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Young Ripper Makani Andrews on Racing, Foiling & Olympic Dreams | The Blue Planet Show Join Robert Stehlik in another exciting episode of the Blue Planet Show featuring 17-year-old Makani Andrews, a rising star in the world of competitive foiling and windsurfing on Oahu, Hawaii. Despite only having three years of experience in both sports, Makani has already made significant strides, traveling and competing in multiple events, including the Olympic trials in Miami, the Youth Worlds in Italy, and the World Champs in Spain. His notable achievements include clinching first place in C19 and 5th or 6th overall at the Nationals in San Francisco. Makani discusses his ambitions for the 2028 Long Beach Olympics and the rigorous qualifications required. He elaborates on the similarities and differences between windsurf foiling and wing foiling, emphasizing the advanced equipment needed for competitive racing. Makani also shares insights into his training routines at Kaneohe Bay and highlights the benefits of various gear setups, including the difference between single and double canopy wings. The discussion extends to detailed technical aspects of foils, including the importance of shimming for performance optimization. Makani's partnership with PPC and Sobfoils is also explored, showcasing the latest innovations in wing and foil design. The episode concludes with a look at the high-quality construction and customizable features of Sobfoils' products, making them suitable for both everyday use and high-stakes competitive racing. Follow Makani Andrews on Instagram (@makani.andrews) to stay updated on his latest sessions and achievements.00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome00:33 Makani's Journey in Foiling and Windsurfing01:46 Olympic Campaign and Competitions03:31 Comparing Windsurf Foiling and Wing Foiling07:18 Growing Up in Kaneohe and Early Sailing Days11:39 Wing Foil Racing Equipment and Innovations17:01 Sponsorships and Future Prospects18:37 Exciting New Gear from Sobfoil18:57 Exclusive Dealer in Hawaii19:06 Exploring the Medusa Pro19:25 Introducing the Leviathan 135019:58 Pump Foiling Insights21:08 Convenient Mast System22:43 Customizing Your Foil Setup30:02 Razor Pro for Surf Foiling32:33 Red Devil vs. Other Foils34:48 Final Thoughts and Social Media
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The interview documents an in-depth conversation between Rob Stehlik and Paul Martin, the CEO and Co-founder of Foil Drive, at the AWSI show in Hood River 2024.
The discussion starts with observations of Foil Drive at the hatchery, covering downwinders and the challenges of riding into the wind. Paul explains techniques for easier foiling by keeping the board flat and utilizing the wind and waves effectively. He elaborates on achieving the primary goal of Foil Drive: to assist riders in getting on foil quickly, then allowing them to enjoy pure foiling without motor assistance.
Paul then discusses equipment innovations in the Gen 2 system, including a high gain antenna for better connectivity even when submerged. He highlights collaborations with brands to integrate the motor system into boards and masts more aerodynamically. He explains the design of carbon and aluminum masts, emphasizing their benefits in terms of stiffness and drag reduction. He also notes that while integrated systems create dedicated foil setups, they offer unparalleled hydrodynamic performance.
The conversation covers Foil Drive's user-friendly features like easy battery replacement, tool-less assembly, and flexibility in mounting on various boards. Paul details improvements in travel compatibility with new split-design travel batteries adhering to airline regulations. He discusses the battery life variability dependent on usage and weight and mentions enhancements in handling and control through the handheld remote and the upcoming hands-free remote system.
On technique tips, Paul advises beginners on maintaining board flatness and gradually increasing speed for smooth lift-off. He highlights the significance of position and subtle movements. He also explains how to transition from motor power to pure foiling seamlessly.
Finally, Paul talks about the pricing of Foil Drive systems, emphasizing the popularity and recommendation of the Max Power system due to its runtime, range, and power benefits. He describes additional accessories like the propeller guard for safety and the various equipment improvements aimed at reducing drag and increasing performance.
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In a special episode of the Blue Planet Show, guest host Tyler Landon interviews Rob Stehlik, the founder of Blue Planet.
The discussion focuses on Rob’s extensive experience in the watersports industry, his journey from windsurfing to paddleboarding to foiling, and the release of his new book, 'Stand Up Paddleboarding for Dummies.'
Rob reflects on his 30-year journey, starting with his passion for windsurfing in Germany and moving to Maui. He shares insights into his role as an early adopter and promoter of standup paddleboarding and discusses the challenges he faced in writing his first book.
The conversation delves into the operational and logistical challenges of running Blue Planet, including early struggles with suppliers, the expansion of product lines, and the importance of branding and consistent quality.
Rob also talks about his YouTube channel, which has become a vital marketing tool for the brand. Highlights from his global travels, engagements in competitive standup paddling, and his thoughts on balancing business with personal passions add depth to the narrative.
Additionally, Rob discusses the diversification of Blue Planet into rental services and commercial real estate, showcasing the brand's growth and adaptation over the years.
Tyler, who has a history of working with Rob, adds personal anecdotes about their business relationship and the impact Rob’s mentorship has had on his own career.
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Aidan Nicholas was at the Armstrong booth at the 2024 AWSI show in Hood River and I had the opportunity to interview him. We talk about the 2024 M2O race he won by a big margin, the Armstrong equipment he uses for racing and freestyle, wings, boards, foils, and riding in the Gorge the days before the show.
In an interview at the AWSI 2024 show, Aidan Nicholas, fresh off his victory in the Molokai to Oahu race, discussed his race strategy, equipment choices, and lessons learned from competing. He described how tricky the race was due to variable wind conditions, requiring tactical decisions to maintain speed. Aidan highlighted his use of a 580 foil for improved glide and the importance of multiple jibes to gain ground during the race. He also emphasized the role of his 7-meter wing in maintaining power during lighter winds, allowing him to bear off and keep momentum.
Aidan talked about his setup, including using a small 48-liter board during the race, though he mentioned a larger 65-liter board would have been more suitable in light wind sections. He also discussed the critical role of foils, noting his preference for the MA625 foil in everyday conditions and the 580 foil for races. The interview covered various technical aspects of wing design, board volume, and foil dynamics, with Aidan stressing the importance of a balanced setup for maximizing performance in racing and downwind conditions.
He also gave insight into Armstrong's new alloy rig, designed for a more affordable entry into high-performance setups without sacrificing durability, thanks to features like titanium fittings. This new alloy rig is a more budget-friendly option compared to traditional carbon setups, but with slightly lower performance.
Transcript of the interview:
Aloha, it's Robert with Blue Planet. We're here at the AWSI show 2024. I'm here with Aidan Nicholas. You just won the Molokai to Oahu race. And then we got a bunch of footage of you at the hatchery the last few days, like right before the show started. We had some really fun conditions. Yeah, we did.
The gorge turned on and It does what it does best and we're in some fun conditions close to the, close to Hood, which was nice. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the race first. So the Molokai to Oahu race, you were like, I think you finished like miles ahead of everybody else, right? Like a couple miles probably, something like that?
Yeah, I hit it. It was a tricky race, that's for sure. Yeah, it got really light in the middle, right? Very light. It was what do we have in the middle there? It was probably 6 to 10 knots. And it was a tactical, the cloud came through in the middle. The start was nuking. Middle was super light and the end started to pick back up again.
But, it was a few tactical decisions in the middle to decide whether I hit, go to Oahu or just keep playing down the bumps that I was in the middle. Which, a big improvement. So you can make downwind ground faster, but when I couldn't, when I didn't have the wind strength, it was hard to do that. So I was like, okay, I'm going to race out from this cloud cover.
I crossed to closer to Oahu, got out from the clouds and the wind started to pick up a little bit more and then played all the way down and had a pretty good race all the way through. So you actually stayed a little bit northerly of the run line. I definitely did. Yeah. Okay. There was a lot of jibes and I looked at my track this year in comparison to last year and last year.
I could probably count on that. Maybe six or seven jibes. That's when I think was in the vicinity of 80 to 90. So it's like really playing swell lines and in the middle there, when you get your speed, if you can jive on it, jive back again and gain another a hundred meters downwind, it makes a big difference.
So you use the jibes to actually make. When you didn't have those gusts and the swells lined up you could really soak on some fast rollers and just soak down there. And that's why I changed last year I rode the 65 MA, and this year I was on the 580, and it was just for the fact that I could actually glide on the waves when needed.
If it did die off, I could just cruise down and make sure that I could stay on the faces. It says pump over a little bit and connect some, so yeah. I found a lot of times the hardest part where, like if you came off a bump and then you in the trough and there's no wind or whatever, and you're just like, Oh, and then you just don't want to come off well.
Cause you know, you can't get back up on foot. It is super tricky out there. It was a tricky race for sure. I rode a pretty small board which I think going forward again I'd probably ride a little bit more volume. Something in the, I I'm 82kg so 175, 180, 180 pounds. And I ride, I rode a 48 litre but a 75 would have been a much better, safer option in that middle there if you did come down like a little bit.
You could actually get back up again. So you were able to go all the way without coming off foil though, or? I had one fall in the early section. I made a mishap and switching my feet in a jibe. Had a crash, came down there and then I had one other time with a wing clipped a wave top and got ripped down my hands.
But, and by the time I got it back in, I was on the water, but I still managed to get straight back up again. Now they're both pretty quick recoveries. Cool. And so let's talk about these wings. You used that, the seven meter, right? I did, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about that. I think last year you only had the smaller sizes in these wings, right?
We did. 6. 1 was the biggest and there's something I chatted to the guys about that we discussed and we're going, Okay, what wing size do we need for this race? What's the best sort of size? And VMG is the massive ball player in this whole thing. Downwind racing is you can have the fastest gear, but if you can't soak and 10 degrees difference makes a massive Speed difference you've got to be going for that 10 degrees is huge, right?
So The seven meter just allowed me it was a definitely overpowered at the top But I could get a lot of depth off the start line and then as it lightened off in the middle, I got back to my normal angles I run but I just had a bit more power in the hands and Over that course of that race, a lot of people tend to get pretty tired as it gets near the end.
So to have a wing that's got a little bit more power, it just allows you to, instead of going Oh, it's a bit lighter. I'll just come up. It's I've still got power. I can just bear away and actually soak more than coming up on it. And that's always a better option in a downwind race. Definitely.
I was using a seven meter as well, which at the start you were, it was Oh, it's really windy. Maybe I don't need a big wing, but then yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad they did use it. It's cool how you have this is to keep the center straight a little bit shorter. You have that square end here.
It's also to keep the wingtips a little bit shorter proportionally. So we can add a bit more area without going as wide. So if you look at our 6 1, a small difference there between actual wingspan. And allowing that there allows the working section, which is the section closest to the frame to be a little bit wider and actually gain some power through there.
So these have been super efficient and they just get you up in those super light conditions and get you racing. Okay. Yeah, so I guess just more power in the middle by making it exactly. So if you think about it, like that's your, on average, your longest part of a wing. So if you can expand that a little bit wider, and you can get the power through this section, and here you can get more square area.
In that main section of the wings, you don't have to push out the tips and you don't have to add another strut out here to give the extra support because you've got it in the middle there. And then we're using it with these handles, these same handles. I guess that's standard. That's our standard handles.
Yeah, so cool. So and then what would you say, in terms of what's the most important, I, in my opinion, it's For the foil is the most important because that's what determines your top speed you're like What's a comfortable speed you can ride but then obviously the wing provides the power so You need a power good powerful wing, but I would say that's probably come second to the foiler What would you say and then the board is probably third Yeah, it's I think they all play a part together Like it's a combination of things put together if you have the wrong board and you can't get up you're not right yeah there's a whole lot of strategical decisions and things Yeah, different.
Different setup feel feels nicer in the geometry and the difference between the foil and the trap and the deck Angle makes a massive difference. So having those and all combined together Can make a big difference on your riding experience foil and mask I was up to a 103. 5 mast is what I raced across my channel on.
And it was just so that gave me that extra, when you're coming down those cranking swells, you've just got that little bit extra to play. Yeah. Height. Gives you a little bit of reaction time to keep you from breaching it. A hundred percent. Yeah. And then, so would you like, and that's another question I have the closer you are to the surface of the water with the foil, the more efficient it is.
Yeah. But then with a longer mass. Just like a lot of times when I'm out there, even though I have a pretty long mask, I'm still pretty low to the surfaces for the safety, like safety surfing it a lot of times, especially when you're going fast. Is that kind of what you do, or do you always try to be as high as you can on the mask kind of thing?
I try to get as high as I can. I get to a certain point, there's a risk versus reward. It's like anything, any foil you ride, any mast you ride, it's always that risk versus reward of like how high top speed versus how comfortable am I at that speed. If you can ride a faster speed, but you're losing control every couple of minutes, like a crash is a minute of your time.
If you think about it your speed can drop off a few if you can actually have a setup that you can ride and it can make you a cross in that, in a cleaner run. Yeah. We didn't have a nuking one, but if it is nuking out there, you do get faces that are completely vertical. Coming out the back of them, it's like coming through a surf break.
You come through and you can completely breach out the front of them as they're crashing or as they're cresting at the top. Yeah, I find that if you're overtaking a bump, it's like you have to almost push your nose down and stay really low and not cause, yeah.
And that's where good boards are important because as you touch down, if that board touches down and just hits the lip and keeps riding off, you're fine. But if it sticks or if it grabs, when you're just trying to stay low coming through that bump, it makes a big difference. The wing for sure. Especially in downwind races, these bigger wings is you've always got that power.
Like you want that power. It's one of those things any down window, you're going for a down window from Vito down to here, or even doing a down window on Maui. If the wind dies or the wind ladens off, you wanna be able to get home. So going that one size, extra bigger than you would for a regular back and forth session for a down window is.
Yeah, another reason is to that once you bear off the wind you have less effective wind in your wing, right? So you actually need more power to have that angle, so yeah makes sense So yeah, let's talk a little bit about the board like what board we're using in the Molokai race I was using my 48 liter wing board You have one of those here?
Oh wow, so yeah, that's a pretty small board for for racing, eh? Exactly. Would you say, yeah? That was much smaller than I probably should have been using. It was what I had and what I was traveling with. I definitely, looking at it, it's probably now, from what I know, I'd probably be on a 65 Midland.
This guy here. And this is what I probably should have ridden just a little bit extra a few like a few more litres It's gonna get me up a little bit easier middle of the channel. It's got a little bit more length in it So it's gonna glide and get up a little bit quicker. So this would have been my board of choice For the crossing.
Yeah, you just didn't have it on the day of the race. Exactly. Yeah, that's one of those things It's what you travel with and I travel with this and I ride this all the time. So I am quite dialed in Yeah, and then you can use it in anything, like waves racing. And that's what I was doing, I did some wave stuff.
Even if you really have to, you can prone it too, as a board. If you've gone, if you've come there and you're like, Oh sweet, okay, I've got this board, at least I can still get out on the water. Yeah. No matter what. And then, when you were riding at the hatchery last before the show, were you using this board or you had to using that board.
This board, yeah. So that's your go to, huh? Yep. And that one's 48 liters. How many liters is that one? 65. Okay, so we've got about 17 liters difference So yeah, and that makes a big difference if the wind is light and you don't have to get to the surface first Exactly. Especially those sort of wings, like once you get them moving with this sort of board You can go down pretty light and still be able to get up.
Pretty crucial And also just less drag and yeah, and I made that big real, I made that big realization when I was You know I had a GoPro on my board and I came down and it knocked the GoPro and I fix the GoPro and I was just outside the harbour in Maui and what happens is I fix the GoPro, went sweet, went to go back up again but didn't realise I was running fully on apparent and there was no wind to get back up again so I swam from the outside of the harbour.
Oh. All the way into the inside there and it was like a 40 minute paddle and that was when I was like, This is where that mid length would be really nice right now. This is where I could have got up in this light of breeze. Yeah, was that like the day before the Molokai race? The Maui to Molokai race?
Yeah. Yeah, that same thing happened to me. I fell like right outside the harbor and then I couldn't get going again for a while. It was really light right there, huh? Yeah. And that's what makes it a bit light. Yeah, that's where it's nice to have a bigger board. Yeah. Let's talk about the foils, like the foils you were using, and the, Yeah, so I was using a Wanna go up to the, check out the different foils?
Okay, so we're gonna talk a little bit about the foils I guess your, what you're usually using in the, in at the hatchery, what you would use on a race, and so on. Yeah, sounds good. That's my normal mast length, an 8. 65. And I was riding a 103. 5 for the race. Yeah. A big difference in height.
It doesn't look like that much but it makes a huge difference. Exactly. The feel is totally different, yeah. It's amazing that sort of, you from here down, that's your real height because you're almost running at maximum at that height all the time. And especially when you've got some extra waves that just makes a big difference.
It also makes a big difference in recovery. Because you drop, you get enough time to bring it back up again. When it's a real short mast, unless it's super short under 60 centimeters, sort of 50, in the 50s, then you can recover. Because the board, the nose never drops far enough, but anything where the pitch angle can be big enough, like what you get on these 865s and even the 103.
5, it's nice to have that extra height to just, out of it and compensate, yeah. Yeah, that's my truth. It's, a lot of times when you crash, it's not from, like you, sometimes you, it's like when you come back up again, like you hit the water, and then as you come back up, you can't recover back and the longer matches give you that much play.
A hundred percent. So I always ride a TC60 Fuse with this here's our fuses here I run a 60 Fuse, the guys behind the boat run a 50 Fuse, and and there's sometimes for Some of the disciplines or learning you get into a 70 fuse, but it's more 70 fuse Just gives you a little bit more pitch stability and front to back And sometimes you can run smaller tails, which allows you to carve a little quicker But still have that like forward to back pitch control But I rode the 60 fuse and that's pretty much the standard for Everything I do is on this thing.
Yeah. That's that. 60 fuselage, okay. And then, when we come to foils, we come over this to the side. MA625. Is the, Is what I ride on a daily basis. When I was at the hatch the other day, That was what I was on. Yeah. And that's the one that Cash was using at J Bay to ride these huge waves to. Which is So the potential and what it can do in the different days, And, Yeah, it's interesting too because it's Actually a fairly simple design.
There's nothing super fancy about it. Not super high aspect Not yeah, it's just a but it just does everything we want to do It allows us to rip it allows us to go fast. It keeps control You've got you got a nice roll. So there's a lot of potential that it has So yeah, and then this here is so last year I raced m2o on this.
Okay, so I did that and then this year You I did this, so I got a slightly wider span. And this. , which is gonna gimme a bit more, glide a little bit more there. And it's a five 80 and that's a 6 2 5 . So just more high aspect, just a bit more high aspect. These are like, the top end isn't as incredible on these, like you can't push them as fast.
But the glide and the potential for this downwind racing is what I needed and that's why running, I've even down winded this in the gorge, so I sub paddled it up and Oh wow. Had a, on a good day out here where it's real fun to rip the turns on. It's super playful. So you think this one actually has a higher top end speed, but this one is the kind of more comfortable at high speeds?
This one is more comfortable at high speed. This one can be pushed at high speed, but isn't as comfortable at pushed. But it gives me glide when that wind dies. And that's what I was like last year. A big lesson of like how I can glide the angle I can take and I got Rolled pretty hard from behind just down to leward by fin in the second half of the race and I was Like I really need something that I can actually just glide on my swells and actually capitalize on that so this is the kind of style we're in for there.
Cool All right So and then what are the other foils in the range you want to go over? Yes, sweet different foils, I just A speed 180 tail. That's my pretty standard option for any winging discipline in a sense. Unless I'm really cranking in the surf just because of the turning ability.
But, I put this with a red shim and I get my maximum speed potential. And it's super quick to ride. So the red shim is one degree. And that basically, it flattens out the angle. Exactly. You lose a little bit of pump, but you get a little bit more speed. So basically the angle between the front wing and the back wing is a little bit less, so it has less drag.
Yeah, it's even not between that, but even on this, the section flattens out. So then you can get more speed off that 180 tail. It just adds a little bit, it does, you do get a little bit less stability in a sense, on a small degree. And you lose a little bit of pumping when you shim it.
Okay. But, you get that extra speed potential, and that's what I love to ride when I wing and do freestyle and Wave ride. It's this. If I'm purely wave riding, and it's solid swell, or I'm towing or anything like that, it's the 180. Or the 140, sorry. It's still the speed one, yeah? Oh, the dart. The dart. The dart, and I put a blue shim on this one for me.
That's my preference. Just cause I like a little bit more speed potential, but it's already a fast enough tail. I want the control and I don't want to lose all my pump out of the tail. And then sometimes having, a little bit more angle also makes it easier to turn, right? Yeah. Okay.
So we go, the surf is still what the guys are all using behind the boat glides really good for flat water paddle ups. Pump 202 gives you that stability when you're jumping off the dock. So it gives you a little bit extra time to get onto the foil, get over the top of it and get pumping. And it's amazing.
It might only give you a small fraction of a second, but it's enough to make a big difference. Then we've got the 300, which is just super stable getting into it, going to provide that stability through learning new tacks, learning new jibes. Or your progression, and then a flow 2 3 5 as you're transitioning down from the S1 300 into your next other tail options.
Yeah. Yeah, and for those, the kind of beginner guys out there, don't start on one of these. There's more tails, yeah. There's definitely more advanced stuff, yeah. Okay. L. O. Rig. So ARMY came up with this and when I first heard about it I was like, Alloy, we've done carbon all this time, what are we doing?
And it wasn't until I saw the product and had a conversation with ARMY that I was like, Wow, this, he didn't come to corners. Like making alloy rigs with titanium fittings. Corrosion exactly and giving like everything that it comes with when you arrive in a box It's got all the washers that you could need for if you take this apart and replace it You can put a new washer on each time And it just allows you to get into the system into the Armstrong system at a better price point Yeah, much less expensive.
Exactly carbon mass and fuselage exactly and it's gonna have its difficulties because it's not your carbon setup It's not as the section is a Your 17 mil in thickness here in comparison to a performance mask where you are 14. So there's a big difference there. It's lower. But and you have your corrosion there.
I could sit my carbon mask together for years and it's still boom, take it off. This over time Army's done an incredible job with all the fittings, everything like that. How you can take it apart you can keep this whole setup together. It is. Advised to take off the front wing. I wanted to ask you about the wings too, because you were on a three meter wing when a lot of guys were on like two fives or two tiny wings, yeah?
Yes, we can chat about that, so yeah, so at the hatchery I was filming you and I think most of the Armstrong team was on the three meter wing when it was blowing super hard and a lot of the, a lot of the locals were on like two meter or two and a half meter wings, really tiny wings.
So I just was wondering like, what's and you do have a 2. 6. So what's the difference and why were you using the three meters? I like a little bit more power on average. I love the hang time it gives me here and coming down a little bit softer. The smaller wings, I love to switch with those guys when we're out there and actually freestyle becomes a lot easier when we go to smaller wings.
But, I love a little bit extra power. It's gotta be, when I jump, I'm not gonna come down a lot. It's a weight difference, when those guys come down with their weight, it's a lot lighter, so they can just come down softly. Whereas this here, is they've got so much power in their hands that they can just I have to go up and then coming down.
If I come down to smaller wing, I just dropped too fast.
Okay. Thanks, Aiden. Thanks so much. Appreciate your time and your knowledge, sharing the knowledge. So good luck and probably see you again next year at the Molokai race. Yeah, no, it'd be great. I'm looking forward to another year and see what happens. All right. Thanks for watching.
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Robert Stehlik introduces Dave Kalama as a pioneer in various water sports, including windsurfing, surfing, towing, and foiling. Dave’s innovations have significantly influenced these sports, making them more accessible to the masses. He is currently at the forefront of designing advanced foiling boards widely used by athletes worldwide.
The Essence of Design and Innovation
Dave shares his perspective on designing foiling boards. For him, the goal has always been to create the best boards possible, focusing on the challenge of innovation rather than mass adoption. He reflects on the joy of seeing people use his designs but emphasizes that his primary motivation has been to refine and improve the boards in the shaping room.
Evolution of Stand-Up Foiling
Dave discusses the rapid growth of stand-up foiling, particularly in downwind racing, and his role in designing the long, narrow boards that have become standard. He recounts the initial challenges and iterative process of developing these boards, initially aimed at prone foilers but eventually proving successful for stand-up paddling. This evolution has made the sport more accessible and enjoyable for a broader audience.
Challenges and Learning Curves
The development of these boards wasn’t straightforward. Dave describes the numerous iterations and frustrations along the way. It took years to perfect the design, with moments of doubt and pauses in the project. However, the persistence paid off as he eventually found the right combination of length and width to make the boards efficient and stable.
Importance of Paddle Technique
Dave highlights the importance of paddle technique in stand-up foiling. He explains that as boards became narrower, the paddle became the primary source of stability. This shift in mindset allowed paddlers to handle narrower boards effectively. He advises those new to the sport to focus on learning proper paddle techniques, possibly by taking classes like those offered by Jeremy Riggs.
The Future of Foiling and Equipment Evolution
Dave reflects on how the foiling sport has evolved, particularly with the introduction of high-aspect wings that prioritize speed over ease of use. He notes that while these wings have made the sport more competitive, they have also reduced the number of prone foilers due to the physical demands required to use them effectively.
Personal Connection to Traditional Stand-Up Paddling
Despite his focus on foiling, Dave still enjoys traditional stand-up paddling and longboarding. He talks about the simplicity and fun of these activities, which provide a contrast to the intensity of foiling. He also reminisces about the early days of stand-up paddling, appreciating how much easier and more fun foiling has made these activities.
Competition and the Changing Landscape
Dave acknowledges the competitive nature of foiling races today, noting how the level of competition has increased dramatically. While he still enjoys racing, his work commitments have made it difficult to train adequately. He discusses the challenges of competing against younger, fitter athletes who are using increasingly advanced equipment.
Balancing Work and Passion
Dave’s current focus is on his work, which often requires travel and limits his ability to compete. He mentions how he still finds ways to support others in the sport, sharing his knowledge and experience. While he would like to race again, he recognizes the importance of balancing work and personal passions.
Legacy and Family Influence
Dave shares his family background, explaining how his Hawaiian heritage and his father’s surfing accomplishments influenced his path. Growing up in Southern California, he developed a love for the ocean and water sports, eventually leading him to Maui, where his passion for windsurfing and later foiling flourished.
The Early Days of Windsurfing
Dave recounts his early days in windsurfing, describing how his parents’ gift of a windsurfer for his high school graduation sparked his interest. Moving to Maui at 20, he was initially a beginner but quickly advanced by surrounding himself with skilled windsurfers. This environment allowed him to excel in the sport and eventually turn professional.
Conclusion
Dave Kalama’s journey is one of relentless innovation, passion, and dedication to water sports. From his early days in California to becoming a leading figure in foiling design, his contributions have significantly shaped the sports he loves. While his focus may have shifted towards work and family in recent years, his influence on the sport continues through his designs and the athletes who use them.
This summary captures the essence of Dave Kalama’s insights, experiences, and contributions to water sports, particularly in the field of foiling.
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In this video our wing foil crew consisting of Derek, Matt, Kevin and Robert talk about our experience crossing the Ka'iwi channel between Molokai and Oahu in the 2024 M2O Foil edition race. Summary of our conversation:The Blue Planet Show hosts Derek, Kevin, and Matt discuss their experiences in the Molokai to Oahu (M2O) race. They also touch on their participation in the Maui to Molokai and Molokai Holokai races that took place prior. The conversation delves into various aspects of the M2O race, from the preparation, strategy, and execution, to personal anecdotes and lessons learned from the experience. Pre-Race Preparation • Arrival and Setup: Upon arriving in Maui, the team loaded their equipment onto a U-Haul and participated in the Maui to Molokai and Molokai Holokai races before gearing up for the M2O race on Sunday.• Starting Point Decision: The team made strategic decisions about where to start the race, choosing Iliopoint on the north side of Molokai over the previous year’s starting point at Kalua Koi. This decision was driven by the desire to find better wind conditions and a more challenging start. The Race Begins • Derek’s Perspective: Derek describes flying around and capturing footage of the race participants as they prepared for the start. He highlights the SUP racers waiting with their escort boats and the wingers readying themselves with safety equipment like VHF radios and EPIRBs. The race began with strong winds and favorable conditions.• Matt’s Take: Matt appreciated the choice of starting at Iliopoint, finding the wind conditions stronger than the previous year’s practice crossing. He was pleased with his performance in the beginning, feeling adequately powered up. In-Race Challenges and Experiences • Kevin’s Journey: Kevin shared a vivid account of his race, including his partnership with Pilot John. Initially, they stuck together, but as the race progressed, John insisted Kevin leave him behind. Kevin eventually pushed ahead, feeling both guilty and exhilarated as he completed the race without falling. He reflected on the difficulty of staying together as a team in such challenging conditions.• Team Dynamics: The team aspect added a unique challenge, as staying together meant one person had to wait every time the other fell. This increased the likelihood of both participants falling, making it a tricky balance to maintain.• Winning the Unofficial Team Competition: Matt and his partner Reza, along with Kevin and Pilot John, managed to win the unofficial team competition. Matt enjoyed sharing the experience with Reza, despite the difficulties in navigation and staying together. Navigational Strategies and Weather Conditions • Derek and Matt’s Routes: Derek and Matt both took different routes, with Matt opting to go further south in search of more wind. Derek noted that he had to zigzag due to the presence of escort boats, which affected his progress.• Light Winds and Tactical Decisions: The race saw varying wind conditions, with some parts of the course experiencing light winds. This forced the participants to make strategic decisions, like going south or tacking upwind to stay on foil. Both Derek and Matt emphasized the importance of these decisions, especially in the light-wind conditions in the middle of the race.• Boat Interference: Derek mentioned how escort boats, paddlers, and other traffic made it difficult to stick to the ideal line, as the boat wakes created additional challenges. The Final Stretch and Finish Line • Approaching Diamond Head: Matt recounted how, after a long stretch of not seeing anyone, he finally saw Derek near Diamond Head. Both were navigating through the final challenges of the race, with Derek having to deal with boat wakes and Matt focusing on maintaining his speed and avoiding falls.• Post-Race Reflections: The race finished with an awards ceremony, where winners like Nani in the women’s division were celebrated. The team reflected on their different approaches, routes, and the challenges they faced, like dealing with light winds and the psychological aspect of seeing the finish line but still having a long way to go. Lessons Learned and Future Plans • Kevin’s Takeaways: Kevin reflected on his gear choices, suggesting that he would choose a different foil and wing if he were to race again. He emphasized the importance of being better prepared and more competitive in the future.• Matt’s Reflections: Matt shared similar insights, noting that he should have chosen a bigger wing and a smaller foil. He also discussed the strategic aspect of choosing the southern route and his plans to compete solo next year.• The Unique Experience of Racing Without an Escort: The participants highlighted the unique and thrilling experience of racing without an escort boat. The feeling of being alone in the vast ocean, relying solely on their instincts and skills, added a profound dimension to the race. Closing Thoughts The conversation ended with a discussion about the mileage covered, with Rob noting that his route totaled 48 miles, which was longer than expected. The participants reiterated the challenges they faced, the strategies that worked, and the excitement of finishing such a demanding race. Conclusion The M2O race was a significant and memorable event for all participants. It tested their skills, endurance, and decision-making abilities in a challenging environment. The race not only provided a platform for competition but also offered valuable lessons and experiences that the participants will carry with them into future races.
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Welcome to the Blue Planet Show, where we’re recapping the 25th edition of the Molokai to Oahu race. This episode features Robert Stehlik, who recently won the 14-foot stock stand-up paddleboard (SUP) division. Robert is excited about his accomplishment, sharing insights into his experience during the challenging race.
Robert starts by discussing his back-to-back participation in the Molokai crossing, having raced on wingfoil boards the previous weekend. He highlights the challenging conditions, emphasizing the grind to get into the wind line and catch bumps to start moving forward. This year’s race had all divisions starting together, making it more interesting and competitive.
Robert reflects on the evolution of the sport, noting the fluctuating popularity of stand-up paddling and prone foiling. He mentions the international competitors, especially from New Zealand and Australia, who take the sport seriously from a young age. The start was at 8 a.m., earlier than the previous weekend’s foil start. Despite being the last paddler off the beach, Robert managed to catch up and enjoy the race.
Throughout the interview, Robert details his strategic approach to the race. He talks about the advantage of starting together with other divisions, making it more engaging to have competitors around. He recounts the early part of the race, where a Brazilian paddler on an unlimited board took an early lead, but Robert maintained his pace.
The conditions were tough, with minimal waves and challenging winds. Robert chose to stay in the wind shadow, which, despite being a longer route, proved advantageous against the headwinds. He mentions his training partners, Jimmy Marshdale and Roland, who also opted for the wind shadow and performed well.
Robert discusses his equipment, highlighting his 14-foot bump rider board and Kaizen V3 paddle. The board’s stability and the paddle’s design contributed to his success. He also shares his nutrition strategy, emphasizing the importance of hydration and calorie intake during the race. He used a combination of Tailwind (a nutrition mix) and regular water, supplemented with pickle juice shots to prevent cramping.
Reflecting on past races, Robert notes his previous experiences with cramping and how pickle juice has become a reliable remedy. For nutrition, he found that baby food squeeze packs worked well, providing easy-to-digest calories. This year, he skipped his usual Poi mix due to availability issues and found the baby food to be an excellent alternative.
Robert expresses surprise at being the only participant to compete in both the foil and stand-up paddle divisions. He expected more competitors to take on both challenges but acknowledges the significant time and financial commitment involved. He mentions notable athletes like James Casey and Kai Lenny, who might have been strong contenders in both categories.
Concluding the interview, Robert reflects on the demanding nature of stand-up paddling training compared to wing foiling. He appreciates the conditioning benefits from his long paddles, which also helped improve his wing foiling performance. Despite the sport’s fluctuating popularity, Robert remains passionate about stand-up paddling and its unique challenges.
Congratulations to Robert Stehlik for his impressive achievements in both divisions of the Molokai to Oahu race. Stay tuned for more exciting interviews and race recaps on the Blue Planet Show. Aloha!
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Most of the video footage featured in the YouTube video was shot by Derek Hama while he was wing foil racing. We talk about the experience of foil racing from Maui to Molokai and the Molokai Molokai race the following day. The previous weekend we competed in the Paddle Imua race, which was the first race of the Koa Kai triple crown race series. The M2M race had a big turnout with 120 SUP foil racers and over 40 wing foilers. The conditions were beautiful and unlike last year, the wind was blowing all the way to the finish, with the exception of a wind shadow behind the pier. Derek, Kevin, Matt and I discuss the race, the equipment we used, the conditions, and things we learned for next year. We hope you enjoy it, we will cover the Molokai to Oahu Foil race in next weeks video, so stay tuned for the M2O foil edition video! Find complete M2M race results here: https://www.pseresults.com/post/molokai-holokai-m2m-2024
Here is a recap of this video written by Chat GPT, not bad! :)
Epic Maui to Molokai Wing Foiling Adventure!
In this exciting episode from Blue Planet, Robert Stehlik and his friends from the O’ahu wing foiling crew share their incredible journey from Maui to Molokai and the subsequent Molokai Holokai race. The video captures stunning footage and provides insights into the experiences of the participants, making it a must-watch for foiling enthusiasts. The adventure begins with Derek, Kevin, and Matt, who join Robert for a long weekend in Maui. They kick off the trip with a Maliko run on Thursday, amidst light winds that soon pick up, setting a promising tone for the upcoming races. Derek captures captivating footage, while Kevin and Matt share their first-time experiences and the camaraderie that binds the group. Race day arrives with excitement and anticipation. The team dons pink shirts, fuels up, and heads to the starting line. The video showcases the impressive turnout, with 120 standup paddle foilers ready to race. Despite expecting lighter winds, the conditions turn out to be perfect, adding to the thrill of the race. Matt recounts his navigational challenges and the beauty of the surroundings, highlighting the unique aspects of the race. Derek, ever the team player, stops to help a fellow racer in distress, showcasing the spirit of sportsmanship that defines the event. This act of kindness, however, doesn’t deter his performance as he continues to capture amazing footage and finishes the race strong. The video transitions to the next day, featuring the Kamalo run along the Molokai coast. The smaller race allows the crew to enjoy a fast, exhilarating sprint. Robert and Matt discuss their equipment choices and strategies, emphasizing the importance of having the right gear for varying conditions. The camaraderie and shared experiences create a sense of unity and joy among the participants. One standout moment is Eli’s perseverance as he completes the race with a ripped center strut on his wing, demonstrating resilience and determination. The crew reflects on the challenges and learnings, with Matt humorously earning the nickname “Matt Hotfoot Tarini” for his barefoot escapades on Molokai’s hot asphalt. The video captures not just the competitive spirit but also the fun and enjoyment of the sport. Kevin’s reflections on the breathtaking views and the overall experience underline the essence of wing foiling – it’s not just about winning but also about the joy of being on the water and sharing moments with friends.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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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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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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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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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, 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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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. .
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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.
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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.
- Visa fler
