Alan Cadiz Wing Foil interview- Blue Planet Show Episode #3

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I hope you enjoyed this episode, more interviews coming soon!

 

Episode Transcript:

Aloha. It's Robert Stehlik with blue planet surf. Welcome to the third episode of the blue planet show all about Wingfoot foiling. And this episode is with Alan CodeHS and he is such an inspiration from the very early days of wing filing. He's put out great videos and content and all is always on the latest equipment.

So it's really cool to be able to talk to him about the history of our young sport. And I just wanted it to say, honestly, that, I'm a little bit of an introvert. So for me to be able to reach out to these people and ask all these questions and what I want to know about. Yeah. And all that from my home office in the garage is such a cool thing and I really enjoying it.

But to be honest, also, it is a lot of work to, set the appointments, prep for the interviews, film it, edit it, and then post it. So I'm not going to be able to do this on a weekly basis. But I'm shooting for every two to four weeks. I'm going to post a new show. This is my third show and I have another show lined up with Annie Reichert another interview coming up soon, and then I have a few more in in the works.

Definitely going to keep them coming, but just not on a weekly basis. And of course, if you can't watch this whole video on YouTube, it's, it is a long interview. You can also listen to it as a podcast and on Android or Apple devices, you just open your podcast app and search for the blue planet show, and you'll be able to listen to it while you're driving or doing chores and so on.

You can do other things while you're listening as well. So without further ado, please welcome the third guests to the blue planet show. Alan, Kunduz welcome to the show. It's great to have you. You've done so many great videos about wing filing and teaching people out to wink. I really appreciate that.

And thank you for joining me on the show. So can we start a little bit about your background and just tell us a little bit how, your background and how you got into wink foiling eventually. Thank you, Robert. Thank you for having me on the show. I've enjoyed your first step. So it's yeah, in a wing foiling for me, like so many people have been, life-changing, it's so addictive and my path to wing foiling has been by chance, really.

I come from a background of water sports But it turned out that my neighbor put together a wing to try on a foil board. Let me back up yeah start with how you grew up and all that, like way from the beginning. I'm from Kailua. Boy went to Caldwell high school grew up right near Kyla beach, just a short 32nd walk down to the beach and We lived in enchanted lakes when I was I think I went to third grade elementary, and then we moved down to the beach when I was 12 and it didn't take long before I started surfing.

And the neighbor had a Hoby cat that I had access to. And when I. Turned 18. I started wind surfing. I worked at Froome sailing company. I don't know if you remember that little boat store, as you come into Kyla. And Dean was my mentor in the early days, taught me how to sail, set me up with my first wind surfer.

Gave me time off to go winging or sorry, wind surfing. When the wind was up on and back then wind surfing was the rage, the addiction. And I. I went to college, but then I dropped out so that I could go wind surfing. I had a opportunity to go to Malaysia, to compete for Neil pride back then. And I thought this opportunity doesn't come along too often.

I'm going to take a semester off and go to Malaysia and wind surf. And that turned into about a 10 year career in wind surfing, competitive wind surfing. And I ended up on Maui. The wind is so strong over here. I came over for a month to a two Winser for a month prior to one of the contests. And after the contest was over, I was pretty settled in and there wasn't any need to rush home and ended up staying on Maui on.

And I had spent a number of years training and competing and, but I wondered, am I going back to college? What am I going to do? And I fumbled into teaching wind surfing and discovered I had a knack for it. And before too long, had a nice little business going teaching.

High-end wind surfing, mainly jiving and water starting. But then people wanted to have their family and friends learn. So I started a beginner program and. The school grew. I've been based in high-tech surf sports for the last 30 years, but I worked with the majority of the shops here on Maui, teaching their clientele, the different water sports.

So windsurfing was the main thing, but of course, when there was no wind, we'd teach them just going back to Kailua, growing up in Kayla. That was when Robbie nationals grew up in Kailua too. So did you went surf together with those guys? Robbie and Pete Cabrina and those guys, or? Funny, he has Pete Cabrini lived right next door, right over the next fence.

Yeah. And I remember watching him wind surf and doing his first jumps and he. He was shaping boards and he was an inspiration. So I thought, okay, I gotta do this too. Robbie traveled in different circles. He was a little bit younger and it seemed to me he was always off on tour, but he brother, I went to school with his brother and Randy.

Yeah. And we were partners in crime going over to windsurf diamond head. And I spent more time with Robbie. I'm sorry with Randy. Okay. Okay. So when, or how did the transition to wing foiling happened? Actually? Do you still windsurf or are you just mostly wing foiling now? Not so much wind surfing.

I still run the wind surf school, although COVID has changed that right now, but my daughter is more into wind surfing than whinging. Although I'm trying to convert her to wing surfing on. From wind surfing kite surfing came along and that was all the rage. So I jumped into that and I live the kite surfing, eat, sleep tight surf, eat, sleep, kite surf did some competitions and did the whole peak, but then got over it and got more into sub paddling.

We did a lot of sub. In fact, I got a picture here I can share. Yeah let's do some screen sharing. So we get a little bit of more visual stuff too. This was, we did a lot of competition. I don't know how many hundreds of Kosta runs I've done from a LICO down to Kahoot Harbor. Wouldn't be the equivalent of Hawaii, Kai to diamond head kind of thing on.

That looks like one of the early SAC boards. Is that the one? No it's styrofoam, but yes, you're right. It's one of Mark rapper, horse SIC boards or sandwich Island construction. Yeah. And Mark is good. Friend of mine known him for decades. He and I, we did the sup paddling and then Kailani.

Showed up with that sup board with the foil on it, that kind of rocked the world. And we looked at that and we're like, wow, that looks so cool. And backing up a couple of weeks from that video review Mark, perhaps worse. And my neighbor, Ken winter, and I were having dinner. And after a couple of bottles of wine, we've talked about.

Taking one of Ken's foils and putting it on my board and Mark would do the classwork and we thought about, okay, we're going to do this. We're going to put the foil on the set board and we're going to try it out. And it never happened. And about two weeks later, Kai comes out with that video of him going down the coast now putting it together as one thing, but making it work, what Kyle did was exceptional, and I don't know if we would've had the.

I don't think, I don't think we would have stuck with it as hard as it was, but after watching him, we were inspired. So we did get some foil boards, both Ken and Mark. And I, we got the foil boards and we started going from Alico when it was blowing 25, 30 knots. And right away, we learned it was really hard.

And I had no foil experience and people were telling me, Oh, you got to learn behind a boat. You got to learn in the surf. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. I just want to do it going down the coast. And I was convinced I could do it. And eventually I got a LICO 200 and I could do it and I could stay up for hundreds of yards at a time.

And at that point, everyone else was getting pretty good. I can remember one episode where we went. Was that on a really long race board, or what kind of board were you using at that time? At that point we were using I think they were like eight foot sup boards and we were just starting to figure out, and these were Mark was making them custom boards.

We're just starting to figure out that the shorter, the board, the more easier it was to pump you didn't have that swing weight up front right on. We were getting smaller and smaller boards. And I have another picture here. Let me see if I can cue it up here. This board here. This was my latest sup board that Mark had shaped for me.

I think it was just under six feet. That's about 85 liters had just the front strap, which I use to help pull up on the board, trying to get up on foil. And so it was about this time. That we were trying to go down the coast and having some success. Ken winner was right there with us and he actually was a skilled foiler.

He could win sir foil. He could kite foil, but sup foil was tough for him. And the board he had was 130 liter fiberglass board. It was pretty heavy. And trying to pump that up on foil was really taking its toll on his shoulders. One afternoon he was out there in the driveway with this little inflatable wing and, we had seen wings have been around for a long time.

And Ken winter is your neighbor, right? So you can see him in his, in your neighbor's driveway playing around with his inflatable toy. Yes. A little background on Ken he's been involved in wind surfing and water sports, his whole life. I first met him in Kailua and the, I think it was 1981 or 1982 Pan-Am windsurfing world cup.

And he actually won the event. So I didn't really know him. I knew he was the winner. Kan winner was the winner. And then later on, when I went on tour, I competed with him the number of different venues. But he's always stayed with it as a board designer. Is that kite designer, windsurf designer, and probably the last few years more kite surfing.

So he's he's getting new prototypes all the time out there, testing them in the Maui waters and the of wind. And so I knew he had access to, to prototypes. So anyway, he's out there with this inflatable wing and my first impression it was something like you'd get at K-Mart, a little blow up toy.

And I thought, what is he doing with that? Can you explain that he was going to use it to get up on foil and go down the coast with us? And I thought he really wants to be out there with us. And then the entertainment began, we'd go out and Alico. And Mark and I would make a left turn and head towards Colley Harbor, and Ken would be going out to see like, where's he going?

He'd go over the horizon before we'd see him. And then we'd seen him coming back and I didn't know it at the time, but he had a hard time. I'm going deep, a goofy foot. He needed to switch to regular foot to go deep or to go straight down, wind. And so it was difficult for him and he didn't like most of us, we go to the Flatwater spot, in the Harbor or maybe down to canola, I think on a wahoo, you go over to where is it near Pearl Harbor.

I've seen some videos that K lagoon Island. Yeah, that's a good, big, beautiful spot there. So remember we're going out in 25, 30 knots, and he's trying to figure out how to go down wind. And it was entertaining for Mark and he had incredible yard sales where it's like, Oh, is he okay? Wait.

Okay. Yeah, I see him. He's back on his board. Did our, Oh no, he's lost his wig. You'll give chance. We'll get the ring. And that happened a few times. And so this went on, I think it was may of 18 when you start. So not that long ago, really think about how quickly the sports progressed. That's true. So it was later towards the fall that Mark and I were waiting for him.

And I saw him coming down the swell and he was surfing right. And surfing, left and surfing. And each time he would turn the wing. And I just looked down. I said, that is poetry in motion. I'm ready to try this. And at the end of the run he let me try it. And I fumbled out and fumbled in.

But just that short little run, I got to my feet and got it going for a few seconds. And I'm like, okay, I want to try this some more. So that first wing was that like a prototype made by duotone or was it like who, how, who made it and how was it made, built and stuff like that? Duotone has a factory and they, I'm not even sure where it is in Asia or wherever they make their product.

And he dials up a plan on his computer, sends it off via email and a short time later he's the FedEx truck is pulling up. Okay. So that first one, did it have a boom, like the wing foil or very first one had a stretch on it. Okay. And the, they had sewn some webbing on it. That was so flimsy that just after a couple, three or four runs, the webbing has had peeled off.

Not, it just deteriorated. And then his first one with a boom, I'm not sure what he did. I think he went to the hardware store and he bought a mop or something and removed the, he had the dowel and the little brackets, and then he had lashed those brackets on. And then not too long after that, he was getting a guy here on Maui to 3d print a front end.

It was about that time that I took an interest in wanting to try it. So we went down to canola and the first day I, like so many of us that got my knees were rubbed raw and what I was getting rides and I was staying up wind. And remember, I'd come to the sport with knowing how to foil and.

Knowing how to sail both wind surf and kite surf. So the wing was pretty intuitive for me and knowing how to foil it came together. And I'm sure I've seen other people just step on and go right from the beginning, but Yeah, I think you have the background in wind surfing and you know how to use a foil, then it's a very easy transition.

That's what Zane was saying too. Like the very first time he jumped on it, he was already trying to backflip and civic guts. Yeah, but that's in St. Schweitzer. So yeah. Anyway, the first few the first, second day I tried it, I fell on the boom and broke the front end, the 3d 3d printed front end.

And I said, Ken, I can make one that won't break. I've got a TIG welder. And I welded up as simple front end and we were able to lash that on and that that made a huge difference. In the tightness of the rig now, coming from a windsurf background, I've always preferred the boom.

It just feels more natural to hold the boom on. And I think Ken he's do a tone, has a couple of different models. They have the unit which has the wing, the handles as well. But I prefer the echo style. Yeah. I'm the same way. Cause this is my windsurfing background.

I really liked the boom. And just being able to move your hands around and describe the boom without looking for the handle and stuff like that. But I guess recently I started using wings with handles too, and I kinda got used to that. And there's some advantages to to that, to the handles. I think one thing about the duo Tom booms is that they're add quite a bit of weight to the wing.

And you do notice that when you try a later wing. They are coming out with a new model here soon, but the time by the time this interview airs, I think they'll have announced their new product. And I've got some video of that. Yeah, let's talk about that new that's the duotone slick wing, right? We've already seen the videos and stuff of it, which is an interesting concept.

So it combines a an inflatable struck with a stiff boom kind of attached to it. Yes, let me see. So it's the slick incorporates the boom into the strep. One of the it's a lot lighter. Yeah. I don't know all the details, but I can tell you that the length of the boom here is the same for all the different sizes.

I think they're going to go from a two and a half meter all the way up to a seven meter. With half increments. So four, four, five, five Oh five, five, et cetera, on. And the same boom will fit all the models. So you can just buy one boom for your quiver, or you can buy a boon for each one. Now they also come in carbon as well as the aluminum and the aluminum boons are gonna have a little bit of a oval shape to them, which are very comfortable on your hands.

And it gives you a sense of where the wing is without looking at it, what position that wing is in. I know that the carbon one is about a half a pound lighter than the aluminum one and just the size of it is going to be considerably lighter than the echo. And the boom just slides into these nylon pouches on the front and back, I guess it looks like it.

Yes. Now the, when you S when you look at that front, let me see if I can get a little bit better angle here that front attachment that's going to be changed slightly. There's there's going to be some padding, some webbing straps that actually Velcro to hold that in. Apparently the guys in Europe, when they were doing tricks, where they back winded that was coming loose.

So they've modified it. This is it. This is actually not a production wing. It's one of the prototypes with the logos on it. So there's still a few more changes to make, but for the most part, this is what the wings will look like. So I'm wondering you're saying the boom is the same length for all sizes.

So on the bigger wings, have you. Like sometimes I like to put my hand way in the back, like when you're doing a duck jive tag type of turn or or going steep up when you, you want to put your hand way back sometimes. Is it, do you ever feel like you want to put your hand further back then the boom goes or does that no, it's not an issue because the wing is so much tighter.

That the range of sheeting in and sheeting out is very tight. It's very tight wing. I don't think I haven't had that problem. So how does it feel on the wave when you're luffing it behind you? Attracts really nice, better than the unit was. I haven't written the unit.

I'm sorry. I meant echo the echo, the one. Yes. It's better than the echo. Now that the, if you think of the center strut as on, but the center stride is like the keel in the wind, or like the tail on a kite, it's going to keep the wing pointed into the wind because the strut acts like the rudder echo never had that.

And that's one reason why it oscillated so much. Oh yeah. That makes sense. You have to remember a little bit back in. It was 18 that can started and the fall of 18 on it started to get out in videos and social media. And all of a sudden everyone was interested, not just Enthusiasts, but manufacturers, can you make a little video of it?

Like action or dispensary? So one of the Delta things with, unlike the echo with the center, strut, it floats. Now if you're used to, that's nothing new. If you're using a wing that on has a center structure. But it's really nice compared to the echo when it sits on the water. It doesn't say that the bloom doesn't sink in when the wind catches it.

Yeah. That's nice. Now, when do you think this will be actually in ready in the stores? When can we get our first shipment at blue planet? You're asking the wrong guy here. That's the one thing that's been frustrating me with the duo times is they're kinda hard to get and hard to know when we can actually get them, I think it's not just do a Tom.

I think some of it can be chalked up to, the worldwide pandemic, they had to shut their factories down just like we did to, shut our restaurants down and on the supply chain was effected. I know that they were having trouble getting cloth. And this is just secondhand information I'm hearing from my neighbor.

I think he did tell me that they have produced a number of units already. But then there's shipping, if it's coming by boat and you heard about that content container ship that went down well, not went down, but all the containers fell over. Yeah. Apparently high-tech had a number of F1 wings.

In one of those containers. Oh, wow. So a lot of products was lost there. So it's, I don't know if it's just duo tone. Maybe the other manufacturers have different sources, but no, it's the same. I guess ozone has their own factory, so they're Little bit more it's more clear, like how long it's going to take and when they're going to ship it and stuff like that, you can, it's easier to predict, but yeah, I know.

I know. Everybody's I know just the materials you have to order six months in advance. So this is a video that I put together with the little GoPro speedometer. And what I can tell you about the performance of these wings is that they are head and shoulders better than anything I've written.

They're super tight. They go up wind unbelievable that the outline. You know that they have a square shape, so that wing tip, you can bring it right down low to the water. And it's really efficient. If the wing tip does catch, it clears really easily. Yeah. They're really tight. Now this is a four or five though that I'm using.

And this was just a couple of days ago. The wind's been cranking here. And I was really powered up with this four or five or 20 miles per hour. That's pretty fast. So that's a port or starboard. Tack is my weak side. I'm a regular foot. So this is my stronger side. And this is costly Harbor that we're looking at.

Turn the sound down. Whoa, there you go. At 26 miles per hour. That's. Yeah, that's impressive. What foil are you using? What, yeah. What do you have any advice on the foils on I'm using a GOFO? Gofoil on, I have all their I have a lot of the different models on I mentioned earlier. I have the 200, that's where I started and it's where I start.

When I'm teaching people, I use the 200 on. I also have the GL series as well as the NLS and the one I'm writing in this video is it's actually a custom on towing. I think Al's only made a few. I think he, he gave one to some of the big wave to tow surfers on the North shore of Oahu. Slick. I heard about that.

I think Derek Hamas, Saki has one of those, maybe I think I've seen it.

So it's not one that's I don't know if he's planning to bring that to market. Let's see 28 miles an hour was your top speed. It looked like that's pretty, pretty amazing. Yeah. Now here's another wing. This is from more recently and it's turn the sound down. This is one of the prototypes.

From several months ago I'm lucky enough that can, let's meet, use some of the older the stuff that didn't make the cut and, he'll make a wing and he'll figure out, okay, this works really well. And this doesn't work so well. And there's been a number of people on Maui that have been recipients of the seconds on the really bad ones end up in the trash.

The really good ones he keeps. And then some of the others like this one, and this is a three-three and it's blowing. Gosh, it was gusting up to 40 this day. And my first run, the wing was under inflated. My wife was using it. I don't think she pumped it up hard enough. So I came back and pumped it up and then did another run.

Now the foil that I'm using is I don't think it's going to be available unless out puts it into production, but he is working on another wing that another foil that is foils are underwater wings are in the air working on another foil. That is considerably faster. He, let me take a run on it and I didn't have the speedometer when I used it.

But it felt really fast. I'm hoping he'll get me one of those when they come into production. Yeah. And then, I guess faster foils are usually smaller surface area and thinner profile, that's and then. More high aspect type of shape. Is that what makes them fast?

Would you say? Or what's how did it look? Smaller, thinner equals speed, but of course you're going to need more wind and more skill to get up the speed to get going and get up on the foil. Yeah. One thing that I've found now, when I first started teaching, I had them LICO two 80.

I don't know if you have one of those. Yeah. That was like super bouncy when they went on the original mass, right? Yeah. I read that in the early days. The two 80 I thought would be really good for teaching people and it does foil it about a walking speed, but there's so much drag that you really have to push the thing hard.

And for people who are, excuse me, for people who are just learning, how to use the wing, trying to power that wing, to push the board up on foil it. And actually the 200 people did better on the 200 because they, there was less drag and they could get it up to foil speed easier. And what I've found is that in my own learning, as I've graduated down in smaller and smaller wings, that.

The tiny wing does take more speed to get going, but there's less drag to push it through the water. So it seems like you can get up to that takeoff speed. Easier. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Makes sense. Yeah, I've got that same experience. So when you say you still use the Maliko 200 for teaching people how to wing.

Yeah. Yes. Now I did do one modification. I cut the mass down from 24 to 15 inches. Oh, wow. 15 inch mass. Okay. Yeah. And that's nothing new, there's been other foil manufacturers that have made different mass lengths for beginners. Is it safer to, right? You don't when you breach it on crashes from as high, sorry.

Yes. In fact, when it does breach it's a rude drop, but usually. They'll maintain enough speed to kick it back right up again. And the importance, you know of not too high, not too low. That makes sense. Do you have so many good videos teaching how to, to wing foil and and then yeah, actually also you're you have that Patrion channel and to sign up for this yesterday and it's really cool.

I don't know if you mind me sharing some of these posts, but I guess yeah, if you pay like $5 a month or so. You can choose what, how much you want to contribute, but then you get access to all these really detailed tech, technical videos on how to wing foil, which is really cool. Like this one here about attacking.

I watched yesterday and it's I'm going to turn off the sound here, but it just has really good instructions. I have to say. It's ex what really well done, Alan, and And yeah. So if you're learning how to wink fun, I guess that's something too, like maybe talk a little bit about how the pandemic has affected your business and, like how you transitioned to doing more of this kind of virtual coaching and things like that.

Sure. Thank you. I I've been running the winter school since 85. No. I came to Maui to wind surf, but like I said, I skipped college and I wasn't sure what I was going to do. And I fell into to what I love to do. And that's teach wind surfing, then develop the business and it's grown over the years.

We've diversified into

surfing and kiting and sup and although wind surfing and sup is our bread and butter. I'm sorry. Windsurfing. Kiting is our bread and butter. When foiling came along on it sorry. It's just, the video is distracting me when when foiling came along wing foiling on, I thought, Oh, this is something I could teach in the school.

And you remember Ken, he had this stream of prototypes coming into the neighborhood here and. People were really intrigued by foiling that's my wife, they were really intrigued by foiling and they wanted to do it. And Robert business was really good. I was the only one that had the wings, none of the shops there were, there was nothing available by them yet.

Yeah. So I was sharing the wings and giving lessons and turning people on anyone that asked, I'd let them try it. And we were poised on. I was getting boards and sales and training instructors, and we were poised to, teach wing surfing and then COVID hit and changed everything.

Shut everything down, turned Maui into a car park, full of tourist cars on all of the restaurants were closed and we just hunkered down. We went to Costco's everybody else and load it up and So during this downtime, besides doing the house maintenance and the things that everyone did, I thought that I would put together some videos or do a video on this is how we teach wind foiling.

And that was, I don't know if you have that one. That's a, it's on YouTube. It's my daughter's to star on, but that one put it up and. This one very hard to get up in Seattle. It's older. It's older. Huh. Oh, maybe on all the videos. He, Oh, part one part two. That's it right there. So I just took my daughter down to the beach nearby and took my dog down and took the video camera and just put together.

This was the introduction. That's my prom foil board that I use for regular surfing on. And it works on the wing too. That's anyway, on. We just went down and had some fun and my daughter, at this point, she was able to foil and go up wind and we were just going to use the big board.

Yeah. So I put her on the big board and we just went through, this is how we teach. And it was the idea was a infomercial on what we're doing at the school. And there was so much positive feedback that I thought I'd do part two. And that's the one where I'm getting up on foil in the Harbor.

And people were so appreciative that I was doing that. And a friend said you should have a Patrion account now, which I didn't know what that was. And I went home and looked at it and realized, this is me right now. Because again, COVID had shut down the business. And I thought this is a way that I could take my skills online and teach people and not just one at a time at the beach, like I normally do, but be able to reach everybody.

So that's what I've been working on through the COVID thing. It's I'm still in the red, but I'm getting close to, paying off my equipment, but the. Appreciation far outweighs any monetary support, that, people telling me that I've helped them do this and do that.

And thank you as well. You do the same thing with so many of your videos. I How many videos have you done that helped people? It's awesome. Yeah. Thanks Alan. For me, it's different though, because for us, depending on it was actually like boom times because everybody.

And nobody could travel. People had extra spending money that stimulus checks, and then they just, bye. Yeah. You could go out in the water. That was the safest thing you could do. So it's been actually very good for our business in terms of equipment sales, but yeah, in terms of tourists, there's nothing right now.

Still, I think it hasn't really recovered at all. Let me let me do a couple of quick screen shares as well. Okay. Let me turn mine off again here. Hold on. Okay. So yeah, I'll let you do the screen share. Okay. This is my daughter and this was her first session with the wing on a winter Ford with the daggerboard on the wing she's using, this was the first.

I guess you'd call it a echo prototype. This wing was really solid. This thing really changed everything. It has five buttons or something. Yeah. It had battens prior to the battens. Ken was using these wings just to go down wind and you didn't meet any battens because he was holding it like a Spinnaker sale.

It wasn't until we started sailing at canal hall, going up wind that they were flapping. And that's really where a lot of the changes began. I met my wife, wind surfing. This is an old picture. I met her in 87 and we have two daughters together. My oldest one on my left. She's living in California, married my younger one.

Is living at home here with her boyfriend and she's having a really good time. She works up at the crater. I don't want to say it's a as a park ranger, but she's working up at the summit with people up there and she also winged foils. But she prefers to rock climb, free climb on. Let's see, where do you go on Maui for free climbing?

Is that there's a number of places. There's one over in key hay and over on the backside. And I don't have any pictures of that cued up. This is my wife when she realized that my old board, her board. Fits in the back of her car. Big smile. Yeah. He loves wing foiling because it's just so easy.

You pump up the wing and you're ready to go. Yeah. Assuming you have a car that fits your foil and she's also COVID has. Changed our relationship for the better previously she would man, my office at high-tech here, our office. I don't know if you can see this. So I have this little kiosk in high-tech and pre COVID.

She would spend her days in there meeting and greeting people and everything to do with the school. We have a. A school van that goes down to the beach for the wind surf year on. And when COVID hit, that was all shut down, but we could go to the beach and wing. She's been putting her time in, out on the water.

There's my old sup board, which is perfect for her. It's about 85 liters. She's got the a that's one of the prototype wings. That's the one that I was doing the speed run on earlier. A lot. And she's, she's making about almost nine out of 10 of her jobs now, which is something that she didn't quite do in winter.

If you, even though she's been a lifelong windsurfer,

In a lot of ways, like I always struggled doing tax on a small wave board windsurfing, but on a wing. It's actually, I find it way easier to do attack because you don't have to jump in front of the wing and stuff like that. So in a lot of ways, when winging is actually easier than windsurfing, I find one of the things that makes it so addicting besides the feeling of floating on air of snowboarding and powder, if you've ever skied or snowboarded, the feeling of powder is exceptional.

On there's no pounding. But the, besides all those great things, and it's quick to set up and an easy is that each time you go out, maybe even each run, do you learn something new? And it doesn't matter if you're a beginner, just holding the wing for the first time or floating around on a big board. Forget the foil, just sail the board around.

I've had people. Do the lessons on the big board and say, this is so fun, and it is, but you haven't even got on the foil board yet and you're loving it. It gets better. It's truly addicting. Th this being up on the floor that sensation of flying over the water, it feels more like you're flying than going over water.

So it's this, that is so cool. And you know that, I don't know if you've been watching any of the America's cup racing last year with the catamaran and this year with the monohulls. It's absolutely incredible how fast they go. Yeah. And us mere mortals will probably never, ever get the chance to ride on one, forget owning one on, but you can have your own personal hydrophobic yacht right there.

For relatively inexpensive and in a way it's, I don't know, to me it's almost more interesting because you're basically controlling it with your body weight, not, it's not like a mechanical control. It's like you're controlling the foil, it's your body weight. I would say it's one of the more freer feelings that you can have and the.

Again, it was in may of 18 that Ken first got that blow up wing. Now he's not the first handheld wings have been around for a long time. And there's another guy flash Austin. He deserves the credit for being the first one on Maui to put a wing together on a foil board. And he went out and foiled out and back and got some video.

And then I think his wing broke apart and he never put it back together. It didn't stick with it, but prior to him, I saw the footage of him doing that. And I thought, no, that looks crazy. Yeah. Nobody really thought that it could be what it is today. And I believe it's Tony Lugosi that sometime around 15 or 16 made an inflatable wing, not necessarily with the intention of foiling, but I think he just, put together an inflatable weighing instead of ones with struts and spars and on.

And he. Apparently put that on the foil board and made it work on a foil board more as a novelty on, I don't think he thought that it would take off, but he was ahead of his time there and nobody has a patent on it or anything like that. So it's just nice that's open for wide open for development and stuff like that, where people don't have to worry about licensing it and so on, right?

Yes. So it's on. Really since I think Ken is probably responsible for this resurgence or, this round of it anyway, but he, it was only may of 18 that it started. Yeah. Yeah. And I always wondered why you, how you got the all the new wings and the new prototypes so early, but now I know it's cause you're Ken when there's your neighbor.

So no wonder, but obviously also, you're a really good spokesperson for duotone. I think that's that? Your videos are one of the reasons why I got into Wingfoot foiling too, I'm not an official spokesperson for duo tome. I'd rather think of myself as an ambassador for the sport right on.

I'd like to see everyone, try it and Excel. It's just that my position is that I've been using these duotone wings. Okay. Let's go talk a little bit more about equipment. You said, and I don't know if you have some video of yourself using your board and stuff like that, but you said you only use a front foot strap.

You don't really jump because because you're worried about injury and you often use a harness and things like that. So can you talk a little bit about, for myself, I've never even tried a harness. I felt it's not really necessary. I feel like it doesn't, there's not as much pressure in the wing as when you're windsurfing.

So what made you start using a harness and and yeah, maybe talk a little bit about the gear you use and why you set it up the way you did. Now? I did do a video on YouTube. Maybe I can screen share on how to use the harness, all about the harness. Okay. And this, I did this last year. Maybe even longer initially it was the boom is right there and you're sailing along and you think I could probably use a harness here, so yeah.

So let's talk a little bit about using a harness and why yeah. Why you started using it and so on. First I thought, let's just try it and see if it works. And I went and made a custom harness line and I pulled my old windsurf harness out there. It is, and put it on and went out and gave it a few runs and decided, yeah, it was possible, but I didn't really need it.

Didn't you know, it wasn't really happening. And. What I realized now is that the harness I made a custom harness line, a real long one, thinking that I needed a long one because the wing is way up here. But when it's over your head, there's no load on the wing, it's when you're going up wind that the Boone comes down the wing tips, low to the water.

And when you're going up, when there's a lot of lateral pole and it's at that point that you need or you. Would find a harness line comfortable. So I gave it another try. I pulled out the regular harness line that decline just regular windsurfing harness line and got my old kite harness out.

That's the one we're looking at now. And maybe later people watching can watch this video to know what we're talking about here. But the main thing is that you have a hook that allows you to quickly get out of the. The harness line. Yeah. You don't want it as small as a kite surfing hook yet, or the yes, but more open, not yet.

And then, when you have the hook getting on your board, you can damage your board with the hook. So I go through a couple different methods to get on the board. And there's another video that I have on YouTube as well, where I'm riding my prone board. And I talk about how to get up when you're using a harness hook.

Talk about the length of the harness line and the placement. So would you say when you hold the boom it's about where your elbow is? Is that about the length or the middle? Yeah. The, we used to grab the boom and then pull the loop down to your elbow. And that was, or to the crotch in your arm here.

And that was a good general ballpark. Some people like them shorter. Some people like them longer. There's only a handful of people using harness lines over here at Ken winners, one of them on, and. There's a few other people that have tried them on and I'm getting people online talking about them.

And there's certainly a lot of chatter online. Yeah. A lot of people talking about it online here on a wahoo. I haven't seen anybody using a harness, but but yeah, I find it interesting. Not intriguing on it's not necessary. You don't have to have it. There are some drawbacks, it often it'll hit you in the face when you're trying to pump up on the board.

But if it's swings a lot on you're wearing the harness hook, you can't lie on the board unless you unclip it. Because you'll damage your board. You just can't lay flat on the board if you have to paddle or something, but it's easy enough to unclip it and let it hang to the side on. And like I said, it's a little harder to get on the board sometimes, but there's ways around that.

When you're in the harness going up wind with the bigger wing on, as soon as you get comfortable with it, you'll love it. Yeah. I can see that cause you're basically just using your body weight to, to power up the not you don't use your arms any more, really just for control. Same as when you went, surfing it in higher wind with a smaller wing.

It is a little scarier to hook in, we haven't had that many light wind days over here on, or I haven't had that many sessions out on my six meter. I do have a six meter wing and going out in 10 to 12 knots with the harness and going up wind is a dream it's so comfortable and steady. Your weight does the work.

Your arms are just relaxed. It's a really wonderful feeling. On, you're not gonna use the harness going downwind, just the way that, excuse me, the way the wing folds out. You're just not going to hook in. It's really just for going up, wind on. And I there's a shot of my foot straps on, I only have the front foot straps.

I switch like a windsurfer I'll switch tacks after each run. Sometimes I might do a short run where I ride switched or tow side. I don't have a back strap because I moved my back foot around a lot and I did have it for a while and I fell and tweaked my ankle. And I decided that I don't really need the back strap because I'm not jumping. And. It just was getting in the way and I don't want to injure myself on, and I made a pledge early on to myself that I wouldn't take this sport to the air because where does it stop?

And I'm really glad I did because seeing balls Mueller doing those loops. He's inspiring, and in the beginning he was throwing himself up in the air and let's try this or let's try that. And just coming down in the heap. In fact I made a comment on one of his Instagram pages that you have nine lives and that one just costs you one.

The one where he goes in the shore break, it just gets eaten up in the shore break. Yeah, with the foil County going over him and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I. I injured myself a number of years ago. It was pretty serious back injury and I've healed up a hundred percent, but you told me about this injury yesterday.

Can you tell us a little bit more how exactly how that happened? So I was surfing at hokey-pokey on a relatively big day and I did a late takeoff and I free fell head first and I put my arms up. To protect from the board. And I landed on the water like this, instead of, like this let me stop the screen sharing so you can show us what you're.

Yeah. Okay. So how did what happened? I was surfing Keepa and I just did a late tape off and went overhead first. And I put my arms up in the air to keep from getting hit by the board. And I impacted the water like this instead of, like this. And it was a compression fracture on my spine. What paratroopers get landing hard in their bone.

And it was, I've healed fine. But it was pretty close to what they call a burst fracture, where pieces of the bone enter the spinal cord and paralysis occurs. So I had a near life-changing experience there. And I think that was when I was 55, 54. So since then I've kinda I've just decided not to take it to the air.

I've stopped kite surfing. I don't kite surf anymore because I don't trust myself on to not jump. And on wing foiling is something that's less. I it's a lot safer than so many other things out there. And I see Some older folks down at the beach and the oldest relative, I'm 59. I know when I paddle out at who Keepa, I'm like the oldest one out there.

Now that was kin winter catching a wing tip while he was in the harness. That's one thing that if you're going to try a harness, you want to be aware of, if that wing tip catches again, it doesn't end up well, And I talk about this in the video with sound yeah. Catching right here. And then you're in the heart instead of falling on the wing, you can't get out, you can't unhook.

So if you're going to try the harness, that's something to consider. This is not something that, that you're going to go and use the first week of wing foiling. You want to have some skill. All right. So yeah. The other thing I wanted you to talk about was this cool move that I really was intrigued by.

And I still haven't been able to pull it off, but that's the starfish. So how do you get into it in the first place? So you I kinda, I sorta did this by accident. Just hold it right there for a second. If you will. Yeah. Yeah. I was giving a lesson to a novice sailor and he was out, I believe he was on the, he was on the big board.

I don't know if it was the wind surfer or the big foil board. And he went out and he did the turn and he had flipped the wing over any came out of it the other way. And I'm like, wow, how did he do that? He did it by accident. But the way he jived the wing and spun the board right around. I said, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to go try that.

So I went out and I was trying to do what I saw him do. And I'm not sure what I did, but I was flipping the wing over just like this. Okay. And the wind got behind me and something like that. And I said, okay, I'm going to. Try and do that and get the wing behind me. So I went out a few more times and I was able to flip the wing over.

And as you turned down wind, you might back up there a little bit, as you turned down, wind, you're moving with the wind. So the amount of pressure on the wing is minimal. So if you want to do this, it's relatively easy. You start your job. You turn the wings so that the wing tip drags in the water or starts to invert.

So you flip the wing over. Okay. And then here, turn the corner so that you're going with the wind. And at this point, as long as it's not blowing a Gale, so the wing is almost weightless because you're moving with the wind. At this point, you're coasting on the foil. You get your hand on the handle and you can bring it up behind you.

Now at this point if there's enough wind. The wind will keep the wing against you, just friction. So I did this, I was goofing off with it and I was going down the coast thinking, okay, this is pretty cool. How am I going to get out of it? I don't know. I'll figure that out when I get there. And so I got down there and I reached up and grabbed the handle and flipped it over and sailed away.

And I thought that was cool. And I had put in a full day and I packed up and I was driving home and Alex Garrett calls me and says, dude, I went to get my camera. I got to get your new move. This is Alex. Yeah. Filming this. So I'm like, nah, I'm like, no, I'm good Al. And he's Oh man, you gotta do it, man.

Someone else is gonna do it and claim your move. And I'm like, eh, And I'm halfway home and I'm looking, the wind's blowing. It's a beautiful sunny day. And I thought, we should do this. Why the sun's out. So I turned around, I went back, called them up and said, I'm coming back. And I went out and did this.

So it's a fun move. It's relatively easy to do and easy to get out of on. The trick is you turn down when, and you've slipped the wing upside down and then get the handle and pull it around behind you. And then to get out of it, you just reach it up and bend over it. It's flip or jive over your head.

So cool. I've yet to do it, on a coast run. I think we're going to go today. It's blowing pretty good over here. I think we're going to do an illegal run windy day, for sure. Yeah. Oh, okay. So you ended up going back to the beach, setting up again and then pulling it off like that.

That's a good sign. Yeah, that's awesome. All right. I think we already went over the time we allotted. So appreciate you talking about all this details and What do you do? Like to stay healthy? What are your secrets to staying fit and young at your, Oh, just trying to stay active, just trying to do something every day.

I I haven't been doing much cross training lately on, since I started doing the videos, I've had a lot of time sitting in front of the computer. What I have been trying to get out probably like four times a week to wing foil on. So that's been my main exercise wing forelimb. How long do you go out in the, on the water?

Like I find sometimes when I go out for too long, I just start hurting myself. Do you have a certain amount of time? That's good for you or you just stay out as long as you can. Usually I'd say around two hours is my average session. Remember I have a harness. And when I did that speed run with the little yellow wing, just a couple of days ago, my wife was using it and she doesn't use the harness line.

So I'm like, okay, I just it's really windy. I want to go get the GoPro speedometer going. And I. I went out and I did my first speed run and I turned around and I'm going back up when, and I'm like, Oh no harness line Ang. And just those two runs without the harness line, my shoulder was starting to hurt, and I don't know how many miles I've paddled surfing and how many times I've wind surfed. It's my shoulders. I'm not going to get a knee replacement. It's going to be a shoulder replacement. Yeah, that's pretty common. If I have to, I hope I never have to do that, but my shoulders have more miles than my knees or hips on.

But. I rely on the harness more than I realized, trying to go up in there. It's just that time of hooking in and resting your arms, resting your shoulders. Just that one leg up wind, then you're fresh to go downwind. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. For me too. Yeah. Sometimes I just put my arms straighten out my arms and hold the wing over my head and just relax a little bit.

And even without a harness, you can, but the, I can see how, if you have bad shoulders, it's not an easy thing to do after a while. All right. So anything, do you have any sponsors that you want to plug or anything that you want to mention like that? I I'd like to thank Alex Guera for taking care of me with the foils.

He makes a great product. Ken and duotone have been very generous with their products on, and I have to admit that I haven't used a lot of other stuff, but there's, a lot of everyone has a lot of good stuff out there and it really doesn't matter what you use. The main thing is that you're using it, that you get out there.

And this sport you learn every time you go. And it's a good physical workout. And you think about it too. So it gets you thinking on you won't regret it on. I. If there's one thing one negative thing. And that is that it's very addicting and it's gonna it's gonna take some of your time from something else, which for better or worse and yeah.

And your wallet will feel a little bit lighter too. There's that aspect. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you want to leave people with? And any last words? Just to get out on the water and give it a try, you won't regret it. And if yeah it's good to try new things. And living here in Hawaii, living here in Hawaii, most of our days are like other people's vacations.

Take advantage of where you live and what you do. You certainly living your dream and that, and I hope That things get back to where you can actually make money with your business. Again, sorry to hear that you're struggling right now, but hopefully people can support your patron account and your great instructional videos online.

Keep posting that kind of stuff. That's really cool. Very helpful. I think for people learning, I think we're starting to come out of it here. Then you can see light at the end of the tunnel. I think we're going to, we're going to be all right. Yeah. All right. For this for the boots on it, show who do you think I should interview next?

Do you have any any ideas on who I should talk to? Let's see. I can think of a few different people while Ken would be interesting on, but you said he's you might not want to talk to me. Can you ask him. Yeah, I can ask him. In fact, I can I'll try and send you his email Mark rappel, Horst.

He's a very interesting guy. He did SIC. He did the paddling he's into whinging for sure. Alex  he's got a lot of history on yeah. Robbie Nash is of course an icon on some up and coming people over here on Maui. I think probably one of the best foils here on Maui. And he's an exceptional winger too, is came to wild.

He's amazing. He has some really strong sweet moves. It was down at the Harbor not too long ago. And he goes, Hey, Alan, I figured something out. And I'm like, what is it? Can he says, when you bring the wing down to the rail, you can go so much faster up wind. And I said, Oh no, you figured that out.

Okay. It's like closing the gap on a wind surfboard right now. Yes. And I talk about it in the video for how to go up wind. Yeah, but he is so fast and so maneuverable, he's just a real pleasure to watch. And he always uses this pretty small wing too, right? He's just like smaller wings and just once he gets going, then he doesn't need as big of a wing.

You're talking smaller foil or smaller wing, a wind wing. He does use a smaller wing. And some of his foils are pretty small, but I've seen him like glide exceptionally far. He's making his own foils and really working at it. Yeah. I've listened to some of his interviews on the progression project and he's like very thoughtful.

He thinks about everything and has a lot of interesting theories and tests out stuff and he makes his own tail wings and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, he'd be definitely, he's definitely someone I want to talk to soon. Yeah. And he's just a kid too, so he's got lot of future there.

Yeah. Other up and coming, let's see. There's a whole bunch of kids that are getting into it over here. Yeah. I think one of the cool things about wing foiling too, is that it's such a diverse group of people. Like you have a lot of young kids getting into it, people with a surfing background, wind surfing, kite surfing background, a lot of different backgrounds.

Plus I think just people are so intrigued by it. Even if they have no water sport experience, they're interested in it. So yes, it appeals to everybody. There's a lot of old time wind surfers that I haven't seen for years. That are down there, like the old days wind surfing, but they're down there trying to figure it out on.

There's another guy on nice gentlemen. Ileka 250 pounds. Oh, I'm not suggesting him for an interview, but he is on he's down there all the time. But the point is he weighs 250 pounds. And he's almost as graceful as cane. He's really smooth. He can do a lot of tricks on, there's no such thing as a 250 pound windsurfer freestyle stylist.

You just, you can't be 200, 250 pound sup paddler. The big guys, they're just, I'm sorry, but there's a disadvantage when you weigh 250 pounds, but it doesn't seem to affect him. Now. He uses a little bit bigger wing than everyone else and his foil, it's an access foil. That's got a really high aspect.

It's got a huge wingspan on it on, but the, the, and that I've been teaching kids to Winser for decades and it's pretty easy to put them on the raft. With the little wing and they drift out and they turn around and they drift in and with a lot of effort, you can get them planning on a little board and a smaller sale, but generally they just don't have the weight to make it work.

But with foiling, I'm seeing these little kids on little wings going out and foiling and. And doing it quickly, there they're up and foiling in a matter of days. And they're out there riding around where trying to get them to do that on a wind surfboard would take a year or two. I have always felt like on for me personally.

I brought a lot of background, wind surfing and kiting and everything to this sport. And I was one of the guys that just stepped on and went, made it go. And I really got a head start on everyone else. But when I see these kids that are coming on there, where are they going to take this sport? Not just, in their maneuverability, but when they start doing these tricks in the surf.

Really just starting to stress the surface of what's possible. I think I, there's going to be so much progression in the sport, it's just amazing. But actually I wanted to ask you if you have someone that has no experience in water sports, no foiling background, and they want to learn how to wing for like how, what is your progression and teaching them like, like how do you start them out?

I start them off on the big winter Ford with a dagger board. And we didn't talk about this in the video. Maybe. I don't know if you can add that in later, but a lot of people show up with a sup board and the support has the volume to get them out there to float around. But without the daggerboard, they end up downwind very quickly.

The daggerboard does two things. One is it prevents lateral slip and it's at a pivot point. To steer the board right on. I know that they, some of the shops, I don't know if high-tech does, but I think some of the shops have like glue on or strap on daggerboards that you can put on your set boards.

That, excuse me, that might be something that you could offer even as a rental, take your board that I sold you last year, put this on it, take the wing. Go down to someplace. I don't know if  has landfall on the downwind side, but someplace like Kyla Bay might where go out and learn how to sail it out, turn around and sail back with the goal of coming back to the same spot.

And when my students are able to push that wind surfboard almost onto a plane. That tells me that they're loading the wing, that they've got enough sense to sheet in and sheet out. And when they can come back to the same spot, they know how to turn around and they know on how to steer the wing to get the board to go up wind.

Once they can do that. Then the next step is to go on the foil board. And, I wanted to ask you about, and you never take them behind the boat or anything like you don't do the full practicing behind the boat. You don't really need that. I guess once he know how to handle the wing, that's your power source right now in a perfect world behind a boat would be great.

Maybe an eco oil might be the next best thing. Have you done much equaling? Yeah, I have done it a bunch. Do you offer it lessons at all? Do you have them in the shop? No longer offered lessons or rentals, just because of the cost of liability insurance, but we refer that. We refer people.

There's a company called  experience here on Oahu that we refer people to not see it. . I ideally, in a perfect world behind a boat or jet ski, or even on an equal  would be great. But the reality of I'm sure it's just as hard on Oahu as it is. Maybe it's worse here on Maui on to get permits, to do.

Stuff behind a boat. You have to go through the state and get the permit to the state and Oh, just to, yeah. Not many places you can do it actually. That's true. And then even here on the North shore on the rules and regulations for jet-skis during the winter, during the whale season, you need to have permits and license, and it's a thrill craft.

If you're going to go in the surf, you need the toe thing and it's just. Yeah, it's the reality, but I've had a lot of people who come with no foil experience, get the get the feeling for the wing on the big board and then apply it to the foil board. The big flow with the short mask, with the big floaty board on a lot of people have learned that way on.

And then they're off to get their own equipment and practice on their own on. Awesome. Yeah, I and I think whinging is probably the easiest way to learn how to foil, other than behind a Boulder on the NFL, probably. It's definitely much easier, I think, to learn how to wing foil or it's a four line with a wing then in the waves, cause then there's a whole. Additional complication of calving to catch a wave and get up on your feet and all that kind of stuff. If you're surfing and even stand up, paddle surfing is not that easy to catch the wave and feeling. I had that discussion with a guy this morning. Who's actually our email is actually a winger that can foil and it's too windy over here.

The last couple of days, it's just been smoke on the water. So he says he wants to try prone. On his set board and I'm like he's got an 80 liter board and I'm like, no, that's too big. You need to get a prone board if you want us if you want a prone and yes, it's easier. It's going to be easier to prone in the surf than it is to suck in the surf.

He has no sup experience and trying to sup for the first time you need to have a real easy Waikiki style way, but of all the sports, whether it's kite surfing, Or wind surfing prone, surfing sub foiling. If you've never done any of that, that it's going to be easiest to learn. I believe with a wing.

I agree, ideally behind a boat or a  might be the next best thing next easiest way. But again, the logistics of. Getting a boat you need to drive or you need a place. I have a boat and I took my wife out. We did a snorkel trip to Molokini and I brought the foil along and my daughter and her friends, and we all took turns on the foil.

And my wife got up and scissored Oh, Damaged your ribs. And she was out for six months. And then, so she's better. So we'd go back to the beach and we're going to Duane foil. And she goes out on the wing full board and neither one of us thought of a vest. And she fell and did the same thing another six months.

So she's got a late start. Oh, she is determined though to happen and she's still going. That's awesome. Yeah. Wow. I've watched a lot of your videos and you do a really great job of, filming and editing and it's really easygoing and the information is really clear and concise and Yeah, that's a lot it is a lot of work too, to put out good content, but I try, just try to be consistent, tried to do one a week.

That's my goal, and then, we definitely see a, I see a lot of rewards from that too. People appreciate it and people support our business because people know about our business because of the videos. So it's yeah, it's a win-win. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That again, that was the whole reason why I started the YouTube stuff.

And then. Then the Patrion stuff just fell into place. And then I think once, once people started coming back to Maui, it'll definitely, you'll see a lot of returns from that. People are going to seek you out because of your videos. People will be like, Oh yeah, this guy knows what he's doing. So I'm sure your business is going to do well.

Going forward. It's going to just get better and better planning on coming to a walkthrough to visit my dad. Oh, probably in the, he gets his second COVID shot on the 3rd of March and I thought I'd give him a week to, get solid. And then then I can come over without worrying about bringing anything.

Okay. Yeah. Let's let's meet up when you here. And maybe we can do a video together to do a collaboration. Yeah, maybe I just would like to wing it. Okay. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Flat Island is super fun actually, when the winds are right direction and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And might be too early for a South swell, but Is it Kahala?

Where is it? That's where we ended up going a lot, just cause it's easy. And there's like showers and stuff like that. But diamond head is also really fun. We like going out at diamond head it's kinda like the old days of windsurfing. When there's a South swabbed diamond that gets good.

And there's a few other spots like Hickam air force base. I have a, my wife is in the military so I can go there. And that's I just went there for the first time, a couple of days ago. And it was amazing. It's like a super smooth wave there. That's protected from the wind, so right by the airport runway.

It's awesome. Yeah, there's a few good spots. And then on the North shore guy to go out at reviews and stuff like that, and there's some good winging on the North shore for sure. Got a lot of good spots on the wall. I got a lot of that over here. I'd rather just, I'd rather just cruise around and Kyla the mellow stuff.

Yeah. And that's what Kahala is pretty nice. Kayla is good, like a lot of times for beginners, I don't really recommend it that much, especially if you're regular foot, because first of all, you're going out on your diff opposite side. So it's hard to get going. If you're not used to Being switched, having your stent switched, and then you ended up going downwind and then you have to walk back up the beach and it's, it's can be quite exhausting and it's hard to get off the beach in the first place.

If you don't know how to go Upland, so it's not an not actually I find it not a great spot to learn, but but it is fun though. It does have some fun waves and good, consistent conditions out there for sure. Yeah, you do need more window. Like it needs like when you guys are married, have the smoke on the water days, then that's when Kayla gets good here.

Yeah. No it's probably good today. Yeah, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. I heard was really good. The last couple of days here too. On Koloa. But yeah, I'm going to try to head out this afternoon too. I got some stuff I got to do, but thanks so much. I hope hope you got stuff to work with there.

It was great. I appreciate it. She had it too. Yeah. And then, yeah. And then when you hear it let's stay in touch and maybe we can do another interview in a while and in six months or so, we'll talk about what's new. And yeah. And thanks for sharing this stuff about you do a total way. I'm excited to try that.

Hopefully soon. Hopefully it won't take forever to get out into the marketplace, but we'll see. Yeah. I but you're ordering early, but yeah. Yeah. She if I can get an early prototype or whatever, they'll always I'll talk to Ken and see if he has any sway. I don't know if he has, that's not great.

I appreciate that gets to know the right people, right on. Oh yeah. Alan. Thanks so much. Have a good day. Hope you get a little session this afternoon to appreciate your time. Take care of it. Thank you. All right. You're still here. Thanks so much for watching and listening. I really appreciate it.

And if you're still here, that means this show is for you. I realize it's a very tiny segment of the population. That's going to be watching this whole thing or listening. And of course, if you were as crazy about wing flooding as I am, you can't get enough of it. So that's probably why you're still here.

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