So there's 30 years between. Okay. But okay. So you were saying back, so back in the Czech Republic, you're doing an apprenticeship for building furniture and so on.
And then you started playing with hang lighters and building wind surfers, correct? Correct. That was all. So in the Czech Republic? Yes. And I'm sure that at that time you weren't really able to buy any goods from the West, so you had to basically build your whole rig and everything, or like, how, yeah.
How was, how did that work? So back then, yeah, we basically bought, it was actually a pre molded piece of styrofoam, but we didn't like the shape, so we reshaped it a little bit and then laid it up with fiberglass and epox. and for, let's say universal. We had friends like machine fittings where the high pressure hose would fit into get screwed from the, from both sides with like heavy duty bolt, expand the high pressure hose into this little delivering housing.
That was our universal. And then we fitted aluminum MAs, which is just a piece of pipe, and same thing for the boom, which I found two trees and started bending my aluminum pipe to make a boom. And then I SCO end together. And I'm sure everybody started like that. Everybody in eastern Europe, right?
Yeah, because I grew up in, in west Berlin, but we had friends in East Germany and they had to basically build their own equipment unless we brought them something over from the west, . Yeah. But I recall the beginnings in Maui, like early seventies, and nobody was making anything and they were pioneering their own way.
Oh, so that, was that early you got into windsurfing, like back Yeah, I was 78 maybe just few years later and certainly couldn't buy except those pre molded styrofoam blanks. Somebody was able to put together probably on the side in some factory. And yeah, that's what we bought and we could buy a park and fiberglass that was doable.
Okay. And then talk a little bit about how you escaped from the Czech Republic and made it to the us. So me and my wealth, our dad was always on a dissident side, but he never got too much in trouble except getting fired from pilot school. But his friends they were persecuted a little bit more to the point that some of them ended up in u New Mines, and actually two sons of one of this, these friends helped us later on.
But first we took a vacation in Yugoslavia and we contacted these couples sons over on my dad's friend, who in the meantime died as probably the result of the minds. So they researched an area how we can, or where it's safe to jump the fence between Yugoslavia and Italy. First we tried to sail from Yugoslavia to Italy across, like this Northern bay.
We were quickly stopped by boat and we were in the wetsuit, so they just sent us. . Then later on, I remember being in some kind of a police station. I think that's when we came up to the border crossing and they basically took us out and did little interview. And the third time, there was few days later, these friends from Switzerland came and we started talking, strategizing, and they had this city in US Lavia where some other check people were able to just jump the fence in the middle of the city.
And so that's what we ended up doing. And we abandoned our car on the US lobby inside and they basically loaded us into their car. And from dark midnight Italy, we drove all the way to Vienna refugee camp, which is Austria, where the waiting line was locked shorter. And we just had to lie to authorities there, that was the first country we stepped our foot on.
So we will be able to stay in a refugee camp and apply for asylum. Wow. So this was like, I guess this was before the Berlin Wall came down and things like that. Oh yeah. What year? What year was that? I, this was 83 and Berlin Wall came down in 89. Oh, okay. So that's when the borders were really still really strict and hard to Oh Cross, right? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So that, you're basically risking your life doing that, right? Yeah, if you don't do it in the right spot. So my cousin was actually in the army and he was patrolling the bo border, and there was like 50 kilometer dead zone, and they had machine guns, him and his body and dogs basically patrolling the, this dead zone with electrical fences and all that.
And my cousin decided to escape, this was like two years before I did it. So he knew that it was a bad area and he was so soft that his parents were actually just, his dad was allowed to go to the refugee camp, talk to him, and he managed to bring him back. And so he got little fill in how it goes, because he worked on the border and he escaped.
And I'm sure his body wasn't deep due to after, wow. His whatever colleague escapes. But anyway, so then you applied for asylum, I guess in, in Europe and then, but how did you make it to San Francisco? . So yeah, you apply, you wait few months we had a interview with Ambassador, US Ambassador in vie.
And once he okayed us, we in the meantime joined this American Fund for Czechoslovak refugees, which was financing the flights, to come to us. And we were asked where they were gonna send us to Boston, and we thought further away from Europe would be better idea. And luckily we got San Francisco, so we ended up directly to here.
They paid us first month's rent and after that we were on our own. Luckily we got welfare the first few months and yeah, after I, I literally started working in a company shop two weeks after arrival with zero English, , some French, enough Russian. And luckily a Russian guy hired me for his shop. So I was able to speak Russian to him at first, but he had three other young guys like me, and I picked up English from them within few months.
Pretty okay. Especially, and it's just about work, it's not, it wasn't too bad. Wow. Yeah, now, and now your English is very good, so that's impressive. How old were you when you got to the United States? 23. Oh, okay. Wow. Yeah. Okay. That's a amazing story. And then, yeah, so then you got a job, and then how did you get into making your own foils?
First it was the boards. I jumped from that 78 back in check. I made at least six wind boards. And then here I am in San Fran, driving by Berkeley, where I see dozens of wind surfers having fun. And I go, I gotta, get back to it. Me and two other friends, we bought this production like horrible quality boards and started going out there and later on I realized, yeah, I probably have to make me my own board again.
And it was 1985 when I made my first board, maybe 86, 1 of those. And I managed to cut my finger pretty badly in that process, . And I finished the board injured, and three of my friends tried it, and they immediately said, yeah, we need something like that. We want same board. . So I had three customers before I could ever try my first board out here,
And I slowly shifted from cabinet making and little bit later construction because my Russian boss managed to fire me for asking him a question . So I went into short period of construction and from that I was able to meander into making boards. And so that's how you started basically you started your own business building boards?
Yeah. In 86 full-time. Okay. Definitely 87. And then, yeah. And then talk about, yeah. How that evolved into Mike's lab, I called it, believe it or not, Mike's lab. Then for the first board, just as a joke that I'm some big operation . It was, nothing. And yeah, I was making in inroads into the local scene, racing myself, pushing it.
And then local racers like Bar Chrisman and Steve Silvester, they noticed sooner than later they got their own boards made by me, even though Bar Chrisman was making his own. But it was too much work for him, , and now he's using my force. That's crazy. Literally, what is it, 37 years later or 40 maybe
Yeah. So I'm making boards and in 1996, Matt Pritchard asks me to make him aboard and he picks it up on the way to Hood River Nationals. And he wins by a long shot, like all bullets, by long distance. So immediately Kevin stepped in, then Kevin won his first World Cup, p w a beating beyond Dereck, interrupting his 13 year winning streak on my board, which was a big deal.
Wow. And I think it was 1999. And film again calls me and he goes, Mike, you gotta come over. Kevin's gonna do it. And sure enough, I just made awards and that was a lot of fun. . Oh, that's excellent. Okay. So Matt and Pritchard put you on the map a little bit with the Win Winston Awards and Yeah. Later on it was all kinds of other people like Phil Scott Fent, and Michael many others.
They all use Finian Min. Newberg who was, there was plenty of others. And the whole time, like basically you're not really sponsoring these guys, they're just buying boards from you because you make the fastest boards or were you making boards for free for some of those guys? No, they had to pay me.
I was still very poor, barely making it. To the top guys, I was trying to keep the price down so they can keep selling it. And they did, they sold the board for at least the same, if not more. But I didn't have to do the paperwork or all that, so I just Yeah. Collected money and they let them deal with it.
So early on, pretty much everybody had to pay me, but I was very reasonable about the prices, hopefully . Wow. Yeah, it's a little bit like I, I was talking to Mark Rappa horse who started S I c and all the best guys were buying his boards cuz they were the fastest boards available and he didn't really have to sponsor anybody because that's a nice position to be.
Yeah, that's where I . But it seems like to the, to this day, it's like you have more, like you, it seems like you have a long waiting list to, for these foils. Like I had to wait, I don't know, three or four months to get a foil. What's your wait time? And I don't know is that kind of how you try to keep it where you basically, you can't make as many as people want?
Or what's, yeah, what's your philosophy? Stef, I should men jump in here in let's say the waiting times and the list, but I would say boards, you can almost go in and, let's say have a mate in Cobra, which we did with the kite boards and they were pretty dang good. But I don't really see how our design could be successful and made somewhere in China without us looking it over.
And we did try to teach an outfit here in Michigan, I believe, and we slept through about, I don't know, six months, maybe a year. And it still wasn't, the quality wasn't there, so it's not so easy. So I step, Steph should jump in here. Yeah, actually okay. So actually Stefana maybe start talking a little bit about your background, like how you got into this business.
Sure. Okay. Mike is one of my best friends. I've known him since I was 18 years old. I'm 48 now. And I, yeah, time flies. And so I met Mike at the Berkeley Marina windsurfing because I caught the windsurfing bug when I was 17. And I met him when I was 18 and I was at the Berkeley Marina and I would see him and all these other guys just go up, up and down and upwind up to Treasure Island training every day.
And as a senior in high school at that time, I got off at around noon, just afternoon. So I was going to Berkeley every day. And I just saw that as a goal I wanted to achieve, to be able to, be as fast as those guys and be able to go up wind as fast as those guys. And I was on this super heavy polypropylene, tega windsurf board, and I was just, slug up there.
And I finally remember finally making it all the way up to Treasure Island and seeing Mike and the others dancing around playing, doing big jumps. And I chased them back down wind. And I tracked Mike down in the parking lot and we started talking. And then I, and for me, Mike's lab. as a board maker and as a person was already a legend at that point in the windsurfing scene.
So I remember going up to him and oh my gosh, you got a new Mike's lab? Oh, when did you get that? And Mike was like, oh, I made it . And so that just started the whole conversation there. And Mike, gave me an awesome deal. My very first Mike's lab board was a one that had broken and taken up water and he was able to cut the whole thing in half and let it dry out and repair it.
So he sold it to me for cheap and I paid off by digging under his house an addition, an additional room under his house. Cuz as a high school student I didn't have that kind of money . And yeah, so that's how our friendship started is out there on the race course, so to speak.
And I'm a product designer, so I went to San Jose State and studied product design. So I'm right in the middle between mechanical engineering and fine art. And during my university days and on weekends I'd be working in a windsurfing shop. On the summers I'd be doing all the local race circuit and everything like that.
And often would fly myself at Mike's for dinners and jacuzzi time and just philosophizing on life. And that's how our friendship started. . And then in 2006 I met my Italian wife and I have Italian relatives too over here. And so I decided to move over here. And in 2014 is when we started the whole Hydrofoil project.
And since as a product designer, I have, I've been doing CAD and 3D and tool design and things like that since 1994. And I proposed to Mike Hey, let's, let's I knew the scene in San Francisco was already blowing up and Mike was already sending me messages about it and I wanted to get into it too.
And I'm just one of the people I, I love to just build everything. And I'm always more satisfied to be out on the water if it's something that I've made. So I was just saying, Hey, let's, start a project together just almost like a hobby, we'll design it together and Mike will do all the first layups.
I'll do all the tool design. I'll make the first mold. I should jump in quickly in here. Yeah, so I got it sort then soon enough I got spots, foil as well, l shortly after that, F four started making their own foil. and I was hacking together literally hundreds of pieces with thousands of combinations for maybe a couple of years and never really figured out what it needs and where is the problem.
And I know I couldn't control the sort in pitch and spots in left. And I knew it could be combined. And I'm telling Stefano and he goes let's make our own. And there it was. . , yeah. Wow. So it started, so before you met, and I guess that was in the early nineties when you guys met when you were 18.
So before that, did you grow up in California or Yeah. Yeah. I was born in San Francisco and I grew up in the Bay Area. Yes. Oh, okay. And then, so basically you married an Italian wife, your Italian wife, and then moved to, basically moved to Italy. Yeah. And then, so now you make, basically you make foils as well in, in Italy.
Yeah so the whole development process with Mike is that, from TA 2014 when things started just almost as a hobby, but then quickly started getting requests and things like that I was always doing the design work, the tooling and we would always sort of hash out over at that particular time, Voxer, now we use what's up, but just chats to refine and go over the designs.
And I would then come over once or twice a year to work with him in his garage and help boost production because we quickly gotta to the point where we just could not meet demand. And we had to get some more man, hands in there so to speak. So I would come over. A couple times a year to do these production sessions.
And and at that particular time I was also teaching at a a university here in Italy, different design courses and curriculum. And then in 2019, the demand got so much where it justified me opening up my own shop over here. So from 2019, I've had my own lab, so to speak where I produce a lot of the foils that are then sold on over here in Europe.
Wow. Okay. Great story. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna share this these cool sketches that you emailed me. I'm gonna screen share it and sure. And can you see them? Yeah. Okay. So I guess at that time you guys were one of you was in the Bay Area and one is in and Europe and Italy.
And then you were making these for Kite, kite foiling. . Yeah. These first sketches are one of our very first designs. And we, Mike and I both have the philosophy where we just gotta try stuff and learn by doing, we are definitely of the trial and error philosophy.
And so this, these are sketches of our very first design, which had, the mass mounted directly over the wing. And I would often 3D print stuff and send it over to Mike so we could have it in his hands. And what you're seeing, all those little pieces, seven through two, and A, B, C, D, those were all the first sort of positive mold like that I sent to Mike because our very first design made negative molds by 3D printing them and backfilling them with resin and M D F, but it ended up getting lost in the shipping.
So then a few months later I had to send him the positives, which then he made molds of so just for a good laugh. That was our very first design. Okay, so these little pieces, you made 3D printed molds and then built the basically made the parts and then put 'em all together into to make one foil.
Yeah, those, I sent them all the pieces and he could put them all together and then make a mold himself out of fiberglass or whatever he did at the time. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. , and this is where you were a little bit younger still . Yeah. . But yeah, talk, here's sketches, where we're thinking about, how to keep the tips from popping outta the water.
Just what seems so obvious now. But at that time, these were all considerations that we were making. Yeah. And here's a little cross section of how I was gonna make the 3D printed mold to send them. And I, this, this was a, it was such a tragedy because I, for months, I printed all these pieces, made this huge mold, and it just literally got lost in shipping and just damaged.
It's probably some buried in some warehouse in America somewhere. ? Oh, no. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So talk a little bit about this. Is this like your secret sauce or can you share a little bit about like, how you built your molds and if, are you still do using that same process? No, the not at all.
So this was in the beginning we used the 3D printing to make the first mold, but we quickly realized that it's just not accurate enough. When you're dealing with making and designing and making hydrofoils, you have to have much higher tolerances. And We quickly moved on to aluminum molds.
However, having said that, often in our design process between Mike and I, Mike is somebody that really likes to have something, between his hands, that he can of feel the profile and help visualize the connection. And so often I would print out little pieces and send them to him just so he could like, touch and hold them and give feedback on what he thought.
And that was these little pieces here kind of thing? Yeah. Or I don't know if, I don't remember if I sent a picture or not, but, our connections or sometimes profile sections and things like that. Yeah, wing section, wingtip, just to, for me to touch it and Yeah.
But, oh, sorry. I just picked up basically the dimensions from what seemed to be working from my thousands of experiments over couple of years. And I gave the rough dimensions and then Stefano would add it, make it into a final product. And then we had somebody, I believe, in Kansas making our first aluminum molds, which were, reasonably pricey, but for, as he said lot better tolerances and also option.
Cooking it in the oven to get the proper mask strength. We had to go the aluminum route and pressures, I we clamp our molds together. Everybody knows we do a wet layer process and we use really high pressures, which obviously 3D printing doesn't, can't hold up to it. . But these original molds, I guess the, this part here was the three pin 3D printed part, and then you put exactly resin underneath it and MDF boards, and then just Yeah.
Made your own molds out of yeah, out of 3D printed materials for prototyping, basically. Yeah. Yeah. And I since those early days, I have done this a couple more times when I want to do something that's just so ridiculous that it's not worth spending, a few thousand on an aluminum mold and then find out that it doesn't work, so I, I did a flying wing concept many years ago with this same process. Okay. And then I guess this picture here is like the, where the mass is right on top of the foil, but the foil is angled forward. Yep. Yeah. Looks like a good way to catch seaweed, right? Yeah, . Exactly. . But how did it work?
We I think we ended up not doing such a forward rake when we, I think this was like maybe one of the very first sketches. Yeah, just a sketch. I bet you it would turn really good. And I know brand did this forward. Oh yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Okay and then this looks like what year was this?
This kind of an older article. Huh? The world's fastest kite boards. Kite boards by day. Wow. So if it's a kiteboard, I bet you it's about 2014, maybe 13. And yeah, I went straight from winding making boards from, for Johnny Heineken, Adam Cook, and all these really fast guys. And again, they took it straight to the world championship winning.
Johnny was at least two or three times world champion on the three Fin Kitire boards. Yeah, right there, . And then this, I guess this was before foiling, right? This, these were just Exactly with a regular fin on the back and so on. Yeah. Yeah. Three fins. Yes. Oh, three fins. Okay. Wow. Which ironically turned into be perfect for learning Wing foiling.
Yeah. And then the, and then there's these asymmetrical speed boards. Huh. That's cool too. That's Rob Douglas, who was always, and he still is now pursuing speed on wings with my foils, and he's buying all kinds of wings, trying to go fast. But this was at the time when kites were actually holding the world speed record for sale powered craft.
And he was asking me to make his boards with his ideas, his dimensions for different conditions. I believe at the end I probably made about 27 of these for him. . Wow. So at the at that time, yeah, the kites held the world speed record for sail power. Who's holding it now? What is it?
Is it foils or still regular boards well be, so he got his world record, 55.5 knots, which held for I think a couple of years. And then the little boat, Ste. May know the name. I think it was some kind of attraction foil with a sail. Yeah. Vest. Sail rocket. Yeah. And sale Rocket disintegrated at the end of the run by, by obliterating that 55 55
Or maybe over 60, but it could never be repeated because the book was in, in pieces, . Oh, wow. And then that's still the world record, that's the current world record? Or did they get the world record with that run, or, yes. No, they did. They did. And then at the end of the run, the Bo boat, just self des or self-destructed.
Hon, honestly, I don't, I, I know the, when the Sail Rocket had their big crash, I don't think that was the record run. I think they went and re rebuilt and did the record run after that, but I believe they still have the record. And this, yeah, this image here is just, I have a portfolio site just showing a, the depth of my work. I've done everything from consumer electronics to toys, to, to clothing. A lot of people think since I'm involved, in the design side of Mike's lab, they think I'm, an aero engineer or, a naval architect.
But I'm not I'm really just as much an artist as I am a tinkerer. , if you would say, So even like first class airline seats and things like that you worked on . Yep. Yep. And what is this? A it's a little mp3, boom box from back in the day. And there's some other Bluetooth concepts there.
I was working for a design firm for a while where we did shoe concepts for Nike. I've done everything from, multimedia commercials to some c compositing work to web design and coding and things like that. So a little bit of everything under the creative umbrella. The slipper looks a little bit like a kite surfing foot strap.
Yeah. Maybe there's some subconscious influence there. What's this one? The Air Force water plane. Oh, I so I, all my life I've been into, radio control, everything and this kind of ties into the hydrofoil design. And I, it's the same with Mike in the sense that we've, all the things we've been into in our lives, we've always thought about just the way fluid flows.
So neither Mike nor I. Like I said, aeronautical engineers but we definitely lie awake at night thinking about flow. And so I've done, yeah, that was a scratch built radio control airplane I built and I've done discus launch and RC helicopters and I there was a period of my life where I was skydiving for about 14 years, and I also designed and built a parachute.
So I've even designed and built foil kites as well. So just flow, fluid flow. Interesting. And then this looks like a covid safe cafeteria design. Is that what it is? ? No, it's old fur. It's a old library furniture from a much old, just for privacy or yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So not not the covid flowing across the table.
Yeah. No. And since 2019, that's all I've been doing is the hydrofoil. So before 2019, I was mixing in consulting and, working on the hydrofoils with Mike. But since two, 2019 it's been just full-time hydrofoils, which Okay. Even then, even with Mike producing in California and me producing in Europe, yeah.
The wait list is still Optum 3, 4, 5 months. It depends on what model and where the person is located. Yeah. And then so the pictures in that portfolio shows Nico Par. And for about three years we were dominating the racing circuit on our kite foil and our waiting line just absolutely exploded.
It was pushing past two years, waiting time for everybody else, learn how to make proper foils. We were definitely there having very successful race design. And I think Nico Parley were at least two times world champion. Daniel Lamoro at least three on our foil, and maybe Johnny I think was as well, one once or twice.
Yeah. And I think it's really important to point out that, when people think of Mike's lab, they first think of Mike, and then sometimes they think about me. But the re the reality is it's really like a big team project. I If it wasn't for the valuable input and feedback of Nico and Johnny and Ricky Leche and Connor and all, just the whole slew of racers giving their input, then of course our hydrofoils wouldn't be where they are today.
So I just got this foil that bullet six and it's yeah, it's beautiful. I only tried it one time for a short time to test it out. It definitely felt fast and very efficient. But I'm wondering like, how many people do you have working on these and do you, did you actually do some of the work on this foil or like who who actually builds these foils at them?
Yeah, I believe I build this one and shift it to you, and the only thing I have done by somebody is to cut my pieces to be late inside the mold. So if you imagine a roll of carbon and I need to have the pieces precut, I have somebody doing that. But everything else I do myself. So the pre-reg carbon basically cut into into the pieces that fit into the mold.
It's not even pre-reg, it's dry carbon. It's dry carbon and then it's saturated by liquid resin. So the resin, do you like vacuum it into the mold or do you lay it out wet it out before the mold closes? How does that work? Yeah, exactly. Just wet it out piece by piece into each half of the mold and then the two halves come together and hopefully next morning it pops open with what you have.
It obviously needs a lot of cleaning after it comes out of the mold, but. . Yeah, so I guess this one looks like the whole, the fuselage and the whole front foil is all one piece and then it looks like the tail is molded separately and then connected here. Is that correct? No, it's all molded in the same time.
What you probably are looking at is our own mold connection. It looks like it's been connected, but no, it was all laid up in, in one time, one piece. And that's because we have to screw the wings to the fuselage from each end of the fuselage, right? So you can see the seam of the mold on the final product.
But other than that, it's all one piece. And our philosophy was back then trying to make a race foil. The less connections and the more in center the wings are in relation to the fuselage, the less, as Stephano called it, peak acceleration we gonna encounter. So if you have to screw the wing from one side or the other, you have bulk of the fage and meat necessary to, for the screw to go in on one side, and that's your unnecessary drag through the water.
So we decided to go this route and learn how to build it and it's reason. Efficient, making it this way that we don't have to spend time, making pieces there, machining them together, screwing them together. , this way we can find unit for the customer who may not have the ability, conditions or time to do it themselves, so they get something what's already fine tuned and you, the only way to really mess it up is to run the reef or something.
Oh, I know. And this foil looks so nice. I'm really scared of getting it scratched up. So the spot i g foiler is really shallow and then the mass I got is like 102 centimeters I'm probably only gonna use it in deep water spots. Yeah, I think you changed it from 96 to 1 0 2. . . Yeah.
No, for racing. It's definitely nice to, especially Darwin racing. I wanted to ask these has these little blue fibers in it. What is that and what, why are those early on? It was for me to I used to go to the border with up to six different boards and foils on shore and I would go in and out with a kite back then.
And I figured out how to mark them visually for me, because if you go in and out, you forget which one felt what and why. and I had this color coding type. Visuals. And I remember, oh, the orange one felt this way and felt good. Let me look how I build it. What is the pitch when I came home or to the shop the next day?
And I think it also gives it a little bit of a character. When people have the same foil, at least they can recognize which one is theirs. Especially running into the wrestling line. Sometimes people would grab somebody else's board In the past, if you can't believe it, like wind surfing boards, I made so this way.
It was a little bit, recognizable in the first glance. Okay. So that this is basically the color, just so you can each foils a little bit different and you can recognize which, which ones which. Yeah. And then, yeah, I noticed there is on the, and it's fun for us too, just it changes things up.
I like to use pigments and tins too when I'm doing mine. And it's fun cause you can see the difference between my ies and mine and just changes.
Yikes. Your connection is really slow now, I think. Yeah. We're breaking up a little bit, but, and then, yeah, on the mass too, it has these little colors and stuff like that. So it's just yeah, make it little bit unique. Each one. Each piece. Yeah. And the colors could be almost any color. I get a fiber in different colors and the pigments in different colors.
So yeah, it just can be limitless. And then the other thing that I found really interesting is the connection between the mask and the fu fuselage. And basically rather than having it like a lot of foils have almost a box, a little bit like a tule box where the mask goes into the foil.
But it looks like you try to it's more like you're maximizing the surface area where they're connected and and getting, that's not only the surface area, it's also not weakening the fuselage. The fuselage has to be super strong. And others using the mini total, if you can really pay attention, for example, lift, right lift foils, they do the mini total.
And if you look at the fuselage size on their foil, it's massive. So I don't know if they ever will be able to go top speed, even though they do pretty well. But the disadvantage of the mini turtle is that your fuselage is too. Yeah, it definitely introduces a weak spot. Like on my access fuselages there's like several that had got a little cracks right here, like right at the end of the mast where it inserts into the board because that's just like a, the sides are relatively thin, right.
Next to the box. So I guess, so basically part of it is just to have more strength right here in that connection. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. It transfers a little bit too much stress. That's the, and then explain how this little screw works. Cause I guess the whole, with this screw, you can change the angle of the tail a little bit.
Is that correct? Can you explain how that works? Because I haven't really tried that yet to put a washer or something in here. Yeah, you could, but it's not necessarily Yeah, go ahead. But I think we gotta take two steps back here because a lot of people that are probably listening to this, that are coming from the wing foiling or the prone or surf foiling, and maybe I've never heard of Mike's lab before.
This connection system that we develop has been copied by many other brands, which is a testament to how well it works and. The design the crux of the, of designing a hydrofoil is you have to marry what would be the hydrodynamic ideal with what is mechanically required in order to just support the stresses involved.
And so that's why we very quickly are very first foils. Yeah. We had a detachable, front wing and detachable rear wing. And then we quickly realized, as Mike was saying, that there's just way too much drag there in order to be able to house all the extra hardware, so on and so forth. So that connection system is to be as efficient and small as possible, but still be mechanically sound enough.
And another misconception that a lot of people have is that little screw is used for the incidents, but it's actually not when you would, like with our kit oils, when we were, we had smaller diameter fuselages we would use shims and we still do with the kite foils. And you can literally you're bending the fuselage in order to get an angular change in incidents.
So it's not so much that you have to have a little screw, but you just have to have material in there that then you're actually flexing the whole fuselage. Okay. Ba basically basically the foil is being held by these B three big screws in the. , but, and then this one is to hold a washer if you wanted to.
No. The little stabilizes the fuselage going towards the back wing. We are using the mask and strength to keep the fuselage attached as long as possible before it has to go on its own to hold onto the back wing. And early on when I was testing a kite forests, the little screw wasn't there.
And I could not quite, I didn't like it. It was all over the place as far as stability. As soon as I added the little screw manually into one of the foils, it improved drastically. So the legal screw is there for stability mainly, and Okay, got it. It became an advantage that the pitch of the incidents on the back wing was adjustable by putting reasonable tension without damaging something, we could lower the incidence of the back wing right there on the beach and, go back out.
Okay. So if let's say I, if I wanted to, if I put a small washer in here in between, that would lower the incidence of the tail flow. So basically, if you want, if you wanna go faster and have, basically have less lift at high speeds, that's what it would achieve, basically. Or is it the other way? ? No.
You are correct, but I don't think you need to do that. Yeah. It's already pitched to go really fast. You may wanna experiment. I don't think it's gonna help you with speed or anything like that. In fact, it's gonna force you to move your footstep maybe an inch back. But it, I don't think it's gonna buy you anything.
It's probably gonna lower the stability if you go lower than the pitch you have. I don't think you're gonna see any good results. Okay. That's good to know. It's good. Measure it and it's around two degrees up to 2.4. I wouldn't ship it at all. And if you go below two degrees, at least in Kite Falls, we found that the four stars golfing, if you go really fast downwind, it loses the stability.
The back wing is not helping to stabilize the fronting downwind at high speed. So you're saying the the built-in angle of incidents of the tail wing is about two degrees, is that correct? Ye between two to 2.4. And then what about the front wing? Oh, that's neutral. That's always neutral. Neutral zero.
Okay. Yeah and it depends also what back wing it is as well. Cause we have different back wings. . Yeah. Because it's that's a little bit of a misconception is sometimes yeah. Really what matters is the difference between the front angle of the front and the back wing. So yeah.
Correct. So basically your front wing is at zero angle of incidents. The back wing is like two degrees two to two and a half. Yeah. And and just to be clear, zero angles for a front wing does not mean neutral lift. It's still giving a lot of lift even at zero degrees, right? Because of the shape of the profile, right?
Yeah. Yes. And I found it was relatively easy to get it up. I was worried that it would take really high speed to get up on foil, but it wasn't too, it worked fine and it just came up just fine, it wasn't like a big thing. We I mean I tried to erase it last Sunday and none of us were able to get going because the wind was too light and we ended up having to get a bo to take us back in
But but yeah but it had nothing to do with the foil. Was this not windy enough? I should mention that my friend, my buddy has the same exact foil you have and that's his favorite. And he just arrived to Los Baja and he was gonna go out. And he did. And he said, oh my God, this s water is really wild and it's a little bit less stable.
And then he comes in and he sends me a message, I'm so stupid, I put on a kite foil . So he went out on his standard kite foil on a wing board and thought, everything is good. And then he comes in and he's totally shocked that he was able to do it. . . Yeah. So talk a little bit about the tips here.
Had, it's like a little bit, what do I call it? It's like downward, but then has a little bit up, up curved at the end. So what's the theory behind that Is say down and then back up again? Yeah. Right here in the tip. To make sure that the ventilation doesn't, if you breach a tip so that the ventilation doesn't propagate back down the wing.
I see. So when the wing tips comes out of the water, this tip doesn't create ventilation at the tip. Yeah it doesn't allow the low pressure or the detached flow from the top of the wing tip to then propagate down towards the root. It helps shed that sort of bubble and shed that ventilation.
Okay. And then I noticed on the tail wing you have these little winglets. What's the purpose of those? Yeah, all those curves on the front wing, which go straight button, then down, and same thing on the back wing. They bring stability and directionality. So for example, our most accessibility kite trace wing, front wing had a lot of these curves and it was very stable.
So yeah, you could make a straight wing straight across, but it's gonna be pretty, it's gonna feel like a banana peel stepping on. So that the first purpose is to get it away from the surface, right? If you curve it down, then you don't bridge the first surfaces often, and then the directionality and stability comes from that as well.
And then the tip is relief that as step said, it shut the. . Okay. And then, yeah, it was three . So the other question I had like the tule bo tu mount I guess all your masks have tu mounts and it seems like in, in surf foiling and wing foiling, most like the new standard is the plate mounts, right?
Yeah. The plate mounts with the two, two US boxes. Why are you sticking with the tu mount and yeah, what's the theory behind that? Yeah the, Mike will give his opinion, but my opinion is that the total box is in incredibly rigid, in any well-built board where you have tracks, you have to tie it to the top of the deck anyway, and the total box does that by itself anyway.
So from my standpoint, a 240 gram box is a lot lighter than tracks. And that's not even talking about hydrodynamic issues of the plate underwater versus the total box as well. Okay. Okay. So it's more efficient and you have the connection to the deck of the board and like the whole box is basically different, stronger, yeah.
A lot less draggy and it's lighter. Yeah. Yeah, I in, luckily in our floorboards we have the foil strong box, we call 'em, it has both ATU and a plate mount. But some of my newer boards, like the, this one behind me only has the plate mount. So I guess I'm gonna have to either use a plate mount adapter or just use just for this prototype.
But I'm gonna have to start putting total boxes in all my boards. Again, or bo, have both, but we also sell adapters and I also make custom carbon plates for clients that really want to have the plate. I'll do it. It's not like we're we don't do it, but Right. We just prefer the box.
Makes sense. Yeah, it's, it, I think it would be pretty difficult, at least for me to build in the plate because you can imagine the resonant fiber running out of the end of the mold now on a vertical situation. So the tunnel is a lot more simple and a lot stronger, and I think it's the correct way to go.
The plate has a huge advantage by adjustability back and forth. In fact, I think even Nickleson from Lift gave me the credit that I was the first one to put two tracks side by side because he used to use four balls drilled through the board. and attached, from the deck, that's how he was attaching this plate mount system.
. And I just, I looked at it and I go, oh, I've been using the windsurfing pin boxes long enough that this could be a lot more elegant and adjustable and it wouldn't leak. And sure enough it worked and then everybody adopted it . Interesting. Yeah, what you said makes sense. Basically, when you're laying up the carbon inside the mold with the total, you can keep all the layers going straight and basically the strongest direction versus having to curve them out in a plate mount.
So is that And resin dripping out , sorry? And resin would be dripping out. Oh yeah. Yeah. So you would have a big mess when you're try to lay it up. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. And then I guess why there, why are there so many holes? Is it just cause so that it's adaptable to different types?
OFTU boxes, . Okay. That came from kite race foils. The foot strap had to be incidentally right over thet box. So that was a disadvantage. So people who had tracks for kite race foil, which was very bad sock, unstable, flexible, but they could put a footstep anyway on it. On the deck.
So once we had to deal with the th with the tunnel, I figured, hey, we can go to one, at least one of the inserts or mounts for the footsteps straight into the tunnel. And that's why this is adjustability for footstep mounting. I see. You can, so basically you can put the foot strap, the one that goes through the footstep into the mass in different positions.
That makes, now do kite racers, you just use two screws or do you sometimes use multiple screws to hold it in the total box. I was gonna say that. So for winging, I do two screws up front and one in the back. Not only, it makes it a little bit stronger if you hit big fish, like people hit whales out here, , or I hit a dolphin and some other people actually broke off a wing not mine.
I think it was spots back then hitting a dolphin. Anyway, so the two screws put it in with lot more strength, right? Because even wind first, you imagine the big wind board with a rig and rider on it if they hit a sea or rock or anything. Now the foil is at the bottom of whatever. So if they can use more than one screw, it helps.
But they are still using at these locally little string for the center screw. , if you really hit something and the foil falls out, it, it hangs on the little piece of rope of the center screw. And also, I like the system because if people damage the barrel, not, or if it breaks the barrel not breaks, they can just pop one out and put it in the appropriate place, the damaged one.
So it's like a spare built in spares. , yeah, exactly. Yeah. The other thing I wanted to ask you, like with the total boxes, one of my pet peeves, and I'm not sure if I'm just not doing it right, but it seems like no matter how tight I put it in, like sometimes, like when you're on the water, you're pumping or whatever, all of a sudden you get that little, and it loosens up a little bit because I think it just slides a little bit deeper into the box.
Like how can prevent that from happening? It doesn't loosen up, it actually tightens up so the connection gets more secure between the foil and the board. But your front screw may be a little bit loose, but nobody cares until you hit something like a big fish, right? Because there is always pressure going up from the front way.
So you don't care if the screw is a little bit loose at this point. And that's why two screws, because I can crank them against each other, one and the back one and you can hear it cracking and going in and maybe. If you would use two screws, it may not happen. The little cracking what happens to you.
And oh, sorry. Ahead sfa. I was just gonna say, a little bit of candle wax rubbed on the side of the head. Also gets it into the box with very little friction and allows you to tighten it from the get-go really easily as well. That's a good tip. I'll try that. And Johnny also developed this technique for the race fos.
He really wanted the total sitting Absolutely. Exactly how he wanted it. So his board height at the deck for the front foot would've to be in literally millimeters. He hated it if it was even colder in chalk. So he would put it in, put screws in, then he would grab the foil, put a board upside down and hit the nose of the board, the deck side against the ground, like grass.
And you could hear this crack, what you describe happens to you on the water. So he would prepack it on the beach and retighten the screws so nothing could move afterwards. Ah, okay. Yeah, that's another technique, . Basically attach the foil, put the put, put it with the foil down on, and then have the board on top and push it upside down.
Okay. And just hit the gently and just. The front of the wing holding the foil like this and just top the nose of the board. Oh, okay. Like you are stepping on it type thing. Okay. You will hear this crack and then you can reit the upcr. Interesting. Check with your board maker too.
Yeah. That . Yeah. Yeah, I mean I'm, we make most of my own board but I guess another misconception too is like that I guess if you hit something, most of the pressure obviously is on the front connection, on the front screw. But when you're riding the Yeah, the lift of the front wing, actually the most pressures on that back screw.
The back screw. Because this lifts up and the back screw gets pulled down basically. Pulled out. Yes. When you're writing. But the huddle box is designed so that the radiuses, the vertical radiuses are taking the load. So it's not really, it shouldn't be the screws that are bearing that load.
They cinch it in there, but once it's in there, it's not depending on the screws. Okay. So just to be clear, like you're saying the kind of these, the, this sites takes the vertical load. Yeah, because it gets wedged into the board basically. Yeah. Yep. And then, yeah, another thing too, people sometimes say oh, my board thet box doesn't go all the way in, but basically there's supposed to be a little gap in the bottom of it, right?
Like the, basically it sits tight on these ends and then the sides are just parallel, right? Yep. Yeah. That was the design with this by Larry to have those radis at the ends, jamming in at 10 degrees each side, and that's where the load was basically taken up. And yeah, there must be a gap between the top of the tunnel and your board deck of it, because if there was not, imagine your full body weight would be pushing out a little nomination detail out through the deck, and you would just cause leakage.
But in the meantime, starboard brand for foiling windsurfing, they had so many problems with the total box, probably not built properly, that they ended up using the roof, basically the top of the box and issuing the shims. So you would install your box just the right way. So as Johnny was sensitive to the height of the deck up front for the front foot, now the top athletes for windsurfer are doing the same thing with shimming, the top, like you said, on top of the tunnel, and they can adjust the rake of the foil itself against the board.
Ah, okay. So by, by basically shimming this top, you can change the angle of the mask slightly kind of thing. But in my opinion, it totally defeats the purpose of the radiuss getting jammed into the box. But their box kept stretching so bad that they had to do this. So now you don't have the ends cinched, or only the sides are holding the foil and it's sitting on the top.
It cannot go any deeper, which I think it's crazy, but they are doing it . Okay. Interesting. Interesting. All right, thanks for thanks for that. Something, I'm gonna try that like you were saying, Johnny Heineken just like cracking the foil on the beach before getting on the water and retightening it.
That's a good idea. They should, you use two screws up front, the two front ones, and if you smack it and you crank both of them, no way you're gonna do it by sailing it anymore. It's gonna be okay in there. And for the, to put in the second screw. My box only has two screws in, it's, two holes in it.
So I just, I guess have to just mark the exact spot and drill a hole through the tu box basically. Correct. I don't know. We use quarter into G 10 on top of the tunnel, so we can actually put the screws in anywhere we want and counter seeing them. So in case you are not using the pad, you can still comfortably step on it.
So in case you do have some solid support for your second screw, yeah. You can just drill it one and one eight back from the front hole, and you're gonna be exactly in the right spot. Actually I was just thinking like on my, on most of our boards, the deck is thicker than the tunnel, so there's a hole for the screw to go into the board.
Into the board. But anyways, yeah something to play around with, oh wait, are you using like Alexis boxes? It's similar to the Gulf Foil boxes. Yeah. We make our own with a full strong box, but oh, and does it have the screws vertical, like 90 degrees or are they Originally it's taken from total design.
It's it's like like the straight, like the Gulf foil. Yeah, so be careful when you are first putting in your foil, you need to rotate the barrel notes by those few degrees because original total design is about 10 degrees right back. So yeah, that could be a little issue. But yeah, I'm trying to give enough space for the front and back to be countered back by 10 degrees.
It was originally designed for windsurfing and windsurfing decks for slalom boards. They were sloping down. They were getting thin as you go towards the tail. So that's why that 10 degree slope. Yeah. I'm just sharing like this is what our, we have a box that combines like the tunnel and the interesting the plate mount together and then the top has this only the two holes though.
Yeah. Then just use the two holes. Don't bother with there's screw. Good enough. Yeah. No, I mean it seems to work fine. I think just like getting it super tight before you get on the water is the key, I think. Or even maybe breaking it, bringing in a screwdriver. Yeah, tighten it on the water if it's necessary.
But as I said, you never need to tighten it on the border as far. Having a secure connection. The only reason to do it is if it feels uncomfortable stepping on it, if but it's never bad. It shouldn't even matter. I think like when you're pumping, when you're pumping and there's a lull and there's no wind and you have to pump through the lull, sometimes that pumping will it's right.
But yeah, then you don't want that rocking thing of your mass rocking. Oh, so you are saying it actually goes back out until it hits the screw? think yeah, like you said, it goes a little bit deeper, but then the screws loose. So when you're pumping there to be a little bit of wiggle back and forth on so you can feel the foil doing this.
Yeah, I've never seen that. Never. Yeah. I dunno. Yeah. Maybe didn't put it tight enough, yeah. Title box should be tighter than that. It should go in there with a friction, and that friction should stop this. If the back through is tight. I don't think it'll pull out the front, but I never heard of it yet, okay. Okay. All right. And then I also noticed that the whole thing is pretty light. I know I also have access to access foils and it just it just a little bit more weight. And the this whole foil feels pretty light. So how do you achieve that, I guess you just minimize the amount of materials needed by just making that smaller or like how Yeah.
How do you keep it light? . For starters, our sections are much thinner than what people are usually used to out there. When I see the profile thicknesses of some of the other brands that like 15, 16, 17 millimeters we're at 12.3 13 millimeters, so already there's less volume there.
And then we also have core materials in order to get, good compaction. So it's not solid carbon all the way through. So that's, do you use wood inside, wood or foam or what do you use inside the foam? Is it secret? That's proprietary. proprietary. Ok. We got some, we have secret sauce.
Secret sauce, yeah. Yeah. No, that's good. I respect that. . Okay so the, and then what, like on this mass, it has a little strip of unidirectional part of the way I think it stops at some point. Oh, that's just for fun. That's another one of those pictures. . Ok. That's another thing along with these co funky colors and stuff like that.
Yeah. . Okay. Cool. All right, so yeah, what else about the foils that's, that you wanna mention that's unique about your foils?
I'd say what's unique is you don't have to do anything. They're plug and play. In, into as Mike was saying before, the incidents, you don't really have to adjust it, especially not with wing surfing relative to kite surfing. The speeds and the balance is a little bit different.
So the, our foils are definitely just go have fun. And in my opinion, the less you do something to it, the better. A lot of people ask like, how should I sand it? How should I, eh just don't do anything. The less is, the less you do, the better. . And then I would say one unique characteristic that a lot of people tend to say or be surprised by is just how easy they are to use.
I think a lot of people since they know we come from a racing heritage, are maybe afraid that, oh, maybe the foils are like, difficult to use, or something like that. But the reality is a good race foil is easy to control cause that gives you the confidence to then push it and go fast. And it's no different with all our wing foils as well.
They're just easy to use. . Another thing is I'm basically demoing the foils to anybody who's interested to hop on it and usually. , all it takes is once and some people have to order it right in and there because it's lot speedier, less drag, more stable, more fun just to use it than anything they tried before.
I, we have people which claim they have tried everything there is on the planet made and they say, yeah, we just buy yours and multiple models just because it feels unique. Yeah, Alan Ez actually on this interview he talked about the Mike's lab foils and winning a race with it last summer on Maui against all the young guys and stuff like that.
So that kind of convinced me that, okay, I gotta try one of these foils. . And yeah, definitely what you said about the, being able to control it. Basically every foil has that kind of a max, it seems like a maximum speed that's built in almost. And you want to try to get as get and stay as close as you can to that maximum speed and then Yeah, the how easy it's to control it at that speed is really important because yeah, I mean it's hard to push it to that limit if it's really hard to control it at high speeds.
Makes sense. Yeah. . Okay. And what about the fuselage length? I guess that's just something you tested and came up with a good length there. That may have been the worst design feature because again, we have to have it made out of aluminum to be able to properly assemble the mold and build it and cook it.
And coming from very short fuselages on kite oils, wind surface will try to use and they were not happy. So it kept growing from super short kite fuselages to super long over one meter for windsurfing, fos. And then winging came on the scene and now we started trying the windsurfing on a wing board wing foil, and that was way too long.
So this whole harmonic, the fuselages was very frustrating because I had to have so many molds made and then you still have to test it and people get better. The wings sizes, like the foil wings get smaller, bigger, and they work differently with each other. And then the wings, handheld wings, they get better, faster, and different size.
Push differently on a four. So that's definitely very frustrating or worse. But now it settled in for each wing. I like to use certain length and it seems to work. Yeah, that's not to say it's not gonna change still, but hopefully. And yeah, and I mean there's different geometry configurations based on what front and rear wing we have.
And then one general comment I'll make a big difference between wing foiling and kite foiling is there's just so much more based on people's local conditions as well. In the sense that with kite foiling, when we were developing the stuff, the kind of mentality was if it can work well in San Francisco, it's gonna work well everywhere.
But the reality is with wing foiling is you've got, one guy who wants, a shorter mass because the amplitude of his waves. And then you've got another one who wants open season high water, another guy who wants a longer fuse because that's what he likes and is used to, and another guy who wants a little bit of a shorter fuse.
Yeah, on one hand things are settling, but it's never gonna settle like it was with kite foiling where you have a very sort of specific size that everybody can get into. I think personal preference plays a huge. Roll here. Interesting. Also, whether it's saltwater or freshwater, that, that makes a big difference in that amount of lift or like the, a little bit, but that doesn't affect our geometry shorts. That does, that's never affected, like what front wing we're gonna pair with what back wing and what fuselage length. But us generally speaking for freshwater, you probably need a slightly bigger foil a little bit with a little bit more lift.
Is that right to or because it's hot water's denser, or is that not really that Sure, yeah. In, in, in theory. But then at the same time, it's all trade-offs. So you're talking about such a tiny little window to play in right there. That, that, okay. So it's gonna be a little bit faster in the freshwater then.
So yeah, since I keep going between Sherman Island, which is a freshwater location, and Chrissy Field constantly switching between fresh and salty, it did have some effect on a kite foil, especially when Sherman Island, the water would be murky with a lot of mud flying in. Then the lift felt a little bit underwhelming.
One inch adjustment on the footstep would usually fix it, or, deep pitching for Chrissy Field also would fix it. But for winging, I don't even feel that at all. So it's all the. Okay. Interesting. And then basically, like you're saying earlier, basically that this little scene rack here is where it's a one piece mold, but you can like basically unscrew the tailpiece and put a different tailpiece on there, or maybe a different fuselage length or something like that.
Correct, exactly. Oh, okay. That's smart way to do it. Interesting. All right. So can you talk a little bit about like your process of, when you come out with a new design, like how do you test it, like what, how do you get feedback and what do you Yeah.
What's your r and d process? Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, it's either Mike will come to me with an idea or I'll go to Mike with an idea. And I think a lot of the success of our designs, because a lot of times we disagree, so we talk back and forth and try to get clear in our heads about what we are thinking about something.
And I would say earlier on in the r and d, there would be a lot more analysis. We've never done any, full blown C f D or anything like that. But I used to do some basic analysis, but now we've done so many foils and we're such a fan of just trial and error, get out, get something out on the water and and evolve our designs since we have such a solid foundation of so many foils that we're, we know how well they work and it's, we can predict really well how something will work out. So we'll generally do a design and then tool it up and then lay it up and test it ourselves, but also with, our trusted clients that love trying new stuff anyway, and our great kind of benchmarks.
They know since they've tried all of our other foils too, if something's an improvement or not. Nice. So do you have a big pile of old molds that you don't really use anymore? Or not at Mike House. Yeah. I should have taken a picture and shared it with you. It's a por under my carport.
Oh my God. Yeah. . It's gotta be cup of tons of aluminum there. . Can you recycle those? Or I guess you could melt them down and make new molds at some point. Maybe. Yeah, somebody probably could. I didn't get to schlep it outta it. You could. Yeah. No. And last time I was with Mike I remember looking into the price of scrap aluminum and it was pretty underwhelming.
It was almost, it's not worth all the labor to bring it, better leave it. Yeah. Leave the graveyard there until it becomes more valuable. Maybe maybe it'll come back into fashion. It's clothing fashions come back maybe go back to the foils you had in, back in the two thousands , early two thousands.
Scrap price of aluminum goes up. . Yeah. What's new? What, can you share a little bit about what you have in the works without, without giving away your secret sauce obviously, but what are you working on right now? The last thing that we did is developed an 1150 high aspect wing.
We already had an 1100, but I wanted to make something that's a little bit more efficient in that same size range. And it's based off of the plan form of our five 40 wing set, which was really successful. And so that's in production now and extremely pumpable, it's very high aspects, so it's not gonna be the tiniest thing, but it's super pumpable and super efficient.
And in terms of, moving forward and things down the pipeline, we're always trying to, make our connections better. Our masks differ. Just subtle changes. Nothing revolutionary. So 1150, is that the square inch surface area? Square centimeters. Yeah. Square centimeters, yeah.
Sorry. And the five 40 is 540 square centimeters? Yes. What about we have foils as small as 410. So speed foil that we also do a toe in version of that for surf, and that's gone as fast as 46 knots in terms of speed under kite traction. Wow. And we go all the way up to a 1600.
So how, what's the surface area of the bullet six? Because I couldn't really find that. This is not, that's an 800, that's an 800. No, it's a 600 I believe. Oh, okay. Bullet six. Yeah. No, it's not a bullet six. It's not, it's a no. Oh, it's a 600. Winging or windsurfing foil. Oh, okay. It's true size. I believe Stefano said it's six 30, but we call it 600.
Okay. Yeah. It six is a completely different, lot smaller, tight foil. Oh, okay. So this is, okay I'm not even sure which exactly. I thought it was the book. Bullet six. Oh, this is a 600 wing. It should say on that. What does it say? 680 span. So 600 is the square centimeters, 80 is tip to tip.
Oh, okay. And fuselage measurements, which measure from the center of the middle. Big screw. If you take a night pressure and go to the back wing and send to the front lane. Ah, okay. So you have your front lane size area and span. You have your fuselage length forward, backwards, and then you have the type of a back wing all on the label.
Nice. Okay. Got it. . All right. I guess the other thing I wanted to ask you about is how you're the state of your business and let me know if we're running out of time here, but I'm, I just get, always get caught up in the conversation and kind of go along.
But if you have to go, just let me know. But I wanted to ask you like, during the pandemic, wing foiling just been booming, and it seems like everything was in short supply, long time you, it's like super hard to get anything. It's hard to get the new wings and the new foils and the boards.
And then it seems this year it's everything's back in stock and slowed down a little bit. A lot of, I think a lot of manufacturers of overstock now cause a lot of brands are trying to get rid of their old inventory. So it seems to change from being super short supply to being a little bit of oversupply maybe.
Now, has that affected you at all or have you noticed that, I guess you've always been had more supply than demand but has that affected you at all? Yeah that sort of contraction and expansion that you're talking about, I think is mostly supply chain related stuff coming out of Asia.
Cause a lot of the big manufacturers are not made, domestically or even in Europe. But. From the pandemic. I personally have seen, some costs of my materials go up due to those same supply chain problems and cost of shipping to get the materials to, whether it's the loom that's gonna weave the carbon fiber or what have you.
In terms of actual demand, what was interesting for us and the pandemic and the timing of the pandemic is it was shortly after we had just been kicked out of the I K A. So we were on track to with a third party producer to large numbers of kite foils, and then that didn't happen. And then the pandemic hit.
So we saw a big slowdown in the request, not to zero, but a big slowdown in the request for a product up towards the following winter, but not so much the pandemic, it was just because of a lot of our kite foil customers, had to make the choice and buy another brand's kite foil. But now I'm sure Mike would probably agree with me I would say 95% of our client base is they're all winging, everybody is winging now.
. So things have just taken right back off and just exploded. Excellent. Can you I'm not, I don't really follow the kite foiling scene that much. I'm more, more into wink foiling myself. But I'm just curious and I saw something on your news in the, on your website about that.
Yeah. So what happened and why aren't they allowing your foils in the racing? Just curious. To make a long story short they put us into a position where they demanded what we consider our intellectual property. And if we were to give that to them, we felt that it would not be in the long-term interests for our business.
We would be shooting ourselves in the foot, essentially. It would be like a cooking competition saying, okay, everybody make your best soft drink. And Coca-Cola's doing it. And then they demand the recipe from Coca-Cola. Yeah. Like Coca-Cola would never give away their recipe. . So we put our foot down and said, look, we'll give you, a, b, C materials, but we're not gonna give you X, Y, Z.
And they said, okay, you're out. Wow. Interesting. So they wanted to know exactly all the materials that go into the foil or something like that. And their position and the data sheets. Huh. And themselves video taping the process. They wouldn't even let us do it. They would've to do it watching us, filming us doing it.
Wow. That, yeah, that seems very strange. Unbelievable. And then basically, yeah, that, that seems strange that they would make that a requirement, but yeah. And then basically all the other manufacturers complied with that. Yes. Yep. Interesting. Wing foiling is that something you guys do too personally?
Are you both into wing foiling? Oh, absolutely. , yeah. So tell us a little bit about your, like your favorite boards and wings. What do you use and what kind of conditions do you go out in and what foils do you use? Yeah, so I'm 90 liter board. I've tried as small as like 78 liters, but I'm just happy with 90 liters.
I'm six four I'm 185 pounds. And I love just mowing the lawn, like back and forth. Like I'm a happy guy. I do races over here in Italy, in Europe. I just got second in the old man Grand Master category at a big race in Lake Garda. Nice. So I like to turn on the heat once in a while, but I don't I can.
Pump all day long, like some of these younger guys. But I my favorite lately is I'm usually on the 800, wing set. That's, and then I'll pull out the 1600, in really summertime light winds because I'm in very different conditions than Mike. I have the Mediterranean coast, and then I'll go up to Lake Garda sometimes.
But sometimes we have really light thermal winds, holy winds, and that's when sometimes I'll need a little more surface area. So with the 1600, you're able to get up in really light winds and stay up pump through lulls and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. How much do you give up on your top speed, like when you use a 1600 versus a 800 or whatever?
Our 1600 is not like any other brand's, 1600 in the sense that it's an extremely thin profile. It's it takes a couple knots more to get going than maybe like other brands of the similar surface area. But then once you're up, it just goes and goes as lower drag. Yeah. I can do 2022 knots, 23 knots speed with a 1600.
That's not bad at all. And then what size wing do you use and which brand what wing do you use for light? For light wind, like a six meter I've had ozone, wasps. I'm also tinkering with my own design of a wing, so I'm off prototypes. So six meter is the biggest. Yeah. Yeah. Do you find that like sometimes when you go bigger, like especially the wider wingspans, it gets so wide that you can't really drop the wing enough to get it go get forward momentum from it, right?
Yeah, that's yeah, I def I definitely feel like there's a point of diminishing returns and then tax become almost unbearable due to leading edge diameters and things like that. . Okay. And then what so for racing, like what, how long is the boy, you said about 90 liters. How long is, are your boys, do you use a little bit longer boys just to be able to get going easier or?
No, I it's I don't, it's 152 centimeters long in inches. I don't know what that is, but yeah. Okay. I'll have to get off the calculator myself. Okay. Yeah. What about you Mike? I guess I'm lucky. I live in pretty windy area, so I did learn on a 1300, pretty original one we made. and I plugged it into the three and raise board, which you showed a picture earlier and I learned on that and it worked pretty good.
And I still see people using that kind of a combination. But then within few months I made my own board still floaty, but something a lot more oriented and turnable as far as winging goes. Then I made another one and then couple local guys. Johnny Heineken is one of them. They asked me to show them how to make boards and so they could make their own, and they sure do ever since.
And then the third one was Kenny. Shortly after that, and Kenny, I went back and forth on WhatsApp and he started making boards. He even built his own shop right next to his house because he has other job, a lot better than building boards. Anyways, so I made two boards and after that, Kenny took over and he's supplying me with the best boards in the world.
They are ridiculously light. People cannot even believe it when they pick it up. They're like seven pound range for, I don't know, 75 liter board. And yeah I don't have to worry about boards and I guess I supply him with the foils.
Oh, this is one of your wing boards. . Oh this is one. This, no, this is one I made for Jan bla. This is a picture from, not this latest Garda race, but the one before last. He won the Grand Masters there. Uhhuh. , yeah. It's pretty, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And what about board weight?
You were saying the board's coming out super light. In, do you feel like light is always better or is there in some, is in some cases having a little bit of more weight in the board, can it be helpful in some cases or you just always try to go as light as possible? Yeah, always as light as possible.
I could see some like surfing big waves. Possibly the heavier board will help you, but we never tried it. We are not into those conditions. So for winging proning, sopping, the light of the board, the more effective you're gonna be pumping it up and down. And the less work, the front wing the foil will have to do.
To bring you back up or go and keep going forward. Basically do the motion up and down the heavier boat. The longer the boat, the worse it's gonna be for the foil to overcome. . Yeah, I listen to an interview with Dave Kalama where he is saying, for the down downwinders, when he's going really fast, he likes to have a little bit more weight in the board cuz he feels it's easier to control or, and I I've found that too when we're downwind racing.
I'm u I'm using a slightly he heavier board and it feels it's a smoother, it like it has momentum and it's, it like at high speed it feels a little bit easier to control it. But I don't know if that's just my imagination, but that's interesting. I guess I've never been in that situation.
It may be dampening some bad habits from the foil itself. It'll be, once you get used to the 600 you have, it'll be interesting to see if it feels the same. You're talking about downwind? Yeah. For us here on Oahu, most of the racing is basically we're joining the outrigger or, standup paddle races that are just like a down, straight down one run from wa kai to Waikiki or whatever, and it's just downwind.
And then at the end the wind dies off. When you come around diamond head there's you get into this wind hole and then you need to be able to pump through the laws and make it to the finish somehow. But but yeah, so it's different than mo Most races you have to go up and down when for us is just basically going downwind and then trying to pump to the finish, And you are talking just with the paddle, not the wing, right?
No, with the wing. We're doing that with w with yeah, not, know, do wind sub foiling is a, is another thing. But I'm talking wing foiling doing, do wind races with the wing. Yeah. That's of what we're doing. I cannot imagine with that foil you have there having heavier board being an advantage if you plug it directly into the tar box and send it.
And if you have to pump, I think in my opinion, lightweight is the way to go. Okay. Yeah. That's good to know. Yeah. All right. So what do you see as the future of the sport? Like where do you see everything going and in terms of gear, technique, competition, growth, potential, racing versus freestyle, those kind of things.
Like where do you see it going? And what's your role in it? Step Take it on. That's tough. All right.
It's definitely exploding. We all know that. However, I really think it's important to keep things as accessible as possible. Like I, I un, I understand our, it's a luxury product, it's an expensive product. But I already start to see some of the signs of some of the equipment and secondary equipment starting to get pretty stratospheric in prices.
And that's you asked like where we would want to take this and I personally would hope that it doesn't go in a direction that reduces accessibility to the support. I think it's so important to make sure that there are options that young people can afford, that there's a good solid used market as well.
, there's always gonna be the debate between open class and one design, and there's always gonna be people into racing and there's always gonna be people into freestyle and all this kind of stuff. But at the end of the day it's still a sport where competitions like the first place winner brings home barely enough to pay for their plane ticket if that.
And so I think we should all be focused on growing the sector as a whole making sure it remains accessible so that as many people can get into all aspects of falling possible. Okay. Yeah, that sounds like a good goal. Especially considering that you probably make some of the most premium foils on the market.
In, in all of this, Mike and I have been incredibly stable with our prices. There was a time when our kite foils were selling on a used market for more than we were charging new foils because the demand was so high. I even had to write some emails to certain athletes saying, I totally disagree with this because you're shooting accessible.
You're shooting yourself on the foot with accessibility. You killed a sport by doing that. And in, in other words, what I, I guess what I'm trying to say is I, I. Hope, whatever decisions are made by manufacturers and that are made by governing bodies whether it's like wing foil sports or GWA or whatever, there's already starting to be talk of, limitations on equipment or this or that.
I All that's fine as long as it's thought about are we growing the sport this way or are we arguing amongst ourselves and shrinking the sport.
Nice. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about okay, my one last question. Okay. So talk a little bit about the foiling community and and do you have any message for the people that are still listening on this to this long interview?
All right. To the foiling community. Let's see. I think there's I think the timing is right to develop a new connection system. But I strongly believe it should be an open source project. I don't think if any one manufacturer comes up with a, some interesting system that's like ATU, but like a plate and it's adjustable and all this kind of stuff, if any one manufacturer comes up with some sort of patented system, I doubt any other manufacturer's gonna adopt it or want to pay licensing fees.
And even if they did, it would take years for that technology. To be adopted. Whereas I think if the community, the foiling community, there's a lot of smart people here, got together and created an open source project complete with a forum and a timeline. A year timeline, everybody could pitch into it.
And because it would be open source and the enthusiasm would be there, then I think a lot of manufacturers, ourselves included, would start to see the momentum and start to be willing to gear up with tooling for that timeline, whatever it is. Let's say a year from now, let's, in one year from now, let's come out with a new connection standard.
If it's an open source project, everybody would jump on board and manufacturers would tool up in time and we could get something new and innovative. The total box has been an amazing thing and it's, but it was designed in the, what, 80, 82 or something like that, maybe before that. Yeah. So all I'm trying to say is that it's time for a change, but I don't think it's gonna happen if it's proprietary to one company.
And the plate mount, you just feel like it's not it's not good enough to be a a good you don't like it enough to use that because it seems like that's become the standard system. Is the plate mount, right? Yeah, I think it could be. I think it could be improved. If there was something that was Easy to manufacture and friendly to the water, hydro, more hydrodynamic then I could see it.
But the combination of the plate itself and tracks is quite a bit heavier than a total box and a total head. And I even think it's a little bit more flexible unless it's done super properly in carbon. And I know F four does it pretty well, but then it grows significantly towards the board, so it's gotta be a little bit slower.
I think our solution is to have a specific adapter, very shallow to fit our very shallow tunnel base. Tunnel head is pretty good solution. It definitely is more flexible and it's not ideal, but it's there. It's available for plate mount system. If somebody has that kind of a board, yeah, they can totally grab that.
I would not recommend it for 1 0 2 mask. It's just too long, too flexible. For 96, it will extend it to 100, which is still pretty good. But yeah, 1 0 2 is too long to use the adapter on. Really? Yeah. So because then it becomes, what's about, how many centimeters does it at? About four centimeters or 1 0 2 plus four, so 1 0 6.
Now you are too high and the wing is too far away from you to control properly. The foil and it also, we can easily measure that the numbers, the torsion and flex are a little bit too far to be comfortable. Maybe that's where your heavy board could be an advantage. I wouldn't know. I doubt it because our trip and race board used to be somewhat heavy for this purpose, and I remember I did not like it, following around, controlling the foil by its own weight and I had to put too much input to correct.
Never. I wanna go, I guess when you're downwind foiling, a lot of times you're we, we end up going actually faster than the wind cuz you're getting on a bump and you're just like flying down this bump and you're holding the wing so you don't get back winded holding it over your head and you're just like, yeah, shooting down this bump.
And it's like a little chop on the surface. You have to make up for that or you're gonna just breach at full speed, and you're really maxing out the speed of the foil and it's not, you're not really using the wing anymore. It's just like you're riding the op open ocean bumps going straight down wind.
And that's where it's all about just being able to control it and keep the foil in the water and not breach. And I've actually used an axis 1 0 1 0 5 mask, I think. And that one I thought worked well. Because the more time you have to react to those chops or to Okay, keep it from breaching, it seems to help.
I'm not saying it's too long. I'm saying combination of adapter and 1 0 2 becomes a little bit too soft. So we do have a 1 0 8 mask for kiting and people use that constantly, but it goes directly into the board for winging. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And that makes lot more secure connection and keeps the measurable numbers where the wink can def reflect.
still pretty low, but once you put 1 0 2 into a tier after, in my opinion, it gets, I know youngsters they can put up with anything. Me being a little bit slower on the reaction, I'm not too crazy about it. . Okay. Okay. Yeah, the, so that's a really interesting topic, the whole connection between the foil and the board and what the future holds for that.
So that'll be interesting to see. But Mike, do you have any message for the FOIL community? I really don't. My specialty is to make something, be able to use it myself with confidence and yeah, I'm pretty picky. And then pass it on and see if somebody else likes it. And I really, it makes me very satisfied to give people something they like as much as I do.
And that's just my like philosophy or job. That's the way I see myself. So as far as pretty predicting and directing the flow of the industry, no, somebody else can do that. . And you're basically planning to just keep keep running the business the way you are building the foils yourself mostly and just you're happy just keeping it.
A little bit smaller. Are you thinking about doing get, getting more into production or having manuf having it manufactured in mass production or whatever? If I could foresee that somebody would be able to do it properly in production setting? Yeah I'm open to it. In fact, I had a very nice options slash idea, at least for the mask, how somebody can actually do it for us.
So even if we had mask, mask produced somewhere in China or wherever, they would be able to do it properly, yeah. Then we can concentrate on the wing sets and the volume we could make would be lot better. I, with the current technique for the wings set, it would be difficult to outsource it. And I also just want to add too that a lot of sort of the Mike's lab business too, it's just Mike and I and we have personal relationships with all of our clients and we really like that.
And we really value servicing our existing client base more than getting more clients in the sense that we're, Mike and I aren't here to gain market share, so to speak. We're just too humble guys, too humble artisans that just love, making our product and. Having these relationships with our clients.
And I feel that, a lot of people say, oh, why don't you scale up or this or that but that's not easy to maintain those relationships we have now and the quality of service and support that we can do now at scale. And to build quality too. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
Totally. Mike, so Mike how many foils do you build and who builds more foils? Do you build more in, in Italy or does Mike build more in San Francisco? Mike builds a bit more in San Francisco. His kids are growing up and my kids are still small. So at the end of the day, yeah, have a little bit less time but yeah.
Yeah, and I'm sure it's a lot of time that, that you put into it and like you said, like you have kids and family. So how do you manage that, like your work life balance? One of my goals is just to have more time to have fun, cuz it's it, life shouldn't just be about working all the time, right?
So how do you make that work and is work fun for you and Yeah I'll go first. Yeah, no I love making things. I'm always making stuff my relationship here with Mike it's great because not only am I, producing the foils, but then sometimes I'll dedicate certain days to doing design and CAD work and things like that.
So it, it changes. So it's always interesting. I definitely don't get on the water as much as Mike does, but I'm not complaining at all because I'm of a hermit crab. I really like to go into my corner and just create and build and design so that, although I have fewer sessions on the water, they're always on something, but that's like I've made and we've designed and yeah, so I'm happy.
Excellent. What about you, Mike? Yeah, you could say that I work too much or I don't have time for too many other things, but I definitely do not cut myself short from going out and in the season here for eight months, 10 months. It's windy every day and I get out pretty much every day. So that really, between work and that doesn't leave too much time for other stuff.
But as far as me and work, I really seriously this foil work. I don't know what it is about it. I keep improving little details constantly. Obviously testing, that's a part of it too. And, Fantastic testers. Johnny Kenny, when they are on the water somewhere, it could be Hood River. People literally stop and they go what the hell am I looking at?
Because they are synchronized treking. It's impressive to see. Yeah. Yeah. Those two are basically testing whatever we can come up with. Yeah. It would be great to get them on the Blue Planet Show too, and that have an interview with them, so maybe I'll try to get your, their contact from you later, but yeah, that would be interesting.
Yeah. But yeah, I just wanted to say thank you so much for your time. I know we went over the hour. You you you said you had, but oh, good. Really appreciate it and I'm sure everybody that's listening is gonna love this too. I couldn't find that much information about you online, so I think this'll be really helpful for people that wanna know a little bit more about Mike's lab.
So Appreciate it. Yeah. We're very bad about updating our website. This will be an excuse to do something . We also have to be careful about not promoting too much because we already are a little bit in trouble as far as waiting. And time deliveries. So yeah, we have to keep it just right.
Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of Mark Rappa Horset cuz when he, after he sold s i c he started like the Flying Dutchman and he just builds boards himself. He's the only one who does it. And he, he, so he has like a six month or one year wait list and it just keeps getting longer the more he promotes it.
So it's yeah. Yeah. You What's the point in promoting it if you can't supply it, but that's a great position to be in congratulations and thank you. I appreciate it. And yeah, thanks for being on the show. Oh, thanks for having us. Thank you. Have a good night, Stefano.
And a good day, Mike. Okay. Take care all. Bye bye. All right. Thank you everyone for watching this episode of the Blue Planet Show with Mike's lab. I thought this was a really great conversation and I want to wish everyone happy Holidays. I'm posting the Ken Winter interview next Saturday, December 24th hope you can check that one out as well.
And I think it's a great end way to end this season of the Blue Planet Show. And then next year in 2023, I'm planning to interview some more great athletes, designers, and thought leaders. And just always hungry to get more information, especially in the sport that's changing so fast. And if you're still watching, you're one of those people that just can't get enough of it.
So thank you for sticking around. You're the ones I'm making the show for have a great rest of your year. Happy New Year's and see you soon. .
- Lytte Lytte igjen Fortsette Lytter...
- Lytte senere Lytte senere
Foil Surfing Contest interview: Jason Tangalin and Pono Matthews- Foil Fever on the Blue Planet Show Episode 22
3 Dec 2022· The Blue Planet Show
Jason Tangalin and Pono Matthews and the Foil Fever Ohana organized the Foilers of Aloha Classic foil contest on Kauai, held on Nov. 26th, 2022. The event was blessed with great conditions, a stoked community of foilers and next level performance in the waves.
This interview contains drone footage of the contest, the second half also has footage documenting our 3 day trip with the crew from Oahu, we scored good wing foiling conditions on the Friday before the event. If you can, watch it at high resolution on a big screen, enjoy!
Watch the foil surf contest highlights video here: https://youtu.be/BUQSkESvnjg
We hope you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the blueplanetsurf YouTube channel, we post a new video every Saturday morning, Aloha! Please come visit one of our shops on Oahu: Hale'iwa shop and rental location: Blue Planet Hale'iwa 62-620F Kamehameha Highway Haleiwa, Hawaii 96712 Tel (808) 888 0786 Open daily, 9 am to 5 pm http://www.blueplanetadventure.com Honolulu store- - Hawaii's SUP and Foil HQ: Blue Planet Surf 1221 Kona St Honolulu, Hi 96814 Tel (808) 596 7755 open 10 am to 5 pm Hawaii Time, closed Wednesdays and Sundays http://www.blueplanetsurf.com Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bpsurf/ Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blueplanetsurf
Find Paradise
Aloha!
Transcript:
Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show. I know it's been a while since I posted the last show, but today's show is awesome. You don't wanna miss it if you love foiling. And I also have two more interviews scheduled. I'm really excited about those. One is with Mike's lab, Mike and Stefano, they make some of the fastest foils available.
I just got one after waiting for many months for it, and I'm excited to try it and talk about it on that show. And then also I have an interview scheduled with Ken Winter, who I've been get trying to get for a very long time. He's a former windsurfing world champion and the designer of the wings at Duo Tone.
So I'm really excited to talk to him about wing design and so on. So stay tuned for those two episodes. And today's show is all about the Foil Fever Ohana, Jason Tangalin and Pono Matthews, the organizers of the Foyers of Aloha Classic event, which was held last weekend at Kalapaki Beach, which had some of the most amazing performance and conditions in any foil contest to date.
So you don't wanna miss it. And if you have a high speed internet connection, You are gonna want to watch it at full resolution on a big screen cuz the footage is amazing. But of course you can also listen to it as a podcast on your favorite podcast app. During the interview, I only played the footage from the contest, which is of the first half of the interview.
And then we just kept talking story for a long time. So I also included footage from our first day on Kauai, where we had two really good wing foil sessions, some really good footage from of wing foiling on Kauai in the second half. And then also the day after the contest, some surf foiling mark Surf foiling at Kak Beach.
So I really hope you enjoy this episode of the Foyers of Aloha Classic. And without further ado, please welcome Jason and Pono from the Foil Fever Ohana. Welcome Jason and Pono to the Blue Planet Show. Thanks so much for being my guest today. Yeah, no problem. Right on. So yeah, I just got back last weekend you guys had that awesome contest at KAK Beach and the conditions were amazing.
I was just telling Jason, I think it was, probably the best foil contest yet, in terms of the performance to a whole nother level and then the conditions and everything. Just an amazing event. And yeah, congratulations on putting together this awesome. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Yeah. And then also, just the whole community that you put together, all the people that are involved in it and the, the party afterwards with food and everything. And it was, it is just a, it was just a great experience for everybody. And myself and a few others from Oahu we went over there to actually to do the, do wind race.
And then unfortunately that the wind just died. Like we had super strong wind the whole week before, and then the week of the contest had just died off. Yeah. God, that's God telling us. Okay. One day's good enough for you, . Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, talk a little bit maybe about all the work that's involved in putting together contest like this.
It starts with the big thing is trying to get the permits and we can't really do anything put anything out on social media to receives the authorization from Koi for us to get to put on a contest. But this year we tried to put out a little bit more social media than usual.
We knew it was gonna come to be a lot of hard work cause of the first year we did it, it was a lot of hard work. But I don't know. It worked out making the shirts, getting all the sponsors. Initially on our first contest, we made it work. So Koi was the host. We made it where 60% of the competitors was from Koi, their hometown.
And then 40% is spread it all over the state in California and Texas to give the local boys their an opportunity to join. And there was a lot of 'em that did the first contest that wanted, they wanted to just watch on this one. So it allowed me to invite a lot more from the state, which was good.
And I try to, we try to invite invite the best of the best, and from the first contest to now, three years later the progression has gone on a whole nother level that we never thought it would ever be, because on our first one we're like, oh, I can't wait for next year.
Yeah. I was like, but three years later it's a whole new world, that's for sure. Yeah. So the first one the first inaugural event was in 2019. And then basically, Whole pandemic came in the way. And then, so you this is really the second contest you guys are holding and Yeah, like you said the whole yeah, the performance just went through the roof, it seemed it just yeah, it's like crazy how exciting it was to watch the whole thing.
Yeah. But, okay and I have a whole bunch of video. I posted that video with the highlights and then I made a longer video for this interview that we, we can show it and talk about it, but we still want to make it fun to listen to as a podcast as well. But I'm gonna actually just start screen sharing while we're talking.
So that way welcome to comment on the video or just talk about the, your, whatever we're talking about. But I'm just gonna play this in the background. So this was the contest events item I'm just gonna play versus that video of the highlights. And can you guys see the video?
Okay? Yes, you can. That's JD Irons. Okay. . So yeah, just actually let's talk a little bit about the conditions, cuz it, like the day before and the day after, it was just normal small waves and then this day was just yeah. Let's talk about that a little bit. Yeah, for sure.
The day before we were all there doing the, we had the beach. On Friday. So we saw some other guys out there practicing and we were like, oh, there's some waves. It's like normal cak waves kinda slow. Me and my uncle and some of the other guys were talking and we were we hope there's waves tomorrow.
Cause we weren't too sure. Like we never anticipated this swell to hit. Some of us were talking about it like, oh, okay, there's a big north swell and we know kak will get it if we have that trade winds also. And then Friday, I think we're talking about how the the soil is actually gonna switch directions for more northeast well, so we're like, oh, okay, we're definitely gonna have waves.
But the trippy part about, its when we got there at 30 in the morning, I believe to set up the canoe club and then all we see is just water, covering water and boulder's big, huge rocks just covering up the road and we can hear the waves breaking over the brick wall. And we're like, we look at each other and we're like, oh my goodness, it's bombing it.
It's gotta be really good. So that , I think that was the most exciting part, was just seeing that sunrise come over the mountain and just seeing the sets just rolling. And it was just definitely un unbelievable for all of us. I think we never anticipated it. It all worked out in the end, swallow all day long.
Good waves. Yeah, and kak too. It's like the whole place is a little bit almost like an am amphitheater where like everyone's sitting around watching and and just the crowd, the, like the whole, the audio from the crowd. I wish I had recorded that to put with the video cuz it was just like cool to , hear all the comments and the cheers and whatever, it was just, yeah, it was just an experience to, to everyone was super excited about, the whole contest and watching every ride and like cheering everyone on.
So that was definitely a good part of it. And a lot lot of good white pods, like this one . Yeah. That was me. Yeah. Yeah. That was, yeah, that was a good one. So a lot of, there was like a lot of kinda sick double ups Yeah. Where the thing just like would drop out from underneath you, it seemed right?
Yeah. That's from the lower tide. Huh? So it's crazy because the last time we had a swell, like this was hurricane in Wow. It was never this big, and we didn't anticipate how glassy it would. Because the first contest, it was as big as this, but it wasn't glassy. It was really windy, very stormy.
So all the really good guys got it was very hard for them. And that's why the guys, they're so used to it. They got really, they did really good on that one home advantage if, you know that wave, right? Yeah. It gets a, it gets tricky out there. Especially with this kind of swell too.
And on that low tide, it was super shallow out there. Like some of these sets when we had to duck dive, we're duck diving on dry reef. So we would get stuck on the reef trying to duck dive and just get smashed. Yeah. Oh my God. I think Kane actually did a a bottom turn and he hit reef Wow.
On one of his waves. Yeah. So it was shallow, like no one knew it was that shallow on the inside. Yeah. On this video I put in as much as I could at trying to get everybody's rides on there. Like even, some of the not so perfect rides and all the wipe outs and stuff like that.
Just so you can see a little bit how it definitely was a pretty challenging, the conditions were pretty challenging. There's a lot of a lot of wipe outs, a lot. The takeoff was tricky cuz you couldn't take off too far inside, cuz then it backed off and then, but yet, so you had to be in just the right place to take off.
But yeah, maybe talk a little bit about the conditions and challenges. So on the high tide it's a little bit easier to take off at. We call this shoulders, it's called. And so in the beginning of the heat or the beginning of the contest, a lot of guys was taking off on the outside.
But when that low tide came in, a lot of guys like Jack was smart. He would stay way inside, do a chip shot, and then go out and catch that one big wave. Because that's the one that everyone was looking at from the start, taking out that big bottom turn. Pono and I think JD was in the, on the outside, local guys was on the outside trying to paddle into it, which, it helped them.
But then like I know one of the wave. The wave that the, was, that 3 43 wave dropped the wipe out . But then what they didn't see was your drop into that wave, that drop into that wave was heavy. So for him to take that drop and you can't really, yeah, the floors are seeing it from the judge's point, but they're not really, for some reason, they weren't looking at those type of critical drop-ins.
They were waiting for the second wave on seeing what, because it's oh, okay, that's gonna see what he got. And those three for three was probably the best three wins I've ever seen. Whole time. That was literally one after another . Yeah. Yeah, it was amazing. But yeah, if you seen Ponos drop, cause like I said, Pono and JD Irons was hanging on the outside trying to take out yeah, that was more my mentality.
Cause this is a spot I always foil, so I look for those steeper takeoffs, those more critical sections on the, those takeoffs. Cause if you stick those takeoffs, it's a lot harder to do compared to a chip in shot. For me, that was my mentality to try to take off as deep as I could.
And if I I make it. If I don't try. But yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I think for some reason it's like I, I played the same video over and over here. Wait, I s's a great thought. Think I the wrong one here. This is be exciting . It's pretty dope. And I was watching it on my phone and I was like, so now I'm watching it on the big screen.
I'm like, Ooh, wow. It looks way more heavy. , I gotta plug it through my, to my big tv. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually, I rendered it in high resolution, like for k I think so, so it should be pretty cool to watch on the big screen too. So sorry. I had the was playing the, just the short version. But yeah.
So in this one I just tried to put as much footage as I had into it. The different riders and stuff, everybody can check it out. I was trying to turn off the volume. That's what happened. Okay. There go. Okay. So actually the question that people had was about the rules. So let's go over the contest rules what were the rules for proning?
What were the rules for stand paddling and so on. Maybe go over that a little bit. On our first contest, I got my cousins together, other people that I was. Helped me start the whole foiling evolution going on. And it was it wasn't easy because as a foreigner, that foiling can go in any direction towards the end.
We got into, arguments and this and that we, we needed to just stick with one point. But our idea was to, whatever we do in the contest is what we as a fo fever guys like to see in the real world means of safety wise. So leash required our big thing is not coming in within 20 feet of another person as the other guy, as the other person drops in.
And then obviously no dropping in and stuff like that. But those are the two main parts of it. The stand up and everybody else have the same rules except for the stand ups. They, they could use straps if they wanted to. . Yeah, so I talk a little bit about that. Cause I know it's a little bit controversial that the foot strap thing.
So why, what is your reasoning behind not allowing foot straps for the, for prone foiling? The big reason is not a lot of guys foil strap. So it'd be unfair for the straps and the straps go against each other. So it was easier for us to have straps because the guys with straps, they would have to buy a board that has straps or put on straps and it would be a lot easier if we went the other way around.
And this contest, in the beginning I had an expression session for straps, but in the long run I wanted, we wanted to make sure that we had everybody surf at least twice. So I took up that straps expression session for that one heat. But that's the main reason. Plus, you gotta look at the score too.
If versus one guy with straps versus another guy without straps, the whole scoring would be totally different because if the strap guy is doing just a front side whitewater whack, compared to a guy doing a strapless whitewater wax, same thing. I would rather score the guy without straps higher points than the guy with chefs because it's a lot more critical and it's a lot harder to do without straps.
Yeah, agreed. And it's amazing that there is so many aerial maneuvers without straps, that Yeah. Yeah. I dunno who it was, but somebody did a back flip. . Yeah. Back flip, double rail, grab back flip . I saw that. I, oh, so and then Mateo was doing 360 airs. Yeah. And he threw the boosting air.
So it's not to say that you cannot do these things, do without straps. It's possible. It nof legal's doing it. Why can't we? But yeah, it's just because of that less money spent on trying to get a board with straps. I wanted to make it even for everyone. Yeah. Oh, ammonias. Yeah. And then this was the wave on the right side of the bay.
And I was, there was like some ma beautiful barrels coming through Yeah. On that side too. Yeah. This is my favorite RA in the whole wide world for surfing. We won't say the name, but, yeah. Yeah. Let's keep that a secret . Okay. But yeah, just, the waves were just unreal. And they just kept coming too.
It wasn't like, just one set, it was just like, it seemed like just, it just, the waves just kept coming and coming. It was pretty impressive. Yeah. Cause the next day we arrived and it was half the, And there was a lot of laws. And same thing with the first contest. It was literally, it was like just as big as this contest and then the next day went completely flat.
So I don't know how, or I don't know, God's giving us some good waves and, and some, I believe that the locals are like they should know that every time they know that we have a contest they should know that had waves. So guaranteed huge waves, right? ? Yeah, I think it's like an overall, everyone, we did the beach cleanup.
The camaraderie inside and outside the water, all the support that we've had. All the hard work we put into this, people flying from all over, supporting this contest, supporting the cause for, the maana women in need. I think overall, I think that is what helped us have these kind of waves.
To me it, because the day before and the day after was totally different compared to our contest. So I truly believe that it was in all together everybody coming together as a whole for this contest. Made it happen. Yeah, definitely. The good energy brought nature brought it to together definitely.
And nobody knows about Thursday Pono and I went out when it was going like 30, 40 miles an hour. Winds we're winging and we paid the price for that one. We were the only two guys out at Calak and we didn't have the right equipment and it was blowing so hard that we couldn't make it back. So we ended up in, we ended up in the harbor, holy back.
And I felt so bad. But then I turned around 10 minutes later and I seen pono behind me is okay, good. I don't feel, I don't feel like a retard now. . So what the wind direction, is it kinda offshore there or or which what's the wind direction when it's Tradewinds? Yeah, it's basically straight offshore.
But what's a good about Calak is it tells you where the swell is on the island, except for that northwest or a straight west swell. Cause it'll this, when the big salt swell it'll still break, break like this except for that surf on the right hand side. So it'll tell you this bay will tell you where the salt side has.
Or the east side waves or the Northeast will have waves. This is a totally indication of the whole island, basically. It's pretty cool. Yeah. I mean it's amazing cuz it seems like a fairly small entrance into the, into that bay for it to catch so many swell directions, and it's same direction that 40 degree direction that Kahan Bay has.
Ka Yeah. Which is like a every time. So every time I'm surfing, I'm foing at Kahan Bay. I already know that Kak Bay is going on all Cause we would call each other. We would call each other and be like, what? Kak? Yep. Kak Gateway. What? Kohan? Yep. . . Yep. That's pretty cool. Okay okay, so let's go back to the to the rules cuz actually Derek had some questions about that and stuff too.
Like in, in terms of the the scoring criteria, like what were the judges looking for? To, for the points and stuff?
Wello I'm sorry, the Danny. Yeah, I know. It's so distraction. It's unreal. Sorry, watching the video. Yeah. points wise was wanted to make it like the surfing, speed, power flow as surfing. I don't see us as, a little bit, we're not a considered ourselves the way we surf the same way or foil the same way we surf.
Years, few years ago no one was doing it and then we started to do it years ago and like, why can't we surf it foiled it like a surf surfboard. And I wanted to make sure that the progression goes towards that end. And on the judging scale standing critical traditions the type of waves Jack won the prone for many different reasons, but he is also caught one of the biggest waves of the day.
And then so on a foil, the speed is there. So we have no comparison to two surfing. But yeah, we just want to judge it the same way we do surfing style. Ok. Kinda stay more in that critical section in that pocket. And instead of just staying away from all the white water and all that, we wanna see, be able to come back, cut back and hit it if possible.
On this day it was, you'd be on a whole nother level if you're cracking it. White water snapped off the top on a bomb set, in front of me too. And he landed it, that's the type of stuff. It's just unreal, but didn't do it in the finals. But yeah, those are the type of stuff that you'll, you rarely see on a foil.
And it is good this year, and that's where the progression we thought would be three years ago. And looking at it now, it's, we never thought would well hit white water or doing the airs, Arizona, the foil, but these guys are doing it on pretty big waves now and going for the barrel too.
That was going for the barrel. Yeah. . Yeah. Yeah. And, but the crazy thing is these guys going for the barrel that they know is gonna close out like pono and two waves in a row, he knows it's gonna close out, but he the adrenaline of the competition and he can, he, I ask him like, when you came out, did you hear the crowd?
And he was like, dude, you can totally hear the crowd. I was like, . Oh. Cause you rob, you were out there and oh my gosh. The crowd was just so pumped. It was unreal. Oh yeah. It was a great, I couldn't hear the crowd. It was like a, almost like a live concert or something like that is what it felt like.
A little way I could hear, I, it's like reaction more than I could hear you announcing . Oh really? I, how loud it was. Yeah, because I was speechless. That's why , yeah. I mean there was that one where you just like pointed, maybe talk about that one wave where you just like flying down the line. There was backside grabbing the rail and then just so fast that you just couldn't keep the foil in the water.
Oh was, that was j. That was jd. Jd, sorry. JD Irons and that wave Ash won him the white ball. Hopeful the wipe out of the day. Cause everybody was getting wipe outs, but the amount of speed that he was getting on that wave and was a big set, we had to give him that. Cause it was just, I felt my eardrums pop when heed.
And that was backside too. That's even more crazy. Yeah. More scary. Riley. Yeah, I that's the speed that he was flying on the reve and then just coming to a complete stop. Just what? Hitting the water. Full speed.
yeah's. It's not a fun, it doesn't good, but it good to the crowd. . Yeah. You get his ways so good. Okay. Right on. Yeah. So and then originally you had planned for the Sunday to do like a down wind race, right? So where would that have been? Like what was the plan course, if there was wind and yeah.
What was the plan for the down race? Cuz Yeah, that was so pri primarily we wanted Caia to end it at the Jeti right here in Coate Bay. Okay. It's about a, I don't know, maybe a 10, 12 mile stretch straight northeast. And it was looking good, but that wind started to come early Thursday, Friday, which thank God, because Saturday would've been my, my God.
It would've been so heavy on if the winds came out on Saturday it would be like outta control, but would've been a whole different scene. Yeah. All the boys, you know that no whole new thing is the winging and everyone is really, actually excited about that. But yeah. Bummer that we had to not hold it but it was a good time next time, I guess on Saturday.
Yeah. Yeah. I thought this kid, Mateo was a real standout as well cuz he was doing both the standup division and the prone division. Yeah. Yep. And this is his second time doing that. Yeah, same thing. Back in 2019, he won first Inop and second in pro. Yeah. And then it's pretty amazing cuz he went like from, and there was like no break between the heats too.
So he went like from the pro standup final straight switchboards and straight into the prone final. Yeah. . And, it happens that way. That's the consequences of trying to enter so much divisions. You're gonna have those moments where you go back to back. But it is not even 20.
I don't believe. So I, his energy level is on a, on another level. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. If that was me, I would've been like, oh no, thanks. I'm good. . Yeah. Take. Yeah. What was I gonna ask? Yeah. Oh yeah. The different divisions and the results. Are the, have final results posted somewhere?
Sort of. I, did, I post everything but the pro cause we lost the results. . Okay. And I'm still searching for it. I know someone took a picture of it, but yeah, I know. I don't even have the results in front of me. Is it double? No worries. But yeah, I, some maybe I can put, maybe you can send me the results later or whatever I can post on this video as well.
But people were asking like, what are the, cause you only announced three finishes or whatever.
Alright. But and then yeah, they were asked, people were asking, what about making a two day event? Also the judging like is it's on the side of the bay, almost facing away from the break. Like the, cuz the break, the wave breaks away from the judge's stand. They were saying, is that the best location?
Wouldn't it be better to have it judging from straight on or from the other side of the bay? What's your take on that? We got those houses right there on the cliff that we could rent. That's an option. Or maybe to get a room at the Marriott. But it was so much easier accessible for us to do it at the Canoe Club.
And people's gotta realize that most of this money's coming out of Pono and i's pocket. So for us to even rent the room at the Marriott, it's probably impossible. . Yeah. I then plus, and then plus if we was to set up like on the beach or something, you would've to think about whole scaffolding, scaffolding on the beach and then getting permits to do that on the beach.
It's a lot of things that we would have to think about in order to try to do that. Especially on this day, we weren't expecting for it to have this much barrels to actually hold up nice and clean. A lot of them you were, if you were on it and you went for the barrel, you'd be able to make it up easily.
That's good. That's how good and clean it and. With a canoe club. If we didn't have these kind of barrel sections and whatnot, it's a perfect spot to be for the judges to be the top story. And you could actually see everything from there. Yeah. And the judges were upstairs on the second floor too, so you had a pretty good vantage point of the waves from the upstairs.
So they they could see, I was up there most of the time and we could see pretty good. only part it was hard was in the morning time when that sun was directly over. We couldn't decisive the color jerseys, but that's it. Especially when they're pumping out. Cause I was up on the top for the first two heats and then guys would be pumping out and then as soon as they turn around to just go straight down, catch a wave, like they get lost in the sun.
But as soon as they, as soon as they reach the the break, we could see their jersey colors. . we have to kinda work that out. Be like, Hey, okay, we're not, so we're not judging them on watching them glide into the wave. We're only watching, we're only scoring them on the more critical section when the wave actually breaks.
So we have to kind figure that out first thing in the morning. Yeah, that makes sense. We had seven judges, so three judges, three judges, scoring. A head judge and then three spotters. And that's one of the things we learned from the first contest to make sure we have a spotter per judge just to call out.
Because, and that's the reason, one of the reasons why we kept the two for one max per ride. Cause otherwise guys like Jack and Mateo would be doing 10 for once and yeah. So actually let's talk about that a little bit. So basically the rule was you can take off on a wave, ride it, and then pump out and get a second wave, but that was it, right?
You couldn't get more than two waves in one to for one score, right? Correct. Correct. And the reason for that is cause just to make it more of an even playing field for guys that can't pump like an 18 year old . Yeah, exactly. And then, so on a smaller day you would see like they'll do two for ones.
My thought process was like somebody like pono can do so much wa so much turns in on that one wave than they would somebody else is doing two waves. They're doing as much as turns so that it gave everybody that, that chance to score. If that makes sense, but, oh yeah. Yeah.
No, I mean I think that rule makes sense. Cuz you don't, yeah. You don't want it to turn just into a pumping contest. Also, then people would probably use bigger foils which don't perform as well on the wave and stuff like that. We're sticking to that whole performance side of Foley.
Yeah, I noticed too. On the standup paddle board side, like it seemed like the guys with the really long, the longer boards were got the best scores. Yeah. Because cuz they were able to catch the waves easier and stuff like that. It seemed yeah, I like Dave and Mateo, but that's a big board for Mateo.
So board it looked like the do board. Yeah. Cause like guys, Derek looked like he was having a hard time trying to, cause it's so much water moving at that point. Yeah, Derek was on his tiny wing fo board, so it wasn't even to stand paddle board. So yeah, you can double it.
Sorry. Him and Nick Ben is always my top two picks, but this day, when it's bigger on a smaller day they would, just tear it up. But because it was so much water moving at that, think that's had a hard time. But the first two places, Nick Bennett the third, but the first two places, Mattel and Daniel.
They had bigger boards, so they were catching most of the waves. Yeah. So for prone foiling po talk a little bit about your equipment. What were you using and what would you say would've been like perfect equipment for this day of foil surfing I was riding my Freedom Fusion board.
It's like a 4, 5 17, 3 quarters and 28 liters. And then I was writing my fo was access 7 99 front wing with a silly short piece lodge 3 25 progressive tailw wing. A lot of guys were, yeah, a lot of guys were riding that more high aspect kinda wing for that speed. I know a lot of guys was running the lifts.
90, Jack was running, riding the 90. I think we were all planning on riding those smaller wings for just for that speed. And we can carve, but I think the only guy in the prone division that was riding a big wing was Jake. Jake pers Yeah. He rips on the big wings. I think he's the only prone Foiler I, I know of that can rip on a two 10 go foil.
Yeah, like a shortboard. And he rips that thing like it's. No other, everybody else was riding those small wings. He was riding a big wing and just ripping on it. That just shows the progression in who you are as a person and what you're capable of. Yeah. And the seven, the 7 99 access, I have that one too for wing filling, but it's a pretty small foil.
It has, it doesn't have much drag, but you need to maintain that speed. So it's not that easy to pump. You gotta really keep up the speed, right? Yeah. It definitely needs the speed to keep it going. But once you're in that rhythm, it's all about mainly that rhythm and the technique for your pumping style.
, if you can keep that then, you're, you can go for quite a while compared to a, for me I would rather ride a smaller wing than a big wing. In any condition. I even ride over here like one, two foot days. I ride my small wing. Cause I like it super loose, super carv. I can almost ride it like my surf wing as well.
That's why. Yeah. And is this more efficient? You have less drag, right? So it's easier to maintain the speed too, because you don't have to work as hard to go faster it seems yeah. Yes. Ooh. And yeah, the two, like what about the holding it over two days? Have you thought about that or I guess the plan was to have one day of surfing and one day of ra down wind racing kind of thing.
So we just did it one day. That's how we started it in 2019. And then three months later, we actually had a contest in Maui that we had to cancel three weeks prior cuz of the pandemic. So we had every set up, everything else for Maui, everything was ready to go. That was scheduled for two days.
We just kept it down to one day, and then this year we're like, okay let's go ahead and add the the wing race to it. But we're gonna keep the koi one to one day for Calak. . Few reasons. One, I don't wanna take away two days away from the local boys out there.
I think one day, one day is long enough, especially on the swell like this. But so COI is always gonna be that one day I call pa and then hopefully the next day is a race. But the Maui if we have an a Maui, it's gonna be at guard rails and those are gonna be two days, two day events. Okay. And then, so yeah, so Maui do you like actually talk a little bit about your plans for the future, because you said that you had something planned in Tennessee next summer, is that right?
Yeah, we trying to do a wake foil contest in Tennessee in July on the 14th, 15th, I believe. And I still of wanted to do something in Hawaii in May, whether it's at Kaco or in, or guards on Maui. Okay. So that's the plan. And then back to Koi, the weekend after Thanksgiving. Awesome. Kaka ACO would be cool.
That's our backyard, so Yeah, that's, but but for Tennessee, like what, like awake wake foiling contest? How would that work and what would be the criteria and stuff? It's curious. And and that's what we're trying to figure out. So they had an invite maybe about two months ago.
Brian grew up then I think it was in Orlando, I believe. And they scored it more like wake style foiling. . So we're gonna try and do that same thing, but have different division. Whether it's strap and strapless, that's gonna be something new to us. We've been doing in the last couple years, doing the whole traveling to the wake side of it.
We did a tour last, like a few months ago actually. Just do, went from lake to lake just to see how many people are out there foiling. It's actually unreal the amount of people that's foiling because the, what was it, the surf wake I believe or waking, I should say.
Those are starting to go away and now they're starting to foil a lot more. So the competitions right now, it's, especially for the the foil side, it's still fresh and we always wanted to be one of the guys who actually push it out. So we did, did our homework trying to travel around to different, to see what r Wanda talent, and then two, how, what are people doing the bolts they use.
I learned, I starting to learn about different type of bolts. The size of the waves how many waves are behind. It's unreal how they do it. So last year we did it at the Wakefest and we got invited to do. Road record. How many boilers behind the wake? I think we only got 16.
The, right now the record is 30, 31 or 32, I believe, by the Cohesions. So next year because we were from the 50th state our number is 50. I wanna try to see if I can get 50 guys behind the wake on the foil. Wow. The weekend before Wakefest and then at Wakefest. We're gonna try again. You're gonna give us this past year wake Fest is the first time Wake allowed any other sport in Wakefest, and they gave us two runs per day, which was pretty amazing.
Wow. The crowd here was one at Kak was one thing, but they have 1500 wake boats in the water lined up screaming when the foresters came down. And it was such an intense experience. And next year I'll make sure the foil fever. We're gonna go go check it out and put on our contest.
My friend Brian from Flight Deck, Tennessee, he's out there and he's doing a lot of the leg work for us. We've been doing it for the last, I don't know, four or five months now. When I called them like the day after this contest and I was like, okay, let's go. Let's get started. Working on the Tennessee contest.
So we're gonna putting it out maybe in January. I would say to the public we already got a place to stay. It just, there's a lot more logistics trying to get a the lake because, it's open. Especially the lakes in Tennessee, you have three different states that goes through that lake.
So you got guys from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee that shares the same lake. There's a lot of people on that lake. But most of them Go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say, you said what, 150 wake boats on the lake or something like that. That sounds crazy. It was cool cuz they were all like tied up to each other.
Oh. And it was like a big, it was like the cars, they call it walkie, but it was such a huge crowd and you get the, we stayed on the houseboats that was behind it. It was so intense. So intense. So hopefully on this first one that we do, we know it's not gonna be as big, I don't think any contest, any oil contest that we do is gonna be, can beat this.
We said that 2019, but yeah. Saturday was way. Way bigger. It definitely, I think it definitely topped our first contest. Yeah, I just like the waves and the performance both were just, yeah. Just amazing. And I don't think anything like this has helped, been helped before, so it's just really cool to be there in person and see it happen.
For sure. Oh, we're happy that you came down. Yeah, me too. I was stoked. Actually one thing I wanted to mention, somebody in the, on my video commented how was I able to get my drone to fly? Because this is a kind of really close to the airport and it's not in the flight line, but it's like in this blue zone, which is a restricted flight area for drones.
You're not you need authorization to fly there, . And when I first tried it and I brought two drones and all my batteries and everything like that, and I couldn't get it to work, I was really frustrated cuz I showed up with all my stuff and then I couldn't fly and then cuz I had a DJ I flight controller and then I, I tried all this stuff that, that it said to do and it just kept rejecting my my thing.
And then I finally tried my older controller, which works with my phone. And then while I was logged into the d I account using my older controller, maybe I didn't update it or something like that, but for some reason I was able to like self authorize, just go through that and then it worked, I was lucky to be able to fly cuz it took me like an hour to figure out how to make it work.
But so basically, yeah, the way I was able to make it work was like self authorizing through my phone being connected to the, the phone controller on the dj Oh. Photo could tell you. Right there. Let me see you right there. That's where Polo's drone is right in this area. I know. I Oh, that was your drone Oneo.
Yeah, I think we got pretty close a few times. Yeah. . Yeah. No, my drone is actually in Kak. Oh, in the water. Yeah. So I lost like few months ago, Uhhuh, I was flying it and then it automatically just went to auto landing. While I was out above the water flying, it just started landing, coming down slowly and slowly, almost close to the water.
And I tried to shoot it to shore on the sand and it just barely, almost reached the sand, but it landed right in the water and it was like, oh, it's gone. That's, so we spent all day trying to swim for it. all day for two days. . A lot of times it is usually happy just to get the SD card back with the footage, right?
Cause you know the time, once it's in the salt water's probably not gonna survive it anyways. But at least you can get the footage outta it, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. I actually have the footage. It landing in the water. Oh. And it was connected to my phone, so I got the footage from that, cause I was recording that whole flight while it was landing
Oh yeah. That's, it's pretty hilarious. Yeah. But yeah, that's something to be aware of that it's actually not an automatic thing that you can find the drone there, . Yeah. It depends on the size of your drone too. Yeah. So I had the airs. It was, it worked until, up until that day. Even the Minis, I know Chris Christian Park, he was flying his drone, so I think he had the DJ J Mini.
Yeah. So he was able to fly it out there. It depends on the size of drone you have. Yeah. I guess that might be it too. But yeah. And then I also wanted to mention Alex, a GU from Gofo was there with a, I guess he had a telephoto lens and was shooting from the beach. And he posted a video too on YouTube that couple days ago.
And that one has you can hear the comments from the crowd and the crowd cheering and stuff like that, which is definitely, that, that part is missing from the drone video for sure. That you don't get that. Oh yeah. The audio from the crowd is pretty cool. And then announcing Yeah. You get so pumped.
You hear the crowd going, I was telling people the last few days, it's if we didn't have the contest and it was just a free for all regular session, you wouldn't see guys be pulling in like that or doing the crazy stuff that they were doing Saturday. But because these guys are like pushing each other, and that's a cool thing about the foyers, it's just no matter if you're in competition or not, everyone's pushing and hollering on the side yelling go.
It's such a cool vibe, the spoilers, and that's hopefully, it's, it lasts a little bit longer. But even though, in the competition, the boilers we're something different, we're something special, I believe. I agree with that. Totally. And what do you think what's the cause of that?
Like why is, why are boilers so much more open and yeah, like more open to sharing and just enjoying it together versus most of these foresters are surfers and in the lineup, on a surfboard you can sit in a water for an hour and might catch two waves.
Where on a foil you can sit in a corner, tiny half a foot, white. And have the time of your life and catch two for one, three for one and or whatever. But when you get done, you're so tired, you're like, you're resting for 15 minutes anyway. Yeah, but, and it's so funny cuz I was pointing head and one of the uncles, the locals, and he's at the top of the hill and we, I walk up to the top and he goes, how come every time I see you spoilers, you guys always smiling
Oh yeah, remember that? And yeah, I was like and I told him, cause after an hour session, avoiding to climb up that cliffs hill and make it , we're like, oh, our legs are so tired. And the last thing we wanna do is climb up that cliff. But it's true. All the floaters you see the positive attitude, the positive feedback from everybody trying.
You'll never have a surfer go, Hey, come here, let me teach you how to serve where porters they're welcoming. I wanna teach you because they know the consequences of porters. We wanna teach and we do. We have free lessons, we have free demonstrations to the public that we put on once in a while for the whole safety.
How can we tell these guys don't do this, don't do that when or when we are not out there actually teaching 'em how the right way of doing it. Because it is dangerous. Yeah. And even if we're somebody that has a lot of experience surfing and they think they can just jump on a foil and learn it easily because they already know how to surf sometimes that's the most dangerous because they're like, yeah.
They you have that mentality already. Yeah. Mentality that they don't need any advice or whatever. True. But you can be on a one foot wave, on a foil and no matter what, you have to be on your toes. You start to be, you gotta be humble the whole time. And whether it's 20 feet or one feet the same humbleness is exactly the same.
Yeah. Either way. Either way. You can end up with 20 stitches on your head if you know what you're doing. True. Either you'll get the stitches or some you'll do it to somebody else. That's what we are trying to avoid. I think something worth mentioning is that despite, everybody like having pretty gnarly wipe outs, in the most critical section, everything like that one and the foil Yeah. Tumbling around your head and stuff like that. Like nobody got injured, right? There was no injuries in this event, right? Or were they, did they miss so. There was one somebody grabbed a foil, I think by his hand. Oh. That was it.
I forget who it was, but oh, was it Kane? Maybe. I'm not sure. Got the hand sliced open or something? His foot. Yeah. Oh, his foot was his foot. Okay. I know you keep on his foot. Yeah. Somebody contest or whatnot, but I saw Kane the next day we was out foiling again at Cak. , not bad, but yeah. Anyways so it looks really dangerous, but I guess if you if you know what you're doing and know how to avoid the foil it can actually be relatively safe, I would say.
Oh, so the number one rule and when I taught pono how to foil when we got started and how I started that, these words will always stick to my head. And I always tell the same thing to anybody who wants to learn how to foil and foiling is, it's not how you foil, it's how you fall. And so when we started to learn have the confidence in falling hitting the white water, like I have full confidence on hitting the white water because I have full confidence on how I know how to bail, but I know how to.
Once you start having that tendency of, or not confident in falling, that's basically when you get hurt. Yeah. And you gotta stay humbled. Of course you're gonna get hurt. It's not if it's wet. Yeah. I think the biggest tip for beginners is when you're surfing sometimes, like if you lose your balance and you're starting to fall off, you can catch yourself and you basically try to pull off the maneuver until you hit the water.
And if, if you hit the water, then you're, then you crash. But foiling like as soon as you lose your balance a little bit or you feel like the foils not right out underneath you, it's just time to bail out right away and not try to correct it or save yourself in falling. It's a lot easier to come back to catch another wave than get hurt.
Wait, couple weeks, , and then
For sure. Let's talk a little bit about your background. Like what, how did you grow up and how did you get into foiling and all that? I'm curious Bono yeah, start with pono. Oh. I pretty much grew up here on Coi, here on Oahu a lot. Was back and forth between islands.
Fondest memory of be learning how to surf was probably at Huy Little Beach here on Kauai. At the river mouth. Yeah, trying to learn how to surf. And then I got into body board when I moved up to Oahu, body boarded at a spot called tumble Lands in Mali. And then, yeah, and then pretty much moved back here, surf.
And then I actually got started with Four Lane back in 20 20 18 from this guy, my uncle he was for before me and then he came over for New Years. Him and Uncle Cleve was like, Hey, you need to try this. So I tried it and I was pretty much hooked. I was watching guys Foley, I call ay for quite a while before I even started and I always was like, wow, that looks so cool, but looks so dangerous.
Or maybe that's not for me. Sorry. It was actually Uncle Cark, I would always see him out on his sub foiling. . I was like just, I think he was like one of the only ones that I actually saw like ripping on a foil so early in the game. Back in what, 2018? Yeah. He was definitely a pioneer, right? Yeah, for sure.
He was one of the first guys and then my uncle Jason set me up with a foil and a board. I was pretty much fucked ever since. And still am. It's literally an addiction. Talk, maybe talk a little bit about your first session. Like how was that , what did you learn on your first session?
My first session That what foot waves? Or like 10 foot waves. It's scary. , I, that was the first day. The first, yeah, the first day I landed actually on the rail on my ribs. But the second day was like three to four foots. Oh, . And he couldn't even catch a weight. That's how, three, four foot horns on a perfect day.
It gets really double gnarly. Super good. And I wanted to go out there, so I took Bono and he didn't catch. It was gnarly. That was my first of shame. Yeah. And he got humbled so bad. It just, and I got humbled as well too that day. But being his second day and taking him out there that, that was funny.
Yeah. So what about you, Jason? Are you from Kauai as well originally or? Yeah, from Coi. I live about this is my home break right surface since I was five years old. And then, I went back first day of Foing what my friends and my cousin then was like, oh, we need to get up or you get you on.
Foing was like, okay, I'll just try. I actually waited a few months for me to try it because I knew this is one of the sport that you'll like, so that's why you don't want do it. One, it's really knew how expensive it was and then how addictive it was. We really knew that before we even got one, one of these.
It's like one of those sports that don't wanna do it because of that. But once I got on, that's why. Yeah, so I got it away. First base, first time was a kak bit, got super humbled, flew back the next day, went straight to Hawaiian water sports and bought my first set. And I was on the phone with my cousins, kale and Ola, and I was asking, what do you need?
And the whole time, the whole drive all the way to a pulled into the parking lot, . And he was telling me all this stuff and you telling me about, you're gonna get hurt, this and that. And so that's how I started. And then just got, and then I ended up just pointing Queens after I came back.
I got my gear. I learned how to fo like queens and pops and canoes. So what was your first foil? What did you start on? That was the first foil was John Mu bar, the Nubi and the eba Go Foil, Eva fo, which, it wants to fly it. The those right there, that set just wants to fly.
So I have no problem learning on one of those for sure. It just doesn't wanna fly too fast. ? Not, yeah. Compared to what these guys are running and what we are running nowadays, it's a whole new ball game you have to, the progression, like from 2019, the progression, yes.
Talent and confidence on your foil. But the gear has gone through, I mean it's so crazy the progression on the gear, the foils and the boards. I remember the boards back then. I remember one guy came out for real, the foam, a Clark foam had says Clark Foam on it and he basically no shape it, nothing.
He didn't take a sand to it. He glassed the foam and stuck a underneath. I mean it was here in Oahu and I was laughing, but he was writing it. It was super flex of course, cuz there was like no carbon back. It was just straight stringer. It didn't last very long, but but I thought it was pretty classic, but the boards back then was just, yeah.
Compared to now it's different. And then Oh, totally. So what do you ride now? What's your for foiling? So my setup is a magic 8 0 8 board made by Glen thing. Four, five left 17 and a half at 28 meters is my board. And then my foils are, we write access like the 82 82 centimeter use of mass and with the city short.
And I ride a little bit bigger wing now cause gain a little bit weight as like the seven 40, I believe, the seven 40 PSC and a three 50 wing. Those things are so good for us. , a lot of people ask especially beginners is like what foil or what equipment should I buy? And that's one of the biggest, I wish, my cousin guys helped me, but now we have more options. Oh yeah. Every day there's new equipment coming in and like Honolulu, every other guy here shapes sports. You can get boards all over now, but guys like ing, guys from Freedom, those guys learned in the beginning the hard way, but now they've, they learn so much.
And now the progression and how solid the boards are and how light the boards are, it's unreal. Super cool. Yeah. And then people, a lot of times people think that the board's not that important cuz you're just writing the foil, but it, the board does make a big difference cuz Yeah, like that the board is what kind of gets you up on the foil right in the first place.
So without the right board, it's hard to even get up on the foil. Oh, for sure. And then in terms of length have you gone a little bit longer? It seems like for a while everybody's going as short as possible and then now people are using a little bit longer boards again?
Or what's been your experience or progression? Oh, exactly. So we all started what, 3 10, 10 and wider was that 22 inches wide and like 35 liters. But now it's, the length Glen was like, oh, a little bit wider or longer and less say, okay, but I gotta come more narrow to make.
For what I wanted to do. . So we went all the way down to 17 inches wide and the length we did go about, but yeah, three, four inches longer. And then we just started to pull in the leaders, the volume on our boards. Cause we noticed that you can feel the foil even more, it's way more responsive.
Having that tail dropped in on the other bit. But yeah, it's insane. Yeah. Progression, the equipment, I for and for wing footing. Have you guys been wk foiling at all or are you getting into that at all, or? Yeah, not so much. Oh we've both definitely been wing foing. I can say was hooked on wing.
Cause all he talks about every time is, Ooh look get. And it's barely that's yeah. What happened there? It looks like it is like the bottom dropped out from underneath you. Huh? So I told him that way. If he went, if he had a longer fuselage, he may, he would, he might would've had a chance.
That one. Cause the shorter fuselage makes it more like a more loose on the front and back. So if, when you see him drops. He's going so hard and he was trying to correct it, and the thing just went, woo. Oh, was that the double up? Yeah. That one was crazy. So on that wave, that was the finals.
So as the tide was, was lower dropping, I could see that the barrels was more like, it was a lot more wide open, more on the inside of the the brake. Away from shoulders where everybody was taking off. So it was forming the a frame section more on the inside. So I was like, oh, okay, if I pump out, let me see if I can connect and get one of those.
So as I'm going out and pumping it, I was like, ah, don't, I don't have a set here, but I see this wave. So its like, oh, ok, I'll just go for it. And as I'm pumping, I see a double up. I'm like, and I'm already behind the set. So I'm like, oh my goodness. What am I gonna do? So in that video, there's like a split second where I looks like I'm relaxed, but I'm like, should I go or should I not?
And then in that split second, I'm like, ah, just go for it. . Yeah. It looks like you, you try to drop the nose down into the way, like you try to just go straight down the face, right? Yeah. Straight down. And try to correct it at the bottom of the way. But I was like, way too late. I was like, oh, crashed
Yeah. Yeah, that was definitely tricky and there's a few times where you could see there were actually like sometimes the guys on the wave and then the wave right in front, there's another wave right in front breaking, and then they're yeah, it's and then doubling up or whatever.
It was definitely a little bit, definitely tricky, right? Not just a smooth ride . No, everybody stepped, everybody who was out there in the waters stepped up their game. It was un unreal on how much progression there was. And we were all cheering each other on, like I was in, when I was in my heats, I was cheering on the guys that was in my heats, cheering on the guys that was in the next heat.
We were trying to push each other and just, everybody's just charging us just sending it. It's so unreal to just see that, like in the water. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I've never seen that many people trying to pull into barrels on it's every other way. So we like try to duck under the lip and there was a few, actually a few rides that people pulled off.
Fully barrel and then coming back out. It, I don't think I really got those, but definitely a few. It looks so perfect. Yeah. Not at all. Yeah. We were actually talking about maybe renting a house on the, on that other side of the bay. Oh, that was the, when you have your event and then maybe we could have the judges sitting on the balcony there,
Oh yeah. And then of course, mother Nature's gonna provide waves again. , cause usually the waves like break further on the inside too, not, it's not always breaking that far out. Yeah. But anyways, yeah, I mean it's just a beautiful setup too. And then, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the other division.
So you had the gro division. What ages were the Gros? 14 and below s. Okay. And who, who won that? The gro division. Caden Pritchard from Maui. Cool. Yeah, I actually interviewed Caden for a wing full interview. He's also a really good wing foiler. He's, yeah, he's good. He's a charger for Little Gro.
He's a grab it's charge. Yeah. Very cool kid. You had the, sorry, go ahead. The women's? , Glen was my pick on that. When every time, when the waves are this big our pick is always Glen now. Cause she's the only one that I know that charges super hard. She's charging all the way to I don't know, six, seven months pregnant.
It was. And then and we had the Capona League, the 60 and above. Cause we did that one for the people of Koi. Cause a lot of uncles actually foiled at the spot and they always just wanted to, I'm not gonna put them against somebody like Al or yeah. Mateo or whatever the case would be.
But, so it was actually really good that we actually ended up having a division for them. So it was pretty good. And KA is 60 and over, right? Yeah, 60 and over. Okay. What's out? I think a Coco makes 60 next year. Yeah. So they gotta be careful. , you can enter that one next year. . Yeah. Yeah. Oh, the boys are down.
So there's upstairs where the judges were sitting at, up on the top of the new hall. Oh, there you go. Oh, and then, yeah, afterwards you had a cool event. Lots of cool prizes and everything. Nice dinner. So that was cool too. Live music, everything. So yeah, that was a great event. I have to say. You guys did a really good job and I know it's a lot of work to do something like this thank you for putting it on and yeah, making it no was so cool.
Especially the first competition that we've done. In 2019 we put this on po I went to po you're gonna contest. Okay, let's do it. And out of all everybody that on the staff Ohana, my sister, it was my sister, my mom my, my daughters. None of em. Foil, none. I won't foil none of 'em really serve the competition contest wise, nobody's done it.
Initially I was in the contest of 2019 and then my buddy Cle, the head judge is like, there's no way you can foil this contest. We are gonna need help . So after that I, these guys told me I, I'm not allowed to foil any of our contests ever. So that's how we, now it's, it was just funny cuz like everybody's doing this.
The only guys that foil is the judges. That's the only people on the staff that actually foils, which is cool. Which is amazing, having that support like we just, we volunteered them, not volunteered, them kind help us out with the contest and they're all up for, they saw our vision and the supported us from the get go.
To have that support is like unreal. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. So do you think I guess here on Oahu, like the foil contests are usually kind of part of other like the buffalo surf meat, they add like a foil division and stuff like that. But it seems yeah, it seems like there aren't really that many real surf foiling competitions yet.
Yeah. Yeah. We are the I believe we were the first one ever in 2000. Yeah. A full foil contest. Yeah. Yeah. Because like you said, Rob, it was a part of part of Duke's, part of the buffalo. So this is the first time I think we had, I didn't know the contest I did with you. Was it the Pumping? Yeah.
The hundred Waves contest or whatever. Hundred man one I think was the boys man one. And that was awesome. That was that. Oh, you guys got this on. So I actually, I was gonna play this kind of do a separate video outta this, but this was like when we got there on Friday, the day before the event we went straight from the airport to to this spot and it was like blowing.
We like all excited about, went out in the water and I. Good wing foiling session and yeah, and I only brought my wing foiling gear. I didn't even bring any, anything else, but cuz I was looking forward to trying to do that down downward race, oh yeah. Glad you guys scored at Hon Ma Beach.
Yeah. Was a super fun spot too. Why didn't we go there? ? You didn't wanna, you wanted to go call. Oh, okay. But yeah, I'll probably do this, share this another time, but, so yeah, get back to you guys and but yeah so let's talk a little bit more about foiling and like for people that are getting into foiling, want to wanna get better.
Like what are your pointers or like what were like some breakthroughs for you or like good tips that you can share with people, both of you behind the boat, in the river or a lake, getting food. I think that's the easiest and safest way to, to learn and the fastest, instead of trying to take off on waves, not knowing how actual foil works.
And then, yeah, like on a bigger board, bigger foil to it, it it'll help you get up easier and faster instead of a smaller setup where, It's a little bit harder to get up on foil at first. Once, once you figure out how the foil will react to like your foot placement, your body weight, front to back foot ratio, all that you have to take into consideration in order to get the right height on foil.
And then just trying to be safe on the foil. I I think each time you go out every session, you gotta remember okay, this didn't work. Oh, okay, wait, this work. Okay, let me try this. It's a step by step process. You can't just go out one session and be like, oh, I'm ripping, or I know everything about Foing because the next session you'll get humbled really quick.
Yeah. And it seems like a lot of people they try it a couple times and then they just give up. They find it too challenge. Yeah. With foing you have to be like consistent, go every day. Cause I think when I first started, I think I went six months straight every day, seven days a week.
literally limited. Yeah. Until I got it like fully down. I think the more consistent you are, the faster you learn. And the better you become at a whole new sport. Just the feeling alone gets you out there in the water just to be up on foil and just flying. Just fly straight.
Just flying straight is always fun. I think that was the main goal from like the beginning. So for me, I forward at c Coffee, that's where I learned. And then my goal in the beginning was always try to make it to shore. Just go straight and make it to shore without getting her . Yeah. What about you Jason?
You got some tips? Yeah. So once you get on, so I actually, when I teach people, I take on my ski and I have a six, six blue planet that I actually use to to teach. And to me, that's one of the really good board to learn cause it's long enough and it's a lot easier to control. They can actually stand up on the thing without lying down with knees, doing all, you bypass all that part, go to the stand up, hold the rope and you just take off.
So I always tell guys when we start to learn is everybody just wants to fly and they wanna stay up there, it's like everybody wants to be like 10 steps ahead, we need to step back a little bit, I always tell like one of guys like, crawl, walk, run. There's no rush.
Once you can get up on foil, I tell the people to push it all the way back down and then go back up again and then push it all the way back down. That way, how much pressure each leg or are you standing in the right spot to push it down to control, learning how to control once you get up to that 36 inches or whatever left your real foil is because that's when you start to get hurt and when you start to breach.
So always if you start to control yourself at like 12 inches, go up, go back down and just keep on doing that, then by a time when you get to your 30 inches, whatever case you have control to stay at that spot. But that's one of the, one of the other things that, that we like to teach too. Cause there's no rush in learning how to but expect nowadays you got, these 10 year old kids learning how to foil on the very first day.
Yeah. Yeah. I thought one. Go ahead. Yeah, I think part of that is just, yeah the equipment's so much better and more dialed in. And if you have, if you have the right equipment and the right instructions, then yeah, it's possible to learn it quickly, especially for young kids that just pick it up easily.
Yeah. But yeah, that, I think that Sam pa always say, stay low and in control, right? Low and in control. Low and in control. Still to today, if I'm coming down the line, he'll say those exact same words to me. Sam never changes. He'll, no matter who how good you, and that's the thing we talked to with Sam PAs we don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, you're going to get humbled or hurt somebody.
So you got to stay on your toes at all time and, be focused on a foil by you being on a board. But once you get up, you have to stay focused which is amazing. I think that's why we're so addicted to this sport, because no matter how good you get, they'll still humble you on a two foot wave.
know, There's just a competitor side, like the adrenaline on a two foot. I always tell people a two foot wave at pipe or a Kahan Bay feels like a 10 foot waved pipe, that adrenaline, no matter how big it's a rush. One foot or no way, if you get up it's such a rush. Yeah. Just the high speed bottom term, it feels like you're riding 20 foot pipe or whatever, even though it's a foot behind you.
So in terms of if you look at, talent versus practice, what would you say for you? Is it is it talent or is it time on the water and just practicing or or a combination of both?
Definitely combination of both. You can see, so when you watch guys foil I, when I see it, I say, oh and these guys are ripped. Say for example, Jack, like I, I surf with Jack before, so I know he can surf. So you can see the transition he does from long boarding shortboarding into the foiling site.
Like porno can shortboard, I can see the transition. Guys like Derek Sak. So not to say that, you'll be ripping right away. For example look at Erica. She's really good and voiding and she, we, she doesn't serve, she doesn't have any of that. No way she caught anything. But now she's writing, she's toying into big waves.
With the dedication that you put into foiling and how focused you are and you're setting yourself up goals I, that, that's huge. But talent, yeah, you gotta have talent to be, and at this different level. But not to say that, like I said, dedication and a lot of training for sure.
But confidence is the biggest thing to me. Confidence by surfing in any other sport, cuz you can get hurt really bad but yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. And a lot of us have a water sports background and I think in winging too, it's really obvious where if somebody's had a windsurfing background or kiting or whatever and they understand how to, how a wing works, then it makes a huge difference.
Versus someone that might be a great surfer, but they've never really used a wing or used, done any wind sports, so for sure that's a lot more challenging to learn that, yeah. But it's so funny when you say the wing side too though. You can see the difference on the wing on the guys who used to do the wing sports transition to foil wing by the guys that, that foils surf foil and learning how to w because then you put 'em on a.
Then you'll see, oh, he's gotta be a, he's gotta be a porter. And then when you put him on like a, like the winning races they've been having in Florida or Europe and stuff like that, then you're like, oh, that guy's a guarantee, like a kite surfer. Which is amazing cuz you go to Maui, most of those guys, the wind side of it turns all into wing foing because what I think is less equipment, but everybody's ripping but on their own, style of Foing, whatever.
But yeah, no, totally. And yeah, like someone like Derek, yeah. You put him on a wing Foiler. He is, he's like ripping it. Like the W's not even there. . Yeah. Amazing. And that's what he has a little bit advantage on guys going try to do the surfing side of it. But if he went, did a wing race, like a short distance ring race, then he'll have, big competition for sure.
But Derek, yeah, he's getting pretty good at the wing handling too and racing and all that. I mean he's actually, oh yeah. Really good competitor in the racing too. , he's a special species. That one. Yeah. . So actually I wanna talk a little bit more about the, yeah. The state of mind and you saying confidence is really important and I know sometimes We all have days where everything kind of flows and every you're like, you never fall and you just keep going and like everything, you can't do any wrong.
And then other days when you're just like, you can't even make a drop. Yeah. Is there, are there any secrets to getting into that state of mind where you're confident and and you're just like, Superman and you can do whatever you want? It's kinda tricky question and never really thought about it that way.
For the most part, for me, I try to keep a cool collective mind as soon as I jump in the water. Cause I know what I'm getting myself into right now. And especially, then you look at the waves, see how they are, and then kinda, I kind of base my session off of that, like how the waves are and if it's just more for just cruising or actually progressive side shortboarding, all those you gotta take into consideration too.
And then kinda like how your days go going. There's definitely a lot of factors you gotta take into consideration on how to stay in a positive mood. Sometimes, I'm a victim of it, I just use the water as a ocean therapy. If I'm having a bad day or a shitty. I'll go jump in the water.
I know a lot of people use that as a therapy. But when it comes to foiling, you definitely wanna be in a great mindset to, to foil. Cause either you're gonna get hurt or you're gonna hurt somebody else. So I think foiling in general, you have to have a positive mindset no matter if it's one foot or 10 foot.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think what you said too about focusing on the conditions and paying attention and just like being in the moment and just not thinking about other things, is like you just have to really zone, zero in on what you're doing and pay attention and look at where the sets are coming and look what everyone else is doing and just not have any distractions in your mind.
I guess I, yeah, especially cause you're foing, surfing, watering, yeah. You can kinda get away with it, but not with foing. What about you, Jason, do you have any special tips on getting into the right frame of mind? I don't know about getting into the right frame of mind, but you gotta, yeah, said, being in within the moment, but I can tell you what happens when you don't have a bad day or when you do have a bad day, just get outta the.
Because, yep. You, the more emotional you'll get, the more fatigue you'll get. And that's when you start to get hurt. So if you're out there and not feeling it, it's oh, stop my day today. On a foil, you can't, you say that one time, just get outta water on a surfing, not my day. You can hang out all day.
But we've been in, in instances where I'm not feeling it, but I wanna be out there because the waves are good or what the case may be. And nothing as goes your away And I got hurt. But, and on the other side of that, where you have so much confidence in the world, my head was huge. It was huge. And I got hurt really bad on that one because my confidence was way up on another level.
I could no do, I couldn't do anything wrong. And I got knocked out at Baby Queens a few years ago and same thing happened when I went to the big at, was like six to eight feet. And I got a lot of confidence in the world. And I don't know, my jet ski guy, they helped me out. Chad . Wow. Yeah. So I guess you can be too confident as well.
Yeah. I mean it gets, it goes both ways. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. So that's why staying humble is a key on the foil. Whether it's half a foot, 20 feet just gotta keep that focus cause yes, 10 feet, above anything above five feet you're your focus. But you start to lose focus when it starts to get smaller.
Half a foot, one foot. And most of the time that's when everybody gets hurt. When it's actually smaller, not so much bigger because on the bigger sets you're so much, way more focused than you would on a one foot wave. Yeah. You just forget you have all that confidence building, but you forget that you got couple machetes underneath your foot on a, underneath your board that's spinning around too.
But yeah, that, that stayed safe out there. Cause I think the few of the biggest accidents that we've seen was actually guys trying to dunk under the wave and not so much riding the wave that I've seen so far. Pretty Cause they use the board and then the flows coming around at you and stuff.
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Cause remember back in the day still our cuz of the volume, right? Our boards are bigger and now you starting to see the rails started to taper down, which helps a lot. And guys waxing or putting the wax mat on those, so it is coming, it's coming. To help out with the foyers and that's why most everybody, most of the guys has been doing it for a couple years.
It's all, most of the boards are all custom made to themselves. Yeah. By spin off the rack. So because of the holding that rail, having a confidence in dunk diving, that's where it all starts. If you can't dive away, that's, it's gonna be torture for you. Scary when it's 3, 4, 4 feet. But yeah, so for myself, like you, you said like, when you don't have a good session, just get out of the water, which I think that kind of makes sense. And for me especially towards the end of the session, like when you get tired and that's the dangerous part when you, like, when you get tired and you're making stupid mistakes, that's when you can get hurt easily.
But I find if in the very beginning, sometimes it takes me a little bit to get into that state of mind, and if I'm not, sometimes I can just maybe just sit on my board and, just let everything go and breathe and relax and I, like sometimes I can, I turn my state of mind to.
To actually then have a good session, but it's Right, it's sometimes challenging to do. And if you can't do that, then yeah, you're better off just going in, and then also, yeah. And then knowing when to quit. If you've been out there for two hours and even though you're still feeling good, it's if you're making dumb mistakes, and especially on like bigger days or whatever, it's just better to go in and call it a day.
Oh yeah. That hard. I limit myself for what, a two hour session? , that's it. That's my limit. After that, I'm like, I'm good. I don't wanna go anything over that. Cause I know I'm tired, that point I'm exhausted and tired and I know I can come of it after that. I don't wanna get hurt or hurt somebody else.
Two, two hour limit all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I was just listening to James, James Casey does like down winters for world record down winners and stuff like that. It's for all, basically all day for 12 hours or something like that. Crazy stuff. And then there's like a new world record for pumping pumping around in the surf.
Oh yeah, I forget what it was, but several hours, . Yeah. Nonstop. And I think the flat water was around 23 minute just for that water pumping or something like that. It's, I think it's longer now. Yeah. No, it did. 48 minutes, I think, or something like that. Yeah, I think so. 48 minutes in the surf, it's two hour, two hours, 40 minutes or something like that.
That's crazy. That's so crazy. Yeah. And we'll probably see more stuff like that happening, oh, yeah. And yeah, we haven't scratched the surface yet. That's what we said three years ago, but seeing all the progression and then where Wing is taking us, and then obviously the straps, and then Saturday the strap is, that's the whole, it's insane, so can't wait until next year. Yeah. And I, with the straps, I understand your reasoning, but I think straps just allow a whole nother the realm of possibilities. Like Mala I guess they had that Duke's contest and they, you're not supposed to use straps, but they did anyways and he was doing like back flips on the waves, and you can't do that without straps, but yeah.
So do you think can you see yourself in the future allowing straps or is that just something that you don't think belongs with fo surfing? Oh no. For sure. For the Koi one, we couldn't because it was a one day event. , the Maui one, we had the straps category in Inder being a two day event.
. So that would be the only reason why we're not having it for the one. And we'll probably not have it for the coil one unless we open up. Depends on how many competitors. So far, every year has been different. Depends on how many people come out. Because ideally we wanted the coy one, we wanted to make sure that everybody surfs twice.
So that, that's why we took out the straps progression. But for sure Maui, Tennessee for sure. Yeah, the progression on straps. You can't take away from the stuff that they're doing nowadays on the straps. So we're not gonna take away from that. But yeah, for the quite one many reason, cuz it's only a one day event for sure.
I mean it sounds like for both of you, like foiling had a big positive in impact on your lives, like it's made a big difference. But, so my question is is there a dark side to it? Or is it because it is like an addiction? Yeah. You want to go foiling and it's like you but is there like a downside or dark side to that foiling addiction or is it just all good
Yeah, I think the word for that is procrastinated, I think is what you call it. Or forget everything else. Cause I'm foiling. It all depends on your bank account too. Oh no. that dude. Yeah. Yeah, that dude. But fortunate for some people, we didn't have to worry too much about that, but, not spending, maybe spending time with the family and stuff like that, or too busy foiling.
Especially this contest. It was very rough. But and then taking off of work, it's a very addicting sport. And it's fun though. It's like you have to have a good relationship with your wife and with your boss, , to be able to do it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So actually do you have any advice on that?
People in relationships where the, I don't know. Like my wife used to be more upset when I go out in the water all the time. But now she's more accepting of it. She realizes that it's good for me in a way, or I'm more relaxed I guess. But are there any tips on how to handle relationships and family and balancing your life like that?
So you can do the fun things? Oh, that's not my category point. That would be all you. I'm single single. You don't have to worry about coming home. Nope. It's hard. I think you need to, it's hard to balance that, but that's for anything. Whether it's surfing, work whatever your desire, your dream is.
But just having that, that the other half understanding of who you are and the passion that you have. Like we put in a lot of passion into not just the sport, this sport actually helped us. It was just at the beginning of what we do, like sport is over loha and, you donating fundraisers, it's because of Foing.
I don't think if we were, we got into Foing, I don't think any of this would've happened. It's to say cuz I don't, it all started from Foing. For us giving back to our community. Started from Foing. . I foing you know, it is huge in our life. I, the whole foing side, I slowed down, that point guys take the, go and have fun and foil or we take videos and stuff like that.
And other than that, it's, yeah, the foing is what made us do, or it changed our lives in the last about three, four years since we've done it in a huge way. Not just pointing, yeah, I think it helped us personal, giving back to the community and not just us giving back, but having people realize that, oh yeah, we should do this.
But yeah, I have to, foing definitely did all that. Yeah. That's amazing. Think for the most part, it's supporting one another. I think definitely if it wasn't for forwarding, we wouldn't have this whole community, this whole camaraderie. This whole hospitality with each and every one of us. Rob with you, I mean with Uncle Derek, just meeting every get, being able to meet everybody, like face to face, even like Eric in, up in Texas, Lance captain Steve up in Texas.
All those guys. Eric just being able to meet everybody and having the same mentality of wanting, instead of needing to give back, we want to give back. Cause that's all we have is each other. None of us could ever do this alone. I know I wouldn't be able to put on a contest by myself.
It takes a whole lot of hard work and dedication and it's us as a whole coming together. To provide all of this, to give back to our community. To take care of the ina that we live on. It's time that we give back instead of take, yeah. Beautiful. So for people who are listening and wanna support you guys, like what can they do and who do you wanna say thanks for?
Its their support, and how can people help you guys out more? First to say, thanks to, the Philadelphia Rohan, mom, my sister, my mom, my daughters, my everybody. Every year they're always out to support us, which has nothing to do with that cuz they don't foil, but us giving back to issues, women's in need and Noma, giving, equipment for people that, especially for the holidays, it's well worth it, but it wasn't for them.
We wouldn't have done a lot of our work or none of this would get done without them. Our sponsors for sure. Helped us a lot. You've helped us a lot, the last few years you've been supporting us from the beginning. You and Jeff Jsel we had to thank you guys. And then access, like access is so funny cuz they came to me and it's oh I wanna sponsor the Foil, fever, Ohana.
And basically we all got sponsored, which is cool cause they picked up the whole Ohana, not just one person. I had to thank Evan and the crew for that. Oh yeah, for sure. Because it's expensive, Rob, that it's super expensive. It's, and it changes every single time, yeah. I like to, yeah, and thanks Bon for keeping me on my toes, so it's good though.
Right on. Yeah, I know like probably like the entry fees and stuff like that, I it, like we've put on some races in the past and stuff like that with Jeff Chang and we Feed and Blue Planet and like you're lucky if you can cover all your costs, right? So it's not sometimes people would think like you're making money off of them cuz you're charging them an entry fee or something like that.
But it's really not like that, right? It's like a very you're giving a lot of yourself to put on a contest like that and then a lot of times you don't even get to enjoy it because you're just like working basically the whole time. And that's why I wanted to go slow on Saturday. I was having so much fun, I didn't wanna edit stop and then the day after, Shit.
I know the waves are good. I just totally forgot what happened. Cause everything went so fast then It was positive all day. It was unreal. Yeah. Yeah. It's I didn't really realize how special that event was until afterwards. Like when I went back on Oahu was like, looking at the footage.
It was like this was amazing. Like that was really a, something special, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And that's what we're gonna talk about on our lessons learned, in a few days and always the first 15 minutes dude, that was the best contest. And then we start, okay, let's get outta business.
What do we need? We're always making sure, and this is what we didn't do this year at the contest the first year we had a jar in the middle of the stage and we invited people to put in their comments on what, how can we make our contests better? . Yeah. And we had a few from 2019 that we did change for this year.
But I wish we did it again. But I I think, I don't know, I think we were spot on. Everybody, all the staff was spot on their jobs. There's a few lessons learned, but it can only get better, and get bigger. And we wanna do a tour. Any big companies out there wanna dish out the money WSL or somebody that we would love to do a tour around the state of Hawaii, California, Texas.
Cause we've experienced a lot of different types of, not just waves, but waking and wakeboarding and all that stuff too. And even Texas, when we went through the cargo, that's doing a contest out there. The longest wave, I think was 23 minutes by Patrick in California, and that was insane. Wow.
So things like that would be super cool, but we wanna take it all, all around the world for sure. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, so that, that's something like if anyone has connections to a big sponsor, Yeah. That would be a good way to help you guys out. Somebody that can put some money into it, sure. Yeah. Actually Piros was asking I forgot to ask you guys earlier what are the rules? Can two people be on the same wave and or what is it just the same as in surfing? Whoever's closest to the peak has the right of way? Or what are the rules on that? Oh no. Main priority is the person closest to the peak.
So once he's up and writing if, and then if you have somebody else pumping. And then somebody else is paddling for their wave. The person paddling for their wave has the, has main priority. But if you're other guy pumping back out and you're far on the shoulder, you can make that turn as long as you're not hindering the guy who's paddling into the wave.
If you're not, that's why we say it 20 feet away. We don't wanna hinder them so that they fall off the wave because of you. We call that like a dq. But if you're, if you take that turn and that the guy who's paddling for the wave falls, you can go ahead and take that wave.
It's pretty much plain and simple. Who has priority and who shouldn't have priority. Cause you can pump out, you can just say, pump back out to the next week, yeah, that makes sense. All right. Any, anything else you wanna add like about the floating community or.
Anything you wanna put out there for the people that are still listening? All the people that are still listening now are hardcore boilers, can't get enough. It was funny that when we were at Kauai after the contest, we were at our Airbnb and they had a hot tub outside and we sat in the hot tub like for four or five hours and just talking about foiling the whole time.
We didn't feel tired or anything. Its like, yeah, it's and yeah, those are the kind of people that are still listening. So do you have any message for the hardcore spoilers? Thank you guys. We appreciate you guys supporting and you being just as addicted as we are to foiling. Without you guys, without any of us.
This happiness wouldn't be going around I think as a whole community foil community. So thank you guys. Appreciate you guys. Thank you. Yeah, just stay safe out there. We're leash. And like I always tell everybodys, like my daughters, that they're not into deporting, they didn't sign up for foing, so they don't know the consequences of foing.
So there's no reason why you should come within. Surfer or whatever the case may be. As foyers, we know the consequences of foiling. So we wanna make sure that we keep in our little space like I say, wet, have to pump it to the lineups and whatnot. That's what, that's why we foil so we can stay away from everybody else and still have 10 times more fun than I having four foot wave where the case would be.
But yeah, just stay safe out there and hopefully we see you guys at the next contest and we appreciate all the support that everybody is giving us not just the fo some of the communities especially on Koi Neil Malu Kunu Club for letting us use their holiday.
But people like that has no nothing to do with Foing supporting us because they believe on what we're trying to do with the whole foreigners of Aloha movement. Yeah, we appreciate everybody, appreciate all the competitors coming out. Thank you guys. And yeah, we'll hopefully see you guys at the next one.
It'd be awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much Jason and Pono. And so the best way to find out about what you're up to is like foil fever on Instagram. Is there any other, do you have a website or any, anything else that people can check out when you check out? It's me Porno on Instagram and. Foil fever on Instagram and Facebook.
And we have on YouTube as well. But yeah mostly Instagram. We just gotta keep updated on that. But a lot of guys were like, oh yeah, invite me and or Can you set I had a message the other day, can you set an alarm for your next contest to call me? I was like,
I was super confused. But hopefully you guys yeah, just listen to what you know. Cause most of our contests is first column, first serve, especially when the days go by and we get more fos. But, to the foyers, just keep that aloha going, I think we got as foyers, we got something good going on.
Also with the companies as well, like Rob, we don't foil for real planet, but you've given us so much in the last, it's shit. Last three. Not even, it is small kind, but yeah. See and I'm one of those guys that doesn't always check Instagram. I'm, I try to put a video on YouTube every week, so I'm that keeps me busy.
So can only do so much on social media, but so I I only found out about your contests through my friend Derek and those guys that were coming over and oh, come with us. And I'm like, okay, let's go . But yeah, I, I didn't even know. Yeah, I guess I gotta have to monitor your Instagram account more, more often.
But that works too, but, oh, did we lose? Looks like you lost Jason, but probably computer died or something. Yeah, probably Ground of the battery. We've been talking quite a while, so thanks so much, Pono. We'll, oh, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for having it. Oh, here's Jason. Let's let's, I'll say goodbye and see if he's, is he back?
Yep. Oh, Jason's coming back online. Yeah, PO Porno said you probably your battery died for this long phone call, . But yeah, no worries. But yeah, thank, thanks so much for joining me and I'm sure people are gonna love this show and we'll talk again hopefully after your next event and hopefully you'll keep getting blessed by by Mother Nature, the Ina and the Waves and the beautiful people of the FO community.
So thanks so much. Right on. Hey, thank you Rob. Thank you Rob. Appreciate everything you do for our community as well and for the fo fever. You and Jeff Shane put us on a whole new level as well too, so people like you gives us the opportunity to shine or gives us the opportunity to do what we wanna do.
So we like to thank you and Jeff Chang out there for supporting us as well. So thank you very much, Rob. Thank you guys. All right, thanks. Have a good night. All right guys. Bye guys. Thank you so much for watching this episode of the Blue Planet Show. As always, I try to leave a little message at the end for those of you, the hardcore viewers who watch all the way to the end.
And today I have a quote for you. Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we. . So whether it's in foiling or in life, if you want to grow and improve, you have to try things that you're not really comfortable with and keep pushing the limits a little bit. And sometimes you fall flat on your face, like a lot of the competitors in the contest.
But that's how you grow. That's how you get better, and you just have to keep getting up and going again. So I hope that works for you. It's always worked for me. And thank you so much for watching again. See you on the water. See you on the next Blue Planet episode. Loha.
- Lytte Lytte igjen Fortsette Lytter...
- Lytte senere Lytte senere
Wing Foil Interview: Sam Loader with PPC Foiling is back on the Blue Planet Show
23 Jul 2022· The Blue Planet Show
Wing Foil Interview: Sam Loader with PPC Foiling is back on the Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends! This is Robert Stehlik, Welcome to another episode of the blue planet show, where I interview wing foil athletes, thought leaders and designers right here in Honolulu, in my home office. And in today's show, I'm interviewing Sam loader, the owner of PPC foiling based in Auckland, New Zealand.
We're talking for the second time on the boot planet show. In the first interview, we went more into his background, his business and foiling scene in New Zealand. This time we go over, what's new over the last year and all the equipment he's coming out with. We talk about the soar boards, his new wings the foil he has planned.
So stay tuned. You can watch it right here on YouTube with all the good visual content, or you can just listen to it. Audio only as a podcast to search for the blue planet show and your favorite podcast app. Okay. So without further do, here is Sam loader, right? Sam, welcome to the blue planet show back to the boot planet show for the second time.
How is everything going for you? Cheer, Rob, thanks for me back. Yeah, it's been it's been a while since the last show. It seemed it seems like, yeah, it was actually a lot's happened. Now it's been going, it's been going really well. It's been going really well. Been extremely busy.
I've never been this busy in my life, but At the end of the day, at least we're at least I'm designing, foils something that we love. And so yeah, it's just been pretty full on since so much has happened since last interview that then we it's it's crazy yeah, so hence why the catch up yeah.
So it's, it is great to catch up again and like for anyone listening if you haven't watched the first show, if you're interested in, at Sam's background and so on, just watch that one, we're gonna talk more about your business, your equipment just what we've learned over the last year with what's just changed what's in the coming up in the future.
And so on. That's what I wanted to discuss with you mostly. And I have a few questions also from Dan and a few other guys in New Zealand. So I'll try to get to those as. And gonna try to keep it in within an hour or so if we can, but we'll see. Will you call me up on my birthday?
So you a bit of be worth it, Rob? Happy birthday. Yeah. I hope you, are you taking the day off after this? I know it's morning time for you in Auckland, right? Yeah. Honestly, I want to take the day off and I want to say I am, but I'm probably not. I'm probably just gonna do some emails.
Probably gonna cover the shop a wee bit. We've got the guys coming in the afternoon. I think Josh is coming in and but yeah, later on, I'll chill out. We'll go out for dinner, stuff like that. Pretty cold in New Zealand now. Yeah. It's winter time for you. Yeah it's dropped a lot. It's certainly not summer anymore, but it's, there's still breeze, so there's still good conditions for testing.
And by drop, it's only dropped to about a three, two wetsuit, so it's it's not too bad down south has got some snow, so we've gotta go down there a little later. We, the skis up maybe take a win to the mountain, I always wanted to do that, so yeah. So I'm sure you have a lot of people coming into your shop asking for that are beginners just getting into it.
So I, I just wanted to always start the show with some tips for newbies people getting into the sport beginners, what do you tell people? What, what are some tips for people getting into the sport? Yeah, since, I don't know how long it's been since it started, but.
I think right now, because there's so much information out there. Like when someone walks in the store, we, we just, my game plan is to try and simplify the whole process. So it's quite, it's overwhelming. When you look around, you can see Royal boards, wings, and people just go, whoa, where do I start?
But we've written down like a, the board, the wing really simple, we've actually got some super high volume boards, like one 30 S and stuff. We're doing like a bit of a trade and deal at the moment, so they can buy a bigger board and then they can progress on that for around six months.
And then we can switch them out to a board that they're gonna, have for a longer period of time. And then we'll recirculate those bigger boards. It's maybe a bit of a stuff up on my part by having too many big boards in production so we're just making the opportunity to yeah.
To it's just in favor of the New Zealand customer, to make their learning experience a a little quicker. And then yeah, I think when you get the w we've got three, four brands in the shop and then we just, it comes down to a little bit of budget and a little bit of, what the customer wants to spend.
So it's. Yeah I think so what volume, like for a beginner, like getting into, do you do you put, send them right out on a floorboard? Do you tell 'em to use a windsurf board first with a dagger board? Or like what and then from the first board, like what kind of volume do you recommend for beginners?
Usually? If it's like the one board, I would just say 20, 20 liters above body weight. But we've got Ellen down here at the lake. He's doing lessons and cuz we've got these high volume boards, like 1, 1 30 S and one 40 S we, they can just jump on those. Even if the ad kg they're gonna be super buoyant, they're gonna learn the wing probably quicker than being on like a hundred liter board.
And then they can just come back and switch that board out. But I think now it's 20, 20, 30 liters, maybe about body weight. I think the whole trend's obviously coming down boards are getting smaller. Yeah, I think the 50 to the eighties, the kind of the common sizes actually most of mine went all around the world and didn't come here.
So I ran out but yeah, it's I Def I definitely think the whole process for the new guy coming into sport, new girl, come into the sport. It can be simplified a lot, they don't have to have, three wings, three foils two boards. It can be, down to one of each and then they progress and then they come in and get some feedback.
Yeah. You want, you wanna be able to get people on going without spending too much money too? Yeah, I always, exactly the main thing I've just noticed people just getting too smaller board, too smaller foil. If you increase those two factors, then the. Process is just gonna be so much easier and so much more fun.
And then in terms of learning you said there's somebody doing lessons on a lake kind of smooth water. Like any recommendations you have for the location and then any tips for technique or getting started? Yeah. Yeah. We're pretty lucky with the shop here.
We've five minutes down the road. We've got this freshwater lake and Alan operates down here. It's not ti obviously, so he can be there at any time. So flat water it, there are no waves, so it's really stable. So it's really easy to get going on each side. And then we've got the bays, we've got fun pro coast with manly and all these sort of sheltered bays, which get, in like a west to a.
Right around to south sort of Southeast. So you've always got that kind of flat water with those winds. So I would just say, just try and stick to the flat water with wind, if you don't have access to a boat. And maybe even just grab a wing, jump on a skateboard or something. We're doing these little skateboard, you don't have to go on the water straight away.
You can grab a wing, jump on the land, go to a big ASALT, concrete area and just get the feel for the wing. I reckon that's been a cool thing. A lot of people are actually getting skateboards lately. So we're getting these little what have we got on the shop?
These slide carvers and yeah, they're selling pretty well with the wing. Which is pretty cool. Nice. Yeah. That's a great way to learn as well. All right. And then terms of the, like I know during the pandemic, probably a lot of people got into a sport. I know here in Hawaii, like it was, there was like booming and we never had enough inventory like last couple years, but then it seems to tr be transitioning where the demand's kind of slowing down a little bit or the growth seems to be slowing on.
Do you and here in Hawaii anyways, are you experiencing the same thing in New Zealand? Yeah. Yeah. It was funny, couldn't, could it get enough stock? Couldn't get it in time. It was just frustrating at the time I remember. And then it all arrived at once and , we did, we were just like full and then it the demand dropped off at the same time.
So it was funny, but we actually had a seriously busy summer last summer. I was actually really surprised. It was extremely busy. We went through everything and yeah, at the pandemic, there was a massive demand for gear, but which did drop off, I don't know, it just spiked, but then it dropped off and now it's flattened out but I'm still seeing new B newbies coming into the sport, which is cool.
Yeah, so actually speaking of the pandemic, so it I know in New Zealand, you pretty much had no cases for a long time and you were able to keep COVID out of New Zealand, but seems like recently, it's you guys have COVID too now, right in New Zealand and it's like more prevalent or.
Yeah, I think it's, everybody's just getting it really . Have you gotten COVID yet? Oh yeah. I've had it. And then we've got, we've got like a bit of a social win group developing, good friends and, one of them each weeks dropping down with it. But, it's that majority is just like a little cold and then that bitter in a week, and most people are vaccinated by now.
So it's not as bad as was early on. Yeah. And no more shutdowns. Is that, do you still have shutdowns or like what are no nothing like that. Kind of wish we, I shouldn't say it wish we did click it. Click and collect. Collect was working out pretty well getting on the water but yeah, no we haven't had the shutdowns.
I think the government just realizes everybody's gonna get this and and most will get better and yeah, move on and yeah, just get back in the water. I, after I got it, I just got in the water as soon as I could and made sure I flushed out the salt water and yeah. Yeah. It's it's, it's not as bad as we think it is.
I think we need to just yeah, carry on. Yeah. It depends on the person too. Like I've had ki I had a, kind of a cough for a long time that didn't go away, which is really frustrating, but but yeah, the, oh, you hit it. You, yeah, I had it like in December and then it took me like several months to get over the coughing, like it wasn't that bad the COVID itself, but it had this.
Tickling in my throat and I kept having, like having a coughing thing going on. I'm too. I'm too weak. If I cough, just sorry about that, but no, it's fine. No, it's getting better. I honestly feel much better after wing foiling, honestly. All I can remember every, everybody in the world, if you get COVID take up wing foiling, cuz it'll get you better quicker.
Yeah. This salt water flushing helps. Yeah. But tell us a little bit about the foiling scene in Auckland and New Zealand. Like what, are, is there certain spots where everyone goes is it pretty busy and like how big is it compared to other water sports and stuff like that?
I'm curious. Yeah. It's funny. Cuz it's I'm noticing like it's just foiling, winging was the thing now it's I'm noticing all these little categories are emerging and the wing has allowed people to get into toe or, or pump or wake or, we're even starting some races here at Auckland, which getting pretty popular.
Down winding, there's a bunch of guys that I downwind with every now and then it's, I'm actually loving it. It's it's, I don't know, kind an endless wave for an hour and a half. So we do it from, it depends where we do it. So we have a couple of spots they're about 20 K maybe.
And now we're just thinking, do we need the wing? Maybe we'll just drop the wing and get, maybe get a pedal and just see if we can do it without the wing. I know my friend, Jason my friend who I met down winding one day I was just going past him the other day and just, I just threw in my wing and he grabbed it.
I just said, just grab my wing. And then I just keep down winding, like just without it. And, just to be without a wing and just have your vision open right up is pretty awesome. No, I think like the wing has definitely helped, like all these separate foil categories emerge and grow and people probably wouldn't have the confidence to do that if the wing hadn't come along.
So it's pretty awesome like that, I think. Yeah. And it seems like the whole down wind equipment improved a lot too. Like you, you can get BOS out that are more narrow, faster, a little bit longer for down wind foiling, on a scent with a paddle. Cuz when I started, I was just using my regular.
Stand up surfing board, which was pretty short and wide, but it's really not ideal for catching bumps. And it was definitely hard work to even just get a bump and get up on the foil, and then by the time I got up on foil, I was so exhausted. that I couldn't stay on very long usually, but yeah, I think I definitely want to get into that again, as.
Yeah. So you're you, I I know, Hawaii obviously is you're the leaders of the down winding side of things. You've got some pretty, pretty leading shapers brands there, which we all look at, but is that kind of emerging over there? Just the downwind side of things.
Oh yeah. There's a pretty big crew here that does the downwind foiling. There's yeah. A bunch of guys, they call themselves Voyager. They go on pro boards. Actually they catch a breaking wave and then pump out and then do downloaders on prone boards, but if they fall in, they're not able to get back up again front, in the bumps, they need to paddle into the surf zone and then catch another one.
But there's also quite a few guys doing it with Santa paddle boards. And I want to get back. That's how we got into winging. Derek and my friend, Jeff, we were just down winding on Santa foil boards. And then when the wings came on and we're like, oh, let's try that. And then it was just so much easier, yeah. It's nice having the backup of a wing. And like you were, we were considering like doing the whole deflate thing. We've got these little mini travel pumps that we can. Take out and do that. But I think I think the goal now is just I have designed a downwind board we, yeah, we'll just start seeing if we can do it on those.
It's gonna, I think it's gonna be a bit of a learning curve, but a fun one. It's like the challenge of the wing, and I don't think we're gonna, it's not like we're gonna ditch winging. It's just like another. That we're gonna be doing, in the right condition. To me, it's just yeah.
Without the wing, these things just probably wouldn't have emerged so fast. I don't know if we would've been thinking like this, but yeah. Yeah. If anyone wants to get into downward filing James Casey has a great podcast and goes into a lot of detail on, how to do it and like what, how to get into it and stuff like that, which is I think really good.
He's very passionate about it. He's a bit of a freak he's yeah, definitely watching him and learning quite a bit. A lot of us here watching his spot, his YouTube videos and stuff like that. I was just wondering, are you on a, are you on a mobile computer? Can you give us a little tour of your shop?
Can you walk around a little bit or is it like a desktop or something? Oh, it's good. Yeah. I've actually, yeah. Give us a little tour of what I blocked. It's a small shop. I blocked the front door with the w so no, see, yeah. Welcome. What are the foils you have it looked, I just saw some axis.
What are those stab foils? We've got a few it's scattered everywhere at the moment. So yeah, we've got some access. We've got some sub, we've got some, we've got some lift and then, yeah, just a big bunch of boards here and that's it. Yeah. Wow. So you basically, every pretty much everything in your store is foiling or wing, foiling related cuz I, I know you originally you started as a standup paddle brand.
And, but seems like you pretty much transitioned to all foil stuff. Yeah, I've got some stops just sitting down the back kind of collecting dust, but yeah, hopefully someone comes along and people come in and do that. But I, I still thinks surf and it's pretty cool sport, so hopefully it doesn't fade away to nothing, but yeah it's definitely a win specific shop.
I, we are the only win specific shop, the other shops. They do a bit of everything. Even wet suits, we gotta approach the other day. Not I'm like, oh, I don't know if I wanna sell wet suits. It's just gonna, it's just gonna complicate things. But we down the street called Barry's point road, it's like kind of the street for toys.
There are three other sort of surf. There's backdoor, there's another one up the road. There's one next to us and they all sell that sort of stuff. So yeah, the shop's gonna, we're gonna get surfboards, just fun boards in the summer. I think there's a bit of a market it's emerged, so that's gonna be cool.
Just bright, fun boards and stuff like that. But yeah we're pretty much full wing specific and yeah really specialized in it. Just feel and everybody here, wings who works here, so it's pretty cool. We've got some really talented wing forwarders that are working here too.
Yeah. Right on. So I wanted to talk a little bit about your the soar boards. Like we recently got those in stock and just share the yeah. We it took a long time for the, for us to get them. I think it took six months or something to shipping to from Vietnam to Hawaii.
It took quite a while. But but we do have them in stock now and I've been testing it. I have the one right behind me here. And and yeah I just wanna talk a little bit about the boards and get your have you talk a little bit about them? Yeah, absolutely. Tell us a little bit about the whole design thing and yeah, actually I have a little video too, so I did wanna share that.
Let me Go to that, but yeah. Tell us a little bit about the design and everything and I'll just play this video in the background a little bit. Yeah. Cool. So this is this is basically the saw is I guess evolution from the glide, which is our, which was our first kind of wing, specific board that we did that I designed.
So this is quite a small size. This is on the 34th, just so you can see it. The popular sizes are the 50, 50 liter up 50 to 90 liter boards. I've actually got 10 sizes. Now I just chucked in all these extra sizes to fill the gaps. I don't think there's any downside of having too many sizes now between sort of 30, hundred liters.
So yeah, the whole design behind the sport and the change was basically just. Flattening the tail and just losing all kind of that be that we had on the glide. And just keeping the board really flat through here. And I always just want to keep that kind of surf look of our boards with the nose.
I don't know, to me, it just feels you're still on a surfboard. You've still got that kind of like responsive kind of surfboard of feel. I don't know. I know a lot of boards are going square, but trying to keep the outline surfboard, wing board as much as I can. And then just a little concave in the deck.
But the main unique kind of factor with these sports and we haven't really gone over it. That much is a construction. Yeah. So tell us a bit about the construction. Yeah. So they're made in, they made in Vietnam. They made in one of, probably one of the leading factories in the world. So each board actually has their own specific mold.
So each size, each model has a mold. It's Amania mold. So the cause basically formed in that mold. And it's, it forms a perfect core, like CNC, you get a little bit of aeration, a little bit of non-perfect kind of feel finish or whatever. So you get a really perfect core.
And then after you've got that core, the whole board's basically wrapped in PVC. A, about a milk of HD and then the whole carbon out there, and it gives you this kind like I, if you have you squeezed them,
kindy, concrete feel even though super light. So it really, like more, I think wing foiling, like really pushing boards and putting a lot of stresses on boards. We've seen like tracks coming out. We've seen, things happen to other boards, but it's funny cuz this construction process has meant that.
We haven't really, we haven't had any issues. We haven't had any warranties, we haven't had anything. So it's been cool that. We can like confidently just sell a board, which is gonna last, and I think that's, when I was younger, I used to buy surfboards. I used to get just over the fact that they're just soften up or break down after a while.
But even though these are double the price for manufacturing they, that they'll last forever. That just yeah. I was gonna share this video and maybe I can talk a little bit about my impressions of the board too. Yeah. I, the one I tested that's beyond me, that's the 83 liter model, which it's actually a little bit bigger than the one I used and I used like a Mount on my strut of my wing.
Yeah. But yeah, so the board is a little bit bigger and wider than the one I was used to, but it felt really nice. And on, on a lighter wind day, Definitely makes it a lot easier to get going when you have that more stable board, and then also I really like the concave shape that it, when you're kneeling on the board, it just kinda feels real solid.
Like you can of almost that, that I guess that concave deck, it feels like you can almost push your knees against it on the side. So it makes it feel nice and stable. So that's something I noticed that for getting up on foil, it was, it felt really good for that.
I actually, I wanted to ask you why you like I know on your original boards, you had like longer fin boxes, but then on this one, on the store boards, you just have the regular size us boxes, right? Yeah. So the long, yeah, the, there was nothing against the long boxes, but they just add. Quite a bit of weight that we didn't want, when you have a long box, the whole thing's HD it's, top to bottom deck to the base.
So it just added unnecessary weight. I felt we could just position the box in the right spot after testing a lot of different sizes and just get it in the right spot. And we tested a lot of different four brands and they all worked in that spot. So I don't know, yeah.
Reducing the weight was just Yeah. The main factor on that one. I've gone. I I feel like the regular size boxes are fine. Yeah, but yeah, this was wondering if you, yeah. Why what you're thinking was on the, it was just to wait for honestly, when I think people are getting more CRI like kind of not picky, but they can be right.
It's a lot of money to invest in a board. And yeah, a light, a Lightboard is something that people look for. It's nice to have a Lightboard under your feet and, if you can make it light and strong, I think it's just a winning combo. So yeah I'm, I'm glad you said that about the concave, because it, although it gives you quite a kind of thick looking rail, it, when you're in it, you feel a little, I think, a little more locked in just being a little closer to the foil.
So that's cool that you notice that. Yeah, that definitely. And then also having that flat tail, for Bo and the Y tail, it feels very stable because it is so wide in the tail as well. And then just having a flat bottom definitely helps especially I'm using a more high aspect foil now and which you can't really pop it up at a steep angle.
You just have to slowly ramp it up. And for that kind, for those kind of foils, especially I think having any kind of kick in the tail doesn't really help much, cuz you wanna just go start it more flat and slowly come up instead of popping up the foil, so I've noticed that for kind of more high aspect flows that shape definitely seems to work well, you. Yeah, it's almost like the sport is like a simple version. The, our first board, I think it was good, but it was a bit it had a lot of chime it, I think we are just maximizing the surface area.
And then once, once you lift off, so you don't want, you don't want much board under your feet. So I guess the goal with designing the sport was the most stable board for the size. And I think we achieved that pretty well. So I'm stuck on these boards. I think people are gonna love them really good feedback so far.
Yeah, it's cool. Right on. Yeah. And then I just wanted to ask again too, about the, your volume recommendation. You said rider weight plus 20, 20 kilograms or so And then just to be clear, like that's the weight in kilograms. So if you're like, like it's always, you have to convert it first from pounds to kilograms if you're in the us.
So one or two, 2.2 pounds is one kilogram. Yeah. So you have to take your wa body weight and pounds divided by 2.2. And that gives you your weight and kilograms, and then add 20 kilograms to that. That's a pretty good weight for beginner inter intermediates. And then as you get better, you can have more, lower and lower volume, but you don't want to go low volume too early, cuz yeah.
It's a lot harder to, to write a smaller board, yeah. I, even for myself, I think I'm going to increase my volume, which is which sounds weird, but I've been writing 52 liters. Is it 52? Yeah. 52 liters. Yeah, the 52. I keep forgetting the volumes, even though I designed them all.
So yeah, I've been riding that one a lot. But honestly I get a little caught out on the light breeze and don't really wanna drive around with three boards in the van. I think I'm gonna chop between two. So I'm gonna use like a, the new 68 and the 82 for the light days. So yeah I wanted to go as small as possible, but did that and I, I could ride the 39 liter or whatever, but I don't know.
I just, now I just wanna be comfortable. And I, if I want to if I get off the, for I'm still on a really short board, like I think, four eight is a really short board, in my opinion. You can still really carve it around and just have that volume if the wind drops or something in your session to get going.
Yeah. I think that's the thing, like in lighter on lighter wind days, if you're on a really small board, you tend to then wanna basically you have to use a bigger wing or something that you have to make up for it, because you want to be able to get going. So yeah. Then you have to use a bigger wing to be able to get going on a smaller board.
And that's a trade off too, cuz it's nice to have a smaller wing when you're, especially when you're on a wave or something like that. It's always a trade off, and yeah, smaller, isn't always better necessarily. I would say no. I talk, I speak to people with the windsurfing and the same thing I think happened, everyone went as of small as they could and then came back a little bit and then every, and you find your kind of comfortable volume so that, that's a thing that I've just realized in myself.
So I'll just, I'll hand it on to people coming in the store or whatever. Yeah. And then in saying that. We're I've we, we are introducing a so pro, which is gonna be 53 63, 73, 83 liters. And it's just gonna be that kind of that's 23. Yeah. What is it, 23 kinda with I think there's a little bit of a need for that.
Narrowish kind of board, just to give you a bit of responsiveness and as people are progressing, they're wanting a smaller board under their feet, so . Yeah. So this is basically based on the same shape, just a little bit narrower, the pro version. Okay. And if flat a deck and no concave, so I've planted the deck off, squeezed a bit more volume in and narrowed the board.
And it, I think it's gonna be a cool one with the race scene. And it's just got a slightly wider. Stands. Okay. So yeah, I just wanted to mention again, we do have those, so boards in stock now here at blue planet and our website price includes free shipping in the us. So it's a pretty, pretty nice price.
They're not cheap, but like you said the weight and size, the weight and strength ratio is excellent. And these are the sizes we have 34 years, 52 liters, eighty three hundred, five hundred thirty, a hundred forty four. So that's how you name the models too, by the volume, right?
I think, yeah, we name them by the volume and it confuses the sh the crap out of the factory. Yeah. It's yeah I don't know. I think volumes a good indicator for a board, maybe in a shop for, for your staff and stuff, selling them for the customer. It I don't know. What do you think it's it I think it's the most important number for, like for wing board probably is the volume I would I would say, yeah, I think it's that makes sense, but of course also the width and the length and all that kind of stuff is important as well. But definitely the volume is the first thing I, I would look Yeah.
So yeah, I, they are pricey, but they are around probably double what a board maybe cost in China to make. So one, once people, if they pick them up, feel them, understand the construction process and know that the board's gonna last a lot longer. And then the resale values, obviously a lot easier or higher you can justify that price.
Yeah. Yeah. If only people compared to other yeah. Other brands are in that same price range too, the Armstrong. And if they're, if it's a good high quality construction, it costs some money. I always think in life, there's gotta be a reason why you pay more for something. I was listening to a pretty funny podcast last night about like threads and textiles and like sheets and the whole thread count thing is like a complete ish.
Like it's not correct just saying you've got high thread count. It's the actual quality of the cotton and the weave. I think it's called Brooklyn sheets or something. It's a us based company, but it's a really interesting podcast actually. I listened to a lot of business podcasts, but that was just one of them.
And I think this is, yeah I, myself I would feel, I would feel wrong selling something at a high price for no reason. So this is the reason they do cost double to make. They do have their own mold that you've gotta invest in. And yeah they are significantly lighter and stronger, I think, than a lot of boards on the market.
So I'm pretty stoked went with that. Yeah. You also just sent me this picture of a new model you have coming out. You wanna mention that real quick? Oh, cool. Yeah, that, that's the link. That's the downwind board I mentioned earlier. So the link, the linking, the waves yeah.
It's narrower, a lot of volume impact in To one board and obviously it's got the 16 tracks. I think with the longer board, a little bit of adjust, a little bit more adjustability is quite a good thing. I think you'll be going a little bit further forward, maybe for the downwind and stuff like that.
And then you can see it's hard to see, but you've got these sort of channels up the side where the tracks are, it's obviously flat, but the channels run all the way up the board. So they almost set like fins all the way down the board. So they keep you tracking. So one, one of the things when you're paddling, the board goes side to side.
So the design behind these boards that you'll track. and then that'll assist you with, popping up on the foil, cuz you're gonna be straight. You're not gonna be using your body to keep the board straight so much. So did you design this as a downwind standup foil board or for wing foiling?
Downwinders downwind. Standup pedal board. Yeah, but the, I think the smaller side, 90, 91 liters. So it could be a bit of a crossover. But yeah, ultimately designed it for Darwin stand up pedal it's a hundred percent with a pedal. Okay. I also wanted to ask you real quick on the the leash plugs.
You have one that's off centered Over here. So I was just curious yeah, I'm using the off centered one to, to test it out and I guess it helps with the board not coming straight back at you. Is that what the thinking is behind that? Yeah it actually happened to me. I was just, I was about a year ago.
I was wing foiling at one of our local places AWA and I came down a wave and then I just crashed really fast. Everything happened really fast. Like it does when you crash and the board just Slingshot it into my head and I got like seven stitches here, which was , which is pretty funny.
And then it was it's actually Josh, a guy that Josh Armit, who works in the shop. He is one of my team riders and he actually, I'm not gonna claim this. He suggested just why don't you just offset a li So it, so the fall just grabs and doesn't come straight back at your head.
So I did. So there is a reason why that thing is offset. And when you're going super fast, if you do have a crash like Josh, Armit doing 32 knots sometimes, and you have a crash, it is quite nice to not have that board slinging at your yeah. It's attached, especially if you have a shorter leash, I guess
Yeah, exactly. I don't think Josh actually uses a leash when he does his speed runs, which is a good idea. Oh, okay. all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a couple questions that Dan Regan sent to me. So first of all, he said pro in terms of product marketing, as an example we both sell each other's products.
So you have some boot planet products in your shop. I sell your products in my shop. Yeah. And you have your alien. Yeah. You have our alien wings and some of the boards in your shop and so on. And you both have the same issue. The boards are not known in Hawaii and the alien wings are not well known in New Zealand.
It's an interesting challenge. Just, can you talk a little about that and like how. Yeah. The challenge of selling something that people are not as familiar with. How do you do that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good point. Familiarity generally helps us sell pretty, for a shot, that it's if it's like anything, if you focus on it and you spend a bit of time out there on it and you talk to people at the beach, I know Dan he's always at the beach, he's always out there winging he's in coy, which is pretty cool, cuz it's a different part of Auckland. So I mean he's out there all the time.
We've got them in the shop. I'm about to start riding them and I, I'm looking at them and I'm going they look really cool for down windows cuz they've got their Dhara I know they're gonna fly flat. I can just tell by looking at them. So yeah we're, we've actually minimized our wings to actually we only sell at the moment.
Your wing and our wing in the shop. And I know that kind of sounds a little biased, but there's just been a lot of wings been bought into New Zealand. So we've just simplified it a lot. So yeah, I think I'm loving the big window and your wing. I was gonna ask you why did you actually call it the alien?
What did you see a UFR when you were away? Like I, when I just saw some video of me using it it looks I thought it looked a little bit like the head of an alien with the funky oval eyes, but the, those windows, cuz originally I had one prototypes with the window and without a window.
Yeah. And and I found actually the windows. If anything, I actually liked the way it worked better with the windows for some reason, I think maybe because the location and having maybe a little bit more stretch right there where the windows are actually helps with the profile of the wing. Maybe I don't know why, but it felt really good.
The one with the, sorry, go ahead. People commented. They've seen it in the shot and they've just gone. Oh my gosh. I can see everything. I think it's really cool. And the wind, the wing feels really clean. I reckon it's gonna be, yeah, it's gonna do really well. Yeah. It has a nice profile. The yeah, it has like a really stiff lot of tension in the wing itself, like pretension.
Yeah. I noticed it's a lot thicker than ours through here through the hole. So pretty a pretty beefed up wig. Yeah. Rigid frame. So on. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. That's the idea behind it. But yeah. Let's talk a little bit about about your new wing design. So what's what's new on your wings? The main thing with our wing was getting it a little lighter.
So we just we rearranged the whole panel layout to just simplify it. We played around with the, I don't know if I spoke about that last time. It was probably after, but we actually, we tested a hundred percent different panels. And then we landed on just using these panels, Chuck it in here, because these are the panels, which take the load.
You actually, yeah, you just avoid a lot of stretch through here with the, it seems like that's always where the wing tends to wrinkle. I get wrinkles when it's powered up. So yeah, I could see that. Yeah. The wing itself the wing tips, we pulled them in a little bit. Some people were complaining with the surge.
It was a little bit spany so we pulled the tips in changed the panel layout, different windows, and the slide changed the handle positions as well, a little bit just to balance it out. But yeah, it's honestly pretty similar. It's pretty similar field but it is a lot different at the same time.
So I think ultimately the canopy might last a bit longer having this play. And then in terms of the play you said you tried the whole wing and like rein has that one wing. That's all XLY. And but what was your experience with that and why didn't you go full XLY on the wings?
Like what was the downside of it? I just didn't like the weight of it. And I just, it, it's super powerful. There's no doubt about that. But I think to me personally, it was just to a point where it was almost too powerful and it was just a bit too kind of jerky or whatever.
And I think with wings, just weight is a big one. We're seeing it with new materials and stuff emerging on the market, bringing the weight down and, these materials are super expensive. I think a lot of brands are maybe fighting for them at the moment, but yeah I just wanted to keep the weight down while having a powerful win.
If I think if you, for the smaller sizes, you're gonna be on a lot of winds, the weight's taken away with the wind, but then the biggest sizes, you're always gonna feel that weight. I think, especially with anyone learning, if you can. If it's, if you don't feel as much wing, it's gonna be a it's to handle the wing, it's gonna be a lot easier.
See it's a tough one. It's a tough one when you're designing these things. Yeah. Yeah. It's always, it's always a compromise between different things, right? Yeah. But Dan's asking here, where do you see wing tech going? And are we going to see wings becoming more genre specific now that racing and freestyles freestyles seem to be diverging more?
Are we going to see wings designed specifically for high speed versus more freestyle free riding? I think so. Yeah. I always wanted to do a carbon laminate wing the Mo cells, they have like a. Full carbon laminate, probably shouldn't say on here, given away my idea anyway I, but look it's not gonna be a big part of the market.
You, I might make 10. We were gonna, we were talking about it last year, doing a full carbon laminate wing. The wings' probably gonna retail for $5,000. It's not a, it's certainly not a recreational wing. It's a performance wing and it's yeah, it, yeah. You'll use it racing, but then I don't know.
I think wings, we're still at the stage where it's Rick and they do stretch. They do, they, they have a lifespan. Yeah. I think we'll see some, like the thing is, I don't think we haven't seen huge changes in the last two years. They're still inflatable. Most brands are still using the same canopy material.
Some brands are using different Decron substitutes. And I mean that's alter and obviously rigid handles but we haven't, I don't think we've seen massive developments yet, to be honest. I think I might have mentioned last time, we'd see a rigid w with a, carbon frame, but we haven't really seen that yet.
And I think Kylie needed a video, yeah. With the rigid wing. Yeah. Mean, it seems like obviously it would have less drag if you have a smaller leading edge diameter. But I dunno if it's yeah. Yeah. I just, I feel like there's still a, I think inflatables, it's the way this, the way they are, the way they can pack down the way you can travel with them.
The way there aren't too many moving parts. It's like they're actually a pretty genius design so I don't know. I isn't that maybe that's just saying, they are a genius design they're ahead of themselves. That's why they haven't progressed that much. I think they're getting cleaner.
They're getting lighter. They're more balanced. All these things are like awesome. Cause that's where they need to go. For pure enjoyment, feeling something balanced is amazing. But, yeah I don't know if we're gonna see like a lot of rigid wings out there sold to, especially newbies coming into sports.
Probably not a good thing. Having anything hard on your wing actually, when you, for sure. Yeah, definitely not for entry level, but I could see it becoming more specialized where people just like trying to milk every little bit of speed out of their equipment. I was talking to Alan ADE about they have like race the summer racing now, Maui and and he is talking about the foils they use and the boards and wings everything's optimized for speed, but its a different.
Like you said, I, that was that was pretty cool to see that we actually, yeah, we've got some races of our own developing here in Auckland up at manly yacht club. And it's pretty cool guys, like Russell COO through, out there on the boat, like he's a bit of a legend sailor, so he's out there of watching us they're gold medalist, wind.
Surfacers doing these races. There are surfers coming in, obviously I'm a surf, so there are all these different kind of backgrounds coming into these into racing and yeah, they're certainly pushing things, but yeah, I think the whole the most developing part of the sport's probably been the foil in my opinion so far.
Yeah. Quickly helping out of the school. The other thing I wanted to ask you about is this the shim, like we, we sell these shims too, and they're super convenient because you can slide it in without removing the foil completely or you have, you can put the foil on and then just slide the shim in and as like a one degree tilt.
So can you talk a little bit about what your thoughts behind that and oh, you got one right there, so I'm gonna stop this screen sharing. You can show it and talk a little bit about it and how it works and what how you use it. Yeah. Okay. The shim it's important to note that it's nothing to do with the foil.
It's just the pitch of the. I don't want to confuse any everybody, so it's nothing to do with the foil, the foils shimmed out with towel shims. So we're not changing anything to do with the foil. All we're doing is changing the angle of attack of the board. So some people actually a writer, Adam Bennetts he flips it round and puts it at the back of his board.
He likes that feel that it gives him to his foil. Most writers just slide it in at the front of the board and it noses up the board a little bit. So it's just basically gonna give you a little bit of added front foot pressure. Or it's gonna just, the boards now are gonna be like that a little bit.
So when you touch down, you're just gonna pop up instead of maybe touching down and nose diving or whatever, it's. It's just a feel thing. Not, our boards don't have to have it. I ride our boards without it. I ride it with it. I prefer it with now. All the time. I'm just used to it.
It's just that it just gives you like a nice kind of front foot pressure. I think it's gonna be pretty, pretty good for racing. It speeds too. Just getting the board angled just up a little bit. So you can just push down a bit harder when you wind up at certain speeds. So go, yeah. This is molded, so it's not 3d printed.
There's a few 3d printed ones on the market. We tried that they break. So this can get hammered. There's actually quite a bit of pressure. That's loaded on these, but the bolts and the foil. And you can use it. You can slide it up and down, so you don't have to use the whole one degree. You can go to 0.5 or yeah, no, totally.
I think, and it's amazing how much that one degree of difference. You can definitely feel it. And I think where it really makes a difference if you. Or if you see a video of yourself and you're flying at high speeds and the noses angle downwards a little bit at, you gotta push the nose downward a little bit to keep the foil from over foiling basically.
Then that means if you do get close and your nose kind of touches down a little bit, that you get like a really rapid deceleration and especially for like toe foiling or something like that high speeds, you never want the nose to be pointing downwards when you're going fast. So I think that's where that Chi and sh shimming it.
So the nose is up a little bit is really helpful for that, cuz yeah, like you said, when you touch down at high speed it's much easier to recover from it when your nose is pointed up a little bit versus downwards. And then, but I've also had people say that when they put it on the backside to.
Give the foil a bit more angle. Because it does increase the angle of the front wing by one degree as well when you're not foiling, so it does help at the takeoff speed is, it's a little bit easier to take off. You got like more built in angle of attack to take off.
And when you do shim it when you put it in the front, you do have to make up for that by putting maybe a little bit more weight on the tail to lift off. I think, yeah. And it does make a little bit of, it has a little bit of effect on the foil too. These are just little toe boards, but it's because the board's so short it's, I've been using it a lot with Tofor and I've been getting more and more into Tofor then lately with the jet ski.
Yeah. But there's not a lot of boards having the Shem just. You're going a bit faster too. So it's it gives you a little bit more kind of confidence when get into a critical turn. You've got the nose up and yeah. Just, I don't know, feels good, but yeah, I'm loving, really loving my TOEFL lately.
Just the speed of it and just, yeah, we've been heading down to Ragland quite a bit and other places and towing places where nobody is and it's just been pretty incredible. So that's been cool. Awesome. Yeah. So what like for you to get really big waves, like what small directions do you do you need.
So for Ragland, as it's on the west coast of New Zealand, we need just really big sort of south Southwest, west swells. Anything over sort of four meters produces about a double or triple overhead wave. Not like your swell not that big ocean swell that you guys get, but we get some pretty solid swells.
So a friend of mine, and those are usually in your winter time, when it's winter, that's when the Southwest release are probably big. Or yeah. It's yeah, it is more winter, but it's been all over the place lately. I don't know what's going on. We actually had some pretty good swells over the summer down there.
But yeah, U usually we have winter, we haven't had a cyclone on the east side of the new Zealand's kind of Usually pretty small compared to the west. No, Ragland's good. It's got a boat ramp it's safe and yeah, hitting out there quite a bit with a mate Daniel. No, it's been good.
We're both learning a lot of stuff. And yeah, the crucial thing with towing is having a good tow partner. So someone you can trust and have fun with and talk about gear and, mix it up and, yeah, it's good. Yeah, definitely. And you want someone that's like my friend, Jeff Chan, you just like under pressure, he's like super calm and never gets freaked out or, it's always oh, it's okay.
There's a huge wave coming at the ski stall or whatever. He's oh, don't worry. We'll get it going again. and then, and that's how you figure it out, but. Yeah, if you freak out, that does never helps, right? oh, absolutely. You, yeah. You can never be too safe or too calm in the ocean and yeah, no, it's yeah.
Cool. Calm and collected is key . Yeah. So in terms of wing filing, are you working on any new moves or like what what are you, what any goals for your, for yourself or like progressing. I've honestly, I've been working, I've been working so hard lately on new products and new things.
And just getting even like accessories, like a vrap and these things take so much time. So I've been relying on our team riders around here to do the moves and the speed runs and the back flips and the wave riding for me. Yeah, it's yeah, I think since since the pandemic or whatever, it's been just really crucial to be really.
Closer than ever to your factory or to your, your, designer, factory, whatever. We have a new wing designer now. So we're working on the new wing, but that's gonna be 20 late, 20, 23 new models. I think we're just gonna, we're gonna I think, slow things down, do things that kind of make more sense, release them in a kind of a timely manner.
I think I, I don't know for me to me, a lot of companies are releasing things, a little, like little too fast. And I wanna slow things down and make it, make it really make sense when you're release something. Yeah, that's been nice thing. No, I agree with that.
Just as an example, like Jimmy Lewis his boards don't really change. Like he doesn't really have a season, it's he just has his board models and they're available. And it helps retailers too, because they don't just, you don't have to discount it after a year, because it's still the same model for next year.
Yeah, if you, like in unlike other brands, like star wars, for example, they always have a new season. Everything changes, all new colors and sizes and shapes and whatever. And then all the old stuff is considered obsolete or whatever, so then you have to discount it. And and it's really not obsolete and, they, and they always say it's way better, but how mu how much can you improve it every year?
30 years, so yeah. Exactly. So something to me has, if it's way better than why is it way better? What have you done? What, how's it different? Yeah, a hundred percent and yeah, it's every retailer's nightmare to have a sale all the time. And yeah. I don't know. I think because the sports it's, we're still in the early days, I think.
Like it's rushed your head really quickly with development, but I think we're still in the early days, I think we're gonna still see a lot of new people come into the sport. And we are getting creative here in the shop this summer, figuring out how we're gonna, target more kind of mainstream maybe lines of media to get new people into the sport.
Our wings are gonna be available on a air New Zealand air airports website. So that's that's interesting because a lot of people that have never heard of wing foiling are gonna see these wings and go, what is this? I think that's cool. We're gonna do a bit of a video and go around like a mall and go up to people and go, have you guys heard a wing foiling and make a bit of an.
So I'll post that one up in a few months, but I think, generally when you go around like maybe a place like New Zealand or whatever, most people haven't heard of it. So it's still it's still so niche. It's still pretty small in my opinion. And it's still got a long way to go. Yeah. That's a couple of questions that Dan asked as well.
Like how do you get more people into winging? I agree that was still early days for sure. know? Sure. Dan, and then also, and then the second question was how did you, how were you able to get the wings out globally for the small TV based New Zealand brand? How were you able to get, do the expand globally and how do you get, how do you do that part.
Ah, don't ask me about the global question. No, no, that was, I don't know, still no. Okay. To Dan needs to come in the shop I already asked him to do jet ski lessons with me. We need to do that together. I want Dan in here a couple of days a week. So there you go, Dan. I know you've got your day job, but you would be critical to have in the shop.
You're great salesman. You're great with people. And we, we talk a lot together, so we couldn't probably wouldn't get much done. Yeah. In terms of the w globally I think it was like anything, like when you listen to all these like podcasts and stuff, it's all about timing. And we just had a good wing at the right time and managed to get it around.
The right people got up to south border, got a good review out. Got it. Around at least we had it around five or six key international sellers and that grew to about 30. So now we're selling into about 30 different countries. I don't know it's kind of social media is the platform.
Maybe you can grow things fast than what you could have in the past. You can, you can come out with great videos and photos and content. And I think it, if you do it right, you can get that kind of exposure. And someone in, Singapore rang me last week. They saw me on us on Instagram and they, now we've got someone in Singapore and it's it's cool.
It's just growing like that at the moment. So yeah, we're getting about two more, two international sales a month at the moment. So nice. Yeah. Before it gets too busy, I'll probably cap it. Yeah. So I always wanted to ask you that too. What is your vision for PPC? Like how do you see it?
Like in five years? Like what's your company gonna be like? And what's your vision for that? Yeah, it's seriously a good question. I've sat down with a bunch of, few people who've done a three, five year plan. And to me, cuz I'm still the sole owner of this company. Don't ask me why or how, but it, I've got to a point where it's definitely almost out outgrown me especially having the shop and the brand.
And it's, it made me realize maybe I focus on one or the other, keep both have one managed, fo my, my love is product development. So to me I'll certainly focus on the brand and PBC for me is just about coming up with products, which makes sense. And like our term is optimize your forwarding experience.
So every product that we design it, it needs to optimize your forwarding experience. If it doesn't, then there's no point doing it to me. I re so I really wanna, yeah, just keep slowly adding products where I see fit to just, better the experience of the rider who's foiling and whatever they're doing.
These little UFO to boards are pretty, they're tiny little things, I didn't think we'd sell them. But we're selling them internationally, which is crazy. And people actually laughed at me when I was doing the downwind board. They said why are you doing that?
Like down? I don't know what, such a small market, but I don't know. just, when I get onto something I just love designing things. Who knows how big paddle down winding's gonna get, but, it's there certainly, and I think people are gonna get into it and we're gonna see all these categories of foiling expand and foiling is definitely a sport where it's sticking around.
It's like surfing, it's its own thing now. Surfing's still growing, I think globally, like five, 5% a year. Foiling, it's pretty cool that we're in that it's a it's its own thing. Yeah. Cool. But it sounds like you're not focused just on growth. It's more like you wanna provide cool products for the market and just relevant and have innovative designs and things like that.
Yeah. It's cool. Cause I don't have anyone to answer to and it's I'm my own boss. Like you it's yeah, I a hundred percent just wanna do products. That makes sense. And that I want to do and you know that I see fit that fit into it and yeah, it's I, I think, it's funny cuz we've got boards, we've got wings, we've got, accessories, foot straps.
Everything's coming in, but we don't have a foil. sorry. So yeah. So we talked about wings and boards. So let's talk about foils a little bit. You mentioned that you are working on a foil design now your own foil design, is that right? Yeah. Yeah, it's correct. It's funny cuz I've had, I've actually had a foil on file for five, five and a half years now.
Like I designed a foil with the free and Christchurch five years ago. It's been on file. I just. Didn't want to make it, cuz I felt like it wouldn't compete with the top brands. So it just sat there. So yeah, lately I wasn't even gonna say on the show that I was gonna, we're gonna do a floor, but yeah, we're working on a foil.
We're quite a few months into it. Working with a team of engineers in Auckland and a couple of design hydrodynamics guys in the us. So yeah we're just, we're slowly working through it and it's yeah, it's a really fun project. It's almost like I want it to be slow because it's so much fun.
Yeah. And it's tricky. It's tricky because the, my expectations for myself is really high with the foil. It's gotta be good. It's gotta be able to compete with the best. And luckily I've seen every, a lot of foils on the market. I've been on them.
I've seen how I've seen their weaknesses. I've seen their strands. I've seen things that annoy me even, things down to different. Tools that you need two different tools for the same foil. It's just little things like that. I think, I'm confident we can iron out and yeah, we're gonna have a good foil a hundred percent.
Yeah. I found the big, one of the biggest challenges of building foil was that the con you know, having a good manufacturer to do it, and I like, and just, yeah the production issues and the manufacturing and construction issues were like almost more, yeah, like it's one thing to design a really good fo, but then to build it and have it consistently and all the specs be right.
That's and that's where saying like communicating with the manufacturers and stuff it takes a lot of time and effort. And for B plant, I decided that with, for us, it's hard to. On that, with the grinds, that focus just on foils Armstrong or access that they're so focused on their foils and their foil design for me, it's just I pretty much said I'm just gonna let them do that.
And I, we focus more on the boards and the wings, but yeah. I was honestly gonna, sorry. I was thinking the same thing and honestly I, we weren't gonna do a foil. I was really happy with our boards, our wings and accessories. But yeah, you're right. You start with the factory, you almost start with the factory and work backwards.
Our board factory's pretty good. So our foils are gonna be main in the same factory. And I'm confident now that we can yeah, that we can develop a good foil. Like we've learned a hell of a lot about connections and, in my opinion the most crucial part of a foil is the connection.
All the connection points. Foil like foils are so complicated. But then we're talking about just a few connection points. Those just have to be absolutely. Robust and, no, no weaknesses, no movement. And yeah, there's been a lot of mass talk lately, a lot of, foils high aspect, men aspect, low aspect.
So yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be an interesting process for the next year or so, but yeah, hopefully we have a fall for the next podcast. excellent. That's exciting. So let's talk a little bit about and I was gonna say too just being able to test all the different foils that you use, like D from different brands and so on.
That's so helpful in designing your own too, because if you can try, I think some different manufacturers, different designers and stuff like that really helps you figure out what, what works for you and what you want in your own design. So I think sometimes like team riders or whatever that are used to only riding one foil or one manufacturer, they don't really understand like the differences between let's say between a really stiff mass and the softer mass or whatever, you don't really understand it until you try it, so you can talk about it, but unless you try it and feel it's yeah, but anyways, I like. That also is a question. Another question from Dan, the challenges of global shipping and production over the last two COVID years. How is this gonna impact our market in the coming year? Let's talk a little bit about the challenges you had in New Zealand and then how do you think it's gonna affect us in the going forward?
Yeah. As shipping's increased I don't know, by 5, 5, 5 times the amount, maybe four years ago. So you gotta really think about what you're putting in that container. I think that's the main thing. So it's like, it's actually made me think, more critically about product development because of shipping costs in a roundabout way.
You've got to ensure that what you put in that container or what you ship is the best thing that you can put in it. Yeah. It's so you've, for me, it's, we've just, I've just invested way more than usual in production. So production with board swings. I've just, we've just gone like four times as much as usual.
So we just ensure that we've got stock on hand stock here. Yeah. When the pandemic happened, the factory in Vietnam, they shut down for four months. And that, that caused probably a delayed 12 month, 12 month delay on production. Yeah it's planning and it's just ensuring that you've got like such, the best product you can put in that container.
And ensure you, we're getting a B2B system set up now on the website for our sellers, which is gonna help out a, hell of a lot. But yeah it's like a learning process, we didn't know that shipping would, I don't know. I don't know how expensive it's gonna get.
Is it gonna come back? yeah, I it seems to be leveling off and I think like some of the frosty really crazy prices don't, it's come back down to more normal, but yeah, it's, I think it's just gonna be elevated cuz of the higher fuel costs and all that. I But yeah, I was gonna mention too, like those, so boards that we ordered they were ready to ship, I think in December and then we actually didn't get them until like early July, I think.
Yeah. So something like that. So it took six or seven months for us to get boards from Vietnam to Hawaii, which is crazy, but yeah, that's ridiculous. I'm very frustrating. Yeah. We've got two 40 footer, 2, 2 40 footers coming to New Zealand this summer. So we have a lot of stock in New Zealand.
I think the key is, a lot of brands obviously have access to, three PLS and, setting up a, the goal would be to set up three PLS in us, Europe in our busier locations. And that's probably where we'll go. So yeah, third party logistics is probably the answer. And, but they all, they also take a margin.
It's just what you have. You've gotta do to get out there though, I think. And I think, I really believe in our products, so I think that's the way to go, unless you wanna order six containers and be three P , right? Yeah. But it's a difficult one. It's a diff yeah, it's a difficult one.
Yeah, I keep definitely it's a challenge. The logistics is definitely a big challenge right now. Talk a little bit about hood river. You said that you're going to hood river right this summer or our summer. Yeah. I'm looking at flights now at school holidays and flights from New Zealand are like 7,000 returns.
So I'm just keeping an eye on it for the next few weeks, school holidays finish in two weeks. I'll look at it after that. So we've got our, my friend George is over there. She's a, quite a well known photographer in this up sort of wing world. And she's over there now staying with, I think she's staying with Fiona and Aiden.
So that's Fiona wilds and Aiden her partner. So there's a kind of a Kiwi crew over there. So yeah, I'm just looking at that river and just going, yeah. I definitely need to get in there and meet up with some people. And we've seen some of our gear over to aid and he's trying it and yeah.
And then it's OB, so hopefully I make hood river and then to the, to Hawaii. And then back. Be good to catch up with you and go for a w with you and the guys. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I'll have to make a little video about that. That was talking my I actually spoke to my friend, Jason yesterday.
I said I was, there was a some flights to Hawaii for 400 bucks. I was gonna surprise you. And I just imagine if I'd just turned up to Hawaii and, knocked on Rob store at the start of the interview. Yeah, we, it would've been kinda cool. Yeah. yeah, no, that, that would be cool. Yeah. Come visit.
Are you gonna go to. Are you gonna go to hood river? Are you what plans have you got? I don't really have plans to go. Cuz I, I just went to Europe. I was in Germany for a couple weeks and then I'm also going to Florida and September. So that's I'm going to the surf expo in, in Orlando.
I already had that plan and I have some friends that live there and they help me out and stuff. So it's always a fun trip for me, but I've been wanting to I lived in hood river for a summer, three four months. And I really love that place. When, back in the windsurf day, that was before I winged, before foiling was around.
But I, I can see how that's such a good place, especially for down wind foiling. You got like this almost like standing waves, and and the wind blowing against the current of the river and stuff like that. It's like a perfect setup for down winding and those kind of things.
So definitely wanna do that. But probably not gonna happen this year, next year. Yeah, maybe I'll yeah. Yeah. It looks like the place to kind of test gear, I think. And, looking, I've seen a few videos from the side. Yeah. You get that perfect kind of clean standing wave, which, which is pretty unique, I think.
Yeah. It's yeah. It looks incredible. And the wind is incre yeah. When it's on it's like that new and wind, it's like you even a two meter win can be too big. Probably. Yeah. It's so strong. The win, but some days, but yeah, what's your smallest one.
You're doing what's in the in the alien wing, we have a three meter. Which is, it seems to be too small for most days. Like for most people here on Oahu, we're actually, and I'm that one? Yeah. I'm working on a 3.5 right now. I think that's gonna be a good size for windy day here on Oahu.
Cuz three is almost too small for us for, I think on Maui, it's a good size, but here it's almost too small for most people. Yeah. It's funny cuz yeah, we've been using like a two point. I did a 2.3, but we're just using it in down windows. But I think we'll just change that one to, to a paddle. If you are using a wing that small, I guess you can, yeah.
You probably should be, have a paddle. Yeah. But for us like the, I think our wing sizes too are. I don't know why, but they're, they measure, the square meters are from the computer program, but our wings are so compact. Like the size of the frame is smaller. If you put it put one of our five meters over a 4.8 PPC, like it's so much more narrow and compact, and I'm not sure why that is, but I you still get the same amount of power out of it.
I think there's a lot of size variance and that, that's one of the things that I've been talking to with that new designer. And and I'm just going, we've just this almost there should be like some sort of industry standard with sizing. It's like the computer spits on the out, but it, yeah.
When you pile the wing on another wing, it could be completely different. So I'm gonna pay more attention to that. I don't know. Yeah. It's yeah, I guess it's also if you measure the curved fabric or if it's just the flat projected surface area or whatever I'm not really sure how, if there's different ways of measure, but there, it does seem to vary quite a bit between wings, the actual size and how powerful it is.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Anything else you wanna leave people with? Meaningful community. I don't think so. I think just I think just keep it fun is the main thing for me. Although all these things are emerging, like racing, we're seeing GW and all this really awesome sort of stuff.
Like I've been watching quite a bit of it. It's incredible. I just think to me just keeping it fun for me is it, and just, I formed a good bunch of mates here. We'd just go for a wing and have a few beers afterwards. And that's what it is for me. I wanna see more women in this sport.
That, that is something that we're gonna try and build this summer here. With Annabelle down in the south island, just getting more females into the sport. It's, I'm just seeing it's definitely men orientated, dominated. So more women, more fun, more kids Yeah, I wanna win more places around the world.
So they're my kind of goals. And then just, yeah. Work on this foil, cause it's gonna be a pretty, pretty full on year, the next year, prototyping and back and forthing and testing different foil sections. And I'm learning a lot already about everything to do with foils. It's ridiculous. Got a lot of foil brain fog at the moment, but it's all good.
awesome. Yeah. I It's amazing how much the equipment has improved. You were, you, we were talking about like how the small changes, but if you compare like first generation wings that we started on to. What's available now. It's like a huge jump in, in improvement and performance of w especially the wings, I think.
And then of course the boards and the foils too. Everything, the foils actually are way more efficient now than what we started on. Yeah. Yeah. It's exciting. Yeah, I, yeah. Yeah. Just efficient, more efficiency. Yeah it's gonna be interesting where we end up at with the foil, but I can tell you that it's gonna be a more simplified foil.
We'll probably only have around four wings. I'm just gonna run to the door cause there's a courier. Okay. And it's, I think it's a prototype. Oh, cool. Maybe you can show us still. Good. Just leave it the door cheer. Sorry. It's embarra. No worries. The is here. all. People can see what's happening.
Yeah. Awesome. Cheer.
Oh, you sure enough? yeah. That's for me, that's cool. right on. Awesome. One thing you mentioned that I wanted to touch on is hanging out with the buddies afterwards and it's a social thing too. And yeah, I was talking about that with someone like, a lot of team sports, like part of the experience is not just the doing the sport together, but then also afterwards, having a few beers together and hanging out and socializing and stuff like that the community experience of it.
And and I've been winging a lot at this spot, which is really close to my house. It can launch from super easy from my place. And but I'm like the only one out there because it's hard, there's a shallow reef, you have to go over and nobody really goes out there.
So I'm always the only one. And it just changed the whole experience. If you don't like you don't push yourself as hard. I just but it's more so soulful, I really enjoy it now, but. I do miss that, the whole social aspect of it. So I try to go, every now and then I just pack all my stuff in and go somewhere just to, I have that experience.
But yeah. So do you have a close community and you, that always meets at the same spots and hangs out together and stuff like that? Yeah. We've got a few of these like WhatsApp little groups. I'm sure it's sent me all over the world, but that kind of, it's awesome. They're kind building up and someone says, yeah, it's on here.
So we all meet there. And there's a bunch of guys, like 10 guys, they literally have a van, they pack it full of gear and they do these little down wind runs. So they'll just drive up and down pretty much all down. I know what they do for a living, but it's pretty funny. I'll tap in for a few runs.
I'm not gonna do it all day. I've got too much on, but to tap in for a few end, runs with them and have a beer afterwards is like probably one of the coolest things, and then, we're all talking about gear. It's, there's a lot of frost. Like we're, everyone's really frost on gear and talking about the techy side of it, the foil, what they're using different brands.
I think that's all part of it. And yeah, I hope that just keeps going and. Like for a long time. I hope we don't end. I think that, we've got years and years of the sport and, development and, so I think, yeah, that's just gonna go and go forever.
I don't know if we're gonna get to a point where it slows down that's gonna be pretty interesting. I don't know what that is, but how do you get a foil or I Don. It's interesting, but yeah, I'm definitely enjoying the social side of it and the fun side of it. And yeah, wing winging with people is pretty awesome.
Yeah. And it's just like a really welcoming community too. It's not like sometimes when you surf or whatever, it's a lot more competitive or almost like aggressive or, not as friendly and open, but wing. It is just everybody's welcoming new people and stuff like that.
And that's the message I'm trying to send to with this, with this show, that, we're open to people getting into the sport. We want, we wanna see more people doing it. I do anyways, but yeah, hundred percent I think a good point is that winging it, it actually brings us away from the surf breaks.
So it actually crowds them if anything. So if any of you shore boarders out there are listening It's taken the foils away from the crowded surf breaks into these awesome locations, where we can get to with a wing or with a jet ski or whatever. Yeah. It's funny, cuz I've got a bunch of team riders for the shop up here.
Some of them are like pretty well known ex-pro surfers and stuff who are absolutely ripping on the prone foil down here now, but they're getting into winging too. So you're getting these like ex-pro surfers that are now loving the wing. It's just, it's a cool thing. Yeah. John Florence, I here in the north shore.
He is he's into winging too and stuff like that. So it's oh really? They love seeing that kinda stuff him now. Can you give can you try my wing? no, that's awesome. So is he's actually w. Yeah. I saw some video of him. I think it was him. Yeah. Pretty sure it was John dun, so yeah. And he's pretty good too.
So that's, I haven't seen him with a wing. That's cool. I don't know if we're gonna see lid with a wing, but that'd be my sort of call out lid, if you're listening. Yeah. A little wing video would be cool right on, but yeah, I was gonna say too like Dan, actually I was talking about he's on our WhatsApp group here in Hawaii and he is do some of these people even have jobs?
Like how are they just winging every day and become a fulltime job for a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. Full time job. Yeah. And you just some people just kinda. Arrange their lives around winging, basically they work when they don't wanna wing. Totally it is possible, but yeah, but yeah, it's our lifestyle for sure.
We'll get there, Rob. You and I know you've, I know you've opened another store in the north shore. I hope that's going well. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how there, there are not enough hours in the day. But yeah, how's your new store going? I was gonna. It's Evolv. It's going well, especially like the the rental business is just great, it's like a, such a good business model.
And, for me, it's I just rely on having good people, like the, I have a great staff out there. And at first I went out there two times a week and now I've more, it's more like once a week I go out there and and same thing with everything else. If you have a good team, that's that makes all the difference, that I don't try to do everything anymore.
You can't. Yeah. That's what I do at the moment. Try to do everything, but I, it just, it never works. So yeah, seeing some seen some over, because I think you've got good people over there. Oh man. It's so hard to get good people for, especially right now. It's like the job market is so tight. Nobody is really looking for work.
So yeah, I think that's been one of the things that I've noticed lately. I don't know what's going on there, but yeah it's seriously hard to find people I think people that's true. People are, I don't know what they're doing, but they're not wanting to work. some. Yeah. They just haven't heard a wing foiling yet, so we'll keep trying, we need a couple.
So if you want fly them over. Okay. Send them lions. I know that it's operating now, so yeah. And if anyone, any of your people over there want to come to Hawaii? We got jobs here too. , that'll be me. That'll be me. all right. Yeah. Hopefully you'll come visit soon. Yeah. I think we gotta wrap it up, okay, cool. Happy birthday. Can I ask how old you are? 37, 37. You're still very young. So that's great. You've already built that much of a business at that age. You have a long way to go, so that's great. Yeah. Yeah. So I feel older, but yeah, definitely. Definitely a long way to go.
So I'll just pace myself, have fun along the way. Yeah, exactly. I think. Thanks. Thanks. It's been good. Start to the day already chatting to you over there in Hawaii and it's always a pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Sam, take care. I will have your birthday enjoy the rest of your day. Cheers. All right.
Thanks Rob. Thank you so much for watching another full episode of the blue planet show. You are the ones I'm making this show for the ones who listened all the way to the end. Really appreciate it. I know you're out there. I love all the comments we're getting for the blue planet show. So thanks so much to all the listeners and to Sam loader, of course.
And once again, this show is made possible by blue planet customers, just like you. I really appreciate everyone that supports their business. So next time you're looking for new wing fo equipment. Check out blue planet surf.com. We got lots of good stuff from lots of different brands. At good prices and we offer free shipping on boards in the us.
So definitely worth checking out. Thanks everyone for watching. See you on the water. Ah, Loha.
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- Lytte senere Lytte senere
Wing Foil Interview: Clifford Coetzer- Unifoil on the Blue Planet Show episode 20
25 Jun 2022· The Blue Planet Show
In this conversation Clifford Coetzer, the founder and designer at Unifoil goes over tips for wing foil beginners, his background, how he started making foils and started Unifoil, foil design evolution, construction, stiffness, tradeoffs, testing prototypes, foil characteristics, and more, I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did, thank you for your support and positive feedback. Aloha, Robert Stehlik For more information on Unifoil, please visit: https://www.uni-foil.com
Transcript:
Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik welcome to another episode of the blue planet show in today's interview. I'm speaking with Clifford from uni foil. He's in South Africa, I'm in Hawaii. So there's like a 12 hour time difference. There's a little bit of a delay and so on, but it's a great conversation.
And we get into detail on foil design tips for beginners tips, for more advanced people, all kinds of technical things about the foils. I'm trying to wrap my head around all the different aspects of how everything works together, and Clifford's really good at explaining it and making sense of it.
And obviously he's tried a lot of different things. He's one of the first people to come out with the high aspect foil. And so he's definitely one of the pioneers in foil design. Really good conversation. Hope you enjoy it. Please make sure to give it a thumbs up if you like it, make sure to subscribe to the blue planet surf YouTube channel down below.
I'll put some links down in the description as well. For the uni foil website, you can watch the blue planet show right here on YouTube, or you can also listen to it on your favorite podcast app to search for the blue planet show. And without further ado here is Clifford. Okay, Clifford. Welcome to the show.
How are you doing today? Good Robert. Thanks for having me on man. What a privilege? Awesome. To finally meet you. Yeah. Fi glad to finally get you on the show. So here in Hawaii, it's 8:00 PM in the evening. And for you, it's 8:00 AM in, in Cape, in South Africa and Jeffrey bay. That's where you're at. That's right?
Yeah. Just the start of the day. Yeah. So how long have you been living in Jeffreys bay or is you born and raised there or? Uh, No. I was actually born in Johannesburg. But at a young age I moved over to England and then I've been coming over to Jeffrey bay on holiday. So I've actually got a house year.
I've been coming here for 20 years and then about 10 years ago, I actually moved to Jeffrey bay. Excellent. So trying to start off season with some tips for beginners last year, I kind had it, the, of this, I asked the question, what are some tips for beginners, but I wanted kind turn it around. So for the beginners watching, what are some good tips for people that want to get into wing foiling?
For myself, I only started wing foiling last year and my biggest tip is to use the right equipment. That is critical. So myself being a bit of a heavier rider I'm about hundred and four kilos, about 230 pounds to use the right equipment is essential, especially if you in light wind. My advice is to be overpowered.
Rather a wing that is a little bit too big a board that is too big and a fo that is too big. It just makes the whole learning process so much easier. If you use your equipment, that's too small. then it becomes a struggle. It becomes, it's just hard work. It's a nightmare. So in the beginning, overpowered for sure.
If possible I would recommend one or two sessions behind a boat just to be pulled behind a boat and just get, just to break down the whole process so that you don't have a ring in your hands and a foil trying to do both at the same time. So if you can get going with just the foil behind a boat toe session, get just the feeding of the foil coming up outta the water.
Great. And then with the ring itself, going on just the normal sub-board walking on dry land, getting a feel for how the ring works and then combining the two together. I find that works really well. And of course, nothing beats having someone who's got experience, if you go off by yourself it's difficult.
But if you've got an instructor or someone who's already wing foing and they watch you, and they can tell you're doing this wrong, you're doing that wrong cry. This cry, this, that, that advice is gold, highly recommended. If you go like a school or something rather go someone who's already competent at wing, foing it, it just makes the whole process, the whole journey so much more pleasant.
Yeah. Those are some great tips, I think. And I think most of us. Everybody's still new to the sport. So we remember what it was like to learn and are happy to help others too. Yeah, just ask for help. And and just keep in mind too, that it can be dangerous in the beginning too.
If if you fall on your foil and, as a surfer, like usually you try to kind catch yourself if you're falling, but that's the wrong instinct when you're foiling. You wanna just eject as, as quickly as possible 100%. Yeah, 100%. I think in the beginning days when you're trading water, you only kick the foil once or twice and you learn very quickly don't trade water, rather hang on the board, but yeah, with foing you, you learn very quickly, don't try and save it rather as you say, object off the foil and get going again.
It's so much save so much easier. Okay. I'm just put, pulling up your website here. So out of your lineup what, which foil do you like for someone your size? What foil did you start on? I started on a hyper I started on, on, we used to do quite a big one a two 50. I then switched over to the two 10, and that's what I use now at the moment.
I dunno if much about the hype's been around for quite a few years. So we are actually working on a version two at the moment, which will be released very soon. The hyper ones have been out now for
20, about five years now. So they've been around for quite a while. Yeah. So that's actually a high aspect wing. Yeah. So you were one of the first to you to bring out a wing that was had a really high aspect ratio, right? Like one of the first to bring out a wing like that.
Yeah. So what happened was I was working with with Ivan and Nathan from signature at the time. And they started doing down winding here in Cape town. And I said to Ivan can he put a GPS on Nathan? And just to see what sort of speeds is he doing? And I knew immediately that a high spec would be very efficient.
So I started doing prototypes and I did the first high spec for, and yeah, watching those GPS graphs was well, it was amazing to, to see that he could be on the fo for so long. Cause I back then, if I was on the foil for 60 seconds, this is a long time. And you had, he was writing for 13, 14, 15 minutes at a time.
So it is yeah, just pretty amazing. . Yeah. And Nathan seems like a super talented kid too. Yeah. Very much he almost, I think he, he actually beat Lenny across the channel in the mole race. The first time he came over here and just was able to pump upwind and pass him. Sorry.
So sorry. Did you go to that event? Actually? I did that race too. Myself. Yeah. I saw them flying by me. I was on the stand paddle really? Oh, must amazing. Went was twice as twice actually, or just actually demo demoralize I was watching that. I was watching that, that event from here in South Africa because they had all the GPS markers on all the riders.
And then as the foils guys started right at the end and it was nervewracking. And it's three o'clock in the morning here and I'm trying to be quiet, watching this race and I'm at my parents' house the next day I'm flying out to Canada and, I'm chewing my nails what's going on.
And then yeah to watch those little blips on that map, travel between all the riders and just blast through, it was certainly an amazing highlight. It was yeah. Phenomenal. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That was amazing. But anyways, let's get into the whole. Relationship with signature foils and the foil design and all that.
I have lots of questions about that, but let's start your just your background, like what, like, how did you grow up? How did you into water sports? How did you into foiling and foil design? And so as in
Born in Johnsburg I really enjoyed I went to a technical school. I really enjoyed engineering. got my first job at engineering company doing fluid dynamics, doing hydraulics doing press design which I really enjoyed. I enjoyed the whole process of designing something, drawing something, and then going down to the workshop and actually seeing it being manufactured and being made, and then being installed on site and actually being utilized.
I've got a real kick out of that. It's something that that I really enjoyed. So at a young age I moved over to England and I was staying in England, but then I'd come back to say every year and. I think it was back in 2002, somewhere around there, I was in Cape town and I bought these two flexi four kites that they stack together and then you're flying them.
And I, the part of these kites was really awesome. And I sat there on the beach and I see this guy come over the road and he's got a helmet on and he's got this board on his one arm and this package on his other arm and he comes to the beach and he rolls this thing out. And it's just this massive long.
don't know what it was, and he starts pumping it up and he had this kite and I was like, whoa, I'd seen it on TV, but you actually have someone doing it right hand in front of me. And he was the only one on what we call kite beach in, in Cape town. And when I saw that, I was like, I've gotta do this.
So the following year I bought a kite obviously a cab black tip. I'm sure you know those guys, but I think everybody started on one of those coats and. Yeah that, that pretty much started my consulting journey, but I never got anywhere. I just mowed the lawn and did the occasional jump because I was living in, in, in England and I'd only come over for, month or two at a time.
So I never really progressed. And then in about 2015, it was 2014 somewhere on there. I moved to a little Tanya in Africa called ner and I had a whole bunch of mates who were into surfing and yeah, initially I started up again, started kit surfing and started progressing a little bit better.
And that's when I saw the, a video on, I think it was on YouTube or of, I, oh, we gotta try this looks cool. It looks difficult, actually looks impossible. I was with the, and it was like, gonna, if you try it. So I had a workshop doing CNC. I did a cutting service and so I just knocked up some molds and made this foil and we went beyond the boat and this meter long mot and this thing, picking it up out of the water, just this totally surreal, crazy feeling.
I still remember it like as just yesterday, it was. So your first foils, you actually C seeded the mold and you laid up the foils inside a mold, like right from the start. The first, all my friend wings have always been in, in The very first mask that I made was just wrap ground a wood core.
But from there everything was done, from CT molds, it's just so much easier than having to sit and sand apart afterwards. So when you were in England, you studied engineering in England or what were you doing in England? No I, I moved to England. I moved to England. I was 23 somewhere around there.
And what made you decide to leave South Africa and go to England? What happened was that they made it possible to get it a two year work visa. So you could go over to England and you could travel around and, go and check the place out. And I went I was only planning to go for a year and I came back to South Africa and all my friends were still doing the same thing.
Everyone's still getting to the same place. Nothing had changed. And I was like I've only got a year left on my visa and I'm looking have this opportunity again. So I'm and yeah. Someone and I staying there for 10 years. Did you in England been England? All over , but I was staying in London for a couple years and then I moved north to, to Peter.
I was in Luton for a short amount of time then up to Peterborough for eight years. Okay. So you never did, you did, like you said, I guess in school, you enjoyed engineering and so on, but did you have a formal education in, in like aeronautical engineering or foil design or ring design or anything like that?
Or just it's all self taught more or less? Yeah. On the aortic side. Yes. I took go to college but I didn't do aortics or hybrid dynamics that, that all came much later on from radio control, the aircraft
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, came to while that interviewed him and he has like a really good understanding of the whole engineering side of the foils as well. But he, and he, I guess he just taught himself and how to use the programs and all that kinda, stuff's pretty impressive. And he has like a background in, in glider airplanes and, or, model airplanes and so on.
But anyways, yeah, that's interesting. I'm just cur curious, like how you figured all those things out, I guess just by, by trial there. A lot of it, I guess so, yeah, there is no engineering class for hydrofoils really, it's, we very niche at the moment. Yeah. I think maybe in the future they'll do something, but the principles beyond a hydrofoil and a small aircraft is very much the same.
The end result is very different, but the principles of flight are very much the it's
design just basics of
is I guess the big thing is the, that water is much more dense than air, obviously. So it's that, and. Fluid dynamics are different probably too, but yeah,
South Africa to,
from there, I made this first foil and realized that it was way too small. It was only about a, I think it was about a 600 square centimeter. So you needed like 20 kilometers an hour, whatever it was, plus just for the foil to engage that you could lift up. So the wipe parts were classic.
Every session you, you had come out with this, whiplash. Continued designing different ones and trying different ideas. And eventually I started getting this pile of all these prototype foils, stuck in the corner of the workshop and, I didn't wanna go and just throw them in the bin.
It's just, it's, the amount of time that you put into them and the cost of the material. So I thought let sell them. So I put them on on our local second for website gum and. From doing that, I had one guy buy one and then his friend phoned him and it's listen, you made a foil for my friend.
Can you make me one? And slowly but surely I, I just started making all these foils and just one after the next and just, I just snowballed. But that was all kite foils. And then my wife she's from Canada. She wanted to move to Canada. So we started the process of of getting my visa to move to Canada.
And we left doing NASN at the time. So we moved to Jeffrey's bay. When I was here, I was like I've gotta do something while I'm waiting for my visa. I wasn't expecting it to be a, you a couple of months kind of thing. And in the end it took just over a year. So while I was here, Jeffrey's a good mate to mine.
He he saw one of my fores in the back of my truck. And he is what is that? I was like to kit for him. So he is like, cause he's a surfer. So I think it was probably a week later, he phone me up and he goes, listen, can you make one of these things for surfing? I was like, yeah, I can't see why not.
Let's try it. Back to the CNC at that time I sold my business. I didn't have access to a CNC, I to go to another mate mines place to U CNC. So I made up this this four of the surf world and it's actually Gumby. He were actually on the way to the beach and this thing was busy curing.
That's how excited we were to, to get in the water. So anyway, he jumped in the water and he started pedaling out. And a few minutes later, a couple of his mates picked up and just they don't know that there's a fo at the bottom of his board, he's just laying in the water and he, and the wave comes and he paddles.
So this wave and he stands up in this fo picks up out of the water. The guys are riding work blocks. The guys running were like screaming their heads. So I could hear them from the beach, this cause it just unheard of it just unseen. He was, he is literally the first guy, probably in South Africa.
I dunno. But one of them definitely the first guy in, the Cape that had been on a surf for, so that, that pretty much started the journey of surf oils. And from there I had to Because I didn't have access to a CNC machine anymore. I had to machine up steel molds. So I went into an engineering shop and I had, that is when I came out with the vortex 1 75, which later on came to be a very popular foil.
Okay. It is about around that time that I spoke to Ivan from signature and we started chanting and was like can we collaborate on this foil? And, can he use the foil design? And I was like, yeah, for sure. And at that time, foiling was still. Pretty much for surfing was pretty much in its infancy and I'd never ridden anyone else's foil before, so I didn't really know what foils were supposed to feel like, I've only ridden my own designs, my own feel, and I'd never ridden anyone else's foil, so I wasn't too sure.
What is this supposed to feel like? But I just aimed for having as even foot pressure as possible on the front and back of the foil and yeah, that's, that was pretty much the design that us on the map, if I can put it that way. So signature foils it, they approached you because they heard that you're making good foils and then basically you started making designs for them.
Yeah. So how did that relationship work and then how did you start your own brand? While you're also cause it's a little bit confusing cuz basically their foils are exactly the same as yours or are they different? No. Only our only, only when we first started. Oh, okay. So the vortex they called it the PTH.
And then ours, the hyper they called it Theros but they have got their own design end out cause obviously we totally independent now. Okay. And then I guess your newest foil is the vortex, right? No, the Viper. Oh the, the Viper. Yeah. Yeah. And then, so the Viper is from what I understand a little bit of a blend of between it's like a little bit of a blend between the best aspects from both the vortex and the hyper, that's right. So our vortex is our low aspect foil which is very popular in, in, in the early stages. And everyone's pretty much transitioned over to medium aspect or high aspect foils, just cause of the efficiency. The efficiency's so much higher on, on a narrow wing. So what everybody wanted was a foil that, that, that surfed like a vortex, but pumped like a hyper.
So then did a collaboration with Adam Bennetts and this is what we made was the Viper. OK. Yeah. Okay. So in, in the early days, yeah, you had the collaboration with signature fo, but, and you still designed their foils, right? No, they've got someone else who's doing their designing now.
I see. Okay. And then what made you decide to start uni foil? Or how did that get started? It just from sending the foils out of my workshop it just snowballed and, eventually it's you gotta came up with a name brand. I was like, oh, that is a lot harder than you think , it's not easy to come up with a name brand.
I'll tell you what. Yeah. And, there's so many different names of what do you call your product? What are you call your brand? And in the beginning I actually had names of various fishes which I called the foils. And, but I still didn't have a brand name.
And one day I was just thinking about it. And I just thought, uni being one being like a uni cycle and I thought uni foil and I was like, that's it? That is what I'm gonna call this brand uni foil it relates to being number one and it relates to being, a single file that you're writing.
And that's pretty much how I came up with the name of uni. Yeah, like a unicorn that's still coming okay. And yeah, and Adam Bennetts is an amazing foiler yeah, like he phenomenal so a lot of I guess having good team writers like that I'm sure is very helpful. When in designing the foils. Yeah, no, he's got crazy talent. I think it's absolutely imperative that you have a team writer who has the ability to give you feedback that you can work on. Yeah. Very important. Okay. So yeah, I remember to came over to Oahu for this event that we had a few years ago that it was called hundred wave event and he had a team and the team had to catch a hundred waves and he had one of those signature Albatros foils, and they had a whole team of signature team.
And, but came to wild was just like pu pumping around in circles, like catching one way after the other, just catch, like that's the first time I really saw someone just pumping like that. He does, he makes it look easy, but yeah, so talk explain to me how why are high aspect foils so efficient?
What makes them more efficient in medium aspects and what, what are the what are the good and the bad? What's the good and the bad of the high aspect? Like what, yeah. So just kind talk a little bit about that know, and then also why you go, why you went back to a medium, more medium aspect versus a very high aspect
way is a wing that has a very short cord line is always going to have less drag than a wing with a long cord line. Cause it's the amount of time that the water takes to travel over the cord. That's what gives you your drag. So if you can reduce that down you have less drag.
So the highest was designed to be as efficient as possible. It was purely designed for straight line to get from a, to B as efficiently as possible. So when I started designing that Ivan gave me GPS records just showing the average speed that Nathan was riding at to, I think it was 20.
One or 23 kilometers an hour, somewhere out there. So I tried to optimize the efficiency at that speed to get as little drag as possible. So high aspect fours is all about efficiency. The disadvantage of high aspect fours is they do tend to not turn as well. Being such a wide w span they're not really intended to be written in the surface as much.
That is my theory back then. And then these high aspect foils reached away and there was some riders that started using them in the surf. And I was like, no, you're not supposed to do that, that they're not made for that, but the guys were ripping on them. And I was like, wow, that's amazing, that they got the ability to turn that foil the sharp as what they could, but that's the real disadvantage is if you're an average to get a higher expert to really turn it, doesn't want to, it tends to Trapp pretty much on rails.
That's why we came up with the mid aspect, foils mid aspect, foils for surf. Foing is just way better. These vis, when I get out on a session I actually just feel like I'm adding Bens, when you're doing these turns, cause you just, what I found with the high aspect stuff was you went along with the, for the right it'll going to the left and it's okay, we're going to the left and you pretty much follow the four where it wants to go.
And it's a bit of a wild beast and changing over to the right. But you just think turn left and you do this nice, turn to the left. They just turn incredibly well, fair enough. The efficiency isn't as high as the hypers, but it's not very far behind in, in terms of pumping.
So how did you achieve that and sorry to interrupt you, but how did you achieve the that turning the more turn in the Viper versus the versus the hyper just automatically by getting to a low it's gonna turn better that immediately it's gonna allow to turn better. Then the hyper profile is actually quite a slow profile.
It's not a very fast foil. It was only made to cruise at, like I said, 22, 25 K an hour. And it, it does a very easy lifting for and the VI though has got a completely different profile. It's quite a bit faster than the hyper profile, but the front cur of the wing also helps it to turn.
But of twist in the ring also helps it to turn. So there's me, there's different things that you can do to the foil to change its characteristics. So it, little bit of curve in, in the curvature of the foil itself. Yeah. So what happens is on aircraft, you've got DRI where the wings are like this.
So when you're flying with it with an aircraft that has DRI, when the wings start to tilt over to the side, you have less lift on the w that is tilted. So then automatically it selfs. So now on the hydrofoil, that's the opposite. You actually put a curve into the ring like this. So when you turn over to the side, you lose the lift on the side, that is got the main lift.
So automatically you're making the fourth unstable, so you're making it so that it turns a lot easier by adding in that little bit of a curve. Then I guess the downside of adding curve is that it makes it a little bit less efficient, cause the tips are not creating as much lift, right? Yeah.
Yes. Or the surface area. Yes. Your actual area versus your projected area is not close, between the two, so then you lose efficiency, right? Yeah. Last week I talked to AIAN from access foils and he said to him, like the surface area of the wing of the foil is not as important as the wing span and the aspect ratio and things like that.
Like he said that's why they use the wingspan as a measurement rather than the surface area. But your foils, you measure the surfaces square inches. Is that the number on the foil surface inches? And then is that the projected surface area or the it's actual, the actual surface it's actual, actual, actual surface area.
Yeah. Okay. So how would you say high aspect foil, it seems like it creates a lot more lift at the same surface area, right? If it has a wider wing span, but a smaller surface area, it seems like it creates a lot more lift. Is that correct? You say it does generate a bit more lift.
It's more efficient. So the lift data generates it generates it with a lot more efficiency. Basically, so it's basically your surface area dictates what amount of force your foil can pick up, not your span, not your cord. They do two degree, but the main thing is the surface area of the foil.
So that's why we measure our foils in surface area. In hydraulics, the formulas, ethical speed times a, pressure times your area, it's got nothing to do with span or anything. And it's the same with the foil. When you're designing a foil and you're design a foil to lift a certain weight, you go on the surface area times the coefficient of lift, not the span.
If we had to measure our foils with span our low expect foil has the same span as like for example a VI in 90 has the same span as a vortex one 50. If I had to say that the foils measured on the span, it would be very confusing to go through the different ranges or different designs of foils.
Based on those numbers when somebody phones me up and says, what size foil do I need? The first thing I'll ask is what is your weight? Because your weight dictates what size foil you're gonna riding at whatever speed not the span of the foil. That makes sense.
But I guess, because like you said, because the high aspect flow are more efficient. They basically create less drag. So you basically create, you can go faster and then that creates more lift because you're going faster. Is that basically why it feels like a smaller high, it just seems like a smaller, high aspect flow, smaller surface area, high aspect flow creates more lift than a bigger low aspect foil to me, but I guess it's because of the speed yeah.
That you're traveling at higher speeds. Yeah. So a high aspect foil will have a much wider speed range. A low aspect foil tends to ride in a much narrower speed range. And then it blows out, whereas a high aspect foil can ride slower and it can ride faster. So your speed range on a high aspect foil.
The speed window is definitely bigger. Yeah. Okay. You like, people used to say, like for beginners, it's better to use a low aspect foil cause it's more predictable and easier to use versus high aspect foil. Would you say that still applies or would you yep. Yes. I wouldn't necessarily even go to a low aspect foil, just a medium aspect, foil to learn to foil on, on a high aspect.
Foil is you're going to make the journey very painful. It's not recommended. There's tons of guys that have done it. Now I'm talking about surf oiling for ring foiling different Keer fish for surf oiling to learn to surf oil on a high aspect foil. Definitely don't recommend it.
It's and also it depends on your skill levels and your abilities and stuff. But generally I would recommend to, to learn to surf for on a high aspect for it, it just makes it so much harder, so much more difficult. With w foiling it's very different because you've got the third or, or something to hold onto.
So your stability is, you are way more stable with a wing in your hands or kiting your hands than, without, so for w foiling, that's fine. You can start to learn on a high aspect quite easily. Okay. So would you say that winging is the one of the easiest ways to learn how to foil or what, like you said, behind a boat?
Yeah, I guess behind a boat is probably one of the easiest ways, but without having a boat, if you, yourself, what would you say is the easiest way to get into foil? Oh, without a doubt ring foing is it's way easier than without a doubt ring foing is so much easier. And it's like I say, if you have the correct gear, you can be foing in three, four sessions, easily.
Okay. It depends on age abilities conditions. But you can be easily foiling, in three, four sessions, I've got a bunch of mates that have learned to w for who already are foiling, however, but to, to learn to winful, you know, they're riding toe side on their first nation. But as I say, if it is possible and you can go out behind a boat first just to get that initial feeling of the foil, picking up outta the water.
It's very weird that, when you first do it, and if you're learning with just a a wing as a power source it's a bit of a challenge, but it's certainly a lot easier than trying to learn with the kite that's. Yeah. That's next level. Yeah, totally agree on that. I've, I recently started using a more high effect of foiling.
And one thing I noticed is that when you hit some turbulence in the water, like there's foam in the water or something from a wave, it seems like they just drop right away versus a lower as yeah. Lower aspect. Foil will be less sensitive to turbulence. So why is that?
Why are they more sensitive to the turbulent water? Dunno how to say I just presume, because it's the amount of water on, on the surface area of the bottom of the foil just cause it's air. Yeah, dunno.
Yeah. So you're not like, yeah, I was puzzled why that is. I guess it's just maybe cuz like you said, it has, it doesn't travel over the foil as long. So maybe, yeah, I don't, I dunno, but I thought you might have an answer for that, but no, I haven't got a clue. Yeah. Okay. But I liked your explanation of why they have less drag just basically cuz it takes the water less time to travel from the front leading edge to the trailing Android.
So it just slips to the water faster. Yeah. Also your, your Paraic GRA is also a lot lower because on a high spec foil, you'll find that you fall nine times outta 10 is, is going to be a lot thinner than a lower aspect for the lower spec. Foils tend to be quite fat and junky where high spec foils are a lot thin.
So you also goes lower drag just from your frontal drag. Yeah. And you said you're redesigning your high aspect, foils your hyper line. You're gonna come out with a new version of it soon, or? Yeah so the hypers have been, not now, like I said five years now, I think that came out 2017 and a lot of guys want to go faster.
So the hypers were made to, to cruise at 22, 23 K an hour. That's just their cruising speed. So yes, that can go a lot faster. But the hybrid twos are now going to be purely for ringing. And then we bring in out a different range for down winding. So the hybrid twos are going to be quite a bit faster.
The store speed will be a little bit higher. They're going to be aimed purely at in foil. So with foiling, you can have a higher stall speed on the foil, cause you've got that source of power. Like how much higher is the stall speed? Even for, I kind being able to kind like at the end of a jive or attack, if youre almost, you're almost stalling and then you can pump back out of it.
It's nice to be able to do that without dropping off. But but having a super efficient foil is also a really nice and then having a higher top end, but I guess it always comes at a price on the low speed as well. But when you're talking a faster profile, is it just thinner or like what how did you make it faster?
I'm just curious. It's a completely different section. So the section that was used in the, on the regional hyper, the maximum thickness was at 25%. If I remember correctly, somewhere around there and now the maximum thickness has just been moved further back. So you have a little bit less lift.
You make the foil, excuse me. So when I made the hypers, because I didn't have access to a CNC machine, I didn't have I didn't have the luxury of trying many different variations Nathan and Ivan were flying to Hawaii to do the age two NTO. And I didn't have the luxury to, try this fall and that fall and try this section.
So I had to play it safe if I can put it that, or I had to use a profile that I knew for definite would work. I didn't want to make a four that was too fast and it just too advanced that would stall, if you had a store halfway out and you couldn't get going again to be game over. So I had to come up with a four that I knew was going to work and it just gonna play it safe.
And I knew from the data at the time that he had a very good chance of a podium finish, even winning the race because of the speed of the foil. And I could calculate over the distance, what sort of time to take him, to complete the race. But that was five years ago.
Things have changed. Guys' abilities are just going through the, and so many people who are, who have got the talent and the skill to, to push the foils. Now, you've got access to stronger carbon. You've got the access to Highest, higher speed.
So it's just what the guys want, they wanna go faster and faster. So yeah, it's about time that we do a revision on the hybrids. Yeah. The technology has changed so much in just the last few years and they have had the race cuz of COVID. So it'll be interesting to see what happens.
Like they'll probably be it'll be probably a whole different ball game, by the time they hold it again next year, maybe. I guess it's not happening this summer either, but yeah, it'll be interesting to see like all the progression. And then what about the aspect ratio? Did you keep that about the same or did you make it even more high aspect or it has got a fraction higher.
They're sitting at about eight to one now, eight, just over eight, somewhere on there. So just a little bit higher on the aspect ratio. So the first we're going to be releasing the first three, which is the one 70, the one 90 and the two ten first. And then at a later stage we'll release other sizes.
And you said there, like there's different wings for winging and for down winding or are they the same gonna be the same just by size or how? We bring it out a completely different range for down winding. Oh, wow. And then what about mass? I was curious about mass links looks like at this time you only have two different sizes of mass.
Is that correct? Three, we've got 7 50, 8, 30 and nine 50. Oh, you have a nine 50. Okay. Yeah. Then if it's on the website yeah, on the website, it only had two options. When you look at the mass choosing the
eight 30, so you also have a nine 50,
that's something I think definitely for do for wing foiling. It's nice to have a little bit longer mask because the chop and stuff, you can just fly over the chop without it, without having to follow the contours of the water, basically as much, but I guess for like down winding and surfing, having a longer mask can be a disadvantage because you don't, you're not as connected to the foil.
You're more up higher. It's just that little delay that it takes turning from rail to rail on a long mot. Timing's different, everything's different. So generally the gas start on the seven 50 and if you're riding slightly bigger waves, then the eight 30 the nine 50 is it's not as popular.
I use a nine 50, if I'm out in open ocean like you said, you don't have to hunt all the time, skimming over the cross. That's just, on the long, last it's awesome. You just blast over the top . But generally in, in the actual waves themselves I won't use a nine 50.
I just, I don't like the delay from turning from rail to rail. I prefer the eight 30 it's yeah, way better. Okay. Interesting. And then yeah, so what about mass stiffness or like the whole stiffness? What are your, what's your take on the importance of stiffness and are, is that, would you say it's very important and like what are you trying to accomplish with stiffness or versus flex and stuff like that?
That's a lot of people asking that question. You have to follow the trend. So people want stiffer Mo you've got a supply stiffer. So if that's the trend and that's what people want, then that's what you have to supply. I personally don't, on the winful our MOS are, for me personally are, are more than stuff enough.
We have actually. We working on an extra stiff mask at the moment. I've just written the first two prototypes and yeah they extremely stiff. If they're totally necessary again it's up to each individual or what they want if you want a very stiff ma yes. So for me, I like the efficiency of a thin our standard ma are 12 millimeters thick at the base.
So once you've written a mast with that efficiency in that speed, to go to really thick it's, that's what we love about is the efficiency. So you chopping off efficiency. So if you still have a, that the stiffness that you require, then so much better 20 writing, a 20 millimeter thick mot if however, you are required to to need such a stiff ma for pumping or for whatever it is, then, that's what you need to get.
So we've also got a, an extra stiff mot it'll be available soon. It's not on the website yet. We're just finalizing the layout and the stiffness. Yeah. And then I've, I've noticed too that your like basically your front wing and your fuselage is all one piece. And I guess that's also to take out any kind of play or flex between the front wing and the fuselage rate.
So this is something that I learned right at the beginning of making foils, cause my FOS used to be separate. The fuselage of the front ring used to be separate and I quickly realized that this is a weakness on the foil just because of the twist. So you'll see, there are no manufacturers that make or none that I can think of that make a separate carbon fiber fuselage.
And the reason for this is because of the manufacturing process of having a two, five mold. Cause when you close the mold, you have a join line. And if your material doesn't cross that join line carbon is its weakest in sheer. And that fus just splits open the moment you apply a force on it.
So right in the beginning I realized this, that Having these big wings on, on, on the, on a separate fuselage is not gonna work. That's why you'll see when guys have got separate fuselages nine times out of the 10, they might have made out of aluminum. So the first generations of the uniforms the fuselage in the front w were all just one piece, but the shipping and the traveling was just a nightmare.
It was just very difficult to travel with it. And that's why we then put a split in the fuselage. But a one piece front wing and fuselage is far superior to having a connection there. And you'll see quite a few manufacturers that have changed over to this design purely for that, because it is superior in stiffness, right?
The moment you have it there you drawing Allows for movement. So does, can you still adjust the angle between the front wing and the tail wing, or is there like somewhere you can trim it imperative, absolutely imperative that you are able to tune the foil to your liking. Yeah that's that's a given you have to be able to tune your foil to, to your liking.
I've had two riders come from a to station and the one rider is the other one. Oh, if just had a little bit more front foot pressure and the guy's no, you mean a little more back foot pressure. And the guy's no, a little bit more front foot pressure. And they've just rid the exact same foil and they've got two different fields, so if you want that little more front foot pressure and you can't adjust that angle, what do you do? So if you have different weights, if one person raises 80 kilos and another one raises 90 kilos, you're gonna want to have a different feel fair enough. It takes years of experience to, to actually help, to feel the difference and to start to fine tune, as to what you actually like and what works well with your, what do you call it, ergonomics that that you like in, your style of writing.
But there's definitely a shift in, in fo foyers going from backward press for is going from back foot pressure to front foot pressure. A lot of guys start falling and. They all write back foot pressure and slowly but surely they, that they're transitioning over to front foot pressure cause they see the advantages of it.
Okay. So talk a little bit about the construction process and how involved are you in it? And so are your foils?
Yeah, so we've had a absolute nightmare with manufacturing just from being able to produce the volumes that we need and the one manufacturer that we had didn't follow the layer requirements, that are stipulated to the factory and they applied what they've been doing for another customer.
And I said, these wings are not gonna work. If you don't do the layout exactly the way I'll tell you to do them. And we had a batch of foils flail. So that was extremely frustrating. And to get them to follow instruction was also frustrating. So in the end we actually had to find a different manufacturer who would follow instructions, implicitly exactly the way I wanted them to, to.
To lay these SWS up. And when we had the first Vipers come off the from this factory I said up on in Australia, cut the thing. And he is what? And I said, got it. So they cut the foil up into, I think, seven or eight different pieces. And we just reverse engineered it. Cause when you burn carbon you burn the epoxy off and you left is just the carbon and you can see exactly how it's been laid up.
And I just wanted to be sure that they followed instruction on the way that must be laid up. And they literally followed every single layer and the Vipers are absolutely bomb proof. You can go crazy on them. They're so strong. So yeah very happy with our current manufacturer. And just all the details, all the small little details they, that they're falling to thet.
So our current manufacturer is the best that we've had and the quality of the product shows it to hear that. Yeah, the fitment is beautiful. The finish is beautiful. The strength is beautiful. The the flex, everything on it is just 12 cars. I'm very happy with our current manufacturer.
So I'm assuming, because to make a large volume production you have to basically go to big factory in Asia probably. So how has COVID affected that? I I guess it's really hard because you can't really travel to the factory and see what they're doing, so you kinda have to wait to get it and cut it open and see if they actually did what you asked.
Yeah. That's that's tough. We kinda had a lot of issues with our standup paddle board production and stuff too during COVID. So actually let's talk about COVID a little bit, like, how was that in South Africa? It was pretty bad too for a while, right? Yeah. Yeah. They shut the country down for quite a while and then pretty much standard protocol throughout the world, I think.
And then slowly we started reopening up with a lot of restrictions. It was difficult. Obviously I had to, I stopped R and D here. It does. Yeah, very difficult for Unifor because we had just started on the vis we'd moved factory and it put huge delays in, in our manufacturing.
So yeah, we literally went down to an absolute crawl with being able to supply a product. Cause we had nothing that's so frustrating. Cause especially during the pandemic, so everybody wanted to get in the had free time. Yeah. Everybody wanted to buy stuff, but was so hard to get
challenging very much. So would you say that like for UN what are some of the biggest challenges for you right now that
what's keeping you at? Again it's one of those things I've I've been able to keep ahead as to The call for product for, which ways is the market going and to be on top of that and to listen to what people want. That is very important. For example like you're bringing up stiff masks, if people want stiff stiffer MOS, then you need to build to supply that that's, that alone is a challenge because, you need to be able to read the market and read what's required.
Yeah. The thing is that sometimes people don't realize is that everything's a compromise, like you said if you want stiffer, you can make it thicker. You can make it heavier. But then is that gonna be better? Depends on the person. If, a heavier person with a big wingspan foil for them, it might make a big difference having an extra stiff mass versus, a lighter rider with a smaller foil that's surf oiling.
Exactly. They might prefer really thin mass and they don't mind a little bit of flex. So it really really depends on the use case and stuff like that. And you always give up, you give up one thing and you get another thing. But yeah, there's no, no free lunch in designing things. For me, I say pick two fast, cheap or stable which two do you want? Because as you say, it's all about compromise. If you take from here, you've gotta give there, if you give there, you've gotta take here. So it's all about compromise. And that, it's also a bit frustrating because you can't make each foil for each specific rider.
So you can have a a guy that raises 200 pounds that is riding a Viper 90 on a towing, but you can also have a person that raises 120 pounds, the exact same foil and they can do, but it would be nice to have one where the lighter rider rides, a lighter foil, it's impossible to manufacture like that.
It's. Yeah. Yeah. And you wanna able to use the same mass on your big foils as you would on a small to, in foil that you don't wanna switch? Ideally yeah, you would use a, you would use a thinner mass for the higher speeds, but yeah, but it's not really realistic that to buy different. Yeah.
Yeah. Especially the carbon mass are so expensive we got into for build construction for a while too. And we had so many problems. I just give up on it cause I just leave it to guys like you, that specialize in it. But one thing that I found really interested when interesting, when we were laying up mass and testing them was like, if you have the unit directional fiber, like how do you put the layers together?
Cause if you put them all straight, then you get a very, that side to side, but then it has the torsional twist, then if you put them angles and you get like torsional stiffness, but not not so much side, side bending stiffness. And then I started reading up on it and I guess there's like all kinds of for jet fighters and stuff that get, make carbon wings.
And it's it's pretty complicated technology, but yeah do you, I guess it's probably your secret sauce, but you wanna talk a little bit about that? How you do the layups and stuff. Nothing makes up for experience. Experience is the key. My, my very first carbon MOS that I made outta the mold was a 100% flop because the first MOS that I made was just over a wood core.
And it was, it just perfect, to spine. And the first malt that I made, I just thought, if I go a little bit thick on the carbon this is gonna be incredibly I'm uh, seven years ago is this seven, seven years ago. And I made this MOS and it's an absolute noodle. It's just terrible, and I was like, you know what, what's going on?
What did I miss? And, just did a little bit of research and little bit of reading on it. And I was like, I just missed the absolute basics of it. And when you have a ma that is constant cord versus a ma that is tapered your tape is far superior to a constant cord.
And so quickly calm the CNC cut tape type it ma and yeah, night and day difference. But for actual layups schedules, you. You just have to test, you have to lay up Dele tests. And yes. See what sort of stiffness you, you require from that. So why? Yeah. So why is a tapered mass better? I guess obviously the forces close to the board is, are the highest right, where the master attaches to the board, but why is that? And why is it more efficient? Why does it taper master? It's just the mechanics of it. It's just the mechanics of how it works. You driving your two faces in the triangle it's and the thickness because you, those two layers are trying to share each other.
So when you push those two layers, apart from each other, you your strength goes up exponentially. So if you can make the base of the MOS thicker and then tape it down, because you only have probably what a third of the, in the water most of the time. So if you can have just the part of the, that's exposed to the water as thin as possible, you have, you definitely have to a cord.
And then, but doesn't, then don't, doesn't it cause more like torsional flex and stuff at the end of it, if it gets the, or do more torsional flex again it's what is acceptable and what are you chasing? What you, what is, what are you trying achieve with this? If you want a,
then nothing makes up for the thickness of the cord. If thicker cord, it's always you if, if go go to a thicker cord, it's always going to be superior then going to a higher you can get away with a low
on a very thick cord. Cause that distance is imperative. It's what makes it so much strong. Okay thanks for this deep dive into flow design. Do you wanna talk a little bit about other equipment and I know you make wings as well, so what are you trying to optimize for in wing design and like what's your goal?
So we onto our third generation wing now. Again, it's also it's also been a long learning curve. I don't design the rings myself. We have a manufac a designer who designs for the manufacturer. But we just wanted a ring that was user friendly. So something that had a lot of low end grant, because I think that's where a lot of guys struggle is the initial takeoff on the wing.
So to have low end grant was definitely high on, on the list and then just very user friendly. We didn't want anything that tucked or dived that, that is actually the first generation that's shown there. So we actually two generations down from that. Those are old pictures. Oh, okay.
We've just released our new wing. That's called the pin. It's on the latest pull magazine. You'll see. There's the address in the latest falling magazine. Okay. That would be released probably in the next four weeks, six weeks kinda thing. So how does, how is it different from your, from these older designs?
Everything from the actual outline of the wing to the materials used now using triple rip stop in the canopy and just refined many things like to me, what I didn't like on the initial wings was the amount of handles. I don't like a wing with lots of handles, that you gotta move your hand from handle to handle.
So that was one of the first things that we changed. So the new wing has only got three handles which makes a huge difference that in inability that you can just move your hand slightly up and down the handle and, to keep where wherever you wanna hold the and just the there's you can see on that there's only three handles,
which picture? Sorry. A little bit lower down. Just if you scroll
this one here, little bit more, little bit more, little more. There we go. Oh, this one here one. Yeah, actually that's just the second generation. You just close that and you look at the one just above where you jumping in the air. Yes. That you'll see. There's only three handles on that ring.
Correct. So that is our current. And then you it's also with still without windows though. So the five meter and the six meter has windows the two, three and four doesn't have a window. Just because the bigger sizes tend to be that little bit bulkier and, to move a big ring out the way.
So we decided to put windows on, on the bigger sizes. OK. OK. And then what do you design boards as well or not? Not at this time. We are in the process of doing our boards. Again, the website will be updated very soon. We're working on a new, completely new redesign of our whole product list.
So over the next, probably three, three months, you'll see that there's going to be a huge change in products available on the website. Nice. Yeah. Glen Glen is one of your team writers or distributors here on the north shore too. And I interviewed her as well, and she's pretty amazing.
She was like wing fulling, pregnant at overdue already, like she was already supposed to be in the hospital giving a birth, but she was still winging in big waves. But anyways, she's amazing. And yeah and she seems to really like the foils and she does, she's amazing on the foil, so that, and Ted as well.
So I know there's some good writers here using them. Yeah. Yeah. So what's the what's the foiling scene like in South Africa? What, I guess it, it in where you live it's a crowded there. Isn't a, like a Jeffrey bays a crowded surf spot. So it's not easy to foil there.
So what do you do for foiling? Like where do you go? Where is that? Where the happening places and what's going on. So our conditions don't favor foiling that much here in Jeffreys by itself. The if you go down to, to lower point with the waves got a little bit less energy, you can foil there, however you are going to upset a lot of the locals.
So we don't recommend it. You in know, foiling and surfing, it's two different things. And I think safety is very important. If you are going to foil there, you need to be a competent foiler and you need to know what you're doing, and you need to steer clear of the service cause you're just gonna upset them.
So I don't recommend foiling, at the foing at the surfing spots here, we have got other places that you can go foing. We mainly tow foil, so we've got the luxury of being able to choose from a variety of circuited spots where it's just, two guys and that's it. But with wing foiling, we have got a southwesterly wind that blows here which blows from the town next door St.
France to Jeffrey bay. It's about 10 kilometers. And I've done it once and it's awesome. So I'm really looking forward to the summer to, to a lot more that's pretty much
focusing this, doing this start winding, so be very excited. And is that with wings? Oh, sorry. Is it with wings or with paddles? No. With wings. Wings, definitely with wings. Yeah. Yeah. Just, I just find it so much safely, something goes wrong. With the w it's just so much easier, I think later on our progress to, to, just being paddle only or prone only, but at the moment, definitely with wings yeah the safety aspect is just so much higher with the wing.
If something happens, the wind dies, whatever happens. Yeah. That, that's true. It's just much easier with the wing cuz you're always gonna be able to get back up on foil again if it's windy enough. But but I've also heard horror stories of people like losing their wings or like the leash ripping and the wings go flying away.
You're like way outside on a small wing board and then you have to paddle in, so yeah. Yeah. I dunno if you've ever, if you've ever lost a foil. I've never not a leash. The actually I've broken leashes before on, on the board, but usually in, in the waves. And then, usually the board ends up in the channel somewhere and you can get it, but the wing like actually lost the wing one time and it just ended up, like from diamond, it ended up in Waikiki and somebody got it.
And then I got it back, like weeks later, but I, somebody heard that I lost it, but yeah, it's a good idea to put your name and phone number on your wing. yeah. If your lease breaks, if your lease breaks on a foil board and you added sea, there's no way you're catching that board. It's got, yeah, it's strong takes off and it just, it just goes on its own.
Safety is extremely important. We don't any incidences you knowing, so always go out in group. We still, in early days, we, we will out with a backup jet ski or a backup boat just in case something happens. You rip your wing, whatever it is I wanted to be a pleasant experience.
Yeah. And then also always go out with other people. Like the buddy system is always a good idea and don't wanna do stuff by yourself and get in trouble. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that's putting a lot of us off is a lot of us come from a kiting background and because our wind is offshore we never cut in the offshore wind because it's just too dangerous.
Whereas if you go wing foiling you eliminate a lot of that danger just because, the dynamics of w foiling is just so much it works well even in the offshore wind not recommended for a beginner obviously, but having that mentality of coming from the kiting background it, it really is something that sit in your mind, it's I'm going offshore, wind.
So yeah. Yeah. It's just one of those hurdles that you need to get around. What I find is guys who don't have a kit kiting background, they feel nothing. They're just gonna jump in the water and there they go, because they haven't had that fear put into them from getting an offshore wind kite.
Yeah. Challenging. Interesting. Yeah. I've never I never really got that much into kiting. I was into wings, wind surfing. For many years and then, kiting camera on, I was like, ah, I like windsurfing better still, but I tried it a few times, but I never got good at it. But then when winging came around to me that was like the freedom of not having the wing attached to the being able to, it's kind a little bit of a hybrid between kiting and windsurfing.
I, so I so wish that I started earlier with this wing ringing because I still stuck with a kite and I only started last year with it. And I so wish that I started early on because when it actually came out, I bought a wing of just too small and it just frustration. It just so frustrating.
And then last year I got a couple six meters and total game changer for me, having a wing that's the correct size. And yeah, I wish I started two years ago with it because it, like you say, it gives you that freedom and you can go anywhere you like. And what really appeals to me is to be able to, to de power the wing, on, on a kite, you can't do that when you're on the wave, you've got such a narrow section that you can ride in.
If you go a little bit too far to the left in the kite, toss out the sky, if you go forward to onto to the right, then you are, you're pulling against the kites. So you've got such a narrow little spectrum that you need to ride in, kite fo, whereas w foing. Go for it. You go where you want a wave power up again, and you're going, yeah.
With the K2, you can't like totally de power it because then it drops out the sky. You always gotta pull in the lines. So with the wing, you can really totally just de power it. And it's pretty much not there anymore almost. And it's you can, it's to toll and surfing without needing a jet ski, really you can to yourself into waves basically, which is pretty cool.
Not exactly if it's strong offshore winds, it does catch quite a bit of wing and wind. And it's hard. It'd be nice to not have it on the wave. But I guess there's some guys like experimenting with dropping the, like getting on the waves and dropping the weight or something and then coming back I've some of those videos, the guy just tosses the ring and there you guys like, yeah.
I'd like to be able to do that. Yeah. yeah. That's interesting. But anyway, so I guess in South Africa, the biggest win wing foil scene is probably in Cape town then, that's cause there's wind and there's like a wind scene and everything. So yes. Is that where you like where would you say, do you sell the most foils is it in, in South Africa or where, which market is the most.
Lucrative for your most successful? I only deal with south African distribution, so I only sell in, in, in South Africa. But yeah, Cape town definitely is by far the fastest growing and the biggest scene seen um, it just works there, they you've got wind all the time in the summer season.
So yeah, it just works really well. Yeah. And a lot of Europeans come when, cause it's when it's winter in Europe, it's summer and Cape town and they go down there to enjoy the wind. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I was in Cape town quite a few years ago and I hadn't been to, to dolphin beach in, in years and pitching up there and you see literally, 50, 60, 70, 80 kites, it's crazy.
It's yeah. Just hundreds of, yeah. Yeah. And I guess that's not the case where you are and yeah. So I guess you're, it's more, it's actually kind more rare to see foil people foiling there and Jeffrey, or not as many to go ago, just but is, are there ways that are like GE, like when you do go to foiling, are there ways that you can ride super long ride, get super long rides on the foil like that?
Like the, those kind of secret spots you're talking about, or, yeah, we've got like our local spot where when the swell comes through, we just go through and tow there. But there are some places where you can get really long rides yeah for tow falling. It's completely different.
Because of the, like I said, you've got the accessibility to choose you want to go. We don't really have crazy big waves or anything here. There's a couple guys in Cape town that ride dungeon, which is a massive wave. It's an absolute monster wave. Not for me though.
That's yeah, it's a bit crazy. Here on the north shore, a lot of times when there's big waves on when you're wing foing you can catch the wave. From two miles out and ride it for like almost a mile before you get to where the surfers can catch it, so we got like this huge playground and then we just kick out and then the guy, the surfers get like the last little bit right before the wave hits the beach.
But so it's pretty cool. It just opens it way up to be able to get, the foils are so efficient that you can, you don't need a steep wave. You just need a kind of, a little bit of a wall or that's something you can ride. I think as the sport progresses I think you'll have a lot more people seeing exactly that, that, that's why surfing never really appealed to me because the amount of time that you're on the wave.
The amount of time that you had to dedicate to the sport. I just didn't have that, that luxury of that time and to go for a two hour serve session and catch 3, 4, 5 waves, of 20, 30 seconds each, that, that didn't really appeal to me at where's cutting, you're on the board all the time.
You have a two hour session you're on the board for two hours. And I think this is when more surface see, sees an appeal of foiling where you, like you say, you can go out crazy far and you can ride for so much longer. I really think that we, in the infancy of wing foiling it's just going to grow exponentially.
Yeah. Do you think it's gonna get crowded or where people are gonna be not telling other people where they're going, because they don't want more peoples to show up or something like that. I think it's still a long way from that because there are so many spots, it's the same as with surf oiling, guys are now looking at areas that you'd never considered to go and surf because the conditions don't work.
So I think it's gonna be the same as wind foing. As, as long as you've got a decent wind a steady wind, then it doesn't even have to be that steady, but consistent. Yeah you can go jump in the wood and have a blast of that. Yeah. One of the beauty, beautiful things about wing falling is that you can really do it anywhere.
You don't need waves, really. You don't, you just need water and wind, so you, and you don't need like a big beach where you can launch a kite or whatever, you can just walk down some rocks and jump in and go wing, pretty much anywhere exactly that's, it's really opens it up to pretty much anywhere in the world really, which is pretty cool.
Yeah. Yeah. So for you, like you said, you've been waiting for about a year. You wish you've done it sooner and stuff, but would you say for learning, is it mostly practice or is it more talent or, would for your yourself, would you say that you you learn just, is it just putting in the time to get better or do you take things from other sports and its like certain things you already know and learn learn to observe and.
To me, wining foiling is no different than riding a bicycle. If you can ride a bicycle, does it require talent to ride a bicycle? Not really. It requires the time to, to climb on it. And to spend that time to, to get your muscle memory, to, to recognize, the inputs that are required to balance and windings exactly the same.
So anyone that is able, that has the time to dedicate to the sport can do it do need a measure of fitness especially, when you climb on that board and you fall off and you climb on that board and it wears you out pretty quick, so you do need a level of fitness, but if you can ride a skateboard, you can w for that's the way I see it.
If you've got the time to dedicate it, you don't need any special talents or anything like that. No. Obviously if you don't come from a boarding background, it's gonna take a little bit longer. But I think it's a, definitely not a very difficult sport to learn. I would say it's pretty much on part to, to learn to kind arguably maybe even easier because you don't have that fear of being.
Ripped through the air so I suppose you do have the fear of falling on the foil, but mean that's. Yeah, but yeah, to, to anyone if you're looking to start wing foing the sensation is just incredible. It's you know, when you're spectator you watch it. It's a bit boring, it's it doesn't look that great, but when you're on that foil and you're flying it's yeah.
It's an incredible sensation. Yeah. It's funny. Cause pretty much everybody, including myself when they first saw winging that doesn't look that cool, I was like, and you tried. And then I said the same thing. Yeah. You're instantly hooked on this, that, that sensation of flying over the water.
It's incredible. Just being able to do it without stopping, like when you're surfing, you always have to paddle back out and then you got another minute on the foil and then you have to spend 10 minutes to catch her next wave. But winging. Exactly. You're just like always flying back and forth and you can exactly.
It's an amazing sensation. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about your friend Gumby. He's actually the one who emailed me and told me I should interview you and stuff. But he said, he's your toing partner program. Yeah. Yeah. So I've known gum before for quite a few years.
And as I said earlier, when I said I think I at his mum in-law's place and he saw this that toe for that kit for in the back. He's a full on surfer and he saw that and I could see, something he is he's intrigued by it, but those first few sessions that got him going the was just through the roof.
It incredible. It is just so to this foil and yeah really a milestone is the beginning for fors. Yeah, just and then, then, yeah, yeah, just through the years, he's he's pretty much been the first guy to ride my prototypes. Now we've got dedicated team riders, in, in the first early days, myself and Gumby regard to foil and whatever we're writing together learned to, to toil from Gabi.
So are when you go toiling together, are you similar weights? Do you use the same board and foil setup where you got each got. Use the same? No we use the same setup. I'm a little bit heavier than what he is. He's I think nineties or mid nineties he's taller than what I am and definitely more skillful.
He's just got a really nice flow to his foing. I've struggled. I struggled with a, to fo coming from the kit falling background, when you it's the same as ring foing when you've got something in your hands, it just makes it so much easier. You've got that stability to turn and everything.
Because I didn't serve when you don't, when I don't have that stability in my hands, it took me a while to, to get that feeling of just standing on the board and not having that extra support in your hands. So it took me a while to to get used to that. Yeah. You have to be a lot more centered to fly on it without holding something in your hand, you have to be right over the foil.
You can't be like off when you, yeah. Yeah. And on a kit ring, it's so much more forgiving. Cause if you still lose your balance, you can just pull on the ring or pull on the kite. When you're toe forwarding, there's nothing to put on. But yeah, we've had some really amazing sessions. . Yeah, I've really enjoyed the time.
Yeah. I have a friend Jeff Tang, and when I go with him, I just use whatever he's using, cause I know he's like about the same weight and same skill level more or less. So we just always share the same board and so much easier. But pretty much everyone else. I know they, each per each person has their own setup, so they have to have one on the jet ski and one in the water and then they have to switch it out and stuff like that.
It just, when you know, and then when a big wave comes and you have to get that fo out the water, you got two, two sets on your, on jet ski it's of dangerous. It sounds like a nightmare. Yeah. It's I think it makes a lot of sense to just have one, one board and foil to deal with and rather than two.
And what's really cool is that we've got a system that works. We know how to, to each other into waves, we know how to pick each other up out of waves. We know that we are in, when you're in the crunch zone, we know how to get out of there. So explain to me how exactly you do it.
Like when there's a wave coming and there's a guy in the water, you gotta pick him up quickly. How do you handle it? How do you manage the well what's different between gum and eyes. I'm goofy and he's natural. Oh. So I turn the other side of the ski, he toes on the other side of the ski.
That's just the one thing. So when I, to him, I turn clockwise onto on two waves. When he tells me 80 clockwise on two waves. And no, no straps on the board. Did you use straps? No. No, no strapless. So when. When we in the white water to be able to recover the board quickly enough, and to recover the rider as well.
So instead of trying to get the rider to get to the board, to put it onto the sled, the driver of the jet ski just picks the board up and puts it in the footwear of the jet ski and the for just sticks out just the one side and then the rider can just grab onto the sled and you're outta there.
So we actually, we were talking the other day and we're like, we need to put a handle on this board because when you're trying to grab the board with just one hand and that's, the other thing is when you pick up the board, I naturally always go to pick up the board with my right hand. And that's your throttle hand.
And I'm like wrong side, then you pull the strap off the throttle. I let go the throtle, so I need to help to, keep my hand on the throttles and I need use the other hand, you emergency's
S working
quite refined. Yeah. So that, yeah, one way is to just let the, yeah. Get the board and then get the person or whatever. But what we found, what works pretty well is if you put, if you flip it upside down, have the foil sticking up. And then the jet ski driver grabs the foil and puts it under, like puts the mass under his butt, sits on the foil.
And then the rider jumps on the sled in the back. But it's if the rider and the foil are still together, then he just chucks the board onto the sled with the foil up, as you say. Yeah. And he lies on the board and then you outta there, if the two gets separated then the guy that's that's riding the jet ski sometimes has to pick up the board.
So it depends on how it falls apart. But most of the time I'll pick Gumby up and then we'll go and pick the board up afterwards. But now recently with the smile that we've had, when obviously we don't use a leash the boards ended up on the beach cause it just takes off and it just goes so we've been using, we've been using quite a small lately, which we've been really enjoying I was actually surprised.
That we were riding such a small coil, but it's yeah. What size wing are you riding in the it's a 90, it's the Viper 90, it's the smallest in the range. And I've had a few guys tow fo with it. And the first thing they say is that they're so surprised that it's a 90.
They say it feels just so much bigger. Yeah. When you have the speed, anything feels big. Cuz you create like the speed is what creates a lift, right? It's like when you in a big wave, when you're going super fast, it's like, it always wants to blow out of the water no matter how small it's really, it seems like, yes.
I've actually got guys, they're and they're like, can you make a smaller, we need something smaller. We need 60 or a 70. So I'm sure when I get chance, I'll making a few small prototypes. Interesting. Yeah. So what's new and what's what does the future hold for foiling? What do you think we're kinda at a close to getting to the maximum performance or are we still away and still got a lot of room to there are things that I think are going to Come into foiling.
I've said a couple years ago, it's just gonna be a matter of time until someone starts putting moving surfaces into foils. I'm actually surprised no one's done it yet. Where you'll have stabilization on your foil? I started drawing it. I started toying with the idea, but it's, I've just got so much work on at the moment to go down that rabbit hole is, it's a long rabbit hole.
But I think it's just a matter of time until someone puts a couple servers on the foil with the stabilization system, and then you can remove the stabilizer and you can have an app on your phone or a remote or whatever, and you can dial in whatever stability that you want on your foil. So I think that ultimately is the until someone does that interesting.
So you're talking like a SVO. Automatically stabilizes the foil, making it like, almost like an autopilot foil that you don't really have to control as much with your own body weight. You can control the sensitivity of the foil through it. At the moment we use a shim to change the deadly chain.
Need to go and take the two screws out, put, just show me or however your system works. Whereas if you have a digital foil you just type in a number and it'll automatically work to whatever you've adjusted it to. So it's not just your Frankfurt pressure. You can change the roll rate, you can make it self stabilizer, you can make it unstable.
You can, the parameters are endless that's and I think until it's done, you're not gonna know, but I think that is going to change foiling again, the same way that high aspect foiling high aspect wings changed foiling. I think digital foils will change foiling. It'll be like a huge step.
Interesting. Yeah. Actually I interviewed mark Rappa horse too, and he actually experimented with something like that and he said it was kinda a fail. Oh, really experiment. But yeah, he wanted to make a foil that basically. Takes off easily at low speeds, for down winters, easy to take off, but then as you go faster, you want it to reduce the drag and have less lift basically as you're going faster, you're going the less lift you want, so that, there's definitely kinda yeah, that, that would be awesome to have a foil that creates a lot of lift that low speeds when you wanna take off and then becomes exactly low drag and low and fast at high speeds, so exactly.
If you just dial in a little bit of on your, like you say, as you take off, get you up on the foil, dial in a bit of reflex at whatever speed it is, or it can be trending gradually and you are there. So that, that in my opinion is the ultimate if it's going to be done, if it's possible to do it, we'll have to wait and see.
All right. So tell us a little bit more about yourself. What's your daily routine and do you go surfing or like for, other than, and working do you have any other hobbies or do you have morning routine? What's your typical day? Yeah, pretty much. Oh, you froze.
Are you still there? Yeah, no. So as I was saying, I've got a list that I work to and. I just go through what, whichever task has priority. And I just work through that list. So you know, like today obviously we dialed in to do the podcast and then there's afternoon, I'm going toiling.
So I've got some new gear that I want to try out. We've come out with a new range of stabilizers. I'll show you here. Have fun
basically.
Listen to, to point is part of the job here.
yeah, that's right. So these are our, these are of tails. So all six of these tails are actually different. So C, G 10, or what is kinda, yeah, these are all CNC G tens like how it came to entails, right? Yeah. So the purpose of these tails is ums, a new idea that I've been working on and it's to help the riders who are still riding with backfoot pressure.
To transition over to Frank pressure and to see the advantages of it. So there are three stabilizers in, in, in the pack and by going through the three different tails, you'll it'll it'll, what's the word it'll show you progressively how you progressing in your foiling. So I wouldn't recommend them for an absolute newbie cause you're not gonna feel the difference.
So once you're already fo and you can do a top turn and a bottom turn, and now you're starting to become more efficient and you're starting your boundary. That's the purpose of theses is to push that boundary that little bit further. So that's what I'm working on. You I'll them and trying them just, just continue developing them, but that's one of the next releases that you're gonna be doing.
OK. So can you explain that a little bit to me? I thinking, so basically the tail creates a downward force and the creates an force, right? So when you have more back foot pressure, that means the tail doesn't have as much downward force. So you kinda have to compensate with your back foot pressure.
So basically by creating more downward lift you create more pressure. Is that's right. So what it's down to personal taste, and if you naturally you like more just about every foiler that I've spoken to, that has come from surfing has started off, liking backward pressure.
But it has a disadvantage and that is when you're charging down the face of a wave, because what happens is the front of your board wants to dive and now you need to lean backwards to stop the, of the board diving. And you shifting your, of behind the center of lift, creating an unstable platform.
Your now becomes unstable and it's difficult to control. And that's why I'm saying to the guys shift over to front foot pressure. Cause when you're charging and you charge down a wave, if you've got front foot pressure, you're shifting your sense of gravity over the center of lift, naturally creating a stable platform.
There's a saying for all the guys that fly radio control airplanes know, and that is, and those heavy airplane flies terrible, but a tail heavy airplane flies once. And that's because it's unstable it, it doesn't handle. And it's exactly the same with the hydrofoil. So if you struggling with your foil setup and you have rear foot pressure put in a shim or increase a little bit of of of the deck angles that you get a little bit of front foot pressure and automatically you'll make the floor more stable.
And it's difficult. It's the same as guys that go from surfing to snowboarding, surfing, all back foot pressure, and now you're going down the mountain and now you gotta put all your front foot pressure onto your front foot gang down the mountain. It's the last thing you wanna do, but you gotta commit and you've gotta do it.
And if you do that, then you can make the turn. And that's what I recommend to guys who are still falling with rear foot pressure is to slowly precision over to front foot and your start, everything changes. And I think it's the next step on the ladder onion.
Yeah. Yeah. Lot parallels, snowboarding, where you kinda have to yourself down into turn down the hill to carve a nice turn, right? You can't lean on your back foot. Exactly. Exactly.
Kind the same. You want really? Cause the front wing is where you is your, where you, that you're, you're riding the front wing, not the back wing. So yeah, I personally like, very balanced toil. I don't like it. I don't like excessive front foot pressure. I can't keep my front pressure as light as possible.
However, as you're going through the speed range, if you get to a point where the foil tux, you don't have enough front foot pressure, so it becomes pitch sensitive. So if you, if your fo is pitch sensitive, then you are riding a tail stabilizer that's too small. So either increase the surface area of your tail stabilizer or increase the angle.
So that creates more downward pressure you played around of the way its to the board. I get, I guess basically the boarder I guess early on when people were just sticking the plate Mount stick on mounts, on their surfboards and then they had a lot of rocker in the tail and then the foil was angled down too much and they couldn't gets on the takeoffs and then were usings to get more lift.
But then thing is the downside of having too much Pitch angle, then you end up at higher speed with flying, kinda with the nose pointed down where it to keep it, keep the foil in the water. So do you, have you played with that? So I saw that right in the beginning when I started making plate Mount MOS and I realized that I would say 70, 80% of the foils that are being sold were being retrofitted into surfboards and naturally you have a rocker on the surfboard.
So all the first generation unis all had a natural tilt in the mast. So the actual base plate had a already built into, oh
yeah, I did those MAs for probably two years, maybe three years. And then there were a lot of companies that were making dedicated foil boards. And I said to the guys, as long as the back of the foil board was straight then you could use just the standard MOS, but if you had a bit of rocker in, then either you need to shim the mast to get the fuser large parallel to the board.
Yeah that's pretty much how our first uniforms were made with a built in Angle in the base plate. And then only later on when the gas started making foil boards that I actually changed to a flat base. Yeah. Yeah. But I think some people don't realize how much of a difference that makes and how the feels like you, you put just onem between your makes a big difference.
Like just how the board handles too, yes. And this is one of the things that I encourage especially newcomers to the sport is to move the gear around. Don't just put in one place and force yourself to learn it. I took a couple guys out for a session and just by moving the mast on the board made such a difference because I was writing cause I'm a heavier guy.
And the guys that I taking out were a lot lighter just by shifting that Mo just that little bit back made the difference, whether they could actually get up and get foiling and whether they couldn't. So I only, excuse me, I highly to if you're a newcomer to move your mast backwards and forwards in the boxes, cause every four is different.
Every manufacturer is different. And to try and dial in, the sweet spot that works for you because what works for me is not necessarily gonna work for you. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And then. A lot of times, it's not a big change. Like you don't need to move it like two inches, you just move it like a half an inch or something and that'll make a noticeable difference.
And it's also even to the conditions, if I go out and I see, oh, conditions are big, then I'll shift the mouse back a little bit. If I see, oh, conditions are small, then I'll shift it a little bit forward. So it doesn't necessarily just stay in one place. And it all depends on and nothing makes up for experience.
It's like the kits when the guys guard, what size kits shall I use? It's the same with the foil? What setup should I use? Where should I put the foil? And by riding more and more you become in tune with us, where to put the mask on the board, little bit back, a little bit forwards.
I, I think a, in a way it's also been a frustration. I'm writing different gear all the time and I don't become in tune with just one set. Although I must admit I go the Gumby, he's 5, 1 30, where's it bring it, cause that's all we write all be to together.
And now we've shift to the, but yeah that's a way it's an advantage, but it's also disadvantage of writing, gears, constantly changing, trying this and trying that and trying this and, but it's, I enjoy it. It's. Kind a dilemma for you too, because it's kinda part of your job to test different gear and you always have to keep trying different things.
But then on the other hand to me, like I'm kinda the guy that once I figure out what works and then I like to just kind make it my own stick, I just leave it for I'm gonna, and then every time you ride it, you become more used to it. And it becomes kinda, you just develop those nerve.
I dunno, like the muscle memory, you just you know what the thing's gonna do. But trust in the world. Yes. It's like the analogy you said with the bicycle. Yeah. It's like right. Learning to ride a bicycle. But every time you change the flow, you have to learn the new bicycle. Maybe the wheels are a little bigger or whatever, the handle bars there or something like it's different.
Every time you ride change something, you have to learn it again. But if you use the same one over and over again, you become very proficient and very used to it where you don't have to think about it. It just, it becomes a natural thing. And that's also very valuable. So I think both, both there's value to both to try new things and learning, but it does.
But also once you have something that works for you, just use it and get good at it. You don't always have to some people are just always buying new stuff and changing stuff and they never really learn how to use it properly. So before they get the next one. So there's, yeah.
There's a little bit of truth to both. I think so. Very much. All right. So what do you wanna leave people like getting into wing, lot of people that are watching, just learning and,
and things out. I think what's important is I get so many guys that throw me up and I want a foil. And the first thing I ask is what do you want to do with the foil? And when it's a complete newbie, he wants to do everything with the foil, and I was like you need to pick which category do you want to go down?
What kind of foiling do you wanna do? And what do you wanna do with the foil? So that's important is what is your end objective, if you want to w foil cause a w foil set is you can transition it over to surf oil, but it's not really ideal. You can use surf oiling on wing foing equipment. Yes, it is possible, but what's important is to see what is the most important thing to you?
What are you going to be chasing? What is that you want to achieve? So if it's w foing, it's important to get the correct gear for it if it's surf oil, get the correct care for surf oil. So that, that is my advice is to buy the correct care for the job. There's nothing worse than, seeing something for sale for sales and it's cheap buying it and it's not right.
Rather get the right gear. That's going to help you to achieve what you're wanting to do, from the right design to the right size. It's so important. So important. Yeah. It's of, yeah. Like when they buy a footboard, they want like the seven and one, they want the one that for up surfing.
It's good for winding. It's good for and pro too. And one board that does everything. And then it's yeah, we, order a like that for you, somebody one, but it's not gonna be good for any of those things, cause it's just yeah, it does. It does all those things poorly. Yeah. Yeah.
Doesn't do anything well, but yeah, but I guess for beginner that it might work because at least it gets them into it. It's kinda like the soft top surf, they buy Costco to get them started something to get in the water with and learn the basics. But then yeah, once you figure out what you wanna do, that's, it's not gonna be the right.
It's not gonna be the right anymore. But anyway, yeah, it's also, it's a very difficult line to you, to give advice on with even board size, I see boards that are hundred and 60 liters, and I'm like, that is a massive board. I personally would never recommend someone to buy something like that because you're gonna use it twice and you've outgrow it, so if it's for a serve school yes. But to actually go and buy something that is that big it's just too big, UN unless you have a big guy or something, but it's so important that whoever's making the recommendation to the equipment that you're using specifies the correct equipment.
It's yeah. That's so important. Yeah. Very true. Yeah. And that's actually another good tip, but like when you're starting out, maybe. Go take a lesson at a school that has a year board that a couple times, and then you buy a board. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I highly recommend to, to hook up with the local guys and just get advice, what equipment are they using for the conditions that they're writing in and you just need to do your research.
Don't buy something on a impulse because it's the latest gear or it's cheap or it's whatever I've seen such a surge to guys buying really high aspect Royals, and then you see them all for sales, a few weeks later on, on eBay or whatever, because they don't accomplish what they're trying to do.
So yeah. Super important that you do your research and you get the gear that is right for you. Yeah. Don't get the gear that you need in two years or next year when you're good at it. That doesn't make sense. Exactly. It just makes the learning curve so much harder. It just makes the whole journey unpleasant.
It's not enjoyable because it's a frustration, that's one of the reasons why I never got into surfing because I felt that I would come off the water more frustrated than what I would go in. And then it just didn't appeal to me. So you that's the same with oiling. If you don't get the right gear, you're going to come off the water more frustrated and what you are going into the water.
Yeah. Okay. Get the right gear. Yeah. Wing can be very frustrating in the beginning, for sure. There's not quite enough to get up on the foil or something like that. Struggling. Cursing. It's the, you it's hard to compare to anything else. Really. So it's an extremely rewarding sport, I must say.
Yeah. Okay. Awesome. I think that's good on, thank you so much, Clifford.
Thank you very your time. I try to call you again and see what's new and new all the new stuff. Fantastic. Thank you. Yeah,
foil. Yeah,
we'll see. Have a great day. Okay. You too cheer Robert byebye. Okay. So we got a little bonus material here. I asked if he still had this first flow that he built, so he showed me this photo. So talk a little bit about that. So that was the first prototype that I made. It was actually the cord was actually a lot less.
You can actually see where I've extended. It can you, you can see my mouse point a. So the cord, the ring actually stopped over there. And then I added this section here on, because the four was too high spec ratio and it is, it just didn't have enough lift. So then I just patched on the back section.
Yeah. Just get an idea of what sort of size that I'd need and yeah. You can see the dust on it. It was, but yeah, that, that was the first surf floor that I ever made. Awesome. And then this is all one piece. Like you, you just glassed everything together. It looks like, or no, the so that was a separate fuselage, so that fuselage was bolted onto the front wing.
That's where I realized, the talk on the fuselage is just immense it's not gonna hold it. And that's when I changed the design to include the fuselage into the front wing which has been probably one of the best things, that I've done because the force that is exerted through there is huge.
And the proof of that is the amount of companies that have changed their designs to, to include the fuselage onto the front wing. Cause it's just, it's definitely superior, your responsiveness is that's just so crisp. Yeah, that makes sense. Cause basically your whole body weight gets transferred, or the foil.
It creates the lift and every force from the foil versus everything else is goes through that point on the fus between the Fu and the master front, a lot of force, that's the most, most stressed area on the foil without it out. That, that connection from your front wing to, through the fuselage, to the MOS, cause you're twisting it you trying, share it a bit.
So yeah, it's imperative that, that's really strong. Yeah. And then I guess also the way you lay up the fibers inside the mold to, to those stresses is important too, right? Like the cause you have to have basically that the direction of the fibers has to match the direction of the stresses.
And then looks like you using ATU box or like earlier on that was a what they call the KF box. Oh, it was specifically for kit surfing it a kite foil box. So the first generations of them had just one bolt in and then later on they put two bolts in, so it worked well.
Okay. I thought that was a cool little bonus thing, but at the end, the picture froze and I lost Clifford and he said he had a power outage. Couldn't come back on, but that was cool to see his original foil, this first foil he built that's where it all started, he's definitely a pioneer, one of the first to design high aspect, foils record breaking foils for down winters and so on.
So thank you Clifford for your time and hope to see you again in a year or so. We'll come back for another show at some point. Thank you all for watching. I really appreciate the blue planet customers that make this possible. The people that support blue planet make this show possible. So thank you for that.
And and that's it for today. Have another show coming up soon. So thanks for watching. Make sure to give it a thumbs up and we'll see you on the water. Loha.
- Lytte Lytte igjen Fortsette Lytter...
- Lytte senere Lytte senere
Wing Foil interview: Adrian Roper with Axis Foils on the Blue Planet Show
18 Jun 2022· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends! It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show, which I produce right here in my home office, in the garage. In today's interview, I speak with Adrian Roper, the man behind AXIS foils. We get into some tips for beginners, and then we talk in detail about foil design, how to set up the foil properly, how different things affect different things on the foil.
New designs he is working on, the mast, importance of stiffness, the fuselage, the angles of the foil. So many cool technical things. I learned a lot from this show. I hope you do as well. I wanted to apologize in advance. The auto focus on my camera keeps going in and out focus, and it's very frustrating for me, but I didn't wanna stop the flow of the interview. I hope you can just overlook that and focus on the technical details in the interview.
You can watch this interview right here on YouTube, or you can listen to it on your favorite podcast app. So I hope you enjoy this show and as always, please give it a thumbs up if you like it, subscribe to the blue planet surf YouTube channel, and without further do here is Adrian:
Okay. Adrian Roper. Welcome to the Blue Planet show. Thanks so much for joining me. How are you doing today? Good, thanks. Yep. Beautiful sunny day. And it's pretty glassy out there. So it might be a good day to go fishing. Nice. And you're for you. It's like the middle of winter right now, like for us it's summer, but you're on the other side, so it's pretty nice.
Is it pretty cold or how cold is it? It's cold, like compared to Hawaii it's cold, but still went foiling yesterday and had quite a good session. Excellent. I didn't have a full on thick suit on either, so it's not too bad. Okay. Yeah. All right. So this season that I'm trying to start a little bit with beginner tips right away in the beginning.
Last year, I always did that as an afterthought at the very end, but I want to start with some good tips for people that are new to wing foiling. And then we're gonna talk a little bit about your background and and get more into. The equipment side of things and technique and so on.
So let's start with that. What are some tips you have for people that are new to wining foing same look, we have quite a few learners around us and I guess one of the biggest things is when you're learning, you don't know how to pump properly and getting up on the coil is the biggest.
Just getting up and going. So having a little bit bigger hydrofoil than you might normally think, is a good idea, cuz it helps you get up and also having a slightly bigger wing as you improve with your skills, you don't need quite so much having an easy writing foil makes a difference. And like with the access stuff the BSC range that we came out with, the bigger ones, the 1 0 6 oh and the nine 70, they were particularly good and they are particularly good for people to learn on.
And then we've also introduced the recently the SES, which is like a complete package and that comes in 1 0 4 oh and nine 40 and it's basic and simple. But it works really well. And it's a great entry into the whole access platform. You can, upgrade it as you want bits and pieces wise.
But it they're both the BSC range and the SES are particularly good for learners. You can stand in slightly the wrong place, you get away with a murder with them and they just, they still ride along quite nicely easy to carve, nice to ride. Okay. So using a. Big foil and a big wing.
That makes a lot of sense. And then, yeah, so you have that super easy start package now where I guess it's made particularly with beginners in mind. Yeah. Yep. Same base plate, same mask. The fuselage is slightly different, but it's similar to our normal red fuselage. The front wing was based on a BSC wing.
But we've rounded the ends off more so that you can't stab yourself so easily. And we also, because we're, it's a different construction, we've made it out of colonial wood. So it's a solid wood core with a fiberglass laminate. And that makes a strong wing, that's a bit more affordable. And we thin the profile out a little bit on it which is actually quite a good thing.
It runs quite nicely and it's a fun setup to use. Okay. And then right now you have it in two sizes. So basically one for the the bigger riders with almost 2000 square centimeters and then one for li right. Lighter riders with 1668 square centimeters. So both of those should have plenty of lift, right?
Yeah. I think a lot of people, when you're getting into foiling, they walk into a store and there's just so many foils and it's also confusing and they just, I don't even know where to start. This breaks it down to AO over 80 kg or less than 80 kg. This is the one that'll work for you, and it makes it a lot easier.
And they can go away, get started, have fun and work it out from. Okay. And then obviously you're also using a floaty stable board, especially when you're starting out. Definitely makes it easier, right? Yep. Yep. Yeah. Some of our learner boards are, have ridiculous amounts of volume in them. We work with a school in Auckland here and we've got a board there.
That's I think it's six foot eight and it's, I dunno, 160 liters or something. It's crazy volume. They've used that with the 1 0 4 oh SES package and it just gets people up and going. It's not you don't necessarily ride it too many times cuz it's such a big board, but no matter, someone can stand on it, wobble around, easy to get up and going.
You've gotta make it easy. I think for beginners, it's not it's not an easy, not a super easy sport to learn at the start, so you've gotta make it so that everything lines up easy and not too hard to get into. Yeah. I would say though, like you progress pretty quickly past that beginner board stage there very quickly.
So I would recommend, instead of buying one, maybe either borrowing a big board or using a big standup foil board or just renting one, or taking in a lesson and then if you have a school me, that's the best thing is to take a lesson from a school and they can, work you through a couple of boards so that the, by the time you buy a board, it's something you're actually gonna hang on to for a little bit, because you do move down.
You're right. You do move down very quickly through the boards. And then in terms of like that, I mean that those are good tips for equipment, but what about technique or Conditions and so on. What kind, what are some other things selecting? Selecting good conditions are really important. Like finding somewhere that's not too choppy.
And if there's waves and stuff, it's hard work to swim out through waves and try and, get up and going while there's waves around. So if you can find a sheltered Harbor or lake situation to learn, that makes it a lot easier and finding wind, like I said before, getting up and going is the difficult thing.
So if you can still learn the lessons of standing up and holding the wing and getting things in five knots. But you are unlikely to get up and going. So when you are ready to get up and going, you need 15, 18 knots to get up and going. Really. It makes it easier if there's a bit of breeze, bit of power.
Yep. Agreed that. Yeah. Ideally you want about a little bit 15 to 20 knots maybe and smooth water if possible. And then. Also a place where you can if you end up drifting down wind where it's easy to get back up wind or, where you don't end up getting blown offshore or something like that.
Yeah. Our local beach manly here is really good for learning. You start at the top end, you go out, you make a couple passes and if you get going good, if you don't, you slowly drift down the beach and end up on the beach and just walk back up the beach again and have another go. It's, you don't wanna be in an offshore situation where without other people around where you're gonna get blown away, for sure.
Okay, great. Yeah. Those are some good tips, I think for people starting out. And so let's talk a little bit about you your background, like where, where did you grow up and how did you get into water sports? How did you get into the foiling industry or, water sports industry I was actually born in America.
I was born in chapel hill, in North Carolina. My father was going to university there and I lived there till I was about two. And then I moved back to New Zealand and to Auckland New Zealand and grew up here. I spent time in my father, did a sabbatical leave from university and I lived a year in Bristol when I was about, I don't know, maybe 10 or something.
And then, but I basically grew up at the beach in Ross bay, in Auckland. I had a peak class at little sailing dinghy, and I learnt to sail yachts. As a young kid had a boat and did lots of fishing and stuff Ming around from there. And some of my mates started getting wind surfers and it was the early, early, early days of windsurfing.
And I wanted to windsurfer as well. And my parents wouldn't buy me one. I was 14 or something, I think at the time. And my mother offered to help me build one. So I did lawn mining rounds and got the money for it. And I actually found a recipe for a windsurfer and a French magazine, and I had to learn French so that I could translate it.
You didn't have internet back then, so it was a bit more tricky. And I built the windsurf for myself from scratch in the back room. It was Paula Styron. So there's bubbles everywhere in the back living room of the house. And it was plywood skinned and I made the sail and the mast and the boom and all the various bits of it.
And my mother helped me with that. , I. They were trying to just help me learn to do things for myself. And they had ideas of me going to university and everything, but I just got so struck by windsurfing and building things that I got into that. And I've done that ever since.
I got a job at a windsurfing shop when I was about 18 years old and I learned to laminate and I also worked in sales in the shop. And then when I was, where was this? Was this's in, in Aland. In Aland. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And then when I was 19 20. I decided to move to Hawaii and I actually came to Oahu, cuz I thought that was the spot to go to.
And I was in Lana, Kai, what's the spot there. I worked for windsurfing Hawaii for okay Kai. Yeah. Yeah, Kai bay. And I went surf there for a bit. But after a month or so everyone kept coming back from Maui raving about Maui. So I thought, oh, I better go to Maui. So I rang a mate of mine, used to work for a.
And and Mai SALs Maori. So I rang SALs Maori and asked if they had any work. And they said, oh, maybe try the factory. So I rang the factory and I got hold of some guy called Jimmy Lewis. And he said, what do you do? And I said I'll laminate. And he said I'll laminate her left yesterday.
How soon can you get here? So I flew over and Jimmy gave me a job at Sal woods Maui, and that was run by Mike Walt and Fred Haywood and Jimmy. And it was in the old cannery. And that, so I worked there for a year or so and did that and that it was great fun. And I went back and forths between Hawaii and and and New Zealand.
And when I came back to New Zealand I started shaping boards. Jimmy had given me a few ideas about shaping. So I learned to shape boards in New Zealand and built wind surface. I had many. Sorry, the time in you are in Mai, when was that? Like in the eighties or 83 or something like, that was one of those.
Okay. Okay. It was pretty early on right a year or so since Mike Wal had discovered who keeper as a windsurfing destination. So it was great. That's when they just like, started using foot straps and like tiny boards and stuff like that, right? Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't that long after harnesses, even it was early.
Things developed quite quickly there and over the trips I worked for various people, I worked for Angulo as a fiberglas for years. And then I ended up getting a job working for Peter Toman, who was the F two shaper. And he built all Bjorn, dunker, Beck, and Brit dunker, Beck's race boards and most of the world cup teams.
So I did all a board building for them, and there was another guy did the Sandy and finishing, and Peter did all the shaping and learned. So much there, Peter was really great and very analytical with the way he did things. And it was a pretty good situation too, because they had, it was the heyday of windsurfing.
And there was plenty of money for things. So we could try anything and, anything we'd tried, it didn't necessarily have to be sold to make money. It worked, it didn't work. We learned something from it, move on, it was so we learned a lot about construction quite quickly and had a lot of fun with that.
So I did board building with that forever. And in my time when I was coming back and forwards, I started a company in New Zealand called underground and it was underground windsurfers at the time. And I built underground windsurfers for years. And I built them in Auckland originally and then built them in, I, one of the times I came back from ma I ended up being in Christchurch.
So I built a factory in Christchurch and built windsurfers there. I'd windsurf at that stage for a lot of years and I was a little bit bored with it. Especially if it wasn't decent waves or whatever, and the local conditions, weren't that exciting. And then we saw videos of kite surfing and, from Maui and some of the early stuff and thought that looks cool.
So thought we'd get into that. So we started building boards and found a. And Ash Burton, Pete, Peter Lynn and he was building kites and he was selling them in Europe. So we ended up hooking up with him and building kite boards. And, we started just doing Peter Lynn, kite boards, but then we did more and more underground kite boards and we sold those all around the world.
And that for years built the factory up, had a lot of guys working full time and it was pretty full on. And then one day we had a fire and everything got burnt, gone overnight. So we lost the factory. The retail store sail loft, everything was gone and had to rebuild from scratch.
And that was an absolute mission. And by the time I'd redone that I'd started to lose a lot of, a bit of enthusiasm for that. I just needed a break. And a guy in China offered to. My label underground and the whole setup and that their construction system. So sold that and moved that to China. And I went back and forth and learned to work in China basically.
And that didn't go so well for them for various other reasons of things that happened in China at the time. And the underground label went bankrupt and there was a bit of a sad time, but it wasn't my baby anymore, but it was still something I'd created. So it was a bit sad.
And at that stage Evan who I worked with in the states he had been selling my underground boards in San Francisco for years. And he was one, he was the first to sell my underground boards there. And he said, look, what you had was too good, let's start something new. So we came up.
With the name access. And originally we were building kit boards and we did that. And then Evan got hooked on foiling and tricked me into getting hooked into foiling and started with kite foiling and then learned to sub foil and did sub foiling for quite a long time. And then when winging came along, got into that.
And did you come up with the name access? I'm curious. We had a lot of different, there was a struggle and we had a lot of different names. One of the problems with underground was always fitting it on the board. It such a long name. It always became a little skinny ribbon on the bottom of the board.
So we figured it had to be something about three or four letters long. And, it took a long time, but what we liked about access was it, with kite surfing, it was rotating around an axis. So a lot of the kite loops were spinning around an axis, jumps off axis. Axis is a pivotal moment as well.
It just, it, I don't know, it made sense and I like it and okay. You never know where a name you start with something and it changes to what the sport changes and it doesn't fit anymore. But I think access is a good name. I like it. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so then you got, so you got into kite foiling, keep going kite foiling, and then start foiling and did that in Christchurch a lot and developed stuff foils to a point we started doing that and we started using our original mask that we had back in the day.
And it was an OEM mask. It was only 15 mill thick aluminum, and it was pretty wobbly. And our first wings that we built were, nine, 20 sort of span. And we pretty quickly realized that mask just wasn't gonna work. While a lot of other companies were jumping onto. Sport and building product, we were desperate keen to build product, but we felt like everything needed to be redesigned.
And so starting with that mask, we worked out that for kite foiling, it was okay at about seven 50, but at 900, it was just a noodle and it was impossible to use. So we worked out that it needed to be 224% stiff. To be the same feel at 900. So that was our target figure. And we actually came up with our original 19 mil aluminum mass, which we still build now.
And that was, it was 224% stiffer than the original. And it was only an 8% weight gain. So when you build a, an aluminum extrusion, you can draw it up on the computer and you can analyze the bending moment of it and change. See the stiffness. You can work out how long a masks gonna be, how much it's gonna weigh, how stiff it's gonna be and analyze all that way before you even build it.
So we went through that and did that and came up with a 19 mill mast. Originally it was designed for sub foiling and relatively slow speeds. And it's absolutely fine for that. It's actually fine for winging as well, but as the sport has evolved and things have got going a lot faster 19 mills is thick and it's not perfect for high speed to foiling for example, but the stiffness we felt is really important.
And that's something that we've always run with our foils from day one. Yeah, I mean that the stiffness of the whole setup, not just the mass, but also the way the fuselage connects to the front wing and all that's what sold me on access and why I started using it.
And and also of course the many different wing designs you have available and always evolving with more and more. Yeah, so we'll get into the gear, but so then basically just wanted to finish the story of like how you got into this. So then from the making foils for standup paddling yeah.
So then what was the evolution from there? We also, as a sideline back then we built a foil for windsurf foiling and it was a 900 span. And I can't even remember how narrow the cord was, but was quite a narrow high aspect wing at the time. It was completely different to anything else.
And we ended up using it for surfing a lot and for prone and for for supp as well. And that was a turning point as of discovering that wings don't have to be these low aspect, big fat piggy things. So . Yeah. And that was the first wing that I used for the 900 was the first wing that I used when I went wing.
Okay. Okay. And then it's, it seemed like when you first started access, it was more focused on board building and so on. And now it seems like you're more focused on foils. What's your percentage of like foil sales versus board sales, what approximately? I don't know exactly without looking at a thing, but I we, I've spent a lifetime building boards and I feel like I've tried just about everything that you can try.
And very quickly I can say, yep, that works, doesn't work. And I know that, cause I know it inside out and then foiling came along and I didn't really know how to build hydrofoils. And just the way that I work, like I questioned everything, there was other foils on the market and, they were doing, Everything that like, for example, some of the early fours, the front wing was set at the same angle as the fuselage.
And I said why is that? And everyone said, oh, it's just how it is. And it's had been, the first people did that. And then everyone just copied that. And I tried to question everything that we did. And try and work out. I think if you can understand the reason for something, it makes it a lot easier to nut out what, how you're gonna build it better.
I try and do that with customers as well. When I'm talking to people, I probably give 'em too much information, but I try and educate them so that they can actually understand it and then they can make a sensible decision. Cause it kind makes sense. But that, that front wing fitting on there, for example, we, every foil that we analyzed has a, an angle of attack where like obviously more angle of attack you generate more lift a flatter angle of attack.
You generate less lift, but it can go faster. Every foil section has a different sort of sweet spot and you can analyze that. And our original wings, we set at about two degrees to the fuselage and now the modern a R T HBS they're set at one, one degree to the fuselage, the idea being that the fuselage is running.
For the most part through the water in a straight line, like an arrow, not dragging like this, not, up or down, just straight through that foil angle changes as you go faster and slower, but generally for most of you, you are riding it. It's running straight. Yeah. And I guess I like, and I know a lot of people shim their their plate Mount between, between the board and the plate Mount.
And that kind of, I guess if the board has, it seems if the board has a little bit of tail rocker, then the board you can lift up on the foil, but it's, I guess if the, I noticed that if the boy, if the foil is angled up too much, then when you're flying at high speeds, you end up flying with the nose slightly pointed downward, and then that's like catastrophic if you touch down because you're basically wipe out right away.
And it seems like it's easier, definitely easier to control the foil once it's up. If the nose is, if any, if anything, a little bit higher flying a little bit high than, or flat, but definitely not pointed downwards, right? Yep. I think with your board, when it, my fingers don't go straight anymore, but when a board touches down if it touches down tail first like that it's gonna crash pretty badly.
If it touches down those first, obviously that's complete disaster. You want it to touch about where the base plate is or just in front and it just pop back up again. So right. That the angle that you need to set your board at, and , generally when I build an access foil and an access board, everything works together with no need for any shim on the base plate, but right off using an access foil with some other board.
And there's nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you need to adjust the angle that the board flies on a little bit with a shim. Yeah, yeah. Cuz yeah, basically if you add more angle to the front wing that, that angle of attack it's a little bit easier to take off. Like the takeoff speed is lower a little bit, but then at the same time sometimes it's harder to control it at high, higher speeds.
I've not, I've noticed if it have too has too much angle, but yeah. So ideally if it's tuned you want it to be easy to lift off, but also easy to control at higher speed. So it should just run along without too much, lifting up or dropping down. It should just run along nicely.
I've actually just, I got pissed off with the whole shimming thing because it seems to be a complete and utter confusion for most people. And a couple of three days ago, I just wrote it, wrote, I sat down and explained it all and wrote it all down properly and we're actually adding it to our brochure and it will be in there.
And it explains shimming of the rear wing and also base blade shimming and. Like I said before, if you explain it to people, it's pretty basic. And once it's explained, it's a lot easier to understand happy to go through that a little bit and explain that the shim rear wing the shimming, the rear wing.
Yeah. Let's get into that. Yeah. I find that my, on my axis wings that I've used, I've been able to just use 'em without any shims not necessary, but I guess, yeah, I have tried adding the shim in the tail in the back, but I didn't really, how much do you weigh? Sorry, go ahead. Oh, how much do you weigh?
I'm like like 1 95 pound hundred 95 pounds. Which is I think around 90 or around, yeah. Around 90 kilos. So you're, you are the correct weight if you are the correct weight, same as me. Then everything should run smoothly. If you're outside that weight range, if you're really light or if you're really heavy, then adding some shims helps a little bit.
Okay. Just, I've got some bits here to try and explain it. There's your fuselage and there's your front wing and that bolts on that front wing there, this is an a R T 7 99. Access always does their wings by span, and I can go into that later as well, but that, that front wing is set at one degrees to, to diff fuselage the more angle of attack the more lift, the less angle of attack the faster it goes.
. I'll try and explain this as, as well at the moment now. So the angle that this wing flies at you can't trick the wing into riding at a different angle that rides at the angle that it wants to ride at. And more angle of attack is more lift and then less angle of attack is less lift. It happens.
I'll quit that stupid mail in, yeah, my mail app too. go ahead. When you are riding along it, if you are riding it too much of an angle of attack, the foiler will come up and will jump out of the water and you'll crash. If you're riding it too lower, an angle of attack, the foyer will drop down and your board will hit the water.
So you don't actually have to think about it, your wing automatically, you automatically set the angle of that wing so that it's about right for this. And the angle of that wing rides at is dependent on your weight and how fast you're going. So I generally set it all up for winging and around 85 kg.
So if you are, most of the wings will run straight, no gyms, no need for anything at if you are around about that weight now. So the front wings angled up slightly, one degree the rear.
This is a 3, 2, 5 that's actually angled downwards slightly. So the front one's angled up. The rear one's angled down. The reason that's angled down is it actually, and the foil sections upside down. So it's actually pushing downwards. That downward force actually pro provides a lifting force, which balances a against your front foot.
When you are foiling, you have a front foot pressure and back foot pressure. And you're basically standing around that wing and, trying to balance nicely on that. The size of this rear wing the bigger it is, the more force it, it gives you. And when you are learning and you are more clumsy, you need more force to actually balance against, but as you get better, you can use smaller and smaller wings and you need less to balance against.
So that back wing as stock on the fuselage. The progressive wings, that's angled downwards at one and a half degrees. So the most important thing about shimming is the angle between the front wing and the back wing. So if that front wing is angled up at one degrees, the back wing is angled down at one and a half degrees.
The difference between the two is two and a half degrees. So that number two and a half degrees, that's it. That's the one that actually matters. And that's the one that counts. Everything else is hoo-ha, the angle to a tree over there or whatever, it doesn't make any difference. This is the one and a half degrees.
This one degree here, two and a half degrees difference. Now the shim that we have, the stock ones that you can download and get is the that's a positive shim, and that is a negative shim. Now the reason for the naming convention on that, which here's the biggest confusion is because a lot of companies use something different on that now to get more front foot pressure, if you are heavier and you need a bit you want this rear wing to be more active, you need to angle it down a bit more.
That makes it do its job a little bit more so that if you add a degree of angle down this rear, Wing's now on two and a half degrees. So you've got one plus two and a half. You've got three. So I describe that as positive shimming. Because it's in addition to what the original one was three and a half, you mean?
Yeah, three and a half, three and a half. With the if you flatten it off, if you're lightweight or can cope with a flatter angle on the rear the wing, the foyer will run faster. But it'll be a bit more twitchy and a bit harder to balance unless you're smaller and then it'll be perfectly comfortable for you.
So if you reduce the angle of that rear, you've got one degree at the front, let's say you've reduced this one degree at the back. This is only now half a degree. So you've got a difference of one and a half degrees. So I call that a negative shin because the number is smaller than the stock. Does that make sense?
Yes. Okay. Much easier if you can talk about it in those terms, because the moment everyone talks to each other and says, oh yep. I've done negative Shing. Is that negative? Or is it not negative? No, there's no established terminology as to why it would be negative or positive.
I've seen some videos of some guys trying to explain it and I've sat through the whole thing. And at the end of it, I had no idea what they're talking about. how's the customer supposed to actually look at? I like how you, yeah. I like how you explain it as a difference between the front and the back. Do you have anybody that's shimming the front angle, the wing the angle of the front wing at all, or not really not re not really.
You can on an axis wing, you could actually put a packer in here. Yeah. And we have done that. And so the wing has got more angle of attack at the front. Yeah. But all that's gonna do is like I said before this wing finds its own way. So what are you really adjusting is the angle of the fuselage, right?
This is unchanged. Yeah. Yeah. No, makes sense. Yeah. Cause but basically you want the fuselage to be flying more or less parallel to the to the water surface. You don't want that to be dragging either direction. Yeah. Yeah. That's the end. But in with that in mind as when you take off, when you first take off, you actually have a slightly more angle of attack and then as you go faster and faster, you flatten that off.
So the angle of the fuselage is it's not absolutely always gonna be parallel to the water, but we said, so that when you're at your average sort of speed, it's generally going dead, flat parallel to the water. Load dry. Makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Adrian, I'm gonna, I'm going since we're talking about equipment and stuff, I'm gonna get into some questions here.
I got these questions from guys in New Zealand from Dan, our distributor, like he collected some questions for you from his friends. So the first question was regarding weight that, saying the access gear is heavy compared to other foils, any thoughts on developing a lighter high modus, mass and carbon fuselage?
And what effect does weight really have? When under the water. So can you talk a bit about the effect of the weight? Yep. As far as I I wouldn't say axis is heavy. I would say it's actually, like I said before, the stiffness of the mask, like the stiffness of everything, like the front wing, the way it joins to here is really important.
That joint is really important. The joint from the fuselage to the ma is critical. The stiffness of the mask is critical and the stiffness of the whole thing, if you've got wobble or play or anything, you, you lack control of that front wing, you are only riding that front wing. That's basically what you're writing.
So anything that compromises that attachment to the front wing is not gonna make writing better. It's gonna make it more difficult cuz it's wobbling round and not connected to you. I actually think. Access is a realistic weight. And I think that some of the ones that you might be comparing it to the mask is not sufficiently stable.
The joints are not sufficiently stable and if you were selecting foils and you would looking at the important things. The weight might be questioned number 234. And by the time you get to that question, everything else is eliminated anyway. So I don't agree. That is a heavy setup.
I think some of the other ones are actually too soft altogether. Yeah. And I would agree with that. That's in my opinion, like the act like the, yeah, the rigidity comes first and then the weight is in my opinion, like a secondary concern after rigidity and also the foil, because the foil is underwater.
And the, has the, basically a lower center of gravity than the board and everything above the water. It I think the weight on the foil seems to matter less than the weight of what's above the water. And I've, I've had an, a prototype early on that was CNC CNC out of a solid block of G 10 fiberglass.
And the front wing was like a, a heavy, beginner wing. And it was super heavy. And I thought it'd be impossible to use because it's so heavy, it was really heavy to carry to the water and stuff like that. But then in the water, it felt really solid. Like it had a very basically a low center of gravity.
It's like a keel. And even when I was flying it, it felt very very stable. So the, I guess the weight is not in, in a foiler and the fus slides is not always a bad thing. I would say. We've used G 10 to prototype quite a few of our rear wings. And it's, it's good for testing out.
It's not, ideally it's not really stiff enough. And as the wings become more high aspect, like the, that 7 99 that I had there before something that's long and skinny like that you build that in G 10, it's gonna be too floppy to even use. It's just not gonna be stiff enough. Yeah the rigidity is really important.
I, one of my favorite wings that I'm writing at the moment, it's I think it's a 1100 span. And it's got a mean average cord of about 89. So it's, and it's quite thin. But we built it in several different constructions. And one of the constructions, just as a test, we built it out of solid carbon all the way through the wing itself is about two and a half kilograms.
You give it to people and it's just, you just about drop it. It's really heavy. Ride's fine. I can't even feel any difference to it. I don't think weight is as important as a lot of people think. I do think there is a change to that, and that is if you are riding with your foil in the water.
So if you're toe foiling, if you are surfing, if you are winging, most of the things like if the foil is in the water, most of the time, no problem at all. But if you're doing freestyle, if you're doing jumps and spins and tricks, having a lighter weight mast and foil so that you can do your freestyle stuff, that would for sure be better, but yeah.
Also rotations and things. It's a massive compromise. It's a massive compromise for when you're falling along on a straight line, because you just lost that connection for. Yeah. Agreed. So then the next question was regarding foil design, are we fast approaching a point of peak performance for foils where we can't get much better and where to go from there?
No. I think we're just getting started. That's the fun part. Yeah. I agree. I think there's still so much R and D to do and things. It seems every time something new comes out, it's like a big jump forward. I don't think we'll that we're anywhere close to being at the point of peak performance.
I should poke that in there at this time. Yes. That's the new mass. So yeah we talked about this earlier, but you said you're just getting ready to release this. And I guess by the time I'm posting the interview, this is gonna be available, right. Yep. It's actually we're doing the release, but we don't necessarily have stock ready to send out.
We were trying, we normally, when we do a release, we actually have stock built and it's already to go. But in this case here, it's, taking time to build a decent amount of stock and there's too many people have seen this mask already. And they're asking questions and we can't really answer questions because, it's not officially released.
So we've had to just say let's do it. This is a seven 50 version of the axis power carbon mask. Now the power carbon ma comes in a high modules and it comes in a standard modules. Construction. Our previous carbon masks that we've done, they, they were not as stiff as our 19 mill menu mast.
But they were thinner like a 19 millimeter. Mast is an extrusion. So it's 19 mills top to bottom. So that means you're pushing 19 mills through the water, perfectly fine for a learner for SAP, for a lot of things. It's absolutely fine for dock start pump where the rigidity of the ma is really important, fantastic mask for that.
But with the advent of more high aspect wings and running faster it, 19 mills is just too thick. The new power carbon mask, the bottom section of the ma here, where it goes into the fuselage, the bottom 300 mils is about 15 mils thick, and then it gets thicker and thicker and a hundred mils down.
It's still 20 mils thick. When you Like when you design anything on computer, you can use finite element analysis and you can actually bend that mast and see where the stress in it is. And when you bend it, all of the stress is concentrated around this area here on a mast.
And you know that from all of the masks that have, failed in the shop, they always kink at the base plate or break there. So one of the most important things, if you wanna try to build a decent mask is that it's one piece, the fibers from here run all the way down and right through and into the base plate.
Any sort of a join in here to me seems like way too much of a compromise. This is the most important part of building a stiff mask. Back to the stiffness of this ma like the two versions the standard carbon one is 25% stiffer than the 19 aluminum. And the high medulous is 35% stiff.
Now that's a massive amount. And the first time I rode this ma I was using the 1 0 9, 9 wing. So sorry to interrupt you. But in terms of that, the, how do you measure the stiffness? Is it like torsional stiffness or side bending or like how do you define that? What I do is I bolt that ma to a wall and then at this end here, I hang 25 kilograms off these two bolts, and I measure the deflection at the sharp edge of the back of the mast.
So it's the sideways bending, yeah, sideways bending, but what about the torsional stiffness cuz that's really important as well, right? The twisting. Absolutely. Absolutely. So that's one way of bending. So I isolate the both. So that purely then is only bending testing for sideways bend.
Yes. The other bend we do is we put a fuselage on there. We use a a standard fuselage because it's got the longest tail section on it. And I put a pivot point here to the ground, to a concrete floor so that the mask can no longer be in sideways at all. And then off the rear. Screw. I hang 25 kilograms and I measure the deflection of the fuselage at the end.
So that's measuring the twist force of the mask only. Okay. Poor little mask with 25 kg hanging off the back of the fuselage. It gets quite a twist in it. Yeah. And so that extra 25 or 35% stiffer, is that the case in both directions or cuz I know depending on how you lay up the carbon inside the carbon layer, the direction of the carbon makes a big difference on the, that torsional those stiffness, for sure. You can do it a lot with that. But the truth is to get a master stiff as the 19 mil aluminum ma it would need to be 19 mil stick all the way through. And you can't do that because of the, this is 15 mil, so it's lower drag down here. The torsional rigidity is about the same as the aluminum ma, but the sideways bend is a lot more.
Okay. Yeah. And yeah. When you write it the first ride I ever had on the high ulus mask, when we finally built one I was on the 1 0 9 9 and the mask was 900 length. The other thing is the length obviously is a big change. So if you're comparing the bend from one mass to another, you have to compare a seven 50 to a seven 50 or a, an eight 20 to an eight 20, or a 900 to a 900, as it gets longer, the movement at the end is gonna be longer just nature of how it is.
My first go was on a 1 0 9, 9 front wing a 900 power carbon, high modules. And it was the first time ever that I'd felt that connection to the front wing. I felt totally connected so I could carve and do whatever. You're talking about weight before this mask is not really any lighter than the 19 mil aluminum with a base plate and a do that in it.
But the stiffness in the field, the connection is just through the roof and it there's quite a big price difference too. They is, it cost by like almost 10 times as much as a aluminum mass. That's expensive. Yeah. Yeah. And so one thing I wanted to mention for that, those of you who are interested in getting a stiffer mass, is that what really makes a difference too is like you said, the length of the mass, obviously if you have a longer mass, you need, it needs to be stiffer, basically.
So if you're lightweight using a narrow WK span, smaller foil, Or yeah, or, and, or a shorter mass, you can get away with using a more flexible mask. And also in the surf, sometimes having a little bit of flex, you get used to it, but if you're heavier rider, if you're going fast and using a wider WPA, a bigger wingspan foil and you're yeah.
And you're going faster than in all those situations, I think that you really notice the mass flex, like it really affects the performance, even when you're doing down winters and just taking off with a big foil. If there's some mass flex, the whole setup feels very unstable and bouncy, you're always gonna have mass flex that's just the nature of it.
You've got, 900 mil away from your board. You've got a big foil. It's a long dangly thing. There's gonna be some movement. It's never I don't think you can get too stiff. With that in mind, we had a team rider in Australia and he's light, he's about 70 kg and he pumps for an hour, from wave to wave connecting.
And I sent him an eight 20 that's the lengthy rides of the. High mods and the normal medulous carbon. And he rode both and he was amazed, at how stiff the normal carbon was. But after writing both, he said, why wouldn't you have the extra stiffness, the stiffness it's more expensive.
And I think it's better. But like you said, if you are. A lighter weight person, if you're riding a smaller foil and a shorter mast, you'd probably, the other one's fine. But the high ulus is the stiffest good point about the stiffness? I think it's yeah. And for most people's stiffer is just gonna work better and I want to apologize, my camera's going crazy up here.
I don't know what's wrong with it. Check the settings, but I can't really do it right now, but anyways so another question here is what is now considered the fastest foil combo, in the fo in your range and what is the recommended access track positioning set up on a new boot planet?
Wingmaster fusing straps. I don't, that's something I can answer, but I guess you can answer the first part about the fastest foil combo. I guess the fastest at the moment would be the 7 99. And paired with either a a three 80 or a the high aspect three 80 rear or the like a 3, 2, 5 or a 300 rear would be considered the fastest setup we've got at the moment.
I guess the a R T range. What we've tried to do with that is make something that's really GLI and easy to use and fun to use. It was never intended to be the fastest wing in the world. It actually goes pretty fast, but the GLI is perhaps the most amazing thing with it. We are working a lot on more race stuff now for for down winding and we will have stuff we're doing a lot of stuff with James Casey, cuz he wants to, have race gear for down winding.
I should say while we're talking about that ma there like when we came out with that stiffer mast, loved it, amazing, huge difference, massive leap forward. But we also noticed that all of a sudden, we could feel flex in the front wing, the narrow high spec front wings. We could feel differences in that.
You could never feel that with a soft Damas because everything was just moving. But now with a stiffer mask, you can isolate that. So we've actually gone back and analyzed the flex and the wings and done all sorts of different constructions in the front wings to to stiffen them up and change the way that is.
And so construction is becoming far more, an important part of wing building. If you think back to the early days with the nine 20 with a massive cord and huge thick wing, The thing didn't flex much anyway, if at all. But some of the wings now, like there's a prototype I've been writing at the moment it's 1200 wide and it's got a mean average cord of 87.
It's 13.4 aspect ratio and it, wow. To get that to hold together is quite some trick. And again, a wing like that, there's just no way you could have used it on the old mast or even the aluminum cuz it runs too fast for that. This new mast for me is a huge breakthrough and it means that we can actually advance all sorts of things from here.
Okay. Like you also have that high performance speed range, but you're saying actually the a R T range or the a R T 7 99 is actually faster than the the high performance speed range. It has less cord it, it came before the its higher aspect. Yeah. Yeah, I describe any, when I describe any wing at all my, my way of analyzing it too is a bit different to a lot of other wings.
So the first thing I look at is the span, how wide is the wing? The next thing I look at is the mean average cord, the mean average cord is the different distance from the back of the wing to the front of the wing. The mean average cord is what's the average of the whole entire wing.
And then I look at the foil section that's been used inside to, to create that foil. And every foil section has a certain amount of Canberra in it. Canberra is the amount, it's a line that's halfway between the there's the top of the wing. There's the bottom of the wing. There's a line that's midway halfway in between that's the CAMBA line and that's curved upwards.
And if you compare that to a dead straight line, the cord line you look at it as a percentage. So every foil has a certain amount of camber. And generally it's between, one or two up to 4% or four and a half percent camber the higher, the camber, the higher lift at lower speeds generally.
And the flatter, the caner, the faster, the. Goes that wing. You've got there. That's the a, I T they're all a a two and half percent can in them. And it's relatively low drag. And what I like about this, the whole RT range is the glide. It just keeps on running and it's easy to use. I like the glide.
They are pretty fast because they've got quite a narrow cord. But if you want to go faster than that, you need a faster foil section and with a FA faster foil section, you also get other compromises in the performance. They're harder to get going. That don't work necessarily through such a wide range.
So you become wings that are very specific for certain tasks. The HPS, the BSC HPS, and a R T they're all a fairly general purpose foil section, which I would say is easy to use, relatively fast for what they are and fun and easy to drive to go beyond that, to really fast stuff is gonna take different portal sections and they won't be so user friendly.
Yeah. So I want to share a little bit my own experience. I was using for a long time using this one here that BSC seven 40, and this is a really nice wing. I really enjoy this for surfing it's like a nice all round kind of wing that carve well and so on. And then you recommended that I try this one here, the a R T 8 99, and it has a bigger wing span.
So it's wider. Move back a little bit, but it also but it has actually about the same surface area, I think, pretty close to the same surface area and what I noticed that yeah, it has amazing glide. Like it it just keeps keeps going once you it just has less drag, less it's more efficient.
So when you're coming or going through attack or something like that, it just keeps going a little bit longer. Like it, it just flies,
it just keeps going, running less drag, I'm also using the smaller tailing and then the short. This is the 3 23 25 tailing. Yep. And then the ultra short fuselage. And I've only used this a couple times. So the first time I used it I also was using a shorter mass.
So kind of everything, a little bit different. And the, first time I had to definitely get used to the different feel of it. But now I noticed I can get it going in about the same amount of wind. It seems like it needs slightly little bit tiny, little bit more wind to get going than this one.
This one has really nice, low end. Like you can fly really slow and also take off pretty easily for considering how small it is. But yeah, once you're going, it feels very efficient. You can go upwind. I can go upwind, I think at a steeper angle. And so on. And then, yeah, compared I also have this one here, the 700 that this one is the I guess that, is that the high speed or whatever it's called HPS.
Yep. HPS. Yeah, the 700. So this one has I think a thinner profile it's a really fast foil, but. It takes also takes more speed to get it going. And it stalls a little bit sooner than, also because it's a small foil. So this one I, I found for winging, it's only really good and really high wind.
When you have enough, plenty of wind to get it going. Yeah, you, this one, I think, is gonna be a good wing for me in any kinda conditions, not just strong win. I kinda, I'm kind the kind person that once I find something I like, I'm not. Changed it around a lot, just gonna get used to it. And then unless I have someone like you telling me to try something new I don't really, I just kind different.
And every that's the beauty of avoiding is you find what set up works for you. And everyone's got a slightly different idea of what they want to do. I hardly ever ride that 8 99 cuz for me, I like BLI. I like to drop my wing and just coast along surfing, near invisible swell. So I need a bigger span for that.
So I ride generally wings that are a thousand or 1100 span. But probably no more cord than that one. The span, the wider, the span, the more glide the bigger, the cord, the more hand. That's on. If you cut the cord down, it just cuts the drag and it just keeps on rolling. And that that lower drag you'll find on that 8 99, you'll sail through a gas and you're in a lull and the thing will just keep running.
It won't actually stop. Whereas if you're on your older thicker bigger, a bigger cord foil, there's more drag on it. And it wants to run down and slow down. Whereas that one, there just, it just keeps on going. There isn't much drag. So that's why they're so good for down winding as well, because they just don't once you're up, they don't slide slow down, little bit tricky to get up.
And you would've felt that the first time you had a go of it, you can't really use angle of. To actually get up. You need to almost, when you feel a lift coming, you almost need to hold it down and just do two much bumps to get up to speed, and then it just comes up and you're away. Yeah. If you pop it up too early, it just wants to stall or we install it up down.
Yeah, exactly. But that's pretty much normal with a high, little bit more high aspect flow. I noticed the other thing I wanted to mention is I switched from the black series, short fuselage to the advanced fuselage ultra short. And I noticed right away that holding them up against each other.
If you match the same mass, the mass in the same place, it's quite a bit longer in the front. Like this is the short versus the ultra short or yeah. And then in the back it's about the same difference in the back as in the front. So the diff it's. It's shorter in the front and the back by almost the same diff same amount.
It is exactly the same. So the ultra short is exactly the same length fus overall, but the, so are they both ultra short? No, no one is short and one is ultra short, but I noticed, yeah. The, yeah, so there, so the advance is a new one that we've just come out with and basically what it is like the ultra short is the same.
This is a good, this is a good chance to explain something here. So when we first started when we first started building four, this is back in the nine 20, the original first wing we ever did. We we actually put the mast directly on top of the front wing. And our theory was that from an engineering point of view, that was the strongest point to attach it.
And we went and forwarded it. It forwarded fine. But it didn't steer, like you'd try and turn and you'd just fall off the side. It didn't actually turn. And we thought perhaps the wing had too much turned down on the tips. So we started making some new tips for it. And the rearing was also doing some crazy stuff as well.
So we started experimenting with the rearing to try and change that. And in as, as well as that, we also built a fuselage with the mask further in a more sort of standard position in the fuselage and straight away we found that's it actually worked fine. After that, we actually built a whole series of fuselage with the mast in different positions.
Further forward and further back, the further back you have it, obviously the more challeng it is to the mast, torsionally it actually tries to twist the mask more. You can imagine if you had to fuselage at the rear wing you'd have no control over your front wing. There'd be just too much flex and movement.
So we found a spot that was a sweet spot and it worked pretty well. And since then from the thickest point of the front wing to the mast has remained the same distance. We've done everything that we've designed has been the same. Whether it's a red fuselage or a black fuselage, whatever wing, the thickest point is about the same distance from the mast.
And we've just run with that and that's worked pretty good. But a while back, we thought it's probably with the super high aspect wings we're doing as the cord gets narrow and narrow the distance between the ma and the front wing starts to look quite great. So we thought it was a good time to revisit that.
And so we built a bunch of black fuselage and we did them with again with a master all various positions. So the advanced fuselage is 40 mil further forward. So when you use it, you have to move the base plate 40 mils further forward as well, so that the wings are in the same place. When you're foiling your front wing, your sorry, your front foot and your back foot is balanced over your front wing.
Yeah. So that's exactly what I just wanted to mention, cuz that was part of the question too. Like when I was using the BSC with the short fuselage the mat, the basically the wing is a little bit more forward. So I had to move the plate pretty much all the way back. You can see the marking like from the rubber on the board, but this was the back of my plate Mount.
And then with the ultra short, there's like maybe like a difference where the foil is slightly further back. So I had to move everything up by, about that same close to that same amount. That fuselage is shorter in the front, basically. Ah, for me, that's what kind of how it worked out.
The advanced Fu lies definitely needs moving forward, but it is slightly complicated and that is the, a RT also because it's such a straight across wing. If you consider the BSC the thickest point of the front wing actually has some curvature as it goes out. Your average lift, if you like for that front wing is slightly further back with thet.
They're relatively straight across cause the pips are quite far forward. And that means that when you go from, if without changing the fusel loads, take the fuselage change outta the equation. When you change from the BSC to the a I T the a, I T probably needs to go back about 20, 30 mil in the box to get the center of lift in about the same position.
But then, so I guess it's a combination of the fuselage being being closer or like the fuselage being shorter between the mass and the front. And also the, I guess the thickest part of the foil is a little bit further back on this wing than on this one. It's a little bit further forward, right? Is that what you're saying?
The thickest point's sort of, not that different in those two wings, the thickness is very different and there's a lot of other things that are different, but the percentage point of the thickest point is about the same in those two foils. Okay. I should explain more about that. So that, that what I, yeah, what I'm saying is cause the cord is smaller.
So then if you look at the thickest point, like you said, it's about a third back or whatever. So it's about here versus the, if you have a wing that has a thicker wider cord than that center of the thickest part of the foil is a little bit further back, right? Wouldn't no. So that the thickest the thickest point of the BSC.
The thickest point of that front wing is about the same as the thickest point of the a R T. Okay. They're about the same, but obviously, because it's got bigger cord, the front of the wing goes further forward. The back of the w goes further back, but the thickest point we've always done about the same.
That's how we've done it. We've set them all up with the thickest point of the wing about the same from when to wing,
but the fuselage you were mentioning there,
that's an advanced fuselage compared to a normal one. So the normal ones here, the advance is 40 mils further forward, and simply what they done. And another difference too, is that it has thicker sidewalls, right? Like I it's a little bit more beefy, right?
That's they're about the same. I'm trying to look at them there. There's not a lot of difference in it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I thought it looked a little bit thicker. Like the sidewalls were a little bit more beefed up. I thought it's about the same design, but it's just further forward. So the position of that mask, so you're writing your front wing and your feet are balanced around that front wing.
So when you go for an advanced fus, large, you move the base plate 40 miles further forward. So your wings are in the same place and your feet are in the same place nothing's changed. But the only thing that's changed is the position of the mast for forward and backwards. Relative to everything.
Now that mast is a bit like your fin position in a surfboard. If you move AFIN forward in a surfboard, it makes it looser. If you move it further back, it makes it more stable. And at a faster speed . So the position of that ma is it affects the way it rides. So the advanced fuselage moving the mask 40 mil further forward, hence the name advance.
The reason for that is for a more surfing situation. So if you're riding prone or ORs, or even if you're winging, but you are primarily trying to ride waves, the advanced fuselage is a, it does the job better and feels a lot better for that. There's some negative effects for it as well.
Our normal fuse with the mass further back is a lot more stable at winging speeds. When you're going faster. Also when you're trying to go up wind you can drive against that mast and it goes up wind a lot better on our standard fuselage. So for most people, probably the standard fuselage is just perfect and there's no need to change anything.
The advance is more for people that are dedicated, trying to surf and in a surfing situation. It seems to go from, we say rail to rail, you've got your wing in the water. So it goes from side to side in a smoother way, you don't get a power spike with a mass further back, you tend to turn and then it gets a bit of a power spike.
The same with you turn, when you go the other way with a mask further forward, it just seems to smooth it out. And it feels more like a surfboard turning. Yeah. So one thing I was surprised by with the the a R T range was that it, it feels really actually pretty easy to carve from rail to rail. As compared to other high aspect flow that I've tried that have more of a stiffer feel.
So how did you achieve that? So if we grab that it's pretty hard to try and show it in there. This is an a R T 7 99. So as this wing goes out, the tip is actually twisted off this way. Okay. It's lifted up. And the idea of that is that it's supposed to give the wing more range. I told you before that you are, you have your angle of attack that you're riding on.
And as you go faster, that gets lower and lower, that gets flatter and flatter. If you think of that tip, which is lifted up, as you get flatter, the tip might actually be pointing downwards and creating negative lift. And with that in mind, the very last fall section and the tip of that wings actually symmetrical fo section.
So it's neither lifting, it's just a foil section, a parallel foil section. So we put that in there really just to give the foil more range, which it does do, but a weird side effect of that is when you tip it over to turn, the blade is twisted like a helicopter blade or a, a propel blade.
And it just pivots around that. And some of these wings, they're very straight across and it's not what you'd imagine a surfing wing should look like. But they surf unreal. They turn really good. And some of our prototype stuff, we've taken that to even more of an extreme. And, you historically, we always thought that you needed sweep in the outline of the wing to make it surf, but I don't believe that.
So some of the wings that I've had that are just the straightest ugliest straight across wings ever ridden if you can get the twist right in it, you tip them over and they just turn beautifully. Interesting. Okay. So a little bit of a twist in the wing and change, and basically, so they have a different profile in the center versus the tip is symmetrical and the center is more.
It's the same foil section all the way out. Yeah. But just the very last foil section that we've put in thet is a symmetrical foil section. I see. We should talk about the tip of that. W too, like people say, why isn't that to a point with a wing that with the Reynolds number of water, as you get to a smaller point the if it came out really skinny here, there's a bit where it just becomes drag.
It's not actually doing any beneficial lift or anything. So we thought just to chop it off and it, what it does is it makes the wing more E. So this is a 7 99 wing. It actually behaves like a slightly wider wing. It's almost got that Phantom tip on there, still this but you don't have the drag of that.
Yeah. It's interesting. It's also better if you hit the bottom yeah, it's better if you stick it into yourself, it's not quite so gnarly. That's true too. Yeah. Okay. Here I have another question. Can us older 55 year old guys go as fast as the young guns for that one? I would say watched last, the last interview with Alan Cade on Mau he's yeah, he's 60 and he just beat everyone in the race, including yeah.
Guys like Kilen and stuff. So definitely you can still go fast at any age, I would say. Yep. And then can the HPS wing be pushed as hard? Go as fast as a R T wings, if they are similar sides. Not really, they have more cord, so they're never gonna go fast as an a R T I think I describe wings a little bit differently.
Like I'd ID, I'd primarily look at the span. That's the most important thing to me. And then I said after that, the mean average cord, and then I'd analyze the foil section that was used, how much can it's got. And then after that I might go to the color of the. Whether it's blue or red or black or carbon or whatever.
And then after that, I might consider area. So I guess what I'm saying is area is something that I just don't even take any notice of whatsoever. I might look at volume before I look at area. A lot of wings are described by area, which, is a bit of a nonsense to me. The span is the most important thing.
And as, as kind of proof of that the BSC eight 90 and the nine 80, sorry, the nine trying to think of three wings that are about the same span in our range. They all get going at about the same speed, but the narrow. It just goes faster. It's got less drag and it runs faster, slightly different trick to get it up and going.
But it's really a trick rather than one doesn't go on lighter winds. You can still get them the high aspect wings up that you just have to have a slightly different technique to get them up. Yeah. I've noticed that too. Okay. Span, span. Span is the most important number. And if you're comparing wings span, and then mean average cord, and that tells you more than anything, about a wing.
Okay. Actually you have follow up question would be, so what's coming next. You said you were working on pro new prototypes where you are working on that twist and are they even more high aspect than the a R T range or. Yeah we've done a lot of different stuff and we've got some stuff that's, good genuine advances at the moment.
We still feel like we're making big gains. So we're just keeping on going with it. What about building flex into the wing tips of the front wing? Cuz you were saying that, we established that probably in a mass. You want it to be as rigid as possible and the kind of the connection between the mass and the fuselage and the board and everything you want super rigid.
But what about having a little bit of twisting in the wing itself? With the high aspect wings, you get a bit of that anyway. Is it good or bad? It's more complicated than that. Like we, we built the same wing. I'm trying to think of a word. We had a test wing. It was quite high aspect.
It was that one I was talking about before it was 13.4 aspect ratio. We built that in a bunch of different constructions. We did one in solid carbon. We did one in normal carbon and we did one in high ulous carbon and we rode all three wings. And at that aspect ratio the normal carbon wings, it was just a little bit too soft.
And what it felt like was when you're going along, if you went over a you could feel every bump in the water, it was very sensitive. Relatively flat water day, but when you're going through the chop, you could feel the wing, bending like this. And if you went through someone's wake, just about threw you off, you could really feel everything.
Cause it was just moving. The solid carbon one was quite a bit stiffer quite a nice flex characteristic to it, even though it was solid. And then the one that was out of high medulous, that was the stiffest of the lot. And that one felt like you could drive it and rely on it. And it felt really good, but I'm with you, I think that as we get into these more high aspect wings, being able to twist off on the tip, like a be active, like a windsurf sale might be beneficial.
There's lots to learn this. You asked before, we getting to the point where we're not learning no, every day we are trying something, it's fantastic to actually discover what's next and. Yeah, actually, I was just thinking about like earlier mentioned helicopter blade. So I guess in a, on a helicopter blade, the angle of attack on the inside or the closest to the helicopter is really steep and thicker profile.
And then as you go towards the tip, it flattens out and has a thinner profile. But that part of that is just cuz the outside travels faster than the inside, way faster, much faster. And on a foil, that's not really the case. But is it, or is there like a reason why it works that way, that you wanna have a flatter, have a steeper angle of attack in the middle and less at the end or, what's the reasoning for that?
That relates back to the twist that the wash out and the wingtip that we, we have in there before. And we've experimented with that quite a bit too. And yeah. We had some early w where that twist in the wingtip, we went right up to eight degrees. Of twist in it, it was really twisted and we've had some, all the way to zero and everywhere in between.
And, we've said all on what we've said on for the a R T and that works really nicely, but it was surprising even one degree of difference. It made a complete difference to how the wing works. So tuning that in is a big part of getting the wing, and every time you do a different wing, a more high aspect wing, a shorter wing, the amount of twist that's required or is actually beneficial, is different.
The same rules don't apply for every wing. So it's interesting. Yeah. That's something that I'm sure that there's a lot of room for improvement there. We've got into a lot lately is doing a computer analysis of the wings so we can design a wing and then we can run an analysis on it and then put it on a graph and the graph will give you where it takes off and how much drag it has at every speed that it's going at.
So you get like a, a graph, a takeoff point, and then soon it's taken off the drag will drop down and you get to a certain speed and then the drag will come back up again. But if you put one wing. We can compare. So you've got the, if we had three wings, the same span, the BSC versus the HPS versus the OT, we can plot the three graphs on top of each other.
And the BSC is a very even hammock shaped graph. The, it, it takes off and then the drag drops down and then it comes back up again. The a R T or even some of the prototypes we've had that are even more extreme. They take off and then the drag just drops almost vertically and it stays very level for a very low, long time.
And then it starts coming back up again. But I guess what I'm getting at is we can at least we'd have a wider sweet spot than for the, that where they're comfortable the, and the flat line at the bottom there. What that is glide. That's your magic glide kind, where it just keeps running without wanting to slow down.
Yeah. Interesting. And, but basically we can, we used to, when we built a wing, we would because the wings, the relatively high aspect now, and we talked about G 10 before G ten's kind of, of limited use to actually prototype a front wing, cuz it's just not the same flex. So it's not gonna give you the same result.
So you can't really test in G 10. So to build a wing, you really need to build a mold. So it's a tooling, steel mold, and you have to. Press a wing in there, the construction of that wing, what you layer it up is and how you build it and everything that, that changes as well. So you've gotta do a bunch of wings in that to, to get that.
And then we test that and work out where we're going with it from there. And there's, and every time you build a steel mode, it's a huge investment, right? So there's a cost, but more importantly, for me, there's a delay, it takes two or three weeks to build that mold. Yeah. And then it takes a week or two to build a prototype and a week or two with COVID at least a week or two to actually get the things shipped to you.
So there's perhaps six weeks lag from actually sending a finished idea off to actually getting it so we can test it. And then, maybe you don't have wind or anything suitable, test it for a week or so. So it's frustratingly slow and you can only step forward when you've learned what you can learn, but doing the analysis stuff, we can do a new wing and run the analytics on it and get a result.
And go through and say, oh yeah, that's what it's gonna do. When we first did it, we actually retrospectively did the analysis on all of the wings that we'd already built. And when I looked at it, I and thought what's the point of that? It's not telling me anything. I knew all of that. And then I thought that's actually the point of it.
It confirms what we felt in our testing with those wings is proved in the, in, in the analysis. So then we could start actually building new wings and every half an hour, we can build a new wing. We can run the, a analytics on it, get the graphs on it and see whether it's a gain or not. We don't have to wait six weeks.
We can do it again. And again it's almost as, almost more exciting and you don't need to get wet or wait for. that's been a huge leap forward to working out what to do. Next. Another question from a customer here is What are your general thoughts on mixing and matching foils between brands in essence, using adapters, such as alchemy.
Cedris no limits. What are your feelings on that as a brand or as a manufacturer? Okay. So I'll answer that by going back to, to, to this new mask that I was telling you about before and before we were talking about the base of the mask through here, it's really important. The fibers run all the way through, through there, cuz this is really important for stiffness, right?
The part that's really important is the here and the fibers from this there's. How many layers got a 56 layers of carbon through there and they run all the way to the bottom of here. So you are not relying on the screws at all the screws, hold the mast on there, but you're actually relying on 56 layers of carbon.
Anything that you've got with an, a mask from another company when you're just bolting an adapter on there. Most of the time you're relying on two inmate bolts that is not suitable to attach your foil to it. Some of the early foiling companies they did that. They actually had the mask coming down.
They had their fuselage and it was just a couple of bolts on, yeah. I remember the old Slingshot ones. There were just sitting flat. The mass was sitting flat on the fuselage and just bend the screws would just bend over. There is too much stress for inate screws. I guess the point of that is that, it's all very well to build a stiff mask, but if you can't attach it as strong as that to anything else, then it's not gonna work.
It's just not gonna work. Okay. Next question. What is the best jumping wing combo? So like which wing do you recommend for jumping. Probably the 8 99 that you've got, cuz it's fast. And it gets a really clean takeoff. Yeah. It gets a nice pop. Yeah. Yeah. One thing I noticed too with the shorter fuselage and I guess the smaller tail wing too, and maybe because the front Wing's closer to the mass, like all those things combined to a much more twitchy feel or like much more sensitive it's return, but also easier.
It's but it's also more sensitive. If you wanna adjust it, you have to be much more careful it's easy to over adjust. If you come too low and you try to push up all of a sudden you're breaching, it's like very, more, it reacts much quicker than than my other setup was.
But I guess for jumping, it's good because you want that thing to go up straight up. You can tune that out quite easily, just by putting a slightly bigger rear on there. Your front wing is the one that you're writing. And then your fuselages the mounting point for your rear wing and your rear wing is your stabilizer.
The size of that stabilizer and the length of the fuselage is to do with the feel that you want. If you have a longer fuselage it's gotta get a longer lever arm and the rearing becomes more effective. And a bigger rear wing also becomes more effective. So if you're finding it too twitchy just a slightly bigger wing.
So if you're on the 3, 2, 5, just go for the three 50 or the 3 75. Okay. You might only ride that for a couple of three weeks and then go, oh, missed it two times. That's what I've only tried it twice. So I think it was part of in my second session, I was already much more comfortable on it.
So it's just what I'm used to, so I have to just adjust to that. I think. We've had a weird thing too. And that is that for a lot of our team writers, we test, but they were like 95 kg right through to 65 kg. And they were all, every single one of them, they were using the 3 25 progressive as the rear win of choice.
And, I was generally writing the 3 75 and that felt pretty good to me. And I was balanced on that. And so we built a 300 progressive thinking that, maybe a couple of 'em are light enough, freaky enough to actually hop on that and enjoy it. And they all hopped on it and said, yep, miles better than the 3 25.
We don't wanna use the 3 25 anymore and all riding that smallest 300. And it just seemed crazy to me like the three hundred's, a tiny little wing. So I've started using it a bit myself just to see, and it is Twitch. But you ride it for a day and you get used to it and that's smaller rear.
It does allow you to ride your front wing more freely. Like it turns better. Quicker is more responsive. It actually removes a lot of drag. I was blown away. How changing to a smaller rear wing, how much difference it made to the speed? There's a guy here that GPSs everything he does and he was riding a 400 progressive and he swapped out for one of the three 80 speed wings and he did two, two kilometers an hour faster, straight away.
And his average speed was up by three. And I, I couldn't believe that, The changing a rear wing could make that much difference to your speed. I would've thought you'd have to do an awful lot to your front wing to gain that many kilometers an hour speed. So the rear wing does add a lot of drag.
Yeah. And it plays a really important role. I've noticed that too. So another question, will you develop any more foils for the red fuselage? Yep. We've got one here. So the difference between the red fuse large and the black Fs ice, the red Fage was developed when the foils were really thick.
And it, it's quite a thick front end on it. It, and it really suits wings that are over 180 millimeters cord. But then as wings have evolved and got narrower and narrower the black fuse lash is, the one of choice for the smaller wind. There'll come at time.
If we carry on going smaller and smaller wind, that's gonna be a bit of a work of art to make it fit on there, but here's a new wing. And I think this is coming out by the time you when's the video coming out. probably the Saturday, like in the few days what is that? The. Say 18th or 19th? Three, yep. Sure. Now I'm not sure the exact date. This is a, this a new it's a pump and glide wind, and it's bigger. It's the 13, 10. So it's a biggest span than anything we've ever done before. But it's it's also quite a bit of area. Like it doesn't really compare to the 1300 or the 1150 or anything really.
It's very good for pump. This is the one that Hugo wiggles worth pumped over 17 minutes on flat water. Just yeah. Okay so the answer is yes, you are still coming out with more wings for the red Fage. But basically they're made for the cords wider cords and thicker foils, right?
Yeah. Makes sense. Yep. Got, you've got a different bolt pattern obviously on there and that makes a big difference to what wing, if you're going for bigger wings, you need that this bigger wing here that I've just shown you too. The other thing I should mention with that is why that took so long to come out with is that we needed the stiffer high medulous mask.
You, it just doesn't really feel good on aluminum master it's too wobbly. So it's a step by step thing. Having this new stiffer mask has allowed us to go for even bigger span wings and even, there's a whole lot more control in that allows us to carry on developing , which is why I think that new mask is so exciting.
Yeah, I definitely wanna try one of those and I'll probably post a video on that once I get to try it and compare it to my aluminum mass. Another question here, what are the speed limiting factors? Basically when you're winging is it the hand wing drag or foil drag or I guess a lot of people are getting into racing and wanting to go faster that, so what are the limiting speed limiting factors just drag and that can come in various forms for racing.
It depends on the racing you want to do. A lot of racing is Windward LUS. So you're racing up wind and then going back downward again and to get to Windwood, you actually need span and quite narrow chords. So some of our quite high aspect wings work very well for that. Some of those new ones that I've been playing with.
I've got my favorite wings that I've been using. I'm finding those are starting to be a little bit too deeper draft. And as you're going up, when you're starting to see them start to, to back wind and laugh and the wings are going to need to evolve. And with that in mind when we were building wind surface a million years ago, we, there was rig development, there was board development and there was fin development and three separate developments.
And when, you got stuck and that's, as far as you could go, but then when a rig developed to go faster, suddenly you could change the board and then you could change the fin and then you can change the Rigg. All of these parts need to work together to go faster and, similar for winging, as we evolve faster foils, there'll be faster handing and, that'll all allow us access to more speed.
Okay. So I have a question for you. There's a lot of it seems like a lot of talk going on right now about what's better for. For wing foiling. Is it like in the tail of the board? Should, is it better to have a flat tail that kind of planes earlier? Or do you want that little kick in the tail to help you avoid touching the water and so on?
Like what's your take and what are your board, what do you use on your boards? Mostly? I think you've got one, my board the, we used to have a kick in the tail and that was more fors foiling and, bigger cord wings. And as you paddled to take off those wings needed angle of attack.
So you needed to roll back. Yes. The wing to pop out and the chisel on the tail allowed you to do that and popped up cleanly with the modern wings we've got. Now they're very high aspect and very fast. And you mentioned before that, if you try and take off too slow, they just go up and down and crash and whatever they don't work, but you need to be out, have a bit more speed.
So just a simple flat and the back of our board, it's very uncomplicated looking, there's no channels or anything like that. And you've just got to, generate some speed to get going. I don't believe in all of the cutout mess in there cuz I, I, you're not actually.
You're not really getting to planning speeds. You've just gotta generate a bit more speed to pop up on the wing. So you just it's about eliminating drag at lower speeds, right? You're not really trying to reduce drag at planning speed so much. Okay. So yeah, just very simple flat tail flat and it's relatively wide.
It's got quite a big span back here. So it's got a reasonable area here for you to pump off. And what about the front of the board? Do you have a conve or is it more convex? What conve they give you to catch on and they give you a bit of steering. So in a, they were actually quite useful in a sub foiling situation.
When you're paddling for a wave, it actually gives you some direction through here. But you don't need that with winging. And the board is just flat across there with a bevel on the rail. So it doesn't catch. And when it comes down and touches, it just bounces straight back up again. Whereas if you have a concave, it catches and grabs and then bring back up.
Yeah. Sometimes it has a little bit breaking it. It feels like it'ss gets stuck on the water, the con cave iPhone on my board. Yeah. I'll just do it. I'll just do it flat and it works fine. Okay. Thanks so much for your time. Just to wrap it up, do you have any any wisdom that you can share on just living a good life or what is things you do to stay stay healthy, happy mentally and physically, or any kind of.
Not really. During the whole COVID New Zealand had a horrendous lockdown compared to the rest of the world. And there was times when we weren't allowed to go on the water, which made no sense to me, I'm a water person and being able to go out in the water fishing and see the dolphins and whales and sharks and stuff that are out there, or to go out foiling and have fun, that, that makes me happy.
And, you've gotta be able to do that, I think. Yeah, for sure. That's always a good way to turn off from your regular life and get on the water and enjoy the, your nature. Yep. Very good. All right. Anything else you wanna share with the wink fo community out there?
Lots more to come and can't wait to get into it. yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Keep putting out. It's really impressive how many foils you've designed and it sounds like you're not nearly done yet, so keep carry on with that. Some people say it's too complicated or something, but like really, we've got the SES package for full on beginners and it's just, you wait eight, over 80 kg under 80 kg.
And then as you get more into it, it veers off on all sorts of different directions. It's not like you need to have every single foil that we build. It's more catering for all of those various directions you might want to go in. And that's just, we like to explore and find what we can get in the extremes of all of that.
So the range is quite big, but it's relatively simple as well. Excellent. Once you understand it. Yeah. Okay, Adrian, I really appreciate your time. And we'll, I'll probably check back with you again in, in six months or a year, and then we'll catch up on what's new. Yep. Looking forward to having going your wings sometime too.
All right. Yeah. When I'm back, hopefully I'll be back in New Zealand sometime and yeah. Then we can talk about the wing too. Cause Dan sent you one of our wings, but you haven't had a chance to try yet. No. Looking forward to having you go. Sounds great. All right. Thank you. Aha. Robert, thank you. All right.
All right. You're still here. Thank you so much for sticking around to the very end. I hope you enjoyed as much as I. The next interview is gonna be with Clifford from uni foil. So another really great foil designer I'm gonna get into more detail on foil design, ask all the questions about what's new what's coming and so much exciting stuff going on in the world of foiling.
So many improvements and better and better performance that we can get from the foils. So it's a really exciting time to be a Forer. And I just wanted to say thank you to all our customers at blue planet serve you, make it possible for us to put together this show. And if you're not already a customer, please consider us next time when you're buying full equipment blue planet surf.com or visit our shop in Honolulu or in Hava on Oahu.
So thanks again for watching. Please remember to give it a thumbs up, make sure to subscribe to the blue planet surf YouTube channel, and we'll see you on the water. Aloha
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Alan Cadiz Wing Foil Interview #2- Blue Planet Show Season 2 Episode 18
11 Jun 2022· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik, welcome to season two of the Blue Planet Show. On this show, I interview wing foil enthusiasts, athletes, designers, thought leaders, and go into great detail on technique, equipment, but also tried to find out a little bit more about the person, what inspires them, and how they live their best life.
You can watch it right here on YouTube. For those of you who are visual learners like myself, that's really helpful to have that visual content. But of course you can also listen to it as a podcast on your favorite podcast app. Just look for the blue planet show. In this interview with Alan Cadiz is we start with very basic beginner tips, the top five tips for beginners, and then we get into a much more advanced stuff as well.
So there's something here for everybody. And we also talk about equipment, including what Alan used in the recent wing foil race on Maui that he actually won against other wingers that were less than a third of his age. So a nice work Alan, on that. I really hope you enjoy this interview. If you do, please remember to give it a thumbs up here on YouTube and subscribe to the blueplanetsurf YouTube channel. And without further ado here is Alan Cadiz:
Allen, welcome to the Blue Planet Show! Actually, welcome back to the blue planet show. Thank you for inviting me back. Yeah, so we, we had a great interview last year and there was one of them actually, it was the most popular video on the Bhutanese show with almost 40,000 views on YouTube and then a lot of listens on the podcast as well.
You always have great information. People love to hear about it. So that's great to have you back on the show and just wanted to catch up and see what happened over the last year. So what's new or what's the latest and greatest that's going on Maui? It's during the last year, it's just been more, more winging.
We've had consistent wind all year on winging is growing in popularity on, it's still been quiet, with COVID winding down. It's not as many people as in the past, but we just had our first competitive event in three years. And what else is new? That's cool. Yeah. We're going to get into that more later that definitely hear about that Patagonia, kite and wing festival, but to get started like last year, I'm usually asked all the more advanced questions first that I was interested in.
Hearing about, and then at the end I asked the guests to talk a little bit about beginner tips, but I want to turn it around the other way, start with the beginner stuff and then work up to more advanced things. Cause I figured that most people that are really into winging are gonna watch till the end or listened to the end and the beginners, we got to get them into it right in the beginning.
So I asked you to come up with your top five tips for beginners to get into wink foiling. And you not only prepared some answers, but you've made a little video from what I understand. So let's start with that. What are your top five tips for beginners? All right. Thank you. Yeah. So I was thinking about those tips and there's so many different things.
But I've tried to think about the key things and I put together a little timeline video here. Tip number one. And I just pulled these clips out of my inventory of clips and start on a big board. Now this is a winter Ford. We have a surplus of wind surfboards here on Maui on you can, you might think a sup board would be a good substitute, but you really need the daggerboard unless you can put strap-on fins on your support.
I don't recommend using the support. It really needs to have something with the daggerboard now. And I recommend this for people who are just learning, how to use the wing, just to learn the basics on you can learn on a set board a foil board, but I recommend a large foil board to start with.
Here, I've got Frank my, my pay here. He's a very skilled. And using a smaller board. It's challenging. So as a beginner, if you're on a smaller board, it's pretty tough to get going. And, in the extreme case, a really small board, it has its advantages, but it's tough to get up on the smaller boards and this is goes through the whole spectrum.
So as a beginner, you really want to have a floaty board is just more challenging to get up. There are advantages to the tiny board once you're up. But in the learning stages, you really want to have a floating board. Yeah, I totally agree with that. So that's tip number one. So not everyone has access to the big boards on and.
It doesn't because the learning curve is so fast. It doesn't always make sense to buy a big board. Maybe for some, they've got a big family or they've got a slow learning curve or they're sailing in light wind, but if they have the option to rent on, I would encourage that for the first, a few runs on a mistake that a lot of people make is they'll run out and buy the board that they think they're going to end up on, maybe an 80, 80 liter board.
And it's a real struggle to learn on those smaller boards. You can do it, but it just takes a lot longer. So if you have access to a bigger board take advantage of. Yeah, very good. And then I just wanted to mention too, for people that have an old standard board or something, a big floaty signup board, there is a kind of a stick-on center thin daggerboard available from Slingshot.
I believe that you can basically glue onto the bottom of your board and make if your board doesn't have a dagger board. And that makes a big difference because it keeps the board from this going downwind. If you only have the fins on the tail, the boards is going to turn down when, and it's going to be very hard to stay cross winds.
I've seen people show up at the beach with the sup board and have that problem where they just go straight down wind. So yeah, that's basically I as tip number one, before you try this foil, learn the wing handling with a regular board that doesn't have a foil on it, basically. Yes. And if you don't have access to that, you can, learn on a foil board, but really get your hands on the biggest foil board you can get.
Yeah. And I, I don't know if this is another tip you had to, but I'm also practice as much as you can on the beach before you get it on the water. The wing handling a lot of it. You can practice on the beach before, before you're in the water. Yes, I do have that. I think it's tip number four or five.
Okay. So tip number two, you want to learn how to steer the board and turn around? Very close to the beach specifically, learn to turn around before you get out there on, so this is my daughter she's she has an interesting technique. She'll kneel down at the end of her run, do the turn on her knees. So she doesn't fall.
And then stand back up. But the point is that you're turning around close to the beach. And when I say close, 20 feet out, get on the board and turn the board around 180 degrees to come back in. You don't want to get a hundred yards off shore and realize you can't turn around. Now I can keep going or I can keep going, or we can discuss that idea.
Yeah. I think that's a really good tip. I guess a lot, I know I've heard of people, like they were so excited about getting up on foil and be able to go there. They just kept going as long as they could before they fell in. But then when they got way outside, like in Hawaii, Kai, for example you realize, oh, I don't know how to go the other way.
Yeah. And why Kai is slightly off shore. If I remember. So maybe that's a tip in itself, you want to go in a place where it's side shore, if it's off shore wind, make sure you're sailing with a partner to keep an eye on you. Yeah. And then I'll also, it's a good idea to just if you have a place where you can just go down when, and maybe park your car at the other end, then don't have to worry about staying up when in the beginning.
Yes. This next clip is all about staying up wind. And this is something that when I'm teaching my students, I try to focus on getting them to go up wind for a number of reasons. And the biggest reason is that you're not downwind. You don't have to walk back up or find transportation. You spend your time sailing back and forth instead of walking back up.
So this next clip here is a little bit longer. It's actually a section of a video that I call maximum performance. This is the tip for beginners on turning the board up when, and this is one of my edited videos on, so I'll go ahead and play the whole thing. It's about two or three minutes, and then we can stop and talk about it.
Okay. Great. One of the things I want to cover with quickly, this is more of at the novice level. And this is for almost the first time wingers. It's really easy to go down, wind and end up down wind very quickly. What I want you to try and do is turn the board into the wind.
This does two things. One is it gets you going up wind. So you're not losing as much ground. And it slows the board.
The struck is like a wind sock or a weather vane. It wants to point the wing into the wind. You can use this constant to leverage the board upwind or downwind by pointing the clue towards the back or front of the board. Respect. So we call the back of the struck clue or back end of the wing. And if I point that wing pointed down wind, it's going to point the board down wind.
So I want to point the struck behind or in this case to my left, the more I aim it to the left I'm pulling here. The more it turns into the wind.
If I push it away, it turns down with this is done while luffing the wing overhead and steering the board through your core.
If you come from a windsurfing background, you'll recognize this as similar to wind surfing in that if you drag the clue towards the tail of the board will turn up.
When you twist the wing toward the tail of the board, the wing wants to return to pointing into the wind and as it does it torques your body and board up wind. However, if you sheet in while pulling the clue back, the sheeting will overpower the steering effectively canceling the wings, torque to turn the board up wind, I'll say it again.
Over sheeting cancels, the upwind effort, move your hands forward or sheet out as you twist the clue towards the back of the.
You're going down when
you need the sheet, it out, turn it up when, and then start
simply stated left the wing. As you twist the wing to torque the board up wind.
I actually really like how you explain what the weather vain and that, when you pull it the. The strike wants to point straight down downwind. And then if you manipulate that'll give you a steering momentum. So I've never really heard it explained that way, but it like intuitively we know how it works, but it's hard to explain it to someone who doesn't understand that concept.
So I think that's a really good way to explain it. Thank you. I've been trying all different ideas, one way to think of the strep as a rudder or a guide. And you're aiming that guide to torque the board on a bunch of different ways to show it. And I even, I look at this and I'm like, oh, I might've might do that a little bit differently next time or try to explain it differently, which is I try to attack the idea from a different angle and try different ways.
And on teaching this to my students early on, I couldn't understand why they were going down when, what was causing it to go down when, and even myself, I couldn't understand what was the technique to get it, to turn up, wind on until I started well, trying to solve the problems at night, going to bed at night, thinking that why were they having trouble?
Why can't they do that? Yeah, I've been trying to capture it on video. Nice. Yeah. Okay, cool. I think we're ready for the next tip. Yeah. Okay. The next tip is more or less where you're standing on the board. So food placement on the board let's start with being off foil. So when you're slogging out to the wind line your front foot should be slightly on the Windward side and your back foot on the more or less on the stringer, as opposed to being this orientation.
This is going to actually set you up to point further down. Or that is it's harder to go up wind in this position than this position. Now, the next thing to determine is where to stand on the board regarding the board's flotation. So you may be comfortable standing in the front, but if the nose of the board is curling, you need to move back.
On the other hand, if the tail is sinking, you need to move forward. Again, this is off foil. And once you find that flotation point, you want to adjust your foil so that you stay in this position, as it comes up on foil, you can't be stepping forward as it transitions to on foil. So you want to have your feet in the spot when it foils.
Okay. One thing that I've done in the past with some of my boards is I've marked on the board. Some lines just as a reference for. So I have an idea of where to stand before foils. Ideally you want to be comfortably on the flotation, but when it foils, you want to make sure that your foil is matched with that flotation point and having marks on the board, just give you a better idea of where to place your feet.
Yeah, exactly. And if the D or does design well and you and your files in the right place, basically where you stand to float in the center of flotation, that should also be more or less where you want to stand once the board lifts up, right? Yes. Yes. You can put the foil too far forward in the track or too far back, or if you have a foil with a lot of lift in it on, you may have to adjust that, but.
Yeah and then another good point you add it. And then in a different video with the was being centered over the center line of the board to cause you might be able to fly on when the boards on the water, if you're not exactly in the center, it's fine. But once the board lifts up and you're on foil, you have to be centered exactly over the foil the center line of the board.
And that's the next clip here staying centered. I do have in this shot here, you think more of front and back where you're pressuring the nose down and you're kicking it up, but there's also the side to side. So that's this next clip here. Okay. We'll just play that whole thing.
Okay. Some people are afraid to learn to foil for fear of falling on the foil, a legitimate concern. So let's look at what causes this type of.
So let's look at the foil. It generates lift. The front wing is lifting up the back wing. The stabilizer is pushing down, but together there's force up through the mast lifting the board. Now it's important that you trim your weight for, and AFT. If it's too far in the front, you're going to stick to the water.
If it's too far in the back, you're going to overflow. So you're constantly trimming the weight and a half, but it's also equally important to keep your center of mass directly over the foil. So the foil is lifting up. Gravity is pushing you down and if they're equal, you stay centered over the board. But often as a sailor, you have another force that the sail is pulling you laterally.
So you need to compensate by leaning back against that pole. And when the. It's flat on the water. You have the stability of the ocean. So you can put lateral push on the side of the board, but as soon as it comes up on foil, you don't have that stability and any sideways push is going to cause it to in this case flip away and you fall towards the foil on your bum.
And here's a couple examples,
unlike windsurfing, where you're pointing your toes to keep the board flat in foiling, you're flexing your foot to keep your ankles at a right angle to the board, or that is your body. Mass is always over the top of the board. And the top means at a right angle.
I have this drone footage, which really shows it, centered right over the top of the board, even though he's hiked out he's on. And then here, if you draw a line from the mast up through his center of mass, you can really see it here.
So if you're not centered and I've got one more clip here of not being centered and you can see it right there. It's the beginning of the. Yeah, that's a really good point then. And I always like to tell people too, when they, before they try to wing and foil together, maybe just try to learn how to control the foil first.
I guess even going behind a boat though is sometimes you got to pull from the rope, so you can lean against the rope. So you can be a little bit off centered on, on, on the floor away from the pool of the rope, if you're going sideways. But but just to have that feel where you can, where you're foiling on the board without getting pulled or without pressure, so that you understand that you have to be right over the center line of the foil and you can't be like offset, yeah. Trying to isolate just the foil skills. Th the foil is one way, but the foil is different. The board is pretty heavy, so it's not as responsive. As a regular foil board certainly the prawns surfers that come to wing foiling, they have the skill already going behind a boat on is good.
But I have seen people that have learned behind a boat. And when they're out on the wing board, they're leaning back against the wing, trying to wheelie the board. And I'm like no, you can't leverage, you can't leverage the board like that with the wing, the way you can with the rope. But any foil time that you can get before you get on a wing is good.
Yeah, I agree. So the next clip here is about wing handling. And that is we talked about it earlier about practicing on the beach and here's just a few things on. A few things you can practice on the beach, simple stuff like flipping the wing over. And this is a six meter when I'm trying to flip a six meter wing over in the water is pretty tough.
So you can practice it on the beach. You can practice standing up, having the wing help you get to your feet. And the wingspan on a six meter, you have to go up to the wing tip to flip it over. So it looks easy and it's relatively easy on the beach. It's harder in the water, but that's something you can practice.
And just practicing, like for tacking or jiving, just practicing the hand movements of flipping the wing over on, just leaning back against the wind and the wind. And this is something you have to do where there's a breeze. You can't do it in your backyard where the winds all squirt. You really need to have steady wind to get steady feedback, but this is worth doing, taking the time.
And that there's in most of my instructional videos, I've got some kind of beach homework where you practice on the beach, whether it's the Heineken jibe or tacking or whatever. Yeah, no, that's really good advice. I think in a lot of times the beginners too, don't if you don't have a wig like a cutting or windsurfing or a sailing background just beginners have a hard time understanding exactly where the wind is coming from and how to angle your wing and relation to the wind and which way you want to go in and out, what's what direction can you go?
And what does. You can't, you can't go straight into the wind obviously, and things like that, that's things people don't understand at first, I think, or don't think about really. So just learning that. And then also I like to get people to just keep the wing tip, kinda get the wink to blow to the sand, but without touching it, like controlling the height of the wing on the beach, and that, that's something that, that I'm in.
I've got videos on that and all the clips here, this is just a fraction of the stuff that I have. And there's so much more there's so many more tips and these, I wouldn't call these the top five tips. These are just five tips in general on, and I also, the sport's still relatively young and we may look back in a few years and think, oh, we were teaching that progression where it's so much better to teach this progression.
There's still so much we're learning about the sport. Yeah there's there's definitely the idea of sheeting and steering the wing on, I've taken a couple stabs at explaining that in one video, I have one video up there already on what I'm going to. I have another video where I'm trying to explain it more clearly to sailors or non sailors, and just the idea of sheeting in and out to catch the wind and spill it.
That's relatively easy. But when you throw in the steering of the wing up and down in front of you, like you said, having the wing tip right on the sand and taking it above your head and separating those two skills it's a challenge to get people to understand that. It's really simple once you get it, but it's sometimes difficult.
Yeah, you have to grasp that concept first and the I, and I like to even the more advanced maneuvers and all the different tax and things like that on your patron channel, you have like really detailed info videos breaking it down. Step-by-step into really easy to follow steps that very detailed and, I highly recommend that your instructional videos are great, and I think, those beginner tips are great, not just for the beginners, but also for more advanced guys.
Cause you're going to have to show other help, other people that are learning and just understanding how to explain things like how to steer the board up into the wind. Th those are kinds of things. If you have a good way to explain it and to make it easy to understand that'll help a lot.
Yes. Yeah, that's good. My following on Patrion has grown almost a 700 at the moment, or just over seven to 700 at the moment. And the range of skills on, there's beginners on there that are just trying to get up for the first time. And then there's advanced sailors that are asking for jumping and more advanced stuff.
This recent video, the one you're looking at gliding on foil, that's more for entry-level. It's gliding is a skill that you take for granted, it's really easy to do once you know how to do it. But I had a number of students recently that I could see, they were relying on the wind for support and they didn't have the feel for gliding.
Yeah okay. So yeah, I just find it too. I'm just, screen-sharing this now you're at your patron channel and yeah, it's 747 patrons. That's great. Congratulations on that. So it's actually I guess if you get enough people supporting you, then it's actually, you can actually make a living, being a virtual instructor, basically.
Just making the instructional videos and teaching. Yeah, I so that, that seems like it really good business model for you, huh? I fell into it, with COVID when they shut down all the restaurants and airplanes and they closed the beach parks. That's when I started doing this and someone suggested I do a premium online video here on Patrion.
And so I've been doing that for the last almost two years now. I think there's 20, 22 or 24 videos, instructional videos ranging from. The first time holding the wing to more advanced stuff like three sixties and Heineken jibes and that kind of stuff. Heineken jibes and the three sixties.
That's probably the top 10% of wingers out there. I think the majority of wingers are working on basic stuff like this jibe here, that's George, one of our local sailors. This came to wild, demonstrating how to glide on the swell on. So this is a clip from the wave video on. So there's all different skill levels here and I've tried to try to address all of them.
Yeah. I like how you explain how to I guess that's a challenging thing at first for people that are used to just always having the wing powered up and leaning against the wind. That to transition into not using the wing and deciding on the foil without using the wing wind power.
So that's what you explaining it and just doing it kind of real step-by-step slowly getting used to this using the energy from the foil without having the wing pull you along. Yes. And if you come from a prone foiling background, you already know how to do this automatic.
But for the prone boilers, I've got tips on how to use the wing. Yeah. That makes sense. And I think this is a really important skill for jiving because basically when you're going into the jive, you have to de power the wing and just surf a turn on, or, do a turn on the foil without using the wind power basically.
Yes. That was the idea of it. So that angle right there that's, I got this new camera, actually it's not new, but I had to modify it for that board. Yeah. I just wanted to ask you about the the different handles. On the duotone wings, you have the rigid handles.
And then some, you have some that have the longer boom handle, like this one, and then the new D-Lab unit that you're using has two, two separate handles. We'll look a little bit about the handles and yeah the advantages and disadvantages of having rigid handles and two handles versus one long handle and so on.
Coming from a windsurf background, I've always liked the boom. And in fact that the first wings that my neighbor Ken was making all have booms. So we started with boom. I don't know if you remember the first echos on they had a boom and. The nice thing about the boom is it's infinite hand placement.
You can put your hands anywhere along the boom. When you're flipping the wing over your head, it's really easy to feel where the boom is. You don't have to look where the handles are. You shouldn't be looking even if you have handles. And the boom is so much more rigid than the webbing handles. So in fact, most manufacturers now are switching to some kind of rigid handle.
The handles I've gotten used to the handles, but initially when I went from the boom to the handles, I was grabbing in between the handles and missing and falling in. Now I can grab the boom or grab the handles pretty much every time without looking. I know where they are. Some of the bigger wings, the handles are a little further apart.
So I've got to remember to reach further back on. That's one of the things you miss when you have the boom or the two handles. I noticed like when I come out of the jive, I like to grab the wing right in the middle with one hand so that it kind of flies. But it would be right between those two handles.
So do you ever miss having that that grip in the right in the middle or you just get used to? I did get used to it. I did have that problem. I grabbed right in the middle and fall. So it, it took me a while to retrain my hands. I still prefer the boom over the handles, but these, this D-Lab wing is really superior.
This cloth it's super stiff. So the wing is really tight and light. You can see there. It's just, it's really nice. So I'll tolerate the handles to use that wing. And so let's talk about that a little bit, so that new this is the Lula fabric on the new do a tongue D-Lab weighing, and then they also have the unit in with the regular Dacron leading edge and and strike.
So can you talk a little bit about the difference between the two? And I know that there's a big difference in price, so I just wondering what you think they are the different between the difference between the two and if it's worth it for the average user to spend more, to get that well there, the wings are virtually the same shape slash design, just different cloth.
So the yellow cloth, the Lula cloth makes it really stiff and light. So if you're into performance, the Alula is the way to go on the, I think the sizes are from up to seven. Or no two and a half to seven meter, but the Alula the D labs don't start until three five on, but you're really gonna appreciate the Alula cloth in the bigger sizes on, 5, 6, 7 meter that's in the light wind where you want that lightness and stiffness.
Now, as far as the value on, money is different things to, it's a different thing for everybody. For some people money's not an issue, they can get whatever they want. I think as a novice Patty, my wife, her favorite wing is the SLS three, five unit on, I really liked the Fibo D-Lab I think that's what we're looking at here.
Yeah, this is, I think this is the three, five, or the three meter SLS. This is one of her favorite wings, although she recently tried the D lab for, and she said, this is my new favorite wing, and this is my shit. She tried to claim my fluoro. I'll share it with you. That's interesting. Yeah, that you're saying that that yeah.
Makes more of a difference than in a bigger wing on, in lighter wind, obviously. Yeah. Because if you have plenty of wind then I guess actually sometimes having a little bit of weight in the wind can actually be a good thing too, in some cases. It's not always the case that lighter is always better, but definitely in a big wing and light wind, it makes it, it can make a big difference, right?
Yes. Yes. I'm not sure we're heavy is good, but that's true. But my thank you. You're gonna they're all good, but you're gonna appreciate the bigger sizes with the D lab and. As a novice sailor, you'll be fine with the SLS. I think you're going to pay a little extra for that performance in the Alula cloth.
Okay, cool. Let's talk a little bit about that recent event you mentioned earlier, the Patagonia Caden, Wade Fest. You said that was just recently and there was a freestyle part of it and the race part of it. So let's talk a little bit about that event. I did a film, a little bit of the freestyle on, and I can try and share that here.
I was the Patagonia Maui, kite and Wingfield festival was that canal beach park. And when I got my camera out, the battery was flashing almost dead. So I just filmed one year. This is Chris McDonald. He won the event with moves like this he's 16 years old from the Gorge.
That's here's Kailani. He dropped in and he was doing moves. I'm not sure how he finished up. I think he made it to the final. I only filmed one heat. Just this Andre. He's a local ripper. He did pretty well. Wow. And I think also in this heat Otis Buckingham, no, that's Chris again. That's so you can see why he won the event there.
Oh, so there was racing and unfortunately I don't have any video of the race stuff. But you told me earlier that you actually won the race event. So just tell us about it. I did I spent a lot of time training for it and I had some really good gear and one of the guys I sail with all the time, he says, when you're out there, I can see you're sailing with purpose.
You're training for this. And I did. I worked really hard on it and I actually, I'm going to just show a little clip of the board that I used on. So I got this new board flying Dutchman. This is what that camera Mount I'll show you that. And then I posted this on Instagram clip coming up here.
So this flying Dutchman is different from my previous board in that it's a little. Mark made it a little narrower. So I wouldn't drag the rail while I was going to Winward other dimensions, sorry. Or what are the dimensions? Is the board it's four foot 11 by 21 inches wide. And it's about 60 liters, 20 to 60 liters, 2021 wide 2121.
Okay. Pretty narrow four foot 11
engine the board so that when I do touch down, there's more of a planning surface, the rails not digging in and on the back. There's no tail rocker, no tail kick, just a sharp edge. And this really helps to release the board from the water. Now it's also matched with a Mike's lab and I wasn't sure about the Tuttle box, but after trying it in this board, it's super solid.
It's all one piece, no moving parts. There's no play whatsoever. It's just really tight. And then my result in the racing I finished, I actually won the racing event. Excellent. Yeah. Thank you. Then. You're probably not the youngest one in there by far. In fact, you could probably fit a whole generation in between me and the next place.
When I went to the registration up in , it was at a. Mandatory. I went up there and I got in line and everyone in front of me was a teenager and I thought, oh man, what am I doing here? The older guys were in their twenties. Yeah. So one third year age. Yeah. Yeah. But I have to say that the Maui fleet and a wife who, they were a couple of people that came over from wahoo, both the men and women, young men and women, they're going to be a force.
They've got some talent and, they were going plenty fast in the racing, but the start line and the tactics. That's where my experience came in. So tell us how that whole, how it worked at, what was the format like? How did this start work? W were, how were the terms and upwind, downwind, and so on.
Tell us how that format works. They had a rabbit start that is that a jet ski raced across the start line and you'd pass behind the jet ski on and we'd race out. It was a close reach to a mark outside. And then from that mark, we had to go up wind to a Windward mark. So it, the way it was set up, it spread everyone out on and I had some good starts.
And then the upwind leg, it was favored on the inside. It was a little bit north wind. So you'd get a good lift along the shoreline, which I knew from experience where most of the fleet went outside into deeper water where the wind was lighter and there was more current on there were. Some of the kids that Chris McDonald, he was very fast.
He beat me to the Windward mark twice. But I was able to catch him on the downwind run. It was almost a straight downwind run to the finish line. So you had to zigzag your way to get down there. And Kai, I think he was able to pump downwind faster than with the wind, his pumping skills where most other sailors had to zigzag back and forth.
And I was using a six meter. It was light wind by Maui standards on, I was using a six meter. So yeah, I feel pretty good about that when I think it's probably my last competition, I'm passing the Baton onto these younger people. That or I'm anxious to see where they take the sport. And I'm confident in the riders.
We have so much window defending champion. You can't give up after the first time. No. I've yeah. I'm 60 years old Robert it's tough to compete 16. And I remember when I was doing wind surfing competition, when I was 20, I was looking to the guys that were 25 and I thought those guys have peaked.
They've peaked at 25. And for sure, in, in windsurfing jumping freestyle, doing the leaps and having the flexibility, I think you do peak in your early twenties, more endurance style type of stuff on more in your thirties, in your sixties. I'm not sure. I think what I've earned is that shirt that says old guys rule.
I think that's about. Experience too, right? You have, you got the experience and then, like you said, you train with the purpose and you're ready for it. So you're not just winging it, you're actually winging it. Yeah,
yeah. No, it's awesome. I love that. You can still beat everyone, including the guys. I Lenny, that's pretty awesome. No, Chi is, I, he it was funny during the wave event, one of the announcers talked about Chi being a legend. And I thought he's, he is a legend, as far as his ability.
There's no question there, but when I think of legend as an old, if he is a legend, what does that make me? Am I guess I'm a fossil, but no, Kai and all the younger kids, Chi's, he's so good at everything. And he hasn't really put effort into wing racing. And I think if he spends just, a very short period of time, he'll be on the top of his game. It seems like whatever he tries out, he succeeds, but there's a lot of other young talent on Maui.
That, that is really good. And I, we have the amount of advantage in that we have wind almost every day you can wing. And with the waves came to wild is doing some turns in the waves that are really impressive and he's just getting started. So it's going to be really exciting to watch as this younger generation leads the way right.
I'm stepping aside. And then I guess something, I was going to ask you to like, Yeah, generally two foot straps in the front and then not no foot strap in the back, which means basically you're not really jumped. You can't really use that set up to jump or not jump very high anyways.
Yeah. Or do you most, do you just avoid jumping usually or do you actually do jumps with that sort of, I do not do jumps and early on, I made a pledge to myself that I would not take the sport to the air on. I had a back injury surfing, a compressed vertebrae, a wedge vertebrae, and my physical therapist says I can't afford another fall.
So I don't trust myself. I'm looking at these guys do in the jumps, I've studied Chris McDonalds, flips and I'm like, I could do that. I know I could do. But no, I know better. The back there's no back foot strap because I do move my foot around a lot and it does keep me from jumping.
I was just noticing in this picture, the leash, I have it attached to the foot strap because when I have it attached to the back of the board, it would flip and get in the way of the camera. Okay. So I want to show you my, and one of those retracting leashes that like, I should send you one of those, but yeah I noticed actually, why don't you keep that up for a little bit.
I want to talk about the equipment a little bit. Yeah. I noticed you have the leash pug monster on the tail of the board, is that, so it's kinda more out of the way of your feet or less drag or what's the idea behind that? Putting it back there? Oh, sorry. Here. Rapid horse at flying Dutchman suggested I put it back there and it seems like a good spot.
I noticed I do have a prom foil board that I use for surfing. And the Mount is, I don't know if you can see my mouse here, but the amount is right there. And I found as a regular foot surfer as I stand up, my foot would always drag over the leash and I'd end up standing on the leash cord. No, I'm not planning on doing any prone for them with this board, but it made sense on, there was one of the rider that had the same setup and he felt that the leash was dragging in the water.
So I think for racing, especially to have a lease dragging in the water, it just totally doesn't make sense. Yeah. So anyway, but okay so yeah, the two front shots. That way you, the back foot if you just had one center strap you tend to have both feet a little bit off to one rail, right?
So being able to offset your back foot more towards the opposite rail helps with keeping your weight center too. And that's one of the reasons why you don't use the back foot strap to ensure it? Yes, because I would stand on it. And I also found too that sometimes when I would do attack, as I switched my feet, I found myself stepping on the far side of the board to keep it from rolling over from scissoring.
And the other reason as I did, I was using a back strap for awhile and I fell and tweaked my ankle. Didn't injured myself, but tweaked it enough that I thought I'm taking that strap off. And then, it also helps sometimes moving your back foot forward or backwards, depending on how fast you're going or trying to get up and light when and things like that.
Right now. 50, wait a little bit on this board. I don't have the foot straps. Doesn't show the bootstraps here, but the foot straps I have, they're longer foot straps. They're not the standard eight inch they're about 12 or 14 inches on. I placed the inserts further apart so that I could slide my foot forward in when I was going real fast to compensate for the additional lift by the foil and then move it back when I was going to Winward or so I really liked the ability to be able to move my foot four and a half still in the strap.
And I've taken some other videos. I've got a lot of different camera mounts. And in fact, let me pull up one of those camera mounts. Okay. But yeah, actually I did want to ask you about the foil as well. So I noticed you had that a few shots of the foil there too, but yeah, so don't turn off the grease screen sharing yet, but yeah, this particular clip here it doesn't really well, lot of times I'll do different camera angles and trying to capture one thing. And I realize, oh, this is a really good example of where the foot is, or I didn't realize the wing was this way. Or when I put the camera on the front of the board, it really shows my front foot, my toes curling up and down not so much in this video, but I didn't realize how much I was using the front strap to manipulate the board or leverage.
Yeah. I find that, yeah, having footsteps just allows you to turn much harder to you just feel more connected to the board. So you get, you're able to like crank Carter turns that you have that those foot straps, right? Yes. And I did do some video recently, then the board didn't have foot straps and it was a performance oriented board, but I just didn't put the foot straps on there.
And I found that I couldn't do the tax and the jibes as aggressively without the foot strap. So I do definitely pull with my front foot to pull the board around or leverage it this way or so, yeah. Okay. So let's talk about the foil, cause I think maybe the foil might be one of the most important parts of the equipment and like those Mike's labs foil, I know that like Johnny Heineken and San Francisco has been winning a lot of the races there with those foils too.
And it just seems like he's going faster than everyone else. And so anyway, talk a little. Yeah. Mike has been making the carbon foils for the kite racers for quite a while. He's been making foils and more recently for, he's got a reputation of making the fastest foils, particularly in the kite race and fleet.
Now I think he's winging himself and he's made foils for Wayne's specifically for winning. And this is one of them. It's the bullet series. I believe he makes an 1100 and 800 and a 600 and this is the 600. And let me see if I can get a little bit better angle of it on. So it's actually the smallest foil and is in this series.
Yeah. Yes, he does have a smaller foil for kite racing, but it has a shorter fuselage and he's also got a tiny little race foil on, I think it's a four, 10 tow foil. And apparently I think one of the kite racers clocked 46 knots on it. Wow. Yeah, I don't want, I don't want to go that fast. So this the 600 sizes at square centimeters, like projected surface area or something like that, or this is a full-on top performance race, foil.
It's not something that, the average person. Is going to use, it's very sharp edges on it. It's pointy and it's delicate, you bumped the bottom and it you don't want it. You don't want to scratch it, not just because it's expensive, but because the performance of it on, I used the Gulf soils and they're tough.
They're tough on, I scraped the bottom all the time coming in, hitting a rock right in the sand. Sorry. I I just find it to describe it a little bit. For those listening to the podcast sites, it looks like it has a really thin front wing pretty flat with a little curve the tip slightly curved down or straightened out basically with those dihedral man.
And everything's full carbon was the extended finish. And then we'll take it as a really long mass to it. Is that like a hundred centimeters? Something like that? Or how long is it mess? This one is a 96. Okay. They make a 1 0 2 and I believe an 80 something. I tried the 1 0 2 and I could see the advantage of using it on a coast run where you're blistering down wind and tall chop.
You want to be able to clear the wave tops, but still keep your foil under water and going to Winward. I could really lean over, but going just a little bit longer, there was loo tiny bit of wobble in it compared to the 96. And and it, with the total box, it just is really tight. So I think this is the right length mass for me on it is.
It is a little bit long for low tide. It cannot low tide is off limits. Medium, medium tide is okay. And you know you learn where the spots are, where you can go and where you can't. But the medium size is perfect for me. And the leading edge, she slosh and trailing edge is all one piece, which I think is one reason why it's so stiff and so tight.
So the only place that comes apart is like great, right at the the joint between the mass and the fuselage. And then this is all one. This is all one piece construction, all one piece construction. There's two parts. There's the mask and the rest of it. And that you can adjust the pitch and the stabilizer.
He has a system pretty clever. You put a spacer. I used a little nylon while. And you put that spacer in there. And then as you screw the three bolts down tight to the mast, it flexes the fuselage just ever. So a little bit, and that changes the pitch in the back, Wayne. A bigger spacer flexes more and gives it less pitch where it melts stabilizers more pitch.
Interesting. No. So to get us set up like that, like how did you have to like special order and how long does it take and about how much does it cost? If somebody wanted to order one on it? When I originally placed my order on, it was a 12 week wait and they took my order with no deposit. And they said when it was ready, they would send for the check.
And I told them that I was planning on racing in the store. And if I could get it, a week beforehand on that'd be great and we'll, they expedited it, they got it out to me early enough that I could train on it. And but I believe it's a 12 week waiting list, but I also know that they can, you can wait longer on, it was about $3,500 for the whole setup.
That is the foil. I believe that included shipping. And at this point I'm putting it away until I do more testing with Ken and racing with Ken, trying to keep up with Ken winter is pretty tough. He also has a mic slab 800. And that's really why I got this 600 was so that I could keep up with him trying to test the wins.
And of course it's a great race swing, but when I'm pre-writing and teaching I'm using the Gulf war. So I you guys obviously don't want to scrape over the reflux that on low tide or whatever. So like you said, it's Tragile and you don't want to scratch it and ruin the performance. So it makes sense.
But would you say that was one of the, your secret ingredients to winning the race part of it? Yes, for sure. The foil, but also the board. I actually had some great wings to the D labs. And so actually something I wanted to mention too, like for the boards cause, cause it's such a thin profile and I'm assuming that it takes a as a pretty high takeoff speed.
Like you can't like some of the big thick foils you can pop up at pretty low speeds, but this one looks like it would take a little bit higher speeds to pop up on foil. Surprisingly it, it pops right up. Now some of it's, some of it's my experience, but it it was later. During the regatta.
And there are a couple of times when I, during the weekend that I had to pump pretty hard, flapping the wing and pumping the board to get up. But the majority of the time, I it's basically sheet in and go combination of the foil. There's so little drag. It reaches take-off speed very quickly. And that's the total box.
And what about the star speed? Does it like, do you do you ever have a problem, like stalling with it stalling the foil or not really? Not really. That last video that I posted on gliding on foil, pretty much everything I'm riding this foil. It has a very nice glide to it. Sure.
Surprisingly and I was thinking. On the windiest days that I might be able to do a set foil run with this setup. That there's almost enough volume. There is enough volume to float me, to stand still whether or not I could paddle it fast enough with a paddle to get up on foil on. And I've been out outside the reef in the rollers, luffing the wing and gliding for quite a ways on a couple hundred yards and thinking I could do this with a paddle, but once it does slow down, it's pretty tough to get the speed back up again, pumping it with your legs, but I'm pretty certain that 800 would work on a coaster.
So yeah, the dominant paddling is something else I wanted to ask you about too, but let's finish the equipment thing here. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about the wings, the important importance of the wings. We talked a little bit about the board the foot straps, the foil. Obviously the wing is other thing that's really important having the right size wing and then the, and the right profile and shape and all that kind of stuff for upwind downwind.
And talk a little bit about that. Like what you found that is works best for you. With the D labs are pretty tough to beat on, you probably know, or maybe for the people that don't know Ken winner lives across the street, the designer for duotone, he's one of the designers here.
There's a team in Europe that, that works with them as well, but he's the main guy. And I'll go out and race with him. And every now and then I'll throw out my ideas about, what to do. And he quickly shoots them down. So he's really, he does everything on, I'm just a benchmark out there racing with him, but he wants to raise up wind and then turn around and race down land.
And then we swap wings and do it again. And there's another guy that runs with us regularly. Peter slate. He is he's national slalom champion in wind surfing. So he's got some experience in racing and he's the three of us go out there and beat up on each other. But Ken really puts a lot of emphasis on the speed of the wing up wind.
And really when you think about it, if you have a wing that goes fast and is stable, both upwind and downwind, it's going to work on, in every aspect. Being able to get the speed to jump, being able to get on foil quickly on. So he's got all these different parameters and it's amazing to me we'll go out and do a number of runs and he'll decide right away.
Oh, this one needs more, it needs more of this or that. So what determines the up wind speed of a wing, I guess the drag, the depth, the approach as a cider profile, or or more attention, or what are the things that make it work better on up, going up when the stiffness of the frame on the canopy tension, the draft position on the amount of twists or leech tension, all those things on, that's really his wheelhouse.
I don't really try to design or pretend to be a. I think the draft position is really important because if it travels backwards, then it ruins the upwind performance rate. If the draft flexes too much or moves back too much, then that'll ruin the forward propulsion, right?
Yes. Yes. And when we get, he'll get a new wing and it looks really good and we'll go out and test it. And sometimes it's amazing. And then there's a clear, cut difference that it's better or worse. Other times they're very similar, but he seems to know exactly what changes to make.
And the, again yeah, I've been trying to get Ken to come on this show for for over a year. And he's always too busy designing new wings and kites. But he said maybe check back with him and at the end of July. So I'm going to keep trying, I'm going to keep trying to get him on the show.
He's a little bit, he doesn't want to be in the limelight either, so it's very interesting. Definitely trying to get him on the show and then, they just for those who haven't watched, the first interview that we did I just want to do a little recap that you basically grew up in Kailua.
Like I think ki peak Cabrina was one of your neighbors. You learned to win wind surf at a young age and then moved to Mali, started your lesson business. Now, and our teaching, the whinging but w the way he got into wing foiling was basically you were doing downwind, foil, standup, foil, downwinders with mark, Robert Horace and Ken winner.
And then Ken was kinda having a hard time getting up on the foil. So he basically designed this wing to try and you were kinda making fun of him for about it, but then you saw at some point he saw it and you said, it looked like poetry in motion, and you have to try it as well.
Yeah. Yes, that, that image of him coming down, the swells is burned into my brain. That was the turning point. It's okay, I got to try this. And because up until that point, we were set foiling down the coast and we were waiting for Ken to catch up. And in this case, we were sitting there waiting for him to catch up and he came down the swell.
It was just a beautiful thing. So that was when I made the decision to try it. And at that point I think flash Boston had made his own way out of spars. And he went out and did a run on the sup board out and back, got some video and then the wing fell apart. And so the story goes and he never put it back together.
It was a novelty thing, but, and Ken saw that and he said, okay, I'm going to make a wing and try it. So slash Austin was the pioneer, but then can actually develop the first inflatable wing kind of thing. The homework. Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn't so much that I was making fun of him.
It was more of my scratching, my head, what is he doing? But yeah, he's, I think he can be now there's one other guy, Tony Legos that I believe did an inflatable wing. And I think there might be some video of him out there on foil, but he was ahead of his time. It didn't catch on. Okay. Okay.
So basically what I wanted to ask you is I, lately I've been listening because that's how I got into wing filing twos. Like we were doing downwind standup foiling, and like you're on a wall with the wind is not that good usually. So we were struggling with that, trying to like mediocre conditions is so hard to get up on flow and stay up on foil.
So when the wings came out, that was just like, oh, this is so much easier, and more fun because you're always flailing. You don't have to struggle to get back up. And once you come off the foil, but Lately I've been listening to the James Casey podcast. He has like a really good podcast. Now about downwind.
Foiling is really enthusiastic about it, trying to get people into downwind foiling. And I talked to mark Rapa horse in the interview and he said, that's still his biggest passion, even though he doesn't get to do it as much anymore. But I wanted to ask you, do you still do downwind, standup foiling, or did you give up on that since you started winging?
I gave up on it since I started winging and not, I did a run with mark wrap horse and we did it late in the evening. It was really rough and he got ahead of me and I tried really hard to stay with him. And the next morning I, my back hurt so bad. I couldn't walk. So I laid off from it.
But now there's some new boards that are coming out. Dave Kalama he's calls it the Barracuda. That's quite a bit narrower and longer. And it looks like it's relatively easy to get up on foil. And since I laid off the down winning the foils have improved quite a bit and I think they're easier and faster.
So I'm thinking, yes. I want to try it again on, but at the moment I'm still wrapped up in winging. So yeah. Now I'm exactly the same way I got, I stopped doing it once I got into winging, but now I'm going to getting curious and hearing about the new equipment that makes it a little bit easier, like to compare it to what we're using.
Early on, I think might be worth another try on a good day though. I wouldn't want to go out in mediocre conditions if it's the waves or the wind smells nice and clean and easy to get up on them. I definitely going to try it again, but kinda got out of it too, but yeah. Okay. Just a few more things.
It's been our gosh, it's almost two hours already, but we didn't want to ask you, like in one of your videos, you mentioned rotator cuff pain that you had, like in your shoulders, and that's why you liked to practice the movements before you do it on the water to avoid hurting yourself and so on, which I think makes a lot of sense.
And I can relate to that, to add some rotator cuff issues, mostly from Santa paddling doing like the molcajete race and training a lot and stuff like that kind of insane, like my shoulder. So I had to do, I was actually had really bad pain for two years and I had to do physical therapy and stuff like that.
And I found some good exercise that worked really well. So whenever I have a flare up, I do more of those exercises and that really helps. But but yeah, I just kinda wanted to hear your side of it. Like what kind of pain you have and how you deal with it and what you do.
Fortunately my shoulders have healed up and I don't have the shoulder pain that I was having. I, I was just using Advil and ice on and that would tend to bother me at night in my sleep. And so I seen it in Advil and then once I was stronger, I did some, simple exercises with dumbbells, these and that seemed to, to help lightweight dumbbells on.
So fortunately I have not had any trouble lately, but winging is something that, that it might restrict people that have shoulder problems, that it might be a problem to do that. But the new wings are so much lighter and stiffer. They don't muscle you around like the older ones. So maybe that's an impressive.
Yeah, but yeah, I think it's definitely a good idea to practice the movements on the beach first, just to make sure that you don't get yanked around by the wind when you know, like no unexpected motion or throwing you back, like pulling them shoulder backwards or whatever, lift up, pulling. Those are the things that bothered my shoulder.
And I found there's a little exercise I do on the beach where I bring the wing up overhead and then back down, up overhead. And even behind me and back down. And I found that has really improved my tax. Just doing that little warm up on the beach. When I go out in the water, I feel more confident doing the tax.
Yeah. And I think too I was watching on your patron child that when about tacking 2 0 1, I think you called it, but just like when you bring your wing over your head, just to give the clue little push. It kind of ticks over and lands in the right place to accelerate out of the attack.
That's a super important thing to, to learn how to do before, before you try to do those tasks, especially on your heel side, right? Yeah. But I'm also, just regarding aging well and staying healthy and so on. Do you have any good tips? I'm almost 55 now, so I'm not that far behind you.
And I find, as I get older it's easy, obviously get injured, easier nutritionist super important so do you have any kind of tips or things you do that, that help you avoid inflammation or like nutrition, anything like that? I try to stay hydrate.
I do every now and then maybe once or twice a month, I'll take Advil or Motrin, if I've had a long day on, but I think just staying active, I started water sports when I was 12 years old and I told my wife that I'd been practicing for this sport since I was 12. And really I've my whole life.
I've been fortunate enough to spend in and around the water surfing, wind, surfing, sailing, kite, surfing, paddling, I did them all Chi to Oahu a number of times with a teammate then set foiling and now wing foiling. Now it just and I probably put in four days a week wing foiling Fortunate here on Maui that we have wind virtually every day.
And you can go just about any time you want, but just getting out on the water and staying active. And I'm a little older, so I am cautious to avoid things that I might get injured like jumping. And I try not to overdo it on my sessions, and an hour or two, I use a harness so I can stay out longer on.
And with the harness, I'm not putting the load on my shoulders going to Winward on, but yeah, just trying to stay active, I'm winging. Foiling has kept me young. It's gotten me back in the water. I was kinda over, I was over wind surfing. I was over kite surfing on the prone paddling or the sub paddling was hurting my lower back.
That, that motion. I was just grinding my spine and I but wing foiling, it's an other than the initial stages of climbing on the board, fallen off, climbing on the board. Once you get past that point, there's very little pressure in your hands. And because the foil is above the chop or the board is above the chop, it's like powder snow.
So there's not a whole lot of pressure. And there's people out there that say, oh, you don't need a harness. There's no pressure. And that's true, unless you're racing Ken winter up, when, you need that power to, to drive up wind. But it's just really forgiving easy on the body.
And I hope that I know I have a number of patrons and students that are over 70 that are foiling and being 60. They're an inspiration to me that I think I can keep doing this for another 10 years. Barring any injuries. I think it's, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a fountain of youth and it's great to see so many different age groups doing it too.
And like you said, the initial learning curve is a little bit can be a little bit dangerous, especially for older people, you have to be really careful not to injure yourself in the beginning, I think. But once you get it down, it's really yeah, like you said, very low impact and not really that hard on your body.
So it's something I think I can keep doing for quite a while. I'm hoping. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Excellent. Anything else that you wanted to talk about? Let me see here. So many, actually we never can you show us your new camera amount? I did. I did want to get back around to that. So you have this camera Mount that months on your plate.
Underneath the plate Mont of the foil. And then it sticks out behind the back of the board. So this, I made this plate, actually. I had a local machine shop welded up in town on and displayed sandwiches between the foil and the board on the track mounts with the Tuttle box, I had to cut this groove to get it to fit the Tuttle.
And so it hangs off the back of the board. And then at the other end, I have a GoPro Mount on it with a little floaty, just in case it comes off. I also have the gro GoPro floaty on there. So if I lose the camera and I've lost a few that's one Mount. So that's how you get that follow cam look like.
It looks like there's a camera falling, like a drone coming in right behind you kind of thing. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's this action right here. This clip here on and I can aim the camera up to get the hand work. I can Mount it taller on. So it is, and you said you tried the go at the GoPro max.
Like the GoPro max 360. That's the one I've been using a lot. It's like the as I get 360 lens, but then it takes a lot of work to edit it afterwards. And you said you don't really like using this one that much. So you use just a regular GoPro eight or nine? Yeah. This was the max and I found that it is difficult to use the 360.
And I've found that generally trying to capture things that the regular hero amount or just using one side seems to work. The level horizon is really cool. It keeps the horizon level as the board banks right on. I also have a solo shot camera and this is. You wear this satellite tracker on your body and then the camera will track you Zuni and zoom out.
And when this works, it's exceptional, I can shoot 120 frames a second. So it gets slow motion, but so often it thinks I'm over there and it's looking the wrong way. It misses the shot. Yeah. And I had a love, hate relationship with that thing. Cause yeah, like half the time it would work great. In the other half of the time, it was like nothing.
All it, the whole session I would get was just like walk water without me in it. Like where I'm just out of the frame or something like that. I got lots of that. I've got lots of that footage, but when it does work, it's exceptional that I have irregular Sony 4k. I just got this recently, but I need someone to film and my wife has been doing that.
I also have the drone.
It's a Maverick too. Yeah, this is really good, but because so many of the sailing spots are near the airport. I can't fly this. Oh yeah. And then yeah, that's kinda my camera gear. But you said mostly you use a, this irregular GoPro like a GoPro hero and eight or nine with the horizon leveling and yes, I also have the nine with the hydrophobic lens, which is really good.
So many of my shots are ruined because the hydrophobic lens or the non hydrophobic lens, particularly that the max, when water gets on it, it ruins the shot. So interesting. So that's a good one on the camera gear. So how often do you come out with the new video? Do you try to do it on a regular schedule or is there like a like a certain I try to put one out once a month and I'm gonna pull my patrons to see what they'd like to see next.
I have a few ideas, but I try and get ideas from them. And then when I'm out teaching, when I see a particular pattern where a number of people are having trouble with a certain issue, then I'll try and capture that and try and solve that problem. Okay. Okay. So as the fastest person on Maui, what are some tips for going fast on a wing for aboard board?
I'm not the fastest, I'm just joking, but as the winner of the race anyway first one on last one off first one on the wall. Last one off the water. You got to put your time in, you're not going to get good thinking about it, sitting on the beach.
So that's the biggest tip is just spending a lot of time practicing it for sure. Time out there, you can buy speed, you can buy speed. You can buy the foil, you can buy the board, you can buy the wing, all of that, but you also have to know how to use it. So it just takes some time.
Yeah. And that part is the, I think the more important part than the equipment, I the equipment is super important, especially at the very high level. I think where a little bit can make a difference. But I think for the average person, that's just about yeah. The technique and practicing it and to get faster, yeah.
I think that's where you make them. That makes a bigger difference than getting the best and most expensive gear. Yeah, the time for the racing, I practiced every aspect except for the start. There was no really way to practice the start, but there's a few buoys anchored here and there up and down the coast.
And I practice doing a lot of turns around those buoys. I practice sailing close, reach, broad, reach down, wind up, wind on all trying to go as fast as I can. And then of course, when I'm sailing with Ken and Peter it's a race up wind and they regularly punish me. So that's good. It's good to have training partners that are faster than you, right?
That's another good tip. We take turns beating up on each other though. I sometimes kick their ass. It's vice versa. And then in that case where you're all pretty similar, is that I guess that's where the small differences in the equipment they're really noticeable, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to have someone to train with, and you can adjust this and adjust that and try this and try that and share ideas.
And and you said Ken winter has the one-sided so using the 600 bullet and he's using the 800 is that because he's a little bit heavier than you? Or what, why is that one working better for him? He is a little heavier but I let him try this setup that the green board with the foil recently, and he was blistering fast.
And in short order he got his own 600. So he shares that 600 with his wife. Okay. And you can get, I guess if you're buying a different foil size, you have to get that whole one-piece construction, front wing, fuselage, and tailing together. You can mix and match. I believe you can buy separate components. You can buy the smaller, bigger size foil set up. Yeah. But again I really only recommend it for, the high end racer. You got me thinking about it, but man, mostly I'm into doing more like freestyle and going out in the waves and all that cause yeah, the racing can be such an arms race, next year that someone else is going to come out with something a little bit faster than everybody buys that and stuff like that.
And if you don't have it, then you don't really have a chance to win. So that's frustrating.
Yes, I have a garage full of bones. Yeah. But it's definitely fun if he come out on top. It's a good feeling. Yeah. But at this point I'm passing the Baton. I'm going to watch now on I highly encourage you to defend your title of next year, but you already made your decision, but oh, I'll probably be out there, but I'm not gonna put any pressure on myself.
Yeah. It seems like after the Molokai race, I always tell myself I'm not going to do that again. It's so masochistic, but then the next year I'm like, okay, I guess I'm going to start training again. It's a love, hate thing too.
Anyway. Yeah, I really appreciate your time coming on again and a super long conversation. Appreciate it. And keep going, and keep inspiring so many people. I think it's awesome. What you do on Patriots. I highly encourage everyone to join that and get all your good tips in. And of course also you have a great YouTube channel, good videos on YouTube as well.
Thank you. Yeah, but it seems like on the patron channel is where you really post your the premium content. And the whole idea there is I'm trying to teach people as if they were having a lesson with me in person, I'm trying to get it across. And it's pretty challenging to do that on the video, medium, trying to teach a feeling or an experience, but getting better at it.
My editing skills are improving and working on. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Congratulations on that. And your success there and on winning that race and so on, it sounds like you're doing great. And I'm probably gonna hit you up again next year. Talk talks. What's new next year. All right. All right.
Thank you, Robert. So keep going. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks. All right. Take care. Hold on. See on the water. Yeah. Okay. There's some little bonus material. Like we, we kept talking a little bit after I stopped recording and now I'm still ask some more prompts to show us. So one thing that's like your trademark is like the hat you're wearing.
So tell us what you're using and how. This is a chilly endurable pat. It's a sailor's hat and I got really badly sunburned down in Australia and started wearing a hat then and came home and found the Tilly it's guaranteed forever. When they wear out, they'll send you a replacement and this one's got some wear on it.
This is my new one, my old one here. This has got about 10 years of use on it. And this is, I wear this only in the water. It doesn't go through the wash. This is a Testament to the amount of time that I've put in. And then as a pretty stiff brim is that I would like to breath. It comes stiff pretty much, but then, you ducked your head and the salt splashes on it, salt, water, it dries out and it's like starch.
So it gets real stiff after a while. As long as they don't completely soak it, which doesn't happen too often. I've been using the shelter hats, which are good too damn that kind of this dish, that doesn't collapse easily. And that's important when it's windy, especially something that doesn't slop down on your face or?
Yes. So this one blocks the spray, it blocks the sun and I've had I've had some Bazell cell cut out of my face a couple of times already. So wear your sunscreen, wear the protective gear, wear hat. Yeah. Any other prompts? I think that's it, but yeah, a hundred percent on the sun, like sun protection.
Oh, first place. So yeah, I have to see a dermatologist every four months now. And every time she finds him, like pre-cancerous stuff and either remove it or use the cream stuff. And it's just frustrating. And that's from the spending too much time in the sun when I was young and not protecting myself enough.
Yes. So for all those young people watching out there wear your sunscreen or you're going to pay later yeah. And wear long sleeves and protect yourself down in the sun. All right. Thanks for sticking around. I really appreciate you listening all the way to the end. Those of you are still listening. You're the ones that I'm making this show for.
It's for the hardcore enthusiasts that can't get enough information. I want to say a special thank you to our customer. Blue planet customers. Like you make it possible for us to produce these shows for free. All our content is available for free. So by supporting blue planet and buying our products, you support shows like this.
So thanks again for listening. And the next show is going to be with Adrian Roper from access foils. We're going to talk soon. Ag just got a new foil set up from him. I'm super excited to test it out and talk to him about the latest equipment and technology in foil design. So I hope you can listen to that interview as well.
Thanks for sticking around once again. See you on the water Aloha.
- Lytte Lytte igjen Fortsette Lytter...
- Lytte senere Lytte senere
Wing Foil interview with the Oahu Crew- BluePlanet Show Season 2, Episode 17
14 May 2022· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends, It's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to season number two of the blue planet show. If you're watching this, you probably already know that this show is all about wing foiling and the personalities behind the sport. I try to go a little bit deeper, find out more, get the good, juicy stories and just learn more about the people and how they live their best life.
So I hope you can join me for another season. Today's show is a really cool talk story session, with four of Oahu best wing foilers. We just give each other advice, you know, for more advanced stuff like wing foiling in onshore wind, how to handle your wing without getting in your way. And then also jumping off the top of the, off the lip then landing back in the wave. But we also talk about more entry-level stuff. Just like how to get up on the foil and tips for beginners, like how to get started in this cool sport. So I hope you really enjoy this conversation.
I just wanted to apologize that, you know, it's been a while since, last year's 16 episodes. I got really busy opening a second location for Blue Planet that we now have a new shop in Haleiwa, it's running pretty smoothly now.
And then around Christmas time or COVID, and I was really feeling low energy and not that good for several months. So about a third of the people who get COVID actually feel the long-term symptoms. So I hope you're not one of them, but I'm happy to report that my energy is back. I feel good. I'm excited to produce more shows.
So I'm going to, re-interview some of the people that I talked to last year and also talk to new people, and I really appreciate everyone's suggestions, comments on blog. Um, keep them coming and I appreciate the support. And, uh, so yeah. Hope you enjoy this cool conversation with my buddies. All right.
Thanks for joining me guys. Today I got core Eli, Derek and Lucas here with me to do a little voiceover on a video that we shot a few weeks ago. And I wanted to talk a little bit about winning an entre when like riding waves and entre wind. Cause it's something that I always find a little bit tricky with the wing handling and stuff like that.
So, uh, Luca was the drone photographer, um, that day and then Koa, Eli and Derek, and I were all in the water. So I'm going to screen screen-share here and we're going to play this video. Can you guys see the screen? Okay, cool. So yeah, this was kind of a rainy overcast day and you went to another spot first and that was.
Raining. And, uh, we're unsure if the wind was going to be good. So we kept going and, um, and then the wind seemed really light and we weren't sure if it's going to be windy enough. So we ended up sending out, um, or. To see if it was windy enough. So tell us a little bit about that call you are the first one to go out.
How was it just to get going? Yeah, it was a bit nerve wracking just because it was my first time being there and I was just like, oh no, what if I go to the sand bank and like hit the sand and like, just get stuck and hoping that the wind was there. Yeah, it's kind of a tricky spot because if you can't get up on foil, you end up getting, you know, pushed downwind into the bay and like basically on the, on the shallow sand.
Um, but once we saw you, um, able to get up and going, we all pumped up and went out as well. And then this is actually, um, at my second session, I came in and got the camera, my back mounted, um, GoPro max. But yeah. Um, I w what I wanted to talk about a little bit, like, one thing I struggle with is when you're, when you're riding the wave going, you know, going with the wind, I never know where to place it.
So it does like, cause if you put it in front of you, you end up getting, um, kind of dark winded, and then sometimes when you put it behind you, then it gets like stuck on the water. So, um, maybe Eli, tell us a little bit about how you, how you handle the wing, um, and entre conditions. Um, what I had when I try to do is have it luffing behind me with enough momentum.
So before I set it behind me, I'd make sure though Ling has momentum and, um, and is moving enough for it to float, because if it, if it doesn't have that, um, movement or momentum, it'll kind of drop, like you mentioned. Um, also sometimes I'll let the tip, touch the water for a little bit. Um, and when I turn, I usually try and swing it around.
Um, and that, that swinging energy really helps keep it floating a little, but yeah, you're right. It's really challenging with onshore conditions. Uh, yeah. What about you, Derek? Do you have any pointers for the I'm writing an entre conditions? Um, I think because I use that Y handles to, well, when I'm surfing.
Um, I don't really feel any like w even if it's on shore off shore, it, I kind of keep the weight on my shoulder. Like, like a shield that prevents any bad windy or any kind of stuff. Yeah. It just, I don't know, wherever my shoulder goes again, it helps. But, um, if I was to hold the front end, Definitely would have to take a different approach to yeah.
I mean, yeah. I've noticed that too, even in, um, well, I guess if it's tied off shore, it's kind of hard to do that, but you kinda like to keep the wing really close to your shoulder and then hold it by the Y handle. Yes. Yeah. You know, and with that, that allows me to kind of use the wing. A wing tips, like as a pivot point, you know?
Yeah. It seems like with that onshore conditions, how Derek codes, it, sometimes the one that's on shore, the wind will kind of power up the top of the wing and he'll get some power and speed from that almost.
Yeah. Like kind of pushing you to kind of like call you back. You know, when the guys put the wing behind him and he just riding for miles. Um, I can use that as kind of, as a advantage and get me to fats, um, spots or, um, project you to a turn to make it look like your attorney even harder, but actually what's happening is the wind.
Pushing you and you just, you just surfing a foil, you know, you said about mitigate what happened. Yeah. But what have I, what about you called away? Um, was this the first time you, we know you winged in Kailua and other onshore conditions before? Yeah, I would just say, um, just keep the speed going and. The wing will just do its own thing.
Yeah. I don't know. I guess I think it just takes some practice to like, I, I guess I just hadn't had that much practice writing and entre when it's just different. When, uh, insider conditions, you can just kind of flag it out and it'll stay, stay kind of next to you, but it's definitely different when it's on shore conditions.
Yeah. You just, you just have to make sure that it doesn't end up in front of you when you're going faster than the, than the wind. Yeah. So like, if you're going down the line on the wave or with the, um, sometimes you can, you can get back winded and then that's like, you definitely don't want the wing between you and the, and the wave basically, but I I've noticed.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You end up, you end up running over it. You're going to run over you. And land on it. Um, like the rafting or something, or it's going to come in front of you. And then, um, if there's other surfers or all your other winger friends, you're not going to be able to see anything at all. You know?
So you just got to, um, I think if you go and you probably spend a few hours, you should be able to figure out what a word. Yeah, but it's definitely not something where you just go over there and you show up and you, and you comfortable and you just gotta work it out or surf other spots in that similar wind range and just figure out what our expense.
Right. Cool. Um, so the, the one, the one thing that was really fun that day was like just jumping. On the kind of like jumping off the top of the wave and landing back into the wave. And that that's seems like it's pretty easy to do when the winds blowing on shirk as the wind kind of pushes you back into the wind wave.
So you, do you want to talk a little bit about that technique of like jump jumping off, off the top of the wave and landing back into maybe.
You were doing a lot of those, those jumps. I am regular footage. Um, so the wind is a little side onshore, um, kind of favorable, uh, for being regular footed. That means jumping going left would be he'll side, um, with his light on short conditions. You know, anytime it's on shore, it's a little easier to stay on the wave.
Um, but these conditions were really light and onshore. So it makes it a little more challenging. You definitely want to project your momentum forward and not too much to the side. You don't want to fall out the back. You want to make sure you land in front of the wave so you can, um, continue writing it.
But yeah, anytime it's on shore conditions, it'll kind of help push you into the wave a little, uh, yeah, look it out. And I was a nice one in landed right in the white wash and came down. That was a nice one. Any tips we're pulling off the landings more consistently? No, it's all up. Um, it's really helpful if you land in front of the wave so you can keep your speed and momentum up.
Um, also the way you point your foil in the water, when you come down can be helpful. And when you kinda bring the foil up, that kind of helps stabilize it a little, you know, like a little Railey or, um, kind of bringing it up a little that helps it's helps me anyway, stabilize it. And it helps me stay. Um, she did in with the wing.
You can see Barrick bringing up and landing it right down there. Yeah. I find it helps to, um, put your weight a little bit on the back. So you don't nose dive on the landing. And then what seems to work for me is like touching down slightly with the board, but then trying to bring it, pop it back up right away on, back on the foil.
Um, What about you, Derek? You got any tips for the landings yeah. In that, um, you know, watching a video. And so you would, when you come in to your approach to, you know, do an air, you kind of hit that top section, but you whole, your wing kind of it kicks so that the wing, the wind is in your cell and it's pushing you.
You know, not, not necessarily just going straight up and holding it. Cause if you put your wings straight up, it'll take you up and in a way will pass by you. So you got to kind of go up and angle your wings or the like the direction that the waves are going and it'll help you push you and the land you towards the wave fate.
And then from there you can surf it out. So I think if, if you was to just hit it like a regular. And I'm like years going out. It'll get all your score, take you straight up. The wave will pass and you land behind somewhat in some of the videos, you can see some of the guys land behind the oh, but they didn't mean to do that.
It's just that the projected objection and the way to win, you gotta travel. You gotta take your errors in the same direction that the wave is, is slowing. Yeah, that makes sense. What about you COA? You got any pointers for jumping? Uh, I would usually just pump my wing, get enough air. And once I do, I try to go like on the edge of the wave and once I'm in the air, I try to like snap it onto the wave.
So if I'm going, here's the wave. And then if I'm going like of it, I try snapping on it so I can go back down. It. But my dad says always like pointed down and then you'll come back up. But usually that doesn't work cause I usually just nose dive. So I like keep it flat when I land. Yeah. I've noticed that too.
If, if I, if I landed to flatter, then once the nose catches, then you kind of you're done with it. So I almost try to lean a little bit on the tail, keep the weight on the tail so that doesn't happen. But yeah, here you can see Derrick really. Getting the wind behind you. So it's almost like the winds pushing you, right?
Like the winds pushing you from behind. And then I ran to, I mean, I played this one again, cause that was kind of a good one. Um, see
where yeah. You get to being kind of behind you where it's kind of pushing you and then swing it around. That's pretty stylish.
I haven't figured that one out yet.
Yeah, no, no. It seemed like watching the videos and then, you know, from when we were there, it seemed, didn't seem like you have any issues, um, with the onshore, I guess it was, um, um, that's what you felt when you, when you was writing, you felt like it was kinda, um, Hampering your style a little bit, Rob. Yeah.
I mean, I hadn't felt like I could either go left or go. Right. But then like the transitions between like going like back and forth, weaving back and forth, I just haven't figured out to put the wing behind me like that yet, you know, like where we're at and where it's smooth, you know? Um, that's kind of still something.
And let's say coy, you can still kinda, you're still working on that too. A lot of times the wing wants to flip over like here. Yeah. Like it catches and subs over.
Um, so, but yeah, I seen you too. Like, um, you and Eli, both, um, sometimes you, you drag the, the tip of the wing a little bit, so it kind of comes behind you and when you turn. She not
trying to help you get help. It help it flow. And then they can this one too. It kind of helps for me. If I switch hands on me. That one, I came over my head. Um, but sometimes when I'm turning to keep it directly behind me, almost like in my draft, uh, past the leading edge handle behind, behind my back and switch hands.
Um, sometimes that'll help keep that swinging momentum. There's almost, uh, almost like there's more rotation, you know, inertia coming out of the. Uh, especially with those bigger wings. Yeah. I think I was riding a seven meter. There's a lotta, um, a lot of meat and mass to it, but those wings, those wings move through the air pretty well.
I like the momentum that develops from those, um, from those wings actually flying through the air. Yeah. I mean, having a big wing is nice too, when you do jumps, because it's so lofty. Yeah. You can kind of really cold, like it they'll pull you up right. About using a bigger wing too.
All right. I think that was it for this video and the stuff stop sharing here. You see, uh, yeah. Everybody working that day. I mean, you know, Well, I didn't impressive of what everybody, you know, to the performance it was doing. And, and just, um, you could see by the look in the, um, the people that was proning or longboarding, and even the guys in a parking lot, you know, they just looking at us.
Why aren't we doing that? You know? Yeah. I mean, it's always fun to go out with a group of guys that then everybody's kind of pushing each other and you watch the other guys doing stuff and then you try to, and stuff like that. Yeah. So definitely makes it more challenging. But, um, yeah, I wanted to, um, talk a little about this one.
Where I'm Derek. I think this is the first time you, you pulled off a back loop. Is that right? Um, have you pulled up other ones? Um, just one before, but this is the only one on, you know, like film and stuff like that. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about like your technique. Like what do you do? What do you try?
What do you think about. How does it work for you? Um, my dad. So when I attempted a few, I noticed my wing was gained. Uh, and then I remember once you mentioned, um, trying to do to, uh, you watching a video and you said, oh, you, it seems like I don't get enough air time before I start my rotation. I try to flick it as soon as I hit the waves.
Um, so watching other guys' videos, um, I noticed that Dinko project themselves up first and then they complete their rotation. So, um, earlier that day I tried to do one and take taking the wind caught and I felt like, gosh, I got to change that up. So when I was going out, um, a few other times, not even jumping off, just project the wing with my leading.
On the leading edge side, just going straight up and jumping straight up, kind of do kind of deal and not necessarily rotating, just getting that field to, okay. I got to go up first. Then once, once I'm up at the peak, then go ahead and rotate a man on that one. That's what that's kind of what happened is just, you know, kind of went up and then did a rotation and lucky thing.
Luckily. None of the tips or, or anything else, um, and pulled me back down and then I was able to, you know, just land it, still trying to working on writing out of it. But, um, the last time I attempted the wings caught anyway, even on when I came down and it caught on the back of the wave and my foyer. True to wing and other way.
Oh man. So I knew I never do. What's supposed to be done, you know, so that's part of it. Right,
right on. So I'm just playing, uh, another video. Um, this is on the north shore. Where I'm with Derek and Isla and I, so, and actually I wanted to ask you Luke Lucas, um, talk a little bit about the challenges of, um, filming a wing furthering with the drone.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, Um, probably about mile off shore with you guys. And this has been a learning experience for me as well. I did get some good shots, but a lot of it was learning how to keep everybody in frame. This video that we did was actually probably one of my best, best two better ones. Um, but just trying to keep everybody in frame and especially if there's multiple people.
Like this clip right here was awesome. Was probably one of the best clips I ever did. Um, but just especially if there's like two, three people trying to keep everybody in frame was the hardest on trying to stay, stay and make sure that I'm high enough, that nothing's going to happen. I'm not going to run into anybody or catch away of myself.
Um, but just like with foiling practice, We can get better. So, yeah. Yeah. And, and what's interesting too, is that like this, for this seven minute video, we, we were on the water pipe for several hours and I think you used like, used up like nine batteries, right. Like flew in and out nine times and it is pretty far out, so yeah.
Um, it takes a lot of work to get that footage. Yeah. But yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about the difference. Like here, you can see the winds blowing more like side off shore, so it's really different the way you hold the wing that you can just hold it out to the side. And it pretty much just, um, it's, I, I find it easier to handle the wing when it's just blowing off site off shore.
Uh, w w what do you think Eli.
Yeah, definitely. It keeps the wing, um, to the side and behind you, nothing in the front. So you got a, um, clear view of the wave or where you need to go. Uh, also when it's on shore, the wing is in front of you and you're always battling the tip from the tips falling down in front of you and touching the water.
So it's definitely much easier. Uh, but this place in particular is pretty tricky where we were at a win is really up and down. Uh, once you ride the wave further and the wind gets really late. Um, so it's pretty tricky is kind of challenging. Yeah, for sure. It's a tricky spot. And if you fallen in the impact zone, sometimes there's like no wind and you can't really get going again and you can't get back out again.
Uh, but I think Derek, sometimes you try to still kind of get the wing behind you, even in the side offer conditions, right? Um, yes. Yeah. With that, with that Y handle, um, um, shoot position. Um, I can just, you know, it's, it's kind of beneficial cause I can go into the wind and. Back against the wind and just still hold the wing and it will really affect, um, the good thing about the size storage, like, you know, where the wind is, where the wing going to be.
Cause the wind is just blowing. Um, versus the onshore condition. You, you kinda okay. Um, I'm writing, right. And I'm going fast. So the wing is going to be behind me, but as soon as I turn, everything would drop in and you know, all of a sudden you have the weight in front of you. So with this one, no matter where you're going, you should be in front of because you have that super strong gusty close the window, as soon as, as soon as you.
It's going to be that side, whatever west side of Euro. Right.
But yeah, with that, with that little white stuff, because it's not on the leading edge, I feel like I can hold it and manipulate the wing a little more too. Kind of conform to, you know, to the waves. Like sometimes when you on the wave and if it gets deeper, it's a lot of times a week, the wind will come up the face and blowing up and then, you know, if you're not ready for that, you, you, um, the loss handle would just starts spinning on you.
Cause all of a sudden it's going from side shore, um, position until it. And when you get to the C part of the wave, it's going to go start going. Um, from your feet up here ahead, and then you're going to be, you know, trying to fight that. Yeah. Cause while you're holding that Y handle it's your forearm and your shoulder is also in contact with the wing, right?
So you got three points of contact. It seems like it would be a lot more stable than just holding the left handle. So then you can kind of stabilize it with your shoulder too, I guess that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it just, it just, it becomes another part of your, um, yeah. So another part of your body, you know, you just got to get ready for that little push of winning Tibet when you, or, or, or whatnot.
Yeah, let's talk a little bit about like, like the wing size. Like I know I kinda like using a little bit bigger wing and I know Eli, I guess it just depends on your body way too. If you're, if you weigh more, it's definitely helpful to have a bigger wing. It's also easier to handle a bigger wing, I guess, if you're tall and, uh, and build a stronger, bigger, but, um, I've noticed Derek most of the time, it seems like you're almost always on your four meter wing.
Huh? Yes. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I tried, unless the wind is almost dead. I'll go ahead and use a five meter. But as far as, um, I find the four is just fine, you know, it's enough to going, um, mobile 1 45, 1 50 pounds, 150 pounds. And, um, My board is like, I think it's about 75 liters and I'm using a thousand, most times you're getting a thousand, um, oil.
So it's, it's enough to get, get me going, you know? And usually when you start, you, you get up on in the standing position on your board before you lift the wing out of the water, right? Like you stand up on the board and then you lift up doing. Yes. Yes. Yeah, no, not on the knees or, or I'm sinking or whatever.
Yeah. Is, do you do it that way to call? I know, I know your dad, Eddie does it that way too. Right? Standing on the board. Yeah. He's the one that taught me how to do it. So you do it that way too. Yeah. I never did a knee start before. And what about you? I am here. I use, uh, my board has a lot of leaders, so I stand on it first leaning on the wing and then I'll pull it up.
Yeah. Yeah. I, I recently started using a pretty small board. It's only like, um, I think as a run 55 liters or something like that. And like, there's, there's no way I could stand, stand up on it. So I pretty much have to knee start, but I've, that's how I've been doing it all along anyways. But. But yeah, I guess that that standing technique is probably a little bit easier on your, on your knees and back to, you know, you don't, you don't have to kneel on your board as well.
It can be a little tip here. Cause when you're up out of the water, it's a little less stable. Right. So I think there's pros and cons to both, both ways. So let's talk a little bit about getting up on foil, like, um, the technique for like pumping or like if, if the wind's not quite enough to easily, like have it pull you up onto the foil, like what do you do to kind of, uh, get moving and get up on the foil?
What are some pointers?
I think you have a lot of trades for this. Yeah. Yeah. As like the light wind master. Huh. And I think a lot of it has to do with the type of foil too. I know the higher aspect wing. Uh, front wings with less cord, longer wink at a longer wingspan. Um, in my experience, those files like to, um, speed is your friend when you're trying to get up.
So when I try to get up with those enlight, when I really focus all of my pulling and pumping. To go forward, gaining speed and a speed helps you get up. When I use a lower aspect wings or the mid aspect wings, um, I tend to, uh, direct my pulling and pumping upwards. So I try to pull my weight up and I try to bounce the board to get it up.
But with the higher aspect wings, I try to pull my weight forward and looking for any kind of, especially in the wind is looking for any kind of current or little bumps that might be going your way of trying to get on that bump and use that to build your speed as well. Yeah. And I think like for gaining speed for high aspect, for like that has like a kind of a high.
Planning speed. Um, it really helps to have a board that kind of, uh, Glidewell tour kind of generates that speed easily. Right. Um, But I guess the other, the other check is in light, wind is just to not fall in. Right. So as long as you up fine, if you don't come off the floor, usually you can keep it going.
But once you come off, then sometimes you just have to wait for gust or whatever to, to pick you up again, right? Yes. Yeah. And, uh, um, you know, initially when we all was learning, we just would stay out until. Oh, shucks, without a paddling, you know, but now as, as you progress, I think every winger, you see the signs and you recognize there's a, there's a rain cloud, or there's not, there's not too much texture.
And we recognize now is, well, we've got to go in, you know, and we fly to other people. I mean, in our circle, we fight through other people like, Hey, Set in. And usually we make it in, you know, it's the most signs when you try to, um, push the limits is when you get stuck out there and you gotta, you know, get a ride in or some, somebody would just come down to the beach and pick up.
Yeah, but I mean, I find that, well, here in Hawaii, anyways, like even though in the wind's dying, it'll, you know, they'll still be like a couple more gusts coming before it completely dies. You know? So sometimes if you're just patient instead of paddling and you can wait and eventually there'll be another, another gust to get you going.
And then you can usually ride back in. I dunno, like to me sometimes it's, it's worth it to be patient and wait a little bit before. Take that long paddle and yeah. Yeah. But it, it, it's, it's part of the learning curve where you recognize that and you go, okay, the next one we're going to, you know, I'm going in, in, in the beginning, it used to be like always we're we're we're we're a good wind.
Again, let's go, you know, and you just keep saying out. Ken 15 minutes and all of a sudden it's like for real, that when it's gone and then you're, you're going, oh, I, I really think I kind of paddle now and you know, yeah. Sometimes when the last Gus comes, you, you just as best as go in right in with, with that last guest.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And then I found, um, I noticed for, for myself on getting up on wing when it's lighter, when, um, when I'm first starting to holding a wing in my hand and I'm waiting, um, it'll be hillside, which is, you know, little bit easier for most people. Um, I'll have my feet. Y at a white scent in this, in my straps.
And was it fueled a little bit Gus coming, I'll give a couple pumps with my arms, couple, you know, pump my legs. And then as I'm going forward with the, with my arm momentum and getting that little pool, I'll go ahead and slide my foot forward in the straps. And as that little moment, um, movement of my foot coming forward will be enough to like scoop the foil forward.
And oh, and that'll help me get up on foil easier than, you know, just standing in a, like a lock position. Hmm.
It's hard. It's, it's kinda that. I know that's kinda what I do. It's hard to kind of picture it, but this time we're at the beach, I'll kind of show you, you know, just to like, kinda like holler, um, the don't, uh, prone paddlers, when you do Flatwater. Same momentum. He just kind of scoot the board for you.
Slide your feet in the straps forward and that'll, that'll help propel to foil forward and up as you, as you're pumping your arms. Yeah. I mean, one thing about pumping the wing too, is like sometimes I see people pumping kind of almost too hard where they're pulling so hard that then there's like the wing just like flops on the way back.
So they, I think the trick is to kind of have more of a smooth, um, kind of more of a. Um, like it's, it's more like a rotation and you, you still, you don't want the wing to get back winded or, or flat. Totally. Like you want to keep a little bit of power in the wing, but it's like generating a little bit of extra pull.
And then at the same time, as you're kind of pulling on the wing, you kind of lift up on your feet a little bit and sometimes that's enough to release the board and get going. Yeah. But, um,
It's tricky, but that's a, and that's, that's a similar, similar concept towards, um, you know, when you say you want to do two for one, there are you pumping into ways you got to have that schooled cadence that, that, that pumping, um, cause if you kind of go like too much off rhythm, you, you won't be able to do.
Maneuvered at foil and then you'll come off foil and then drop down. So same thing with, with, like you said, with the wing pumping, you, you need to have that, you know, that boy, that nice cadence going. Okay.
Yeah. Corey, do you have any tips on, on getting, going or getting up on foil? So, like, as you said, I do that around motion and if I go too hard, that's going to come back at me and that just makes it slows me down. So what I do is, uh, once I see a little bit texture in the water, I get on my board, I started doing that rounded a rotation.
And then what I do is I jump, like I jump in the water, like I'm jumping, jumping. Uh, without the board, I just like jump up and while I'm just pumping, pumping, pumping, and once I feel that pool, I just like pull it and then I jump into it and that's how I get up. Oh, so you kind of almost jumped with your feet off the board completely to unweight completely kind of thing.
Yeah. Do you have your feet in the straps when you do that? Uh, sometimes or like, yeah, sometimes I keep it off and then I just like, go on it and I slide the board. More to get the motion going. And then I jumped and then the board will come up and then I put my feet in the straps, or just, if it's, if it's windy, I just put my feet in the straps and I could just get up.
Yeah, but yeah. So something to mention for kind of people starting out, like when you, when you're starting out, you, I guess you depend more on having either really strong wind or just a bigger wing, um, bigger wing and a bigger foil to get going, but yeah, as you get better and develop that technique for pumping and so.
Then you can work your way down to using a smaller foil and a smaller wing and, and a smaller board and, and having, having that equipment, it just makes it everything else nicer if you, because basically if you're using a big board and a big wing and a big foil, Once you're up on foil, then it's kinda, you have everything it's like more than you need.
Yeah. As you're overpowered, you have too much from the foil and the board's kind of in your way, because so big. So as, as you get better, that's kind of the goal to kind of use the smallest equipment you can use basically. Right. And, you know, core brought up a good point. He said that when he sees a Gus coming or he sees the texture on the water, Um, it's really important to know the area you're in, uh, depends how the wind is blowing.
If the wind is more off shore, you get a shorter, um, a shorter glimpse at when, um, the gust is coming. Sometimes if it's side or on shore, you can see the gusts coming from far away. And it's important in my opinion, to, to be able to visually tell. Kind of like the wind speed. You can see the texture on the water and you can be thinking like, oh, that's not enough wind.
And you see more texture on the water, you think, okay, when that Gus comes here, that's going to be enough wind. So you can start prepping when you see it coming, you can start getting a. Pulling a little build up your momentum, build up your speed. Then when that Gus does hit you, you're halfway there you need is a couple of pumps or a couple little hops.
And that's especially important when the wind is light and the guts are coming, um, you know, really quick and short little puffs. I think that's a really good point. Yeah. Um, to, and also to kind of save your energy. Sometimes you've aware themselves out before the good Guskey comes and then they fall in right.
When, when the wing wind is strong enough to just pull them out without doing anything. Right. So, um, yeah, sometimes just being a little bit patient and waiting for that, the right moment to take off is really key. Right. And watching, looking for it, looking up when, and see what's coming. And the other thing too, is if you're trying to pull yourself up and the wind is not strong enough, if you're going, um, away from shore, you could be pulling yourself far away from shore and you're going to have to paddle in, um, farther.
And you can also be pulling yourself away from the windier spot tool. Like if you kind of know your area. So if you're just standing up. Um, you know, and the, when is too late to get up, it could, you could be sailing away, you know? So it might be better to sit down until you see a good Gus coming. So you're not losing ground or anything.
Yes. Yeah. I agree with that. We seen that a bunch, a bunch of times where, um, it'll be strong enough to keep you moving on the surface, but not, you know, gun. To get you up and flying. Um, so we see, you know, a bunch of times where guys are just trying, try and try and guys and girls actually. And, um, there ended up going like way down the coast or way out, you know?
And, um, luckily there's a, you know, a steady Gus and they can get up and then fly back in. So, um, yeah, I also recommend, you know, if, if you looking on the water surface and you see as kind of glassy and still. You look behind of it and you see texture, you just kind of sit and wait, or you just kinda hold your wing, uh, put your wing in the water, like an anchor and just, you know, wait till you see it, um, to that texture is coming closer.
And once you come in closer, then you get your balance, get your stance ready, and then you get ready to go and give that couple pumps and hopefully you get up. Right. Exactly. And then I've noticed too, like sometimes. Um, even, even when you have a really big wing, you still have to wait for that. Gus it's like, not like you can just get going at any, any moment you want, right.
Even with the seven meter weighing, you still have to wait for that Gus to get going. But, and I think one of the big advantages of having a really big wing in those, on those light wind days is that you can cut. Um, make it through the, through the laws. Like if there's a spot where there's almost no wind at all, with the big wing, you can just kind of fly through it without too much trouble.
Whereas on a small wing, you kinda wear yourself up pumping and maybe not make it through that law. Um, so that's kind of, I think one of the bigger advantages of having a big wing and light wind is just that you can keep going easier more than getting it going earlier. Right. Um, so, and Derek, I know you've been teaching a lot of people.
Like what, what kind of stuff do you see? Like, do you have any tips for beginners people starting out? Like, um, what do you, what kind of mistakes do you see a lot? Like what, what kind of tips do you give people that are starting out and learning?
Um, a lot of things I see is they're going, they're trying to be, um, take bigger steps than they should. Like, can you be more at bats? You know, oh, I'm better than this. I foil, I tight. I do all of that. And they just use two small boards, wings. Um, they're trying to pump and pump their legs and pump their arms at the same time.
Um, and then trying to go to too much of an advanced spot, you know, I mean, there's nothing wrong with going to a little kiddie pool or, you know, learning area. Get it down and, um, advanced from there, you know, like, like everybody else that did, did it, you know, and it's always good as, especially when you, you, when you do it back then you, you want to, um, learn something else.
It's always good to go back, work on that thing means that little kiddie pool and then, you know, apply it to, um, the breaks and the cell phone guy. So Donna, don't try to advance to quickly go and like Flatwater locations first. And I find it, it really helps to have a place to where you can just go downwind, right.
Where you don't have to worry about staying in one spot. Like you can just keep going down wind or get picked up at somewhere down downwind or something like that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause a lot of times, um, it's a mental thing too, so you know, when you're flying and you're going further down. And, and you looking back Ingrid hole, how am I going to get back to my car or, or back to the beach or my friends or whatnot, that kind of puts a damping audit.
And then you end up coming in to shore and you end up walking back and 15 minutes with all this B gear. And then when you, you go out twice, but a third time you go into the way that I'm done, you know? So if, if you can get somewhere where, um, You can go a few miles straight down when that, that would be ideal.
Or if you can go with somebody that has a, you know, um, escort boat, jet ski, or something like that, then you, you don't have to worry mentally. You don't have to worry, how will I get back? You know? So that, that really helps any other big, good beginner tips.
Um, don't give up cause you know, once you get it, it's good. Yeah. I, yeah, I see that too. Like a lot of people just kinda, um, they, they think they're going to learn it in a couple of days and then when they don't, they get frustrated and they give up on it, right? Yes, yes. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, if you, I mean, it's no shame in asking.
Assistant, um, for, you know, tips from anybody else and even taking a lesson or two, you know, cause it's, um, it'll just help out in the long run because if he try, uh, you know, you, you see people around, whether it's, um, all over the world and they try to do it on their own and it's, it takes them it, they might get it eventually, but it takes them longer than if they went to, uh, you know, like that middle, proper routes.
Yeah. What about you call? You got any pointers? I know you've only learned to wing for like about a year ago or how long have you been, have you been doing it? Uh, I would say a little less than a year. Like it's like the second week that I started to like, learn how to hydrofoil itself, like soap and, uh, some beginner tips, I would say.
Yeah, just don't get. Just no shame and asking for help, ask for tips and yeah, that's it. Would you say, um, some foiling is easier or wing foiling was easier for it to, for you to learn? Uh, I would say wing foiling, just because self-fulfilling, you have to like, actually get on the wave, but with weighing, you just need, when we can like control the board, however way you like, then.
And like have some support, uh, like the wind holding you while you're moving your wing. Cause when you're on a sub, you're just like balancing it out by yourself. Yeah. I agree with that. What about you? You lying? You got any more tips? And I'd say, um, when learning it's really helpful, if you make it easier on yourself, uh, get the right gear, especially if you foil before either sub or prone, um, you're gonna want a boy.
With enough leaders for you to comfortably stand on. Um, you probably gonna want a little bigger foil than you're used to just, um, more lift in general. Um, that'll make things easier, more lift, more stability would definitely help. Also practicing on land is real helpful because once you're in the water, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna be worried about balancing or be worried about getting up on foils.
If you've already got your, when handling basic stone from playing around on the, on the land, just passing hand to hand, um, practicing little jibes or whatnot in the wind. Um, that'll save you a lot of time and also practicing with a skateboard on a nice flat area. Um, that helps. That really helps with transitions too, like jiving and tacking, learning the emotions to that.
Cause so it easier to do it on a board skateboard then on the water when it's on the forest, staying up on foil and all that right now. Cool. Well, um, are there any, is there anything you guys want to say to the people getting into the sport? Like in terms of like the community or like any message you want to give to everybody getting into the sport?
Alicia?
No, I was just saying where Leisha is. Check your leashes, always check your gear. You know, if a wing leash breaks, you know, one flip and the wing is about 10 feet away from you, you know? So like two flips, three flips before you know it, it's going to be like 30 yards away from you. Make sure you check your leash.
And, um, also communication is key because as you get up on foil, say you're with two people. Once you get up on foil and you're gone, uh, the conditions aren't always conducive for you to come back and talk story and coordinate and plan. So before you even get into water, kind of have a game plan, which your crew or your partners about where you guys are going to end, which direction you're heading and whatnot, communication and safety rule important.
Yes. Definitely. Definitely. And, and, and as well as, um, um, where was I going with this? Um, yes. Letting other people know, you know, like even others in the surf, when you do get out and start going to the surf, we don't need to be going through a super crowded lineup. I mean, we can just stay outside. Like, um, a lot of times on the agriculture here, we have miles of ways that we can catch to the area where the surfers are and we can kick out.
And we just told them guys go, you guys, go ahead and we'll fly back out and just, and just enjoy, you know, and, um, the community right now, you know, winging is so new. Um, there are. Awesome people everybody's willing to help. Um, if you do have questions, reach out, you know, either on social media, on to your local break.
Um, too, however, dude, don't feel, um, a shame of asking any questions, you know, any tips, as soon as you see somebody doing really cool stuff, they more than likely just being in Europe. Six months ago, eight months ago, you know, a year like when Wayne falling is not old. So you're going to ask a question and yeah, I'll go ahead and say, Hey, maybe you should try this, or you should try that.
You know? Cause we, we were all there before, you know?
Yeah. And it's like, it's kinda up to us to make the community the way we want it to be, you know, like. And like surfing is kind of a lot of times like surfers are so aggressive or like they kind of have to be to be able to get away, you know, and yeah. And wing falling. You don't, you don't really have, we don't need that really.
Right. You can just have fun and Sharon and enjoy it together and not have to be like aggressive. And, um, like we can just share, wave and smile. Right. We don't have to get all mad at each other or something. So. But I was just thinking another tip. I kind of, saying like, if, if your board ever ends up being upside down with the foil sticky, And your wing is close by like that's like emergency situation, especially if the board is upwind of your wing, just do whatever you can to flip that foil back underwater and away from your wing, because it happens so quickly that the thing just tips over it gets blown into your wing, and then you have a big hole in your wing and you're out of action for a few days and have to get up checks and so on.
So that's, I think that happens to beginners, right? Yeah, it happened very quickly. Also. I also see people sometimes like having their board on the beach with the first sticking up and then they tie the leash, the wing leash to the top of the foil or something like that. And then the first Gus that comes it's like blows it over and w the foil falls into the wing or something like that.
So just be very aware of your foil. And not falling onto your wing, you know, that cause that damages your wing very easily. Right? I think we've all. Yeah. Yeah. What was that from experience or was that from something you saw? Oh yeah, it never happened to me. Of course. I just saw other people doing that.
Yeah. As Brian dicey knows.
Yeah. All right. Any, any other last words to anyone? All right. Thank you. Thank you. And everything. Sorry. Caught you had something else to say? Yeah. I just want to say have fun. Be safe. Communicate. Uh, no, the wind directions respect the community. All right. Big tips. Alright, that's great. All right. Well thank you all for your time.
And I know you have school tomorrow morning and we all probably have to work and stuff like that. It's free. It's like 10 o'clock at night. So thanks for joining me and thanks for everyone watching on YouTube and, uh, take care. I'll see you on the water. Aloha. Thank you. Thanks. So good.
All right. Thanks so much for sticking around to the end. And I know some of you listened to it as a podcast and probably have listened to every single word, but those of you on YouTube, uh, if, if you watch it all the way to the end on YouTube, you're one of the elite 5% who watched the whole thing from start to end.
So congratulations for that. And thanks for sticking around. Uh, so please give it a thumbs up if you liked it and, you know, leave your comments down below. And, uh, and thanks for the support, uh, for blue planet. Basically the show is sponsored by people like you, that support our business blue planet. So I always appreciate that.
Um, we're keeping it free. I'm not charging anything or you don't have to make any donations or anything like that, but if you can support Buchanan next time you're buying some new foil equipment that's really appreciated. And that's what supports this show. So thank you and have a good one. See you on the water.
Aloha.
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Armie Armstrong Wing Foil interview, Blue Planet Show Episode 16
6 Nov 2021· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show. On this show, I interview Wing foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders and ask them in-depth questions about wing foil equipment and technique. I'm also trying to get to know my guests a little bit better, their background, how they got into water sports, what inspires them and how they live their best life.
As a visual learner, I'm adding visual content that you can watch right here on YouTube, but you can also listen to these long form interviews on the go as a podcast, just search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast app.
Today's interview is with none other than Armie Armstrong, the founder of Armstrong foils.
It's amazing how he built a business in just a few years from a few prototypes to one of the biggest manufacturers in the world of foiling and a wing foiling equipment. We just got some of their new boards at our shop here in Honolulu. Really nice, Innovative features. And he talks about that in this interview also about growing up on a sailboat, learning how to walk basically on a sailboat, sailing around the world with his parents.
So that's a really cool back story. I thought I also want to say a special thank you to our sponsors. This show is brought to you by people just like you, that support blue planet here in Honolulu. So next time you're shopping for new gear. Please check out blueplanetsurf.com. And I think you'll find that we have great quality, service and pricing, so you can't go wrong getting gear from blue planet.
And of course also you're supporting content like this and making it possible. So thanks for everyone who supports their business.
All right. Army Armstrong. Welcome to the blue planet show. Thanks so much for coming on. How are you doing today? Oh, awesome, man. Yeah, we're just about to go and test some prototype foil.
As soon as this is finished, we're out on the water. So yeah, life is good. We were locked down and Zed for awhile recently, and it's all for a year and a half behind the rest of the world with the COVID thing. So we're going through it now. I don't know. It's crazy, but yeah, we were allowed back on the water.
Yeah, a couple of months of that was pretty bad locked off the water. So now we're back into it. You weren't allowed to go even on the water at all during lockdown, you had to stay in your house. Basically. Yeah, it was pretty hardcore. And then even now, we're, I guess we're almost two and a half months into it, like a lot of businesses of open, so it's pretty hard for a lot of people.
I'm just super lucky that that you guys in the states seem to be charging ahead and carrying on and Europe as well seem to be back to normal. So fingers crossed. We hit that way too. Yeah. Not really back to normal, but people are just tired of arranging their lives around COVID, and basically just like at some point you just have to learn to live with it.
I guess that's the thing, but yeah, like last time we met was I guess like about three years ago, I think in Raglan maybe two years ago before the, before this whole thing. Yeah, that's right. When that was that your last international trip? Probably one, no, actually I went to New Zealand again, like a year later, which was in February, I think, February on 2009, 19.
As the pandemic was already going on in China right before they stopped the travel international travel. So that was a good trip. But so now you're in Auckland. Yeah. Zeeland it's it's. Summer's just starting, you got nice weather over there. Yeah. It's just starting. And yeah, we're lucky we're at a lockdown and we're back in the water.
And yeah, we're just getting through pretty exciting list of prototypes and, moving ahead, once they put in. Let's start in the beginning. Last time we talked to you, you mentioned, you just said that you grew up on a sailboat sailing around the world with your parents.
So I don't want it to find out more about that. Can you tell us more about, how you grew up and how you got into water sports and, love for the ocean and all that kind of stuff. I was just really lucky that born into a sailing family. I think I was really lucky.
Definitely had a lot of great adventures with my parents. I was conceived in Brazil, so my father was an architect in Brazil, and then they'd been planning, a sailing adventure with some friends of theirs who is also a Kiwi architect along with my father. And they went back well all back to the UK, made up there boredom.
Fit it up. And I had two young families, so six kids total, three each side, and then the four adults. And they jumped on a 44 foot kitchen sound off around the world to the blue yonder. And so that was, I was six months old when we left the UK. And, we sat around for a couple of years, floating around the Pacific to learn, to walk on the boat and then, ended up in New Zealand after, pretty good salient venture.
And then we were always sailing every, every chance my parents got to get out and about. And once we were in New Zealand. And yeah, just all of my childhood memories are, sailing places. So the trip that two year trip, you actually, do you remember much of that? When you, if you're six months old, you probably don't remember.
I don't remember a lot, but I actually made a, I was when I was at school, I did a, like a many student DACO type thing on it, and there was lots of super eight footage and lots of slide slides and stuff. I put together a bit of a a story and interviewed everyone actually on video. So we've got that, which is pretty cool.
So yeah, I remember it more through photos and stories. But it's interesting, like just learning to walk on the boat and that just being in the ocean for a lot of time, I know you can't, I have to get in the water weekly at least or else I just start going crazy. Yeah, that's that just is what it is. So that's interesting. Do you think that learning to walk on a boat helped you with having better balance or being used to being on, on, yeah, definitely for sailing and maybe for other sports too, because that just feeling the way the water's moving and being used to it.
And I think that's the way with a lot of, the traditional navigators, they just grew up in that way of being on the water and fishing and stuff. And yeah, that's definitely something that I guess yeah, that they say that your brain gets pretty wide in the first, five to seven years.
So I think all of those real early experiences, as I think with top surface, they get into that when they're really young, they have a, quite an advantage, I think. Yeah, for sure. That's interesting. So do you get seasick at all or you're never really got seasick. Yeah. That probably has something to do with the two that you're just used to.
You said that I love it. I love, the rougher. It gets the more fun I love being out on the ocean, that's. Yeah. Cool. So what are your earliest memories of like being in the ocean or in the surf or like doing like kind of water, sports, like surfing or for me, it's really sailing.
We did a little bit of playing around in the surf more body surfing, really. When I was young, we didn't really have surfboards. We used to just play in the surf, but we were more, more silent. We were off on styling and benches, that's, that was really, up until I went on my own adventures in my teens, I was just with my family.
Going, sailing around New Zealand. And then later on in life, we did a lot of missions back out into the Pacific with dad and his friends, silent tool sorts of, interesting places. And then personally, for me, when I got right into whitewater kayaking, actually when I was in my teens, I was really influenced by a teacher at one of my schools who was a real whitewater, kayaking, fanatic.
And yeah we try and really have, we didn't want what a slalom at team one, all of New Zealand titles for the whitewater slalom competitions, and got seriously into that trial and the New Zealand team. There were a couple of really good guys, so I never got into that team, but. Really dug it.
And then we had ourselves off of waterfalls and in our late teens and early twenties and a couple of my good friends who have gone on to become, world-class kayakers. And then I got into, I got bitten by the wind surfing bug at university, so really transitioned, kayaking into wind surfing.
And I was lucky enough to go wind surfing and Raglan. Cause I was at uni at Waikato doing a science degree and Ragland's, a short drive. And so yeah, we used to Skype off lectures when it was windy and go wind surfing. And that was great. And had a good friend near James court.
Who's won an NZ, its best windsurfers. And he was at uni with me doing a science degree as well. And so we used to yeah. Spend a lot of time out in Raglan when surfing. That was really where I got into the wave side of things more than through surf. And this was like in the 1990s or around what time?
1990s. Yes. So I guess late, late eighties, I really got into windsurfing. And then at uni, 1990 to 95, we were probably windsurfing as much as uni scraped through my degree. So much time on the water. Yeah, that sounds very similar to my, my background too. I got into wind surfing and that's how I ended up being, coming to Hawaii and going to the city here and stuff.
But and then what happened next? Like how did you transition from wind surfing to the other water sports that you do now? Yeah. So when say a thing and then got right into sup rotted the early days on a sale, we were on a sailing trip actually to tie. W we did a whole big Pacific mission and about 2005 or 2006 I'm with my parents, with my dad at the time.
And we were meeting up with some friends of hers who had been doing a big multi-year circumnavigation of the globe. And we caught up with those guys in Tahiti. And we were, while we were inside Hadia, big south swell came or Southwest swell, and we went, okay let's go down and have a look at Chapo.
And we had peddled out, not obviously known Adelaide, but he was peddling out on this giant. Must've been 11 plus foot sat gun before anyone else was even really doing it and caught a couple of waves at Chopra, and we were sitting in the channel watching I'm too scared to try and go surf it for sure.
And yeah, I was just like, that is epic. That's just, he just peddled out from the beach. Like everyone else came out on boats. A couple of guys pedaled out from the beach, there are a couple of the local stations, but most guys were on boats and I just was super cool. He took his last wave and over the reef and paddled in and I'm dislike.
Ah, that's, we've got to get into that. So it came back, there's no deer around and we just grabbed some old Wednesday and made some got, cause I was into kayaking. So it just fit with my kayaking history. So we just made a couple of pedals, started peddling around on them and we didn't really know what we were doing.
And we caught a few waves here and there and was just, we're just having great fun paddling around on these things. And From there actually really took off as a sport. And then I got right into it and there was some events in Hawaii. The battle of the pedal Waikiki actually was was on.
And I was like, okay, we're gonna go and have a go at this. And yeah, I had a blast like that. And it was yeah, for that one, I think they only had that one time, the Waikiki battle of the power. It only happened once, maybe a couple of times, maybe twice. Yeah. It was pretty cool. A lot of local prize our member battling car around that one, but he was only about 13.
That was the last chance I got to battle with him after he was just killed everyone. Yeah. Yeah. I still remember a race where I beat Connor Baxter, but that was, I think he was like 12 or something. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So then sup really got me to Hawaii and then spent, I made a mission from about 2011.
I think that was the battle of the pedal in 2011 Waikiki. I could be wrong, but check those dates and then. Yeah. Every year, since then just spent New Zealand new. Zealand's a fantastic place. Winter is a pretty long though. So yeah. Had a mission to try and get out of for the winters for a couple of months in Hawaii, if I could, or, Samar or Fiji Corso is fantastic from New Zealand, much, much easier to get to, but I guess Hawaii is, the epicenter of the surf world.
And there's a good reason for that. The conditions are amazing. The people are amazing and you just learn much faster with any of those, with any activity, really, if you're around the best in the world, you just learn faster, so it was just a learning experience for me and got right into it. And then through all that time, I got right into kite surfing as well.
So the Wednesday thing transitioned into the kite surfing and yeah, so cutting and subbing. I was just doing that as much as I could. Funding it in any way possible. I was still working a bit in the film industry doing underwater photography in New Zealand and then doing odd jobs for cash when I was out and about.
So that was your main income was photography and doing, yeah. So through that I'd done a bunch of paperwork with some various organizations, film schools and stuff, and ended up working in the New Zealand film industry, doing underwater camera work. And that was great fun because it suited me, we were in the water again and filming, but it still New Zealand film industry is really up and down and especially something as specific as water shooting, it's not really consistent work.
So it was good. I managed to get lots of time to go off and do my through my passion, really, which. Yeah, get in the water paddling or cutting. Cool. Yeah, I remember you came by the sh our shop on ward avenue. I dunno, maybe six years ago or five or six years ago. And you had your first, or one of your first foil prototypes of the Armstrong full and you were showing it to me and stuff like that.
But I think that was like, before you even started production on them or anything, you can't, that was actually the first batch out of the first production mold. Just, it was like a production sample and we were just getting ready. So yeah, we had bicycle. You were one of the fist people, actually we went to say and say, Hey, we got some spoils.
You guys are gonna need bees. I was pretty impressed by the, like the whole design and stuff, like how the fuselage goes through the mass and stuff. It's pretty unique. At that time, I don't think anybody had anything similar. And then, but so you got into foiling through kiting, is that right?
Or yeah, so we go into foiling through kiting basically quite foil racing and kite foiling has been around a little bit longer than some of the others cottage. The cottage took it up a little bit earlier. I think, really falling has been around for ages with initially with Mike Murphy and then rush Randall and lit and Dave Kalama and pick your brain are in a Robbie nation.
All that crew, really took it on and Hawaii. Totally. To try and deal with the wind bump and all of that sort of cool history. And the Cod is took it on, a little bit, later, but earlier than, most of the other recent uptake anyway. And so we were doing a lot of cutting and cut for them was just the normal thing to do.
And we just jumped on that and we were breaking everything we did. Funnily enough, late again, to knock and Reagan for the ultimate water man event. And I was actually doing some camera work on that for a promo that they did with led towing in, out on the points in Ragland. I was living in Ragland at the time and Daniel Kyoko, who then went on to win the first ultimate water man.
He was driving the jet ski. I was on the back filming with late. And I think Terry Chung came down correct me if I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure. And he was telling with lead at some yeah. At Raglan and I would get. Really long wipes, like a couple of minutes long maybe. And we were like, okay we were cutting following at the time when we all like, actually, this is these guys.
I know these guys have been doing it for a long time, but that was the first time we'd seen proper foiling and proper waves life. And it just blew all of us away. We were just like, wow, that's that looks like too much fun. We're going to have to do that. And so we got out on our kite foils and pretty much broke all of them doing that.
So we were like, okay, that's that D is not, it's not going to work. So we're going to have to stop making R and D and that was it. Yeah. I think I remember seeing I'm going to, I'm going to screen share this video that I remember watching
Yeah. So there was some, a bunch of helicopter footage. That's right. This was a promo for the ultimate water man and this, the water shots. So that one, and then there's a couple of other water shots later on. I shot them on the back of the ski with Daniel. So that's obviously the heli shot. And then there's one where led, comes past a man.
That's actually a heli shot too, but then you can see on the jet ski. Yeah. That's me and Daniel. And that's one of our shots there. That's pretty epic. Yeah. Yeah. So that was, obviously a good Diane rags. It was no one out surfing. It was a bit too lumpy, this outsides. So yeah, lad was the first person to really get involved in, outsides properly, foiling rags.
And for him, obviously this isn't necessarily massive surf, but it's still a pretty solid day. He's charging us to turn our member. He was like, so close to putting the foil out there. I know, in front of the lip, I've led sleds, a unique individual, as we all know. So trust him to really, open up our thoughts processes.
So yeah, we were jumping in the water, filming the stuff, and this was the promo for the ultimate water man. Yeah. And his masses is that the stainless steel mask? This one's, I'm pretty sure it's an alloy rig. Very basically probably a Mike Murphy Tiba and with GTN, with. I dunno, lead would have built with someone in Hawaii, I don't know the full story of a rig. Except that yeah, we were just like, ah that's too much fun. We're going to have to, we're going to have to get into it. And then we did, we got onto it after that and broke everything we had. And so then we were like, okay, we just have to start making stuff.
So you actually started with Cohen foiling out or cutting. And then we saw that and then we started towing because it just was like, mind-blowingly fun looking. We didn't realize at the time how hard it was. So we just got thrashed and broke all that kite gear. And out in the city, first of all, we started rebuilding the kite gear cause we broke it all and named, we were like, hang on a minute.
The stuff we are, we've rebuilt some wings, we rebuilt some fuselages and some masks and we sit actually we've made it stiffer with made it stronger. It feels better to run. Let's actually make a whole of whole foil set. And then we're really lucky in New Zealand. We've got a lot of really smart boat designers and boat builders.
And I had some connections in that area too. And so we just started making our own rigs and pretty much I hand-built our first foil wings, just with some templates that we made up a little bit like making a big fan, really. We just, hand-making a fin, we made some templates, we made some foil sections.
We mapped it out on some paper and we translated that on some blocks of wood, we stuck all that together. And then we laminated it and tried it and went, okay, that worked and we wanted to make it a bit different. So we tried a different foil section, took the grind to it a few times until we had something that we thought actually worked pretty well.
And then we scan that and then did some cat on it and that became our first.
So that was the process. And in terms of the system development I was really interested through, spending a lot of time on the boat, on fittings that didn't didn't corrode. And titanium as a real top end material for not having galvanic corrosion, especially with cabin and it's light and strong, and it's just a, a really nice material and the ocean, because once the part is made, it doesn't really change.
So I was really interested in using that technology and that led us down various rabbit holes to, and we ended up yeah. And basically you're the sister from the very beginning, you add that the design was the titanium shrouded with carbon fiber and in a mold or, and then so basically the basic design of your fuselage and the mass fitting and stuff, hasn't really changed.
It's still the same as the original foil. You told me that. And that was where we spent a lot of time. We got some pretty good design advice at the time on some of the dimensions. The reason for the Hicks inside the round. We wanted round because I really think round on the fuselage is pretty important for not changing the flow when the fuselage goes through different angles.
So the flow doesn't change, to the, around the fuselage, to the back wing. If you got a small square or rectangular fuselage, when you put it on an angle, it changes the flow around that saw. I was really interested in that. And if you look at the. Fish and bottom brackets on boats and keel bulbs and everything.
Nothing squid, no one's making anything square fish. There's no square fish, really. So I was like, okay, let's go round. And then to fit inside around a hex as a really good shape, because you can put the two together and you get a similar thickness around the outside of it, which means when you do your layouts, you can wrap the fiber right around that.
Which is, what we do in our molds. So the fibers come all the way down from the top of the mast wrap around the bottom bracket and then go back up, which is pretty tricky layout to do. But that's the key point to giving it that feeling and unlocking, locking in the feeling into the mask, which is yeah.
What we've spent quite a lot of time developing that layup and we're happy with it and Hey, this. It's always a balance. You can make something stiffer, but then you're going to lose it, lose some fields. So there's that balance. And it depends a little bit on the conditions. If you're really going out in big waves, then yet there is something in a stiffer setup.
And I think like you say, lead may well be using stainless or solid LOE master or something for the really big waves, but we're not really trying to make gear at this point for people to toe in it Mazur. And it's epic. Those guys have done it. They're BYOD mix level for sure. But what we're trying to do.
Gifts make something that has a real nice surf feeling when you're doing a tune on a head highway, that's really the goal. And then obviously Wingdings come along and whinging it is, to me, it's like going back to windsurfing. It's awesome. It was a beautiful blend of windsurfing and cutting to me winging puts the two together and this way, and it brings foiling really to anyone that's the beauty of whinging because you're, you've got the balance with the wing, which is a lot like the windsurf rig, but you don't have the mask.
So it's lighter and easier to handle. You don't have that pool issue. You haven't got the strings like the cot and it allows you to have that balance point on the foil. So really with winging, in decent when anyone can foil and that's where I think the future, isn't a, Hey, I'm not alone in that one.
Yeah, for sure. And this is a wing filing show but and like for me when wing filing started, I was doing more standup foiling or, prone, foiling and stand up racing and stuff like that. But ever since I started wink, filing, that's almost all I do now. So how is it for you?
Like how much time do you spend on a wing foil board versus other sports? Yeah. We still cut for the little bit because coding's a really good way to test gear because you're independent. You can go pretty fast and you can like quickly change gear and go back out and feel it wonderings pretty good tasting gear as well.
And then we tow, I do quite a lot of towing into down one. Cause I think riding bumps down wind on bigger foil, especially when you're fishing with bigger foils is a great way to see how they turn. I'm really interested in foils trying to make foils that turn really. That combination of pump efficiency and turning so pull it towing into bumps down wind and yeah.
We used to paddle and we still do pedal on a little bit on the really windy days with the SA. We don't have conditions in New Zealand really where you can chip in and ride the coast down one like an like in Hawaii which is awesome to see that some of the top surfers doing that as a cross training thing, I really influenced by Kyle I'd say, but yeah, the down wind for them, we do a little bit of that.
But for testing gear really towing, you can't beat the amount of time you get on the foil, and so for me, the problem is with making gear and my past. Robbie who really drummed the send to me at the, after our first machine, we were accountable over the place, making all sorts of different things.
You've got to just change one thing at a time, which, whether that be a tail angle a tail section, whatever it is, you have to keep everything else. The same, the board, the mass position, the front wing, the fuselage link, every other element you need to keep the same so that otherwise you don't really know what your progression is or what's happening.
And so we keep a note of each rig we've tried and then change one thing at a time. And then you actually have an idea of what you've done and what is affecting things. And then you can make progress and it's, it does two things. I, it means you can't just dump to some whole mix level immediately. It's a progression.
And the other thing is it takes quite a lot of time on the water, through that even coming into like most of my winging sessions, I'll even choose the location. Based on how easy it is to come in to change something out and go back out again. And sometimes they'll go positions just for fun, but oftentimes if there's a boat ramp nearby or, an easy place to come in and out, I'll choose that spot because then I can come, run with the tail at a certain angle, change it half a degree, go back out for half an hour, come back and change it.
Half a degree, you go back out and, get that balance and feeling and hopefully make some progress. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I totally agree with that one changing one thing at a time. That's the way to do it, but I guess for the last two months, I always hard for you to test anything if you couldn't.
We had, I think it was seven weeks of being allowed on the water. And yeah, really frustrating. But luckily Rob was out of the country. He was, he went to hood river and stuff. So he was doing basically a foil testing at that time. And we've got some great team riders now, too.
So there's a lot of feedback now coming from team riders. That's, it's almost too much sometimes. It's great really though. There's a lot of Intel coming in, but the hottest thing with team rod is us asking him to change just one thing at a time. Cause they never do some are better than others, but everyone's got great opinions and that's really starting to feed into, what we're developing and how we're developing it.
The new four geometry boards. Was really a passion project for me, but we got a lot of input from our team writers that really helped with that whole development process. Yeah, it's been really fun. I actually wanted to ask you. You went from being like a traveling videographer or, like on a shoestring budget to having like an international brand that's like worldwide and a lot of growth, obviously.
And, as a business owner I know to grow, like that takes a lot of money and capital and good people and stuff like that. So can you talk a little bit about that process? Like how did you do it? How did you pull that off and how were you able to, finance it and how did you do that?
Yeah, it's a pretty, it's a pretty long, interesting story. I guess really when it started happening, I got really lucky with, Rob Woodell coming on, he's a super smart guy. And I was getting into foiling at the same time with me and really saw a future in what we were doing. And he was, my initial kind of partner.
And then we brought in Andrew McGregor and Bryce Rhodes who are, super keen surfers and, SOP athletes and also successful business people. So they really bought some key business knowledge to it. And through those early days I ended up doing some work for some surfboard factories in Asia.
At the end of the sub game, I ended up going to Asia and helping doing some quality control. And also from my boat find did a bit of boat-building, on the side as well. Obviously I'd always been involved with my grandfather, built boats, been involved with that when you're dealing with boats, there's always something to do.
And so there's always maintenance with boats, some kind of sanding or laminating or painting or whatever it may be. And so through that background and building a bunch of sat boards and stuff like that, I ended up going and working in a factory. And at the time I tried to sit up actually a sub-brand and I went to the last Pacific paddle games with the range of boards actually.
But they were, I was probably behind the curve on that one, but what I did do through that process was ended up working in in some surfboard factories, helping them improve their cabin layout techniques. So yeah, I spent a bunch of time in Asia, in surfboard factories over a period of three years.
And so when I put my friends together who were backing the full project with, my contacts with the surfboard factories, that's really where we were at grew from. So I was just lucky right place, right time. And we got into it at the right time. I think that video you play with lead was instrumental timing it, put us.
We got right into it a little bit early. And I changed my focus from sup completely to foiling and that's just all we were trying to make. And yet to be honest, our first few foil boards were pretty wild and it was just an experimental, time. And we, they worked. But yeah, for sure they needed to be improved, but that was, the process that everyone was in at the time.
And I was just lucky that we met, we got to make some, and we got to make some foils and we got them out on the market at a time when it was just taking off. And so from there we grew it and I'm just really lucky with a lot of people that we met along the way. Yeah. Nice. And then and then Rob widow basically helped you with, I interviewed him as well for that ozone interview, but it's able to help you finance it, or, how it's I know any girl fast, it's always, the money goes out faster than it comes in, right?
Yeah. It's quite funny how much it costs to just keep the ball rolling. It's definitely a learning experience for me, but yeah. So Rob obviously invested at the early days Andrew and Bryce, who I've mentioned, they invested and yeah, we got the thing rolling. Started getting the product out there and started getting a bit of traction because there weren't a lot of good options that were easy.
We've really, it's lucky not being a super product. I'm okay. But I'm Mo I'm very far from a pro, so I want to make stuff that's easy to ride. That's really been one of my focuses. And so that was, that fitted the market at the time. Cause everyone was learning and that, that was a good Bush and saw then scaling it up.
That's the biggest issue. Like you say, that does cost a lot of money. So scaling up to distribution and we made some stuff in New Zealand and it was really hard to just shipping out of New Zealand is a real killer. The logistics from here are really is really tricky.
And I had these contexts in the circle factories up there. And while I was up there, I actually met a really interesting guy on a beach in China, Austin, Kirk, who is a American guy. That's spent a lot of time doing business in Asia. And he had some friends who were, really top business guys and the cell phone pots industry.
And we were at the time trying to scale up to meet the global demand that was taking off. And it's really tricky to understand those economics, these economies, those economies of scale, global distribution. It's a complicated game if you haven't got that system or process in place. And yeah, we basically spent a lot of time working with those guys to improve our manufacturing.
And that really is where we got ourselves to the next level and we ended up effectively partnering with those guys on the supply chain side. So the manufacturing we had much better control of the materials we were using. The. The delivery schedules and the quality control. And so that was, that's been instrumental.
It was I guess there's no one thing it's a whole lot of things all coming together and, I just feel really lucky that it came together at the time that it did and where we're able to stay afloat. Yeah, no, it's really impressive how quickly you grew the business, and to become one of the leading brands.
Yeah. I don't know. I might hope maybe we're a leading brand. I hope we are. We definitely try hard to, do what we say we're doing and we're making the gear as best we can. We do spend a lot of money on materials. It's slightly crazy. I had a Aussie businessmen recently who we're, who has some distribution and all Aussie.
He was like, you guys are crazy. You need to spend less money on your gear and, you'd have a bit of business case, but. To me, I dunno, where we're just sticking true to our original design theory. And we wanted to make gear with materials that were as good as we could afford to make it with.
And yeah, we're, that's where we're not really compromising. So it's it's always a juggle and business. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But that's what Rob, Rob bill was saying that too, if you're really into the sport you're not that concerned about the price. It's more like you want to have the best equipment you can have.
It's not. Yeah. That's your main concern is the quality of the equipment more than the cost or the price of it. Yeah. And there's definitely something that comes with Different materials. There's a fail. There's the way it lasts. There's the way it performs. There's a whole bunch of things.
And so for us, whether it's boards, foils, client wings, any of it we're trying to use the best materials we can. And, it's a really interesting process. Especially when you scale up just, and in the current market to getting hold of materials. As that's where we got really lucky with our supply chain partners, because even just managing to maintain supply in the current global economy is really interesting.
But challenging thing to do. And to be honest, if it was just me, yeah, it'd be, it wouldn't be working. So I've got really good partners and that's on the business. Yeah, that's the key to it is having the right people doing the right job. I guess there's a real psychology in life. And I try to, there's some inspir, inspiring character, I think will Smith, he's a great actor, but an interesting character.
He talks a lot about, you've got to employ the people who are really talented at the things that. And that's what you need to do for the universe. You, your, you do what you're good at, and you employ people who are good at doing the things they are good at. And in the long run, it all works out better because people are doing, their passion and what they're good at.
And yet you've got to spread everything out when you do that, but that's just, I think that's, to me how things work and that's how we've made it work anyway. Yeah. So what would you say is your job description that Armstrong foil is now? My job is basically I'm the lead product development.
And then Rob basically is my main like advisor. He's pretty smart guy and he's been making products in this sort of game. I need to talk to Rob, from the hang-gliding days. A lot of wind design knowledge there. And then apart from. I've got, I'm the passion engine, where, trying to hit us in the right direction.
And then we're filling out our team on all the other fronts logistically because that's, my forte is not global logistics at all, and it's still a challenge, but it's been really interesting. And I get involved, we have, open meetings and process on that, but we're, to be honest, we're finding our way to a certain extent as well, but we do have, Andrew's really in charge of the sales and business admin side of it.
And then we've got a great inside account management sales team who are really on top of immediate communications, and that it's yeah. Having a global. Network means you've got to be on top of communications, 24 7. And at the time differences and stuff that it's hard to communicate with everybody live.
Yeah, that's right. So you've got to, you gotta be able to have a T it's about the whole thing is it's a team. It's a team process and it's, yeah, it's really fun to be a paddle. Cool. So let's talk a little bit about your the equipment. When you went back to your website, your, so we just got a shipment at our shop of your new boards.
So can you tell us a little bit about these new winks up boards? Yeah. So the forge geometry wing sat range I'd spend. A lot of time hanging out with the America's cup sailors. And obviously the America's cup was on in New Zealand last year. And I was just looking at how those guys set up their geometry of the boats.
And, they put the, their main foils in the middle of the boat at the center of gravity. And I'm like those guys are pretty smart, guys. Why do they do that? Like, why is the foil in the center of gravity of the book? And there are a lot of reasons for that for basically efficiency of lifting and not labor ridging things up.
And so we played with it a lot and we decided an actual fact. We want to give people the option of putting the foil a lot for the Ford and the board, because then you can have a board that feels like a much smaller board to ride, but it has more waterline length to get you up. And. Because we also want to ride, smaller, and smaller foils because they're faster and more responsive.
And so if you move the foil further and the board and your body further on the board, you've got the feeling of a smaller board, but you got the water line length to get you going. And in the water line, link out the back end, we got rid of the the cutaway on the back of the board because we just want to maximize the board waterline linked to get you up and going as, as early as possible.
So everything about the house shape was about getting up and going with the laced energy so that people could ride effectively a smaller board and a smaller failing board. Then we, we did a bunch of other things. We might've really deep cockpit, which does come from a lot from this. Rice board design.
There's a drain, which is also the handle both sides. And the reason we recessed the cockpit is that it's got quite a nice feeling. There is a slight convicts in the middle, and then it goes up to the, the rails and the closer you are to the foil, the more responsive everything is.
The board thickness is just like adding a longer mask effectively to your foil. So dropping that recess means it brings you closer to the foil and has a really nice, more direct feel to the foil. But then you need some volume somewhere. So we have these, high sided rails. That's just about it.
And then we got a pretty decent nose kick nose kicked Mike, Murphy's doing some work with us on the white foil market and all of those skis from the sit down guys, they all have massive nose rocker, right? And those guys are landing jumps all the time. And it's just way more forgiving if you've got a bit more nose rocker and a slightly wider nose, which is why we went to the chisel nose so that it's more forgiving for, plannings.
And then the final thing really with the shaping elements is that wider nose allows you to really straighten all the lines on the boards. So the rails and the Chinese are really straight and we just felt that help with the board accelerating off the water surface.
So what size board do you ride? Mostly? I'm lucky. I have three boards and my vans depends on the day. If the wind's light I'll ride the 88 liter, I'm 90 kgs. So I'll read the 88 liter as my light when board and I can trot around on that pretty much in no wind I'm with the five and a half or a six and a half and get going at the slightest gas cause you're already standing and we do get a lot of shifty light, wind days, especially in the summer here.
So that's great for testing the bigger gear. And then obviously if I'm stopping, I'll use a bigger body as a hundred liter board, if I'm stepping. So I'm Mani kgs. I'm not, I used to be better at stopping. I used to be able to sit pedal assist was the same volume as my weight, but now I go up 10, 10 liters.
So I ride them on a nine liter board when I'm, if I'm stopping. Yeah, sorry. That's what it's going to be four boards, but the sup doesn't isn't in the van a lot, these days, mostly it's the wind kit. Then for the NFL, if you want a lot, when boat that you can stop. Yeah. You need to go a few liters over your weight, probably.
And then my all rounders, the 50 liter, the 50 or the 60, I really liked the 60 as well, but I'm using the 50 at the moment because I've got my stats pretty doll on that. I need about 12 minutes. I can get going on the 50 liters here to have that photo there. That's the 50 liter. That was a lot.
That was a classic station actually on Malik. Yeah, we had a really fun, it was the Mo a lot Brightwell not the main waver Elia, cause the surface we sell over there, but the surface are all like go away. And so we're like, yeah. Okay. We're back to the break wall. And we probably would've got munched anyways, but we read off for when they're right.
Yeah. Straight off shore. Yeah. It was super fun station. And that's the beauty with winging. You can ride off shore like offshore sessions. I've had such great officers say you have to be a little bit careful that you, Alicia is really well set up and you got a good board leash, a good kite leash. But if there's some good waves you can really off shore sessions are so fun with winging and that's something that we never did with kiting.
And even when surfing Dade off shore is tricky about what the wing you can just fully deep power it and ride straight up when. But you're getting back to the board choices set in the 50 liters, my old round at the moment I need 12 knots or more. And then if it's proper windy, I like the 34 liter four, five.
And that's because it's really nice to jump. It's just, smaller and more nimble in the air. But you need proper winds. So if it's 18 knots plus, and really good wind, then I'll ride the four or five. Okay, cool. Talk a little bit about the handle. This is pretty unique that I think you're the only ones making a handle that goes all the way through the board.
Yeah. So no idea what that was. Yes. So having a handled top and bottom was obviously a good thing and. To save, right? Like traditional handles are, they definitely add white to a board and we had this really deep recess and I'd played with a lot of rice sups with Vince and the cockpit.
And I actually had my race. I should dig out the photo for you. At some point, I made a rice up for the 2018 Molokai to Oahu, which was the first foil downwind, the vent on the Molokai. And that one had a really deep cockpit and it had Vince as well. And so I, one of the veins and the deep cockpit board, and then it just came together.
We make the water drain a handle. So that goes all the way through. So you got your handle top and bottom and. For the cockpit and obviously the cockpit joins out the back as well, but you just want to make sure that the water completely clear. So if you've got such a big cock, but it makes sense to have an event.
So the handle on the bottom is a little bit further back than on the deck. Is that correct? Yeah, it's on an angle. So the handles on an angle the reason for that is to help with water evacuation and also reduce the drag on the, so the I maybe it's pretty minor, but at the, on the bottom, because the handles on an angle, it's not a square surface hitting the water.
It's actually an angled surface at the back of the handle. So whether that makes any difference, I don't know. It's a pretty tiny detail. You ever get water splashing up out of the board when you're like on the surface of it's funny, even landing really big jumps. If you get a video shot of it. Yeah.
When you bouncing the board off, the water comes through there, but you don't notice that I've never, I've landed pretty big jumps on that board and I've never noticed the water splashing up and hitting me in the face. Interesting. So let's talk a little bit about your the wing. Oh, I guess the wing surf and then I guess these are for winging and surfing then.
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So the smaller boards are more assist shape. There's something you can paddle in, or like I was saying a wing the 34 and, as smaller team riders cache Breezhaler and Tatiana grant now when, you know the 4 0 27 liter board Skyrim or w SIF pedals in the four. Oh. And he's a pretty big guy, but he's a great surfer and he can obviously serve the 27 liter board.
I don't see for board that low volume. So if I'm paddling in I'll actually use the 14 I'm at 39 liters. Cause I'm not a great SIF Wheeler. I'm not a great surfer. I never really grew up surfing, so I need all the help I can get. And the four has got way more paddle, but yeah, that those photos that'll be the four of Mateo and Tatiana are on there.
Yeah, so they've got a foot strap option, so you can wing him with straps. But they're also really good for SIF falling on towed air and yeah, they're basically a good all around board. Nice. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. Thanks for that. little rundown on your boards. And then let's talk about your the foils.
I guess you just released a new foil, actually. Let me, wait, let me pull that up for you have two new foils that are just got released recently. So you want to tell us a little bit about these two new designs? Yeah, so we're just expanding the highest big foil range is actually going to be, six foils in that range.
Pretty exciting too, to fill out the range and we've done it step by step because every saw, different sizes actually need a slightly different detail. And some of those details are pretty important. Geometric or aerodynamic twist is got to be adjusted per size. And so that's a pretty big tuning element.
And like we got back to, changing one thing at a time. It takes quite a long time to, to tune in those changes. And so you have to make one, try it a few times, compare it to the other one, go backwards and forth, and then, adjusted again and, trying to get something that has that, the ultimate pump and glide, and you can turn like those are the.
The big elements. And so we're really stoked with the way out. Our bigger foils will tend, we can, you can get on a wave and you can actually, throw them around. And ultimately the ha range is is a high performance wing range, but then rippers like Mateo and stuff like he's on the 7 25 and that photo that you're the white gods, smaller guys waking that be doing crazy things on those, because they're just so much faster and you can pump from miles and that sort of stuff.
So that the there ultimately, or the range, it's a pretty similar feeling to the size. And it depends on your body size a lot. So that's why we've got the range. Obviously, once you get down to the smaller foils that we will be releasing very soon, the 5 25 and the massive one, the 1525. That's all about expanding the range for the different size of riders.
So the 5 25, it's going to be more caught foil really but the 7 25 smaller rippers and mine, 25 average size rippers, 1125 larger grippers in the 1325. And the 1525 are like your light wind performance foils or, bigger rappers who want to, get out there and pump around or down window, whatever.
So when you downwind a foil, which for the use, which I'm mostly on the 1125 and 90 kgs, but I'm okay at keeping it up to speed. I find the 9 25 is too small for me actually. But if you're a lighter guy, 1125 is going to be too big. But that's, if you're talking. Good guys who have got some pretty good skill.
If you're in really small bumps though, then I are using right now, I'm using the 1325. If it's small and I'm telling him, downwind but if it's windy enough to peddle up on a set, then I can run the 1125. Cause that's on the go when it's howling. So yeah, down one thing down, one thing, an interesting, it has a question for you.
How do you see down winning? Cause it's an interesting one for me. Like I got into it, like we were down winning the Nepali 2017 under the Nepali rice downwind on a foil. And then the year later was the 2016. I went to the goal. Before anyone had even tried to do a Dauman rice on a foreign car was down winning obviously.
And in Maui and stuff, I went, I did the Gorge dam and pedal challenge on the foil, came about mid fleet. Cause the first half was all good. And in the second half around the island, I lost the foil and paddled a 10 foot board with the foil on it, pretty slowly. But yeah. Where do you see downwind falling?
I don't know. It's epic fun and I still do it towing in, I don't do a lot of it paddling anymore and I, you do see some of the good guys chipping in and doing down windows in Hawaii, but I don't know where you see downwind and going. For me personally, I really got into for a while, like we were launching us by Portlock China walls and then just going to either Kahala or to, to all the way to Waikiki on know, stand up foiling and kinda, we're getting it, but then the wings came out and then we just it was like so much easier to use a wing and, that's how we started winning is just going on downwinders instead of a paddle, you take the wing, and then it's just easier to get up on the foil and easy to stay on the foil.
And yeah, so I actually stopped doing the downwinders. A lot of guys here on Oahu, do the downwind, like the chipping in the app from also lot of guys go from just like the, from diamond head to Waikiki or whatever, where if you fall in, then you just have to paddle in and catch another way of, You don't go too far out, out of this falls and that, yeah, and they just like tiny surf foil boards and really making it look fun.
But I haven't really gotten into that myself and this, it just seems like a lot of work if you fall in especially if, if you do a longer run and you start at China walls, if you fall in and you got like a two hour pallets again to get back. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. I think some guys are doing that.
I don't know. Hey, it's great training if you're a pro athlete. Yeah. So now it's an issue. It'll be interesting to see how it develops. I think what about the downwind suck foiling? Are you seeing a lot of guys doing that still or is that type it off a bit? So I, I think same thing and there's this less people doing it since the advent of wind foiling.
And or even that many people doing it to start with, just cause it's so challenging, but I think with the foils getting more efficient. It being easier to get up on foil at I think, maybe it will change and I, I should get back into too, but I just, yeah, when it's windy, I need to get into it too, after too much lockdown, too much locked down cake.
But what I'm excited about is this wing foiling and riding waves on the wing photo board too, and dislike doing those long carving turns and stuff like to me, that's super fun and jumping. Yeah. And I guess that's the thing with winging, it's taken over because like you say, it's so easy to get in and out and you just get so much foil time.
It's maximum bang for buck and yeah, it has it's 80%, 80% of what I do now is on a wink for sure. And it's just the user-friendliness of wings. Kiting, I've cutting, always has required, a lot of beach space to set up and cuttings is still a great sport in the right conditions.
Like howling onshore Cotting is still if it, but I don't know, you just can get out with the wing and it's so user-friendly in locations where you just can't go, with traditional cutting or even windsurfing gear and date off shores, and it's got more bottoming than windsurfing.
Wednesday. A thing is great when it's also howling, but in lighter wind, you can get going with the foil and the wing and really be tapping into waves that no one's writing. Yeah, that's true. Like we can foil wing file and much lighter conditions. Our, wind surfers could go out to, but they're not barely moving.
They, it takes them forever to get back out, to catch the next. Yeah, I know we were just like flying back and forth. So let's talk a little bit about the wings I'm like your wing development and stuff like that. So can you talk a little bit about what, what the view on and the changes you made to the V2 and so on?
Yeah, sure. So basically V1 I just wanted maximum power out of the wing. And so we really went for lodge, diameter, leading edge, and a really deep section which does give you a lot of bottom end power. And that rigidity that you get from the larger diameter tubes really helps with, the bottom in juice of the wing.
And to me, I really liked, driving the 10 50 to eight 50, the nine to five, and now the 700. With the Lang. And so you need that bottom in juice to get going on a smaller board out of the hole. So that's really what informed the main shape parameters of the wing, which really is large tubes.
And then we've got a tight leech, really tight leech, which means we have to keep that lodge diamond are going quite close to the tips because that gives that sail, that real grunt, that real low and grunty feeling. And there's two sides to that. One is just that simple, low in grant to get you out of the hole on the smaller boredom foil.
But it also means you can ride a half size or even a size down from most other wings. I ride the four or five when most people are riding a five or a five and a half, or even a six sometimes, and the five hour, five and a half hours as a guarantee, when it makes like a six or a six and a half, most of the guys bought it has a slightly more compact span for that size because it's got the really deep profile.
So there's a plus and minus with every design choice you make. But that deep profile really gives them a lot of bottom end. And that's the, I guess the biggest thing that people don't quite realize with our wings is that you need to ride, at least half a meter down on what you think. So if you're thinking of five let's at four and a half, if you're thinking six sets are five and a half really.
And the three and a half, we use that quite a lot, down to 18 knots. And that's, it's more really the grunt of a, for. Yeah. So now the thing we did is we extended our range. We've got the two and a half and the six and a half, and the vetoes we improved the handles the profile is not quite as deep.
So we changed the profile is not quite as deep as the V1, so it has a bit more top end. And it, it floats a bit, bit more nicely and we've beefed up all the reinforcements basically on the V2. It's is it the beef that beliefs you've got a photo on the screen right now there we've got an extra butter webbing that ties right back to the Strat because I was in the surf and rip the leading edge out of a couple of wings.
I'm getting wrangled in the surf. High of reality is if you get red dot on the SIF, something right. That's just life. Trying to try to beef up these things, the handles are all way grunts here and stiffer on the vatos. Yeah. That's, those are the main things. Yeah. If I can make a comment, like for this seam right here underneath the handle, I had a little cut on my finger and they kept scratching.
Like when I got back winded or like pumping or whatever, I would always get scratched by the seam, this kind of a sharp scene right there. So maybe you should move that somewhere else. Yeah, no, we could for another gram, what I've found with those, because they are handles are rigid and they're off the wing.
I find I don't hit the straw with my hand. And that's, the ha we spent a lot of time, those handles, I spent a ton of time on those handles. And yeah, there are some other, wind guys out there doing a very similar handle. Now I say pulled a pot, what we were doing and did a similar thing because that stiffer handle with a slightly bigger ice To me, it puts your hand and we've got, so the front hand Zillow, they tell that you might not realize a front handles have a bigger rock and the rear handles have a slightly smaller act and that's to help give the wing a little bit more angle of attack and your hands.
So you're not, it balances out your arm links. You don't have to pull them with your back arms so much. And I found that didn't that put my hands off the stress, so they weren't heading the stress, but yeah, for sure. Some sames, if you're, if you hit your fingers on a same, then yet it might graze your fingers.
Yeah. But one thing that, like you mentioned that your, their frame is really stiff. So that's something I really like about the ailing is that it's one of the things I really don't like about some wings that Ben right in the middle, right here with a strut connects to the leading edge when it's not enough right there.
It just tends to like, when you get, when you hit it gusta the whole wing. Yeah, there's two things there. What you can see with that picture. You've got up right now. There, there isn't a ton of dihedral in the middle and that's because our whole wing is designed through actually, when it loads up at you get a bit more dihedral in there naturally, and all of the panels are all Kat and shaped so that when it's loaded, the airframe is really good.
And what you'll find is a lot of wings when they load up, they fold in the middle and you get a lot of crises in the canopy. So our canopy is all set up so that when it's loaded in it, it takes basically, around about 80 kgs of load, pulling someone out of the water. That's when the canopy is actually set to its perfect shape.
And that's where you get that real pole and drive. When it's, when you've got to go. With some load in it when it's completely unloaded yet, doesn't, it doesn't necessarily have that same perfect shape. So it is, it's a balance and that's, we're really trying to, but two things, I'm money kgs and I like a lot of grunt out of the whole to get going.
And I like to jump, so I want something when you jump, when you pull on it, when you're coming down from a jump, but it really holds you and you can land your jumps. A lot of other wins. I find don't have a lot of pop and when you're coming down, they just banned and you haven't got anything. You just crash into the water.
Pretty hard. So yeah, a hundred percent agree with that. Yeah. I find that too, trying to get some, trying to get some grunt into it. And it is a beauty with the inflatable that you can go, large diameter and a lot of that was informed from big, big cut design. So yeah, that's, we're really trying to get going in, on smaller boards with smaller fours, but also I like going out and strong winds.
So I really like how are, the three and a half in the four and a half and the two and a half as well when it's hailing perform when it's really windy, because the thing just feels they really come alive. Our wings when it's, when you've got good wind. And, th there may be some lighter wings out there that are bitter and really light when conditions, but I prefer to have some juice when it's windy. Okay. Cool. We were going pretty long now, but I did want to ask you this question that I always ask everyone is especially during the pandemic, like you were shut down, you said for the last two months and couldn't get on the water.
So when you're having a rough day, what do you do to stay positive or keep your mind in the right place, which is a tricky one. If I'm not getting in the water, I do go slightly crazy. Luckily I've got an awesome lady at the moment and a young Nipper who's three. So that definitely keeps me engaged.
So yeah, it's, I guess it's family time now, I've, I've grown up. I've definitely had some times early on where I was, a little bit, more crazy and probably. As a typical, New Zealand there we used to drink too much for sure. But not nowadays, I'm all full out.
We don't, I don't drink at all. And where yeah, family time, really for me, is it, and yet going for nice hike outside somewhere until the top of a ma among the top of the mountain. That's that's a great thing to do with the family and we'll go to the beach for sunset have a picnic on the beach somewhere.
That's great as well. We could still do that during the lock down, at least as he said to stay away from everyone else, but you could go on the beach and you can go, yeah, you can go to the beach as long as it was within something like a 5k radius of where you lived something like that. If you didn't live near a beach within their bad life, it's funny.
Cause you're in Hawaii. It was the opposite during our set down in the beach. You were not allowed to go on the beach, but you were allowed to go across the beach to go into the water and you're allowed to go in the water. Which I guess makes sense, but I guess it's cause cause our governor is a surfer too, so probably that's why he has to go in the water still.
We got it. We've got to get out prime minister, wind foiling guy, that mission for the summit. Yeah I don't know how the, all the rules work. There's some pretty conflicting ones and it's different everywhere. I dunno everyone has their own take on it. I dunno. Any answers that's for sure. Yeah.
So yeah. So you mentioned you totally stopped drinking alcohol no more. You're like totally. Yep. That's right. That's right. Actually, Kenny mark had got me inspired. He's an inspirational water man on Hawaii and we were there in 2018, I think with Brian Finch on wahoo doing a bit of a photo-shoot when we released the CF 1200 and.
We were there loud. Can you, Micah was trying to foils and he's just such an inspirational character. He's a top go for brighter, but more than that, he's just the top legendary all around water man. Really? And yeah, he was telling me how he's, he's really, I think he was 20 something plus years just totally.
Sobering and on it. And he's such an inspiration. I don't know quite how old he is. He wears his age very well, but he's you wait, he was, I don't know how old, but quite a bit older than me and ripping white hat or, and I'm like, okay, yep. Time to get real. So that was kinda, that was co-op I'm really thankful to him for some inspiration there.
For sure. So would you say that foiling is like an addiction a little bit like, like a drug or definitely but a good addiction because it gets you outside. It's healthy. It's good for fitness. Mon will be great for your bank balance, but Hey, you can't take that stuff with you. And it is for using and really, it's just such a beautiful sensation flying across the water and it is addicting, but it's addicting for all the right.
Okay. Yep, exactly. Do you, like when you get up in the morning, do you have a certain routine, certain things that you do or at the moment? Yeah, changing nappies or getting them ready for the day. And then usually, unfortunately these days it's checking a bunch of emails. It takes a couple of hours which isn't great.
And then I usually try and throw some stretches in there in between, and then you look at the wind and try and get out through some testing or it depends what's going on some days it can be just sitting on the computer all day long these days, which isn't ideal, but that's the reality.
Yeah. Yeah. Luckily today though, there's some brains. Brand new one. Oh yeah. So that's exciting. So you can go on the water right from your backyard there, huh? Yeah. I Maybe, I don't know if the internet will stay on, I'll drag this thing over here and have a look. See if you can see. Yeah, so then beautiful.
Yep. And this is Auckland you're in Oakland, and Oakland city. So yeah. Super lucky. This was a property actually. My parents bought in the 70, so yeah. Pretty lucky to be able to hang out here and yeah, we had to get out, go sailing, go winging or go sailing as well. Yeah. Yeah. We still do a little bit of sailing out of here.
I'm going to try and round that my grandfather built. That's just more out of. And yeah, we can't complain. Life is definitely good. When we're allowed to get on the water, it's hot. We don't get locked down again. I think we're going to be okay now, but I don't know it's yeah. Who knows?
I'm not going to predict anything on that.
Like for me, sometimes I have a really good session and everything like clicks and everything's working perfectly well. And then another time I'll just get frustrated and I keep falling in, or I just make stupid mistakes and stuff like that. And it's just not, it doesn't, I don't get into that zone.
So is, does that happen to you and do you have any tricks for changing from, like going from not being in the zone to getting into that where everything. Yeah. I Some days you just have a bad buyer them day, but generally I find I try and do a, like a, I do a little bit of yoga, so I just do a quick version of a salute to the sun just to warm up and, just 10 50.
So I find that really helps doing some stretches before my session as, just loosen up and then sometimes, if it's really windy, I like getting hyped up with a bit of music, but yeah, generally if you're having a bad session yeah it's good. Just to sit to stop, sit down, take a few deep breaths, have a think about it and then just reset.
But yeah, there's no magic. Some days you just having a bad day and there's not too much, you can do it. Yeah. I find the mental part is pretty important. Like what's going on, use mental self-talk. I think, especially in a race, like the Molokai race, where you're like out on the open ocean for a super long time.
And if you started having negative thoughts or negative self-talk, it's like everything just goes down the drain. So do you have anything to share, like anything like that to share it, but yeah, again, but bringing up those advanced there's long downwind, sup events, and I guess that's the real draw to them, it was great such great mentors. Challenge. It's a great mental challenge, those events. And I really, cause they're, four to five hours, six hours long, depending on the situation you're in, you're out in the ocean pretty much by yourself. And it's this, I guess it's the same as sailing for a long ocean passage to, as a, is a real mental discipline and a process that you've just got to, carry on.
And like you say, you can't let yourself get into a downward spiral of thought. But to me it's really easy because you just look out at the horizon and see the clouds and the ocean. And it's just so beautiful. I, all the art that I've got around is always has sky and water and it, you know what I mean?
You just that's, that is art to me is look at the ocean and you're just like, wow, it's just so beautiful. And usually when you're out for a session and that's the biggest, one of the biggest buzzes for me is just being out, looking back at the land and the waves crashing and the ocean and just it's so beautiful.
That's I'm just feel really lucky to be able to experience that regularly. Cause it is it's mind blowing how beautiful that transition between the ocean and the land does. It's just such a great place to be able to spend time. Yeah, no, I think that's definitely one of the things that attracts me to just being out in the water, just the visual of the colors and the intensity of the, this, everything like the, everything around you is just like bright and energizing Somalia especially in Hawaii.
So you guys are pretty lucky. Definitely lucky. What do you have any tips for beginners getting into wink, filing? What would you rec if you teaching someone how to wait for getting them in? So what do you reckon. Yeah, I guess there's two things you want to spend a bit of time, just on the beach with the wing.
I'm getting really used to changing the yam positions. It's super easy to do. I need to spend half an hour, a couple of half hour sessions, but actually spend some time tuning going one tech to the other front handle, getting your hand movements, figuring out where the handles are on your particular one, you're going to use cause that'll make a big difference.
And then you really want to tow behind a boat or a ski or something, if you can, with the foliar on. So you do the two things separately and then put them together. During the lockdowns, we did quite a bit of wing skating, which is actually really good for practicing your techs and your jibes once you're a little bit Bader.
But you do, you can wear through your wings pretty easily. If you crash on the concrete with them, I'll pop one, doing that crashing on the skateboard. But yeah. Put the two skills to give a separately. And then when you're learning, you have to get on a big board, the bigger, the better almost so that it's super stable.
Just get the feeling of sailing around. If you've done a ton of windsurfing or Cotting, then you have, you could PR or, you could probably start on a smaller board, but really just get going on the biggest board you can, which may mean taking a lesson of someone who's got the right gear.
Yeah. That's always one of those conundrums for new people is she really should get a big board, but they want to get that second or third board that they want to buy. They think they're gonna need in six months, which, but it's just hard to start on a, an advanced that's.
But you're going to end up using the big board on the light one days anyway, like I still use, the a hundred liter board pretty regularly on the light one day. So first you can stand up surf on it, yeah, that's right. That's right. Appearance of doing some standup.
Then you've got that. That'd be a good place to start as a board that you could stand up paddle on if you're into that. And then you could get going on that board and use it as your sup or Hey, just take lessons. It's, that's always even though whinging, it's it's definitely safer than kiting.
You just progress faster when someone's actually with you looking at what you're doing and giving you some direct feedback.
It's an investment. Yeah. I just think it's crazy that people spend like thousands of dollars on their equipment, but then they're too cheap to spend like $200 on the lesson, what and where you probably get better results from taking a lesson than buying another wing or something like that, yeah. And it's only the first bit. And once you're over that first, but you've got those basic skills in your way and you'll just definitely progress faster through that stage. Plus it's a symbol on your gear. So you, because you're using someone else's gear and that stage, when are you more likely to break gear be you're, know, you needing that really big kit and then you can transition from there.
Yeah. True. All right. Thanks so much for sharing your time. I guess you want to get out on the water probably sooner and have to answer some more emails and stuff like that, but is there any, anything else you want to share or talk about. Sorry, one more question. Do you have any new moves you're working on a wing foiling that you're struggling with or trying to figure out just claim, tax, both ways obviously, right heel side to toe side and toe side to hillside, it's a different kind of technique and switching fate and.
Getting that really claim in terms of I really liked getting on waves. I'm more about just trying to get some nice turns, on, on a proper wave, getting in the pocket, getting some nice terms. I do heading kickers and jumping, I'm not really full freestyle guy.
But yeah. Hi, I might get there. I have tried a few inversions every time. I usually right off the wing, put the foil straight through it and it usually ends up in a long swim. I think I'll leave that for the younger guys for now, but you never know if I get an, more time a minute for me, I guess I'm spending so much time testing gear.
Yeah, I just want to ride waves. Do you like when you get on the water, do you see it more as your job or more as a fun thing to do? It's still a fun thing to do, but it's definitely a job as well. Changing things. One, one thing at a time it's, there's a lot to think about. And and you've got to go through the process methodically, which it does, and you're offering.
Maybe not even in the raw and the location, you might go to a few or just having a session for yourself or on the Gill you might be on, but it's just, you have to go through each step with each bit of gear. And I still love it. I still love being on the water, but it's still a job too. It's just, you've got to go through all those iterations to, to understand it, but there, Hey, we had a session on Saturday where yeah, I just knew it was super windy.
I'm here howling on shore storm. And I didn't have anything particular. We had to test that day. I was waiting for some stuff to arrive and so we just went for a fun session and it was great and just stayed on some, just the 10 50, which has been out for ages, but it was just a really windy session with some fun waves and we just had a blast.
Yeah, no, I can totally relate to that because a lot of times testing stuff or filming and videoing and stuff like that, but yeah. Sometimes it's nice to go out on equipment that you know exactly how it works and no cameras and just having fun. The best sessions, right?
Yeah. Oh, it's still all of it's fun. I mean it's, and that's the beauty of, that's why we do what we do. That's what we love. And yeah, really lucky to be able to do the thing that I love, which is get out on the water, I'm on a foil and that we can turn it into something that hopefully a ton of other people can love doing.
And that's the goal. And yeah, carry on. I was actually asked the question if I ever feel guilty about spending too much time in the water, but I like, I don't feel guilty at all. Cause it's like part of my job and it's what I love to do. So what about you? Do you ever feel guilty that you spend too much time.
Not good. What about your wife? Is she get upset or your partner? No, she's pretty, she's awesome. She's awesome. And we have great family support and, but yeah, there's, you've definitely got to spend time. I have definitely have days where I'm looking after, the number of she's working and not taking sessions, so it's a balance in life. Like everyone has, you've got to balance, so yeah. The three year old, does it sleep through the night or do who gets up in the middle of the night? Yeah. We share it, she's pretty good. She's pretty good. We're we have a one room house, so she's, she'll come and just climate debate and everyone just goes because stays asleep basically.
Yeah. There you go. Cool. Thanks so much. Yeah. I have to do this again maybe in a year or so when you have some new stuff coming in. Yeah. Let's see. Let's give it a really interesting year to see how we are. Everything goes, there's so much cool development going on right now. It's a really exciting time in the sport.
Yeah, we've got, new things coming. We're working on all the time and I'm really excited actually about the white projects with Mike Murphy at the moment, we've got some new gear we're going to be putting out in association with him pretty soon. And it's like full circle. Like Mike is such a legend and he's not really involved in the wind, the wing foiling thing, but he is the godfather of the sport.
He came up with the front wing rear wing T foil and he's such a wealth of knowledge and has all his experience comes from just actually doing it. Cause he was such a ripper in a himself and he. Those foils for all those guys, on Maui and Hawaii, back in the day, rush Randalls to this day, as land, he landed three back brawls in a row on a big outer, outer reef wave, and carried on surfing the wave.
Like we're not even seeing guys doing that yet ensure he had boots and all of that, but that was on a Mike Murphy foil, so Mike's got some understanding, like the biggest thing and we did a trip to lake Powell recently, and we met with, there should be some photos in the upcoming foil mag, actually for that one where we had to sit down guys and then our top, stand up, riders, all riding together and cross pollinating ideas.
And it was epic to see the sit-down guys their understanding of the foils when they're exiting the water and entering the water is just next level. You know what those guys were doing double back roads and landing fully clean on the foil with the sit-down foils. And then. It's a different kind of foil to do that sort of thing.
And so those guys, they're all about, being towed behind the boat and hucking big air, but what you learn from it, different whole different aspect of the way a foil can function. It's just, yeah. It's going to inform a lot of other types of foiling in the future. And it's pretty cool that, Mike still there, he's probably 73 or something now, but he's when he can still, take here on a foil behind a boat.
So yeah, I actually learned a lot watching some of those videos of them, like how they before they jumped, they come up really high and then hit the water and then boosts super high and like with, yeah, but that jumped, I get a lot of that has to do with the foils that they're using too.
And it's a very different shape of foil. The different sanction, everything about it is it's all about angle of attack. And when you pointed out it goes up that thing and they also, they're a lot cleaner coming back into the water as well. But there's the challenge with that as they don't, that kind of foil has no pump, right?
So it's a real different sort of element, but it's interesting getting on, like we just got on some of the those sit-down foils, which is a version of what lib was writing in that video. You played at the start of this interview, super thin, really flat section on that foil and look what Lynn was doing, 20 years ago, homo spoils, those glared and Dave Kalama and Ravi and Peyton, rush Randall has guys towing in at jaws and ripping waves.
Only people like Chi and those same guys are doing today on those old foil. So there's something in that when you've got a ton of energy. So yeah, it's just super exciting times that the whole thing, right? Yeah. It seems like definitely to me, like foiling is just seems to be the future of watersports is too.
It's so smooth and efficient and kinda, it can be very low impact too. You don't like, you're not like hitting the waves yet. It's it's a smooth and exhilarating. So I think we've got a long way to go and thanks for pushing the sport forward and thank you for your time and, having, being so open and honest with all your ideas and comments and questions, man it's a cool forum that you've got going on.
Dude. All right. Thanks. Thanks army. Have a great, does everyone have a great day? Get out on the water and have fun. All right. You're still here. Thank you so much for watching to the very end. You're the ones I'm making this show for them. 5% of the people that watch all the way to the end, that just can't get enough information about weight foiling you're as into it as I am.
So really appreciate you sticking around. I'm actually on my way to go wing falling right now. So I'm going to make it quick, but thanks so much. I hope you're getting out in the water as well. And I know, especially the ones down under in New Zealand and Australia, your summer is just starting. I know for those of you in the U S probably it's getting a little bit cold now and Europe and so on, but I hope you're still getting out and having fun and at least staying stoke the fear if it's too cold to go in the water.
So thanks for watching and see you next time. Aloha.
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- Lytte senere Lytte senere
Alex Aguera Wing Foil Interview- Blue Planet Show #15
21 Aug 2021· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends is Robert Stehlik. Thank you for tuning into another episode of the blue planet show. on the blue planet show. I interview Wingfoil athletes, designers and thought leaders. And I asked them questions, not just about wing foil equipment and technique, but I'm also trying to get to know them a little bit better, their background, what inspires them and how they live their best life.
You can watch this show on YouTube for visual content, or you can also listen to it as a podcast on the go to search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast. I haven't come out with a new blue planet show for awhile. It's cause I've been super busy. You might've heard that. We took over a new shop in Haleiwa on Oahu's north shore, formerly known as tropical rush.
We just opened there and I've been super busy, getting everything set up. It's really exciting, but it also, it takes a lot of time. So I haven't had as much time for the YouTube channel and the blue planet show, but I've been waiting for a long time for Alex to come onto the show and he finally had some time to do it.
So I got a great interview with him. Alex is nutty about wing foiling. He's coming out with GoFoil Wing foil boards and wings. And of course he plays such an important role in the development of the sport. He basically invented the foil that allowed Kai Lenny to do downwinders on a big long board. And basically kick-started this whole sport of foiling in the surf and now with wings.
So thank you for that, Alex. And without further ado, this is the interview with Alex. All right, Alex Aguera. Thank you so much for joining me on the blue planet show. So how are you doing today? Doing great early in the morning, over here. How are you doing Robert? I'm good. Yeah. So I'm on here on a Oahu. You're on Maui, nine o'clock on a Wednesday. So yeah. So tell us, let's start a little bit with your background. Where did you grow up and how did he get into water sports and like early childhood to start from the very beginning? For getting into water sports, it started when I was let's see about 14.
We went on a family vacation. I grew up in Clearwater, Florida, by the way. And. We went on a family vacation to the Virgin islands, British Virgin islands, and we're going to be on a sailboat and, do the bareboat charters where you travel around to each of the islands. And it's, it was just a fun, two week trip in the, in a place where we'd never been in places that were super clear water like that crazy, it was just fantastic.
But anyway, the captain of our boat, we had hired a captain who would sail us around to the, for the first week. And then we were on our own. The second week, the the guy would put this wind surfer in the water at this one place where we first started called Soper Sol and Tortola. Any of, they would start sailing around with him and his other captain, buddy friend, on this funny looking sailing craft that, ended up being one of the original.
Baja style windsurfers. So this would be for the original windsurfer was some of the first boards that oil swipes, or it may, and it looked like a big, giant, long board made out of a fiberglass. But anyway, when we got back to Florida after the chip, my dad wanted to check this out as a possible, get the kids doing this.
Cause we were riding motorcycles and stuff at the time you wanted to get us off of motorcycles. So he calls up Hoyle Sweitzer, which was windsurfing international or whatever. They called themselves. At that time, this was really early. This is like 1975. And oil tells him, he goes, Hey, I'll sell you six of them and make you a dealer, so it was like, okay, we were the first dealer and in Florida and it all started from there. We started wind surfing right in 1975. And that's how I got into all these other sports that have evolved since then. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. Foil Schweitzer is Zane Schweitzer's grandfather who basically invented the sport and had the patent and everything. Yeah. So your dad became the first either the first wind surf dealer in Florida. Yeah. Like district nine or whatever, what are they? I can't remember fleet nine or something, the, for the ninth, one in the United States.
So that's when the books were still made out of wood and stuff like that. And the bowl we're still out of wood. There was a daggerboard was still out of wood. We hadn't progressed to, a composite looking white daggerboard yet. And we hadn't invented harnesses yet foot straps or anything.
Okay. And then, okay. And then what happened next? After that, we Pursue to get better and better at wind surfing. And my dad started to be the distributor for the Southeast United States. And we were really in the winter and our whole life changed from, he was working at Honeywell, which is one of the firms down there in Florida.
He was a engineer. And then he switched over to just going to be wind surfing. We're going to go all in, into this wind surfing thing. So from there, we add a whole bunch of people in Florida that we were the original Florida wind surfing crew. We called ourselves the fearless flying Floridians there for a couple of years.
And it was a real close crew there in the Clearwater Sarasota area that we always raced against each other. And we just got better and better. And then pretty soon we were doing well in the national and world championships. Awesome. And then. How old were you when you did that kind of the racing and your first world championship?
I guess? My first national championship was the following year. What Hoyle used to do back then was we would do these big district championships. There was like maybe five or six throughout United States and whoever had won their district championship would get a free trip to the nationals.
So the nationals then following year in 76, I'm 15 years old, a win, a free airfare to Berkeley, California, where we're going to do the nationals. And I traded it in for money to buy a bus ticket and pay for my hotel when I'm over there. So just imagine you're 15 years old, you're traveling in a Greyhound bus, cross country.
Get over there, you rent your own wind surfer back then they would have, rental packages where you just come in, rent your own gear and then raise. So at 15, that was quite an experience, to have my parents to be able to let me go, all the way across the country and do that all by yourself was, looking back at it now back then, seem oh, that's okay.
I can do this. We'll look back at it. Now. I was like, God, I would never put my kids through that. But that was a fantastic Regata because. What happened was, so it was 76. We're at Berkeley. We had a lot of wind and stuff, but as first time I get to meet Mike waltz and Matt Sweitzer, who were like the gurus back then of windshield, because they had a thing called the windsurfing news, which was like a little paper back, like a magazine, the early wind surfing magazine was a paperback called wind surfing news.
And it was always the swipe tours and like waltz and this and that. So we get over there, meet Matt and Mike can win or goes for his first championship with all the boys. And Robbie Nash does his first championship. All the boys, he, so little 12 year old blonde kid comes in from Kailua. So it was like, all of us got together for the first time at that time.
And he was Robbie Nash is two years younger than you about, okay, so you were 14 and then there's someone even younger than you showing up. Yeah. Yeah, that was, how did you do in that? Oh, I got beat up. It was blowing really hard. And in Florida where I learned, I was just learning to race around and, barely get planing kind of conditions, which we have in Florida coming up to that summertime, you get to Berkeley, it's blowing 20 to 20 fives, sometimes gusting 30 and one of the races.
And I don't think I got across the starting line. I got beat up. I was just rag dolling. Cause you only had one, one sail and it was pretty big. I probably weighed 125 pounds at the time. And I remember there was these divas, these sisters, the SWAT tech sisters. There was Susie and Martha and The girls just beat up on me.
I was getting whooped up on by girls mad. It was like, oh, bad. It was, I was humbled when I went there, but watching some of the stuff that was just then evolving because Robbie had come over and he started doing this railroad thing, it's the first time any of us see a rail ride. And I was like, oh my God, what is that kid doing?
Who is that kid? And then by the time, the week it ended max White's here. And I think Mike had picked it up and Ken were all doing railroads by the end of the week. They had figured it out. But when you first saw that, I was like, what the heck? That's something new. And then we did one of the, I think it was, could have been the very first freestyle event there.
And. The guide who Dennis Davidson, who was one of the original Kailua windsurfers was putting a little teeny fin on his board. He was doing these super fast tax and stuff. And we were like, wow. And he ended up winning the very first freestyle. Oh. And then again, so that's awesome. And so then how did that progress it, you became a professional windsurfer, right?
Yeah. That that was many years later in about 1980, started getting paid to do wind surfing races by wind surfing international and oil spikes or, and we would go over to Maui for the first time. We were going to do the Pan-Am world cup was a real big race. It was for high wind and it was in Kailua.
And the first year I didn't go to, it was in 79. There wasn't any wind. So they had to race in Waikiki. The next year, oil flies us out. I spend six weeks on Maui practicing with Mike waltz. He had told me, Hey, you gotta come over here and see this place. If it blows all the time, he had just discovered Okinawa, within the last six months.
And he goes, there's nobody around the wind's blowing all the time. There's waves. So my brother and I went over there and hung out with Mike for about six weeks. Then we went to Kailua to do the first real pan Emmerich's. It was blowing hard and it's like the windiest day you've ever been in Kailua now is what we experienced for a whole.
And we were like, oh my God, this place is gnarly. We were scared to death coming from Florida and seeing that kind of stuff. And that was one of the very first, big, high wind regattas and wind surfing history. Wow. Cool. And you said your dad was an engineer at Honeywell. So did you ever get any like formal education as an engineer or any kind of like that kind of thing?
Or is it, are you just all self-taught on the side? Yeah, on that side, it's been mostly self-taught. I went to, some business classes in community college after I got out of high school, but I moved over to Maui after that 1980 trip. I was like, oh, I'm selling everything. I'm moving to Maui.
As soon as I can. It took me about a year and a half to be able to pull it off. Then I moved back in 1982 to become a professional. Nice. Yeah. And then, so how was that getting started on Maui in the eighties? That was something, it was great. We were, I don't know if Paya very well, but back then there was, it was hardly anybody in pyuria.
There's no traffic light. We rented a place. It's right next to where mana foods is now, back then, there wasn't any model foods yet, but we rented a Quonset hut there. That is where they still store some of their, use it for storage of some of the stuff that the store. But anyway, there was at some time, six of us staying in this Quonset hut for 250 bucks a month rent.
So we're all paying like 40 bucks a month rent and living in Maui, nobody around we're going to hokey every day and just having a blast, nobody around on the road, everybody you saw on the road was a windsurfer. You knew everybody. It's like now it's all tourist going by. Yeah. Molly has changed a lot.
I lived there in the nineties or late eighties and early nineties. I lived in Peggy too, like really close over there. So I remember those days we lived in a basement apartment, which is super cheap, but yeah. And then driving old Molly cruisers rusted out cars, all that. And then, and then at that time, when surfing was developing really rapidly and changing and stuff.
And did you start making equipment back then already? Or how did that, how did you get into business that business? I used to, I was sponsored by high-tech surf sports and Craig Masonville, who was the original guy for high-tech used to shape all of my boards. And we were riding the old asymmetrical, wind surfing boards that we used to ride at hook.
I want a couple of the big contests that hook keep a riding those. And then I was always on the pro world tour for wind surfing. And eventually it was hard to get the boards that you wanted, because I had to start working for my French guys Tega and they were making me boards and then Craig was making me boards and it was hard to get boards on time sometimes through the high-tech factory.
And I said, oh the heck with this, I'm going to try and start building boards myself. So in 1989 was probably the first time I was racing on one of my own boards. I remember racing in the Gorge and doing really well on that. And at the high-tech surf summer series I won a couple races on my own board and I was all proud.
I was like, oh yeah, I might be able to do this. So that's how long ago I started. Yeah. Nice. So those are, slalom racing boards is, were your first boards you built? I got the first boys were slalom racing boards. The way boards is a little bit more technical cause it's easier to break those. So the first law and boards, I didn't have any sandwich on them.
They were just covered with carbon and I had some elaborate process for stretching the cloth over it and wetting it all out and keeping the rock or shape, and then learn how to do vacuum bagging and sandwich construction after that. Yeah, I was working for hunt Hawaii in those days and he, we were, he was still building boards with using polyester as in, but then I guess at that time it would switched over to Potsie.
So is that, what do you use the proxy or polio? My first boards from Masonville were always polyester. Then we started switching to a poxy in about 1985. I've got a slot onboard that Dave calling on, who was the laminator for high-tech back then we started experimenting with styrofoam and carbon fiber, and I raced the first one in 1985.
I think it was. And that's where we're like, oh man, this is white, stiff and strong. And we're like, the lightness was just incredible compared to polyester. And I won the Gorge the second year in a row on that board. And I won the Japan world cup that year and in the spring on that court.
But we learned a lot of things about, styrofoam construction goes back. We would just sink the boxes into the styrofoam. And then by the time I had finished the Japan race, my deck box had collapsed into the board. There was a big hollow spot inside. Okay. We were learning a whole new phone core and what to do with it.
There was a lot of learning in that. Luckily the board stayed together until the race was over. Yeah. Classic. And then use like vacuum bagging and all that kind of stuff too, or just regular later. Yeah. When I started, I got my first vacuum bag bored by this guy, Gary efforting, who was a, you might remember him.
He was the guy that made Hypertech in the Gorge and him and Keith notary would do these. They called it a clam sandwich or something where they were doing vacuum bagging. But Gary and I, he was a friend of mine because we all grew up in the same area in Clearwater, Florida. And he was showing, he made one of my original 12 foot long boards that we used to raise some world cup.
And he was using this new aircraft technology called sandwich, construction. And he was the first guy that I saw doing sandwiches on boards. And slowly I learned how to do all of those process. A lot of it was trial and error, but eventually I was, I had retired from the pro wind surfing tour and started running the probe windsurfing tour.
And then at the same time as being the race director, I started building boards for top guys like Kevin Pritchard and Mike abou Zionist. And those were all, they had to be super custom, super like sandwich boards. Wow. Okay. And then I guess when tiding came around, you got into kite surfing or yeah. W what happened there? The kite surfing, it was it was funny because we were sitting over here. We're all wind surfers. Layered was still a wind surfer. And he started playing with this kite and my other buddy maneuver Tom from France was starting to experiment with this kite thing and we'd see him at home Keepa.
The guys were takeoff with these funny, real bars and all kinds of weird hiding stuff and start sailing this kite and go cruise down the coast, and ended up down at Kanawha or wherever. And I'm like, wow, that looks pretty interesting. What the heck is that? I didn't want to do it until somebody got back to the beach.
They started out, I'm not really into this down winter and you're out there, on this thing, out in the blue water, with the, whatever could go wrong in palette around with the shark. So okay. If you could get back to where you started, that's what I finally started getting into it now.
I don't know, in 97 or 98 or whatever, somebody was finally making it back. But what really got me into it was flash. Austin had moved over from Florida. He was lived in Daytona and he came over and he was this new kite guru guy. And I would watch him jump and he's 25 feet in the air and just hang in there and then come down real soft of flashy to have great Ky control.
He still does. And I was just watching that going, wind surfing. If you jumped 25 feet in the air, you come down hard. I don't care what kind of stuff you're doing. It's that there's an impact. So I was like, I really want to do that. That's what really got me interested in kiting was watching flashed land softly.
I'm like, okay, now I want to go boosting. So when you got into D did they still have those reels where you had two reel in the kite, if you get, if you drop it in the water. Yeah. Those guys were still using that, but I'm Brett lyrical and all those guys had their kite reels and I'm like, no, I'm not playing with that.
Cut real. Does they look like you eat it? And then there's all this metal and stuff in your face. I started out with one of the two line whip, mocha kites, and then progressed to a two line Nash guy. And then eventually we started making four line kites and it got a little bit easier, those original to lion whip because, and stuff, they were all that was around, but they were a little bit dangerous.
There was a lot of accidents in those early days. It took a while before at least five years before the kites got, safe enough to where, people weren't hurting themselves so bad anymore. Yeah. And then I guess around that same time the strap crew I guess layered and restaurant, all those guys started foiling, right?
Torn, foiling and jaws and stuff like that. So when was the first time you tried foiling and how did you get into that? Foiling. I didn't try foiling until much later. Those guys were all into these BNN, bindings and strapped into this little board and everything weighed about 60 pounds.
It seemed and big aluminum, mass and just super heavy. And then of course, these guys were real right. They were like, Hey, we're going to go to jobs. We're going to ride out or spread, it was like, you're all in, or you're not, and I'm like, they're like, Hey Alex, you got to try this.
And I'm like, no way, man. I'm not going to be strapped into that tank and going over the falls. And that looks dangerous. But those guys there, they really were into it at the time. And we were all towing too at the time. With, our little tow strap boards. And I remember one day we were out at Spreckels mill and rush Randall is towing around.
It's pretty small for tow day. We like to tow it. It's eight foot plus, and have some fun and it's four feet occasionally. And you're waiting for a set, but rush is going around in circles, just on his foil, cruising around at least doing backflips, going out with this thing while he's getting pulled with the checks.
And we're like, man, what the heck? Russia's having a lot more fun than we are. So that was one of the first times where I really looked at it and go, wow, this could be fun. But for me to actually get into it myself, I was kite foiling at the time I had start, this is a, it was a funny story because I had stopped kiting for like about five years, Jesse Richmond, who was the world champion at the time.
And his brother, Sean, they were like the best or kiters on Maui. And Jesse goes, Hey, you got to start making some kite or some tight race boards for us. I'm getting beat by girls out on the course. We just started this tight racing thing. So Jesse got me into kiting again. So I built a few boards.
Then I had to test them with those guys. And that's how I got back into kiting then. So this lasted for. Maybe three years of kite racing. That was the one that we had the big, three fins on it. And you're, racing up when, so then my buddy in Martha's vineyard, we started foiling back then they were riding all kinds of funky foils, but it was the early days of foils.
Most of them came out of France back then and he goes, Alex, I need you to make me a kite foil board and I'll trade you this foil, you got to start getting into foiling and you I'll trade it for a board. So I did this with my buddy, Rob Douglas, he's the world speed record holder for kiting back in the day.
And he goes, okay, we're going to do a trade. So that was my introduction into kite foiling. And he gave me this foil that he had already beat up. He weighs about 2 35 or breaks the heck out of everything. And it was all wobbly and I had to keep fixing it. I was breaking it and stuff, and that's how I got.
My first initiation into foiling and how to build foils. Cause I was always fixing it. And then I started making my own wings, and that's that was, started me all into foiling. Yeah. And on those foils for kite, for them back then were tiny, right? Really small wings and really long mass and so on.
Or is that kind of what you started on? That's what we all started on because back then it was the same thing with layered in those guys. We had these really thin foils cause we were only interested in speed. We wanted to go faster and faster. Nobody wanted to make something to go slower.
So everything back then it was, they were small, they were thin, everything was like the fast race foils were less than, 13 millimeters thick. They were, 14 or 15 millimeters was a fat foil. So that's what that's what we used to do. Yeah. And then at, and did you, when you made your own fuzzy, like CNC of them out of G 10, or what kind of how did you make your own foil?
Basically what I did in the beginning was I would take some existing foil that I had, and then I would reshape it and try to figure out how to make molds. So I was making molds and figuring out how to do that. It was a whole different process. I was used to building boards and sandwich, construction, vacuum bag now on a changed to, Hey, you got to learn how to make molds and make these wings.
So it was a big learning curve. I've made a lot of mistakes. I burned up a lot of molds. I did all kinds of crazy stuff. It was just like learning to build boards. You've got, there's a big learning curve, but that's what I ended up doing. And I would take some of the wings that I got and that I wanted it bigger or smaller or whatever, and I would reshape them and then make molds off of them.
And then when did you actually start your business? The gold foil business and started making foils to sell? Like when was that? Yeah, and I think for Gofoil, I probably was in maybe 2013 or 14. First I put the, a name on my kite foils. Then I went to Vietnam to have my buddies over there at kinetic T.
I taught them how to build the foils and then I changed it to go for it. I had this idea I'm over there with the boys in Vietnam and it, they don't speak English, super well. So I'm telling them, what do you guys think about this name? It's like gold foil, just go for it.
They'd were like, yeah, I don't get it. I had to go for by myself cause I couldn't get anybody to confirm that, Hey, that's a good idea at the time, but I got my buddies over there to make me the logos and stuff. And that's where I came up with. The name go foil was when I first went over to Vietnam and started putting it in production that's way before any of the foils that everybody knows as gold foil.
Now. So the kinetic factory was making your first kite surfing. Foils. Yeah. So the ones in production at first, I was building it all here, custom and I started building boards and the foils over there at Connecticut. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm going to screen share a little bit here. And then at some point He made a foil for Kailani.
And then he posted this video that kind of took, I guess now it has over 5 million views, which is just amazing. But can you tell us a little bit about the backstory behind, behind this and how that all came about? There's a long story behind that, if you want to go into it, the, we want to hear all about it.
Okay. In the beginning, this was about maybe eight months prior to this Kai was riding my kite foils and we decided that we were going to put one of them on his one of his standup boards. So we put a Tuttle box and one of his, I think he had an eight foot standup order, 76 or something at the time.
And we put the kite foil on it and he was going to go stand up foil. And I never really heard back from Kai about it. He comes back about six or eight months later and he goes, Hey Alex, we gotta redo that thing about going down, wind foiling again. And I go what happened with the first foil? And he goes it's dangerous and there's not enough lift.
And it was really hard to ride and I'm like, okay let me think about it. And I'll try and come up with something. We'll try it again. So what ended up happening was I spent two weeks taking one of the old kite foils that I had that I really liked that had the most lift and I kept changing it.
And adding on, I had this idea that we got to rethink all of this, that, thin foils is not what you need to get going under your own power. We need something that's going to be a slower foil that can lift up more weight, at a slow speed. And I'm thinking shoot, these big aircraft planes that are lifting tanks and stuff go by having bigger thicker wings and different foil sections.
And I started trying to mimic that on one of my kite foils. So I would build it up Bondo and AB foam, reshape it and glass in and kept playing with it. And about two weeks before I finally said, okay, you've done enough remodeling here. Cause you're never going to get it. Perfect. You have a little bumps here or whatever, and you're like, okay, let's try.
So I call up Kai or I sent him a text and Kai is oh, I'm in LA, I'm on my way to Europe. I'm doing the indoor in in Paris with Robbie. We're doing, it's a wind surfing indoor. Okay I'll try it out and see how it works. So I go down to sugar coat, which is here on Mallee, which is a kind of a bumpy funky way when it's fairly big.
And it's like head high Peaky sets all over the place and kind of gnarly, for trying to foil for the first time I go out and say, what the heck I'm going for it. And actually Jeffrey and fin Spencer are in the water surfing and my dentist Barclays in the water. So we've got all these guys witnessing me going out there and trying to kill myself.
So I go out big standup paddleboard, or what did you put the foil on? Yeah, I had made a board that was. I think it was eight, six or nine foot was my standup board. I put a total box in it about 24 inches from the tail and I'm thinking, okay, this should be good. Where I want to stand on. It will give me a little bit of lift.
Cause I moved it forward compared to what I do on my kite foil. And I use the kite mass though, which is 38, 39 inches tall. I've got this new front wing, which ended up being the original Kaiwei. And so I put that on there, go out. I had a tail wing that I didn't like for kiting, cause it had too much lift.
So I used that for the sup foil to cause I needed more or less. So I'm like, okay, I'll try that. See if it works, get out there. All of a sudden I rise up and I'm like, I got plenty of lift and then I roll over and I'm looking at these wings in my life because I'm on this giant mask, and it's just, I kept looking at the wings.
After about five near misses of hitting that wing with my face. I go into the beach and I'm thinking to myself now I know what Kai's talking about now. I know why it's dangerous to the masters too tall. So I go back to the shop, cut the thing in half, I cut it down to 18 inches or something and go back to lower lowers it.
the next day. And actually take my GoPro and film myself writing. I remember I went over an Eagle Ray or something that day got a nice video and I'm going like, at times almost 50 yards, I'm like, whoa, I could do this. And it was just like amazing. And a couple of my buddies were in the water and saw that fuck buck saw it and Jerry Rodriguez saw it.
And these guys were just like, they couldn't believe it. They're like, oh my God, he's doing it. But anyway, is this on your YouTube channel? I put it in Facebook back then Facebook. I put it in Facebook. I've got it somewhere. I can find it. I don't think I ever put it in YouTube.
I don't know. I might've. Yeah, but you go that far back, but yeah, I tagged Kai on it and then Kai saw it. He goes, oh, wow, man. I've got to try that as soon as I get back. So he was all stoked. And then when Kai came back, you put Khan on the same board, the same thing. And it's hard to describe right now.
We take it for granted that, what are you watching Tom Brady? I couldn't believe that's ridiculous. But anyway while I'm a big fan of the Tampa bay Buccaneers, so he's brought it back to my town. So he's like my hero. He was always a hero for me, but now he's like a super hero, but anyway, Comes back jumps on the same equipment and it's hard.
Describe the first time you see a guy who's foiling and he goes, past the peak goes way out to the left, comes back across the peak goes way over to the right and keeps going back and forth. And you're looking at them going, what the heck is he doing? It's just, it was mind boggling to see somebody do that for the first time.
And I was like, oh my God, what the heck is going on here? Maybe we have something here. And, Kai is just a freak. He was just doing stuff that was, unbelievable at the time. And I was just like, oh, maybe I should make a patent out of this. This is it. It was just like a revelation seeing something like that for the first time.
Yeah. And that, the first foil I got we jet my friend, Jeff Chang, and I'd tried it on a kite foil at first, be behind a jet ski and stuff. And we were really struggling in same thing. Like almost killed ourselves, falling into the foil and stuff like that. But then when we got the first Chi foil, that was like, oh, this is so much easier, but it's funny because at that time, the Chi foils seemed like a huge foil, but now it's actually a kind of a small foil. Most people start on a much bigger flow. Yeah, exactly. That's a really small foil. Now, getting back to the story, how that evolved to your video. Okay. Kai was just riding in the waves that sugarcoat doing this stuff.
Henry Spencer took a video of him that was like the first time where you see this going crazy. And then he starts going. He goes, okay. We got to, I got to talk to Rob. We got to put this on one of my downwind boards because we tried it on my downwind board, the same board that we were riding in the surf, and I'd go out there with Kai.
He has his 12, six, his regular, Nash board. We're paddling down. When I cannot get up to save my life, no way, especially on a Chi foil. So he goes, Hey, let me try that. Give it to Chi and Chi proceeds to get up like seven times on the way down to sugar coat, like immediately, even on that standup board.
And I'm like, the kids are free. He just paddles his weight to strength ratio is just off the chart when he's battling. So he's all over the place. We get all the way down to sugarcoat. He takes off from the outside, which is like at least a hundred and 150 yards outside. And he cruises all the way into the beach and it was like, wow, this is something he spends the next week, trying to talk Robbie into being able to turn one of his Nash boards and put a total box in it. So I go, okay. We'll do that. Just keep talking to Robbie. See if you can pull it off. Eventually Robbie gives him the, okay. Okay. You're going to do it on that board and blah, blah, blah.
So we put a tunnel box in at 48 inches. Cause Kai says, that's where I stand. I think that's going to be the good place to put the tunnel box. So we put it in there. I get this text he's down at the Harbor practicing and he goes, Houston, we have a problem. And then he goes on to describe that I'm going plenty, fast enough to get foiling, but the tail is hitting the water and I can't get up just because the total box is so far forward, his tail would drag and bring him down again.
So he goes, okay, let's put a tunnel box at 24 inches. Like it is on the other board. And w we should be able to get up and I go why don't we just cut the tail off, and see about it. Like in this video, you can see how I cut the tail off of that board. Put like little diamonds. Yeah. So the next day he shows up at the shop with the board, I said, yeah, we'll put the fellow box.
And he goes, Hey, I think you're right. Let's cut the tail off and just leave the total box where it is. That'll give me less bored after he thought about it overnight. And then within about two weeks, he makes this crazy video of him just jamming down the coast on this. And one of the, one of the scenes from the video that really caught my eye was Dave Kalama.
And Jr is his cousin are in a two man canoe, which is two man Outrigger, which is the fastest boat. Usually in Maui the pattern and he goes right by them and it was just like, oh my God, what is going on there? It was just amazing. It was like, oh, we've got possibilities now. Yeah. They always screws.
That's the dream to be able to just surf the open ocean swells and just be able to keep going indefinitely. And then something that layered had always talked about, we always played volleyball and we were always around together. We always played at Brett's house and layered would always talk about that going.
I think we're going to be able to just cruise for miles down the coast on one of these foils. And then, like 10 or 15 years later this is what we. Yeah. That's amazing. And then, yeah. And then what happened after that? Pretty soon after that, Nash started making foils as well.
So how did you feel about that? I did not feel super stoked about that. And it was like, Hey, we've got it. All right here. You could just, we could build it for you to put your logo on it and you can go from there and then I could make some money out of it.
And Robby was, he's always, do it all yourself and keep it inside the company. And they wanted to do it all ourselves and Mickey, he had told me one day he goes out, he really going to be bummed if we do this all by ourselves, because Rodney wants to do it himself. And I'm like I'll be bombed, but we'll still be friends.
And I guess you did, you did that with star boards for awhile, right? You put the Starboard's logo on or co-branded with Starboard's
was starboard logos as well. We had done a lot of them were just go foil and a lot of them were starboard Gofoil. So there was both of them were branded at the same time for a while. There we were in the early days we were connected with starboard. And then you got a patent on the, on your foil design.
So how come you never, did you ever try to enforce that? I Obviously like now there's so many companies making foils. Is there any way, like anything you ever were able to do with that patent or was it just not feasible? He never really pursued it. If there was a lawyer out there who wanted to pursue it, and work at his, work on his dime and then split it, 90, he takes 90% of the profits.
We get. Then we could do something, but it's something where, you don't really want to jump into that game unless, it's financially feasible. We've got patents on the patent that all kinds of aspects of, the surf foiling and stand up for healing. And basically as being, a new thing and, thickness of foils being thicker than the norm and all of that.
So there's a bunch of aspects to the patent, but we never really pursued that to where it gets expensive, and you'd rather, nobody wants to take that on, and get their own money. You would do a 90 10 split, huh? Split. Get that
out there. That would do it.
Oh, rate is 8% is royalties that all the companies should be paying you, they could get 90% of the 8%, but yeah, that's just one of those things in the beginning, we went for that patent to, it was like, wow this could really be something big. And is it a utility patent or did design patent, do you know?
I'm not even sure which one it is. It's the more expensive ones and that's a utility patent. That means that, that means it doesn't have to be like, even if it's not an exact copy, if it's the same concept and yeah. Basically. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we went for. And we have a big time patent lawyer firm that did it, but it's hard to enforce, obviously you have to prove that it's and he was going to chase it, on their own diamond set of you paying for these lawyers because the lawyers and all that gets expensive, we've got the patent and the us China and.
Australia, we didn't pursue the other countries because you got to pursue every country separately. And then how, and then how did you, did it evolve? Like I know in the early days, like everybody wanted to buy foils and there, you couldn't just couldn't get them, like you couldn't make them fast enough.
And like, how did you ramp up production and what kind of issues did he run into? Yeah, you're in the early days, you, haven't a lot of problems with how to construct this and how to keep it from breaking in me. I always making wind surfers in the early days. I really hated warranties that will end up ruining your business.
You do all of this work and then you got to give the guy another board or fixes board or whatever. So in the beginning, we didn't even want to put out the product till we were pretty sure that we weren't going to break it. So that stalls your production and stuff. And then once you do ramp it up to get, full on production going, then you end up, you have to watch out that things are evolving so fast to not make too much of the, something that might be outdated by the time you get it, because it takes a long time for these factories to build our stuff.
What happened with us, which was unique with us is that my two brother-in-laws build canoes over in China. My one brother-in-law owns the factory because he got burned by some Chinese factory he was working with. So he decided to do his own us own Chinese factory. And then he got asked to jump through all the hoops to do that.
But anyway, they were making the canoes. And he makes a bunch of different models that you see around in Hawaii and
the manager of the factory, my other brother, a brother-in-law Michael Gamblin is my other sister's husband that owns the factory. He's the genius behind, put it all together. He's the guy that I do all the CAD work with and building the foils and the wings and stuff. He's really super smart.
And he's, can pull all of this stuff together. It has the drive to do it where people go, oh, wait a minute. That's way overwhelming. I'm not going to do my own Chinese factory. That's going to be too many things to overcome. But anyway, what happened was I had been building stuff in Vietnam.
And it was getting to where it was hard to get stuff out of Vietnam fast enough. And I was seeing that these foils you're going to need a lot of these are going to need thousands of these things, cause it's in hot demand. So I asked my brother-in-law Michael, Hey, do you want to start building these at your factory in China?
And I showed him the video of Kai and the 5 million views. He's oh my God. He just went by Dave Kalama and junior on the two man. Okay. We're all in. Let's do it. And that's how it started. And now it's a whole family business and we build all of the main hydrofoils in China at his factory. So I guess in the beginning, like I remember the first one I got it started to crack right by the mass of base, like between the base and the Tableau box.
And then also on the fuselage. That's, those were the main points where a lot of. You had a lot of issues, right? Yeah. You have issues like that in the beginning where there's a, it's a process of trying to get your carbon fiber loaded, just right. The direction ability or, you're 45 degree angles and how much materials in there and, the compression, there's a lot of issues that you had to overcome.
I like the first one I got we got one from the factory in China comes over and we had all of the fiberglass or carbon aligned in the wrong direction. And I snapped the front wing right off writing, riding. All of a sudden my front wings gone. And it's just a matter of, you've got to have fibers going the right way and the 40 fives and everything to work perfectly, especially with prepregs is a whole different animal where there are layers and layers put together in the middle.
Okay. So they're made as a union directly. Think of it as the strands are uni directional. Like these are the strands are the carbon. Each sheet is like this, you can align it like this or whatever. And you cut these all, put them in the wall in a certain way. So there was a lot of learning curves to get, not all right in the beginning and how much should be here and how much should be there.
And where are the weak points and all that kind stuff. Yeah. We went through all that too. So very frustrating to get stuff back that just breaks, right? Yeah. I know. Warranties. Yeah. And then again, then, sorry. And then and then what happened then? The develop, what was the development after that?
Like how did you ramp it up and become a global brand. In the beginning, it was easy because nobody else had any foils. So we were, we went globally right in the beginning. And we were selling shoes couple thousand or 3000 foils in those first couple of years, just because we were the only guys who had foils.
So that was easy. So then we got around worldwide, fairly easy in the beginning, then it becomes harder and harder because you've got, 10 guys get in, want to make foils. And you've got 20 guys who come in and then you got 50 guys. You've got people you'd never even heard of or trying to build foils.
And everybody wants to jump in on this bandwagon. It's like the early days of wind surfing or stand up, everybody jumped into the show to try and be. So that makes it harder. So you've got to, you've got to keep up really good quality. Don't you don't want warranties to come back to ruin the business, but at the same time, you're trying to make faster stuff or easier stuff or, whatever and try and keep progressing is the way we try to do it over here.
Yeah. And then, so you got into more high aspect, foils and fast, faster designs, thinner foils, smaller for us and so on. What do you, what are you working on now? It's like your latest latest designs and what's, what do you see for the future? What we're going to do in the future is we're going to try and weave the last couple of years, we've gone into speed and try to get faster and faster, and we've made a bunch of.
So the wings to go a lot faster because in the beginning, everybody was hitting on us going, oh, your oils are outdated. They're so slow in this and that and blah, blah, blah. So then we worked on our speed. So now we've gotten to where we were like about the fastest foils out there. So now we want to try and get back to, without losing some of that, you'll have those lines of fast, easy foils to ride, but then something that is really easy to ride it, doesn't accelerate on the turn, something that's a little bit user-friendly for the intermediate type guys, the guys that are really advanced and ride.
These are NL wings, which are super fast and, tourney and everything. But the the intermediate is get a little bit, shy away from that. It's we're going to make the GL is a really good one for winging it for the intermediate people, but I'm going to try for next year to make something that's super easy.
So we're going to have a different line. We'll have three different lines, basically. So are you making a foil that's specifically designed for wing foiling or are they all all around foils for Steph prone, foiling, standup foiling and wink foiling, or depending on the size of the wing or like how, yeah.
They all can cross over. So we're finding out that, you want one, that's supposed to be erasing foil. Okay. So we're thinking downwind or are racing for wings or or towing falls into that category. If you're in really big waves, you need some super fast and Then you have the other wings, like the NL, which are great for stand up.
They're great for surfing the smaller ones, prone surfing, but they're really good for winging also. So it's funny how all of them, you can almost do every one of the sports on each one of those wings. It's just a different style of riding you have to do, or a different size riders, weight, might like the bigger wing where the smaller guys like, oh my God, I can't write that thing.
I need a little tiny thing. But all of them seem to cross over. I can tow on, on different size waves on any of the wings I can wing on any of the wings. I need particular amount of, a lot of wind for the small toe wings, but on the Raceway. Like when I'm paddling downwind, a lot of the wings crossover to me, paddling downwind too.
So there's, it's funny. They all have their moments and can crossover. Yeah. So I guess the same design just in different sizes works for different things. I guess when you're Don flooding, you probably needed a little bit more surface area, a bigger wing, to keep going. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Cool.
Yeah. And then how did you get into wink foiling? What I know you were one of the early wing furthers. You were on an ozone and stuff like that. Posting videos of you riding at lanes and stuff like that. So how did you get into that? A wing foiling started with the way it started over here was flash.
Austin was always tightened down there with us and riding. Type foils and stuff just decided to put together this funky wing thing with some windsurfing battens and some old kite material and just put this whole thing together. And he goes, Alex, I need one of your foils. I think I can get distinct foiling.
And I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, yeah, I've been hiding down at the sewer plant, try and testing this thing. So get him a foil on it. He comes up there, we take pictures of them. These are the first things we see of the new of evolution of Wingfoot and where it started. So we kite and rode this thing at the same place where Ken winners, right next door to us, he does all of his kite testing there too.
And then Ken saw him one day and he's oh my God, what is that? I'm going to put that in production. I'm going to build a couple of those and we'll start doing experimenting with it. So Ken takes it from there and puts the boom on it. Cause Ken's an old time windsurfer and he just liked the book.
And the very first wings that I tried were kin winners, duotone wings. And that's how we first learned. Alan could, is got me down there one day. We were down there with Alan at canal and he goes here, go try it. And then I proceed to get up and cruise around. After about 10 minutes I was riding it pretty well.
Cause I already had, was really good kite for her. So it was easy for me to learn, oh, I used to be a windsurfer and then my wife tried it and stuff. And then from there it was like, oh my God, this is fun. So the first year I went to the Gorge with, it was maybe three years ago and I was on a, do a tone.
And then I got to try ozone for the first time they had a couple ozones there at the show and they gave me one of those. So then I was using the ozone and the duotone at the hatchery and just having a blast. I was like, oh my God, this is fun. It's like the early days of wind surfing. Where were you working?
Everybody was super stoked and feeding off of each other. And it's just a bunch of fun between everybody and they're all talking about, Hey, what are you writing? What I'm I learned this, what should I do? I'm having problems with this. And it's like the whole same atmosphere of the early wind surfing days.
Yeah. And people are very open about sharing their ideas and their knowledge and what they learned is pretty cool. That it's not as close hold as in some other disciplines, I think. Yeah. And then what, so what are the like behind see those two boards and like what is, what are you working on now?
What are you latest products and yeah. Tell me what you're up to. Latest thing now is we'll be getting in our boards from the kinetic factory. I worked with the kinetic factory again that used to build my kite boards to start making a wing boards. Their full sandwich, Connecticut is known for making.
Some of the best boards in the world, as far as the factory goes, they're super solid. They, anybody who's gotten any new Jimmy Lewis boards in the last five years knows that they're built very well. So we get a container of those come in. Yep. That you can see the they've all the boards and the first container will have a total and a plate.
There's all kinds of foot straps placements. You can see that has a handle there in the middle. And just the typical things that you need to have on a wing board, as you could see how the volume of this is in a pretty volume forward on my boards. I like to have a lot of volume up forward when I'm winging, because we're going shorter and shorter board.
And you have a tendency when you're standing up forward, the board goes underwater. So like you come down off the plane and then all of a sudden the front goes under. It does a summary. So as you can see some of these, can you show us yeah. Maybe pick one up and move that chair out of the way. I'd show us the shape a little bit.
Yeah. Let's look here. This is 105 liter board is five, six, and you can see how we have a lot of thickness up in the front of here. Cause we get the five, six you get up forward. If you have the traditional theater noses that look really cool, they sink on their water. When you stand up here, basically we move the flotation of forward.
It's a little bit bigger, fuller outline up forward as compared to the tail. So it's reverse of what a lot of the boards are. That bigger tails, a lot of float in the back. I like to have the full rotation of forward. We've gone shorter and shorter, and it's easier to stand on something when it's like that this one you can see has the traditional, like wind surfing style footsteps.
This is 45 degrees here, and I have one strap in the back. I like to ride wind shift and style. It's really easy to switch your feet and stuff. You go from strap. A lot of people are coming from surfing background, have a problem with switching your feet. And so then you have foot straps that can go straight.
Like you're just going to go one direction. So it has the answer it's for going riding with just one set or footsteps, or you've got the list surfing style where you can switch your feet and go forward and start to learn how to go both ways. Because if you get in a problem where you're trying to get up and really like when TOSA.
You're crossed up on your bad tack. It's hard to get up like that. And it's hard to go up wind like that. So if you do get into light winds, it's easier to switch your feet better to learn in the beginning, because once you start going just tow side all the time, you never switch feet again.
The deck is pretty much flat. Or do you have like concave in the deck? Any kind of, I don't like on caves so much. I want everything to be a flat platform for my feet and nothing weird. And I don't concave too, because. I'd rather, if you fall on it, I want it to be flat and not have a little bit of a rounded edge to hit your shins or your knees or whatever.
I'd rather we're getting back on is easier on a slide deck. I find it. And you don't hit your elbow or whatever on that hitch. Yeah. Yeah. Like I used to ride on Connor. Baxter's, downwind board, he's got this big scoop out, all those star wars at the Umar and I'd fall on that thing.
I'm like, oh my God. And he has whacked myself with this heavy concave. So it's cut that system. I don't like that. So I figure if it works, don't make it all fancy. Like the same thing with the bottom sheets are real flat so that it has an easier release to pop up when you're planning it real light.
Is it a, if slat all the way to the nose and you have a little bit of convex in the nose, it was pretty much flat. The holes in soft rails, the rails in the back towards the tail of the board would have been, it's a little bit round here and you have a little bit of a kick in the last, behind your total box and your plates.
And can you show that the profile, the contour, like you said, it's a little bit thinner in the tail than in the notes. No. They're about the same thickness, but now are thicker in the front and thinner and the thickness keep about the same thickness. So don't go crazy with, making a super sick.
I don't like the way that feels when I'm winning. I want a lot of float up for, because most of the time on these short boards, like this board is my four, six. I tow with this and I wing with this and can kite with this also. But even with this board, it was one of the things too, when you're out of your boards you want the bone flow to be about the same so that when you sinking it, especially on sinker, it seems evenly because more of my boards, I have a pretty big it's a little bit thicker in the front than the back.
And I float like this and I go down and it's hard when you're sinking like that. Not really far forward and concentrate on the nose going down. So there's all types of, trial and error and into figuring out what really feels good for me. Always made my own board so I can go ahead and, make a board that week and test it again.
But I don't make custom boards anymore for other people, but the family still gets nice. Thanks for showing us that I'm going to show the screen share again real quick. Oh, sorry. Let me let me go back to that. So are you going to show your bottom here? You can see all of what the, oh, you got the measurement for where to place the foil and the bottom handle.
Yeah, I guess guide there. So like you use your, this is how far you are from the tail and the measurements. And then if you like your plate in certain position, you remember what your number is to go, okay I like it at, seven inches or whatever it is for the plate title of course goes in just one place.
When you got a, a nice. It's nice to have a handle on a wing board because getting in and out of the water is much more for me. And then on the deck, you don't have a handle though. So I don't like the handle on the deck because when I'm stepping all over the place and my toe gets in there, I've had a couple of problems with almost breaking my toe, like having all the dash.
Yeah. But then I guess when you're carrying them without the foil attaches, it's off balance, but you can, I guess you can still carry with that bottom, but you could still carry it. It feels a little bit nose heavy, especially on the bigger six oh board, but you can always, the smaller words really.
Yeah. Not that hard to carry it. Yeah. And I was going to show the different sizes you have available here. I guess you have a 46 by 44 liters, five oh, by 87 liters, five six by 106 liters and then 600 by 134 liters. So four different sizes. And when are those going to be available? Next week, I think container arrives next week could be the following week.
I don't know how much we get stuck with, trucking and customs in Honolulu. It's already in Honolulu. So I'm just going through the, the process of getting it over here. Nice. And then, oh, I think I had this on here too. So tell us a little bit about the co also making your own wings now, right?
Is that Craig, is this one of your prototypes? This is one of the prototypes. This is the actual version of the three. Which will it'll have stripes on it. It's got all the logos and stuff, and I moved the windows closer to the middle strut on the production style, but I've been using this thing since I want to say February or something, it's the the quality of it feels really good.
I haven't stretched it out, and it hasn't blown apart. And I put it through some tail this day is probably, a regular 25 to 30 knots. And just imagine some of the days where we're 35 to 40 and I'm still using that week. So they're built super solid. And what I like about my wings is what we did was make the bladders a little bit bigger to make them stiffer.
So when your sheet in with these things are not moving all over the place, like some of the wings, we got a little bit more of a, it feels like a windsurfing sail you shoot in, and it doesn't move all over the place. Yeah. And that makes them more powerful too, I'm, the Armstrong rings are like that, that they're really thick flatters, which make it more rigid and powerful.
It seems yeah. It looks like you made the wing tips pretty squared off. So you have less of a wing span to, is that one of the things you were working on or, just maybe talk us through the different prototypes, you try it out and what you've learned from trying different things.
We did with this is basically our, we call it our elliptical style. It's more of a standard style, but we do bring the wingtips closer together than some of the wings. Cause you'll notice how on, F1 or Armstrong have pretty long wingtips and you have a tendency to touch those in the water very easily.
So my wing tips are broadened together a little bit more on that. Ellipticals. So you got a little bit more cord in the middle. So think of it as a longer strut in the middle shorter wingspan, just to make it easier to turn without touching your tips. Then we have a square model, which is the one that I was writing at home keep.
Or the one day you might've seen that with the square model is better for really light wind so that when you're, you get on those bigger wings and you're having problems pumping, to get up. So they like you're, you just want to get foil, like that one, that's the square model.
You see how that one's way more square than that elliptical style you just saw. This looks almost a little bit more like a, that slick wing at a new Ken winners. S duotone one. Yeah that closer to a slick, whether you score off the ball just so that what I like about this is I do a lot of windsurfing style wave riding, hurting like that.
When I call it cheating in, you can keep the tip further up out of the water, but the main advantage of this one, forget all this hotdogs and stuff that I'm doing here is when it's really light. When you have problems pumping up to get onto a foil, it's a day where you're out. It's Hey, I wonder if I can get foiling today, and you go to the pump, and you keep touching your tip in the water and it stops the whole progression of trying to get up. You got to start all over again. So the square tips are made for that to where when you pump it, it's easier to pop up the foil and have a lot less problem of the wing tip touching while you're trying to accomplish them.
That's the biggest advantage of these square model. So the square models are made in the bigger size. It's like a four or five, a five, five and a six, five. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And that's one of the things about some of the earlier designs is when, you think you could use a bigger size to get it going in lighter winds, but then then the wing tips were so wide that you couldn't really create a lot of power with it because of it has, because it's like the wingtips is drag and you can't really bring it vertical.
You give you that forward power, this just lifts up, but you can't really get that forward momentum with it. That's where that, I think the square design makes a lot of sense. So you actually have two different wing designs or is it just by size or how does that work? You can wing styles, but it's by size where they convert over to the other ones.
So by elliptical side, Those 2, 2, 2 7, 2 7 is like a main state here in Maui. Everybody, when they get lit up over here, the two seven is really nice. I ride the three, five, and then the four or five. So those are the ellipticals. You got 2, 2, 2 7, 3, 5, 4 or five. Now the square model, like you saw in that last video is a four or 5, 5, 5, and six five.
So it's more towards the higher end because when I, those ones don't loft is easy. They're a little bit more unstable if you're just luffing and want to cruise down the coast and, hi, I win. So the medical ones, I like a little bit better for that. And my feedback from my riders that, you've got to get it, some of the intermediate and beginner riders, because feeling stuff that's different than you and they get on it all the way out.
This elliptical is way easier for me to. In handled. But when you get into that day, when it's six to eight knots and you cannot get foiling, like even my wife, she was, didn't like the square model, having all kinds of problems with it. And I'm like, I put her out in it's fairly windy. Then we have one day where it's not very windy.
She goes out with the four or five elliptical and she kept touching the tips and she's getting all upset. And I go, okay, here now try the square model. She goes, gets right up. She was like, oh, okay. Now I get
fantastic. So those wings you have available now for sale, you have them on Maui. No those are all prototypes as everybody who are having problems, getting wings, those will probably show up in September. If we're lucky. I said, yeah, we're going to start building them in August and we're going to ship them in September, then.
Nice. Oh, my shipping, do they have to go in a container or do I get a good rate to air freight them then what we won't know until we actually have the product and see how you take the ship. Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. The whole pandemic thing and like what, how did it affect you and your business?
I know shipping has been a nightmare, like getting stuff shipped in containers and stuff like that. But other than that, like how did the whole pandemic workout for you at Maui? The pandemic here on Maui, it was we're out in the, to where, there's not as many people over here, they shut down the islands, nobody was loud and, people didn't want to leave because they couldn't get back in type of thing.
So I was in Florida when all this happened, we were doing a tour over there and demos all over the place. And then they're like, Hey, they're going to shut down the state. We got to fly back to. On a mad rush to get back home. And then I stayed there for a, since last March. No. Did I go anywhere?
I think I went to a wahoo last month when they finally opened it up to where I could go without all kinds of tests and get my nose probed and everything. I went anywhere. Maui is they closed down the beaches. We're not allowed to go to canal hall. They closed it all down and that's where we were all winging it from.
But you're allowed to go to the Harbor. So you go to the Harbor and what ended up happening was everybody had nothing to do and started learning how to go when they closed down the canoe guys, because the six man canoe, as you're too close to quarters and they wouldn't let them do a six man canoes and they have all the lessons and stuff from the teaching and races.
So they closed down. Basically the canoes were. The wing foiling, and then the wing Oilers just took over. There was no trap boat, traffic, and all, there was a bunch of wing boilers and all of a sudden you've got kids and grandmas and old windsurfers who had, and wind surfed in 25 years coming back into the water.
And it's, it was just crazy. There's some days there was 50 or 60 people down there and it's still going on down there now it's started a whole, a whinging. This COVID started a winging revolution on a big community down there. Yeah, that's awesome. And then more recently you had that you had a gold foil get together at that at a big house over there.
And I know my friend, Derek, Thomas Saki went over there and stuff. And talk a little bit about that. That was great. We do this usually once a year, we have we rent we have a friends that have the access to the house down. Yeah. And he lets us go into it for a weekend or whatever we're trying to do.
So we do go foil weekend and it's called come ride with us. And then we invite everybody from the outer islands that are, Gofoil riders like Derek and Kalani and lay, and Todd, and all these guys come over. They stay in the house and then all of the locals that are, are, go for riders of Maui, come down and ride with them and we get those guys just have a blast.
They've, it's like one of the best places in Maui that if you could own a house that would be one of your top pitch, wind sports. That's where that's the property you want to just launch right out of there. There's the summertime is the best place for winging. I feel on Maui it's, there's waves right out front and.
The boys, we, I take my boat there. As some of the videos, my boats right out front and there we use the boat to get up to malico and film them coming down. Peter King was taking all kinds of videos from the boat and the boys from a wahoo and Kauai, all they want to do is do a down winder from Mullica and what best fun is right out there.
And those were like, no, we want to do downwinders. So they just want to do two downwinders a day and just come back to the house or go to the Harbor to do the, the full Monte. And they just have a blast. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, it sounds like they had a lot of fun. They were definitely posting a lot of videos and photos and that trip, I was jealous Derek he's we'll do two downwinders and then at the end of the day, he'll take fuzzy or Who else was he with Garrett and they just take off for a evening run to the Harbor.
It's like the can't get enough. It's getting it's after five o'clock winds getting a little sketchy down by, there we go. We're going to the Harbor house out there, down to the Harbor. Just great times. Yeah. Yeah. When you call a sketchy win on Maui as for us as probably pretty good conditions on Oahu, it's funny.
It's a joke when they all show up. And I check the forecast on window room before they come over and I go, okay, forecast looks good. And the boys are like, okay what do we need to bring? I go make sure you bring your three just in case. And then when they get over here, it's blowing hell again.
It's 35 knots every day. And I go when was the last time you guys were in this kind of window? Last year when we were here. Yeah. You don't get 35 knots an hour, really rarely a hurricane coming through. I've been up the coast and we're going back up to malico and then you start to see lanes and just pass mama's fish house for people who know the area, you're getting up to keep a, you see all these white cats and then it was Derek or fuzzy.
One of them's goes, he goes, you know what? We see little patches of white caps like that in our courses in a while, who in collide, but we don't see the whole ocean look like that. The whole ocean's wife, white cats all the way to call Harbor. So they just, they love it over here.
Yeah. It's like smoke on the water, but but yeah. Tell us about four or five with a. The five oh board. So that things like 85, 87 liters, a four or five wing. So when you at Rooney ride with the wind, a wind powered up versus just holding it on the side, like what is, I guess you just have more speed or what, why do you do it sometimes? What, why do you hold onto the wing versus holding it next to you?
Do you power? Me being an old wind sear for, I liked that style that we ain't able to jam turns with full power and just feeling the juice of it. I could turn sharper and turn harder like that when I'm windsurfing, as opposed to luffing, like this is not as, I can't turn as quick, it's still a lot of fun to turn luffing, but wind surfing style turn, that's gets back to my roots, to where I really like to do.
So are you working on any new thing, new moves or new tricks or anything like that? Or what are you into these days? Like when you go in funding, are there any tricks you're trying to learn or anything like that? Occasionally I'll go into trying to learn some new tricks. Like the what was I doing the other day?
It's like at the end of the one video, I tried to do a luffing move at the end of attack. And I dragged the wing behind me while I'm tacking, as opposed to putting the wing up above my head when I'm tacking. Yeah. Behind the back luffing tack. And I was one of the things I was working on this week, but I've got a lot of new racing foils that showed up.
I'm supposed to test for production that comes out and several months. So the last three days I've been just going super fast, trying the really small ones. Cause we had a race. What was it? The paddle of Moolah race we did two weeks ago from Maliko to Kanawha. And in that one, you get to experiment with a little bit of your fastest foils and cheated in the whole way, going down wind.
And so I'm progressing with the feedback I got from that to try and make something even faster than what I was on. So in the video, this was your wife, Carla
that's Carla, right there. That's that? What size wing is that? It looks tiny. The two seven, that's a magic size for Maui because it's blowing 35 constantly. Yeah, no problems writing because they're getting beat up out there, but you see how solid that wing is. It's really rock solid and easy to ride and a lot of wind.
Yeah. And so you went on a downloader with a 70 year old friend of yours is that he was having a blast, had a lot of fun with that. He was talking about doing is his downwind or this guy right here. This is Ken right here. And this is his wife. And this is Allen they're talking about before we go.
And it wasn't very windy that day. That's really went from, so the, he had a little bit of trouble getting up, coming back in after he fell in. So this was his first down winter. So he was just really happy that we all. That's the great thing about whinging. You've got a seven year old guy just having a blast.
He's learned a new sport and he's just oh my God, this is fun. So I'm teaching or leading a a young lady. I think she's 70 years old, down at the Harbor right now use the 5 0 85 leaderboard. And she's just, she's an old, older windsurfer who just you'll be windsurfing for years. And now she started foiling and she sent me a text last night, says, oh my God, I got foiling today.
Most of most foiling I've done so far, I'm having so much fun. And it's just, there's a lot of people in all different age groups really gravitating to this wing. Yeah. What would you say like for you? What, why is winging so addictive and why is it so fun? I think that one of the best aspects of winging it.
You're combining the foiling, like what I've been doing standup foiling, in waves or standup foiling, what I'm, racing down the coast and you've got this wing that can let you do all of that in case you can't get enough power to, get going again. You just shoot in with your wing and get going again.
Like the stuff we're doing out downwind, like the other, that other video where I'm just surfing down one with three, five, you can't, I've done lots of wind surfing. Downwinders kiting downwinders, but there's nothing like winging down with you, just cruise and you're surfing down the coast and riding these waves and you can't slow down like that on your wind share for as soon as you're on sheet, you're going to stop and competing is just you're you can't, you're not connected with the water as much.
You're more connected with your kite when you're kite flight. Know, you're outrunning the waves a lot when you're yeah. And you can't completely de power and then just put it, put it aside basically. Yeah. When you start doing that, what ends up happening? You forget about your cut and then,
cause I interviewed both Alan and mark and they both said that. Yeah, basically Ken Ken winner got into it when basically they used to do the standard pallet downwinders together and then, Ken was struggling to get going with the paddle. So he that's why you started making those wings, so you could keep up with Alan and mark doing the downwinders I guess foiling and then yeah that, that's how they got interested in it too. When Ken started making all of that stuff, Alan gravitated to him straight away, he was because Alan looked across the street from Ken.
We could test together and Hey, you want to try this thing and let's go test this model and I need some feedback. So he uses Allen as a test partner. They were just testing two days ago. And you know where it is from Allen at the latest greatest stuff from Ken is rip thing. Ken's always been progressing that and that's how he started.
He was paddling from CU, with Alan all the time. And that was the old malico 200 days trying to go down, wind foiling. And I think Ken kept hurting his shoulder and it was too much on him. And that got him into whinging. Why for winging down wind for that? It's not, yeah, I've been trying to get Ken winter on the show too.
One day. I'll hopefully get him to agree to come on. And I've been trying to get you on the show. So thanks for finally doing it. But one thing I always like to ask everybody is. Your, your skills, your wa water, sports skills. Is it a result of your like, kind of God-given talents or your natural born talents, or is it like practice and, spending time and, work, working on it repetition and so on.
For me, it's a little bit of both, I've got pretty good balance and stuff and not, super stupid or anything. So figure these things out pretty fast. But for other people, it's, some people are just raw talents that just pick it up. You can't believe like an Austin camo or Kayden Pritchard that just got, they're just boozing talent, and then other people just have to work at it.
It's Hey, you got to practice this. You've got to dial in your equipment. You've got to, figure it out. Okay. I'm getting too much lift and what is causing that? Do I need to move my mask back or forward? And some people would really have to work at it hard and it just comes from repetition and it's like riding a bike, you got to get used to it.
And me I've been foiling so long and made all of these terrible tight foils in the beginning. So I learned to ride all of this crummy stuff and what was causing it. So I'm at an advantage to get on something and go, oh, we should do this to make this feel balanced. Where a lot of my friends, I have to get on their equipment and say, oh, wait a minute.
This doesn't feel right. You needed to feel like this. And this is what you should to do. So there's a lot to learn about, what is causing you to feel like you're over foiling or you've got too much lift or not enough lift, are you doing a lot of this? Porpoising that usually means. You don't have enough lift.
You need a little bit more lift to have something to steady against. If it's doing this all the time, it's like wherever you point the foil, it goes. So put a little more lift in it to have something to stand on. Just little things like that. Or just little tips that some people, it takes a while to learn what that is all about.
I get those questions all the time. So what are some tips that you give to beginners that are trying to get into foiling or wing flooding? What are some good pointers that people can use to, to get started or progress? What I recommend that you try to get into some fairly flat water to where you don't want a real bumping when you first learned the wing and you want to have if you could, pick your ideal wind conditions, it would be like 15 knots steady wind.
You can put on the wing, feel the wind and know exactly where it's coming from. Put on a fairly big foil, and you need to try to stay closer to the center of your board. If you're with straps or without straps, be closer to the center line of the board. That's where you have your best balance. And you've got to remember that foiling is a front leg sport.
You've got to learn to when I get up, don't lean back, like you're surfing or wind surfing. You got to lean forward. It's you're almost standing up more vertical and be towards the front of the board. You get up. It's more like you're standing on your front quad. You're not on your back quad. Don't put your shoulders backwards towards the back of the board.
So those are some of the first tips when you're first learning to win. I like this picture. It shows that really well. Yeah. Leaning on your front foot. She is. All the way forward and look at how she's standing on that front quad, all of her wings right there, and she's pretty vertical. So that's, you need to be balanced and she's basically in the center of that board.
So you have a good platform to feel that foil in the center of it. Some people like Derek will ride his feet, all cup of coffee, all over the board. I know he's got to like really almost diagonal, like on one. Yeah. One on each side of the board, but like words are free. So yeah, he definitely is.
Cool. So I guess what I wanted to ask you too, is do you ever have like days where like everything clicks and you're like totally in the zone and you everything just works and you can pull off all kinds of tricks. And then the next day, you're using the same gear the, in the same conditions and you're.
Not feeling it. And you're a coop, I, that happens to me all the time. And then wondering what is it, why, why can I be in that zone? Why do I feel that sometimes? And why don't other times, do you have any tips on how to get into that state of mind or like where you, where everything clicks, Ooh, I'm not sure how to do that.
I don't usually have that problem where normally when I'm not having a good day, it's because it's too windy or I took the wrong equipment. But the, you have to learn that too. It's Hey, you might think every day is the same, but it might not be the same. You're just not aware of it. But another thing could be that, you've been going hard all week and you need a break.
You need to rest it a little bit. And you're just, you ran out of gas, Yeah, that's true. I noticed sometimes when I'd take a break for a few days and then I go back out again, I'm like all fresh and I can, yeah. It's everything works way better than when, after a long session, when you get tired, that's when you hurt yourself and stuff too.
At the end of the long session. Yeah. I was racing around with Peter slate yesterday and I did a whole full first session and did three laps around our course that we ride. And then he shows up, he goes, Hey, come on. Let's go. And then we went back out and I proceeded to start falling all over the place and okay, you better wrap it up.
You spent your load today. Just go back to the beach houses everywhere. So yeah, you gotta know, you gotta know when to stop sometimes, right? Yeah. You gotta know when to stop. I didn't do it the other day. And it was really windy and I proceeded to put three holes in my way with flipping my foil upside down.
And hadn't done that in a while, but I managed to do it the other day when I got real tired. So yeah, another question I always like to ask like a lot, lot of people during them pandemic felt like, lonely or frustrated, depressed, whatever. And just when you're having a bad day or something like that, what do you do to make yourself feel better, getting into a better state of mind.
And, but we're going to say that you can't go wing foiling or go in the water. It's what else do you do? Cause everybody says that, oh, I just go I feel fine. But what do you do to make yourself put yourself in a better state of mind chilling down or something? Shoot I don't usually have those problems, but what I do notice that some of the people that do have these problems is they watch too much of the news and it's Hey, don't go in there and start dwelling on what they're all talking about and all of the problems that are happening worldwide or whatever.
The latest thing is going on to watch some nice movies or listen to some music, do not watch the news. That'll bring you down. I never presented agree. That, they're just trying to, they're just trying to sensationalize everything and make it look worse than it is. So is there anyone you want to thank for helping you out over the years or that supporting you?
The main people, what I, the way I hope revolved around this lifestyle would be my parents, just having them. The balls and the foresight to just jump into this wind surfing thing back in the early days, and it was a chant, a risky business, what is this?
Hey, you're supporting the whole family. I've, we're going to do it by doing this wind surfing stuff. So they've supported me. My brother, both of my sisters were expert windsurfers back in the day. And that was, got us on this path to basically our whole life revolved around wind sports.
After that there were revolved around the water. It's just, no, it was just perfect timing. We went on up, a trip to the Virgin islands and just Scott just got really fortunate. And so your whole family was passionate about, it's not like it's not. Like tiger woods. His dad like always pushed him to play golf or something like that and know became super good golf player, but then also the kind of a troubled person that seems so for you, it was like, you were always passionate about it and love doing it is that yeah.
And we always loved doing it. It was like, we were all we grew up around sports, we played football in the neighborhood. We were baseball in a neighborhood where went through, literally, we went through football, little league and and all of that stuff. And so we were always around sports.
So when this came out, it was like, like doing another sport. We were just doing it in the water and we just grab it, Intuit, all the kids did. And it was just, when you go to those races, your adrenaline gets all up, when you're doing well. And it's it's one of those things too, when you have your, my brother were like a year ago, And we were like two of the best wind surfers in the world and we always practiced together and we're always trying to beat each other and having that really helped us get to where we were.
It's like sibling rivalry a little bit. Yeah. We'll look at fin and Jeffrey Spencer now see, you think it's two brothers pretty close in age, just always with each other and they push off of each other, they're doing or racing down when, and it's, it really helps, to have somebody that good as your training partner and you're always together, it's and you've blessed.
You've got a little bit of a thing. I got a feat. He's my brother. Yeah. That really worked out great for us. Yeah. Awesome. Would you say that foiling or wing filing is an addiction? Like it's like something you crave and is there a dark side to it? Is there a dark side to being addicted to four lanes?
For me, yeah, I'm really addicted to all types of foiling, but the wind foiling, especially when the conditions are great, I go to Wingfoot, especially sometimes if it's blowing like hell for awhile, I'll go downwind, foiling and paddle with Dave and stuff. Cause that's what he really likes to do. And yeah, you just it's just so much fun that you gravitate to.
The what was the rest of the question I was asking you if there's a dark side, like what I'm trying to get all my work done more quickly so I can get on the water, because it's like blowing outside or something like that. But for me, I find it, it's motivating me to get my work done more quickly and be more, more effective or productive or whatever.
But I just wondering if cause usually addiction is like, has a negative connotation, right? So is there, is it a good thing or a bad thing? For me it's a good thing, but I've got an excuse, cause I, I tell my wife, I'm going to the office. I don't want to hear about it. So I've got an excuse, but there's a lot of people.
I heard this from lay on the other day he goes and my one buddy is having a whole lot of problems, and he's going to have problems with his marriage and stuff. What is he into drugs or something? That's no man. He's into foiling. Oh, I guess some people take it too. Yeah. He never goes home and all he wants to do is go weed.
So I guess there is some people out there that do have a crazed addiction going on. Yeah, for sure. So is there anyone else you think I should interview for the, on the beats on it? Show about wing filings, winning, falling? Yeah. I would try to get a hold of the sea. Ken winter would be a really good guy.
Yeah. You've already done Al and he's one of the main guys that would do it over here. Shoot. I don't know. Maybe we're waiting for who would be a good. Actually, I should try to interview Derek actually, Derek, come on Saki. I think it would be something to talk to. I'm talking about him a bunch, Derek.
Yeah. He'd be a good guy to, to go with. He's a, Derek's a funny guy because I make all kinds of stuff all the time for people, all over the world and stuff, they just love it, this and that. But for Derek, he's got these different ideas about what he feels and this and that. And it's like hard to make stuff for Derek because he's just, he's a special rider.
You'll like this one tail wing that I hate and he just loves it. And it's just it's funny. It's I gave him a hard time all the time. It's no why are you doing that outcome? You're writing nothing. And he's I just love it. It's what I'm used to. Yeah. Classic. Yeah. So do you have any special message for those people that are still watching?
I usually say it's just like a tiny sliver of people that watch. So the very end, we get like most people have left by now, but so do you have any special message for those still watching? Shoot. I would tell you that, if you are an older windsurfer or kinder or whatever, you really should try this wing, the wing foiling, it's less pounding on your body and stuff.
And once you learn how to do it, you're just easing across the water and it's you could get, you've got places you can go to that you normally wouldn't be able to kite or whatever. There's easy access to get into the water. If it all goes wrong, you just paddle back in with your wing behind. It's just a great fun sport.
You can do it in pretty light wind, and we'll probably get to where we can do it in even lighter winds in the future. Yeah. So it sounds like you think that this is going to be become a pretty big sport globally, right? I think so, especially in Europe, because anybody who knows wind surfing Europe really is popular in Europe.
It blew up in Europe, 10 fold over what it ever did in the United States. And I could see that there would be, thousands and thousands of wingers over in Europe, all between Germany and France and all the lakes, even Switzerland as some really key places for wind surfing and stuff over the years.
And some of those lakes, Italy and lake Garda, it's probably already blown up there. It's really going to get popular and it could get more popular. Yeah, no, I think so too. Yeah. I interviewed Baltz Miller. I think it was like January or February. And he said, it was freezing cold in Switzerland.
And he said like the lake was crowded with people. That's kinda nuts, but yeah. All right. Thanks so much. I think that's a good note to end it on. So thanks so much for your time. And finally coming on the show. Good luck with everything with your new products. All right, Robert, good talking to you.
Yeah. Good talking to you too. Thanks for sharing all of us. All right. Cool. All right. Have a great rest of your day lot. All right. Thanks for sticking around for the whole show. I really appreciate it. I always joke that only about 5% of those who click on the video actually watched the whole thing. So you were part of that elite 5%.
Congratulations. And thank you. All of you who support blue planet, you are the ones who make it possible for us to put together this show. And I really appreciate everybody who supports blue planet, and then also make sure to check out our new shop in Holly, Eva. Right next to the rainbow bridge, we do stand up paddle kayaking and surf board rentals there.
And we have a really cool shop with lots of goodies. So if you're visiting or Yahoo, make sure to come by the new blue planet shop in Hollywood. I hope to come out with another blue planet show soon. So stick around and also check out the podcast version of the blue planet show on your favorite podcast app.
Just search for it. On that show and this should come right up. So thanks again for watching. Take care of you. One to you on the water. Aloha. .
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Kevin and Kaden Pritchard- Wing Foil interview- Blue Planet Show #14
26 Jun 2021· The Blue Planet Show
Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show. On this show I interview Wing Foil athletes, not only about the technique and the gear that they use, but I also try to get to know them a little bit better, their background, what makes them tick, what inspires them and how they live their best life.
It's a long form format. So if you'd like in-depth information, then you're going to love this show. I really appreciate you. I know not everyone has time to watch it on YouTube with the visuals. I think it's great, but you can, of course, also listen to it as a podcast with audio only, just search your favorite podcast app for "the blue planet show". Today's interview is with Kevin and Kaden Pritchard.
Kevin Pritchard is a multiple time wind surf world champion. Him and his brother, both Matt Pritchard and Matt's son, Kaden is 12 years old and he's only been winging for about a year. And he's already doing crazy moves: back flips and he's working on forward flips and he breaks down technique for me on the Flaka, which really helped me out too.
So there's some really good stuff in here. And just the whole story about the Pritchard family living on Maui, basically because a friend gave a wind surf board to Kevin's dad. So that's what led to the whole family living that lifestyle now. So I thought that was great. Really interesting story. Good to see the two generations together and hope you enjoy this show as much as I did.
And without further ado, please welcome the Pritchards! Okay. Kevin and Kaden Prichard. Welcome to the Blue Planet Show. Thanks so much for making some time to join me. How you guys doing today? Yeah, thanks for having us. I was like, checking you out on that. On the internet and it's oh, let's do something.
Could be cool. We've got Kaden who's starting to really start to rip on the wing foil. And yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Thanks for reaching out to me. I appreciate that. And and I saw you, you just started a YouTube channel and blogging and all that kind of stuff too. So I always like to collaborate with other people that try to create content and stuff like that.
So it's great to have you guys, and you're both on Nali right now, right? And where are you at? It looks like you got a lot of gear behind you. There we are in my dad's workshop or yeah, his dad. We have a little rental. Wind surfing thing. So renting the waves and stuff over here on Maui. And my brother does a lot of lessons teaching, wind surfing.
And he's been, has he been teaching leaning to a little bit Kayden? So your dad is Kevin's brother. That's how you relate okay. What's your dad's name? Okay. And then Kevin you been a long time windsurfer multiple time world champion and stuff like that. So then what, can you talk a little bit about your career actually, let's start with where you grew up and how you got into it and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah. I grew up in California and actually my brother and I, we started windsurfing together with my parents and my mom and my dad. And like we all used to travel around, we'd go to hood river and we lived in California, so we just started my dad was addicted to it, so he just took us with us and just, we all fell in love with the sport and it was super fun and yeah, just started wind surfing all the time and we got into it and then my brother moved to Maui in 92.
I think it was. And then I moved in 94. And then we just started going, doing the world tour together and just like step-by-step got better and better. And then yeah, it was awesome. We, he won a bunch of world titles and I won some world titles. It's crazy how a sport can take you and change your life.
It's like we started in California together and now our whole family's here. And then he's had a family of two kids and it's pretty fun watching the Caden grow up to in the mix of, what we used to do as a family, go and wind surf and all this stuff. And his, my dad, his grandfather is I would say he's his biggest, person helping him go down to the beach and doing winging. And my dad's learned a wing and he's 70. So they go down together all the time and it's pretty cool. So we've got a family atmosphere that we've had all our lives and to see it getting passed down has been, it's been fun.
Cool. So how old are you now? I'm 45. And what about UK? 11. 11. All right. Cool. So how, when did you stop competing professionally as a windsurfer or are you still competing or no. I would say it's pretty cool. I won the law classic in 2000 and then I won it in 2017.
I think it was. 16 2016. So having I had a amazing career of 16 years of, still being, near the top. And that was one of my best moments was just, like 16 years later when it beaten these kids out who keep that was, it was special conditions with big waves and weird conditions, but still it was it was a good feeling to end your career on top and that's awesome.
So that was only four years ago. You won that law classic, something like that. That's awesome. And then I do a bunch of testing for the wind surfing company as he sails and. Got more into that, brand ambassador and I'm still surfing every day. It's good. And testing the equipment, testing the gear and using the knowledge of all those years of competing and wind surfing to, make products better and things like that.
So what do you do now mostly like where do you live mostly and what do you do? And so on. Nowadays I live on Maui and just have fun. I get to, go winging if it's like right now in the summertime. I haven't gone yet, but last summer I went a couple of times and I liked the just like the variety right now, just if it's good for cutting go cutting.
It's good for wind surfing, go wind surfing, unless it's there's a, different seasons of when sales come out. When it's a busy test season from testing the winter thing here and then otherwise just just having fun. Yeah. And I'm just gonna play your this is like your new YouTube channel, and this is in Mexico, right? Yeah. You spend a lot of time in Mexico or in Baja. Yeah. This is kinda, this is where my brother and I would come down and we learned, I would say we learned wave sailing here because we, it was probably an eight hour drive from Southern California.
And we would come down to this spot and learn the way. So it was pretty, it was like a kind of a. It's a long way. So you get a lot of turns and you can work on your sailing technique really easily. So it's, I think it's one of the best spots in the world for progressing your, your sailing or your whatever.
When I was down here, there's this guy out there weaning and he was catching like, I dunno, 300 waves a day or something ridiculous like that, but it's pretty cool. Definitely a good spot that got you interested in and foiling as well. Yeah. How is that going? I guess you were talking about just starting to spoil and struggling with it a little bit.
Yeah. I think the wind surfer on the foil is the hardest device. I don't know why they're either. Maybe nobody has really Stepped up the R and D with it, but the way wave, wind surf, foiling. I don't know. I've struggled with it. You just have so much power in the sale, you know where the wing, you can just get rid of it.
And same with the kite where the wind surfing. It just it's hard. I don't know. I had a hard time with it anyways, right? Yeah. I actually haven't even really tried wind surfing with the foil. I used to wind surf all the time, but with the foil, I think it's like a whole different thing.
And yeah, I think the foil and the wing just work really well together. Like you said, you can power it and ride the wave more like surfing the foils rather than the using the wind power. Yeah. It's pretty cool to watch him and see how like confident, like I was, I seem to be like carving little things with the foil and I think.
If I could do that on surf board, which, would be the goal. It would be cool, but I don't know. I guess I got to put more time into it, like he's on the water all the time, so I'm not quite used to the foil as much as I should be, so in Baja, you also have you run like camps as well, like brother does.
And that's where it would be, like I was saying, it's just awesome for just the waves are just endless. So for learning, it's incredible, it'd be fun to do a clinic with this kid down there if he could be in the cold water, but
all right. Okay Kayden, let's talk a little bit about you now. How did I guess you were 11 years old, obviously still go to school, right? Yeah. Where do you go to school? Which school do you go to? I have a homeschool this past year. I've been getting a lot of time on the water and then next year, the Seaberry.
Obviously you can drive it. So how do you get to the beach who takes you and so on? My grandpa has been taking me basically every time I want to go for since June, I would say right since June last year. So is that part of your homeschooling PE program is going wink, foiling.
Yeah, no, you got time off, but so are you born and raised on Maui and how did you get, like, how did you get into water sports? What's your earliest memory of surfing or water sports? So on I started surfing with my dad when I was like three, and then when I was like five or six, I started doing it by myself and I loved it.
And that's what I did till I was like nine or nine or 10. I still do it. But then I got into wind surfing and then one day my grandpa came to my house and just said, let's go win. And I didn't really want to go. But then I went. Down there. I loved it. And so when was this about a year ago or two years ago, or do you remember when, how long ago?
That was a year ago. On July. Wait on June 1st. Wow. So pretty much exactly in one year. And now you're doing all these crazy moves. Yeah. So you're progressing pretty quickly, obviously. Like for those of you who don't know, I'm going to share some video of you doing some of these crazy moves.
So at T talk a little bit about the back split. When did you learn to do that? And. Maybe let's try to break down that move a little bit. And what was most challenging about learning it and so on? The most challenging part is you rip your wing lot.
Yeah. And, but once you get nice waves to launch off of, it's not that difficult because basically once you get halfway around, like upside down, then once you get
and to get right there, then the wind will just blow you around. So it's the hardest part is to just pull your board around. Is this where is this? Where are you? Where is this at? This is car point it's in between Harbor and canal. Yeah, but it's not like you're launching off of huge waves.
You're just launching off some smaller chop. It looks like a little swells case. So talk a little bit about the approaching the jump. I think that's something that most people overlook that when you're jumping, it's really important to come low and then get your foil at a really steep angle on the exit.
Like this, you can see how your foil is going up at it's pretty steep angle. Yeah. And especially with the backflip, what I was trying when I was first learning it is, I was just like going super fast and trying to spin like as fast as I can, but I learned. That it's easier to do it slower when you have a bigger ramp and stuff.
Okay. So getting more height and just rotating a little bit more slowly, and then you really throw back your head. Is that is it, does that, I guess that just helps you commit to the rotation. Yeah. I have three rotate better and it's just how I do it. I don't know. Yeah. So you said you've ripped a lot of wings, so is it, is that from the, when you lose your board and it falls onto the wing on the landing?
Or how did you rip the wings? Sometimes I just pop up and there's a rip in my link. So what I'm guessing, it's probably from like, when I land and say, my board gets like falls off my face. It like, that's and then it'll flip over onto the way. So that's what happened in the most, but there were some times where like I would fall on to my wing would fall on my foil.
So it's not all perfect. Let me see in the video and then get it fixed for you.
My dad, he just got he's. He's amazing. He got a sewing machine, so he's been he's been doing like all these little projects with making little harnesses and leashes that work really well for my dad. I dunno. Do you use them or not? Yeah, I have one he's like Mr. MacGyver. My dad was like the original band life guy.
Like when we were kids, we had this van that we pack all our stuff into and go down to Baja. And that was, 25 years ago, 30 years ago. And now it's the rage is band life, man life. And my dad was a builder and that's actually how we started wind surfing is he was building a house for a guy and the guy was still some wind surfing.
And for my dad's birthday, he gave him a wind surfer. And so he just started wind surfing. And I was wanting to write that guy that gave my dad the windsurfer, because it changed our lives. It changed Kayden's life just to, like this one dude. My dad had wind surfer for his birthday, and now we're in Maui.
We got the shot. We got, I, when I was traveling, I was, I traveled for a million miles on American airlines, so like from that one, dude, I S both my brother and I have been so blessed, like just like seeing the world, doing all this fun stuff. And, it's crazy that a sport can take you, having fun.
We'd sure we worked hard at it, but, we had the time of our lives just from this, from this one guy. That's awesome. That's a great story. Yeah, you should definitely contact him and say, tell him, Hey, look what you started. And our hope, my dad, mom and dad, both.
Here and family grandparents just moved here. So it's pretty cool. Where in California, did you grow up? We grew up in like the worst spot ever for wind surfing. I think it was like sand in between San Diego and LA and then inland. It was like Riverside area and there's a couple of lakes around where my dad got the wind surfer.
It was built. He was building houses in canyon lake it's called and is terrible for wind surfing, but still got us hooked, and not to, get all this, just from him doing it. We the first place I learned, I was like seven, so I was smaller than him. And they only had big gear back then, My dad had advanced to the ponds.
This is like these two, 300 meter long ponds, percolation ponds out in the middle of the desert. And it was the windy spot where you could, you wouldn't get in trouble if you drifted downwind or whatever. And my parents have been learning on the original windsurfer and then they got smaller and smaller gear.
And I remember one day I was just sitting in the car. I was like, so bored. I'm like, ah, dad, just let me try this short board, and they're like, no, you can't do that. You got to learn on the long board or whatever. And I'm like, just let me try it on. So board. And I remember it still, like probably the only thing that I remember my childhood, but I remember getting on the wind surfer and like somehow after watching them for so long, I just got on it and I went flying down this, the pond and my board as I was like reeling down full plane, like nine years old on this tiny Windsor for it.
And I was just, was flying down it. And after that I was just like, oh my gosh, I want to do that again. I had to walk back, cause I didn't know what I was doing. I was just like, somehow just watched what they did and yeah, that little, first little glide, changed all our lives. Change your, your Maui because of that first sensation or a walk definitely changed my life too.
Yeah. For that first sensation where you're like, oh my gosh, you're right. Harnessing the wind, something can't even see and the last you down the, down the water and it's a pretty cool feeling. Yeah. And then, yeah. That's awesome. Good. How does it feel when you're on the wing? You're like flying, right?
Yeah. Maybe you talk about your very first experience when you first got on the wing foiler and how that was learning it. The first time I got on the lane foil, I didn't really get up on foil, like I just got up and then I fell and then three or two days later, I got up on foil and I went all the way in on foil.
And I was just like, this is the best sport ever be better than surfing. And then since then, I just kept going every day and, yeah. Awesome. So before you started winging filing, you never foiled before, that was how you learned how to foil as well. Yeah, that was the first time I learned how to foil or actually I think I went out with you yeah, that was the first spoiling experience I think I had.
So Caitlin, how do you know, how about how much you weigh I'm about like 85 pounds, 85 pounds. Can you talk a little bit about the gear you use now? What size board and winging and foil. Yeah I've been using like, I used to be always like the guy I'm the biggest way now.
And now I realized that the smaller, as a way, you can do more tricks and spins with it. So my go-to has been two eight. And so what is, what brand is the one that you're using? The two eight I'm using the gastro wings, because they're like, they're not super, super stiff. It's like you can, when you do this stuff, they'll then you're in the ways that you need them to.
And that's super nice for me because I'm such a stiff wing. It would be really hard to do the flips because it would just want to, not it wouldn't bend for me two eighties, that pretty much all the time. Or do you have a bigger wing for lighter wind and the smaller one for stronger wind? Or how does that work?
Yeah, I have the two way is for super windy conditions and then I have three, five and four too, and then actually took my brother out foiling on five two. And I don't think I ever want to do that again. Such a big waste. Did you see that, that, did you post the video or just the shot? Yeah, let me share that.
And so there's a photo of you and your Instagram account. This on here is pretty cool. Cause I took the photo, but
Yeah, they went out and it was really light wind day. It was, I think his grandpa's birthday. Huh? We were all down there kind of cruise in with my dad for his birthday. And I went out and this is funny. Like it was too light for me, so I drifted downwind and then this guy comes running down the beach.
It's oh, I'll get that for you. And he's like sales, a backup. I'm like, Ooh, this is a, little humbling of this helped me out, but way better than carrying it back up. So I didn't care. And then he gets and he's because when he was 4, 3, 4 or five, something like that, I took him windsurfing and we did a tandem.
And we were like going out. I had a great time. He looked like he had a great time and his is his mom and dad are little conservatives. And so when I took him out, I was like, we are going to full speed out doing big old jumps and stuff. We actually jumped so high. We broke the board together. So that was pretty funny.
And then it was cool. We'll see him take out his little brother and at first they're going and I'm like, come on and get him on the foil, just get them on the foil. And finally got up and they're like cruising around on the foil. And then they even did a job on the didn't even, like who we does that I can't.
Do a job on the foil barely. So it was pretty fun to watch. That's a huge win for you to an ad board, yeah. It's like the belt size. Yeah. It was huge everything because the first time I took them out, I was on a go for at one 30, with a 17 and a half tail and the 36 inch max. And then I went back out on the Eva friendly and the Kai tail and I'm just like, oh, this is so much lift.
And then I got up and next time I want to try a smaller foils. I w I want them to put foot straps on the thing so they can do big airs.
That's cool. So you using gold foils, gastro wings and who's making your boards? Fabian I don't know how to pronounce his last name, but Fabian's making my boards. That brand is taboo and yeah, we're doing lots of experiments with the boards and I really like that. Do you have one of your boards there that you can show us how it looks and stuff to shape?
So I guess you'd also so after you started a wing filing, you also started prone, surf, foiling. Yeah. This is my circle board and I also wing it and I love this board for wave riding and stuff cause it's really turny. And then it has. Nice nose and rocker and all that stuff. It's the bottom shape too.
It looks like a double concave, pretty hard edges. And then a kind of concave rails with concaves and then show us all what the size and volume is about on that board. I think this board is 25 leaders and it's a four. Oh.
And then you just have two foot straps that are in the center. So do you, when you switch directions, you always switch your feet or most of the time, or with the feet in the same place.
Or do you switch feed or do you keep them in the same position? Mostly I switched my feet most of the times, because when I do the back flip, my feet are switched in goofy foot, but I'm regular flip. That's also what made the back foot a lot, little harder. So can you do the back flip going both directions?
Can you do going into, I haven't tried yet because I haven't really got like a good ramp to do it often. Cause it seemed like Jeff, like Jeffrey, Spencer, does this backflips always going in right. Coming in? Yeah. I want to try I'm up on a wave or like a wind shop. Yeah. I was talking to the guy Tetouan Galera from new Caledonia.
He, they had a contest and they were doing back flips in saltwater, basically straight off shore, wind, total salt water. And there were, I guess it's definitely possible to, you just have to really get some height and push off on the jump, yeah. I want to try it on flat water, but I'm scared.
Yeah. Yeah. It's here with a shorter mask cause you can rotate it. What you didn't talk about your foot and then maybe yeah. Maybe show us your foil set up to what length, how long is your mask? My master's at 36 inch max. Oh, that's pretty long. Yeah. It's really long. But for the flips and stuff, I was on a 32 here and I'm on the L 100 for 'em go foil and the 12 and a half tail.
That was what I did for the flip. And then I also was on the TKR 80 for that one video that you were showing of the flip, a nice changes or what you're hoping to do in the future. I am hoping to like, make some foil, I don't know how it would be shaped or what, but this was for surf boiling and wink boiling too.
But I would want something that turns. Super well, and then pumps super well for surf boiling. And then for weighing foiling, I would want something fast and really turn. So I like turning. Yeah. So fast, probably thinner than her profile and so on. Yeah. But yeah, that's one nice thing about the Gofoil stuff is Alex is down at the beach and he's been very generous to Kayden, like with prototyping stuff.
Then before Kayden this guy, it was a he's a bit stubborn on changing stuff. Once he like something he's nah, not going to do it. I'm going to go on my four, two are going to go on my 42. And I was telling him, I'm like, oh, okay. Didn't you need a smaller wing. You can go higher, faster. And this and that.
And then yeah. Alex will be like, Hey, maybe you should try this. Maybe you should just try that. And then yeah, but it's great to have Alex. Alex is such a pioneer of foil design and so on and always experimenting and tinkering. So it's
yeah, for sure. Yeah. So w what do you mean by pop when you say you want the foot to have popped? Is that just like to get more height when you jump kind of thing popping out of the water? I I think more pop for me. It's usually like a short tail, like really sure there, cause I can lift out of the water and I already have a lot of pops, so I like, and I think more prof would be great.
So that those are the fails of the Backwoods. Okay. You can go from May 8th, ourselves to June 8th and the totally nailing them. So what are you doing differently now? What were the mistakes that you were making at first, this not getting high enough or rotating the sale differently? Or what do you do differently?
Not do you know? Yeah, I was rotating the sale where I would put it behind my back like that. And then I would like, you see how I put it, like behind right there. And now I'm like letting it go under me. And that helps a lot with the rotation. And then I just needed a little more. That was at the Harbor too.
So that was Flatwater and that was pretty flat wide. Like this one, I had a little ramp to make it look so easy. Yeah. Amazing. But yeah. And actually, let's talk a little bit about the this other move the Upland or the upwind 360 or Slaka, and it looks like you're doing these ones now where you rotating them rotating the other way and then flipping her on.
So like first rotating and then doing that, the Flocka move. So can you talk a little bit about that move and how, break it down for us? Yeah. I think with that, that first tweak right there. I do that too. It helps me almost get a faster rotation because I like go and then they just fit, lining up the spring kind of thing.
Yeah. And then it also cause before when I used to do them, I would do them straight, like out of the water. But I've been realizing that it's a lot easier when you jump, wait, and then when you start coming down, then you do it. Okay. So it's like in windsurfing when we do forwards, like sometimes you do you go up first and you stall and then you throw yourself into the rotation.
So maybe it's.
Yeah. So I've been working on that moves too, and I've been pulling off maybe one out of 10 or something like that, but do you have any tips on for me, I always struggled with the landing and the CA the wind coming around and then like what, do you have any tips on that? Yeah, I think what I do is I really try to keep the wing as high as I can, so that it doesn't hit the water and it helps a lot to have the small, the smallest wing that you can be on.
And, yeah, it definitely like with the rotation, it's a lot easier with a smaller wing and then it spins better. And for the landing, yeah. It just like it a whip you around in that last part. And then that'll pull you right up on, back onto the foil.
Have you tried doing this move on, on the, on a wave? Yeah, I've done some on the waves sometimes. Like I can't really get up on foil straight away. What I did on that one. It's hard to do that for me. So most of the time I would do it land and then I would have to like pump and then I would go out the back of the wave, but then I would just go back into it
and trying to figure out too. It looks like he almost pretty much rotating the wing at the very end. Like when you. When your foil already touched the water, like the last part of the rotation, really? Through the wind. Yeah. I liked doing that because since it has a forward momentum, it'll just be straight up onto the foil, like what I did there.
Yeah. It's amazing how you just pull out of it right up on, back on the foil again, without like, when I do that, I don't I do the last part of the rotation almost in the water and while I'm bringing the wing around it and then pump myself back up, but it's almost like I stop new kind of still moving forward on the landing.
So it's pretty, pretty cool. Yeah. That's why, like, when you do the wing rotation for their further, towards the bottom, it'll give you that forward momentum to get back up on the foil. Yeah.
So and what about the wing? Do you have any tips for like how you hold the wing or do you try to have less power in it? Or what I try to do is I tried to, I try to go off of a little chalk or something. And then when I do it, the, I like to do them in holes of wind, like where there's a hole so that you can rotate.
So it's not too, you don't want super strong Gus when you're doing it, right? Yeah. I would rather do like underpowered, not because it's harder to do in super strong winds. I think too, though, his definition of strong lens is really strong because this summer it's been 40, 30 to 40 every single day.
Yeah. Pretty crazy window. Over here on Molly.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's not too, it's like you bringing the wing through the wind after the foil touches down really or after you've already touched the water. Yeah. So it's pretty, pretty late in the move when you actually spin the wing around. Yeah, definitely. It, I liked doing it towards closer to the water.
Because what sometimes, like when they do it above the water, I would just have a bunch of extra time to rotate again or whatever. And then I usually mess up or something. It looks like you almost pump it. It's almost like a pumping thing when you with that. Yeah. And that was the first fact loop I may ever.
So then that looks like a pretty big ramp too. Yeah. I needed a bigger rant, more in the start.
And there were some where I had too big of a ramp where I over-rotated an ate. So what happens when you over-rotate? What happened once was like, I did it and then I like had the perfect landing and then I like landed like that and back flopped and got the wind knocked out of me. I try not to go off of ginormous ramps anymore.
Cause it really hurts land. Yeah. I've seen Zane Schweitzer does them like off of big ways that he'll keep by like really throwing himself backwards and it looks pretty, pretty crazy, but I guess that way you can definitely rotate all the way around. Yeah. I think the bigger, the way of the slower you have to rotate and back when I was first doing them, I would just rotate as fast as I could.
So I did a lot of over rotation. So let's talk a little bit about based more basic stuff for a lot of the people listening are just getting into wing fighting. And then also actually Kevin, maybe you can talk a little bit about your first experiences with four thing with the wind surf board and what are the challenges and so on and any advice you can.
Yeah, I think for me, the, actually for me, I think the wing is almost the easiest platform to learn on because you even when T with like, when I was first towing, because I thought, oh, that's going to be the easiest you're in control. You're in the jetski driver is in control. Like you just want to let go a little bit, slow down a little bit with the wing.
You can just let it out where, if you're on a, behind a boat or whatever, it takes a lot of coordination, especially in the swells, like maybe on a Flatwater it's different, but I was always learning on the waves and no for me, the wind surfers, it's pretty fun going back and forth and stuff.
Actually the other day we were out at . Yeah. I heard about him doing backflips. So I'm like, Aw show and how to do a back flip with the Windsor for, so doing that. And it's interesting to watch his rotations and stuff, and there's just so much lift with those boils. If you get them in the right, right way, you can just flip off with nothing.
So the wind surfer. Yeah, it feels to me when I'm doing it on the winter, it feels super low, but then you see a picture of it and maybe it's cause you're 36 inches off the water when you start or something, but it looks high. Yeah. It definitely a lot lower than what it is. Yeah. Even like your shots, you're going pretty dang.
Huh? Yeah. It feels like I'm probably going four feet.
Yeah. I think for, it's pretty fun how the foil can work through all the different sports, whether it's surfing or stand up. I think that's how my dad got into the foiling is he was doing standup paddling. And then, you paddle down tile, you get a little ride, his little glide, and then you're done unless you're Zane's weights or something back out in circles and stuff.
You can pump out. Yeah. That's like a nice thing that I like about profiling is you can surf the wave in, it helps a lot with footsteps, but you can surf the wave, like you're surfing regularly, but then when you kick out, you don't have to paddle all the way out. You can just pump to the next wave or pumped back out to the lineup.
You should see this kid's legs. They're like, look at his muscles. They're like math for 11 year old was down the beach. And, he comes in and he's got six pack, abs muscles ripped off. And you're like, dude, what are you doing? And just winging every day and using those muscles. That's great. So you said Kevin, you're just starting to wing foil.
Yeah, I Do it, I did it with when my dad was down there for his birthday and stuff, but it's pretty fun. And the different spots, like in Baja where I was, it was perfect for winging, like a slower fatter wave, so you're get that cruisy feel. And like you said, you don't have to paddle back out, which is nice with the wing.
If you're not a super oil back out person, which I'm not, but yeah. And just learning a little bit it's always fun to just different sports and stuff. And, I can go out and back and do tiny jumps, but that's about it. I think, I think having a windsurfing background helps a lot with wing foiling.
You know what I mean? Because the wing handling is very similar. You do have to learn how to control the height of the wing. Cause that's, windsurfer it's attached to your board, so you just can cheat in and out. But this is like a three dimensional thing where you have to actually control the direction of the wing too.
That's what I was thinking about one time with the wind surfer. If you can have those old wind weapons attached to the board twisted up, I wonder how it'd be fun to get one of those nowadays and see how it works, maybe that, it might just be some different, but it'd be cool to try one or see what it is.
And, I was always thinking maybe because that's the hardest part is once you're on a Wade, you need to get rid of the power. If you have to smallest sale, you can barely get on the foil and. I dunno, the wind surfing with the waves is hard on the foil, I think. But again, I just probably need to do it more.
And
As going to ask you Kayden on your wing, it looks like you have like one of your straps is, or the handles is like a rigid handle in the back. Is that right? Or I don't, let me see if I have a closer video where it shows
it's like a boom as the back one. And I feel like that's nice because you can move your hand, like whatever way you want. And it's nice for the three sixties and stuff. Cause sometimes you come down and like you're not in the perfect place. And you need to slide your hand forward, slide it back,
but it, so it's just attached with like nylon straps or something though, or
it's attached with just fabric that.
Yeah. So it still moves around quite a bit. Yeah. I keep thinking it would be nice to have like rigid handles that are just give you really direct control of the wing, where they don't flop around at all. But yeah, that's what I wish think that's what I'm trying to work on right now.
It's like making some more rigid handles. Yeah. W gash is actually coming out with they're scrapping the boot. They're making that gloom thing basically, but they're having it on with plastic. They're mounting it on, basically. Yeah. And then they're gonna put up carbon pipe in it and it only gets super rigid.
Right now he's PTC wing. It's called it's psych New Zealand company that makes wings. And that's kinda my favorite right now. Do you do the blue planet boards or yeah. We make pho foil boards and Wingfield boards. We've been doing that for quite a while now. And yeah, those are good.
Are they made on a wahoo or no we we make prototypes on Oahu. The production is in China. I've been looking into making boards here, but it's just so expensive. Just the overhead and the labor costs and stuff like that. It's and then yeah, regulations and permitting and all that kind of stuff.
It's a nightmare. So I haven't made that step, but on Molly, I guess the cannery is a pretty cool place. Cause there's so much innovation coming out of there. Yeah. It's pretty wild. It just, now he seems to breed that in innovation of stuff, different athletes and different, from surfing the wind surfing to stand up paddling and it's wild to, to me, like how kind of wind surfing gets a shuffled under the rug.
90% of all the athletes from the last 20 years have come from wind surfing, layered rush Randall, all these guys, all wind surf, and whether it's their kids or whatnot, it's Alex amazing wind surfer, all and all the brands too are from Windsor thing, and the, and there's a lot of the technology as well. With, I think surfing's has been so stuck in, the polyester construction and thruster tens and whatever they get, it's just not a lot of innovation happening. And then when windsurfing came around, everybody was like trying so many different things and the whole composite construction and making boards later and stronger and all that kind of stuff.
That all came from wind surfing not from surfing really. I think too it feels like wind surfers are more techie than surfing maybe. Maybe it's changing a little bit now, and the foil that's half the reason I don't really love the foiling is because for, 25 years, I was just tinkering with wind surfing stuff.
And, it was pretty D when you're at the top level, couple of millimeters here and there, it makes a huge difference. So to come and start tinkering with a foil, I don't, it's a lot of work for me. So it's just. It's nice to come and you go out on the dad's stuff, it's all trimmed.
Perfect. You just hop on it and go, and it works. And you're not like, oh, this change this. Now you're talking about millimeters and wind surfing. I think on the foil, it's even more, it's like micro millimeters. Yeah. You guys have so much less surface area in the water and like any little change makes the noticeable difference.
Like even a half a degree angle in your tailwind can be noticed or whatnot. So it's pretty amazing
if you do it any skinnier, it'll make it faster and better. I don't like slower. So do you, so Kayden, do you play around with that? Do you tend to play around with your first setup? Kevin was saying you liked it when you find something that you like, or that works. You just tried to keep the same thing.
Now that like foils are getting so new technology and stuff, I've been trying a lot of stuff and I'm liking so much more stuff. And all these new foils that are coming out or Alex will bring him down, like a couple of different foils, like custom wants to try. And it's probably opening his mind a little bit, just to you just gotta try it, so I was learning a lot about Lyft and all that stuff. So it's all the homeschool year was also foil homeschool year. Yeah. Cool. I mean that, that's definitely a pretty high tech stuff that everyone's working on. I interviewed Kandel while too, and he's really into like foil design and computer design.
And all that engineering type stuff I've been totaling in with my tow partners, Jason Polk, also another great. And we've been using cane stuff for the toe foiling. Again, Jason and I were just out there just Muppets, just like why can't we do this? Why can't we do this? Cause we, we're okay.
Talented people and we'd be sharing it and we'd be like, oh, this doesn't work. We'd move it. Two inches didn't work. And we had Kane come out with one of his foils and we took it out and he's just boom gets it set up. And they're like, oh, there you go. Yeah, hold on.
Something, two inches is probably like way too much, right? Yeah. We burned not clean. I got so frustrated with it, cause you're, especially on the toe in with the bigger ways that it's, yeah. The fi I'm not going in huge waves, you're going down that way so fast and it's pretty scary when the cane stuff is really good.
Cause he, he's on it and he's, making custom foils up at the cannery up here and he knows what he's doing. So it's pretty nice to have a little bit more stability and for what we're doing, probably the production stuff. Isn't really, there's not many people that are towing with foils, out in Maui stuff.
It's kinda cool to have him do some stuff with us. Okay. What something I always like to ask everyone is how much of your skills is like just natural talent that you have, naturally, and how much of it is, practice time on the water training. And I think Katie and I are very opposite in that answer where I for me, I'd take repetition.
Like my windsurfing day is I was out there every day, any condition whatsoever, just hammering on it and that was what I think separated or put me into, world title scene is that I was like one of the first guys to my brother and I, and, we had a little group of people and we were the first guys to take it seriously.
Like weren't going out partying weren't you know? Oh, it doesn't look good. We're out there every day, any conditions? Cold, stormy, oh, here comes a storm and Mally, which we don't get, oh, we're going to go chain for when we're in Europe. And we're in this miserable conditions we're out there.
So we're he starts one thing even as mountain biking, when he was like four years old, he was like doing these huge jumps down the hill and he won't do it for two months and then I'll be better than me. And I'm like how did you do that? You didn't have even written your bike in six months.
Yeah. I can think I have read with my team. Yeah. I know we have this cool mountain bike up in McWell forest, then you flow trail down. And I remember taking him up there and just this little tiny kid, just sending all the money. And maybe that's why you enjoyed the ring. Cause you get to jump so high.
Yeah. Yeah. But even then with his backflip, you saw on may 60, tried it the first time and then on May 12th, he's landing up and now he's boosting huge stuff, so yeah. So yeah. But maybe you can answer it on Kayden. Like how do you feel? Is it talent or practice? My one talent that helps with everything that I do what's on the water is I would say I have pretty good balance.
And that helps me with a lot of stuff. Yeah. I think too, he's got a trampoline, every kid who has a trampoline, it's pretty cool because you can do those backflips and. I remember you had a skateboard with straps on it, so you can visualize what do you think? Oh, cool. Yeah. I always think of balance as not something that you're naturally born with really, but it's something you can practice, right?
So if you doing all that, if you're doing sports all the time, that require you to have good balance, your balance is going to naturally get better. And then that helps you with everything you do probably, right? Yeah. It's definitely if I didn't have good balance, I doubt I would be worried I'm down.
What about visualization or like doing moves in your head? Do you do that? Do you try to visualize it before you get in the water? For me, I like try them in the water, like just with my weighing and without my board, I would just like visualize. Pulling the wing backwards. And then I did some, I do some flips on my trampoline, like with my hands doing the back flip and that helped me so much.
Oh, you know what else I saw him do? It's pretty cool. Is winging with the one wheel that looks like a good thing for beginners on a one wheel
for that. You just, but you get the feel of the wing. And then
that's interesting. Baltz Mueller was saying the same thing. He was practicing his backflips on the trampoline before he was doing them on the water. Just to figure out the wing. Because that's pretty tricky. Cause you can really kinda get back winded or falling on top of the wing. That's the tricky parts.
I bet I didn't take the wing on a trampoline, but I feel like it would definitely help with taking, knowing I'm a trampoline on a bigger trampoline. Cause mine's a lot smaller. It would be a lot easier than doing them with the foil, like straightaway and then landing on top of the way.
Like my friend tried them straight away with not really knowing how to do a back flip on the trampoline and then he just couldn't get that flip dialed in. Now he knows how to do it on the trampoline, so he'll be landing. So he learned that, oh, he learned it on the trampoline and then he went. So for you Kayden, like what's a typical day, like for you let's say you're doing when you're homeschooling and just like a typical day for you?
Homeschool for me, I would start at nine o'clock. So what time do you get, what time do you wake up? Do you wake up early or do you try to sleep until the last possible moment? Or I wake up at six 30, so I try to wake up early and then I do sometimes I just, I'm super tired and I don't want to get out of bed and I'm just like, okay, I'm going to go back some of the AAA to get my blood flowing.
Then I go do that. And then I have breakfast. And then I sit and do stuff until nine o'clock and then from nine o'clock to 12 o'clock I do my homeschool. And then from my grandpa comes and picks me up at 1230. And then we go to an wing to like four. Then I come back here and clean all my stuff and put it where it goes and then same thing the next day.
But if there's no wind, then I would probably wake up at six and then go prone for a Lang before school conditions are usually better early in the morning, Molly, where the wind kicks in. What about your typical day Kevin? What is your day look like? Pretty similar, except for, without the schooling.
Homeschool. Usually I do a little computer work and see what's happening for the day. Check the conditions if it's, yeah. You have a morning routine. Like when you get up, do you do like exercises? Do you have coffee? Like I exercise my scrolling through the Instagram, wake up and get right on your phone and just look at Instagram.
Yeah, I kinda recently I've been looking for a sailboat. That's been my like focus. I wanna, that's why I was on a wahoo. I was over there checking out boats. I got a slip down at my Elias. I need to get a boat in there. And I I have a van over on the mainland, the sprinter van, and a lot of exploring.
That's like when I like go into Baja so much. Now my dream is to have that sprinter van in the water in a sailboat and kind of checked out the islands, be able to go over to a wahoo and, hopefully get these guys into exploring a little bit more, go over there and be able to, wing and kinda do fun stuff off the boat.
So that's been my focus recently. All right. That's cool. So is this going to be for as a hobby recreationally? Are you also planning to do like charters and stuff like that? Or is it more time? Just the house it's hard right now. Cause for me. Maybe, but it seems like everybody on Maui is making money doing like Turo or this and that.
And then I'm just like, I'm just cruising and I'm like, no, maybe I should do that. That's great. If you can, if you don't need to make money, that's good. To make money. Yeah. Good. So where do you see the future of the sport going? What for wing fighting? And what are your goals like?
What do you hope to do in wink filings, Kayden? I'm hoping to learn how to do a front flip before I'm 12. So when are you turning? 12? August 17th. Okay. Yeah. That's enough time she learned to back slip in one month. So the other day I was down there's this guy dictionary, have you heard of that book?
Yeah, he's doing a wing book. And so I went down to take pictures of of Jeffery and doing that forward thing and Finn and holy smokes. I'll be impressed to see you do that. Cause like we're like you guys were talking about with the the stall when he's doing the spins and stuff, like he goes up and, just goes up and then he kicks it out too and then throws it forward and was just like, whoa, like scary.
Yeah. But I think it does look similar to doing forwards on the windsurfer. It's like you're throwing yourself sideways more than forward. But yeah. Are other people besides Jeffrey and them doing the forwards or yeah. Tetouan is doing it. I was talking to him about that. That was asking him for pointers and he's I don't have any pointers.
I'm just trying to figure it out myself. I don't know yet
on your podcast. Yeah, I interviewed him. I haven't published it yet, so that'll be all probably before your guys, this one goal post. So I always, it takes me a while to edit the footage after I do it all. So yeah, I enjoy interviewing more than the editing process, but cool. So what about D do you think you can Kayden that you're going to do this, as a job that professionally, like making money with wing funding or is it just going to be fun for you?
Or what do you think? I have no idea what it's going to be. It's either I. I don't know. Do you think you're going to try to do any of those events like the world? What is it called? The world furthering tour or whatever they having those world championship events. Yeah. I want to do one here first and see, cause I think they're going to do one over here soon, or I don't know, but they're supposed to be one this summer for something, but I don't know if it got canceled or whatever, but I want to see how I do and one over here.
I get really good. Then maybe I'll start doing this. I don't know. Isn't there like a full contest on Maui this last weekend? I thought there was like, I donated some prizes for full contest to be here. I heard about it in behind it. And it was just a standard era. Did it prone and stand up. And the second day it was supposed to be wind foiling.
I dunno, you didn't okay. You should have done that. But the level over here, there's quite a few kids that are really ripping, like some of his friends, you're just like so that will be a good if there's a contest here, it will be pretty high level. Yeah, no doubt. I'm always, definitely the epicenter of the progression.
So it's pretty wild him grow up here. Like we grew up on this tiny lake in the middle of California. I always say to my brother, I'm like, man, just imagine if we had this set up we're kids, we were done with it when it turned out to be pretty good. I think, I think one of the, what you guys had was that sibling rivalry, right?
So like brothers, two brothers, you guys trying to do each other. So you always pushing each other. And I think that's also very valuable, I think, in sports, right? Yeah, for sure. That was like a hundred percent. That's for sure we were. We were best friends. We trained together, we lived together, we pushed each other, when we were young, he'd do a move and then I'd be like, oh, I can do that.
And then he'd be like, oh, I can't let my little brother do it so better than me. So he'd push it. And now one cool story we had was when you were, he was 16, he just got his driver's license and I was 13 and 14 and my parents let us to take our van. My dad's. We had a Windsor fan. It, let us take it from Southern California, drive all the way up to the Gorge, just the two of us and spend a month up in hood river, just wind surfing and having fun.
And I'm like, I couldn't imagine sending him. You're going to be like that. He has a younger brother too, obviously, so well, but he's right. Maybe when you can drive it, you can do stuff like that. Yeah. But still, that was like one of the best summers ever. So it's pretty wild that looking back like that my parents let a 16 year old and 13 year old drives, what is it?
Thousand miles by themselves. And it's pretty fun. But we had, we learned a lot and we had a lot of fun. Is your, is Matt older than you? Or younger? Older? Yeah. Oh, so you were not even 16 yet. You were like 14 or 15 or how old are you? I was like, that's cool. And then you were friends around that, her old, like all our lives.
We've been around older people, because windsurfers are old, but like our best friends were our parents growing up because they wanted to win. Sir, my parents are super young there. My dad just turned 70, I think. He was when we were 15, he, he was only 35 or whatever.
I miss doing the mapping now, but, so he was super young and we wanted to go wind surfing. And so we were like, we want on the weekends at school, we'd rather hang out with my parents, then go party or whatever. It's pretty cool. Okay. I have a question for both of you guys. So for me personally, and I know this happens a lot of people, like some days you're on the water and everything's just like every you're totally in tune with your gear and the conditions and everything's working, you can pull off all kinds of moves and you're just in the zone.
And then the next day, sometimes you'll go out in the same kind of conditions with the same kind of gear, but like everything, you're just like a kook and you keep falling in and nothing's really working. So how, and it seems like it's not necessarily like the conditions or the equipment.
It's more like your state of mind. So is there any, anything that you do to get into that state of mind, or do you have any pointers on how to avoid being that kook, or changing your mindset from being a cook, to being in the zone? For me, I feel like I try to always be in the zone because every time that I'm feeling like I don't want to, I'm just not in the mood or I don't really want to go I'm super tired.
Then I would just I wouldn't try any crazy tricks or whatever, or I would just not go winging that day. But the times that I do go in and I'm just not in that state of mind, I just I don't know. I land one move that's hard to do. And then I get fired up and I'm like, okay, now I'm good. Again, like that's I feel so sometimes you get into the zone while you're doing it.
Like kind of thing, but yeah. And what about you, Kevin? Sometimes when you, that, that makes sense that not just don't go out when you're not, when you're not feeling it, but like sometimes if you're competing you don't have that choice. Like you're up and you got to go and is there a way you can switch from, how do you switch on that, getting into, I dunno, I wonder if that's like something I think that was one of my strong points competing is as I was like, never really the best guy, but I was always just there, and just keeping that mentality of just being steady and, going, performing at a level all the time.
That's high and. There's those certain moments where you're in the zone, for sure. You always talk about it, you hear about it. And then, in your there's certain moments where throughout my career, where I was like, oh, man is what was he in conscious almost, I was just going through it.
And that's hard to, it's hard to get into that, but, just happens, but I think just the more you train, the more confident you be, you are. And so I think that kinda just, for me, it was always the training and just going out there all conditions and always pushing yourself.
I think Caden's a little more smart, smarter than I am he like when he's not feeling it, it just doesn't go well, I've always pushed through, don't be a whiner. Just go. Yeah, that makes sense. I know some people are, it seems like some people are actually better when they're competing.
Like they get, they like, it pushes them to perform even at a higher level. Would you say you're like that, like we're when you're competing, you're actually better than when you're just practicing. I would say so. Yeah, for sure. For me, I was like, yeah, like I said, never really the like wildest one out there, but then when it came to game time, I would would be able to, land all my moves and my strategy was just do the moves that you can make.
And, let the other people fall by the wayside. A lot of times these, I go up against these kids and they just be, sending it huge, which is cool, but then they would land it. And then I just do my little job and advanced a lot of times.
Okay. So like a little bit playing it safe and doing the things, you can do and not trying to do crazy stuff that you don't really have mastered. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. Kayden, would you say you're obsessed with foiling or is it just a hobby for you or would you say that obsessed and addicted to it or not really?
I'm definitely obsessed with, yeah. So what is it about foiling that makes it so addicted. It just feels like you're flying basically. And that's like with surfing, it's really hard to get into the air, but, and when you do get an air, you're only in the air for a second, but, and then it was winging.
It's just like when ever you're up on foil, it feels like you're flying. And then when you're in the air, you're also flying. So it's like, all right, I'm up on the foil? Probably I'm like in the air on foil, probably like 98% of the time. And then surfing I'm in the air, like 0.5% of the time. Yeah. What about prone foiling though?
Even that you're on the foil a lot less than when you're winging for it. Yeah, but I love riding waves, like in any sport that has wave riding in it. I want to try it. And it's prone flailing. I'm starting to like that more than like when you're in perfect conditions. I like it more than surfing in perfect conditions.
Because you have that glass, you smooth water, those perfect long wave rides. And you can like, when you're really good, like Kailani and Zane and all those people, you're up on the foil, like 50% of the time pumping around, and that's what I want to get to that level. I can pump out and touch like 15 waves before I get tired, but I get tired after five.
So yeah, pumping back out is takes a lot of energy. I can't even imagine 15 ways, maybe two ways. That's pretty much it for me.
That's awesome. So other hobbies and cross training and stuff, I guess you do mountain biking. Anything else you guys do for like when it's not, when you're not in the water, I guess not in the water. I have a one wheel and that helps with my balance and with the wing sometimes. Go and practice my tricks.
And it's like a lot harder when you're on land than when you're in the water on the wing. So it definitely helps me like, get the moves dialed. And then I tried to go on the biggest wing that I can be on when I'm on land so that I can practice doing the bigger way. And then once I get like good at that, then with smaller wings, like it makes it so much easier because you feel like you can, you're spin super fast.
And then that's like my biggest, my favorite thing to do on land is probably one wheeling and trampoline.
All right. It's a question for both of you guys. So during the pandemic, a lot of people felt isolated and the kinda lonely or depressed whatever anxious being at home, being stuck at home. And I know for us, it's always easier to be like, ah, just go in the water and have fun and everything's fine, but let's say you, you're stuck inside and you can't go on the water or you can't go outside.
What do you do to if you have an off day or if you're not feeling great, like what do you do to lift your spirits or to stay positive? On those days where it's like horrible for any sport and you just don't want to move or whatever. I usually like. Watch some winging videos of like new moves that I want to try.
And then I like stop them and watch them over and over again. I see how they do it and then I want to do it like that. And then sometimes I play like board games, like monopoly. I love monopoly. It's it's fun. Thank you, Kevin. I guess a little computer time would probably be, I don't have, I don't have TV in my house, so not really a big TV watcher, but yeah, I dunno.
We're so we've, it's bad to say, but for us on Maui, it's been just like the, I dunno, the best year ever having COVID, it was. So much fun, like all of the spots that normally are actually now it's back to normal, but like we'd go to twin falls, which is this little waterfall and you go there now there's like parking directors, like telling you where to park it's fault, blah, blah, blah.
During COVID you'd just go out there. There's insane waterfall and be like two people, one person. And for me it was like probably the, it was the best year I've ever had on my, after 30 years. So you got to, I stayed here during the summertime where normally I go to hood river, to around in my band and explore.
I stayed here on Maui and it's forced me to explore my backyard and there's so many cool spots out there, like just hidden spots, different spots. And I would take my E I'm an E biker. I love biking and I would just ride every day. I went out there so many times I can't even count. And I would just ride my bike and explore and explore and go to different waterfalls and different things.
And so for me, the COVID was just. Unbelievable is awesome. I totally agree. Yeah. The thing about like that, the thing that I missed about traveling really was the adventure of seeing new things or exploring and things, but you really don't have to go that far to explore it and you can, yeah, you can go some, just go on a trail that you've never been on and it's oh wow, this is cool.
So you can have an adventure without getting on a plane and sitting on a plane for 12 hours or whatever, you don't really have to go that far. And you're on a Waldo to like some, when like you would drive during rush hour and there's no cars on the freeways.
Like what's going on there. I love this, get somewhere in 10 minutes that would take 45 minutes on a normal day. And also, I think it kinda like over here too, a lot of people are like, do, why do we really need 30,000 people arriving every day? Maybe $10 or enough, but I guess our economy is pretty dependent on tourism, but it sure is nice to have a little bit less traffic and less people everywhere and stuff like that.
For sure. Here, I always said it's like the whole world was playing musical chairs of w where to go. And we won the game, like being in Hawaii is like, we're one that is pretty safe, I would say. And for two is the best place in the world to be this last year. As far as everybody's pretty healthy.
And we were, I would say the rules were very relaxed compared to my friends in Europe, so it was pretty, pretty awesome spot to hunker down and and enjoy what the islands have to offer. Cool. So Caden, if somebody asks you what foiling is like, and they've never foiled, like how do you explain that sensation of flying a foil?
Why would you say it's like the fly you're going to fly though? What if somebody does not to fly? Like just, it feels like once you get up on the foil, it's like the first time that you get up on the foil whinging, it's there's nothing else. Like it. Cause it's you the wing board and the toilet, and you're just floating across the water.
It feels but those are the really good days for doing it in those flat water and not super strong ones. So what's it like when the wind is super strong, then it's a little bit more hectic, some nights for me, it's like I'm holding on for dear life, but then, it definitely balances out because there's spots on Maori where you can go, like when there's really light wind, there usually there's usually enough wind to get up on foil in Maui, like every day.
Yeah. That's crazy. You lucky for sure. So who else should I interview on this? On the blue planet show about wing filing? Who do you think I should talk to? Alex started like the whole surf foiling thing. So I think that would be cool. Cause I just read this interview thing that someone typed out on a website and it was really cool to learn about all that stuff.
So yeah. Yeah. I already Alex actually to be on the show, but he's been busy. So he said when he has some time, you'll let me know. Maybe you can tell him that he should get on the show. Anyone else you'd recommend talking to?
What about Annie? Have you had her on there? I had any record on there right yet on the show. I'm trying to, obviously I'm trying to get Jeffrey Spencer Kailani. I don't know. Been able to get them on the show. They're busy, but I had seen Zane Schweitzer at Allen kid is mark Rapa horse. A bunch of people from Mali.
There's a couple of cool guys on, on the mainland. Like Brian , he's one of the, he's a good winger and, pioneered a lot of stuff in California with the wind surfing. And now he's doing winging and he's into photography and video and he made all those used Houston make like side off video with doing all the, how tos and stuff like that.
And then he switched to kiting and now he's in the wings. Okay, okay. Off slide on video. You can find them through that somehow. Okay, cool. All right. So yeah, that was awesome. So what are you goals with with your YouTube channel? Kevin? Just for fun. This kid loves that. I said D LA he's it's not called a B log.
And I'm like, yeah, I knew that. I knew that, but I kinda like the logs better than blog anyways. So yeah. He's yep. I'm doing my new V log out here, guys in Mexico.
But I think, I've been on YouTube for like over 10 years or, time. And it's I think the main thing is just being consistent, like posting on a regular basis, like maybe once a week or even once a month or whatever, but just always coming out with new stuff and not, that's the key, I think just then people start following you and once you have subscribers and your videos get more views right away, and then that's how you build limit 10, but it takes years mean really it's hard for me cause I just see on Maui, it's just the same thing, for years and years, but that's where it cool.
The log is, you can show your personality and different stuff and it's not just like this beautiful imagery, I'm I've been in the making videos for awhile and stuff. So I get if I don't do it like to perfection, a lot of times like a nice, like I love John's stuff.
View or whatever, and it's pretty awesome. So this is just, thrown together a little bit more rough and stuff, and trying to be funny a little bit too and not take it so seriously. So this jacket is classic. It's like some kind of pimp jacket, or do you get that truth to that?
As I was going to burning, man, and then I got all this stuff in my van and so I was like, oh, I might as well busted out with this jacket and stuff. So it's pretty great outfit of it.
Yeah. For me from like Instagram stuff, I post something like every week, but it's hard to do it consistently. Yeah, but that's what sponsors want to see too. Your sponsors when see your social media presence and all that kind of stuff. And then his parents probably don't want them on social media as well.
So yeah. Yeah. They're like, don't be like Kevin and scroll your Instagram. First thing in the morning, you wake up right off the bat. First thing in the morning, Instagrams. That's funny. So is there any anyone you want to thank for their support in your sports? For me, I would think everyone at go for taboo and gastrocs and burn helmets and Matt at end point too.
So all those people. So much with my winging and then my grandpa, my dad, him professional photographer and yeah. Everyone. So amped on the new wings and it's super, it's great to have all these people supporting. Yeah. You're lucky you got your grandpa taking you down to the beach. Cause it'd be pretty hard to do that without having someone drive you, right?
Yeah. It will be a long walk. What about you, Kevin? Yeah, same similar thing. Like my, my brother probably was my biggest influence and help, getting to where I was and my, my mom and dad for sure. But it's been an amazing career for me. Still even to this day, still in the industry and still having fun.
So yeah through Caden, I wrote to Alex for that Bob video, I'm like, Hey, do you think I can borrow a toilet just to go down there and play around on it. So as cool. And he's yeah, no problem. Here you go, blah, blah, blah. And probably Caden was working with them. I probably wouldn't have even thought about it.
It's cool to have somebody that supports him and, Alex has been, I would say is pretty cool with you, like helping them out. And even like you were saying that the homeschool learning that, oh, a little shit, I'm here. What that does to the water and stuff. He's been he's been pretty cool with with him, for sure.
Yeah. I mean that, like foiling is definitely an aeronautical engineering. You're really, if you figure out how things work on the floor, that's pretty complex stuff. And a lot of it's just theory too. Like the theory of how the foil generates lift is actually not as just a theory, right?
It's not like a proven thing, is it the displacement? Is it the pressure difference? Is it, like how did the lift is actually created? It's not like a clear, easy answer, right? Yeah, the speed of the water moving over either surface and stuff like that. So pretty interesting stuff for sure.
So yeah, maybe you can study more about that. Yeah, man. So it seems like, wind surfing seems to be I guess when kiting came out, they said windsurfing was canceled or whatever, but there's still hardcore windsurfing, Siemens, stuff like that, but it seems like now winging is taking over from both cutting and windsurfing.
I mean the, just the hype about is crazy. Yeah. How do you see windsurfing going in the future? Servings just takes a beating. Like every time a new sport comes out, they're like but you still get those hardcore guys. And one of the, one of the awesome things about when surfing.
Falling by the wayside is you can go downhill, keep it in there. The Mecca is like 35, 40 guys out there or surfing. I don't even go surfing because I hate all the crowds and there's a hundred people out and all this stuff. So yeah, that's all about windsurfing. You go down there and, anywhere in the world, basically it's pretty uncrowded compared to a surf spot.
As far as the industry goes, it's definitely, not a thriving industry, lot of the brands have taken up the weaning and so they're still doing well, but it's still an amazing sport that you never get tired of because you can never master it. I feel like with the kiting, I love kiting and the feeling of it, but I can see too after, If I get better at it, I could probably get bored with it.
We're wind surfing. You're just, you're always trying to learn that, whatever. Yeah. I wonder if winning is like that, where the progression is so fast that you eventually get bored with it. I don't know. It seems like you can always learn new stuff too when you're right. Like we're just in the very beginning.
Are there any crazy moves that you've thought of other than the Ford loop like that you want to try or learn? Yeah, I have I don't think anyone's ever done it yet, but I want to pull the board off my heat with the straps and hold it in my hand. You know how they do that and then put it back on my feet, but that's pretty impossible.
So I wanted to, I want to do one of those before I want to try, because that means you would have to hold your wing with one hat and then hold the board with the other hat and do yeah you have to have a middle handle where you can hold the wing with one hat and it's balanced. Maybe that could like, with the boom on the dash grads, there's like this certain spot, like right at the front of the handle where you can hold it and you can just one hand, like the whole way.
Yeah. I've gotten that dial next. I just have to I want to start doing like the one footers, like getting them super dialed. I have them pretty good. He actually got a really cool shot of me doing one, not on purpose. Let's do it. That sounds like a good way to really hurt your son, your ankles or whatever.
You have to be careful with that. Yeah. You can recover quickly. But have you Kevin, have you ever hurt yourself and the sweatshops or the ankles and stuff like that? I broke my foot one time getting stuck in the strap. It's yeah. But other than that
major injuries you had in your career, then my brother, I saved those all for him. Cause he was he? Yeah. He like totally broke his leg in half and then he saved him.
Is in Bali is out there and we were jumping and he just snapped his leg in half is narrowly rescue them in and stuff and then had to fly home. Luckily there was a plane there, so pretty bad, but breaking, taking it, overall water sports are pretty safe, like compared to like skateboarding or even mountain biking, cause if you do fall on hard on a hard surface, then you're much more likely to hurt yourself. Like professional skateboarders usually have 20 broken bones by the time you're age. Or motocross, those guys like all the presser first, they only have it's rare for a surfer to break like a bone.
Doing turns. And then I don't, I haven't heard of a winger breaking a bone yet, but I'm sure there's been some bruises. There's a lot of bruises. Yeah.
People even break their ribs, descent, falling on a standup paddle board and stuff like that. Yeah. I'm sure there's stuff that stuff happens all the time, but but yeah it's relatively safe, all right. And anything else you want to share with people that are still listening? Like I always say by the, by this time only about 5% of the people who click on the video, I actually still watching now.
So it's a very elite group of people now that are still listening. Do you have a special message for them? My grandpa's probably going to be one of them. Yeah. I'm sure you will be watching.
Basically all the ones that you've done and he's always like telling me stories like, oh, you got to listen to this. Oh, this
so and and he's always watching them all the way through, so I'm sure he'll be on it right now.
Yeah. Right on. Thanks for having us is fun. Good experience for the kid to be on live TV, so yeah. It's not quite TV it's YouTube, but yeah. How do you feel about the community of wink fighting? Is it different than like other, like surfing or other sports that you do wind surfing?
I think it's great. I'm not a huge fan of the surf community so much, there's a couple of cool. Couple of cool people, but in general it feels like the wind community. It's a little bit more positive and happy to help out, where the surf community gets a little territorial.
So for me, I enjoy seeing him in the wind community. And how often is, good surfers go in and help him some kid out oh, they do Ian Walsh is awesome and Kailani, those guys are amazing for the community, but they're few and far between where I feel like everybody, when they see him do a big air, they're stoked for him, so I think, yeah, like I feel like with all the wing foiling people, there's 1% of the people that aren't always absolutely stoked to the, after. Yeah. It's weird to see someone with a scowl on their face, unless yeah, because they're so worried. Their scowl is like yeah. And getting started for as it can be pretty challenging. I think for a lot of people it's not an easy sport to get right away, but I guess for you, it was not fair everybody. Yeah. I think once you get up on that, the foil, that one time they hear hooked forever.
That's how I felt. Yeah. So when people, like when strangers come up on the beach to you, like that has never foiled before and they're like, what is that? What are you doing? Or like what's the most common question that people ask you. How do you do that? Yeah. Yeah. It seems like the question I get a lot is like, how much does that cost?
Like they always want to know how much everything costs and yeah, it's not an easy answer, but it's pretty expensive. Yeah. I think too, everything's so new that there's not like use gear so much, so when people ask you, how do you do that? What do you tell them? I just explain it.
They're mostly like, there are people that Windsor or kite and they always like they want to learn a new sport or something and I'm like I don't really know how I do it. And then I just tell them once you learn it, you're hooked. So I'm very bad at explaining stuff. Yeah. Kayden, I guess when Kailani first posted I dunno, do you remember that when Kailani posted on social media, when he was like foiling on a big race for downgoing downwind on a Molly co-run or something like that, sweating on this huge long race board, do you remember watching those videos?
That was probably like three or four years ago. Yeah. I think the first video I watched the foiling from was from Laird Hamilton. Oh yeah. Towing. Yeah. Tell foil. He got the like snowboard boots on Very old back then. And then I saw some of Kai doing downwinders on January MIS like Nash oil wards.
And then now he's doing prone foiling downwinders on a four foot board just gets up on swells that are even breaking it's pretty mind blowing and yeah. Have you done any of that downwind foiling? Have you tried that? And do you do that? I have that one down winder. The other one that we tried, it didn't go as planned, but I'm planning on doing a bunch this summer.
It was winter and it was always perfect for way Redding and the waves were too big to do a downwind, their windows, good wind for it. So it was always either like weighing foiling and the waves and prom foiling early in the morning and surfing in the afternoon. Yeah. There's quite a few guys here doing downwinders on prone boards and they usually, they catch it, they catch the little whitewater waves closer to shore, and then they pump out and then they go, did they do a dominant or just on their short board?
And if they fall, then they have to paddle all the way back in and try to catch another wave, because usually over here it's not windy enough for the wind Winslow. Isn't big enough to catch it on a prone board. But. Pretty scary. Sometimes they end up being like two miles out and then they have to paddle in on the tiny prone board.
And it's not a lot of fun. That to me, that doesn't seem that exciting. I'd rather take a wing with me or a paddle or have a jet ski or boat with you that can tell you back into the next one. That's like my first my first try we're pronoun winder. I think that's what I'm going to do. Jet ski alongside.
Cause my friend just got a, his dad just got a jet ski. Nice. Then he could be a company. Both of you guys, maybe. IBM. Yeah. So pronouns too. And I think if the worst case scenario would be like, we just have to go in. At the next stop, but it would be nice because he can just tell you back up on the floor, right?
Yeah. That makes it a lot easier. Plus, he can also tell me guys, but then stuff like that, we have more footage for Instagram. Yeah. And he's a, like a professional photographer oh, that's a plus. Perfect. Awesome. All right. You guys thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
And keep posting on Instagram, cadence. Those cool moves. Inspirational. Yeah. And make sure you follow up. Yeah, I'm sure you have a bright future as a wing further or whatever you decide to do with your life. And that's awesome. And Kevin, thank you too. And keep posting on YouTube. Try to do it regularly enough.
Okay. Right on. Thanks for having us. And that was fun. Yeah. And then maybe in a year or so I'll hit you up again and we'll talk some more about what's new when you're 12 years old or almost 13. Huh? Just him on his own then. Cause then he's going to be doing such mindblowing things.
I won't even understand them. Yeah. But if you're getting into wink, filing a little bit, you'll have some stuff to talk about as well. Cool. Cause most of the people that are listening to this podcast, they're not at your level. They're more at my level but it's cool. It's inspirational to watch those moves you do, and just keep progressing and show us how it's done. Thank you. All right, guys. Have a great day. Okay, bye. Okay, there you go. On another episode of the blue planet show. Thanks so much for watching the whole thing. As I'm making this show for you, the people who watched the whole thing and enjoy every minute of it and for Jayden's grandpa.
And I just wanted to let you know too, like every Wednesday morning, I'm doing a live show now on YouTube. So anybody can listen in on the live show. Post comments is like a live comment feed. So you can make a comment. Let me know where you're watching, from what time it is and stuff like that. It's always cool to see that people are watching it.
And of course, if you have any question. Just throw out your question. It's more fun to have a conversation with people than to sit and speak with the camera. So I'm enjoying that. So every Wednesday at 7:00 AM, it's the blue planet live show and go over some news. Talk about questions I've had on YouTube from other people that have asked questions that are too hard to answer quickly.
So then I just answered them on that live show. And then any other questions that come in during the show, I'll answer them. Hope you can join me next Wednesday at 7:00 AM. Wait time on the blue climate live show. Hope you enjoyed this show. Please give it a thumbs up if you liked it and so much for watching everything and I'll see you on the water a little hot.
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Damien Leroy and Gwen Le Tutour Blue Planet Show wing foil interview #13
19 Jun 2021· The Blue Planet Show
Damien Leroy and Gwen Le Tutour have been on a roll, posting two great instructional videos per week and helping lots of people getting started in the sport. They are humble but are clearly exceptional humans and motivated by a desire to help people.
Interview transcript:
Hello friends. It's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the blue planet show. in today's show. I'm interviewing Damien Leroy and Gwen Le Tutour. We talked about their background, how they got into watersports, wing foil technique and equipment, what inspires them, and how they love to share their stoke with others, watch it here on YouTube.
Or you can listen to it as an audio only podcast, just search for "Blue Planet Show" in your favorite podcast app. Today is June 19th, 2021. And this month you've been posting two videos. Every day. One video is part of our video contest and one of our blue planet videos. So I hope you can join us for the daily videos contest and our blue planet daily videos.
We're going to decide the contest winner on August 14th with a $2,000 price. So to enter, please check out the link below. And send it to your submission. Today's guest Damien, and when are amazing human beings, they're very humble, but I'm stoked to have him on the show. If you've winged foiled at all.
You've probably seen some of their great, amazing instructional videos. They do a great service for the sport. And so without further ado, here are Damien and Gwen, Damien and Gwen, welcome to the Blue Planet Show. Thanks so much for joining me. Let's get started a little bit with your background. Maybe Damien, tell us a little bit about, how, where you grew up and how you got into water sports and all that.
One, thanks so much for having us and we appreciated and how I got into water sports. Technically I've been in water sports since I was like two, but I grew up a ski racer in Colorado, which was on snow a little bit different, but truthfully. Really get involved with the water. Much until my like teens.
I was training in Mount hood, Oregon, and I would go to the Gorge. I'm sorry, I'd go to the coast and boogie board. And I thought surfing was way too hard. And boogie board was like the coolest thing ever. And yeah, it just more from there. I saw kite surfing. I was a big ski racer. And kite surfing was the unknown and yeah, I that's kinda what got me into it was ski racing, seeing it in hood river training at the gore training in Mount hood and visiting the Gorge.
And I had some injuries, he racing and went to Florida, Naples, Florida. And my best friend in Naples was flying one of these kites. And I didn't know him at the time and I walked up and he just handed it over and he's oh, you gotta try this. I was just like, whoa, what is this? And for that's where it started truthfully.
I'd say how long ago was that when you got into college? Ah, man, that's I was 18, so for like close to 21 years ago. Yeah, it was at the beginning. Things were super, truthfully, even in the Gorge, people wouldn't talk about it. It was all wind surfing and you'd see one or two guys, which for sure was probably like Corey Rosler and maybe Lou like visiting or something, but nobody was doing it.
Nobody would do lessons, nobody would talk about it. And and my buddy in Naples happened to buy a kite and just learn on his own and it was awesome. And then I got connected with Cabrina right in the beginning and was just been super blessed ever since. And I've been riding with that company for a long time and just incredible family, credible group of people and just super grateful because I was able to become moral champion and do all sorts of things in the sport.
But more than that, I was able to give back and. Share the knowledge that I've learned throughout my incredible adventures. I'm now back with people, which is the most rewarding thing you can do. And I read that at one point you were kiteboarding world champion. Yeah. I just did everything.
I tried everything so racing and speed and freestyle, big air and way everything. You just do it all when you're just into it. And I won a solemn, a world championship which was racing around some buoys in Spain and yeah, for me, I just always wanted to challenge myself. That was it.
So as long as I could keep challenging myself, I would stay excited about the sport. So it didn't matter what I was doing. I was always excited about it versus I see a lot of people get really hooked on freestyle and then they just burn out and, ends quick. So for me, I was lucky to get into foils and just always keep trying something different.
Cool. So where did you grow up in Colorado? I was born here and Vail, Colorado. And then I moved when I was 10. We had a fly fishing business in Alaska, so it halfway in the summer I would work with my family and Alaska fly fishing, which was a business we own. And then half the summer I would train in Mount hood.
And then I just, we moved everywhere, Idaho, Montana. You name it all over the world, so we're very, it was exciting time and I'm very grateful and it was a neat childhood and hopefully I can share it with my new little baby girl. Awesome. So you have, you're married and have a daughter or? Yeah, I just had a little two month old little nugget and she is just.
I don't know, everybody tells you and I'll say it to everybody out there, you don't know until you have a child, but, I was so driven in all these directions, do all this stuff. And when you have this like thing that you created and for sure there's, lack of sleep, but it's the most beautiful thing you could ever do.
Awesome. Yeah. All right. Thanks for sharing that. What about you, Glen? Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Yeah I grew up in France and in Brittany next to the ocean. So I grew up surfing and wind surfing my browser got me into it. And then when I graduated from college and I was about to travel for work that's when I started kite surfing, because wind surfing was just like, I don't know, but at the time if you were a windsurfer, there was I dunno, you had your community and you maybe didn't really want to transition kiteboarding.
But for me, I had always been very interested in what it took was just like traveling and be like, okay, I need to like, be able to, like travel whiskey and make it a lot more convenient. So that's when I started. Guide thing. And I was working as a Marine engineer, so on ships traveling around the world and I've always been really passionate about the ocean.
And so I really wanted in everything I do, I want to use my skills in a way that easier help people or help the planet. And so as a Marine engineer, I joined a nonprofit called . It's a conservation ocean conservation, nonprofit, and that's when I left France and went to Australia to work on the ships and I met a girl, I didn't speak English at the time.
I'm in a girl, an American girl, she's now my wife. And that's how I ended up in the U S so I never imagined I would come to the us. I remember growing up. Like looking at magazines and how why and all of that. And I was like, just dreaming and and then, like seeing my life now it's like unreal, but everything started all there was a huge shift when I met Damian.
So last year I was living in Idaho and because my wife is from there and I came to Florida to buy a van. And I had been following Damien for awhile on, on Instagram. And I reached out to him. I was into videography, either video, refu business in Idaho. And I was like, Hey do you want to make a video?
I'm going to be here for two days. But I was thinking like this guy is we're a champion. Like he's not going to reply to like me. A video of refer from Idaho, but your dad, he replied, he was like super nice. And he was like, yeah, like for sure let's do it. So we made a video and I edited it and then Damon loved it.
And I was like, okay, I sing there is more to do. So we were really aligned in, in our values in and you, our mission which to me is always using my skills in whatever I do to, to help and to make it like meaningful. So we really connected. And then that's when we started to work on some videos together to really help people, especially, it was the perfect timing when winning was like picking up.
So we were like, let's create something to help people whinging and living their best life. Like we do.
This was back like, so when did you guys meet? That was about a year ago. You said that was last year in September and that's when we met, but then I went back to Idaho and and then came back in three, nine in December. Okay. And so before that, you also did a video videography for like wind surfing, kite surfing, things like that.
Yeah, I would say not I was always just most of my business was just videography and I was taking, anything. Being based in Idaho, I was a lot of, it was not involving what your spot, but when I would travel to Maui I connected with people. I would always try to that was my passion, but when I met Damian, he just took it to the next level.
Yeah,
I think I saw somewhere too, that you were into ultra running and things like that, like during sports, is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I did a lot of things in my life firefighting. I was in the military and I did love stuff. And then running, I took running because I was based like for a while I was like away from the ocean and I needed something to do.
And running was like the most conveniencing because you can do it anywhere. So I picked up running and not being like so passionate about running, but I was like, how can I challenge my. Was running that's pretty much, what I can do right now. And so I did a lot of or like I did a few, like a hundred mile races, which is very challenging, but it's a great experience where you find yourself in a hundred mile race.
For sure. Robert, I have to try him in Glen, ran a hundred miles in firefighting outfit. I'm just letting you know, on a hundred miles in for firefighting. That's hard core. So when you met Damian at you, you had already had a YouTube channel and you've been actively making videos for a while, right?
Or was that kind of a new thing? Yeah, no, I had been oh you talked to. Oh, it was just, both of you, but yeah, it was funny cause yeah, to build that kind of a YouTube following and stuff like that, it takes usually takes more than a year. Just wondering before, before you guys met what were you doing?
And yeah, for me, I, my whole career was obviously competing in the beginning and as a competitor, any young athlete out there, there's always somebody good coming along, so you gotta keep your options open. And for me, I got into sales right away and became a sales rep for some brands. And so I was still competing and working.
So I had a full-time job, but I also was still competing and it was a perfect match because it makes you work hard at what you do. And also you get the reward of playing and doing the best you can do competitive. And YouTube. Yes I had a YouTube channel forever. I had all the social media is you have when you're an athlete, never anything big on YouTube.
I just did it to do it. I loved making videos. It was like a passion of mine, but I wasn't never had enough time and was working probably most of the time. And so I enjoyed capturing unique angles or unique things or building new mounts or capturing something different. That's where my passion was.
And I was lucky to ride for companies like GoPro and connect and do really cool things. But my YouTube thing was never a thing. And When I ran into Gwen, he said it best, and that was our personalities. Like we're in sync. We just were out to help people in my whole entire life has been that and to be able to share and give people their best life and motivate people and get them out and get them up off the couch.
And even if it's the simplest thing, it may not be wing surfing or whatever it may be, but just to motivate people to get out. I think a lot of people think athletes or, wealthy people or whatever it may be. Don't struggle, everybody struggles. And it's a matter of just surrounding yourself with good people and taking the step to get over that problem, whatever it may be drinking or depression or who knows.
And so that, that's what stems this and Gwen is, just the perfect fit of somebody who's same motivation. W we can go to the beach and bang out 10 videos and just have so much information because we're so passionate about it because we know it helps people.
And that's really it. If it helps one person it's good enough for us, and for sure, we'd love to help as many people as we can. And it's a privilege to be able to work for somebody like Gwen. Who's so passionate. And truthfully, I'd say in four months, we. In four months, we created a YouTube channel for sure.
It was, I think my YouTube channel was many years old, but just never did anything with it. And now our goal is to help people and inspire. Yeah, it's awesome. I really like you're all thinking about sharing the love and happiness and stuff like that, it's a pretty big goal, but I think, obviously with that kind of passion and enthusiasm you guys have for it it's great to see that.
And and yeah, I really good quality tutorials too, that you guys put together a nice cinematography and all that stuff. And I've been doing that too for a long time and some help, but obviously you guys are doing kind kinda on a whole nother level. I think like just, really good quality and it's not easy to do, and it's not like you make a ton of money.
Posting free videos on YouTube. Sometimes people think that YouTube is get paid millions of dollars. Like some of the guys do, but not at the level we're at right. It's probably just enough to buy all the gear that you need to buy. think we're probably still in the hole for sure.
But this is a passion project for both of us, for sure. And in Gwen's truly the just incredible, he sees the, he sees it all and puts it together and I'm just OCD and I just can't stop talking. So that's about it. I think what was special when I met Damien I was only like we, we had together for just one weekend when we first met and what kind of what I found like special was like, the man was like, so like connected with everybody at the beach.
And I think that. That's that's when I saw like the potential of of just like being able to help people on, on, on any level, because sometime, if you are like like Damien, like world-class rider world champion, you might be a bit disconnected from the people at the beach, but Damien is so like you go to the beach and the man is always going to be helping anybody.
I think the first weekend, like there was a guy that he was getting into. And had maybe some issue with his foil and Damien went to him and help him getting his full set up. And I'm like, this guy is we're on champion and a rock staff, and he's going to help a guy that, it's, I think to me that was like very special.
And I was like, okay, if we are going to be able to do something like very special and help people and it's going to be meaningful, yeah. Awesome. Yeah. You guys doing a great job, so actually let's talk a little bit about kinda getting into wing foiling and common issues.
People that people have and like tips for beginners, basically, people that want to get into it. They're not really sure what to do. And what do you tell people that are just starting. I would just say, for anybody out there look, everything you, you do in life. That's new, you're unsure.
So like you've got to take a chance and all I'd say is most people that take a chance with this, they actually really enjoy it. And I would say, just get yourself a wing and you can play with it on the beach. You can play with it anywhere. There's wind on land, board, skateboards, snow water, sup you don't need to buy all this stuff right away.
Just get yourself a wing and start playing with it. And to me, your kids can play with it. You can jump off stuff obviously within reason. But yeah, that's kinda, my, my tip is just give it a shot. It's I think you'll be shocked with what can, what doors it can open. That's my first piece of advice.
Yeah. So we're just watching this video here on YouTube. Obviously it's good to just watch a lot of your instructional videos before trying it. But I think a lot of times, yeah, the, one of the mistakes that people make is this going in the water right away before they learn basically to handle the wing and they think they can just do it.
And then, every time you fall in getting back on the board and you get really tired quickly, and then you can't, it's hard to learn that on the water. The more you can figure out the wing handling on land the better. And, but what are some pointers you have? It seems like beginners always have a hard time with the catching, the tip of the wing and then the wing flipping over how do you coach people to avoid it?
Yeah, I think the biggest tip that we have passed around, that's a very helpful for everybody is we always just say whatever direction you're going, punch the water or punch, punch the ground. And what that does with your backhand is make that wing fly. Because most people just pull in, it's I'd say kite surfing or other things, everybody's reaction is to pull in and if you actually steer your back, hit back hand, it makes that wing fly above your head.
So it has a lot to do with just slowing down your front hand and steering with your backhand, but we always would say, punch the water, punch the ground. If you're, if you feel like that wing tip is going to catch, cause all you're really doing is just turning that wing to lift up. And that was a really helpful one.
And I'll be Frank with everybody. I struggled for three days straight and I consider myself pretty skilled and I got murdered at this. I didn't grow up wind surfing. So it was like all new to me. And I did exactly what you said. I went straight into the water and I was like, I can figure this out.
And I couldn't even get up on the board cause I couldn't fly the wing. And it took that process of just getting beat to, to realize that I should fly the wing a little bit more and build my way into it. Yeah. It's probably something you just have to pretty much do as get humbled a little bit to start with, so maybe if you think you can just do it, just go in the water, get humbled a little bit and then you'll figure out that you should learn it on land for us.
Like we don't really need to tell people that an interesting thing is in the video that's playing right now we see Damon and Carrie Kelly is my sister-in-law and Kelly grew up in Idaho. She has never done any water sports. She has never really been in the water. Like no surfing, no no wind.
Nothing in the water. And when I came here I started winging and she got interested and she wanted to learn and now she's doing it and it's been, yeah, it's been like about five months. And, but within three months, like she was like up and falling both ways. And she learned falling with the wing.
Sometime the easiest way is definitely falling or I'll behind a boat, which to just, she just went straight to the wing. And so that, it shows that it's possible. You don't have to have experience doing something else, but for sure don't expect this to be easy.
It's helpful anybody, but the truth is if you put in the time and you keep trying and you go and, whenever you can, you will get it at some point. So for sure, Yeah. It's not an easy sport to learn, but it's definitely not impossible to learn, obviously.
Especially if you have, some instructions and stuff like that, people. Yeah. It's funny. Cause people, when they start to foil, they always think oh yeah, I watched a bunch of videos, so I can see what they're doing. I can do it. And especially people that already know how to surf and stuff like that.
And then they pretty much get humbled the first time they try it, it's definitely not, it's definitely very different from surfing. And and even with the wind surfing background and knowing how to foil already, it took me a while to learn it. Although I think for me, because I already knew how to foil and I could wind surf, it was a pretty quick learning curve, but yeah.
If you have no experience with any wind sports and so on, then yeah. It's not, it's basically like you have to learn two things, foiling and weight when you're handling together. Yeah, for sure. And Gwen, he was funny when I first met him literally the day I met him, I think I gave him my winger.
He's never tried it. And I'm like, I don't know. This guy seems awesome. Super genuine. I was like, take my gear and I, and it was blowing like 30 knots. He just went and he gave it a shot and that's how it started. It was awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, to me like the most important, when you do anything is like going out there and doing it.
I never wait until things are perfect to study, it's if you want to get into running but you, I'm not gonna go on the run until you have the, the new shoes, the GPS watch the running shorts. For me, I'm like I want to start running.
Okay. Let's do it. And maybe I'm going to go out with the wrong shoes. Okay. I figure it out on the way and along the way I make it better, but. Sometime I think one mistake that can be done is just never starting because of waiting to have every single line up perfectly. I think to me it's better to stop and have the wrong gear, have the wrong condition, but go out there and learning by making mistakes is actually a great way to learn.
Yeah.
Yeah. I know. It definitely sometimes people, and I think the same is true with being on YouTube. Sometimes people think they have to have a recording studio and perfect camera gear and whatever. But really a lot of times, like the way I started it was just like shooting some phones.
Shooting some videos on an iPhone and then posting it. And it was, it's more about the con creating content that, that is helpful to people I think is the most important thing, really, not having perfect video, but you guys definitely do a good job on both sides. And actually, so Gwen, I'm gonna stop the screen share on here for a minute, but for you, it's, I think 6:00 PM here in Hawaii, it's like noontime.
So it's a little bit early to drink beer, but I noticed that you showed us the beer can earlier. So can you, so this is really cool. It's a Cabrina drift and BU it's a collaboration between Airstory brewery based in Charleston and Cabrina, and basically it's a program called project. So it's a it's a project called new found freedom.
And basically it's to help people with disabilities maybe amputee or mental disabilities or any kind of disability to help them get it. Guiding and whinging. Or the prostate from GSBM is going to to finance this project. And so last weekend we were actually in Charleston and it was a 11 participant, a lot of them from special forces they've got hurt and maybe he's yeah, like missing a leg, two legs and we got them into guiding and winging and it was like, amazing.
So yeah, this is just to, to finance this project. And it should be available in many places. But for now I think you would have to go to the brewery as story. It's a story. Yeah, it's for a brewery company in China. Yeah, that's sounds great. Earlier I heard like birds chirping and stuff like that.
Are you like in the forest or something like that? It sounds like you're like out in nature or something. Yeah, I'm outside on the deck. But I'm here in Cape Hatteras with even niche from Cabrina. We are filming some content with Kia, he and yeah, a bunch of writers.
I saw he a couple of weeks ago on the north shore. He's so he's in on the east coast now? Yes, he's here. He's here we are. Yeah. We are like doing some filming and unfortunately this week we have no wind, but hopefully wind picks up. Okay. How come Damian's not. He didn't make, he didn't make the cups.
Okay. All right. Let's talk a little bit about then more advanced stuff in wing filing. So I saw you recently just posted a video on doing three sixties, so I'm gonna, I'm going to pull that one up here, how to do a 360 video. So yeah, let's talk a little bit about the progression and tricks you're working on and maybe walk us through this one.
Yeah. I just down the street 60 I, I Damien get me into trying new stuff and actually like the funniest thing is often when we make a video about something, I'm filming I'm behind the camera, but I actually learn a lot from just filming it and then I go out there and I try it.
Like we made a video recently was how to work the dog guiding it's when you dumb your kid in the water, you're falling, you dumb the cat and you keep writing it and you launched a guide again. I filmed it and then right after they in was like, all right. And then. When it's going to go out there and try it.
And that was not even like part of the plan. He just said it at the end of the video. But then I went out there and tried it. So yeah it's really fun. Like filming was Damon act or sold them a lot of stuff. And I go out there and try it. Yeah. That's awesome. I just saw Damien, you have your it's your daughter, right?
This is a, the reason why I'm not up and the truth is Gwen's been teaching me stuff. So he's actually teaching Evan, everything up there, but really what is taking over, he is the cream of the crop, a father. This is a little Ava, she's our little nugget and I'm super blessed. I have a wonderful family, beautiful wife.
And yeah so Gwen's teaching Kiani and a few things.
So when you have kids also, you're fine. No. I'm I'm married, but no kids. No. Okay. Yeah. I find whenever you have I talked to about this about with keen to wild as well, and you said that when you talk about weed foiling and get all into it and think about it, stuff like that then, and then you get on the water.
It's everything comes easier if you have that, the right mindset to start with. So we're talking about if you're on the way to the beach, listening to a podcast or something, or like a conversation like this kind of gets your mind in the right place and gets you stoked.
And then probably the same thing when you're shooting a video and then getting the instructions and then trying it for real. So you guys have been making pretty quick progress with the wing flow. You know what I mean? Like we were saying, we were talking about how it's not that easy to learn, but once you figure it out and you progress pretty rapidly, it seems what do you agree with that? Yeah. I, here's what I would say. And, we spoke a little bit about it, but I would say there's a lot of people that are nervous about going to the beach and struggling and looking bad because they may have been a good kite surfer or maybe a good something, whatever.
They're just worried about looking bad. And I always am like, okay, everybody's been there, so just go be there and you'll progress. And I say that truthfully in the best thing you can do is just go talk to people because everybody's usually willing to help or give a tip because they like to share the same passion.
You, myself, Gwen, everybody likes to share information and help somebody. So I think you'd be surprised and maybe a lot of people are shy to talk to somebody. And I would always say, man, talk to people, ask questions and just watch it learn. Maybe you'll get some information, but I would say yes.
The wing foiling sport is just evolving super fast. The first thing I wanted to do right off the bat was backflips and I'm still working on the backflip because. It's one of the scariest tricks that I've done, period, across the board in everything I've ever done, just cause it's I don't know you, the Chi you can hang from things.
The wing is just I feel like there's just nothing there to hang you. So it's pretty wild if it goes wrong, but it's the sport's evolving incredibly fast. You're doing it in places nobody would think. And you're pulling surfers in that are foiling, and now they're like it's windy.
Why not get a wing? So it's completely doable. And intercostals lakes, gusty places, mountains, absolutely endless. So that's why it's super unique. And it's just a great thing. You can share it with the whole family. Yeah. I think there is like a unique like opportunity right now to get into winging.
And the amazing thing is, most people are like getting into winning, so everybody's progressing together. It's a new spot. So I think it's really fun, like right now to get into it because you figure out things like in the same time as everybody, where if you maybe sat in 10 years then, yes, there would be like more resources to progress, but I think it's really fun to be like progressing as the sport is progressing as well.
For sure. And just to have the gear improving so much, like the foils are getting and the wings are getting so much better so quickly. So actually, so let's talk a little bit about the equipment. So let's start with the foils, like what kind of foils do you use and where do you recommend starting on and what are you using now?
And what's the progression. Yeah. That's a loaded question. I would say look I w personally I love, I think Cabrina foils and lift walls. There. There's some my favorite foils in the industry, for sure. I would recommend to most people out there, we live in Florida. So winds are a little bit lighter, but I would even say no matter where you are in the world, it wouldn't hurt to have a wing around, call it the two fifty three hundred or 2000 square centimeter or bigger wing, which is a very large wing.
And the reason why is, if you're not very good, you're at least going to have a wing that kind of gets you up the soonest as possible. The other kind of big mistake, a lot of people make is maybe they have a 12 foot board and there they throw a foil on it, and they're really struggling to even get up when it's windy.
And the truth is you have a huge surface area that's sticking to the water. So you actually want the shortest thing you can get within reason with high volume or high leader. So you can actually stand on it and float and it's stable. That's the easiest, in my opinion, for learning for foil and board, as far as wings, the good Brina wings I think are absolutely awesome.
We have two different versions and personally I like them both. I think the X two has incredible low end. So the sixes and sevens are incredible in the low end. And then the mantis is. Wave riding efficient machine, for sure. But I think, truthfully, I'd say wings, you could just get your hands on something and go for it is definitely, it changes things up.
As you get better, you go to smaller foils. And poor Gwen. I throw everything at him. I'm like, try this, do this. Do I need to just whoa wow. Look at this. And he's doing all these tricks and I don't know. It's pretty wild to see how he went from. Here's a wing Gwen, try it in 30 knots and it's probably too big, but that's all we had.
And now he's like doing three sixties and he's learning everything. And then he learned the 360 videos coming soon. But 180 360, I don't even know what it's called.
Awesome.
Yeah. So wait, what is that move? You're talking about, the hour drive. So the funny thing is, the funny thing is, right now for winging like tricks you don't find a lot of videos. And when I feel. On the outdrive. I actually didn't really know that there was a trick and that's just something, a transition that I would do guide falling.
And I was like, ah, I think I could do it with a wing, so I just tried it. And then later I found on YouTube oh it's called now drive. And there was a video about it. So I watch it and it definitely helped me. So now we made a video about it because we just didn't like that move.
And so it's fresh now mine and they can, we can really give good tips to people. But the next thing that we need to tackle is the flakka and Daniel has been like different. They're like doing it like the past. I don't know, like a couple of weeks he has been like landing like so many. The next video coming would be the flagger.
Yeah, I finally is just starting to figure out how to land them, but I've done like probably hundreds of them where I crashed. So for some reason I have, so what's the secret to pulling off the landing with the wing? It seems like it's always hard to get the wing right on the landing for me. Yeah, I would say so my tips for the flakka would be, and I'm not a professional yet at it, but I would say I was always trying to just go massive.
So I was just trying to do a massive 180 and truthfully, I would say I know in anything learning, I would always take small steps. So I would say, just get the full out of the water. Flip your board. One eight. And you don't need to go massive. You're just trying to get emotion and learn the most motions.
If you can get the board to go 180, the next tip is when you swing that wing across into the wind, you want to try to have it as level with the horizon and actually pull your front hand close to you, which kind of levels the wing off. I would always keep it out in front of me and it just, you just get back winded and just get, smoked and flip over.
But I would say just, really think of the, how the air works, hitting the wing, and I think that'll really change it. The next best thing I would say is man, try it like 50 times on the beach. Cause you're going to really learn what to do or what not to do with that wing when you spin it across.
And in the wind. Yeah, the tip that gunner gave me that really helped is just to keep the wing at keep it at the level of your head that don't get it up here, keep it like this. And then that way you can spin it around. You pretty much have to bring the wind through the wind. You can't really do it over your head.
Cause then it just close you backwards. Yeah. So it's like keeping the wing load. That seems to have helped me in that. And then, like you said too, like not doing like a huge air, you don't have to be super high for it. That's it. That's a good tip too. And then spinning the board first and then having everything else.
Follow it. Yeah. Yeah. Just build your way into it. I think when I first saw Gwen and showed a video or something, I was like, oh my gosh, that thing's sick. The first thing I do is try to do in the air. Cause I'm like, for sure I can do three sixties all the time. Total wipe out. And I was like, okay, maybe I should build my life.
So yeah, it's fun. It's fun for us. We're learning too, and that's such a passion for us because it's, every day you can learn something new and then you get to share it with people and share your mistakes, which is brilliant because that's, we're making every mistake, just like everybody else.
And our goal is to be like, we did all this wrong. Sure. Try this. Cool. So what about boards? What kind of boards are you using and what was the progression on the boards of what do you recommend for beginners? And then how do you progress to where you are now? Yeah, I would say bores a totally recommend I would say general size, I would say for beginner would be anywhere from five, four to I dunno, six.
Five maybe. And I say that's a little bit longer, but I say it because there are a lot of people that are very large out there and you want to make sure it's within reason to them. But I would say leader wise, I would say is the most important and with like stability. So I would say anywhere from a hundred leaders, if you're, I would say 185 pounds, that's pretty solid all the way up to, if you're 250 pounds, we're talking 130 plus leaderboard, just to give you that stability, to learn the sport a lot easier now, as you get better, that boards here's what I would say too.
That's super important as you get better. Yes. You can go to all the small boards and do all the tricks, but I would even say for most people, those boards are absolutely perfect for your longevity. And the reason I say that is every day you can go and if it loads out or the wind dies, you're still milking your wing in and you're standing there going, if you have a synchronous.
You're swinging them back. So you're always up and doing it versus climbing up or trying to get up. And that's very helpful. As far as like my favorite boards, I would say the Kareena macros are awesome. Lyft has an amazing wean boards as well, but I would say it's just coming up with the right size for your weight.
And for me, I'm 155 pounds. And I would say to stand on around 70 liters is perfect for me to fully stand the balance on it and go. And then I would say obviously you can go a lot smaller all the way down to 28 liter boards, but it's definitely changes everything. Yeah. I meant to go on a tiny sinker board.
You have to have steady strong winds. So it's hard to do that with when the wind starts to drop off and stuff. Okay. So w where do you what does the future hold, like? Where do you see the sport going and what do you see for equipment? Do you have any ideas or things you would like to see in the future?
I'll jump in quick and then I'll let him go ahead and jump in here. Cause I'm always talking. That's my issue. I'm sorry guys. But I, I was just talking to a guy on a phone yesterday and I see this at resorts. I know it sounds crazy ski resorts open area resorts snow, because the easiest way to learn this would be on the snow or the ice, like for sure, because you're actually, I would say land boarding, but I would even say if people ski or snowboard, it's the perfect way to learn it because you're early.
Kind of going, you just stand there and there's no, there's not a lot of surface tension, so you can just go so you can learn the wing and you can actually do this. And I could see people going across sliders and hidden kickers. And I just see it, I see that potential, but I would say the biggest thing it does, that's super unique to me is it takes places that you never thought you would ever wing an opportunity to go play.
And what I mean by that is kitesurfing you, professionals can get into some pretty crazy places in gusty winds, but I would say the winging, you can go anywhere and you can really, it opens the doors to a lot of incredible opportunities. So I think this word is going to boom. For sure.
Yeah, I was living in I'd hope before I came to Florida and I was guiding on the lake. It's a big lake and it's amazing, but people cannot get into cutting them because yeah, trees everywhere. The launch is super sketchy. There's no way you can learn. There is no beach, like it's right.
Like the trees and then the water often the wind from where you have to stand from the wind is offshore. So you have, and then the wind drops and like you end up swimming with all Yogi. And that's where I see winging is going to be a game changer. So like in places like this, like a mountain now people are not going to be able to stop winging because it's a lot safer.
If the wind dies, you Alan's is big bone. You can swim back. No problem. If it's gusty, no problem. It's gonna open definitely like new locations and make it possible to a lot of people that would have never considered guiding is intimidating. And I think meaning is really gonna appeal to a lot more people just because we is, I wouldn't say it's easier, but I would say it's a lot safer when you talk a lot more big enough.
Yeah, that's a good point. And actually I wanted to give a shout out to this, our, a YouTube watcher. His name is Joe skill, and he's a paraplegic. He's actually the one who said, I should interview you Damien and has been watching all your videos and all my videos. And he's totally into winning even though he's in a wheelchair.
And so I wanted to ask you Glenn, like you said you when did that, with disabled people, so how do you get introduced to someone with that's a paraplegic? How do you introduce them to these sports? Yeah we, this weekend, this past weekend we had somebody that was missing two legs.
And we just had him on the standup paddle. He was able to see it so he was just sitting on the standup paddle with the wing and and he had a lot of fun. For him it's something like he would have never considered. If you are already into like wing falling, you might think, okay.
Doing the wing on the standup, other is not that fun, but for him, it was a an incredible experience that he would have never even been able to do it. He was also, we introduced him to cutting also, and he was doing body drag and had so much fun. So it's not about in this case it's not about having him like, okay.
The only way to do it is having on the wing, up on the phone. No, there is in-between, there is a lot of way to do it. That is still going to be really fun for him because yeah, it being on the wetsuit, being connected with the wind and everything, it is an incredible. Yeah, that sounds great. I was also thinking, actually Joe was saying that he was thinking about doing it with a small wing in a sport wheelchair and just like on, on a parking lot or something like that.
And that, that sounded interesting too, an interesting way to do it. Yeah, for sure. He'll be going and doing backflips in no time.
Yeah. Sounds like he's into, so let's talk a little bit about the YouTube channel. So what are your goals? What's your strategy? What, I know you said you're putting out a new video twice a week. How do you do that and how do you keep that motivation to, to, I know it's a lot of work to write, to, to produce all the video and the editing and.
Yeah. I would say the motivation we're we're we have plenty of motivation and I can go down and just unleash because there's so much information out there that we can share with people. And it's not that we can't, we just, anybody can really, and we just have the opportunity to be able to work good together.
And I would say, truthfully, I've never met somebody. And like Gwen, because he's so quick and motivated and he sees the biggest thing. I would say that, that I would say most people struggle with in video is what is your direction? What is your goal? I would say Robert, you're actually brilliant at it, but you have a reason behind everything and you put it together and it's an, it's a presentation that people want.
Capture that info Gwen, same thing. He has a vision when he makes a video it's going to be, this is the message. And I think that's the best thing you can have is just have an opening and middle and an end and a message. And so our goal is to share as much info with people. And I would say, there's days we go and we do, I think truthfully, our max day was 10 videos in a day, but in a four hour period now, is it all the footage in that day?
No, we've captured the footage throughout times doing different things. But I would say, I think the motivation is there big time, because it's so exciting to hear people that just get, get, are living their best life because of it or just even if they gave it a shot and they're enjoying it and they're struggling, but they're enjoying it to us.
That's everything. Just the. Life is about living. It's hard to get up sometimes and it's hard to, look at the positives. And I think that's the reason why we're trying to pump them out as many as we can to just help people. Yeah. So the funny thing is just an hour ago I was filming a division.
Somebody came up to me and asked are you going I just watched your video. And actually it was like the dark drive. And now he's getting, he just did the duck drive and now he's getting into the 360. Like this, like we really see that we are making a difference.
People are commenting on the YouTube channel all the time. And we go to the beach and people are coming to us. And on this day, like the biggest thing I think that is keeping us going is that we enjoy the process. We want to, we have, we want to make help as many people as possible, but we don't have a goal of, I dunno, getting like a million subscribers or, it would be great, but the truth is even if we don't, we are still going to do it because that process is what we enjoy.
We are doing it and that's fulfilling in itself. Yeah, that's great. That, that happens to me a lot too. Like when I go down to the beach, not even just in Hawaii, anywhere in the world, really like in, in Holland or in Australia, people come up to me as oh, I learned how to win, how to stand up pallet board from you or whatever.
So it's pretty pretty cool to, to get that kind of feedback for sure. But here's that video about how to duct jibes? So maybe we can break that down a little bit the learning, how to deduct Jack, cause people have been asking me about that. What are you doing? How do you do that?
This one's classic because I'm that gentleman who's in this video, we call him the legend. His name is Harry Andrews. Andrew's any truly is a legend. This guy he's done it all. And I've been lucky enough to know him for many years. And when I say done it all learned to paraglide together, race, motor, cross.
Absolutely. The guy does everything and he does it like, we talk about Kioski and Glenn and Evan and all these professional kites are hers. You watch Harry at the beach. He's like doing all these board offs and flipping it around and putting it on his feet. The guy is incredible, but we're lucky enough to have him here in Jupiter is a dear friend of mine.
And One day. He's God, Damien, I'm doing the duck job. I'm like, what the heck is a duck job? I've never, ever heard of a duck jive. And he's out there practicing it. And so the next day I'm like, wait, dude, Harry's doing the duck jab. I don't even know what it is. So I went and tried it and I'd go into these downwind turns going like a hundred miles an hour on the wing would hit me and flip and twist.
And I was like total disaster. But my tips to everybody trying to learn how to duck jive would be try it on the beach again. I always say that, but you can really learn your hands and what to do with the wing on the beach first. And you can, watch these videos and in Gwen slows it down so you can actually see the process of the wing and how to drop it.
But the most important thing is you're going to, you're going to crack off downwind because you need to take the tension out of the wing, but you can't crack off to straight down in, or else you're actually gonna have a backwind issue, but I would say you need to be going down when and that's going to help take some pressure off.
And then you just steer your way around and you're going to drop that wing down and it's going to circle around. And, but I would say the biggest tip to me, I would say is there's a downwind movement. And that's, you got to take the pressure off that wean for it to spin. Yeah.
Releasing the pressure from the wing. And then I like to like the back handle, I'd like to move my backend forward to the second handle so I can grab the very back handle with my backhand. And then I look for the front handle. Like I like, I always that's if you miss that, grabbing the front handle on the other side, then it's really hard to pull it off.
So the quicker you can grab that and get your hand on the front handle again, then it's free twist or preterm. And I would say everybody's different, right? So some people have comfortable things like Gwen learning a new trick off the pay took it. Cause it just felt comfortable. If you feel comfortable, maybe twisting your handle before you go into it, try it because it may work for you.
It may not work for others, it never hurts to try some of these things to better your progress that day. Yeah. Right on. I hear we're getting another, yeah. So these ads are obviously pretty annoying for people who watch the videos, but that's how YouTube is get a little bit of money from the videos.
So here he's yeah, grabbing the wing pretty far in the back, grabbing the front handle sometimes. Yeah. Like when I crashed and CG, cause they don't grab the front panel. That seems to be the one of my issues, which is nice on like the wing that we are using Damien and in Harry and I the Cabrina X tool, like the handles are very wide and I totally I really loved that because he makes grabbing the handle on, in this case, like a bit easier.
And then one of the advantages of this move to an in light wind, if you do it right, you can do it completely without getting back winded. Versus sometimes if you do a regular jibe and you're moving down, when you get like the apparent wind can actually be against you. So you can get back winded sometimes in the light went jive.
So I liked doing it in really light wind conditions sometimes. Yeah. Good move to learn. That's what we ride in. So
that's where we'd love to try an island.
What conditions do you have usually? What are the winds like and how the yeah. What kind of conditions. I'd say we get to choose to, I'd say we get five to third, I would say, there's, we used to have a lot of cold fronts that were really powerful and we'd have 30 plus, but I would say on average you would be a good day and be like 12 to 25 maybe.
Or in the twenties, that'd be a magical day. So it's perfect for learning, but it's we don't really get the cold fronts like we used to get and we still do, but it's definitely less and less. So the wind is not like Hawaii or it can sustain 30 to 40 all the time. So yeah.
Yeah. It's a little bit different for us here on Oahu and Maui. Just the way the island is shaped with the wind. It kind of funnels the wind between the two sides of the island, but on a wall it's usually like about 10 knots later than on Maui. As when we can barely get going, it's already cranking on Maori, so it's not where it's not quite always, but at least we do have steady Tradewinds and yeah. Luckily global warming hasn't affected the Tradewinds. It seems plus on the wing foiling, you can really get going and less wind than you need for windsurfing or even cutting, I think or in gusty winds, it just works better because yeah, if you have to wait for a couple of minutes for the next Gustin, once you're up on the foil it's pretty easy to keep it going, even in really light winds.
Yeah, it's and that's, you nailed that perfectly is, you're in a lighter wind spot, we're in a lighter wind spot. And I would say across the country, there's a lot of places that are light winds, but even gusty. And I would say to throw a kite up a hundred meter line or a hundred feet line and have kites phone and disasters, it's just so easy to grab a wing and give it a shot.
And I think, Gwen nailed that earlier, but that's that's why it's so achievable for people. And you truly can go live your best life and try something new and learn something new because we all like learning. And that's what it's all about. So as we learn how to do duck jives and all these things that this legend here brings to us, and we're like, what was that?
What are we doing? Okay, we're going to try that. That's great. In terms of the skills that you have, would you say a lot of, oh, that one. I'm just watching it, the video here, but it's the skills that you have, like how much of it is like talent, like natural God-given talent and how much of it is just practicing and doing it over and over and screwing up until you can find me do it.
I would say for most people, look, everybody's been given a talent and I would say for sure, there's people out there that are significantly, you know, more, advance or they've been given stronger muscles or whatever it may be. But I would say, I would just say to anybody out there.
Yes. You put a lot of time in the water, you're going to get good at it. A lot of people skiing, I always remember this. It's a good analogy, but everybody skiing would say, man, you're really good at skiing or whatever. And I'm like I skied every single day, literally through the summer, every single day, every day I could.
And they would only go on a ski trip three times a year. You're only going to be as good as how much effort you put into whatever you do. Make sure to put effort into something and just like Landon or yourself, you study it, you learn it, you learn your craft and you'll be incredible at it.
I would say I'm very blessed and I've been very skilled and I'm but I would say I'm no different than anybody out there. And I say that truthfully, because you can learn something if you put your mind to it. And I don't care if you're 200 pounds, I just think anything is possible. If you really just put your mind to it.
He's teaching right now. Yeah. No, not quite.
So do you ever a lot, I think a lot of it is really is mental. Like some days you go out and everything's just perfect, you're in tune with the conditions in your equipment. Everything's perfect. And you feel like Superman, you can do anything. You can pull off all kinds of moves. And then the next day you go out on the same equipment, the same conditions, and you're like a total cook again.
So does that ever happen to you and is there anything you can do about that or your mindset? Yeah, I would say, you nailed it and you've opened it that way, but I would say, look, you always got to go into every day, every session, every work appointment, every time with your wife or your loved one, whatever it is always be looking for the positive in whatever the situation is because you're spot on.
For everyone already out there, Gwen and I go down to the beach and we may have learned a new trick and then the next day you can't do it because you just, it didn't click again and that's normal and that's totally fine because maybe your muscles are fatigued or maybe you just are a little off or the conditions are a little bit harder or whatever it may be.
That's part of the learning process. So don't, if you get it and you get up willing in one day, don't think tomorrow you're going to be winging exactly the same, it will still keep coming. But I think a lot of people get frustrated or they get beat down and I would just say, look, be open to maybe it wasn't the perfect conditions.
Maybe I just wasn't on my game today. So it's a hundred percent mental and it's how you look at it and always have a better outlook on whatever it is, whether it's winging or life or depression or whatever, just you got to have a better outlook. And I think if you change that mentally and your whole life and work and relationships and weaning and.
Will just absolutely blow your mind. You will change. You will surround yourself with good people. All of a sudden, opportunities will come, you'll learn the duck jive like I did. And that was just cause I was surrounding myself with good people and Gwen did the 180, whatever it was called. I still don't even know what it's called, that's how I learned it.
I didn't think of it, but it was a great opportunity to see it. Wow. This is great. I'm looking at the positive. Let's give it a shot versus I'll never do it. I'm not going to try it. I can do these other things. I'm really good at I'm going to keep doing them instead. I'm like open to try it. Why not? What's the worst can happen.
I crashed, I looked like a moron. I crashed all the time and a lot of people are nervous to crash or look bad. And I would say, look, that is life learning, making mistakes, and your mistakes lead you to be a better person and relationships and work and business and you name it. And that's how you learn.
So I've made a lot of mistakes. So I get pretty good things. Yeah. I think I would say sometime you have to detach yourself from from the goal or like still have a goal, but not be so like the fulfilling path is an only attributing the goal the process should be fulfilling.
And if you can do that then. Whatever the outcome is, you're going to be stoked because you are doing, you are in the process. So for me, I just see it as how, however frustrating it is that sometime that as good as the day from before but you are still out there and that's the process.
And so that, try to get that being fully fulfilling and the outcome when, the outcome is good or not. That's okay. But if you put in the time and you go out there and you have fun and you enjoy the process. Yeah. It wouldn't be, it would be good.
Yeah. You still learn something even when you're a coop and nothing's working, but let's say, do you have any pointers for someone that's stuck in that negative mindset or whatever, getting upset with themselves or being stuck in a negative mindset? How can you turn that around as the more positive and optimistic or, obviously you learn a lot better when you're, when you have a positive mindset, right?
Yeah. We joke, but we'll we'll text you Harry's phone number so everybody can call Harry and they can personally get advice. Now I would just say, look, everybody goes through this. Just know that you're not the only one. And the ways to get out of it is to say yes, just say yes to something, get up and do something and it can be anything.
It can be, go for a walk. It can be just get up and do something. Because if you just keep dwelling on it, you will just put yourself lower and whatever it may be, or you'll get deflated. And you just don't want to try anything. You don't want to do anything. And I would say the best thing you can do is change your scenery, change, whatever you're doing, get up, do something different.
Yeah. Take your brain off it, take a break, relax, whatever it may be. Just change that but know that there's the process. The process that Gwen speaks about is everything. I went to Hawaii. I think I have the speed record with Alex Guerin Hawaii. Maybe. I don't even know if that stands, but that was a process to get a speed record in Hawaii.
It was not about getting a speed record. It was about. Going out with my buddy and going as fast as I can, and his daughter did it and it was just incredible experience. And did we know we could do it? We didn't even know if the wind was going to be perfect. We thought it would be, but who knows? It's when and you just don't know.
So just get up and always look at the glass, full it's just there, you just, if your car breaks down, locate ran good until today. That's okay. Get it fixed. Moving on and look at the positive. Don't look at my life's over. Oh my gosh. It's there, there's no gain from that. Yeah.
And I would say every time you do something and you failed, it's good because that means you are one step closer to six to succeed. The more you fail, the closer you get to, being successful. So don't get discouraged and, and draw the process. And the more you fail, the better you're going to get.
Yeah. It's like that quote from Wayne, Gretzky, like that you miss every shot you don't take. So just, you gotta keep trying to achieve things, even if you have to fail or, hundreds of times or thousands of sense I was thinking about that Thomas Edison failed like thousands of times before you invented the light bulb.
Yeah, not giving up too easily. It's part of it. And I think a lot of people a dear friend of mine, Julie Mancusos Olympic athlete or Olympic medalist, many time, whatever. And even when I won my world championship, you're your pinnacle, people think it's, that's the moment. That moment is just okay, what do I do next?
So just know that, your life, whether it'll go through these roller coaster. So the best thing you can do is always just keep learning, keep trying, keep opening the door to try new things, because that'll keep a healthy lifestyle versus getting so fixated on something that if you don't achieve it, I don't make a million dollars.
I don't get the cool job. I don't get the perfect setup, whatever it may be. You're just going to get crushed versus. How many workers are as I can today may lead to me owning my own business. But you just got to, always have a goal or a dream, for sure. I think that's a really good thing and work hard and treat people the way that you would want to be treated.
And I think you'll be incredibly successful. Yeah. That's a good point. One thing that people say, like writing down goals, like in, in writing or telling other people about it, it holds you more accountable to achieving that goal. Is that something you agree with? Is that something you do that you have written goals?
Yeah. We have 15 notebooks here of videos that are coming. I'm just kidding. I just think, yes, I've always been whether it's writing it down or having it in the back of your brain, but the most important thing. And I'm one to know cause I've, I had a pretty bad accident midway through my life here that led me to my beautiful wife and a lot of great things.
Everything happens in life. So I would say just because you think you're meant to be something, so say I thought my whole life, I was going to be one of the best ski racers in the world who would have known, I would have ended up in Florida, playing with wings and kitesurfing and who knows, so just start taking those roads and it's gonna lead you to some special, incredible opportunities in life.
I would just always be open to learning and take different paths and you'd be pretty excited on your outcome.
Do you have anything to add that to that wins? Yeah. I've done so many things in my life, like trench change like path so many times. And I come from a family that's very traditional, like in a way, like you, you go to school for something and then you get that job and then you keep that job and you get married, you have kids and you retire and that's it.
But for me I, I've never been change is scary sometimes. In the end, like you just have to be open trigger yourself first. Like when you do something and and it's not fulfilling or it doesn't make you happy, then you, it's your responsibility to find what's, what you want to do.
What's what makes you happy? I think that's the priority. And then that will lead you to many different ways and it's not going to be a straight line, but if you if you are open to trying new things, if you keep don't get stuck somewhere and opportunities come all the time. So you just have to be open to it and change path.
When. Yeah, definitely. And I agree that you don't have to live a boring life. That's what you make of it. So courage everyone to try to live their life to the fullest. So let's talk a little bit about the, kind of the obsession with foiling. Once you get into foiling, you get that feeling and it's I want to say it's like an addiction or it's like a drug that you want again and again.
So is there a dark side to it? Is there like a downside or is it just a healthy thing for you? Is there, do you ever feel like it's, maybe there's a negative downside to it. I think the negative would be like, if you're in a relationship, you have to buy multiple foils for sure. For your wife, for your kids, that would be the negative of it.
No, I would say, they're, I would say the negative that everybody is always worried about, is it danger? I'm going to get caught. I heard of people getting cut or hurt or, and I would just say, look, yes, it's dangerous. But I would say you get into your car every day. That is 10 times more dangerous.
And everything is within reason. So if you take it slow and watch your YouTube channel and learn all this stuff and you can do it and you can learn safely and you may have some setbacks. That's all part of it. But I would say it's everything in life has it's dangerous.
And if you're always worried about every danger, you're never going to do anything. So you got to take a little bit of a risk and go talk to the girl that you wanted to talk to. If you don't talk to her, you're never going to get her for sure. So take that risk and talk to her. So there's so many things that it leads to in life.
And I would say with foiling, the biggest one is danger. And I would say it's only is danger is dangerous as you make it. Learn to Hamilton and Benny. And some of these guys do, and, in Kailani doing the massive waves, that's pushing the limit, but they're also, that is their challenge and learning of them, what is possible.
And I think that's their level, mine may be on a two foot piece of chop and I get scared and I go home. It could be that, but I'm okay with that. And it's fun. Yeah. Yeah. It's different levels of risk. I just watched that a movie about the guy what's his name? Alex Honnold climbing free soloing, El Capitan in Yosemite with like super hard sections, super high off of the ground.
That was incredible. So compared to that, I think wing filing is pretty safe compared to that. And especially on the water, but I get one thing I would say, if you're doing it on land, like on a skateboard or an ice, you do have to be careful, especially when you go fast. A lot of times you can't.
Hold up your head. So if you hit the ground and your head hits the it's, the ice, or that the ground, you can actually get pretty injured. So wearing a helmet and knee pads, elbow pads, and all that kind of stuff. It's definitely a good idea. If your issue, you're not doing it in the wall. And even the water, I think you wearing a helmet is a good idea when you're doing crazy moves, like flips and stuff like that.
We're not going to hurt at all. Any type of safety, Mo impact this to even full wetsuits. So you don't get all scraped up when you're climbing up and down off the board learning, booties for chafing, the top of your feet. I know I needed them the first day when I gave him all my wing stuff, he came home like bloody, and I was like, okay, the good thing is I was in Florida only for two days.
And but just from winging, I guess I only wing once, like one, one day out of the two days. And I still have a scout, sorry. I still have a scout on top of my feet from the skin being gone. And that was in September last year. Yeah, that's actually a good point for people beginning, you tend to like really get rubbed draw in that deck pad, right?
From sliding a knee kneeling and sliding off the deck pad and all that kind of stuff and sliding back onto the deck pad. So that's something maybe wear pants and maybe boonies or whatever. And it's a good idea. When you started out and I've even seen people wearing me knee pads or whatever on their boards.
So any, anything like, that's probably a good idea when you starting on it. Yeah. So what are you plans for the next couple of days when if the wind comes back with, what are you guys doing there? I guess just filming Cape hatred trust has like really good, like down windows and waves, so we just going to be like filming whatever is good for the condition. It seems in the next couple of days, the wind could be good, but we are hoping for stronger wind. So yeah, just having fun and I'm going to be filming them, having fun. How's the weather, how's the weather on the east coast, as it came, patter is a warm enough to go on.
You still need a full wetsuit. Kia, he is going out with just the top. And most people will have a shorty. But yeah it's not too cold right now. Yeah. And then actually I was going to ask you for drone, a drone video of of when you're shooting with the drawn in strong winds, what kind of drone do you use and is there like a certain drawn that's best for high wind?
Okay. The good thing is in Florida, we have mostly like light wind so that, that helps, but I use the DJI air two S and. Sometime drone goes down and that's part of the game, but far strong when I sing, you just have to fly. DGI, like DJI drones, can't fly in CLT five 40 mile winds.
You just have to keep it on sports mode. And you wouldn't be way slower going against the wind. But.
A new drone. It's like a MTV with the headset. And then, so pretty excited to try it a little bit nervous actually, but this thing is supposed to be super fast, so it should be good for flying in strong winds. I haven't had the DJI Mavic mini, and when it's windy, I can't even fly up when, it's barely moving when you're flying into the wind, so it's super slow.
So that's why I figured yeah, I think, yeah, exactly. I think the limitation for flying drones in high wind, you just have to know what's your drones, top speed. And basically if your drone top speed is CLT miles on that way and you go in yeah. 40 miles per hour when you won't get your drone back because they won't be able to make it up when, but so you just have to know what's the top speed.
And that's why going, already the drone is, has some limitation, but as soon as you switch it to sports mode, it makes it like for spirits. So if you go in high wind, you have to switch it in sports mode, but you have to know what, drone top speed is. So the wind is not stronger than that.
Yeah, that's a good tip in all our YouTube videos. We filmed with the helicopter.
Harry is the pilot.
I don't know why our budget seems to be off.
I talk to him like at the beginning of your videos, you always have spreading the love and sharing the stoke and all that kind of stuff. So what does that mean to you? And like how hard you try to achieve that? I think that's just Glen and dead, honest truth, we just we were always positive, I would say.
And yeah, it's just, people want to be around positive energy and I think it's just how we truthfully, we go to the beach. That's just how we are. That's how I try to live my life. And I think the more people we touch doing it, the more people surrounded by us do it. And I think it kinda irradiates on itself.
So I, I always believe that if you can pass it on it, it really does keep going. And. That's why we try to just be upbeat. I know a lot of people, it's tough times in the economy and tough times with work and it's not always perfect, but you can always look at the back side of things and try to just, motivate people and give them the passion to hopefully live their best life.
So how has your life changed as as a result of the pandemic and what were the good things and the bad things for both of you? Good things, bad things. I have a newborn child and she is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And my wife turned into the most amazing mother, so absolutely super grateful and blessed.
Did a YouTube thing with Glenn, never thought I'd ever do that. That's amazing. We're helping people got multiple jobs that are absolutely incredible with lift foils and Cabrina kites. And I just I truly couldn't be more grateful, but definitely been working a lot and I'm negative, I would say just can't see your family as much.
And, but, with zoom and all these things, you can speak to people. And so you just look at the positive of it. That's what I would say. So for my side of things, I would say I feel bad for a lot of people out there, but I would say I've been very lucky. So
go ahead. For me yeah, I, yeah, I grew up, growing up in France, my entire family is still in France. Since COVID basically have haven't been able to go back there. So I haven't been back for about two years. So that's definitely the negative part of the pandemic, but than not, he I'm like, living the dream could not have a better life.
And yeah, it was like just a massive change. From the day I met Damian, because I don't know I was in, in Idaho, which is great, but I'm very passionate about the ocean and I've always been really wanting to get involved in water Wells. And I never really saw how that would maybe be like possible because I'm not a per rider.
I would never be involved with any brands on that level. But then, it. I met Damien and, and it was all about helping people and that's what we did is I'm super grateful for all of that and where it got me today is going to be on the wing world tour here next year.
So his claim to fame is just starting. So I started with YouTube with this old guy
from France. So gaming you're sponsored by Lyft and Yeah, I worked for the companies and I've been very lucky athlete and was with a lot of companies and yeah I worked for Lyft Wells. I'm the U S sales manager and with Rena Elma, Southeast sales rep and work been working with Cabrina for over 20 some years.
And Lyft was the company when foil started. I was the Keiser for at the time pushing the limits and that's where the whole foiling started. I dunno, that was like nine or so years ago. I think they first foils hit the U S and in foiling has been around forever, but made the move to get it going so.
Yeah. So Lyft Foyles is based in Puerto Rico. Have you been to their factory and that's every scene they're manufacturing and stuff like that? Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. They got an awesome set up and it's just a beautiful family. They're super good people. And, they created this , which is now the new Mecca foiling is just to the masses.
It makes it really easy. You've got to remote and everything's going electric, so it's dead quiet. It's surreal, and I think that's really neat to be a part of it as that's been growing and yeah, it's just, it's going gangbusters. Anything foiling is pretty much going through the roof, so it's pretty cool.
And then of course, Rena is peak, Sabrina's been a legend in the industry for many years and and still is, just always innovative brand. And recently my dear friend took over the company and they're just on this incredible stage to just share. I would say that message back like the beer, they're really trying to take it to another level to help people, instead of just making a product that is a product that everybody can make or get knocked off and just have something in the market.
They're really trying to make something that can better people's lives or goals or whatever it may be. And I think that's, to me, that's a beautiful thing. Yeah. Great. Is there I always like to ask, who else can I interview on for this show? Do you have any recommendations of people I should talk to?
Yeah. Off the bat. When you mentioned something early, I was seeking a grant Corrigan with Hi-Fi foundation. He's actually a paraplegic total rockstar very inspiring. I touched on Julie Mancusos, she's a incredible human but I think grant Korgan would be a pretty, pretty awesome.
That would probably be a pretty special one for you. He's he's incredible human, so cool. Cause you already got Glenn, okay. I would say John Modica, you should have John Modica is also doing amazing things. Okay. Yeah. John Modica is actually the, my dear friend who took over Cabrina and he's he truly is the person that you would never know would run or own a company, but his passion is so powerful of making you the, if it was a t-shirt, he would just literally buy, rip cut 50 different t-shirts and he'd be like, now it's perfect.
And you would just be like I just had this t-shirt for 10 years. I don't know. He's just so on it to make it the best it can be for that, whatever it is. Fins. It's pretty, pretty spectacular and a humble human. And so it's pretty neat. Great. Yeah. I'll ask you for their contact information. It's been like an hour and a half almost, so thanks for taking the time.
And I always like to say from the YouTube analytics, I can see that only about 5% of the people are still watching it. They're very, and it trails off, but do you have any special message for those that are still with us still listening? Oh man. Just look, get up off your seat, do something because everybody out there is I want to start this business or try this or do that.
And you're just going to keep wanting to, you got to get up and do it. And that individual right there with. Yeah, he's got, and he's one incredible humans look super familiar. So who's that with you now? That's a niche what's going on? I don't know if you guys can hear me or not. Probably not. Evan is literally one of the most skilled kiters on the planet.
Absolutely incredible. Oh, we got the whole gang tie. The whole Korean a team up there they're truly superstars. One incredible humans, two incredible athletes. And they all were driven to just get up and make it happen. And I knew Evan when he was riding cones with a trainer kite in the grass and he was this little kid.
He wouldn't talk to you. And now he's an incredible salesperson. He's incredible athlete. He's incredible human. And I think it's just a matter of talking to people and open those doors. So anybody's still listening, which we hope you are. Man, just do what you want to do. There's no reason why you can't do it.
Don't ever set yourself short. You can do it. That's what I would say. Yeah. I guess that's my takeaway from this conversation is that you can live the life you want to live. There's no reason to do something you don't enjoy. There's always Oh, is it possibilities for, following your passion and doing what you love?
I think a hundred percent. Yeah. And we pay you so much for having us on, it's just another place to, to help, hopefully we can touch one person and to us, that's everything, if we can help somebody. Yeah. Okay. That's I think that's a good way to end it. Any last words from you, Glen?
No yeah. Thank you so much. And go out then and give your dream. It's you know, if you keep at it, it would happen. Yeah. Thanks guys. Thanks so much. And make sure you subscribe to. The YouTube channel and check out all those great instructional videos. If you're getting into wing flooding, definitely good stuff you guys are putting out.
So thanks for doing that. And you're helping basically drive the sport forward. I think with those really good tutorials, because in other sports they're not really available necessarily, it's especially that kind of high quality content is not really available for a lot of things.
So thanks for doing that. Doing a great service. Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys. Thanks so much for your time. Take care and enjoy the evening. Aloha. Thank you so much. All right. Hey friends, thanks so much for watching all the way to the end again. Thanks Damien and Gwen for joining me for this show.
And it was another really great episode. Just a couple of notes. Last Tuesday. I did a live video on YouTube where I just talked. But what's new at blue planet answered some questions that I had on YouTube from comments, and then also had some live questions come in through the chat. And the show is joined by people from all over the world.
At 7:00 AM in Hawaii, in Europe, it was 7:00 PM. And then on the mainland that was early afternoon. So people would drive us from all over the place, which was really cool. So I thought it was fun to do that. And I'm going to start doing a weekly show every Wednesday at 7:00 AM, Hawaii time. I'm going to do a live show.
So I hope you can join me for that next live show. I'm going to have the link down below for that video. And if you can join that live and post some comments or questions, that's always appreciated. You can always watch it later as well. So that's not a problem. So thanks again, Damien and Gwen for joining me.
Thanks for posting great instructional videos for everyone out there. Learning how to wing for it's a great service to the community. So thank you everyone for watching. Please join us again next time for another blue planet. Show all over and see you on the water. .
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Episoder

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Voyager x Wet Feet Foil Race- Blue Planet Show Episode #28

Olivia Piana Foiling Interview- Blue Planet Show Episode 27

Jimmy Lewis interview-surf, windsurf, kite, foil and wingfoil shaper on the Blue Planet Show #26

James Casey- Foil athlete, waterman- interview on the Blue Planet Show episode 25

Ken Winner on the Blue Planet Show- Wing Foil Interview episode 24

Wing Foil interview: Mike’s Lab- Mike Zajicek and Stefano Moris on the Blue Planet Show episode 23

Foil Surfing Contest interview: Jason Tangalin and Pono Matthews- Foil Fever on the Blue Planet Show Episode 22

Wing Foil Interview: Sam Loader with PPC Foiling is back on the Blue Planet Show

Wing Foil Interview: Clifford Coetzer- Unifoil on the Blue Planet Show episode 20

Wing Foil interview: Adrian Roper with Axis Foils on the Blue Planet Show

Alan Cadiz Wing Foil Interview #2- Blue Planet Show Season 2 Episode 18

Wing Foil interview with the Oahu Crew- BluePlanet Show Season 2, Episode 17

Armie Armstrong Wing Foil interview, Blue Planet Show Episode 16

Alex Aguera Wing Foil Interview- Blue Planet Show #15

Kevin and Kaden Pritchard- Wing Foil interview- Blue Planet Show #14

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