The Blue Planet Show

Mark Raaphorst Wing Foil interview- Blue Planet Show episode #10

Mark Raaphorst knows how to make boards that are both light and strong. After building SIC into an internationally known brand, he simplified his life and now runs a one man operation building high quality foil boards under his Flying Dutchman label. www.oneflyingdutchman.com

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Here is part of the show transcript:

Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show, which I produce right here in my home office, in the garage. This is my little recording studio right here. And today's guest is none other than Mark Raaphorst. On this show, I interview wing foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders and ask them in-depth questions about wing foil equipment and technique. I'm also trying to get to know my guests a little bit better. Find out about their background, how they got into the sport and what inspires them and how they live their best life. I realize these interviews are really long and not everybody has time to watch these long videos. I personally like the visuals, I'm a visual learner, so that's why I add the video. But if you don't want to sit there and watch video for an hour and a half, you can also listen to these shows as a podcast, just search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast app. And you can listen to it while you're driving or on the go. Today's guest is none other than Mark Raaphorst, the founder of SIC- Sandwich lslands Construction, and now Flying Dutchman foil boards. So some really cool insight into his background, how he grew up in Holland and moved to Maui when he was only 16 years old and then got into the business of building boards and how he loves tinkering and experimenting. And 80% of his experiments fail, but 20% are the ones that make all our lives a little bit better. So thank you, Mark, for doing all that research and experimentation, that benefits all of us. He gives us some really good insights into Wingfoiling and downwind foiling, foils in general, board design, and so on. So I really appreciate mark sharing his time and also for sharing details about his personal life and living life to the fullest, and basically following your dream and finding a balance between working hard, doing what you love, but also enjoying life and kind of having some free time and not having all the stress of running a business, which I can totally relate to Mark. So thanks again for your time. And without further ado here is mark. Okay. Mark Raaphorst. Welcome to the blue planet show. How are you doing today? All good. Thank you for having me. Yeah, fantastic. I really appreciate you coming on. I talked to previously, I talked to Alan Cadiz and Kane De Wilde on their interviews and they both mentioned you as someone I should talk to probably, and that they're, they're both you used your board showing foiling and really liked them and so on. And I think you're probably one of the most knowledgeable guys in, in the industry, but when it comes to board building and design, so I'm really impressed by what you've done over the years. But can you talk a little bit about your background? Like where are you from and how you got into watersports and how you ended up on Maui? I grew up sailing with my dad and the Netherlands and that soon turned into windsurfing. We're talking 1984. And I learned how to build custom boards in the Netherlands and saving it. I want to pursue that career more so not just by sanding and glassing with more shaping left the Netherlands when I was a little grommet, maybe seven, I think I was 17 got here. And ultimately it was given the opportunity to learn how to shape for a company by the name of, and Google Hawaii became a production shape or for 10 plus years. And went on my own started the repair shop first gov thinkings, and then branched out into building Outrigger canoes, which is really a hollow object. It's not really a custom styrofoam shaped For a built from the inside out, but more from the outside in and that morphed into sup boards first hollow, and then later on styrofoam court that morphed into hydrofoil boards and wing foil boards.

Gunnar Biniasch Wing Foil Interview- Blue Planet Show Episode #9

Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show, which I produce right here in my home office, in the garage. On this show I interview Wingfoil athletes, instructors, designers, and thought leaders and ask in-depth questions about Wing Foil equipment and technique.

I'm also trying to get to know my guests a little bit better, their background, how they got into watersports, what inspires them, and how they live their best life. I'm a visual learner myself, so I'm adding visual content that you can watch right here on YouTube, but you can also listen to these long form interviews on the go as a podcast, just search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast app for the audio only podcast.

These interviews are really long and unrushed, I just take my time and I really don't make them for the 50% of you that stop watching after 30 seconds. These videos are made for those 5% of you that watch all the way to the end. So I appreciate you guys, this show is just for you, if you are as foil brained I am, kick back, relax, and just enjoy the show.

Today's guest is Gunnar Biniasch who lives in Fuerteventura on the Canary islands, which are part of Spain, even though they're off the coast of Africa.  He's been creating YouTube videos for many years. He teaches wing foiling and runs the North Shore surf shop in Fuerteventura.  We talk about is very international background, go over Wingfoiling tips for beginners, switching your stance on the foil.

And I also asked them to break down the upwind three 360 spin or Flacka for me since I've been struggling to pull it off. The tips he gave in this interview really helped me personally. And I finally pulled off the move after talking to Gunnar. So, I hope you get as much out of it as I did. We also talk in depth about foils boards, wings and living a good life.

So without further ado, please welcome Gunnar Biniasch.  

Gunnar, welcome to the Blue Planet show. It's great to have you. I really appreciate you coming on. How are you doing today? I'm great. Thanks for having me on yeah, I'm actually pretty happy. Cause a lot of wind in the last few weeks a lot of time on the water, so I'm happy as can be, great.

Yeah, I've seen some of your videos. Great. So let's start a little bit with your background. Where did you grow up and how did you get into water, sports and so on and how did you get to live in the Canary islands? That's long story. My background is a pretty complicated.

My, my father's German and my mom's Malaysian Chinese I am. Unfortunately, I'm born in Iran, which always causes a slight issues with traveling around specialty to the U S and then I actually grew up most of my life in Indonesia. Wait. So you were born in Iran and wait, your parents are what are they, where are they from your parents?

Again? My dad's German and my mom's Chinese/ Malay. That is so interesting. Okay. And then you grew up in Indonesia, most of your childhood. Okay. Sorry. Keep going. That's very interesting. Yeah. We moved there when I was like six years old and pretty much left when I was 18 to go study in the UK.

And then wait, let's go back again. So how did your parents meet and how did you get born in Iran and how were you in Indonesia? How did you grow up and so on? I want to know more about all that. My, my dad met my mom in Malaysia. I think it called a loan for it. He was there for work. He was a, he was an auditor.

So yeah, they met there had a bit of a long distance relationship for a little while. And then eventually got married and yeah, nine 1978. My dad got a job where he was sent by his company to Tehran. To to basically do the books there for the company. And that's where I was born. I think it was like a couple of months before the revolution there.

So like after that we, my parents like were in Germany for about a year and then we moved to Taiwan for a couple of years. And then, yeah, when I was six, we moved to two. And where did you live in Indonesia? In Jakarta. Oh, okay. That's a big city. So you have a very international background, very international upbringing.

Okay. That's why I'm German. I sound American and studied in the UK. It's yeah, you don't have much of a British accent okay. So you, when you were 18, you went to the UK and. Went to university there, or school or whatever. I went to university, I went there to study computer science and then also accounting later on.

And while I was there I got, I started kite flying kites when I was like 10 years old when I was a kid, like my cousin got me into that. And then I took it a bit more seriously. Once I moved to the UK and got into power, cutting, like kind of buggy and of buggy racing. And through that, I stumbled upon kite surfing in like 99.

And yeah, and then this was, I started kite surfing lost my parents that all went wrong from there. Cause that's when I, I started basically taking, thinking very seriously, started getting first sponsors and then also then moved in 2000. I moved down to Florida Ventura. To basically get more time on the water all year round.

Yeah, I really haven't looked back since then. The law and career in guiding and now it's winging now. And how old are you now? I'm 43. Okay. And you're married, you have kids or? Yeah. And I've been together with Doris for almost 16 years now. We have one daughter she's eight. And you met her Doris in four different to her and or in the canaries, or did you move there?

They met in Germany and we had almost five years of a long distance relationship. And then she eventually decided to move down. I think that was in 2009, I think 2009, 2010. And then how did you get into foiling? Yeah, I mean that, I, first time I got encountered foiling was 2005.

A friend of mine got ahold of an aluminum foil thing, an old rush ramble job. And I tried learning all that and that didn't work very well. That was a horrible experience. It was really windy, really wavy, cold, and so on weather in Holland. Yeah, it didn't work quite well. So snowboard boots and water, it's just, yeah, it wasn't the best.

And it we forgot about it for about five years and actually in 2009 at one of the races, or I just started with 2010 and one of the races I met a guy called mango and he had a bunch of Fort Hill files with him and they were it's called fiberglass, carbon jobs. And yeah, go on that.

And then me and a friend ordered one here for the Ventura and we got riding on that and then pretty much got addicted very quickly. Also, basically both of us were very engineering based and we love building stuff. So we eventually went, wait, we gotta make this better. Also because that I want to travel with this, so we needed to have a foil where I could take the mask off the glider.

So basically get rid of that whole bar system. So we quickly started developing our own foil stuff and I was on, yeah. 2010. In the early days of foiling, when I got into, you already had a lot of videos up on a lot of the foils breaking down the different foils and like your tech talks and stuff like that.

So that was super helpful for me to understand how it works. And I guess you were already foiling before, like Kyla and he posted his downwind foiling video and all that, or, yeah, for me, I was trying, for me, it was good that he did it and all the work that that Alex did.

And so on Alexa guara. Cause I was trying the same stuff just with the wrong equipment because when I basically also, my history has basically eraser, I've been kiteboard racing since the beginning, since 2005, doing the slalom kind of slalom and then the whole racing tour. So for me it was all I was going fast.

So the foils that I was designing in the early days. Yeah, no, it was all the same. Basically all the foils that I was making were more for, going faster and, racing orientated. So when I started basically surf, foiling and winging falling, I was doing this on super fast, super small foils, which yeah, wasn't really great.

There are a lot harder to ride when we first started foiling. Jeff and I, Jeff, my friend, Jeff Chang had a kite foil. That was, yeah, like high-speed super thin, super small. And we're in LA super long mast. And we were trying to learn behind the jet ski and it was like it was hard. I was like, Oh my God, I'm never going to learn this.

So actually now when I look back, I'm amazed that I was actually able to learn half these maneuvers on the equipment that we have. We're on foils a room. They're like a quarter of the size of what we ride now for kites. I think the foil nut that video is a, an in square centimeters. It's something like 400 square centimeters.

It's like nothing you're right now. So yeah, it was not one, not the easiest. So when the surf boiling came around and wherever I was trying to get it to work in the waves was convinced. It has to work. You have to paddle into a wave with a standup paddle with with one of these foils. It w it just was, it worked, but it was so fast.

It's so unstable that, it wasn't fun. And it was, for me, it was great. Then seeing Kai on basically a big fat gold foil back then the stuff from Alex. And I was like, Oh yeah, Yep. That's the way go really big and go a lot slower and that'll make it all work on the waves for surfing and for some of the paddling.

Yeah. And then what was the first kind of more, that kind of a foil, more surf oriented foil that you got and how did you get into that? Yeah, the first thing I did, as soon as I saw that video was basically call Alex and order like to go foils the re the original Kai wings. So they learned on to the Chi wing and now that's considered a small wing for someone, my size.

It's almost kind of foils are those sides now. So yeah, that's the first one I had and then started on huge boards compared to what we use now. Back then I was on a hundred and back to my very first board, I started Sort of foiling on was I think 160 liter, like nine, nine, six stand-up or at CDF, some footage of that on their YouTube channel, beyond the channel.

If you scroll up, like somewhere in the middle of those should go probably to video under videos. Cause there's just so many videos on . Okay. I see the high foil. Let's have a look into this one. Okay. So yeah. So talk about the early days of foiling with the Chi foil  was great. For me it opened up like a lot like of options, but when we were trying to surf well with the kite foil was the only time it would work, if you had almost overhead ways, we were on such a small foil.

And obviously that was extremely scary. Like you're in this video, you got nice and let's say small and controlled waves, just a little bit of a bump that makes it fun to surf foil when it's about twice the size of that and the foils. Four or five times the speed. Yeah, it was scary. Plus the foils were a lot shorter.

The kite foils. Yeah. It's very similar to how I started. I put a Kai foil on an eight foot standard paddle board and figured out how to make it go. Yeah. I've been foiling for, I think for seven years by that time. So for me, it was just about actually relearning standup paddling because I had actually started standup having back in 2005, one of the first guys on the Island.

And I just got bored of it, like in a rich split with a kid because I had also a lot to do with the racing. So I didn't really have a lot of time to go stand up paddling so much. So I'd actually, before I started properly trying to make the whole software, the working and a stand up. And while I'm not counting, Flatwater paddling, but actually in waves, I just, it gets really full here.

So it was just, that's something I've really progressed on as I should have. So with the foiling came along, it allowed me to go in spots where no one else was. So I met, I was allowed to progress a lot faster with with the soft foiling compared to with the normal stand-up paddling. Cause there's the, for example, in that video is actually just the offshoot of of the main sort of way spot in town.

Then on a day like that, if you basically go across to the actual main wave, there's 50, 60 guys in the lineup waiting to catch a wave. So it's not that fun. So foiling made that a lot easier and a lot more fun in general, just to be out there, crash on the rocks. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, that's, and that's exactly how I started.

And it was a pretty, pretty long learning curve, but super fun that, sorry, I got addicted to foiling it. But like with the advent of wing foiling, I tell people it's probably easier to learn foiling with a wing than foiling in ways. What do you think? Is that what you definitely.

I'm on the teaching side learning to foil. Immediately in, in waves is probably the worst possible thing you can do. There's so many variables everything's out of control. You have to catch the wave, you have to control your speed, then you have to control the foil. And then if you wipe it about wrong, you're very likely to get pounded by your board or hit by the foil.

Before winging, obviously when we had people who couldn't type or couldn't wind surf, we would teach them behind the boat, towing them, basically getting them to a halfway decent level of control with the foil before going anywhere near the waves with these guys. And now with winging, it's a lot easier.

Cause now we've got a very controlled way of getting people on the water, basically sailing around and especially compared to kiting where the general issue is when people are not doing well, they tend to end up. Just like in the old days of, when you start to learn normal guiding way off, down wind, then you'd have to go and rescue them.

Whereas with winging, you can send people out. And if you taught them how to basically displace up wind, it's just like a good old beginner windsurfing with a daggerboard. You can just, basically, even if you're not flying, you can keep up wind. You can learn slowly and just slowly progress your way onto the foil and get flying and then take it at your speed.

Whereas most other foiling sports you have to get up and flying immediately, or else you end up somewhere else or it just doesn't work or it's no fun. Yeah. I was going to mention that too. Like when you in the early days of wing for the, you, I guess you worked together with ozone to come out with these instructional videos, Yeah.

And like this one here got to over 250,000 views, so are very popular instructional videos. And I think they were very helpful for a lot of people to get into sport. And also I've been sending people to your videos for learning how to do it on a regular standup paddle board or, so can you talk a little bit about that learning first for, some tips for beginners?

If somebody wants to get into Wayne for them, what's the best way to learn it, the most important part. And this is something a lot of people skip is to really learn how to control the wing properly. A lot of people go onto the water a little bit too quickly to just get away in their hand and you just go and they don't tend to learn how the handling works proper base.

So it makes life a lot harder. If you can. Try to get out on a skateboard on land. It will teach you a lot about the dynamics of how the wings work and handle placement, which handles to use to go up when, especially for wind surfers, it's slightly counterintuitive, especially if you're here, like you're going on an SUV without a foil or any daggerboards in it.

You have to be very careful what you're doing with the wing. Windsurfers tend to, for example, always just, open up the wing, shove it back and then hope it will all go up wind, which doesn't quite work. You have to combine it with the kite mentality of, okay, I've got the board pointing up within now.

Not actually have to move the wing forward again. Position it so that the wind can actually still also pull up with once the board's done that and actually skateboarding with the wing will teach you quite a lot of those skills before you get on the water. And it's also quite useful for a standing up and Swan.

If you just have that wing nicely under control, and you're no longer dipping your wing tips into the water. Because for me, that was the most frustrating thing in the beginning. On wing was knowing I could foil and knowing I could stand up paddle, but basically crashing every 20 meters because I dig the wing tips of the way of the wing into the water, just catapulting straight over.

And that's because basically when I started winging I did the mistake of just saying I'm going to go straight on the water and I'm going to be able to do this. And yeah, it wasn't like that. It didn't, it wasn't like a long arduous thing, but for the first half an hour, I just spent a lot of time basically catapulting over the board because when the wing tip drags is for people to try to lift up their backhand to get it out.

And then what happens? Is it just tips forward and makes it worse? So it's like almost you have to lift it up the front hand and pushed down with the backhand to get it, to come back. Learning essentially that, that counter intuitive thing is that if you want to make it go up, you actually have to push down and your backhand and things like that.

And like I said, if you spend a bit more time on land, you'll learn that. And then you'll have a lot less of a hard time on the water, for sure. And like I said, in a really important skill to have is essentially to, when you're not flying is actually still be able to go up when I'm on the board. So I have a lot of people actually still now guys that have been doing it for a year are still, if the wind drops even on a hundred plus leader board, these guys are ending up miles downwind.

Because they just haven't figured out how to actually just sit on, basically sit on the board or stand if it's a big board and just keep the wing open holder the slightly a bit more forward and that you can still sail up wind in five or six knots. Yeah, without too much. And I agree in the last interview, Glenn L said she was mentioning this kind of position here where you hold the wing a little bit sideways and that turns the nose into the wind.

And then, so if you can keep that position where you have the wing a little bit to your side, that's that's a good point, or I think too, to keep your nose kind of pointing a little bit into the wind instead of just letting it pull you down when right. Exactly. And the second part is to actually get rid of that downward pull anyway.

So basically hold it a bit farther forward. This video, the wind is light, but if the wind is stronger I tell most of my guys to hold it more for it's actually grabbed the surf handle and maybe the second handle on the strut to really keep it open. And it helps get much like nicer angles.

You're not going to be going fast, but you're going to keep a nice upwind angle. So trying to basically displace with the least amount of power and not just shut the wing and try to get power to make it go up. Wind. So let's talk a little bit about, more about tips for beginners, because I know a lot of people that are watching are just getting into it too and just need help getting get, figuring it all out.

What, let's start with the equipment. What do you recommend, if I dunno, do you teach other people how to, when foil it all and what would you, what kind of gear would you put them on to get started? Like I said, the first, when I do my courses, the first hour is typically somewhere in a car park or we have a nice hard area behind the beach, just about half an hour, just controlling the wing, like a three or four meter wing learning the basics of control and handling, yeah. It's just standing on the beach or something, no skateboard or anything. Yeah, exactly. And then after that, Get them on a skateboard. We've got these really large longboard skateboards, like dancers. So basically meter long and with really fat skate wheels, it's like all-terrain wheels and yeah.

And then we send them off because of these large wheels, they don't get super fast, but they get moving, which gives them a bit of a parent when, and it gives them a good idea of what, how what's happening. And there, I progressed on to teaching them essentially. Okay. If you hold the wing slightly further forward on the handles is what happens when you hold it farther back.

You also tend to teach basically what happens if you move the wing forward, actively, what happens when you shift it back? Hold it higher. And so on which handles do what? And yeah, so usually at the end of an hour and a half, most people on the skateboards are actually doing their first jibes.

Some are doing their first tacks and around there, they're getting a real good handling for the wing, basically being able to turn around and that's when we go onto the water. And if I have guys who have had some foiling experience beforehand, we will typically then go straight on to a board, was a foil, something like around a hundred, 110 liters, depending on the person's weight and large foil, because pretty much sure that once they take off, they will be more or less be able to handle the foil flying.

If they've got more than a year's worth of foiling experience, if they don't have any funneling experience I'll put them nowadays on an inflatable board with two side fins and send them out of that in flat water and basically get used to getting them used to standing on a board. A lot of the guys would.

Having folded that also have typically no water sports experience or not a lot of it. So getting them some balance on a stand-up paddle is is essential. What do you mean by two fins? Is it like, are they like center fins daggerboard thins or more like just regular fins in the back of the board?

They are about halfway up the board closer to the rails and they're like eight inch like sort of FCS. So that helps with, so you don't drift off, right? That's one of the issues like if people are using the regular stand-up paddleboard to learn is that there's a lot of drifting going on.

And it's hard to stay up wind with a boy that only has fins on the tail of very. Exactly. And what's this type of board it's super easy to stay up when you get actually quite decent speed on those things. And also because they're quite large, it's very good entry for most people into a water sport in general.

So they're learning what the wind is doing on the water and how the board's reacting. They develop a good sense of balance. And then typically once they're okay with that board, that's when we move them on to the foil. And they're again, very large foils in the beginning, around the four liter volume from the front wing.

And then yeah, get them to go on that board. Same thing, teach them with a foil board, how to go up, wind, how to build speed. And then once they have that speed, teach them essentially how to put the board back down again, once it lifts off. So basically just, keeping your way forward using your knees to position your body farther forward by bending your front knee and put the board back down and well, basic foil teaching opened the wing and stop flying.

And typically, the worst students I've had, they've still learned the foil within two weeks after doing a course, cause at the end of the course, because they can go up wind even without foiling. They're basically independent. So they're confident enough just to go off with their equipment and learn to fly by themselves because they know they can always just sail back without the foil.

Yeah. And that's something I tell people too they spend like thousands of dollars on buying all the equipment, but then they're too cheap to take a lesson, so just by taking some, getting some professional instruction, it'll just make everything so much easier and quicker to learn.

I learned it pretty much by trial and error, but it took me way longer than it would have if I had gotten a few good tips the way. Yeah, exactly. But each to their own and the coolest thing, or let's say for schools, that's a bad thing about winging is that it's a fairly safe sport to teach yourself compared to cutting or wind surfing.

The wing is relatively soft. You're not going to smack your head in like with steering, with the master, the boom. And Yeah. They're not going to fly away like you can with the kite. It lends itself for people to, just take their time and go out by themselves.

Obviously you learn a lot faster, like in any sport, if you've asked somebody knows what they're doing and can basically see your errors and correct you and get rid of the first bad habits and right at the beginning. But I find it's not as necessary with this sport. Yeah. Most of the people learning it are relatively coordinated, but I've also had people start from zero and they've learned fairly quickly.

People have never done any water sports before, and they're still learning quite quickly because it just gives you confidence because you're not scared of the equipment as much as you are with a lot of the other sports. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And it's definitely I think Wayne filing is probably the easiest way to get into foiling.

As I think anyways, do you agree with that? That's probably if somebody wants to learn how to foil, it just gives you so much time, maybe other than towing behind the boat with a professional instructor that might be or in the electric foil maybe, but to really get a lot of time on the foil wing filings is such a good way to do it.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, for, I wouldn't say it's like the, as that, if you're a teacher yourself and you're going to give yourself as much time as possible, it's definitely the easiest way to learn how to foil. Obviously both and the teacher is going to be the fastest way always cause it's a very controlled environment, but that always involves having the coach there and, having the boat for that.

And then winging is the next best thing, because once you learn how to control the wing and like I said, stay up wind. You can teach yourself. The foiling, it's not that important compared to the wing skills. Cool. Let's fast forward a little bit to now you're writing obviously a much smaller board and you're on different equipment and I'm pretty impressed that you still it looks like you, you pretty much always switch your stance going either, either way, right?

Yeah. That's ingrained in me from kite foiling and from kindful racing. Yeah. Obviously everybody's going to end up that way anyway. I always find it a bit of an excuse from people with, they tell me, it's no, I need that center strap. That asymmetrical center strap.

I don't need the jive. It was like, eh, Give herself a year you'll figure it out a jive and then you'll either go strapless or you're old. You'll get like a view strap and, go into the more wind surfing side where you just have the advantage of having basically riding your switch and your strong side.

Wow. And so that's something I'm struggling with is switching Stantec. I can do it on a bigger board with the big foil, but when I get on my small board, like small board with straps and the smaller foil and the waves and stuff I don't even attempt to, I don't even think about switching my stance. I just always stay in the same position.

So maybe can you give some pointers on how to switch your stance? How the learning process looking basically rewind a little bit. Cause when I was basically wave riding, like surfing or kiting or standing up, I think I would never basically go on my switch side. Yeah, video this video.

No, actually I don't never have gone around, but essentially you get into this mentality in the sports ah, I can only ride regular and I'm going to ride which from the left and the right back side and I'm going to, I'm going to right front side was weird from the right, but actually when Franklin came around, it wasn't comfortable in a lot of sort of way spots when I was kite wave foiling.

And then I forced myself to, to ride the waves on my switch side. Coming from the racing background, I was able to ride the foil, switch or regular cars. You have to, you're not going to win a race if you're going to go side up the course. So for me, it was just basically just crunching down and saying, look, this next two, three sessions, you're only gonna ride on your weak side.

You're going to ride the waves, basically left foot back, and you're just gonna do it. You're gonna crash a lot, but you're just gonna force yourself to do it because it can't be that hard. And because foiling doesn't involve a lot of strength and having to push really hard on it, black foot it's actually pretty easy to learn decent control on your switch side.

So for me, it was R was already doing that with the  and the waves. And so when I started winging, it was normal. It's easier for me to actually ride front side, no matter where the wind's coming from. Okay. It's actually not, like I said, it's not a hard skill to learn. It's just something you have to force yourself to do, because everybody's got a, like a strong and weak side, but you can overcome that fairly easily on the foils.

I think this one shows you switching stance quite a bit. So talk about that a little bit. Yeah. It's talking about just basic switching your feet. You'll see it now. It's most important part is that pump. I keep meaning to make a video on this and just keep having time for it. But when I. And when they almost never see any of the new guys talk about, is that initial pump, before you go into any maneuver, either a jive or attack or almost anything where you want to switch your feet.

So walk us through it. So here at this point, you do a little pump with the boiler, with the wing, bam, I pump it, you see those popping up. That's my sort of pump and what that sort of does it accelerates the board, which gives more stability. But as I move my body weight forward to switch my foot that board is also trying to rise with me so it can take my body weight as I move my back foot forward.

So I pumped, I stepped forward. Did I see the yeah. Moving your whole weight, body weight forward into those straps and those board positions and you quickly switch your feet. Nice. Yeah. And the most important part of that essentially is that pump. And when I'm coaching people mainly for foiling and so on know a little bit more for winging for their jobs is I tell them to do three pumps.

And on the third one, switch your foot. You get into it just to basically count one pump to pump on the third one. That's when you basically stepped forward to switch. But basically before you attempt to do it on up on foil, obviously you want to practice it with a touchdown jive. Like you short earlier with the, on the kite foil, right?

Like touchdown on the water, then switch your feet and then come back up again. I would tend to tell people just to go for it in the beginning, because if you get it wrong, you will touch down and then just don't panic. When you were touchdown. Most boards are good enough now that when you touched down, they don't stop so much.

They'll keep going. So if you go for like your normal air jive, and if you do it correctly, if you move your weight forward, what a lot of people do in the beginning, which is slightly wrong is that they try to pull their front foot back as they're switching their feet. They tried this jump jump switch, which is actually really hard and actually most decent boilers don't do that.

What most people do is actually you're basically, yeah, I brought my back foot forward. I brought my entire body weight over the front straps and I'm standing straight. So the worst thing can happen there. Essentially, if you take too long, you will touch them. Yup. The board one fly away, nothing will happen.

You'll just touch down and then you can just switch your feet on the water. After that, So I would just say go for it. And as long as you keep your body weight forward nothing much can go wrong. Yeah. Because obviously if you put your way too far back then the foil comes out of the, the foil would just shoot up.

Cause you have to be able to, that's typically why most people fail on a foiling, jive or an attack. They sh they shift their weight back because they've moved their foot back and then that board shoots away. It unbalances the board. But if you basically stepped forward or in front of the board, the foil is trying to lift anyway.

So if you're over it yeah, I said, the worst that can happen with is happened as you touched down, it's a fairly safe way of doing it okay. You messed up, you've touched down, switch your foot and then keep going. Yeah. Whereas typically if you screw it up the other way, if you step backwards and you screwed up the oil flies up into your lines or flies in front of you and when you're winging.

So yeah, so switching your foot is not actually not that hard to skill, as long as you as a few key things that you really need to do it. And it gets easy. The biggest thing, which people, when I explain it to them, they're like, Oh my God, why didn't I think of that is that you step forward, it's always stepping forward and not stepping back.

Once you stop yourself from trying to slide your foot back and then slide your front foot forward at the same time, you just stepped forward. And not both your feet on the front of the board, it actually gets pretty easy. Okay. I'll have to practice it some more and it helps if you do it with a big board or longer board.

Cause it's if you touched down, you're more, you're less likely to get stuck. Yeah, for sure. And you don't have to be as accurate with your foot placement and so on too, when you're on a bigger board and the bigger foil to a bigger stable foil helps a lot. Yeah. Like I, yeah, cause I can do it on a bigger board and the bigger foil, but not on my small board on my, yeah.

I mean on small foils is actually, this is where balls come in because you have to do it fast. If you go in, if you actually go into your jive at full speed on a small foil, it'll just, it'll be just as stable as your big fo plus it'll be easier because you can actually correct the small foil better and it has less drag.

So you get, you could keep up your speed easier too. Exactly. So the initial thing is that you just, you don't pussy out and you just go straight into that jive at good speed. And then it's fine. Oh, and another good tip is to jive into the wave because that will give you speed. Yeah. So especially what I do, if I'm out in six, seven nos yeah, the biggest screw up you can possibly do in those wins is the touchdown.

So what I'll typically look for is a nice, like bump or a wave, and I'll jive on that and use that speed I can get from that wave to complete the drive. If I know I'm on a smaller phone, it's just really not enough wind to get going again. Cause a lot of times, if you jive in between the waves, then there's like you lose all your power that you get back winded and then you drop off the foil, right?

Yeah. So basically just go straight into that face and it'll actually be a lot easier than if you did it in the flats.

Cool. So let's talk a little bit about. How you ended up in Fuerteventura, I guess you were studying like computers, computer science or engineering type of stuff. So what, yeah. What made you decide to give up a career in that and and be a beach bum in Ventura? I learned to cut surf.

That was the biggest problem. As soon as I learned to kitesurf, it was like it combined everything. I like, like speed and water, and being able to jump on land without killing myself. If you look at power cutting back then, and the pre two thousands, it was extremely dangerous. We were up, six, seven meter, foil kites jumping on land.

And a lot of my friends got seriously injured. And so on. So for us, like water was like, Oh, great. Yeah, we can jump and if we screw up, it doesn't kill us and it doesn't hurt. So I got really addicted to kite surfing really fast. And then what's started as essentially my winter job here in Fordham, Ventura working for the flag beach center.

Eventually the year later it was like, I'm just going to stay here. It's nice and warm. We've got good ways. And it's basically still Europe. Yeah. And I can kind here every day. And so how do you, so yeah, obviously you're just living the dream, this decided, okay, screw, screw that. And I'm going to live in a beautiful place.

I'm very similar to you in that regards, but yeah. So how did you make it work? How did he make, how do you make a living? How can you make it all work? In the beginning, like I said, I was working for the flag beach center was like the main kind instructor there for a good number of years.

And. Around it was, I started competing in 2000, like seriously, in 2003, I already had done some competitions in the UK, like 2002. And then in 2003, I started competing in the first peak DRA events. And then I think the German championships, I actually met some guys from Peter did kiteboarding like that.

They were the first guys to offer me a proper deal as a rider. And so pretty much a year later I quit my job at flight beaches and instructor, and basically turned sort of full-time pro back then. And luckily within the designers, probably one of my best friends still he basically took me under his wing also.

And, I was giving him the feedback on his kites, but he was also teaching me how to cue and these kites, how they're made. He pretty much taught me everything about the backend of the industry, supply chains, how cards are actually made, how serve plan works, everything the prepared me for what I do know.

So yeah, so I was with Peter Lynn until 2009 writing for them and also helping them in the development for quite some time. And then, and in 2010 I decided to join . Initially that started up the fact that I just, I was sick of losing races to those guys with 19 meter kites. I was just basically wanted to see, plus I'm the boss army.

And it was basically from the same home, Ty Tom design, and Germany's from Frankfurt. So we got along quite well. And then yeah, I was racing for them and I was team manager for them until 2013. And then yeah, I decided to say follow the money. And I went and did a year with gastro, which was not the most successful year.

So also the time where everyone finally believed, Oh, great photo cards we'll win races. And I actually went to a tube cried brand, which was probably not the greatest idea. But after that I pretty much went to ozone after that pretty good five, six years with those guys. So it's a very interesting company to work with.

But by the time I joined ozone, I had already opened my own kite shop basically here on the Island. Yeah. And also we, I had my own sort of foiled brand sort of the magma foils, which we tried to get working back then, which is a bit difficult from the islands here. And we had a bit of a bad luck when the production but also like in 2016, I started doing a bit of freelance design for foils, for for brands.

So yeah, and now the way I earn my living is I have my shop. I actually took go over last year. I took over the North shore surf shop here. On the Island, he used to belong to probably the most famous German wind surfer around  his old Shaw. Oh yeah. So yeah, I been doing that, but besides that I've been basically freelance designing boards.

Most of them you've probably seen from Indiana and I'm doing a lot of basically testing work for a lot of brands where their wings and their foibles. So some I can talk about some I can or NDAs, but and then also last year I decided to work with the guys from North, basically as a team rider on an R and D writer also.

Cool. So pretty pretty interesting background there. So how many languages do you speak? Three and a half. Okay. English, German Spanish Indonesian sort of hangs on, but just don't practice it enough. So if you go there, you could probably speak home properly. Do you have any cool stuff? I see so many interesting toys behind you and your man-cave slip, but anything you can these are just some other flaws.

All right. I typically tend to switch foils every day, but the one cool thing I have here is a mass from a guy called Kyle in the us, which basically when I'm testing allows me to not have a different mask for every foil company I ride. So basically it's a custom carbon mask and you can basically put different adapters on here.

For example, this is the Moses adapter. And then if I want to ride a Northwell with it I just put a North adapter on it and if I want to write an Indiana foil, I put in Indiana doctor, I want, wanted to write an access book for the nexus adapter. So when I'm testing them and trying to figure stuff out, I basically removed the mask.

This is the variable, ah, interesting. All foils, right differently, depending on their masks. Cause you've got so many different mask designs and I also like it cause it's a lot lighter than almost all the other carbon masks I have. Huh. Interesting. Quite like it, maybe send me that link and I'll put it in the description down below.

If anyone's interested in getting a custom mass email or they sent me a proper, like he's got a new sort of stronger mask now for waiting you between too much freestyle and freestyle is never good for foils or for the boards when you land badly. So nicely, like stronger reinforced plate and so on.

So for for the North kites, I'm not really familiar. North foils, the, what do you use for winging? What's your most, your favorite foil that you're using right now for foil? Okay. It depends if I'm either in the waves or if I'm freestyling, I have two favorites. This is the one where people are gonna freak out at me.

So basically my favorite big wave foil is this low aspect, little aspect, super old school. But the coolest thing about the North one is the fuselage is only 60 centimeters. So it's short, right? And this thing's not slow. So it's actually, this is a 1500, but this works in everything. I've had this in super horrible trivial and really currently big waves.

And I survived a lot better than I have with the high aspect wings of this. And I actually have a lot of fun. I have less, I ride this most of the time. If the waves are actually really good, cause it just really works. And I know it's completely contrary to where everyone else is going at the moment and it's designed as a beginner wing, but for waves.

Yep. How well it works. There's definitely a lot of merit to having a lower aspects foils for I guess just control and like you said, like going through whitewater, certain things that they just don't drop off as easily, too. They're easier to, it's just a lot less scary when you've got basically an overhead wave breaking behind you and just, yeah, you hit a bit of turbulence and I don't care.

Whereas with the high aspect, when you're like, Oh, I'm wobbling you to, so what am I freestyling? So for freestyling, my main way, I'm using it at the moment. It's actually two different ones for like lighter winds. I use the North, the  it's basically it's called the high aspect lane. But how much can you show the curve of the foil?

It's your typical sort of downward going. Oh, as a little bit up turn on the tips, huh? Yeah. Sort of twist. Yeah. But works really good. I tend to ride this on the long fuselage. Actually, this is the 700, the 70 centimeter fuselage. I quite like it for freestyle because it just got a bit more acceleration and pop and pumps out of like the jumps a bit better.

So if you landed slightly wrong and you still get up and pump it out with the performance, it has quite a bit, and it works really nice and normal wave conditions. You've got nice and clean conditions. But I tend to, I don't know if he said already, but how many square centimeters is the surface?

Normal surface area. It's 1250 and it's projected 1230. Okay, cool. It's actually pull up the screen sharing again, is that the one you're using and And the most recent way video. Yeah. Part of it sometime in that video. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's the one I'm using. Yes. So yeah, I actually wanted to ask you this is the move I've been trying to pull off and struggling with the last names they keep.

I don't know what, like the wing, I can't get the wing right on the landing. So can you kinda maybe walk us through this move? Step-by-step the Flocker or the upwind three 60, again the most important crux of this move initially is that you keep the wing low off the one side and really opened.

A lot of people, tried to bring up the wing over their head way too early, and that's, what's involves you then turning it into a push loop and then crashing. And the other part is just after takeoff. What you really need to do is like when you you kick up, you need to twist the board first.

You're trying to one 80 the board first, and then you look over your shoulder and the board will follow. If you try to rotate your body without twisting the board first, it's a, it doesn't allow you to rotate around far enough. Yeah. This right here, like right before you jump, you go down with the nose.

And I think that's what a lot of people miss when they're trying to jump is like doing a little downward push. And then you really want to pop that for up at a steep angle, upwards, right? To get some air. That's foil jumping one Oh one. That's this, regardless if it's wind foiling, wing, foiling, or kind foiling any foil jump, you got to use the foil as a ramp.

So you need to, if you want a nice big jump, you have to use a big ramp, which means get that nose low to the water. And then pointed up that's what's going to get you launched. If you if you don't do that, you'll just get into a flat it'll jump. It's if you've taken off a small piece of chocolate as compared to hitting like a two meter round so that's just your normal jumping.

You should do that. Any foil jump you do is try to get as low as possible and then try to point out as aggressively as you can. The second part of the flux essentially is that twists is everything over it's like when you're up in the air, you need to basically flip the board over.

You want to point that nose down so that you've done half the rotation already so that when you let your, the rest of your body follow that that rotation, that sort of the board is already around. So if you don't go around far enough, you tend to land off center. So here, the nose is up and then see, I've twisted the nose around before the rest of my body's come around.

I've already gone 180 degrees with the board. And then as the board touches down, I've already gone, three quarters at least of the way around with the board.

And the next sort of important part is that, again, as you're in the air, as you're rotating, you need to keep that wing stable off to the side. You don't try to lift it up. When you see people learning. The first mistake they do is they try to get jumped and then they lift up the wing over their head as they're trying to spin.

And that actually does two things. It stops your rotation and also the wing will then try to lead that rotation. Which is a new trick in itself. If you're high enough, it'll turn into a push loop. It's it's like a kite loop with the weight. But that's not something you want to do when you're learning.

This was scary. Yeah. And you don't like too that you don't want to jump too high to do it. Yeah. Actually height will help you, but it's important that you, if you keep that wing off to the side, so you could keep the wing more or less hot head level. Yeah. As you go around, you'll laugh and then you can just basically rotate the wing over it over your head.

Once you've landed. If you try to rotate the wing over your head, when you're in the air, that's when it will slam you because the wing will go behind you and then dive straight down. And that's the most scary part. It, I broke three different carbon maps before I learned that. Because I'd just be landing like super hard, because I basically lead with the wing and turn it into a Porsche loop and then slammed the foil sideways onto the water.

It looks easy here, but there's a few things, like I said, the most important part. If you keep your wing low, there did this slightly wrong. You saw that wind just hit that water quite hard. Yeah. The only ones I've pulled off where actually, where I hit the water, it seems to seem to help me. When I was able to pull them off, it gives you a bit of balance, but it's just, it means that you've raised up your hands before you rotated.

Yeah. And in the end, it's not good for your foil or for your wing when you constantly whack it. Cause here you hit it almost like flat onto the water here. I just, I had it rotated too early. Like I tried to bring the wing around too early. See there's over my head instead of lower to the side.

And that's what basically causes it to go into that loop. Interesting. And yeah, so the way to prevent it from going to loops you keep it off to the side and you really, you keep your back hand low, you try to push actually that back handled down as you're trying to bring that around that again is remember, like when you push down on that back handle, it causes the wing to go up.

Okay. The reason that typically tends to drop down is because you've also then lifted your hand up as you've tried to bring it around. You probably see it there that I actually, as a, went around my, my, my backhand Rose up on that crash basically to watch my back hand. And now it's going to go up, you see how it's up and over.

So you catch the wind basically the wrong way or exactly. So what remember, like when you're just controlling the wing on the beach, if you want the, the tip to come up, you push down and if you raise your bad count, the wind goes down. It's the same thing that applies here. So if you forget to keep your hand low and basically push that backhand away from you in that trick.

And so she, my backend should extend out and it's hard to see behind. You can see they're pushing it down hard and then it just comes around. All right. Cool. Thanks for the tips. So good. Good move. I see a lot of guys, but I dunno, like I was watching balls. Mueller was probably the first to do that.

Yeah. I like watching his videos too. I spent too much time on this one because I actually unlearned some of the other cooler stuff. Cause it's actually, this is a fairly safe one because you don't tend to hit the board when you screw it up. Whereas actually the first rotation I learned, which is don't have any videos of, and I'm actually at the moment gotten scared of doing it is basically the backside rotation to that.

So basically jump up and you rotate the other way. Yeah. That's the hamstring killer. It's if you screw it up, you hit the rail of the board. Oh, all the time. And yeah. And what we've been doing too many of these blockers and like now I've gotten scared of doing the other one. So my, my goal for the next month, essentially just relearn all the backside tricks now.

Cause they're actually harder. Yeah. Then in terms of the board you're using, do you have that in your man-cave as well? No, I'm the boss of the problem is I've had a bit of a nightmare last week. I've been trashed three boards, so they're all in repair. Yeah, rocks. The downside of when you ride without Alicia is that sometimes you forget the are conditions where you should have Alicia.

So ended up with boards and the reef. But essentially I, I ride a lot of different boards. It's part of the job anyway, just to test as much as possible and also just trying to figure out what works and doesn't, but I tried to write a smallest possible as soon as the wind goes down, especially for wave riding.

A lot of the videos will see me, like on the 33 liter, it's a four, four. Yeah. But then for freestyle, if I'm trying to take it more serious, I'll use actually larger board, like a 60 liter 65 liter board. Cause it's just a lot easier if you land that don't sink down to your waist immediately.

What's your body weight. Can you share 87 kilos? So he's seven kilos, 60 liters is what you'd like to use. Okay. So if you could order a new board exactly the way you wanted it, but what dimensions in volume would you get? So if we're talking freestyle yeah, 60, 65 liters something like four, eight, four, seven.

I've got the luxury of got guys like Indiana, which were pretty much, let me do whatever I want with my boards. So I basically here's the design make it and they're like, okay, And they'll do it and then we'll release it next year. So I have that luxury. So that's the freestyle board. You probate in that one video where I'm one, that's 65.

That's the prototype for next year. So that's my freestyle thing. No gimmicks. No, concaves no cocktails. Just purely designed for performance to get off the water and then for wave riding. Yeah. I'll use anything that's small. At the moment, I'm just basically trying to get the North boards to work and figure out how are we going to improve those this sort of work.

And they're very similar to the KT type style boards. You've got the cutouts in the back and the kick tails, which personally not a big fan of on caves on boards. I tend to like a board to not break when it hits the water. I wanted to glance off, which I know was not the most comfortable for the knees, but I just.

I like the fact that boards don't try to stick to the water when they touched on after Jones. Just seeing. Yeah. I was talking to the wild about that too. He, and he says, yeah, he likes the boards that have more of a soft, softer bottom, a little bit convex, or just but yeah, when you touched down on the water, they just handled more, they're more neutral than having like hard rails and sharp edges and concaves and things like that.

Yeah. I, sharp edges I think, are quite useful for winging cause they prevent this, the side slip of the board. Depends where you put the hard rail, like on my boards, I tend to like to have that transition from the bottom onto the bevel, quite sharp because essentially if you're out in six, seven knots, that sharpness allows you to stop that sideways, drift a bit and still allow you to displace back.

Whereas you have a very round shape, which actually lends itself better for freestyle. Cause actually the easiest board you can possibly learn, like the three sixties art is an inflatable cause they bought the fat round nose with basically no sharpness in that reel whatsoever. And those you can get almost completely wrong landings on and you can still slide it around really easily if Congress forgiving.

But the bad side of that is in those conditions where you need that board to display soft wind. It's not going to do that with, without some sharpness on the rail. So when you're taking off it, like in light wind, Do you think you're like, that's something I've been wondering. Do you use the speed of the board to get planing and then lift off?

Or do you lift off with the foil before you even get up to planning speed? No. The biggest revelation to me was actually, it was the beginning of last year is taking one of my old Kifle race boards and those big 90 liter tankers, 70 centimeters wide. I took that and I took a wind surfing foil and a bottle of that.

And then that got going so much better than anything else I had. And down to the fact that those boards is designed for acceleration, because the problem with, if you take like an sup board, sure. They pump up easily on the kick tail. They allow the board to rise up, but as you have no apparent wind.

The wings we have are just not as efficient as a kite or windsurfing sail. So you'll pop yourself up and essentially immediately back wind your wing because there's just not enough apparent wind on the wing to work. Whereas if you get a board that can actually pick up speed with very little resistance, by the time you get up on onto the foil, there's enough apparent wind for your wing to actually start engaging in pulling.

So like six, seven knots having a board that when you pumped it once would basically lurch forward on the water, like a meter and a half. He did that three times you'd cover like almost a 10 meter distance, and then you'd have almost five knots of apparent wind. And all of a sudden the wing is up and you're going, and you're going with no wind whatsoever.

So that's why on my own boards that I prefer. You won't see any concaves or any kick tails or any cutouts or anything. Cause I like the, having that maximum acceleration at the beginning to get the foil and the wing to work together quickly. Do you have a video of that on your channel session?

Log number four, a wind falling old race sports. Okay.

Okay. So tell us about this board that you're saying planes and really light wins, right? Yeah. I, in like the one I'm on here on this video is an as a team event, this was probably the best, most expensive race board you could buy back in 2012. Is this for kite racing or tide racing before foiling started?

And I basically have, I think it's the Moses wind foil set up at the bottom of this here, it's fairly windy when I, first time I tried it, but these boards are designed to actually have a V more of a V-shape in the back. So it slightly convex in that sense and really play and yeah, they have virtually no resistance in the water.

So when you pump, they just basically start planning. They just lurch forward, which if you put a foil on the bottom of it is great because they'll get the foil up to it's essentially flying speed very quickly with very little resistance. So that's a good tip. So basically if you want to get going and really light, wind, get a board that, that just planes easily and obviously a little bit longer.

Good, good. The is not that long. It's a six foot board for theaters, but Because I remember this is 2019. This was actually pretty small for most people right back then. And I think the standard back then was like people in 120 liter boards when they were starting. But the concept scales down quite nicely.

My, my 60 liter board is basically based on the exact same concept. Your maximum volume distribution is right onto your front foot slalom, solemn type rocker lines go broker line. Yeah. And like I said, the most important part is to not have any, anything that drags on the bottom of the hole.

It's like probably the worst culprit for Reedy light wind winging is probably the cut-out

cut out, works really well on a planing board. Typically over 10 50 knots where it actually starts basically, creating some air bubbles. But for those just displacing speeds that we're at to actually drags quite a bit until you get up to a certain amount of speed. So it just costs more energy to get a board like that.

So if you extend your rail along by not having anything cut out of the bag or any sort of kick tail, it basically allows the board to just get onto that sort of acceleration very quickly without a lot of resistance. Yeah. I've noticed too, like when you have a flat tail, it allows you to push off the tail a little bit to lift off, right?

Like you get like actually forces the board forward more. Whereas if we have like our standard sub kick tail thing, when you kick the back, the board rolls up right. And pump up on the phone a little bit earlier, it seems like great. Yeah. It does essentially is engage the foil.

And then for example, that works okay on like really big files. But especially now that we're on high aspect, foils, actually real high aspect foils where you got fun, not a lot of surface area and quite it'll they'll stall. If they, if you put them at a too high angle of attack, they'll stall out.

So it doesn't help you. If your board allows you to get it at this angle and a shove it up in the water, as soon as you can flat things going to go, I don't have enough speed and you drop off again. Whereas a flat tail board, but it does as soon. Yeah. You'd actually over kick the back and it goes forward.

The fact that tail is now blocked, it will actually force the board down. So any energy you've put downwards is actually going to be converted energy. Intercise you're pumping you accelerate forward. So all your energy is actually going into forward momentum rather than getting you up. But especially high aspect foils.

They like this. So they'll get to speed. They'll engage. And then by the time you rise up, they are at a decent amount of speed to fly. Interesting. Yeah. No, that makes sense. I like that concept. And then you don't think that gift flat tail gets in the way sometimes like just drags in the water. I guess it depends if you're on waves or just, that's not my experience.

Yeah. I ride waves with flat back boards. The only thing that sort of does drag, if you don't have a very wide board, but if I take my 60 liter or 70 liter board on it, two waves, I can't carve as hard because I've got almost, yeah. 15 inches of tail and that'll drag 60 liters. So if I try to Carhartt that rail is going to touch, but the back I've typically not touched, it's got to realize if you don't have a kick tail, you don't have all that extra tail in the back.

You can position the foil a lot farther back towards the tail. So that. Essentially geometry where your foils flying and you've got something behind your foil that could touch the wave. It's not really an issue there. Okay. So actually, let's talk about that a little bit. Obviously having the wider square tail is as good for beginners because it's more stable and so on, but then yeah.

Having like a more like a pin tail type shape, it just really makes it easier to carve through tighter turns or be on the way it's being more in the pocket without touching. Yeah. Or essentially the future will go and like more of a dynamic level of shape where we won't have a lot of bevel in the front of the board, but they'll tightened out towards the back where we've got quite a lot of bevel in the back, and that will allow hard carving over the tail and you still have enough flatness or around us in the nose that, if you do a jump or something that it doesn't attach, it just bounces off the water and allowing for easier recovery.

I actually, I think I saw something from day from Dave Kalama. That looked pretty interesting. I think one of his downwind boards he's got like that type of tail shape where it's completely flat. There's no more Tictail, but his bevel radius cut SIM quite harsh towards the back. So if we start specializing more into sort of, this is our wave boards for winging, they'll start, tend to end to look like that sort of like that various sort of sharp.

Bevel towards the back where you're taking all that area out where you don't really need it for wave riding. And then for freestyle, you will still need that wider back. It's essentially like in windsurfing where it will essentially have specialized wave wing boards and freestyle wing boards and speed wing boards and whatever else.

Yeah. One thing is I find that board design Ferber design is constrained a little bit by the plate Mount because you got that those two flat boxes that basically force you to have a flat section in the back of the board. Whereas if you had a Tuttle or whatever you could have like you said, you could bring that thing right up to the very point of the, exactly you have to get out of the V.

That would be for me personally, that would probably be the best interesting thing, but not another issue is actually you do lose a lot more if you don't have the tracks. It's having that adjustability between foils goes the biggest issue for, for me, if I didn't have, if I had like only a Tuttle box would be, I wouldn't be able to write as many files as I do.

And there's a huge spread. For example, actually my favorite of all times, like this thing here, which is the Moses thousands, actual high aspect, wing aspect, ratio of 10, but it's also got like a, more of a K-12 geometry. So the mass is actually really far forward. It's close to the front wing and I have to ride this at least five or six centimeters farther forward than I ride all my other foils.

And then not being able to move that around would be like, I have to have a different board for every different style of a foil that I ride, which is just not practical. Yeah. Cause if it was too far back, you basically can't put your back foot back far enough on the board to, to control it, basically.

Yeah. Yeah. Also, the boards all work, with the rocker lines we have at a certain foot placement and there's no point of moving around too much or else the borderline leader, if you're too far forward, it will start breaking. If it's too far back, it'll always tend to do early. So yeah, having the tracks is good.

The actual thing is there, isn't a huge amount of gains from having a little bit of Wii or having just a tunnel the actual sort of drag effect or the Quanta effect doesn't scale as as aggressively as most people think. Cause I've raced with. Huge adopter pedestals, like total box to play adopters, for sure.

Like massive. And you would think they dragged like tremendously, but compared to a normal Tuttle, it drags a little bit, but not at a really noticeable level. So for me, for example, when I started using the gophers, that's how I did it. I, my guys are all had that big, massive aluminum adapter on there, and I still got going on small waves.

It didn't drag enough to actually have a big detrimental effect. So most plates don't really drag that much more. And yeah, you do lose a bit of that option of having a bit of a V in the board, but I don't think, at the moment you look at what's on the market, there's so many boards on there which are essentially just, there's so much stuff on there and drags that I don't think people would.

Notice if there was a Tuttle or a plate. So what do you on your boards, do you have a bottom handle and what's your opinion on having a bottom handle? And this is where I, this is where I argue with in Ghana, for example, the handles we have on the boards this year, I love them because they're super low key.

They have a really sharp they see release, they just go straight into the board. There's no cavity and they're all round or anything. So there's very little drag from the water just tends to flow over it because there's nothing to go. But all the customers, they want big fat handle where you can get all your fingers in.

And I just know that, and it's also because it's not clean, it's not a clean cutoff. So to the bottom, it's going to drag, I've done, I did the testing with those and they do drag, but people want to carry their boards a bit more comfortably. Best case you don't want anything like that on the bottom?

Yeah. Yeah. You shouldn't hire wing for boards. I didn't put handles on the bottom just because I don't want that extra drag and so on and adds weight to and so on. And I find it pretty easy to carry it with just the wing against the board on the deck. So I carry it on the shoulder. I use the tray on the floor.

Yeah. But I've learned over the years, you have to deal with the customers. Want a little bit. Yeah. It seems like that's one of the main features that people are looking for in a Wingfield where does carry handle and it makes sense. You want to make it as easy as possible. Became comfortable too. Yeah.

Yeah, you're right. That, but as long as they let me keep my flat bottoms in my efficient sort of easy planning, like fast foiling shapes, I'll. I'll give him the handle. Yeah. Okay. So let's next. Let's talk about wings and what wings you've used and what do you look for in the wings and so on? I go back to the, your YouTube channel.

Is there, maybe we can, do you have anything that over the years you'll see I've used quite a lot, especially since the time I went away from ozone. I pretty much, I've tried. There's very few things I actually haven't tried. So you'll see quite a lot of variation of the wings I'm using. And the videos.

So things you like or dislike about different, the different wings you've tried and would you change anything? If you could design your own wing, what would you do? Yeah. The thing that sort of you, you learn pretty quickly with all winging is stiffness is key. Having a wing that sort of, flaps around is too flexible, just cost power, and it adds instability when you're riding on the waves.

Yeah. So stiffness is paramount. That's the first thing, the way in whatever way I have it. If I want it to be good, it has to be rock solid in the air. And then the second thing, actually, and this is a bit of a contention I need, why handles? I need those. Why handles on those wings?

It's so much easier to jump, to wave, ride, to do tricks. I tend to like if I have Y handles on a wing, I tend to not use the front handles on the Stripe. Yeah. Caroline was like, that's actually an old prototype in that video for, from North that doesn't have any white handles. If you look at any of the recent ones where I have the production wings, they all have white handles now almost only ever on the white handle.

Oh, there's one with the white handle. Was that your influence on their design that they always did? I was quite vocal that I wanted those. Yeah. I know we tried both, so they put them in, so they must've heard, but I'm pretty, pretty sure I'm not the only person who's told them. Look, these are great.

Yeah. Yeah. What else? On the wing design having I've forgotten the English word for this for on basically pretension on the first third of the camber in the way like a profile shape, a tight basically from tip to tip the best way to serve the easiest test of this. If you look at a wing, that's just sitting on the beach, I'm struck down if you see the profile collapsing in on itself.

So if you've got like most cut wings have that center skin now above the straw, if you see that collapsing in it doesn't have any pretension in that area. Decent wings. They're all, when they're sitting there, that profile is pretty much perfect it's out there. And that pretension, it allows the wings to basically generate up wind power a lot better.

They let's say they fly more like windsurf sails or kites, if you compare it to something that's Woody floppy and dragging mainly a lot of unbranded stuff from China it just drags down wind. And this was as tried to go up when the profile's trying to collapse in on itself.

Yeah. It's like you get back winded when you're going. Exactly what you said on some of the older designs from last year or some. Yeah, actually some also some of the newer ones, but I'm not going to talk about that. But essentially if your wing is trying to back, when you, for example, you get on a wave on side shore, wind, and you're going to go hard up waiting on that wave.

And that wing is trying to always collapse back on you that's cause it doesn't have enough pretension on the front. Yeah. Or two or too much profile if it's too deep too. I think it can be competent if the tension is there, it doesn't do that. It keeps that profile basically taught that it stops the wind from back windy.

Yeah. I've had wings, I've tried wings, which I've had super thin profiles, but have just not had enough tension and they've had four, they've been horrible upwind. And just trying to ride up with that speed without the wave. You still feel that profile compressing. But when, once you de power it, when, if it has like a deep profile, even if it has tension or I guess, especially if it has tension with the deep profile of when you deep powered on a wave, I feel like it's not as easy to handle as a flatter wing with less profile.

I don't know. Have you had that? Okay. Again, it depends. Cause it's it's one variable of so many. But what I tend to see that the fat profile wings, they, they do okay. On down the line conditions, but it's just one of your sort of heading back into the wind basically off shore conditions.

So on you have a lot more drag from the wing as the profile sticker. Yup. And that will slow you down and it makes it a lot less easy you handle that however is not as bad as for example, what you see a lot of wings have a tendency to flip over when you're in that type of conditions, when you've let it go on surf handle and then they'll flip over.

And that has more to do with not having enough tension in the back one on the trailing edge, or if got too much dihedral on that upward V like from the strength of the tips, makes me want to tip over. As it's probably outdated, for example, you look at the original wing, the wing boiler and the echo.

From duotone yeah. That thing was terrible when slipping over and stuff, it's got way too much. Dihedral. So as soon as he got into the wave, it was, it started shaking back and forth. Cause it's trying to the wings, the tapes was trying to center themselves and I mentioned it to just flip over.

Yeah. And those are fairly thin profiled wings, so that this a lot of other factors, which will cause instability when wave writing. So let's talk a little bit about windows and window placement. I've noticed yeah, obviously some manufacturers like Armstrong and ozone too, they have a window right above the strut.

And and I think when you like fully powered and you have the wing really vertical to the water, you can actually see through those windows. But most of the time. The w the window is more, or the wing is more angled. So you can't really look over the strut. Do you have that experience?

Yeah, I, that's why, when I talk about it, I divide the window category into two. I've got what I call passive windows and I've got active windows. So for me, like an active window, which is, for example, any window that's near the strut, is that where you have to move the wing to look through the window.

So you can't just sound naturally. So you actually have to do some kind of movement to look through it. For example, the Armstrong and the ozones, you have to sail really low down. You have to actually pull the wing down, which it's not an issue if you're on a three meter, but if you're on a five or six meter, you're very likely if you do that to bury the tip on the water, whereas for example airbrush or North or Harlem the new slick, the windows are passive, where if you just sailing and you, you're looking through the window, like on this video, you can see right here, I'm just sailing in a normal position.

You can see the kite or in front of me, and that's from a mouse camera. Ha have you compared tested like the identical wings with and without windows. And can you tell the difference in performance or do you have a personal preference to using windows or no windows? From the testing they make virtually no difference.

I know a lot of people like saying that, okay, that extra weight, it makes a huge amount of difference, but we're talking about like 150 grams at worst for having those windows in there. And if you look at how they're placed with most modern wings, they're placed in areas where they're not affecting the profile that much.

If you look at the North here, they're quite far towards the wingtips. So they're more of a flat area, so it's not in a profile area. So the performance effect is virtually not there at all. There's many other factors which can cause a wing to have less power. And it's not the windows. Actually some of the most powerful wings I've used had windows and some of the least powered wings I've had not had windows.

I was thinking maybe having the little windows we'll actually have if you place them in the right place, maybe have a positive effect on the profile and stuff like that. But a lot of times I see Crinkles in the windows. I don't understand this picture here. I just noticed yeah, it's not, but like the window crinkling a lot.

And it seems like that comes down to the materials we're using at the moment. We're using fairly old school materials here. We're using vinyl for the windows. That will probably change in the next years. Some brands have already started going to explai more laminate materials for their windows or even for the entire week.

So we'll probably eventually get proper laminate material, which we no longer have a crinkling issue, but then they will help or make it harder to pack. Yeah. Cause then you can't really, you have to roll it up without any crinkling. So that, I don't know if that's a good solution either. I know, but we already are.

Okay. Most brands still don't have bags that allow that, but. North is an example. It's a long bag. So all you do is double the wing. So the windows never folded. And if you roll it properly, you're also not crinkling up the window. So it's not hard to pack away or wing. If you have a decent bag for it, same thing on the dual tones, they have the long bags so that you don't have to fall across the window.

So it's possible. I don't think it's a big issue. It's more of a, how you decide to pack up your wing. I've been using a wing without windows. Like the PPC wings don't have windows and I actually really like it. You don't have to worry about, I just roll it up and crunch it together and push it in the bag.

And it's no, you don't have to worry about rolling it up a certain way. And then I don't really find it hard to look under either under the wing when I'm, when I want to see what's going on. But. If you want your wing to last a long time, just like with your kite, you should pack it away. Carefully.

Want to make it last. A lot of brands also having solved the bladder twisting issue yet. So it's always a good idea to roll it tightly and cleanly. But one mistake I've seen people make is trying to fold it in like the same location. Like they fold the four and half in half before they roll it up, things like that.

And then if you have a say the same fold, that's always in the same location that can damage the shell material. And also the bladders, if you always have those folds in the same place and roll it up too tight, like I actually liked to not roll pack my wing up too tightly, because then I feel like it's better for the wing to be a little bit loose, that said I've done the longevity tests, the, the North wing is pack that way. If I get tight and that packet basically folded in half off that one that's in that video is now reaching about 200 hours. There is no crease and there is no issue with the bladders. Actually, this is the only, only wing I haven't had a bladder issue yet.

All other wings I've tried, there's been some sometime where the bladder has had holes or it's twisted, like falling out and exploded when you've pumped it up again. I don't really crush it down and pack it, but I folded in half. Cause that's the way it's designed to do so you don't, but I've not had any issues with anything, any creases forming on the strut or any still material.

Nice. All right. Thanks so much. That's great information. I haven't bought, I only have about 10 more minutes cause I have an appointment and I have to go to, but let's talk a little bit about I always ask people this question, like during the pandemic, obviously there's a lot of change happening and a lot of people were, are affected by it.

Feeling lonely, anxious, or depressed and so on. So did you experience any of those kinds of how, what do you do to stay positive and I'm going to make it a little bit harder. So you can't say I'm just going to go wing foiling or get on the water because that's too easy. We all know that works, but yeah.

How do you keep a positive outlook and how do you make the best of your situation? For us, it's a bit different here. We only had our lockdown last year for three months. They shot us in for pretty much three months straight. And that was pretty hard. But I'm lucky.

Doris is great and my kids grapes, so it's pretty easy to get along with them. Plus I have a bunch of other hobbies other than watersports. I'm a musician. I played drums, I play guitar and stuff I had around with electronics and bunch of drones and everything back there. I've got stuff to keep me busy and so on.

And and funnily at the time, the sort of backend part of the industry was going off because in mainland Europe, everyone was buying winging equipment and people couldn't get enough. So I had quite a lot of work to do designing boards and foils for people. So that kept me busy. The what I found later, like now it's progressed on, cause it's a bit of a drag, especially with the shop is just, you got to try to stay above all the BS that you read online and, the, all the garbage that people bring to you.

Like when they, we've had incidents where people come to the beach, they've been stressed and they're not doing that great with the whole situation. And, they'd take it with them onto the water and that's just to try to calm them down and have conversations and so on. And, but, it's your job to try to we're on the water.

We keep that side away. You wanna talk about business, not going well, or, whatever theories you have, like just when we're having fun on the water. And so we just leave that out and I don't, she don't yell at people don't cause any problems and so on. Cause it's just. As the water Island, we're trying to keep everybody happy, so yeah, we try to do that, but we've been lucky in the fact that after those three months of being locked in completely, we we've been fairly good here.

We've not had any other lockdowns. We've been allowed to do sports all the time now. Now we're good. So I can't really say I've had to deal with so much of in a depression or anything like that. That's good. Good to hear. Yeah, you just touched on it, like being in the wrong state of mind when you're on the water.

Obviously he knows. And I don't, and I'm sure the feeling, but sometimes we get into that state where everything's just clicks and you just feel in tune with everything, with your gear, with with nature, with the waves and the wind. And it feels like you can't do any wrong, you're pulling off stuff and everything, but how do you get into that state of mind? And do you have any pointers on getting into that zone? For me, for example, if I'm trying to learn something new and trick, I tried to basically try to remove any sort of barriers I have.

So if I know I want to have fun session, I want to learn something new. I will prepare my equipment as such. I will take an easier foil, slightly bigger board. I'm trying to make the most of it. I'm not going to try to, push the level. I'm just going to go out, have fun, make it easy. So I'll take a bigger foil, a little bit bigger board is the wind a bit light.

I'll take a bigger wing, even though I could take a smaller one just to not have to deal with any of the issues there. So I can just concentrate on one thing. And most of the time that actually then works out because I'm not having to worry about not having enough power in the way my board being too small or the fall not working.

So just go out everything. My equipment is working fine, and I can just work on myself. It's what am I doing wrong? How can I improve? And then when you, after about a hundred tries, you do learn the trick and you're like,

Yeah. Sometimes I find that, you try it a hundred times and then you never make it. And then the next time you go out and you're like fresh, and maybe you thought about it while you took a little break and then you go back and the first time he tried to pull it off perfectly. Yeah. So you also have to know when, to when to stop.

A lot of people in the training, like I said, your body needs time to internalize, if I'm out there and I'm not getting the I've done, like 50 tries, and I know I'm not closer to it, I took the sail back to the beach and just sit down, like calm down.

What am I doing wrong? What could possibly going or just stop and then come back the next day. And then usually the next day, all of a sudden it's boom, first drop. And you're like, wow, Yeah, just the body needs time to do it. So if you get frustrated, you just do it over and over again, it might not work on that date.

So I have to accept that this is going to happen, try it the next day, and then it might work better. And now you're, you're super into foiling and I don't know, I always call myself a foil addict. But would you say, has it changed for you over the years? How passionate you are about foiling and is there a dark side to being a foil addict?

The cool side of foiling is that it's been evolving so fast and so much. Every time I saw, I think I'm getting bored of a certain thing. Like when it started, kite foil, freestyle, or kindful racing since like a board of that, something else has come along. When I started getting a bit bored of normal kite foiling surf foiling came along.

And then when I got really sick of racing, like two years ago, waiting for Julian came along. So it's always been like something new and I'm always fairly earlier adopter with things. So if I find something that's cool, I get really into it. So it just keeps the whole thing alive for me. Cause you know, I'm really interested in progress in general.

So I don't have any preconceptions of bots new I've done doesn't work. I don't want to do that. I'm typically cool. How do I do that? So in foiling is so versatile that you can do it almost anything, so you never get bored. So yeah. And then your wife is pretty accepting that you're out on the water till dark, if it's good or stuff like that.

Yeah. Ashley knew where she got into when she got together with me, like back then with the kiting. So yeah, I'm not as fanatic as I used to be to get on the water. She spend some time with the family a little bit. And I try also not to get the blinds on too much because I like play music and other things too.

Yeah. So she's very accepting. She kites too, and she wants to learn to wing. Now. Also, I also spend quite a lot of time, like now with my daughter yet trying to teach her to wing at the cave and get her into water sports a lot more. Cause she really loves being in the water. He's only eight years old and you're already getting it.

Awesome. So where do you think what's the next cool thing, like you were talking about how filing keeps progressing. Do you have any ideas on what's, what comes next or you have any crazy concepts or ideas, do you think? Not recently. I just see that as going to be quiet, a lot of evolution in materials in the next few years, especially for the wings.

So there's a lot of cool, exciting things that we can try and do get basically a stuff's going to get lighter, more powerful and. And I probably see it through, so that's going to be really cool. And yeah, the foils the same, there's a lot of progression on the foils, what we call high aspect now, or what most bronze call aspect foils now are just not, and it'd be interesting to see how far we can push that aspect of things.

Also the pumps. We're just thinking just now figuring out how they got like the dock starting hunting, get no foils that anybody can pump that's also the new frontier. It's not just like super fit guys, basically doing dock storks and pumping and being able to go 500, 600, yeah. Meters under their own power.

We're designing foils now where anybody can do it. You put 150 kilo guy on this thing and he will also manage to do it. That's a new sort of sport that's, especially for a lot of the no wind areas, which is also going to be exploding in the next couple of years, too, for pumping. Yeah. I agree with him.

That's a good, that's a good, interesting area too, to expand. Is that something to where you don't even need when you just need a water? Exactly. That's the one thing I don't have here. I don't have a doctor start off, actually. I've been trying it. It's damn hard. It looks pretty easy. That actually that comes down to foil full use.

Yeah. I think I have a good foil for it. The axis. What is it? 1150 or something like that, but yeah, it's a good, it's a, I think people don't learn it on a high aspect for them. What they do take a bit more takeoff speed and they're not forgiving. I've tried it on the app.

I've tried it on the Armstrong 2,400. And that was hard too. I don't know what you want. I actually cheap ass gong or from Indiana the thousand 100, it's got it's a super thick sort of lifter profile. Even if you're stopped, you can still push it forward. Whereas most of the higher aspect and more performance spoils, a thinner profile falls is that when you've messed up and you've stalled, all you can do is shoot it up and you fall off the back.

Whereas on these things, they may be slow, but when you jump on it, you can get the angle totally wrong and you can still recover. You can stop and you can keep pumping. That's a good point. That makes a huge difference when you're learning. So yeah, if you can get something that's super fat and inefficient in that sense, but forgiving.

Yeah. That'll actually make that doc starting things so much easier. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks too much performance that not easy. Cool. There's a bunch more questions I wanted to ask you about being a YouTuber and staying motivated to make new videos and so on. But I guess we'll have to, we'll have to set up another interview in the future, for sure.

Maybe in, in like in half a year or something like that. When you have some more stuff to talk about, we'll do it again, but I can just keep going. Like I always go way over anyways, but thanks so much for your time gunner. Really appreciate it. The chat. Yeah. And then, yeah, we'll get back together in the future.

All right, have a good one. Hello. Hi, have a good day. You too. All right. Congratulations. You made it to the end and that means you are officially part of the full crazy 5% club that watches the whole damn thing. So thanks for being here still. And I do have a couple of special announcements just for you guys.

First of all, next week's interview is with the legendary Mark Rapa horse. I just finished my interview with him super long, super interesting stuff. He is the mastermind behind the SAC brand and now makes the flying Dutch man foil boards, amazing stuff. He's just a master at his craft. So very interesting interview and I hope you can catch that on the next plutonic show.

Second of all, next month for the month of June and planning to post a new video every day, every single day of the month. So 30 new videos in one month. So I'm committed to posting a new video every day. And I want to also post some videos from the viewers like you. So I'm not going to have a video contest.

And I just wanted to show you this. Yeah. You know what? This is, it's $2,000 in cash, and I'm going to hand that out to whoever post the best video. So I'm going to announce those rules later on, but basically any video between 30 seconds long and up to three minutes long just send it to me, send a link that I can download the video from or whatnot.

And I'll pick a video of the day, every day of the month. Posted on YouTube. So the winter's not necessarily going to be the most popular one or the one with the most gums up, although that is important. So basically you will be judged by a panel of one, which is me on a bunch of different categories. So I'll announce that later on what I'm looking for in the videos, but just fun stuff.

Whatever videos that are mostly Wingfield related will be great. And I'll be sharing those on a daily basis next month. So you can start submitting them as soon as you can. The sooner you submitted, the more chances you have of it getting posted and a chance to win the $2,000 in cash and going back.

We've been posting videos on YouTube since 2008. So that's been a long time ago. I just went back to the very first video we posted, which was a C4 Waterman demo day back in September, 2008. And my son who is 15 years old now was a toddler and he fell asleep on my board. It's a nice video about the demo day and it starts Tia Carrera, Brian Carolina, bunch of legends.

The only downside of that video it's made for a tiny phone screen, it was made for the old school cell phones and a very compressed file that you can watch on a tiny cell phone. So you have to watch it on a smaller screen, but it's a cool little video. And I realized it only got about 200 views and only two thumbs up.

So I'm going to put the link to low and appear as well. So please click on it, check it out, give it a thumbs up if you like it and give it some love. All right. And of course this interview too. If you enjoyed it, please give it a thumbs up. And if you're not as subscribed already, please subscribe to the blue diamond surf YouTube channel.

And don't miss our daily videos in June. Okay. Thanks again for watching. Thanks for your time. And we'll see you next time on the blue prime show. Aloha, see you on the water.

Glennel Jordan Wing Foil interview- Blue Planet Show #8

Whether it's swimming with sharks, wing foiling in big waves a day before giving birth, or "toiling" on smooth North Shore walls with her smooth and flowy foil surfing style, Glennel Jordan lives a full life and openly shares about her background, surf foil and wing foil technique and equipment, her Macaw, her husband Zack and baby Raven, adventures, stories and how she keeps a positive outlook.

 

Wing Foil Show transcript:

Aloha friends, it's Robert, Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show produced right here in my home office, in the garage.

On the blue planet show, we talk about wing foil technique and equipment, and I'm also trying to get to know my guests a little bit better, their background, what inspires them, and how they live each day to the fullest.

You can watch these long form interviews on YouTube, with video, or you can listen to them as a podcast on the go, just search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast app.

Today's interview is with the awesome Glennel Jordan, she's amazing. She actually Wingfoiled the day before she gave birth, she's going to talk about that in the show.  She just has a real smooth foiling style and she credits it all to spending a lot of time foiling.  Her husband is also a fanatic and they're a super cool couple, right here on Oahu. And without further ado, please welcome Glennel Jordan.

Glennel, welcome to the blue planet show, it's really great to have you here.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Thanks for joining me, tell us a little bit about your background, like where are you from, where you grew up and then also how you got into watersports and board sports and so on.

I am from the place where there's lots of water, Las Vegas.  The ninth Island and yeah, I grew up in Vegas, so I had no experience besides my swimming pool with water. My mom was in show business. She was a show girl. So I have the opposite background of most people in surfing. And then we moved to Malibu when I was, let's see 13, I believe. And that's where I started surfing Malibu Surfrider beach, the epicenter of surfing in Southern California.

And and then when I was 15, we moved to Maui. So I finished high school in Maui and that's when I really got into surfing at Hookipa after high school, after school. And yeah, and then I, once, once I was in Hawaii, I was like thinking where I'm going to go to college. And a lot of people in Hawaii that grow up here, usually getting out of the state to go to college.

But I decided I love the islands. I love Hawaii. And I love surfing. I love nature. So I knew that I wanted to stay here. So I moved to Oahu for college and went to Hawaii Pacific university. And I've been on Oahu ever since.

Okay. So you've been here since you're 15 years old in Hawaii, first Maui then?

All right. Yeah. So 20 years, I'm 35 now. Yeah. Yeah. And I I've lived on North shore the whole time. I had a friend that was living on the North shore and I was like, Oh, I'll just live with her. She had an extra room and that's it. So I had moved to the North shore when I got here. And then surfing ever since, and just getting into all the different ways to enjoy the ocean up here.

If there's an option to enjoy the ocean on a certain kind of board, I've tried it, I've done it. I've gone into it and then maybe I've stopped doing it. Yeah, I love it. I can't, I probably will never live anywhere else. I can't imagine it. Yeah. Oh, so your mom's a Vegas or was a Vegas show girl.

So you never got into that. No. She was she was a dancer and everything, and she was very specific about not giving me any dance lessons or singing lessons. She was like, you are going to be a smart business person. Yeah, she wanted me to take the opposite trajectory and I certainly did.

I, I studied finance and business and I'm a financial advisor now. So yeah, you got an MBA as well, right? Yeah. MBA in finance. And she just didn't want me anywhere near that industry. She, saw that long-term, it's like really hard for people to build a life and a career, out of show business per se.

Yeah. Yeah. So your early childhood memories that got you into the sport, was that in Malibu when you learned to surf or can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. She, I remember my mom picked me up from the airport after I was seeing my grandparents and she said, guess what? She's we were like inland if a Malibu for a little bit, but she was like, guess what?

We're moving to Malibu. And she had already bought me a surf board and this, our board was in the car was a Stuart longboard. And I was like, Oh, okay, here we go. And so as she's I got some lessons from some guy at Surfrider Malibu, and then that's where just took off from there, catching my first waves over at Surfrider and I just.

Yeah, I've just been drawn to it. I was never a team sport. I'm an only child. So I noticed a lot of like only children kind of gravitate towards like solo sports more. I was never really into team sports. So I really liked the, the solo illness and like the being by yourself, the meditativeness that surfing is when you're, by yourself, in the ocean with your own thoughts and your own capabilities to get, put you in and get you out of situations.

So I really, I was gravitated towards, like how difficult surfing can be, when learning surfing or learning any new sports in the ocean. Yeah. And then how did you get into foiling? So my, so I met my husband like 10 years ago and he's. He's one of those really kinds of people that is how do I describe it?

He's just, he reminds me of an older version of Kane where his brain is like, always thinking of so mechanical and thinking of like different things to do. And like just expanding like what you can do, even if it seems like difficult or impossible, he's always come coming up with ideas on things that we should do that a few years later, like everybody's doing it.

And he's, he got me into dirt biking and kite surfing until five years ago. He he's look at these videos of, people foily, but actually in fact, like 15, 20 years ago, no people were Tofoya late. They had these old foils and we were, we didn't have a bunch of friends that used to do this old, this foiling, like from a long time ago, these old Hattie foils where you're like, boots, you're, you're strapped into these boots, it wasn't very attractive at that point.

But five years ago is when he started, foiling just started with a lot of some of the professional surfers, like Kailani. And he's- we need to do this! And I was like, I don't know. I really liked surfing the way it is, going out on my gun when it's bigger or shortboarding, and I'm like that just, I don't know.

I wasn't sold on it at all, but he just went ahead and he bought foils from this kite surfing company. And they were like these big, heavy foils. They were like, they were so heavy. And I can't remember the name of it. You said it and they were so happy. And I was like, I'm still don't know about this.

And We have a jet ski and he was like no, it was really great. We got to do this. And we went out so many sessions trying to figure out foiling on these big, heavy. And most of the time we did not do that well. But we had fun with it. We laughed about it. We enjoyed how difficult it was and how bad we were.

We just kept doing it. And and then the summers around here on the North shore of Oahu can get extremely hot and extremely flat. And you can spend your time in the mountains, like mountain biking or dirt biking, but I decided I wanted to like why not, I'll try and bring my foils down to the beach and try and foil.

And this is when no, not really anybody else was foiling over here. And I would just go down to sunset beach and I used to started teaching myself to foil on these big, heavy, clunky foils. Yeah, like three years ago, I think. And I slowly got into it, I've been, I like, I spent so many hours surfing in the water.

I'm really good at paddling and catching waves. So it was I caught onto it pretty quickly. My husband, not so much, he hates surfing and crowds. So he's, he doesn't spend a lot of time like prone surfing in any capacity out here because it just it's gotten really crowded out here. So he didn't really pick up on the prone foiling as quick as I did.

But no, I really enjoyed it. I really just enjoyed how difficult it was. I know that's weird. It sounds weird, but I like it. I enjoy the the challenge. And everybody else is longboarding and I'm like, I'm going to do this foiling thing because it's fun when I make it to my feed.

I'm able to glide a little bit. And yeah. And then, I don't know. I think the next foil we got was maybe an Armstrong. Like I, it's all kind of a blur, the whole learning process. So I'm just scrolling through your Instagram account here on Instagram, your ocean, baby ocean underscore, baby.

And this is some older stuff, but I guess you had, you got a baby Macaw.

We got it from an egg and we put it in an incubator and we hatched it. Oh, wow. Yeah. And we live up in the mountains on the North shore. And so she was a free flying and this is another one of those crazy ideas. My husband has more than I'm not really sold on this idea of, he just goes out and does it anyways. So he brings us MCI and home. We had shit, we raise this baby in the car and when it starts flying, we decide we don't want to keep it in a cage because they're like so magnificent. And we're like, it's going to be our free flying Macaw.

And so we let it outside and it's just like flying all over the North shore. It all, it came home every night. Wow. Yeah. I came home every night. It slept inside. We had a perch for it and its own room. And like a ma I swear, half of the North shore knew this parrot. Her name was Bob Barela. And and that's right when I was getting into foiling with her.

And we had her for about two years and she went to everybody. She visited everybody that lives up in the mountains, on the North shore, the whole neighbor door. She just land on everybody's patio and talk to them. It was really stressful dogs, packer, but she ended up passing away. After two years, she did decide to sleep outside one night.

And in Hawaii we do have, a month out of the year that it does get really cold up in the mountains. And I she passed away in a tree and overnight, and I think she got hyperthermia, unfortunately. Yeah. And we were never able at, when we had her, it was like having a child. We couldn't do anything late at like into the afternoon hours because we needed to be home to make sure she came home and, get her in the house and get situated.

So we always say that I probably wouldn't, we wouldn't have become that obsessed with foiling if she was still alive, because, with having a child, we were like paid so much attention to her. And it was like, so heartbreaking when we lost her, we were so crushed. And the first thing we did the day we found her, cause we were just like sobbing and we were so upset.

And the first thing my husband said is, Hey, let's go towing, toiling, toe foiling, make the ski and go out because we haven't been able to, stay out until dark before. And it was like our way to heal ourselves. And that was exactly what we did. We loaded up the ski and we went toiling and and then it just became this obsessive toil craze where we were just going out all the time on the jet ski toilet.

And I, I. I'm pretty sure. My husband coined the term toiling. So is actually your husband's Zach that got you into foiling. He was like, yeah, but then I like progress because I surf so much more than him. He's more into dirt bikes and now he's trying to keep up with you, huh? Yeah. So for, in foiling, like I progressed so much faster than him.

So then I became obsessed with it, but he really enjoyed it because it was a way for you to go and get in the ocean where we weren't, in all these crowds you could go to places that weren't the wave wasn't that great. Or you could be inside of people and have fun and didn't have to deal with the crowds.

And so that was a major game changer. Okay. So that picture on the left. So we took our honeymoon and into the mental wise can Dewey. And if you've ever been there, it's some of the best. Finest easiest waves on the plane. And at night it's you're certainly like your dream. And so we're planning this trip and I'm so excited and he's Oh, we got to take the foil.

And it was like, you're crazy. We're going to the best waves on the planet. And you want to bring this clunky? I was like, I was so mad because I didn't want to bring any boards. I just wanted to use their boards down there. I didn't want to deal with traveling with boards and he's no, we're bringing it.

We're bringing it in. So we bring, our big foil board and our big foil to the best waves on the planet. And we ended up having so much fun over there because the owner of the resort let us use the ski. And so we were like towing in, into foil ways over there. I think if you scroll up, you will see my first, some of my first toe in waves were at Cannes Dewey at this place called four bogs.

I don't know when and you brought your bird with you? No, we face time, sir. It's so cool that she could fly for you and every story, right? That's so cool. It was so cool. And it was so much education having a, your own McCall like that, that I realized that parents shouldn't be held in captivity.

They shouldn't be pets because there's just such smart, intelligent animals. And that people can never give them the life they deserve. They need to be out flying. And so now I'm like this huge advocate or parents shouldn't be pets and I'll never make that mistake again, taking them a call. So the video are you talking about?

Is that one of these here? I think it's up actually put, ended up posting it a lot later if you want. I can Should I let you take over a baby. As an egg, basically, you got, so you were the parents really before the birth. Okay. So tell us about this wave. So this was one of the first times we tow foiled was in canned Dewey on our honeymoon.

This was like one of my, what is this? 2018. So what's that three years ago, this was at four Bob's, first learning about tow and foiling or toiling and what a magical place that places can Dewey. This big board, this big clunky foil at Yeah for Bob's, which is like this amazing.

Right-hander like super easy. Every wave is exactly the same. And yeah, by the, I think I think I kinda got the hang of it better than my husband at this time. And I was like, Oh yeah, now I get this, you just ride the swells. This makes perfect sense. And my husband is such a Motorhead, so he loves things.

Like I said, he's more of a dirt biker, but he loves things with engines. And so every moment's notice we were free, he'd be like, want to go on a jet ski, you want to go toilet? I'm like, geez, like you want to do it this much. And he's yeah, of course. Why not? And motocross to you, you were doing a lot.

Let's like we did trials. So motorcross is you have this big bike and you're like going around a track doing jumps. So we do Trials, which is a dirt bike with no seat. Again, like he finds is the weirdest hardest ways we can do activities. And he's that's what we should do.

So we have, we were students way down here. See how obsessed I got with foiling. It just took over my Instagram. Yeah. You post a lot on Instagram. It's just amazing. Like how many times a week do you usually post? What do you say? Like honest every day. It depends what I'm doing. I just friends with people that always take pictures and it's so cool.

It's such like a, a memory bank for yourself where, we're only going to be this young one, so might as well. I can't even find my trials pictures anymore, but they're basically dirt bikes with no seats. And on the North shore, the mountains here, the dirt biking and mountain biking is as good as the surfing is, it's like the best in the world.

And trials, bike, enables you to go anywhere basically where big motocross bikes can't go. And I can't even find them anymore. Oh, there's the egg is hatched. Huh? There's some bikes. Those are chickens. We farm chickens. Do. Yeah. So trials, bike.

Okay. Yeah. So you're not never sitting down. Really? Yeah. So it's like my mountain biking. It's like downhill mountain biking with a two 5,300 CC two stroke engine. So Lee, you can go uphill with the same fat in the same style as you would go. Downhill mountain biking super fun. But then yeah, when foiling came around it took over and I stopped dirt biking for a few years.

And I just recently, now that I've had a baby I'm just recently getting back into trials and we've been riding and it feels good to mix it up, foiling, I think for a lot of people who started foiling, it took over our. Our brains where it's all you wanted to do. But it's nice to get back into a different sport again, it's not the only thing.

Yeah. Okay. So then I guess you started toe foiling and then prawn foiling. And then how did you progress into wing for them? I, so I am a financial advisor and I have an office in Maui. Also. I have a partner over there and so I would go to Maui every couple months. To work with clients and work at the office over there.

I'd stay there for about a week or so. And, before I went to Maui, I wouldn't bring a surfboard cause the surf's not great over there most of the time. And then when boiling came around, I was like, Oh my gosh, this changes my business trips all together. Now I can bring my foil and there's so many places to boil over there.

And I, I kite serve too, but I never caught it over there, but I'd go check out like, who Keepa, like what was happening? And it caught on. And I had a client that was like telling me, she was like, this wing boiling thing. She had some people, she knew, some people that were getting into it.

She's it's going to take off. And I was like I don't know about that. But then I went to whole Keepa and I saw some of these first guys that were whinging. Oh, what's that right? Caught that. It Hokies over to the side. And it was like double overhead and they were just killing it and I was.

And not many people were winging yet. This was like two years ago and I was like, Oh, okay, now I get it. And this makes perfect sense to me. I was like, this is towing. You are basically towing in on your foil, but you are yourself, the jet ski and like how kite surfing is, you're your own jet ski.

And and I went, when I got back to a wahoo, I told my husband, I'm like, we gotta do this. I'm like this winging thing, I'm finding a wing and you can even find a wing, like nobody was selling them. They were like out before you could even buy one. And so I ordered, this was my first one, this wing ride to Kuma that I got.

And I didn't even know how to use it, but I just knew, I was like, I know I have to do this sport. And so my husband came with me to Maui. The next time I went and I was like, we got to learn this. And he was like, honestly, he's it's the stupidest thing I've ever seen. And he's a tight surveys and cutting like 20 some years and he wind surf.

And then I brought him to hokey-pokey and we watched those same guys, like in some pretty big surf. And he was like, okay, now I get it makes sense. And then, so we came back to a wahoo and I connected with Christian I don't think, Christian one Maui days, his Instagram, and he came to a wahoo.

So he came to Weill who one day today, I think hanging out with you guys or some of the South shore wahoo crew that wanted to learn to wing. And I was like, Christian you're in Oahu. Great. I was like, can you come teach me too? And so somebody drops him off at the airport and I go to the airport and I pick him up and we go straight to Kailua and I was like, okay, let's do this.

Teach me how to wing. And that was my first day that picture Christian took where he showed me, like he showed me just a few simple things right off the bat. And I still do that same exact start today on almost no matter what board I'm on. The knees start, holding your hands to the side and right.

Actually, yeah, walk us through that. Because a lot of people are starting out and you need help with that. Can you walk us through exactly how you start. Yeah. And like I noticed so many people don't get any pointers and it takes them forever. And like the simplest things, when I show people it like clicks and they get it pretty quickly.

But yeah you always have the wing on your wrist, the Alicia, your is to never do anything without it on your wrist, crawl on the board, get on your knees. Don't worry about the wing it's on your wrist. You don't need to think about it. Just make sure it's downwind from you, crawl on your knees, hold the rails of the board, get super comfortable and then grab that leash and start pulling it in and then put, grab the front handle that's on that middle strap there and then grab the back handle.

And the key that I think a lot of people miss is they're trying to. Hold it straight down wind and their body is straight down when, and you don't want to hold it like that instead, you really, what Christian showed me is that, like that angle, right? With your arms and your back where you want to like twist.

And when you do that, what happens is you pushes your board up when, and when I show people that when I'm there to show people that it like clicks and it really helps everyone, everything come to gather, but it's holding it like this. And so this was my first day and I would just hold it like that as hard as I could.

And right then you'll see the wind will catch it and you'll start pointing sort of up wind and start moving. And this nice start I did when I was nine months, 10 months pregnant. And it was so easy that that is something that I could do pretty easily being pregnant. And then you just put your front foot up and then your back foot up, and then you're standing.

Yeah. That's pretty much how I do it too. And even on a smaller board, you can still start that way. Yeah. There's the thing about learning, weighing in and going through all this is at first, it feels like the most impossible thing in the world. And you're like, there is no way I'm going to do this.

Like how in the world people do this and you just need to put in a don't let it get you down. Enjoy that hardness to it. Enjoy that every fall. Because I, the first time I was on my prone board and I put my knees under me, I was like, this is impossible. But after the fifth time doing it, yeah.

I start on my knees, my board sinks a little I'm sinking more on the tail. So the nose will come up so that you don't, the nose doesn't dig in the water and same thing. I'll be w it's hard to balance on a little board on your knees, but it's totally possible do the same thing, reel it in.

Same exact thing. And it works. I find a lot of times the hardest part is getting the wing over your head. Like from when it's sitting on the water to getting it up over your head, once you have wind in the wing, then it's more stable. Yeah, there's like a few seconds where you really just have to focus and believe in yourself and be like I can,

but my husband is so funny. My husband says he's like the most uncoordinated person in the water and now he rides his prone board and he always says, if I can do it, meaning him. He's anybody can do it. And it's true. So if he can start on his prone board and he doesn't spend that much time in the water surfing, and then literally anybody can do it.

He's a really good wing filer too now. So actually I was going to ask you, what's it like to be married to a wing foiler or both? I guess both of you are SEF obsessed with foiling. Yeah. So it's funny, as I learned first, I got these lessons from Christian and my husband just looked on that's just looks so stupid.

He literally told me it looks so dumb. And then when I brought him to Maui, I gave, actually gave him lessons. I got the idea of how to go in and out. And so I taught him. And then he ended up he's this, his personality where, when he wants to do something, he just goes all out and like obsesses into it.

And he actually got better than me pretty quickly because he just obsessed over. It would keep going and going. And frankly, I couldn't find the right board for me to continue on. So I had I quit for a month or two because, equipment is everything and winging. If you don't have the right equipment, then you're just going to have a horrible time.

But he ended up getting a good board for him. And so then he just got, yeah, he got so much better than me and just started doing it way more. And when I was like nine months, eight, nine months pregnant, he's like everyday sake. I'm going winging. I'm going weighing, and I'm going winging it. And I was like, Jesus.

I was like, you can't be like this when we have a baby. And he's no. I'm just doing it now because we don't have a baby yet. And it's true. He's really good now. But it's actually really helpful because when I was nine months pregnant, I didn't feel like doing anything. Like my energy levels were so low, but I would just at least drive down to the beach and he would help me rig my stuff up because it just, I didn't feel like doing anything.

And once I got in the water, it was pretty easy. So it was, it's really helpful that he is a winger too, because he helped motivate me when I wasn't feeling that hot. And now he like, then he started doing like back wending and tax and all this stuff that I wasn't even considering. Cause I really just liked surfing mostly.

And yeah, now he's like doing all these tricks and I was like, wait a minute. I tell you how to wing it.

That's great. Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah, I love that term toiling too. I think that's when I, the first time I saw you foiling was when you were towing for length with Zach and I was just impressed by how you, he looked. I don't know just so efficient and I dunno, like a lot of times when guys are foiling on a wave, it looks like they're just like really tense and and you just look relaxed and totally balanced between, you got the foil just like totally balanced out and just look like, so in control that I was always really impressed by your style.

Oh, thanks. It's honestly, because we spent so much time suffering. We try to tell people are like, they get so frustrated learning how to foil or learning how to wing. And I'm like, no, you don't understand how much leave time we put into suffering. People don't believe it. Right when you're a good winger already.

They're like, think that it's just as natural and no, can you maybe show us some video of yourself? Like towing foiling? Do you have anything that you can show kind of progression? Yeah. The first, yeah, that first one in canned Dewey. That was my point. And Oh yeah. I'll show you this one video. Some of my best videos is when I was pregnant because I couldn't lay down. What was that? Your mom? I just think I saw a picture of your mom.

Yes right there. Yeah. She was great from the eighties and nineties. Big hair. Yeah.

His father was a ventriloquist in Las Vegas. Oh, that's your dad. Wow. Yeah, totally not the surfing background. Yeah, I was pregnant. I couldn't lay down and serve, so I was pretty much just winging and stuff boiling and one of my chefs. Yeah. Sorry. I want to, but yeah, I saw that some of those videos of the, you swimming with the sharks while you're pregnant, that's pretty cool to watch those, but yeah, let's watch this first.

This was, I was eight months pregnant here. The water's so smooth. Yeah. It was such a beautiful day.

This was like one of such, it was not even that big. It was pretty small that day. It was only like two feet Hawaiian, but I'm just so glassy. It's snowboarding and powder and once you get the hang of foiling and it's pretty effortless. And babe, my only goal was just don't fall.

It's not a fun falling when you're pregnant. You have to be careful too. Yeah. I You can't really have heavy impacts and stuff like that. When you have you, can, you got your, my human body is pretty strong, but I don't want to, it doesn't feel good. So I just, my goal was just to be as smooth as possible.

Not do any fast jerky movements and just stay up on foil. And yeah, my husband's flying the drone actually from the beach and then that's our friend that was driving me.

Yeah. Zach does posts such nice footage with the drone, like out on the North shore. Yeah. Yeah. That's another thing. He was forcing me to buy a drone forever. He's get a drone and get a drone. And I was like, you get the drone anyways. I ended up buying it and he uses it more than me, but yeah it's fun to get footage of your friends.

So that's the long wave. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Super long. Yeah. Can't disclose where any of the spots are. Yeah, that's fine. We don't want to be able to know, but yeah, I, living in tonic, I mostly went for on this side, but every now and then I make it out there like a week ago I was out on your side and while it was fun, it was a good session.

I know. It's great. We didn't even know where we would be winging and then it just once we got into it, we were like, Oh, we can win bear and we can win there. And there, and then it just opened up so many spots where, you know, as a surfer, you'd be like, basically, it's you stay out of the water that day, but then we needed to all of a sudden, now I can wing and all these different places and just opened up the whole coast for us.

Oh, this is. Let's see, this is, I was towing again. I was like 32 weeks pregnant was what's that? Yeah. Seven or eight months pregnant. And there was a hammerhead shark.

You'll see it right there.

Like how often do you get to see a hammerhead right into you while you're foiling? Yeah, it seems like they're curious about the foil is right. The sharks. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I think the cavitation I think attracts them or something, but so this again, I was like eight months pregnant and.

I went shark diving. I didn't intend to get so close, but tiger sharks are a lot different than other, a lot of the other sharks around here, most other sharks will see you and just swim away. Tiger sharks come right up to show that video where he's like, where the sharks like opening its mouth and it's like chicken you out.

Yeah. They are like, they come right up. They are ready to touch you and say, who are you? What are you? And luckily, I had that pole, my friend said, have the poll pushed him away. So I had my camera on that poll. I wasn't scared mostly because I have so many friends that are into diving with sharks that I understand how they act.

But they come right up to you. I was like, Oh, okay. It was a huge Decker struck.

It's not aggressive, but that's how they are, they want to check you out and see what you're all up about. Yeah. It's almost like they want me to get pet petted on the nose or something again. That's, that's how they see what things are, is with their mouth. And unfortunately their mouth has big teeth can be really dangerous, but yeah, it was super interested in us.

And I was like, I think right after that, I swam back to the vote. I'm like, that's, I'm good.

Yeah. Yeah. Or scared after the fact, I was like, Oh man, that was, it was a little close for me. But like I said, they're not, I've been educated a lot about sharks and they're not They're not aggressive if you don't, you just have to behave the right way.

Yeah. Cool. And then so let's talk a little bit about, I guess obviously when you're foiling it depends on your way and so on. So when you're pregnant, obviously you gain weight. So did that change what you were using? Did you use a bigger foil? Did these a bigger, yeah, it's so funny.

My friend I'd come in from these sessions and I be complaining, I couldn't stay up on foil. And he was like you are like 30 pounds heavier. And I was like, okay. Point taken you're right. Yeah. So I did start using a bigger foil, actually the foil that my husband uses The hyper one 90, it's this high at a bigger high aspect oil.

And that's what I think I'm using here because I'm in pretty much in light wind conditions, when you're maybe jiving and going back out or something, I could just, gently tap on the front of the board and it would just keep gliding and get me through a lot of those light wind sections.

And I know it's hard to believe, but it was like, it was one of the easiest things for me to do. Being pregnant is waiting for boiling on a big foil. It was like so effortless and so low impact too. That if I, didn't know about winging, I probably would have mostly been out of the water for the last few months of being pregnant.

So it was such a blessing to have this sport, this time of my life. Yeah. That's awesome. So you were pretty much, and then after you gave birth, you were pretty much back in the water again pretty soon too, or, yeah, I got back in the water after about a month. I stayed out, which was totally, I always thought that, it'd be so hard to not serve after having a baby.

But that wasn't the case at all. I had so much fun hanging out with my baby. This is one of the first sessions that I did after getting back in the water. So my husband is filming it from the beach, holding the baby in the ergo, flying the drone. I'm out there winging. That's awesome. And I was like, Oh, it was on a small foil.

I had a small wing. I was like, Oh, it feels so good to not be pregnant, but instantly lost 30 pounds. Yeah. It was like, yeah. Yeah. I have my body back. I was like, cause frankly, you start thinking for women out there when you're really pregnant, you start thinking, you're just suck at everything because you're so big and you can't move properly.

But in fact it's just because you have a baby inside of you, extra weight. Yeah. Yeah. I got back into it and now we we'll just go to the beach to get a lot of the time. We just go to the beach together and bring all of our gear and one person goes out. Other person hangs out with the baby on the beach, and then usually he'll go out first and then come back and then rig up my gear for me.

Cause I'll be holding the baby still is he can't really up gear. He always says, wait, I want to be the one to hold the baby. And you wake up the foil and pump up the way. Yeah. So do you end up using the same wing or do you have both have your own equipment or? Yeah, we have our own equipment. He writes the uniform when wings he really likes them.

I guess they're a bit more powerful that F ones are probably like a little bit more, less powerful, but I really liked them because they are so lightweight. Yeah, the newer one, this strike that this Stripe right here, that's the newer one. It's super light. And this handles are really small. I like small handle.

Cause when the handle is a lot of other wings, they have big handles and they kinda cramped my hands holding them for awhile. So I liked the small handles and I like how lightweight the F1 is. It might not be the most powerful one. But I, I dunno for me, I think it's totally fine. So what are the differences between the original this F1 swing?

I think it's called N and then the strike would it, how did it change? So this is the original F1 Yes, swing. It's a little more flexy. And when you would be on your board pumping, trying to get up on foil, you could literally see the tips of the wings would be like fluttering and like bending.

And I'm like, it's literally almost like wings and the fluttering kind of helped generate some wind power to get you going on. Some people complained about that. I actually really liked it cause I could feel that it was like pulling in the wing and generating power. And then the new ones are stiffer and you can pump them up to nine PSI.

So they're a lot different, but they're also super lightweight. And I really love the lightweight as a female, even though I'm strong. I love that they're light because I don't get as tired holding them, whereas I've flown other wings and I just get a little bit tired after a while holding kind of a bulky wing.

So I liked the F1, but yeah, my husband's still flies the the uniform oil wind wings. So this picture actually is interesting. And so this picture was on a bigger day off, up here on the North shore of Oahu, it was like six feet Hawaiian this day. And I was nine days overdue. This was the day before I gave birth.

Yeah. My friend came down to the beach and his wife had made When do you call it cookies that supposed to help you go into labor or something. And he also took these pictures. He's don't eat these cookies unless you're ready. I'm like, I am ready. And so I grinded like 10 cookies and then I went back out for my second session that day.

He got that picture and I'm like, that's so cool. And then the next day I had my baby those cook cookies made a difference. Huh. And that's another reason why it was really windy and hairy this day. And some of the guys were having a hard time, but I was like, whatever, it takes God to have this baby I'm going out there.

I know it was just funny how that all works. Yeah. Yeah. And then I noticed once you gave birth to Raven that your Instagram feed is like now probably 80%, which is great. And she's so cute. I think you always think that, a baby is going to take away from your free time and the things you love doing.

But in fact, you just want to spend so much time with your baby and you like want to integrate them into your life and show them the things you do. And it's so exciting. Like we joke that she really likes the windiest and coldest beaches. We always bring her down to the beach when it's like prime winning conditions.

You think she actually likes that? She seems to not mind it we've been starting are really young, so she doesn't know the difference. She doesn't know that beaches are supposed to be warm and sunny.

Yeah. So one of you is on the beach with the baby, the other one's out winging, and then you switch off. Yup. It's pretty much exactly how it goes. That's awesome.

Okay. So let's talk a little bit about the your foils that you're using. And I know you started with that big clunky ride engine and then now using uniform, right? Yeah. So tell us about your your foils. Yeah. So here I can you see, are you, can you see the Unifor website right now? Yeah.

Okay. I got involved with uniform soil. That's another kind of a long story and it's related to my parrot, but anyways, they asked me to be the team writer and the distributor, and I said, Hey, why not? I'm obsessed with boiling as it is. So for towing, my absolute favorite foil is the one-fifty vortex.

It's like the surf foil. And it's pretty small, but why I like it is that it doesn't have upward pressure, the faster you go. When you go toiling, you can go pretty fast sometimes, especially, on some of the big days up, out here on the North shore, when it's like maybe six foot Hawaiian or even eight feet, you're going really fast down the face of these waves.

And. Something about the uniform oils is they don't have that. A lot of other foils, if you go faster and faster, that foils wanting to lift up and you're pushing hard on your front foot to keep it down. But the way the uniform oils are designed is they don't have that upward pressure. So they have an unlimited top speed.

And so I love them for towing. It's just so smooth. And you would think that means it only works in big ways, but in fact, I ride the same foil prone foiling when it's like one to two feet. So it works in small waves and big waves. And before I got pregnant, I was winging with it too. Cause I would wing and, large conditions where it's like a foot or so overhead.

And so I would be winging with this foil too. And when you're winging, it's windy. So the oceans bumpy and. You want a foil that can handle those bumps and cut through the chop smoothly. And it does that really well, too. So this was like my all around foil for the longest time was the vortex one-fifty I was just using it for everything.

Do you know how many square centimeters the, that is surface area projected surface area? Or does it say you're going to ask me that, I guess it's 968 square centimeters. Okay. Yeah. And my husband, he really likes it for towing too. The bottom of the foil, is it pretty much flat or does it add a little bit of a curve in the back of it?

So it's dihedral I don't think there's a picture. It shows of that. It's dihedral and, but generally it's, it doesn't have much of a curve. No. So it's pretty, pretty flat. Like now, it is low aspect, but yeah, like I guess like an Armstrong foils, like good comparison where they're like they have these big curves in them.

Actually what I meant is like the profile, so if towards the back, if it's turned down a little bit cause I know that kind of helps with the faster you go, the more kind of a downward pitch it has when you have that little bit of a, on the bottom have that. I don't know what it's called, but it's almost Oh yeah, you have one there.

Okay. Yeah. I have one. Let me see,

I did my work office and my foil storage area.

Actually take a look at it. One more vortex, one 50, but. Okay. Yeah. So it's, it doesn't have a lot of curve to the tips. It's pretty flat, but it has. Yeah. I see the dihedral and then it does look like it's on the bottom of the bottom side of the profile. It's a little bit, has a little bit of inward curve.

Yeah. Is it? I don't know. I can't see really. I have to take a closer look at it, but that's probably why it doesn't have, probably has a little bit of forward pitch when you go faster, would think, yeah. Cause I trust me, I know what for Fred pressure feels like those are those right engines, right?

Yeah. So fast speeds. Love it. I was writing that and six feet, eight foot surf, but honestly I like toilet in smaller ways. I think it's more fun. Head high, I think is like the perfect size. I don't need big waves for toiling. And when it's bigger, I think it's more fun just to tow surf or paddle ins or, something like that without the foil.

And then you said can I ask, how much do you weigh? What usually? Yeah. Yeah, usually, it changes right now. I'm like 135 pounds. And then when you're pregnant you gained about, I was like 155 when I was pregnant. And then, so which, which further do you use when you were pregnant?

You said you had still tow. Even when I was pregnant, I tow with the vortex one 50, but then when I was winking and I was like super lazy and I was like most important. I don't want to come off foil. I wrote a high aspect foil, but I wrote a bigger high aspect. I wrote the hyper one 90, wait a minute.

That's the one 50 the hyper one 90, it's one of their newer high aspects. And the glide is just. They're all the same, but the one 90 that glide is just unreal. Like it's so effortless. So in, light winds, subpar, winging conditions, I could just bounce around,

stay on foil because I just didn't have the energy to put, that much into staying on foil. And the one 90 just kept me going. And it took me like until I was like seven months pregnant to accept the fact that I needed to be on a bigger foil. And yeah, it kept me going. And even that big day, right before I gave birth and I was on the one 90, like writing, some pretty, big bumpy swells.

And it, it handled find at works and big surf too. It's like, all my husband uses his, the one 90 and he rides it and. In all sorts of conditions with how much does he weigh? 175 pounds about, yeah. For winging toilet, foiling, everything toiling. He uses that same one. No, for toiling. We're all always on the surf foil, the vortex one 50.

So he uses that as well. Yeah. What about mass length? What length? Yeah. So there's seven 50 and eight 30. So seven 50 is 29, 30 inches. That's what I use pretty much for anything. And then he uses the longer one for winging and towing. We have this whole like argument. He's it's better for winging to use a longer mass and he's right.

But I personally can't tell the difference. So I use either one, I know, one day I went out and I was like, I'm so happy. I'm using the long mask. He's you're not you're on the short mask. I was like, Oh, I can't really tell a difference, but it does help. And when you're winning to be on a longer mask, because the ocean's bumpy and so you need more gifts.

So you don't breach and same with towing. It's usually better to be on a longer mask. Yeah. Just affords you more mistakes, basically. Yeah. Yeah. And you can fly over the small chop without having to up and down so much. I find that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot better. Everybody that gets on a longer mask can feel the difference when you're in kind of those choppy, bumpy conditions.

Yeah. I'm the only person I'm so easy. I can get used to almost anything I'm like, Oh, whatever. And what about tail wings? Whatever you like for using for tailings? My favorite is the flat tail wing, which is the one pictured here. But I do have a lot of writers on the canes back wing. Basically almost all my uniform writers are now using canes back wing and they love it.

I haven't tried it. I don't know. I thought there was only one. I don't even know. Yeah. He has like all different ones, so yeah. Yeah, he does. They all love it. Most of my writers start off on the flat wing. And then eventually, and they'll say they love it. They'll cut it down to 14 inches is like a good length to cut it to, and then they'll get on the cane wing and they'll be like, Oh my God, it's amazing.

And now they don't go back after they get on Cain's back, laying there, like stuck on it. They never come back to a regular back wing, but Yeah. So you're the distributor for all of Hawaii or for all the Hawaiian islands. You have little warehouse in your garage or how does that work here?

In my office everywhere. And then you, do you sell them at pretty much the same prices on the website or exactly the same price. Okay, nice. Yeah, no shipping. That's good. Yeah. And like I shipped to Maui and Hawaii, but it's super cheap, right? Yeah. Yeah. What else still oil has been around like a really long time.

They're one of the first companies to do two high aspect wings, and then they sold their designs to signature. And then just like couple of years ago, foil decided they wanted to like, distribute their own brand. And so it's like new ish in terms of being able to buy uniform from a distributor wherever you live.

So not, they're not a lot of people are riding them, but the people that I do have riding that I absolutely love them. I think happy Tedford has a uniform. And I saw him the other day using a uniform when I first foil friends and him and our other friend, Johnny, and I got them on uniform.

When I became a distributor and they love them. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. And you saw the wingsuit or yeah. I don't sell wings as much. I just focus on the foils. My husband's more into selling wings to people. Cause he, he loves the uniform of wing wings. They have a lot of power and he's totally right.

They do. So that's more his arena, but mostly I just focus more on the foils. I do have like my own job. I'm a financial advisor. I have my own company. I don't want to be doing. Yeah. I don't want to be doing too many different things. So let's talk a little bit about your board. I know you have that board that has your parrot on it airbrush on it or painted on it.

Is that still the one you use is that your main board and it, can you talk a little bit about. You're bored. What you using the progression and so on? Yeah. I want to pull it up here. So it took me a while to figure out what kind of board to get for Wayne. Cause after you learn, you start off in these huge hundred plus leader boards, and then you realize that's not sustainable.

You need to be on some things smaller. And I borrowed a board from Derek Jimmy Lewis, one of his boards. And when he got a new one and I got on the Jimmy Lewis and the first day, and I was like, Oh my God, this is what I need like this, these dimensions, this shape. It's perfect. And so I brought it back to my, if here on a wahoo Gordon assets in Hawaii and I was like, These are the dimensions.

This is what we need to do for winging. Cause nobody else could tell me what to do. It was so new, like hardly anybody on a lot who was winning, but I was like, I got this Jimmy Lewis and I'm like, this is what we need to do. Can you please make me something like this copy of these dimensions and Bob Barela had passed away and he Gordon's like super artistic.

He's he loves bright colors and he his daughter's an artist and she was home because of COVID and I didn't know, but they painted Barbarella on it for me. Yeah, it was so sweet. And so I would always say like when I went out, this was one of my first sessions with it. I was like, you can see Barbarella flying with me still.

And this board was forced four, seven, four inches thick. And about 24 inches wide, I believe. And it was about probably 65, 70 liters. And it's good because balance on your knees, but it was short enough that it was super fun in the surf. You could turn it really easily, pretty much big enough to float you then, right?

Yeah. Totally big enough to float you on your knees. So that's what you want, basically, especially on a wahoo where the wind's not always that great, it's not Maui. You want something that'll float you, but you also want something small enough that you can have fun in the surf. And that it took me a bit to figure that out.

Then when I did this board, I just became obsessed with it and I wrote it for about a year up until I gave birth. And then I realized, and then it, I think I, I must've hit it too many times cause it started taking in water. Unfortunately it got a little heavy, but I got into winging with my prone board.

And yeah, the other day I saw you in the water waiting for the gust on your kind of underwater. Yeah. But it's super fun. Like when it's windy, once you're up, then it's pretty awesome. Huh? Yeah. It's like those windy days, you're like, Ooh, it's like Maui, get out. You're a little bored and now I will put, so if it's super windy, I will put straps in it and pretend I'm in Maui and do jumps and things like that.

Yeah. I see the jump. So let's talk a little bit about foot straps, like using footsteps versus going without and so on. Like what's your take on that? Yeah, so I usually don't use foot straps unless it's really windy and unless I want to jump I've cut. I kite surfed and tow surfed and we never use straps.

So I was just, I've been used to not using straps and all my sports. So the only time I decided I wanted to use straps and is when it's really windy and when I want to jump. But also if you have straps that makes it really hard to switch your feet because I go switch stamps when I'm winging it.

If I don't go switch stance, like it hurts. Like my legs lock up and your back it's kinda tweaked. So I have to go switch dance to me. It feels good to balance your body. And if you have straps in there, it makes it hard to switch. And if you're on a prone board, there's not even room for another strap.

But if you want to just switch stance. So I do, like I said, I do put straps in, but usually only when it's really windy and when I'm trying to do jumps, so I'm still learning on how to jump good. But that is a day with straps. So you'll end up like putting this straps on and off your board regularly.

Like you take them off and put them back on, take them off. I am. Yeah. So this is a day. So what, I ended up getting a Jimmy Lewis from my friend for as a light wind board, because my Barela board just got too heavy. And so this is a day just like few weeks ago on that Jimmy Lewis sport. So yeah, no straps and I'm, I like being able to move my feet around.

But there's a case to be said for having straps and not having straps. Can you give some pointers on switching stance? I dunno, I learned. I learned and moved down to the smaller board pretty quickly. And I never really learned how to switch my stance. So I met you and you told me that back to a bigger board to learn it.

So I'm like, ah, sorry, is, do not start to learn without going switch. So you can't learn to wing, then go back and try to do switch. That's I don't know anybody that's done that. If you're going to learn to wing, learn, switch at the same time, if you've already learned waiting, and now you're trying to learn, switch based and just accept the fact that you're going to be horrible.

And you're going to, you're basically learning how to foil all over again, because remember learning how to foil initially it's wait a minute, front foot weight. Push really hard on the front foot. And that's what you have to train your brain to do for switch stands. And it's not going to happen immediately, but I probably put like a good week into doing it.

Like every day where it, it started clicking. But what I would do is first you ride, switch, not on foil, so don't let the foil come out of the water, put all your weight forward and just ride, switch with the board on top of that water. And then when you're ready to come up, let weight off your front foot, come up and then push it back down.

Don't try to come up and start gliding because your body doesn't know how to do that yet. You need to teach your body. So come up, push it down, come up, push it down. And you're like training your brain to go switch and you're training your front leg. And then. If you do that enough, you'll fall a few times.

You will figure it out. But I know a lot of people just don't want to put that effort into it, but if I don't go switch my back, my, my leg cramps up my back hurts. So you get used to it, I guess like my hips used to always be sore for a minute, but now it doesn't bother me anymore. And I could go up when pretty steep going by twisted up.

But yeah, I don't know. But and then the other thing is like switching your stance while you're up on foil. Is there like what's your trick to doing that? First be really comfortable going switch before you even try that. And then if you are comfortable going switch. What I found with so much of winging and all these different tricks tax and jumping and everything is the biggest obstacle is like in your own mind.

And if you like overthink things too much, then you're going to psych yourself out and convince yourself that you can't do it. And the, I, when I want to go switch, basically what I do is I wait until I go over a little lump and the nose of the board comes up and I'll just, and, but the biggest thing is just do it without overthinking it.

And then the quicker you do things and just know that it's, you might fall a few times, but don't overthink it. And the more I don't overthink things, the easier they are to just do them. I know it's easier said than done. Yeah. I just started doing, just start hopping back. If you can go switch Sanchez.

Just hop to start hopping and put your feet the other way. And eventually it'll just start clicking. Yeah. Yeah. The last interview I did was with Kendall wild and really liked what he, the way he put it was I guess he likes to really get technical in his mind and think about how everything works and stuff and be in that state of mind before he gets on the water.

But then once you're doing it, you just have to let your body hat make, or let it happen basically. Or, your body automatically takes over and you just look where you want to go. And so maybe talk about that. Like when you get into the, when you're really into it and just everything's just clicks and you're in tune and no wrong yeah.

Sorry, go ahead. How many, so many athletes they talk about that, like you, you have to envision it and, think about that. I think that's what came things is he has to understand the mechanics. And I probably I'd probably go through that in my head too. You have to envision see yourself doing it, but then yeah, once you're on the water like you don't need to think about that anymore.

Just become one with the ocean, just be so happy that you're out there and take in the glory of it all, whether or not you're ripping or killing it, that doesn't matter. And just go with the flow. And if you want to do a jive, you want to switch your feet. You want to jump, just just do it.

Don't overthink. It just embrace the place you're in. And what I see is so many people get so upset. They get so frustrated when things go wrong and don't worry about it supposed to be hard. If it's the, wouldn't be fun, if it wasn't hard, just have fun. And the whole process of trying and falling.

And yeah, that's what I do. I just go out, like, when I was pregnant, it was just one side. It'd be up on foil. I'd be like, Oh, all my worries are gone. And you just do your best. And when you think you want to switch your feet or jumped, just don't think about it. Just say I want to jump and just do it.

You might not make it. It's okay. So that's the attitude I take with all my sports is, it's going to be hard. It's going to suck, but enjoy that part of it. Yeah. So do you have any tips to get into that, right? That state of mind where you're just enjoying it and then you're in the moment and you're not like getting mad at yourself for not being good enough or something like that.

It's appreciate appreciation, like appreciating where you are, that you even have the opportunity to like, have a wing in your hand, like we're so lucky, like in America we can do these things and just appreciating that you get that experience. So many people don't get to do the things we do.

So I think it just comes down to appreciation mostly.

I like that. So are you are you working on any new tricks or like what's your anything you're trying to pull off that you're not that good at yet or any so while I was pregnant, my husband's like, when are you going to do attack? And I was like I don't want to fall right now because I'm really hassle me every day.

When are you going to do it to act? And I'm like, okay, now I'm learning to do attack. I'm not pregnant. So I started doing tax, but I I do come, you have to wait until it's no, the right situation where you're like all, when you come out of a wave and you're almost tacking or the wind, so off shore that it's makes it just so easy to tack.

What's your stance before you tack or after you tack? It depends. It depends which way you're going. Yeah. So I guess if I'm tacking, if I'm going back out to see all B I haven't switched my stance, so I'll still be tweaked. And then you like tack into a wave and then you're still in your regular stance.

But then, on the other side of the Island, everything's obviously right. So just, but he's always gives me a hard time that I'm not into learning tricks. Cause I'm such like a surfer, like I want to serve mostly more than anything. But yeah, so I'm starting tax. Sometimes I get them sometimes they don't and then I stopped jumping too while I was pregnant, because that's probably not very safe when you're really racing.

So I've gotten, I'm starting to get back into jumping and I want to learn to, hang like Annie star is she's so inspiring. But we just don't get the same wind that they get. So we don't always have those strong gusts to be able to jump. And then watching you jump how you do a cut back and then you kinda jump as you're doing a cut back.

I've saw you do that the other day. And I was like that. I need to learn that, jumping a lot of it is like turning into the wind. So you kinda, that way you get more hang time, the more you can. Go up when in your jump, the more you can hang in the wind wing and the softer the landing is too, and you don't definitely don't want to jump just like straight with the sideways to the winter going downwind.

Cause then you have no more pressure once you're up in the air. I don't know. But yeah, that works really well on the North shore because I can jump in my regular stance on the wave and that's super fun actually. Yeah. So that's, that was, yeah. I kept seeing you do those. I was like, Oh, okay.

That's how I learned. Most things it's just watching other people. It was like, Oh, I'll just try and copy what they did. Yeah, no, it's actually, that's a good way to learn, to tack, to just go behind someone that's attacking him. Just try to do exactly what they did. Yeah. Don't think about it. Just say, Oh, that looked easy.

I'll try it. Have you taught other people how to wing foil and like what's your process or what do you do to teach others how to get through? I've taught a bunch of people how, and I'm like, I'll go in the water and I'll hold the board so they can get on their knees. So I really drill that whole getting on your knee thing and then holding the wing, like that is super important.

And just that couple of basic little things are super important. And then my most favorite way, and not everybody agrees with this, but my favorite way to teach people how to wing is to take them on a really long down winder. So they can just fall their way down when, for five miles. So I taught my friend, my one friend like this, and by I think it was like five, six, seven miles.

And like the last mile he started getting it. He fell for the entire time until the last mile. And then he was like, Started going back and forth. And I was like, I, yes, I knew it. I knew this was a good way to teach people. Yeah. That's actually how we learn to like Derek comma and Jeff Chang. And I, we just did like Hawaii Chirons instead of, we were always trying to do it on windy days with a paddle, stand up foiling and it was so hard.

And then with the wing, it was hard too in the beginning, but then once you get it, it's so much easier when you have the wing than trying to do it with a paddle, and just being able to not have to worry about staying up wind and just going downwind. And so you just, cause you have to get.

To the end. So you just figure out how to do that. And I, the most important thing is to have a positive attitude because you will fall a thousand times. And I, every I'd come by my friend each time, like you, okay. I need a big smile on his face. He's I'm fine. I'm like perfect. By the end, he got it.

So yeah, if you can find a place to do a long downwind or somewhere where it's safe, you're not getting blown out to sea. That's optimal because yeah. It can be a struggle trying to stay up when you're first learning. Yeah. That's a good tip. I like that. But as long as you, as long as you can get back and maybe have someone who can help, go with you, that can keep an eye on your insulin, do it alone.

Like I'm always I'm always willing. Anybody wants to learn and I'll do a down winder with you. I always say that to people and I'll just be with them, and I'll bring my cell phone and a Fanny pack. And just make sure they make it back to the beach. And then I'll just have fun doing circles around them.

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. We have such a great flow community here on the wahoo too. It's everybody's so just how everyone's having fun and open and it's not I guess shortboarding can be so like I dunno, so competitive and yeah. It's almost like playing chess where people try to like, or psych each other out and stuff like that, where you're trying to get the next wave and try to like outmaneuver everyone else to be able to catch the next wave and stuff like that.

And wing flailing is like totally different where it's just not like that. No, it's, we're like so stoked when our friends on our wave and like teaching people, everybody wants to help each other. Yeah. And surfing is so such an one of my, my, my husband stopped because it's so like aggressive and angry.

I'm better than you kind of mentality. And so that's why I really, I think during this interview he laughed, he like took off to go winging. Yeah. But I guess if wing for lane all of a sudden there's 10 times as many wing filers on the water. It might be a little bit different again, too.

But I think right now it's just yeah, everyone's just having fun and everybody knows each other. And we have this WhatsApp group and everybody's like posting, Oh, it's windy here. It's windy here or whatever. And there's waves and this and that. So everyone's just like sharing all the information, which is, I think it's awesome.

So opens up so many more places, where, there's so many places you can go we haven't even touched so many places you can probably wing. That's true. And that's, what's so cool too, about being on an Island is that, there's always, it's always side shore somewhere or onshore somewhere.

And like there's waves on one side or the other side usually, or, you can like, yeah. And you can get pretty much anywhere in an hour. So I'd say that's pretty awesome about a wall who, that we have so many spots that are right. And he's got so many options. So I just don't see getting crowded.

Yeah. And the open ocean is just if you, like you said, if you'd just doing downwinders and writing open ocean swells, there's really no limit to how many people can do it. It's like really there isn't. Yeah. That's what I love about it. That kind of brings us to like what do you see for the future?

Like how you think Wing's gonna progress and what do you see for any ideas for equipment and just progression and so on? What do you see for the future? Pre foiling, like kite surfing was like the wind sport, and every most surfers you talk about kite surfing and they're like not interested in it at all.

They're like, so not into wind sports, but winning. I have, I now see my friends that are surfers that are like, Oh, that looks cool. Like now they're interested in wind sports. I don't know. There's something about winging, just like less lines and equipment that just makes it, I think a little just like easier for Yeah, for a surfer to get into.

So I think too it's sorry to interrupt you, but I think part of it is that is this foiling is so accepted by surfers because, even guys like John, John will go foiling, surf, foiling. And and then I think once you get that, you get cooked on that foil feeling and then just being able to have a wing in your hand and go back out without having to paddle.

It's just it totally makes sense. I think once you experience that thrill of foiling, then the wing is like a natural progression, right? Yeah. So I think it's going to bring in way more people than previous wind sports did. So I see more people. I have friends asked me about it, like all the time what do I need to do?

What kind of equipment, how do I get into this? So I think it's going to attract a lot more people, which I think is great because. Most of the North shore, I think you can wing. And most of us are just winging usually one or two spots. And I think the equipment is going to get more efficient. So for foils, like I think high aspect for winging is I think a great foil.

So I think we're going to be moving more into high aspect for winging. Cause it's just so easy, you get up on foil so easily and then you're like flying so easily. The boards are going to get lighter, light lightness is like the key to everything and oily and the lighter, the better.

And then same with wings. So I think as the technology improves like material for wings, I think if we can make them lighter and lighter, that will make it everything more efficient and just an easier so yeah, lightness is the key. And then for foils more high aspect. Yeah, I agree with you that a light wing is really nice, I've been using like the access spoils are pretty heavy, but I liked the way it feels really solid in the water.

It sucks to carry it, but a water having a heavy, heavier foil to me I don't know, I've changed my mind on it. I don't think the lightness is as important as a lot of people think it is, that's just my opinion. I don't know. That's just, and you're probably right. Like I said, I'm a small female and I can ride the smallest foil and the biggest foil, like really what does weight really matter at the end of the day?

Maybe a little bit when you're learning, but at the end, it lad, it matters actually less and less. So I agree what you're saying. Yeah. But it is nice to have lightweight gear, especially if you have to carry it. Yeah. Yeah. You're walking down the beach of the wing in one day on your foil and the other.

For sure. Nice. Let's see. I guess we already talked some about, so much stuff. Thanks for spending the time. But let's talk a little bit about your, just like your life, like what's a typical day in your life on the North shore. Like what, or, just an average day, what do you do at first thing in the morning?

And then how do you spend your day? I am a new mom, so my average morning is trying to get more sleep and get up at night. Anytime, anywhere from one to seven times. No, she's pretty good. Where is she right now? She's at grandma's house. I was like, I'd love her to have me here, but she said distracting.

So you know, it used before baby we'd get up and sometimes crack it on the jet ski pretty early, but now it's just, getting up, playing with her and I'm a financial advisor. So I do work Monday through Friday because the markets are open five days a week. I have an in-home office and then I have an office in Honolulu.

I just split it about half and half going into the office or being here. And that's about an hour drive for you, right? To get into you, go into town or more. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's not that bad. I enjoy it. And gosh, when foiling came around, I was like boiling my brains off in Honolulu.

So yeah, hanging out with her and then, start working, give her to my husband or her grandparents and then, markets close 10, 11:00 AM. And then I'll work til maybe two o'clock and then guess what happens in the afternoon, the wind starts. So then we start making plans for how we're going to get down to the beach, all three of us and getting all our gear.

And we usually end up at the beach, three, four o'clock and we start doing our training.

The person goes the other than the other person comes in and goes, and that's a typical day for us. We haven't toiled since we had the baby. It's just not that we can't, but I just don't want to be away from her. So it's a kind of a long time to rig up a jet ski and everything and go down. So you don't have a baby carrier for the jet-ski yet, or my husband, you can say that at what age can she drive us on the street?

Probably a few more years. So we haven't toiled since we had baby. And I'm fine with that. I've toiled so freaking much when I was pregnant that I'm okay with a break. And so it's mostly just a lot of winging now, and now we're going into summer, so there's not really going to be much surf. So I imagine we'll be doing a lot of downwinders and I've gotten back into dirt biking.

Some afternoons, if the wind's not good, then we'll go dirt biking up in the mountains up here, and then grandma watch his baby and we'll go dirt bike together. So awesome. And so like a lot of times mothers with young babies, like the rule is to sleep whenever the baby's sleeping. Is that what you try to do?

Or the daytime napper? I'm a really go person. So I don't know how to an app during the day, so that doesn't work. But so you tried to go to bed early, like when

I'm such an old lady like that now, right? Oh, you have to, you have to get your rest whenever you can, yeah. Yeah. But it's so fun and it's so fun to watch her grow up and we have all these toys and she's so lucky. I'm so jealous. She's going to get to do everything. So how has the pandemic effected your life?

Has it, has changed much for you or is it pretty much just life as normal? No, it changed a lot. I stopped going to Maui and doing business over there because we couldn't fly really. It was just, difficult to fly. I was really scared when the pandemic happened, cause I am, I work in finance and I saw people lose their jobs, portfolios go down.

So in the beginning it was super scary and my heart went out to everybody that lost their jobs. And how it affected so many people. I started, I when I was first got pregnant, so I started working from home. So that was like a, an, a positive for me. But my, my firm, we, we adjusted to it and I've if anyone knows the stock market came roaring back after, the initial drop.

So the markets are doing well to what it hurts for me. Cause I'm always dealing with people's lives, their livelihood. And so it was really sad to see, people lose their jobs and just having to deal with that. My life hasn't really changed much, except I work from home more, which kind of was really nice when I was pregnant.

And now that I have a baby, but mostly effects on clients. Yeah. So for your job, do you do do you help people like build their portfolio or is it like the 401k plans for small businesses or what kind of stuff do you do? Mostly, I do all of that. So my specialty is retirement planning. So I work with individuals and also small businesses, but mostly individuals to help build their retirement portfolio and then make a plan for when and how they're going to retire and how much money they're going to have in retirement and how long it's going to last and all these things and making sure that they're protected.

And, if catastrophic events happen to them. So this is exactly what I do. I'm working with like regular people every day with their life savings and, helping them to enjoy their life because we only get one shot at this. So I want people to retire and be happy and have fun. And I have.

A handful of surfer clients and that are older and they love surfing. And I'm like, that's what I want you to do. I want you to spend your money and go on trips and have fun. Yeah. Sometimes you go, it seems like they just work so hard and don't really enjoy life so they can retire at some point.

But then by the time they retire, they can't really do stuff anymore. So it's important to remember that, to learn while you're young, still right. To take mini retirements throughout your life too. Yeah. So I think that's a good like I always like to ask that question, so many people are, were struggling during the pandemic, feeling lonely, anxious, depressed, whatever.

And so I just wanted to. No, throw that question at you too. What do you do to stay positive? And then also, as wing filers, everyone always says, Oh, I just get on the water and then I feel better automatically. And that, of course we know that always works, but if let's say you can't get on the water, for whatever reason.

And what would you know, how do you stay positive or keep keep a positive outlook? Yeah, this was, I saw that question. You ask people and I'm like a loner anyways. I really enjoy being by myself and like thinking in my own mind. So anytime, like if I can't get on the water there's, I just I sit in my house and I like, think of all the different things that, problem solving that needs to happen in my house.

Maybe it's like fixing something or a project out in the garden or. There's just, I just work on things like at home. Like I love like thinking of what needs to be done, in my life, just around me and how to work on it. And I personally really like isolation. Some people are really social and I know that was hard for people when things shut down.

But I just, yeah. To think about what I have going on around me and how I can make things better. And sometimes that's just like cleaning my house and I get joy from that. You're not a procrastinator then, so would you say being we, I think we're all addicted to foiling that sensation of flying a foil and just getting out on the water and it's just such an awesome feeling that you we're hooked on it.

So what would you say there's a downside to that kind of addiction to that feeling. Is there a dark side? Gosh, man, I was one of the most addicted people ever. Like I, I feel like I took this to the extreme where I basically stopped surfing, which is fine. That's not the bad part of it, but I was, boy, I'd go to work and everyday I'd get off work in Honolulu and I'd go foil for three hours.

And I lost like 10, 15 pounds. I got really skinny. I think this happens to a lot of people. They lost weight and for some people it was great. And I was like, Oh, I'm ripped. But I think I was like not eating because I was like, I was between work and foiling. It's like taking up all my space and I did lose a bit of weight.

So now I've come back and I'm like, wait, I actually like other sports as well. So it did, it became super obsessive for me. Not that's bad, but I don't think it was sustainable over the long term. I got to the point where I was like, I should probably gain a little bit more weight and can get back to normal.

Yeah. But in terms of like other people, did anyone like tell you what are you doing with your life? Or no, anything like that? And people were like pretty, everyone was pretty interested in it and thought it was funny. Honestly, the best thing is it got my husband back in the water. He essentially stopped surfing and foiling, got him back in the water and got in paddling again.

And I was like, so happy to see that because it's so crowded over here on a wahoo. And you're just like, I don't want to battle with all these people. And for me it was a blessing to see them get back in the ocean because I'm so in love with the ocean. So I think for us, it was pretty, pretty good.

Like it I'm so happy to see him having fun in the ocean. He used to just be in the mountains all the time, dirt biking. So it's like I have him back in the water with me. Yeah. He obviously enjoys it very much as well, so

that's great. All right. Let me see. Oh, did you watch any of the other interviews that I did on the blue planet shows? And what did you have any takeaways? So I, I watched Kane's a little bit, it's so funny. I was like, I don't know him that well, but every time I go to Maui, I just like always happened to see him or surf with him or wing with him a couple of different times.

Yeah, my takeaway is God, he's getting older, fast. He's so young. Every time I see him, he's like growing up. He is such a young kid, but he's there's so much up in his brain. It's such a brainiac. Yeah. Yeah. And just to see him how he's grown through foiling and now he's like making his own tails and it's just really cool to see young people that have such like these passions with building things.

I enjoyed that and then There was the other one with, I think, yeah, Alan cardies he, I met him when I was learning to wing and I was teaching my husband how to wane over there. And so just listening this picture of him doing the starfish that you have. I remember when he was like first learning that trick.

And I think it was when I was over there a couple of years ago. And so I was like, Oh, I know him. I met him. Somebody, I don't know if it was him, but somebody let us use their board. I think it might've been Allen to teach my husband. Cause everyone just hangs out at KA. Right when they're yeah, we need over there.

So it's just cool to like, to see these people that I always see. And I used to see in Maui that I don't see anymore. Cause now always the epicenter of it. Yeah. Cool. So is there any, anything else you want to talk about or actually do you want to thank anybody for supporting your passion and like anyone helping you out or sponsoring you or supporting you?

Let's see. Gosh, so much. My, probably my husband for pushing me to foil, even though I was such a naysayer, I was like ragging on foiling so much. And now I'm just, I got into it so hard. So just. To keep pushing me and saying no, we need to do this. We need to do this. And me finally being like, okay, fine, we'll do this.

And then just meeting uniform loyal and like learning so much about foils and high aspects. And so that was really cool as such a chance meeting with uniform oil. And now I'm the distributor. And now I, I can use all these different foils. And what I've realized is you need a quiver.

Yeah. So I feel super lucky too, to be able to have that quiver now and understand all the different foils. Now you're a dealer. You're like a drug dealer, right? Exactly what I tell people. I'm like, yeah, have a drug try a little bit. So they get hooked and then you can sell them in big gear. That was quiver.

Yeah, I don't do it for the money though. I just do it for fun. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun to make money with it, but yeah. It's really hard. Yeah. That's okay. And plus, yeah the stuff kinda gets, the development is so quick that, every time you buy a new wing, like six months later, there's something better out there.

So it's hard to keep up with the latest and greatest, but yeah, actually, let's talk about that a little bit. Like how important is it to have the right equipment or, what would you tell people, do you need to always be on the latest and greatest, or can you just totally don't need to be on the latest and greatest I there's so many people that like jumped from the next level, the next one to the next foil.

And then you see people that completely rip on some of the original Gofoil gear. And so while there is something to be said for new foils and new foil design, you don't have to get the newest stuff and the most expensive stuff at all. I actually I love that I can use like the same foil for so many different sports.

So if you can't afford to get the best in the quiver, is okay, he really, you don't have to do that. But some of us foil freaks, we like to do. Yeah. And there's something to be said too, for just using the same gear that you're used to, instead of always switching things up. But then Kane was saying in the interview too like he likes to try lots of different things and it helps them improve too, because he understands better what the differences are and how things work and things like that.

So I think there's something to be said for both, in terms of like how much of your skills would you say are natural abilities and talent and so on and how much of it is this like hard work and practice and deliberate, training and practice? Oh my gosh. It's like mostly hard work.

I'm from the desert. I didn't learn to surf when I was little, like I suffered so much and I think that's what people need to remember when they want to get into some of these. Challenging sport because it's a really tough learning curve. And it's putting in that time with anything you want to succeed in life, like there's no, there's, it's natural abilities, not as a real thing, as you think, the people that are really good put so much time into themselves, like for example John Florence, like he's put his entire life into being the best surfer.

And so I'm not a natural surfer at all, but I've put so much time and I'm, I just have a positive attitude about sucking at things. And I'm like, okay, at being horrible out of sport at first, because I liked that challenge to try to get better. Yeah. I totally agree with that. It's a lot of it is just what you make of it and putting in the time, do you know what time on the water and trying to have fun, not.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Some people are too hard on themselves too, like always the F word and just like cursing at themselves for being, not being as good as they want to be, but that's like the worst kind of state of mind you can be. And I think, if you're like sometimes when I get into that kind of a frame of mind where I'm negative, I try to like, just take a breather, stop and then, okay.

Just, I want to just have fun. It doesn't matter if I suck or not, and that's really, the only way I can get out of that is by deliberately changing the way I view it. Like it goes back to appreciating just like appreciating the fact that you actually have the opportunity to be on the ocean in Hawaii doing this like weird sport with a wing and a foil.

All right. I think that's a good way to end the interview. Thanks so much for your time. I know we went. Really long, but I appreciate all your time and good insights. Yeah. That was fun. Thank you. I can't believe it's been so long. I just looked at the clock. I was like,

yeah, it'll be about an hour, but then it always goes way longer, but that's fine. I always say to at the end, like when I look at the analytics on YouTube only about, five to 10% of the people are actually still watching at the edge, like about half the people stop watching after 30 seconds already.

So like people that click on it and then they realize, Oh, it's an hour and a half long. Okay. I'm not going to watch this, but then five or 10% of the people watch the whole thing to the very end and they love it and they comment and stuff like that. So I really appreciate all those people that are still listening.

And do you have any special message for all those people that are still listening to us? Talk? Just have fun. Just. Do your best, have fun and enjoy the challenge. That's what I tell everybody. I teach to enjoy it every fall. Yeah. And just be safe and help each other out too. Like a lot of times I think, just keep an eye out for each other, we're out in the ocean and in can get dangerous.

So always good to have somebody looking out for you. Yeah, absolutely. Go out together. Use the buddy system and so on. For sure. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks so much and great talking to you and good luck with your family. Beautiful child and president and take care. I'll see you on the water soon.

Thanks Robert Glenna. Okay. Congratulations. You made it all the way to the end of another blue planet show. Thank you so much for watching. I'm super stoked. Also, last week we just went over 30,000 subscribers on YouTube, super grateful for that. I'm sure all of you who are still listening now are already subscribed, but if not, don't forget to subscribe.

Also hit that bell button. That means you'll get a notification for when we post a new video and and that way you won't miss him and you get the first week of ad-free viewing. So if you watch the show during the first week, no commercials, that's a little bonus for all you people that are still watching.

And you're really the ones who are making the show for just the 5% of the people who click on the video, who watch it all the way to the end. So you're a rare breed. Thanks so much. And don't forget to be a good role model for everyone else on the water, help each other out, help new bees. If you see someone in trouble, check on them and so we can all have fun and enjoy it together.

Be inclusive. And just have fun, that's what it's all about. So thanks again for watching. Really appreciate it. Take care. See you on the water. See you next time. Aloha. . 

Kane De Wilde- Wing Foil interview- Blue Planet Show #7

Kane De Wilde is on the leading edge of wing foiling as both athlete and designer.  Listen, learn, and apply it on the water!

Interview transcript:

Aloha. It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to the Blue Planet Show where I interview wing foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders, right here for my home office in the garage. We talk about Wing foiling technique and equipment, and I'm also trying to get to know my guests, their background, what inspires them, and how they live each day to the fullest.

You can watch these long interviews on YouTube or listen to them as a podcast on the go, just search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast app. This show was made for those of you who are as crazy about wing foiling as I am. I'm not rushing through these interviews. This is like the opposite of a 30 second Instagram video.

They're super long interviews, and I know they're not for everyone. And really I'm just making these for the 5% of you that actually watch the whole thing. So I hope you're one of those elite people at the very top, the five percenters and that you're going to watch the whole thing. Today's interview is with Kane De Wilde

He is an amazing young athlete. And before I talked to Kane, I didn't realize how involved is in the design aspect of the sport, a foil design board design, and also developing an R and D and wings. So he has some really in-depth knowledge, probably more than anyone I've talked to so far. And that's why this interview goes pretty long, but I think you'll find every minute of it is very interesting and I could have actually kept going for a lot longer.

So without further ado here is Kane De Wilde:

All right, Kane. Welcome to the blue planet show. It's great to have you here. So to get started, maybe just tell us a little bit about your background, start from the very beginning. Where did you grow up and tell us about your early childhood memories that kinda got you into water sports and so on.

Hi, Robert, thanks so much for having me on it's super cool that you're that you're hosting something like this and I love listening to him. So that's going to be fun. I started the whole journey probably in middle school, getting into sailing, super into surfing skateboarding and.

Through sailing. I was dinghy racing actually. I have a natural evolution of dinghy racing. I wanted to learn how everything works and how to improve and how I could do my sail better and shift my weight in the boat better to go, to get a slight edge. And so I started researching, how boats workout, how sales work, how your rudder and daggerboard work.

And that's kinda what started it after that. So sorry, but you were born and raised on Maui or? Yeah, born and raised Valley. I grew up country lifetime surfer. Okay. And how old are you now? I am now 20, just turned 20. And and can you also tell us your weight that people always ask about that, right?

Yeah. I'm six, six Oh and 195 pounds. That's very similar to me. So early on you started dinghy racing and then I think glider. Yeah. So it think directing your racing is so much fun and it's such a deep sport. It's crazy how the tiniest little fail tuning or tiniest little thing can give you such an edge.

That's in white Kai on a wahoo new King day in an open Vic. I remember being terrified to go out that day. And my coach is K a K E N, or you gotta go, you gotta go, you gotta go. And eventually pushed me enough to get in the water. That's probably until that my, my best session ever. So that one was the boat on the right.

I actually have that right here. This is the first thing I ever 3d modeled. Oh, cool. Okay. All right. And it's the first thing I ever glass. And it's what set me on this track. Really. So that's like a model of a like a displacement D sailboat. Is that what, it's more of a planning hall.

But I made three different variations of these and took them to a river and tested the resistance with little scale. And that was my project, my big project for eighth grade. How did you test it in the river? I took it to a river with really consistent flow and it might be a little hole.

There's a little hole on the front here, tied a rope through it, put a a gram fishing scale. I really finally find a fishing fill and just let it sit and took an average over a few minutes. And then why did you take test some variations of it or? Yeah, so I have three variations. I don't know where the other ones are right now, but I just changes in the outline or the rocker changes in the bottom just to see what kind of effect they have.

That's amazing. And how old were you when you were working on that eighth grade? So pretty young. You were a little bit more, a little bit chubby before you got tall and lanky. I was flailing magic, isn't it? I know. There's like a lot of people look a lot skinnier after they started foiling. Yeah. Oh look, I was into kite boiling too.

I, before I, I ever did it, but I made a little model foils. And took them in the river too. Wow. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Super fun.

So we have a forklift and when my friends came over from hood river, awesome. We hooked up a bar to the forklift over the trampoline and I'm aware we're practicing our move

and these posts are super old because I actually started to cover my college thing. If I could document all these different things to eventually show to a college when I want to get them cool. And it just evolved from there. Yeah. You did like glider planes. Yeah. Stridor, planes, kiting, all kinds of stuff there with my rudder cool cards.

All right. And I met you a couple of years ago, you came over to a wahoo and you did that pumping contest where the point was to catch a hundred ways with your team. And I was sitting in the channel at Queens watching you are in the heat before us, and you were just going round and round, pumping back out, touching another way of going back out and kinda so cool to watch you like so efficient.

And then even sometimes you would like rest and put your hands on your knees and glide a little bit to rest your legs and stuff like that. That was really impressive. Do you have any pointers on pumping technique? The biggest thing pumping is finding the right rhythm and speed for your foil.

And being able to learn to have enough control of your pump to be able to vary like your speed and tempo until you find that. And it took a while of telling tuning in front wing and board placement to get a nice rhythm and be able to ride super efficiently. Another cool thing pumping is if you want to go for a super long time, the spot and wave and conditions, make a massive difference.

So all of my longest waves have been on at spots with a good amount of power, right off peak and ideally two peaks next to each other, and a pretty consistent wave. That's why big, bigger waves are good because what you can do is only stay on pump out to a wave and only stay on it long enough to get your speed back up and then instantly kick out again.

And basically do figure eight between the two peaks. And the goal was to not pump between the two. So you just stay on it long enough to get your feet back up, kick out with enough speed. So you can just collide into the next way without even pumping at all. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I've had some like 45 minute ride and it was at that same, the same kind of setup where you dropped down the face of maybe a head high wave and then just two pumps to the next peak and do the same thing the other way.

And the only limiter, which was really how consistent the waves were. So what killed me there was was a big break. So I know you've tried a lot of different wings and foils and you design them as well. So what what's your favorite right now? Which wing do you use for like combination of pumping and surfing?

What's your favorite. I use a 10 80 mid aspects mostly right now. And I vary the tailing depending on the condition. So if I'm surfing and doing some low speed pumping, I'll use a different tail wing. And if I'm at, if I'm going like high feed, downwind, or winging, I'll use the tailoring more suited to that.

But I actually have one of those links right here, the screen share,

this is a version of that 10 80. I have one new carbon, but this is a carbon insert. And just the design up. And I've been refining for a few months. So this is, yeah, this is CMC that a G 10 with with an 11 millimeter. So this is a 11 millimeter carbon insert it's in here or epoxy didn't hear.

And there's no, you can't feel any gap between the two material. And this is all credit to Dennis partner tectonics. He does just an insane job of CMC and finishing these wings so that, and that's where the signature line. No, this is just my own stuff. I originally did it super modified meal prep, but I have it here.

I got everything ready. So I made this fuselage to fit that it's front wings. It might hard to see behind your black shirt. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Yeah, that looks really beefy. It's beefy in the center, but really the fender is. So I use signature old signature uniform mask. And center's just big enough for that connection.

And the rest is pretty skinny. I tried to lower the drag, but still keep it stiff. Yeah, this is the Moses fuselage reference, right? So it's pretty similar in size to the motor. It's the width is the same, but the thicknesses it's thicker. So that gives it a little bit more rigidity by the mat around the mask.

Yeah. Cool. It's just big enough to fit that math connection. So you do foil designs? Right now you're working with signature and Neil pride, right? You, yeah. Yeah. So I, yeah, I've done some work with signature and Neil pride and I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out.

I can I don't know how to explain it. The no private thing was funny. I met Robert stray who was at the time the portfolio guy just at the beach. And we started talking to Zion Oh, we're looking for, we're looking for someone to make a photo. And I heard like you're designing stuff.

And so somehow I ended up designing a full set for them. Or I originally designed to one wing is to called the medium slim. And there's some pretty cool videos of Calgary writing it, but they went really well. So after that I designed a whole line, but. It's kinda being thrown into the fire as far as designs, because we didn't do any prototyping.

So I got one shot, like you got to design something and it goes straight to a stainless production mold. That was pretty intimidating for the first time. But I'm actually really happy with how it all came out. It's available now. I've been seeing some videos of people riding it. Wow. Yeah.

I That's super impressive for you at 20 years old to be like a professional designer basically already. Yeah. And that design was probably one and a half years ago. So you started using 3d modeling software back in eighth grade. You'd said like with that kind of was your first class project that you worked on with the 3d modeling.

And can you, like earlier you showed me on your computer, you had some design stuff. So maybe show us a little bit and talk a little bit about what kind of stuff you do on the design side. The super interesting I find, yeah, I can show a little bit of it. So this is the stuff I'm showing is mostly really old stuff.

So my modeling is definitely trade secrets screen. So here's the, there's two. We did two versions of it, the one on the left and the one on the right is super solid. And it's amazing how much, like a tiny difference around here will make. Oh, it's just a front between the mass in the fuselage. It's a little bit more thick.

Yeah. It's hard to see. I can see it. Yeah. A little rounded in there. Yeah. That's the difference between super solid and just spending until it breaks. Wow. Yeah, they were funny on our wings too. Like having that little bit more especially between the mass and the front wing it's the forces are amazing, like the, so that is a really important area.

And the other thing is having your volume distribution along the length of the fuselage, as smooth as possible, because any breaks in that aluminum doesn't like that would be a failure point. Another big difference is the whole depth was different for this one had too deep of holes.

And that took a lot of material out of the top of the fuselage, where this one has a slightly shallower holes that are still strong enough for the, both the wing on, but leave a lot more material in the top of the fuselage where you really need that string. Interesting. An access fuselage that cracked right at the front of the square mast opening, like at the end of the square mass opening.

Yeah. I was wondering, I guess it makes it more inter compatible to have that square opening, but I was thinking, wouldn't it make more sense to have that mass opening in the shape of the mass, like the then out to back in front so that you have more material around the mask, without having a square rear end on the mass, if you just put the master directly into the fuselage, it would make it stronger between the mass and the few sizes. Yeah. I'm not an expert on structure. Someone smarter than me would know more, but It's probably better not to have sharp corners on your mask.

Insert, I guess it just makes sense. If you want to switch between a carbon mass and an aluminum mass or whatever, or different size masks. Cause if you had, if you add the profiles of mass and you could only use that one mass with the fuselage, I guess so that, I think that's the main reason why they're doing that.

Yeah. And it's a pretty good way to, I think these are based off of whatever cuddle or pro ball pro box insert. So it's a well-proven design. So what about wings? What have you learned about wing design? So yeah, these are tails that is for signature. These both were based off of a pale that I hand shaped and cleaned up the profile and cleaned it up a lot.

But I was riding the stealth of the truck a lot of the time made  and would core carbon lay up Hills that I really liked and were awesome with those foils. And yeah, I base these off of it. There they go really good on the Palm itself, especially it's very similar except for the tips, right?

Yeah, they are very similar. This one has a little more span and tips. I made it basically for the one 65 all the trough and this one was pretty much made for the one 75. And so I find the angles and everything like that, the wingtips were needed because the the high aspect links, just like a little bit more stability also because of the math, the different, there's a difference in math placement between the two foil, for people that don't know that much about oil tales.

I always stay like that. Those tips are almost like fins on a board. It gives you like directional stability and having a flatter, you, it just makes the tail more loose, like having basically smaller fins or you can slide out the tail almost like you're saying. Yeah, you can turn on the mask instead of doing that.

The other thing I really paid attention to when doing tips like this cause I've got a few tails is I wanted to make the tips thin enough and small enough that at low speed you can still pivot and stall the tips out or walk, wash them out. And so at low speed coming up the face, you can still pivot the turn, but going fast, they would lock in.

So I made them thin and low cord and pretty vertical. Yeah, low drag probably. Aren't so good for pumping. Nice. Okay. What about front winks? So front wings, these are a bunch of a bunch different wings, but I worked on with Neil pride. Some of these made it to production. Some of these didn't for example, this is the XXL 2300 these are both 17 hundreds, but with different aspect ratios, small, medium, large, extra large.

And this is super interesting and this is where I learned most of my, a lot of my

idea of how I should design foil and how to do, center connection. It helped me a lot. And these are the pills impressive that you're already doing all this stuff at your age. I can only imagine where you're going to go from there. What are your plans in the future in terms of that kind of stuff?

Do you have any professional aspirations to become an engineer or design like designer? What is, what are your plans? For now, I'm pretty happy. I get to, delve super deep into design and I get to surf every day while I'm young and living in Hawaii. So right now I'm pretty happy, but in the future it would be nice to do something other than, because I'm from the surf industry and it would be nice to go to school and further explore this kind of path.

It seems like to me, it seems like you're doing fine teaching yourself. And for things like, in the water, the foiling and winging, it's so much more like Rob widow was saying too it's more about the feel and, you can have the scientific theories to explain it afterwards, but really without the, trying it and feeling it out and trying to figure out what, how, what works and what doesn't work actually in the water, you don't really know what's going to work or not until you try it.

Really. Yeah. So that's what I've been getting into recently is first I went super deep into like simulation and trying to predict how these things work, but. Some of the results I got didn't match up with what I felt in the water. So I've been slowly climbing my way back to finding, okay, this is what happens on the computer.

And this is what I feel in the water. And ideally I want to be able to predict everything on the computer and run through designs. And so in the last month or so I've been getting closer and closer to doing that. It's really hard and I definitely am not an expert on it. By any means, pretty impressive.

I don't know if you're not an expert. I don't know who is. And then you also design boards, right? Like you said, you do some board designs and then you work with Mark Rapa horse. He builds them for you basically. Yeah. Huge. Thank you at the marker up. He's amazing. His construction is unmatched so far, but I'll share my screen again.

So these are some old downwind boards I prototyped. So this is one that actually came out. You could probably feel my Instagram page. It's a blue board, white stripes big step six. So by 20, I think it's 25. And this is what I, this is the first design. I was like super psyched on it on a fucking deck.

But there's the practical limitations to making this, like the thickness of the blanks you need. And so I ended up making this, tried some interesting stuff with the rocker and it worked really well. And it led me to my, my, my more recent board with the pin tail because this board, if there's two, I found there's two ways to get it to wave.

Now you can either pull up paddle and glide into them, or you can move the board a lot. It's pumped into them, right? And this board did insane for gliding into waves. And I found it worked really well, pronoun winning because you don't have the ability to pump up on the flow. But stand up, I had a hard time because of all this volume and with the Mattel and also lower order, it was hard to get it up on the foil.

What's the bottom design on this one? Like the bottom shape. It's pretty flat. I checked some interesting stuff on the rocker. There's a rapper. Is, there's a concave here in the center, rockers different from the rail rocker.

Yeah. The bottom is actually, this is actually the bottom surface of an airfoil. And you're saying that because the, because it's flat and straight on the bottom and is good for gliding in, but not as good for pumping into pumping up onto the foil. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. And I can see it could be fixed with more rocker in the tail, but then at planting speeds, it really doesn't that rocket tends to stick.

And the takeoff speeds for getting to downwind are into the planting speed. So you can't have that. And it ended up with my pin tail design, which still can be improved, but I have basically dead flat rock throughout the tail. So it can release in plaintiff at speed, but not a lot of surface area or volume in the tail.

So it can still move and pump on the foil. I see. So you're keeping the bottom flat, but just by having a narrow tail, it allows you to like hop on, hop up on the foil easier. Yeah. And I think Dave designed to probably have a more refined version of this. But this, the board of, and writing works really well.

And the other cool thing is because there's so little material and the nose and tail it reduces your swing weight a lot and it changes the center of gravity of the board. So on this Pentel board, I pretty much stand in the dead in the center. And so there's no notes in front of you for that. So you might the ride purely like a five, four.

So next board is probably gonna be a six, four. Instead of a six and 22 wide or something. So that's for downwind foiling. What about wink, foil board design, like what's what, w how does it differ from stand-up and foil board design? What kind of boards do you design, or you it's funny because pretty, you could pretty much get anything up on foil, but it really matters in light wind.

What I found is you are not my pin tail board and you want, or you don't want any of my stand-up boards, because they're hard. For some reason, they're hard to steer it's something with the outline. And then the little rocker makes them, like, when you in the parent planning transition zone or speed, they'll do opposite fearing like a boat, or like a race standup board.

Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's probably a low nose rocker or something, but yeah, definitely avoid that. And my pin tail board, so much area in the nodes versus the tail, but the note pushes down, going up wind, and you need to compensate for that with extra pill paling angle. You're saying when you're up on the foil, having that chat knows has like more drag in the wind, basically.

Yeah. Okay. Big time. If you designed a, have you designed a board that's just for wing foiling or what would the design specs would be on a wing for a bomb? Pretty much just take your on board and scale it up. Like direct, like you can scale all dimensions up to five foot and it's perfectly, if you just had one wing board for you that you can use in light, wind and all wind conditions, like what size and volume do you think would be good that you would use right now?

I guess 22 to 24 wide and 70, 75 liters. Sorry.  bye bye. So 20 to 24, probably 75 liters. Oh, wow. That's pretty similar to what I have four sticks, liters, bottom shape. Super simple, no concave, no, nothing special, no steps, no concave, just as simple as possible because that I found that gets you up really fast.

I like, and Dave Kalama talked about it too, but there's that theory that the con the convex shapes just releases from the water easier, like the word, when it comes off the water just slides off of it versus concaves and tight edges. Sometimes the water can stick to it or like the surface tension of the water gets stuck on the, on those hard edges, yeah. The other thing with the wing board is sometimes like when you touch down, a lot of the times you're touching down at a weird angle to chop and concave and sharp edges in the front, instead of just going through it we'll create a lift in some direction and shoot you off one way or another.

So yeah, simple bottoms like convex or concave works.

I, I totally agree with that, but obviously there's two schools of thought here. Like a lot of the prone boards have a lot of a lot of concaves and sharp edges and stuff. And I guess, there, there's gotta be some advantage to that. I I guess it has more lifts at lower speeds creates more lift, but yeah, like I said, there's definitely downsides.

So it's so what's your, yeah. As far as my experience riding them, I haven't found any advantages. But they look really cool and they do make a lot of lifts at low speed. Yeah. Does it help a little bit with the takeoff or I guess on balanced, do you think don't think it's worth it to have all those concaves and hard edges, personally, I don't think it's worth it. I don't mean any disrespect to anyone who does it because done right. They can work really well. Yeah, something that's really helped me when I, setting up the board, was when you said, like you, you check your, basically the thickest part of the foil.

Do you have your board upside down? If you lift up the board by the foil, the thickest part of the front wing profile, then it should, the board should be pretty much flat and balanced. So I thought that was really helpful. And then, it's interesting too, because sometimes different wings like have an access for an, I changed from the seven 60 to the eight, 10, and the, for some reason, like the distance of that profile is so much different that after go from the seven, 10 is like at the front of my box and on the eight, the seven 60, sorry.

And then on the eight, 10, it's all the way in the back, so it's like a big, pretty big difference where the foil is located in terms of, keeping my feet in the same position, the same foot strap positions. Yeah. The biggest part of that is, is keeping your, it keeps your front wing in the same position.

So they probably have different distances between the front wing and the mask. So the mask will move, but the frontline stays in the same spot. And and then I was thinking about why it is that it works well like that. And then I guess when you're when you're pumping and unwavering, the board by itself is balanced on, on the foil.

So it's not like it wants to like nose dive or stall or whatever, even if you completely on way the board will be sitting there and gliding. But my, my kind of school of thought around it is ideally you want the board to fly pretty neutral as far as the pressure. And you want that foot pressure to be consistent across all, all speed. You want it to be consistent across if you're in a turn or if you're going straight or if you're pumping. So what doing that does is it puts the center of gravity of the board over the center of lift of the wing.

And that means when you put it in a turn and put some extra T4 on it or yeah, mainly if you put it into the turn with that extra G force, it won't change the balance. If it's nose heavy and you put it in a turn. That center of gravity, push, push down and pull your nose into the water.

And if it's too far back, it'll do the opposite and pull you out of the water. And so that's a baseline and depending on, I always pick a tool with me in the water and change it a little bit, depending on how the foil students, but a big difference. Something that I noticed for myself, like when I used to just stand up paddle surf or pro surf, I used to have my back foot a little bit more forward, but then when I started wind foiling, my back leg always got so tired from always putting more pressure on my back foot. And so what I started doing was putting my back foot further and further back. So basically now I have my feet. So the center of lift of that foil underneath me is right between my feet.

And I've got just equal pressure on both feet and that's something I learned from wing foiling. And now I also do, when I'm Santa filing, I always have that same foot position just because it's way more comfortable and efficient. Is that kinda how you balance out too, or? Yeah. And it's, if you watch a lot of my clips or watch.

I'm usually sometimes my back sits way in front of the master. And you think, Oh, that's weird. Most people have their backs up behind the mask, but my front foot is really far back too. So I try and keep my center of gravity always right over the front line. And if he can see it I just got them downwind clip.

There's a good video clip. Let's click play one of these.

So is the Harbor one of your favorite spots on Maui or Harvard? A pretty good spot. Flailing ruined me. So pier one is my favorite spot now, but just directly outside the Harbor, but there's also a spot on the West side. That's really fun. Foco right off the line of sight of poco. And that's. That's one of my favorite waves ever.

It's crazy. That's obviously an older footage and the board looks so huge compared to what you're writing now. Yeah. I really liked that part though. Sometimes I'm actually going to bigger boards now. That's a, FORO that's on the screen. That's a four by 20 now I'm writing a 42 by 19 and my next board is a four, six 18.5.

And just to be able to catch the wave easier and paddle back out easier. What's the idea behind going a little bit longer. Again, is. Think bigger waves. I want, I live on the North shore of Mallee and most of the spots in the winter are a bit bigger than, and I want to paddle into my, on my 42.

And the other thing is hitting of pitting the whitewater or getting critical and critical sections of the wave. My 42 has a nice rocker curve, but it doesn't have enough rocker. So I basically on my four six, I just extended that rocker curve to the most of the board. Same, but I have a little bit extra nose for recovery mostly.

And yeah. So when you put it in, in a head high bit of foam or the lip, it doesn't really care. Like you can recover weight easier. So actually that's another question I had for you on the rocker, like people have been playing around with the shims underneath the mass blatant stuff like that.

And it's basically, you can put a little bit of rocker in the board and get the little bit of that, is just, what's your, what is your feeling? And I guess it depends on the foil of course too. And do you like to have the mass or the plate completely parallel to the bottom of the board?

Or do you like to have it like a slight rocker to it and then the tail that, where the manual, most of. I do most of it in the doc with the referee, my board. But I know people are put, are going like really, almost negative with their Shem. So that's interesting. And I think it works really well on smaller waves where your front wings running a higher angle of attack on big, I found on small waves.

I liked boards with lower, almost parallel angle between the foil and the deck or the box and the deck and on bigger waves. I like a lot more like my front foot up a bit. Yeah. Like to me especially when you're going faster if like that having that negative angle helps with it's a little scare.

Oh

yeah. Yeah. You're going fast. And especially like on it, like if you're toying in or going fast and you have that, the nose is pointed down a little bit, as soon as you touch down just slightly, you done. It's like your board sucks down when your nose down. Yeah. Yeah. So it depends on the wave.

And I, I just have my boards have a really light tail rock. I can always show the front wing too. This is my setup. It lets me. Shit in the front wing to different angles. So that's useful. Yeah. So I was going to ask about that too. So do you, I guess the wing designs you have are mostly like, where the front wing screws flat onto the fuselage with two or three screws.

And then so it's basically just the screws holding the, holding it down against that flat area. Do you ever have issues with it, like loosening up or like how do you keep those screws completely tighten and keep it from having any play? I use about I they're big torque screws and I use probably six, six inch lever and just crank them way too tight.

But the reason I use that connection is the limitation of how I build the wing. I make the wings out of a solid panel with carbon and on a three axis CNC machine. So there's not a good way to get enough thickness in the connection area or go in from the side to make a male-female connection.

So the on top kind of works really well. For example, I just made the swing fit, active case series.

This is for the access case series and that's a similar kind of fuselage work. Just it just bolts right on top. And the reason I couldn't do like the black series or their old sq floss is just because it's too thick for my panel. The wing, the wings are too thick and the connections too thick.

So this is the only thing that would let me get thin enough.

Yeah. You're going super thin with your foot. For design sounds crazy for us for higher speeds, right? That's basically less drag. Is that the idea behind it or, yeah, you do. You do sacrifice a little at super low speed. But I, if you use the right foil section, you don't sacrifice that much.

So do you on NASA foil sections or how do you use this, modify them or what you come up with your first sections? I designed my own sections, just trial and error. What works for you and no using trailers, inverse design. So I specified the surface velocity of the fluid over, over the top and bottom of the wing basically.

And that'll give you your shape. Wow. The maximum velocity you can fly at with your wings. Like that 800 probably top, it has a low tops size. It probably pops out at 39. Just because it's a fairly blunt foil, but the good thing is with that one, it's super stable until that speed.

So I actually, I've never hit the tough beat on it. I have one right here,

600

insanely fast, and it's basically a

super, super fan. So what's the idea behind having that pointy tip on the front? It looks like a, like an airplane,

the fuselage being too long for the quarter. I need to get it in. I need to set it in the right spot and otherwise I would end up with kind of an ugly front connection. Yeah. So the tip it's not like it's just to make up for the length of the few slides that either the design.

Yeah. Yeah. If you're going really fast like the America's cup boats use it, it's called a what is it called? Where it raises keeps the pressure more, even around that connection. And it reduces cavitation around that, around the interface of multiple wings, but I'm not going fast enough and I'm not designing it to do that.

He droves. Do you put the hydro into your wing a little bit or do you just keep pretty limited? This one has some freedom. Very slight dihedral on the center. Oh yeah. I've got some freedom with winglets. And the winglets on, these are more for a, more like a bit of a locked in feeling because if you go dead flat, it can, it gets washy sometimes.

So you can play with changing your oil sections at the clip you can play with changing your like winglets or a neutral up a tip. Or you can do some fun stuff with twists to get a bit more of a locked feel. It's slightly turned up wingtips. Is that so you can breach the foil easier in terms?

Yeah, it makes a really big difference in, in breaching terms. It's way gentler and upward one tip what you breached breaches tip at a lower angle. So on a following, in a turn, you can breach it. It doesn't matter if you have a wind load or not, but if you're a little straighter up, so like this will breach, but like this you want a little bit of a wingless if you're super worried about.

Okay. Just so the tip comes out first and the, and disrupts the water surface less. I've found the angle between the wing tip and the water surface is super important. So the more perpendicular they are, the general area of a wingtip reach you'll have in general for section makes a huge difference.

For example, like the oil foil section is insane for breaching. Like you'd never feel it. Yeah. The velocity across the top surface is really consistent. There's no pressure spikes and it's pretty impressive. So it turns out my buddy Derek comma does on the psyche on the geo and then those go for wings.

Is this amazing? Like how are you coming out?

Yeah, cool. I'm having a lot of fun on this. That's super interesting. I could just talk about design this hole for a couple of hours, but I guess we should probably move on to some other things as well. I don't know. I think everyone that's listening is going to be super interested in this as well, but let's talk a little bit about a wing design.

In terms of, wing foiling wings, it's, this is supposed to be a wing foiling show more than anything, but what's your experience? What kind of wings have you tried and what do you like the best and so on? So I. I work with with a winged pretty talented wing designer.

And so get to try a lot of prototypes from, for a lot of different brands and a lot of different materials and styles and handle them all kinds of stuff. And it seems like

they're going to more and more attention to the Cathy of flutter shape a stiffer shape, and you can get a big increase in speed and efficiency from that. So I really like having you like having a flatter wing shape, less profile, basically. Yeah, definitely. A flatter profiles are nice just because the apparent wind angles they can handle it.

It makes it nice for the wind or going up wind have really high are tight angles. It doesn't let her as much when you're going at a tight angle, yeah. Another thing is stability. I'm not an expert on wing design, but having a stable wing that's that, that flies neutral and wouldn't be powered is it's pretty important.

And makes a lot easier. So I've been liking the wing rides and the emphasis. I tried some PPC stuff that's insane. And also the BRM. I really love the BRM wing. I think tested and helped with the design and so on.

The BRM. Yeah. So talk about the BRM. What's what makes that one special? So my dad's had a BRM link for a long time now and the way they eat Gus is super impressive. That's what kind of surprised me the most when I wrote it in gusta conditions, it's just smoothed out everything.

Your power is really consistent and they can handle high speed, low wingspan sense for surfing too. I haven't tried the wings. What is it about it that you think makes it work like that? Or what are the design features that you think work well on the BRM? They're pretty low aspects. That probably helped I really don't know.

The handles are super solid pretty low flex and they don't have any windows, so it's a really consistent reaction or material across the canopy. Personally, too, like after trying wings without windows, I like it, I like not having a window, but what's your take on that windows versus no windows?

That's always one of those big arguments. If you're riding around a lot of people especially a lot of beginners use the windows or windows really nice. Being able to easily check your tack, like before you do attacker drive is great. I tend to ride like at hook Keepa where there's not a ton of people and there's a clear rotation, so I prefer window windows.

Yeah, it's also better for packing them up and you don't have to worry about creasing it and so on. And a lighter way. And I don't know, there's a lot of dependencies to not having a window, but yeah, definitely the safety aspect. Although I find that it's pretty easy to just look under your wing, right?

You just lift it up a little bit and it is, the best windows I've tried are on the new Cabrina wing. The windows are massive. They're really the first one or one of the first ones that you can actually, you can see everything through. Yeah.

One thing I really like about the wing is the handles. It's a soft handle, but you have probably a good 10, 12 inches to move your hand around. And that's really nice for adjusting to different conditions and different kinds of writing. Like a boom. Yeah. Having the longer handles, it does help with tacking and stuff like that.

Cause you can put in right next to the other one and stuff, but do you find that sometimes the longer handles have a little bit more give so there's less control with your risks? Do you find that at all? Or? Yeah, I do. And some of the newer styles that I've handled I've tried or are stiffer and have a lot less of that you definitely have more control.

The one thing I really like about booms is in the last week, I've started riding with a harness and having a boom is really nice to hear if you're riding with a harness and harness line. I've never tried harness before, but like Alan cages talked about it and I'm interested in trying it. I definitely would do want to try it out.

Yeah, it's nice. Because I started doing it because I've been doing up winners from  on Maui and I don't know how many miles that is probably five miles upwind and it was just, it just destroys your arms and your hands. So it's nice to have something stick a load off, so was this from your knee when you had your knee surgery?

Ooh. When did I have my knee surgery? Yeah, that's uh, right after I, I injured it. I've done that a few times. I originally did it surfing. Just went up for a top turn and busted. My knee was out for a few weeks. Doctor said after probably three weeks, he was like, Oh, you're good. You should be good to go back in the water third way of doing it again.

So without, for awhile after that did a ton of PT came back, was good for a few months. I think I did it again in boarding. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear what you said. What was the injury? Originally, so that the injury originally was from surfing. I went through a tough tournament, dislocated my kneecap.

So my knee cap went from the center all the way to the, basically the outside side of my knee. Like from overextending it backwards or like what happened? Like how did it happen? Not really sure. After all the x-rays and stuff, it seemed like just, it's just like a genetic thing.

Like my kneecap far off, far off to the side, especially on my back knee, which got stressed a lot from surfing that kind of tuck knee position you do surfing. It's not good for your knee. So it's basically kneecap slips off the front of the knee. Is that what happened?

Like sideways it slipped. So if this is the top of your knee and you're looking from the front or from the bottom of your leg, it's slipped off to the side. Outside of uni to the outside. And there's just a little a little whatever ligament holding that in as well as your quad.

But when that happened or the ligaments probably stretched the first few times, and then the last few, it probably broke. I know in the last one it was broken. And then, so the surgery, they had to replace that ligament or, yeah, the surgery is called an MPFL reconstruction and or replacements. And there's two ways to do it.

Where the one way they'll take some of your hamstring and replace that ligament with your hamstring. And the other one is where they take a cadaver from an Achilles or a hamstring and do the same thing. And luckily I got the cadaver. The cadaver is really strong. It's like the third and put it in a good way.

It's like upgrading from accomplish to a jaws leaf. So my old ligament, like on my left knee is it's accomplished and the other one is the job. So it's pretty cool. And it's it's an amazing surgery. You can actually it's full weight bearing 45 minutes after. Wow. Pretty until you had to recover for a while.

And yeah, it took us probably a week to get walking again or walking comfortably. And what'd you say you were hunting back to a hundred percent now. Like he can do everything. Yeah. I'm at least 95%. Now

your quad does a lot of work and keeping, keeping your kneecap stable. And as long as you, you pay close attention to how tired or exhausted your quad is. And I've been doing like yoga and using the foam roller as the ways of managing, managing it, managing my leg and keeping everything stretched out.

And it's a good way. Good way to recovery.

Yeah, definitely. Sorry, go ahead. That experience and doing that a few times definitely taught me a lot about paying attention to my body and knowing when to stop. I think that's a valuable lesson to learn knowing how to recover, because when my age, like I'm 53 and it takes a lot longer to recover from stuff like that.

So it's good that figuring it out at your age. Yeah. There's been a few sketchy moments, but the last probably few months have been awesome. Nice. So in terms of other, do you do other legs, sports cross-training hobbies other than foiling and water sports and so on? Not too much. I tried keep a good variety of foiling.

I've been doing yoga recently. That's actually been super fun,

but yeah, occasionally I'll go mountain biking. That's a good bit of cross train. Okay. Do you have a routine that you follow every morning or like what's a typical day in your life? Starting when you get up out of bed? Nah, I don't have a, I don't have a super, super strict routine, but generally I wake up and I do a little bit of stretching in the morning.

I do maybe a little bit of rolling depending on the amount. Depends on how I feel. And then. Whenever you either try and get a good breakfast and do some work shift, shift tales, or do some designing. And then I usually go for an afternoon session. So then your busy time for getting some mornings, generally my busy time and also late at night, I do a lot of computer work.

So most of my designing stuff is after dinner. So when you work on the computer and you're really into something and like how long will you stay up and work on your computer? Are you like an all night?

It depends. I try if I'm really into it. I try and go to bed before at 12 I'm like, okay, I got it. I got to stop now. But sometimes I'll get really into it. Especially if I have a big project I'm working on or make a breakthrough and I'll go 10 to 14 hours just locked in on the computer.

You're more like an, you get creative at night and in the nighttime, huh? Yeah. For example, a foil I just designed, I spent. Probably 10 hours a day straight for a week, just like on it, super focused remember in the future, like what, where do you see wing foiling or foiling going? And do you have any new ideas or new projects that you're working on?

Anything you can share stuff that's coming in the future or things you, you can imagine or see for the future? Yeah. So my, my favorite part of wing foiling is probably the accessibility of it. And that you can get so many people in the water learning to fail, going fast, having a ton of fun, and you can do it in so many places.

I like, I'm at the Harbor a lot and that's the Mecca on Maui for learning to win foil. It's cool to see entire families that, that sometimes don't even surf. And I've never done a wind sport getting up and you can watch them improve. And in two weeks they're up and going up land and having a blast.

It's definitely pretty cool. This video is at the Harbor, right? Yeah, this is pretty cool. Where you're handing from the, doing a takeoff from the boat ramp and then grabbing the wing on your way out. Talk a little bit about why that was funny. I showed up one day with my weighing I'll to go.

I think I just got that sale. And it was way too light to go out. But luckily I ran into Scott Mackey and Jason Hall and I was like, Hey Scott, can you start at the end of the pier and hold my way. Instead of beat started managed to somehow make it and actually thought that was a super fun session.

Yeah. This looks like you just had to get out to the wind line, pump out to the wind lane and then it was windy enough out there. Yeah, it was probably like 15 that day and back on the generation. One way. That was pretty light women. Yeah. That's cool. Let's see. Oh, this one. This is cool.

People talk about that one a lot. That was a fun session out on a board of Sean. It looks like your friend is almost on the nose of the boredom. Yeah. He had an old belly board. They put some foil tracks then. And I forgot how long it was. I think it was a two foot board. So the front of my front foot was basically off the edge and my back foot was pretty much the same.

And it was just like a good, consistent day out a thousand peaks. And later that day I had my longest drive ever.

That must be pretty hard to take off on that board though, right? Yeah. The only you can't catch the wave on it pretty much. So you have to beat you started, Oh, that's what you did. What was the beach started? That was the only way I could get it up on foil is the beach start. But this video is a little deceiving.

Like people are like, Oh my God, how do you pump that far for that long on the inside. There's a rock wall and there's backwash coming off the wall. And so most of the way out, or pretty much all the way up back to the peak, you can get a decent backwash of so the whole time like pumping, I was less focused on my pumping efficiency and more focused on all right.

How do I stay in the power of this tiny little backwash wave. Cool. So you basically time your kick-out with trying to find the pump. That's going back out again to take you back out. Yeah. And one thing that saves a lot of energy pumping back out into a wave is trying to stop pumping super early and glide into the wave.

I catch myself a lot pumping all the way up until I'm going up the face and then turning when really I should be stopping 30 feet, 15, 30 feet before. And just gliding into it because then once you turn, you create more lift and then once you're on the face, then you don't. Yeah, I'll get the part, you can save a good three or four pounds.

Interesting. I find like when I first started connecting ways that if I stopped pumping too early or turned too early on the wave, then I was basically drop off before I got on the wave. So it's kinda, you do want turn pretty high on that. So the other thing was pumping is staying as high as possible on your mask because by thing as high as possible, you store you story or your gravitational energy and you ranked in the possible glide slope and your wings also more efficient.

Plus the surface. But if you come into doing that really high on your math, you can use that all that gravitational energy you've stored to collide into the wave. And then once you're on the wave, you have enough power to bring it back up again. Yeah. That makes sense. And so I guess that's the reason why you do do those kinds of short, quick pumps.

So you don't like, you basically keep the mass pretty high out of the water and the foil closer to the surface. Yeah. Part of the short, quick pumps is they work really well from a body mechanics point where by changing how short, quick or long, like a shorter long your pumps are, you can stress your body in different ways.

So a really long pump will be easier on your muscles but your heart and your lungs will work harder. The short pump are harder on your muscles, but don't stress your heart or lungs as much. So explain why do you think the foil creates more? It seems like the foil creates more lift when it's close to the water surface.

Is it, or is it, is the reason why it's more efficient because there's less mass than the water and has less drag or is it because it just creates more lift when it's close to the surface? What's the, I don't have a solid answer on it, but I have a few theories. So one of them only left master the water that makes a big difference to you are moving, the foil is moving less water around itself, right?

So th the low pressure side of the foil makes a lot of the lifts and it pulls a lot of water in that water column, above it down to make that lift. And by being closer to the surface, there's less water available to pull. And so before I was actually doing less work and making less drag I don't think you're making any more lifts, but you're definitely making less dry.

The other part of it is by bringing your foil close to the surface. This is this the part I'm really not sure about this. You could be end plating the tip vortex, especially on really flat foils where. There, there might be some kind of interaction with the wingtip Portex and the surface of the water that reduces it.

I see. So basically you, because you're closer to the surface, there's less room for it to create turbulence basically on the table. Yeah. I'm not sure about that because if you're really close to the surface that actually creates a wave and that could use more energy than I'm not sure about it, but definitely moving less water around appending, less water or less mass in the water.

It makes a difference. Interesting. Yeah. I've been trying to figure out why that works. I've also noticed that there's definitely a ground effect. If you're pumping over shallow reef and the Reese right underneath you, you can go to push it. Yeah. Yeah. Something I do a lot winging is especially if there's a Sandy beach is go really fast towards shore and put the foil in six inches of water and try and glide down the beach as far as possible.

So you got to stay super high and almost touch your foil. The bottom and see how far you can glide in ground effect only works for the flight wings. So generally I don't do it in six inches of water, but we have a spot where you have to go over the shallow reef to go come in, and and definitely, yeah, you feel like basically, even that lower speeds, you just got more lift off the foil when you're right up right over the grief.

Yeah. I think the general rule on plans is that if you're within half your wingspan from the ground as a real effect or a noticeable effect, we can have your wingspan. So how long is this video? This is like a half minutes and you're still flying. It's amazing. I guess that was the dog that can't believe his eyes.

Huh? G P is hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. The AI, if you haven't seen this video, you got to listen to the content comments commentary. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I almost want them to just hire the film and commentate on it because it's great. So hard to see this, but yeah. So yeah, so I actually started passing the wing behind my back when I'm going upwind on the waves, but I guess you're going downwind and then you're passing it in front of you on a bottom turn.

So yeah. Talk a little bit about that. The technique. Yeah. It's mostly, I mostly do it. To control my upper body rotation. So by, by passing it to my front hand on the bottom, turn it left my shoulders, open up towards the face of the wave. And by switching it to my backhand on the top turn, I can actually twist my body around and point my front arm more far, farther, backwards.

And more recently I've been, I've been using the wings power and leverage through turns. And my limitation is still when I do that I'm still working on it, but I like using the power of the wing on the top turn. But then your wing is still on your front hand. So on the way down and you have to switch it and open your hands up again, and it's hard to get your speed.

You need a bunch of speed to get out in front of the wave for your next bottom term. So it's in progress

to get some video of that soon. Let's talk a little bit about wing size. Okay. Do you what wing size do you like to use? Do you like to use a bigger wing for jumping or do you like to use a smaller wing for handling or what's I use, I have a two, five. I love when it's nuking and I have a bunch of sizes, but pretty much 99% of the time I use my two, five, or my three, five and the two fives.

Great. But hard to get up, you need a seriously. And with the three, five, I can get a prone and probably 18 knots and I can get up, stand up in six months. Yeah. I guess probably you're always trying to, my theory is always try to use the smallest swing I can get up on, basically, because once you're up, you don't really need much of much wing size.

Recently I found I don't need anything bigger than a three, five, three, five will get me up in the lowest wind. My foil can fly in. Which is about how many nights would you say six nights with the three, five wing? It's funny. Cause there was Rob whittle was saying that he likes to use like either a three more three meter for me here in that four meters is the biggest he uses now.

And he can get up and tend to 12 knots. And there was a bunch of people that were commenting that's impossible and blah, blah, blah. But I have to agree that you can get up with a small wing and pretty light winds. Sometimes you might have to wait for a little gust or, and just really work at it.

But once you're up, then you don't really don't need that much wing. It's really all dependent on your board. If you have a good board, you can get up with a much, much smaller wing and way less wins. So what kind of board is that you would use? I use my downwind stand up word.

Didn't you say you need to have the planning speed to get that thing going. So you get it up to planning speed with a small way. Yeah. On my take off speeds, like eight, eight, nine miles an hour. But if I check in like when they get the different tailwind that probably lowers that about a four mile an hour.

So a bigger tail wing or more angle on the tailwinds are both different funds okay. So a little bit thicker. Oh, okay. It's just a different, yeah. A different floor section and a little more cord. Interesting. So Lakeland like the front Wayne compared to the tail wing like in terms of, the effect it has on the foiling experience, like how would you compare it?

Is it like 80, 20 or 70 30, or is it hard to start to hard to quantify? Steph would be 30 or 60. 40 is probably a a good number. Actually, no 70. So basically what I'm saying is, with the same front wing, about how much can you change it by changing the tail wing? It depends on how well tuned the rest of your setup is, but I'd probably give 50% or 60% till your full board box placement.

And you're telling to me interesting. Wow. Yeah, those are good. It really makes a difference. Like it doesn't matter what frontline you're on. It'll ride good. If you're killing a student. And you're in, it's in the right spot on the board. And if it's off, then you're gonna, no matter what front line you're on, you're going to have a really hard time writing.

Okay. I think we're going super long, but it's super interesting to me, so I'm sure other people will find it interesting as well. So I'm just going to keep going. So what was I going to say? Sorry. Oh, beginner. So if you have a friend that wants to learn how to wink foil, or you're taking out someone what are the, what are your tips?

And what are some common mistakes people make and so on? So when I, every time I teach people first thing I do is put them on a reasonably sized foil, but put it all the way back in the box and further first few waves or for half of the first session or until they're comfortable have them take off and keep the board on the water, just have them keep the board on the water, ride, the wave like that don't even think about coming up.

That'll get them. Wander their safety position and safely that's their safety safety move. They know how to keep it on the water. And the other thing that'll do is get them used to riding with a mask big mask at foil under their board. So once, once they're comfortable riding the board touched down on the water for the wave, then it's time to move the file forward a little bit and slowly start bringing it up on foil.

It's nice to have a consistent way of the Harbor that, that, that is smooth water and decent power for a long time.

And at least teach them a little bit beforehand. So they understand a little bit about how the field works, because that's another thing too,

on the beach before they let them go in the wall. Yeah. Big time. Yeah. Yeah. Wing handling on the beach is huge. A big problem I see is people try and control the wind too much. Really what you want is your front arm is your anchor and your back arm does most of the control and just the weight of your back arm will keep the wing fine.

So I, I teach people the way I learned cutting, which is sit on the beach and learn how to put and hold the wing in different positions. One, o'clock three, o'clock, two o'clock, one, o'clock 12 o'clock in the wind, the window. And and vary the power and just get comfortable and familiar with it before getting in the water.

Because for a lot of people swinging they're getting on the foil board for the first time too. And it's a totally unfamiliar space where you're not comfortable with any part of it. And having some baseline understanding, and experience and building a tiny bit of muscle memory.

We'll make a big improvement in their learning. It is said that he puts people on a, on the old wind surf board with the daggerboard in the middle, and then he just makes, and once they can go back and forth and stay up when then they're ready to go try the foil. And that's how he does it.

And I've also heard people say that they put people on the board and just take the foil, the wings off the foil. So it's just the mask. So they can't busy, they can foil, but the mass has enough. It's like almost like a dagger board because it keeps you from drifting too much. So I thought that was a good idea.

I've never tried it, but that's a good idea. Those are all good ideas taking the wings off the mask and make it a lot less stable though. So it would be interesting to make something that would bring that stability back almost like a keel for it. Just use it in Oakland. What if you took off the tail wing, but then would make it just I'll take off just the front link.

Could work take off the front wing and the front wing. Yeah, that could work. Or maybe use a really small wing that doesn't, this is not going to lift. Cause I think even if you tell people don't lift off the water, once they start going fast and hard to control it, keep it from them. Yeah.

That's the other thing I do teaching surf foiling is I never put them on a really big front wing. The first time I put them on like a front wing I would surf on. So that if they do lift, not like they can bring it back down and it's, they can control it. They can handle it, they can handle it.

But I think for learning to wing foil is definitely an advantage of using a bigger wing because you end up having it's more stable and you can fly slower at lower speeds and you can take your time through transitions and stuff. So once you're comfortable going in and out yeah. If you're buying a new foil, don't get a big foil that lifts at low speeds basically.

That's, is that what you would advise as well for beginners? Yeah, just get something easy to ride. My advice and a good board at the board table board, right? I think the new phonetic boards look nice. It was real simple bottom. The customs are always nice, but almost shapes for third grade.

A lot of stuff out there works. Yeah. The equipment is definitely improving a lot. Like just the second and third generations of the wings are so much better than what we survive in the beginning, yeah. Another thing, a lot of people on the beach asked me about packing. A lot of people have trouble packing attacking you.

Yeah. The biggest thing I noticed and actually Allen could, he's taught me, taught me how to attack is people switch the, switch, their hands on the wing way too late and that, so they'll go into attack and forget and don't switch their hands. And then they end up falling backwards or there's too much drag so an attack. If you come in with a decent amount of speed, you can actually switch your hand super early. And by switching your hands and bringing the wing over your head, it'll force the rest of your body and foil to follow and keep you in control the whole time. And that actually usually does the trick for people.

So if anybody out there is having trouble typing, switch your hands super early. Yeah. That's a good tip. Usually works. And then talking to my dad because he learned to pack on his own. And he said, riding behind people who are going attacking and watching as they do it really helps. Yeah. I think what I've learned too is you want to throw the wing over your head.

And with, I think with the backhand before you let it go, you kinda throw it so that it tips over, so that when it, when you grab it on the other side, it's already in the right position, you don't have to like, bring it over to the other side. Yeah. I, when I pack, I always give my backhand a little like push right.

And let the momentum over the wing bank it over. So that way, when you grab it on the other side, it's already in the right position, you got power right away. You don't have to like, bring it back into the power position. Yeah. Totally. Those are good tips. Yeah. What about for the foiling part of the turn, I guess you want to keep the foil high, but not too.

Like when I started attacking, I noticed I over foiled a lot. I would breech, I would go into like too fast, too high, and then I would focus on the wing and I would just breech cause I was going too fast. So I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Just be comfortable with the foil and if you're comfortable breaching the tip.

Of your waiting in thirds just a little bit, that'll help a lot because generally if you come into attack that the tip is going to come up a little bit I know just being comfortable and be comfortable with your drivers, be comfortable to be comfortable with your wing handling. And you should get it pretty fast.

Yeah. Especially the front side tax, I find pretty easy, but the guy going backside is a little bit more tricky. Like when you have to throw it behind, grab it. Yeah. And then for the more advanced riders, if you want to get a better acceleration of your tax as you come through the wind and down use progressively more back foot pressure.

If you come up, when you get back on the power, you want to be as high on the mask as possible, because then you can accelerate down the math and yeah. Your gravitational potential energy. That's a good pointer. I've noticed too. Like when I kick out of a wave and attack, kicking out, like once I get over the tip of the wave, I actually point my nose down and they pushed down the backside and then you get, get a little bit of speed coming off the back of the wave.

And if you don't do that, you can end up easily breaching. Cause your flow will come up too high. And then as you're kicking out, so the same thing as when you're kicking out. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting about also about the wings jumping, I've jumped really big wings and some really followings, and it seems like a three, five is a pretty good balance or four meter.

Because I noticed on the big lane, if I can't get enough speed, there's too much drag on it. I can't get enough speed for a good high pop. Depends on your foil too. But and I'm on too small of a wing. You just come down super hard and it doesn't have the power to rip you up also full dependent.

Like the dispensers foils must be crazy, pop new stuff, new foil, insane pop. And that really helps you in that initial acceleration. Yeah. Soil matters a lot. And then, I've actually gotten some of my biggest jumps on a five eight, like a really big wing in relatively light wind, but being so powered up and the thing is this like a parachute pulling me up.

Like it's almost like kite surfing, and then you can just put a lot of hang time too. Cause you got that big canopy over you and just that's true. I'm used to jumping in a lot of wind over here. Definitely a web link, but in light wind. Yeah. I can see the tree outside your window. It looks like a kind of coming up.

Huh? It's getting good today. Today. It looks pretty glossy on the North shore. Can you see the water? But I could see the water from here, but I think it will come up enough. It should be should be a fun day of swelling. So I talked to Annie Riker too, and I guess you guys go out together sometimes or you flow together.

I fear all the time. I'm not sure to coast. She's down there a lot sensors. Yeah, amazing. I have to say for, the stuff she does, pretty impressive. Yeah. No, that, that whole area too. And it is crazy. It's just unbelievable for progression being around that good of writers and seeing inspiration from what everybody else is doing.

It's pretty special. Who else do you think would be good to interview for this show? And I, in particular, I'm trying to stick with wing people that wing foil and can share some experience on wing foiling, especially. Yeah. You've done Alan Cadiz who maybe Damian, Jordan, who does they did the wing right wing and would be good designer, Tom.

He's a lot. He's had a lot of experience designing wings. We'd be good. All the kids are great.

Yeah, it's tricky. I always recommend, I could just say interview Mark Rapa horse. Oh yeah. Mark would be. Mark would be good too. He's an interesting guy in and has so much experience building boards. He's a funny guy to

run the show for sure. I know it's more wing swelling centered, but Dave Kalama's is an amazing guest. Yeah. I'd love to have him on the show too. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Kalama wing filing at all. Has he done tried it or not really? Not really. Actually. Alex, it might be interesting. He's been obsessed with going and like breaking his own speed records. I actually saw him leaving for a D w I was leaving for a downwind there with a few guys yesterday and we saw him at a Malia pumping up as a way with his high speed front wing and getting to go do some speed runs over there.

Pretty amazing. Going really fast. Yeah. I'd love to talk to Alex too. That's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. So another question I always ask everybody is during the pandemic, a lot of people are struggling either showing lonely or depressed or anxious and so on. So what do you do when you have a bad day or like how you have any kind of pointers to keep your positive outlook and stay happy for me?

When lucky we live life, I was able to get in the water pretty much every day. And that's the biggest thing for me is just getting out in nature. Getting some exercise every day makes a huge difference. And yeah just having a passion you can follow helped me a lot.

That's a good answer. Yeah. It's yeah. Getting on the water is like therapy, right? If you're feeling down, it's hard not to be happy when you're on the water. And Valley, especially, and whinging, even more winging on Valley is a fairly safe COVID wise thing to do. You're out in the open in 25, knock the wind in the water and, you can see these people, you can make friends at the beach and see these people every day.

And yeah, let's talk a little bit about the pandemic. I know, like in the paper it said recently that there was a church on Maui, like that had a COVID outbreak and they still wanted to have their Easter service and whatever. So how do you feel about that whole thing? That's tricky over here, but we've been having a lot of cases recently, but on the upside I see, I hear about and see and meet more and more people every day that have been being vaccinated especially locals and that makes that'll make a big difference as far as just people's overall comfort and helping control it.

The other thing that seems like a big problem, it's hard to get actual sexual numbers or information on it, but walking around tourist areas is pretty pretty shocking. There's a ton of people. Like I, I went through China recently or Polly, and there's a lot of people, not really mine.

So I'm on vacation. Do whatever. Yeah. I just got my second shot yesterday Oh, nice. Yeah. I get my second shot on the 12th. Oh, nice. So cool. Yeah. We're lucky in Hawaii that, or, I guess in the U S that we're able to get vaccines, a lot of places in the world don't even have a lot of that.

And Hawaii has been doing really well. I heard LA is doing amazing. They have 200 cases a day. Just in LA, which compared to home, why is this such a low percentage of the population? Yeah, I think California right now is actually pretty low. But there's other spots in the country that are still really bad.

And then in Europe they have an outbreak too. And then those new, the new strains are nasty to more. They spread. I just read an article. You might find that interesting too, in the economist that was talking about bees, honeybees, they actually vaccinate their babies. Like the queen bee gets.

Yeah. They just had some research. I guess the worker bees feed the queen bee, like this Royal jelly and that contains like some virus particle protein particles and it make their own vaccine that they inject into the baby bees or something. I don't know, but it's pretty cool.

So they have the original vaccine vaccination program. What I love the great thing about this vaccine in particular is just the huge jump in technology. It created so much money was put into it and so much effort, but it's affecting it. It's affecting other things too. So I think I just saw they're developing a way better HIV vaccine and

What's they're using some part of a recent development to prevent you from having to inject insulin. So you could take it as a pill. So things like that are amazing. I'm definitely a big believer in putting money into it to science and development, because that's where you can do amazing things with enough funding.

Earlier you touch that you're pretty happy right now doing what you're doing, being a designer and being going on the water every day and doing both together, which I think is awesome, and I don't see a reason why you shouldn't just do that. And why go to school if you're having fun, but if you went to school what would be the the university you would pick?

I'm not sure yet. I didn't like, I didn't like school that much. I didn't do great in school and I spent most time thinking about boats and then kiting and surfing. Yeah, I'd have to find a school that would fit me really well in that way. I definitely thought about, I had a dual citizenship with the Netherlands because my dad was born there.

So I could go study in Europe for an EU price. Definitely not attractive option. Yeah. You can go somewhere and I can live there and I'm a citizen. So

do you speak Dutch? I understand it better than I speak it. And it definitely helps my understanding. If I spent two weeks in Europe, then pop back up and I can order food and understand both the conversation. Yeah. No that's definitely cool. That would be a good experience too, to live in Europe.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I guess you've got right now though. You can still wing for it. Yeah, not right now, but yeah, I guess you could still wing foil as this kind of gets freezing cold in the winter. So we're definitely pretty lucky here in Hawaii that we go out every day of the year without freezing our ass off.

Sorry. Where my grandparents lived in a small town on the Island there in Holland. Yeah. North sea downwind thing. There would be absolutely like unbelievable gorgeous level. They get a lot of windows. You could go for a hundred miles down the coast. Yeah, pretty Epic. The one, one day, my fingers I get to go for down winter there.

I love Holland like Amsterdam, it's such a cool city. If you could live there for a while, but try to be here to get experience. It's they're ahead of the rest of the world with everything like pretty cool legalization or, just being tolerant of things like gay marriage and all that stuff there.

They were the first on everything, one of the, and one of their big exports is just technology. So they definitely have a good thing going. I checked out like Delft university and they actually, when I was over in Holland last time they had a student design competition for solar electric power, electric foiling boats.

Wow. That's they were doing all these different races with her link book. It's pretty cool. She, I saw on your Instagram feed on the bottom, there was like some kind of weird design that you made. What is that one? Let me go back to that. It looked like he built some kind of model or something here.

This thing. What is that?

Oh yeah. That was an old drone. I broke and put it on a little skateboard. And I don't know, he may have made a car out of it because it worked fun. They were great. Actually, no, I saw that. I thought of something interesting back then too. I would crush my glider and break the fuselage part and have all these extra wings.

And so I thought what if he just connected the wings to the center? And put them on a big, like an A-frame with a pivot point at the top and had your wing pivot back and forth as a sale. So you pack, the wing would do this and it would do that. And you could use an airplane wing for it.

I didn't really catch that. Okay. Thanks. So this is your airplane wing, right? Okay. And you have a boat or a car or something. Something that can move. If you take your airplane wing and put it on a pivot point of here, it would pivot and you could run that way or pivot and run the other way.

I thought of using my airplane for that turns out.

I didn't live in thinking maybe I could build a like an airplane way and use it for winging. Solid wing. That would probably be the fastest. If you, it would be so fast if you just want speed. Yeah. Then there are obviously a rigid, the inflatable wings are really aerodynamically, not very efficient.

Cause there's so

yeah there's totally some improvements that can be made on a racing side. I don't think it needs to happen because it would be bad from the accessibility side, ease of use side. And that's probably the most important part of the sport is making sure everybody can do it and everybody can have a good, competitive fun time.

So that's where the current design is. They really Excel, just the ease of use, easy to use, easy to transport, you can perform at a really still perform at a really high level with it. Look at, yeah. Look at the jumps. People are doing Teton and Spencer's and Kai and balls Mueller.

He's unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. Some crazy stuff. What are some moves that you're currently working on or do you have anything that you're trying to do that you're not yeah. Getting better three 60 with the wing. And then going into some flips,

spinning with the wings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've been trying those two and I've been like, you basically turning the board into the wind and then bringing the wind around what's this secret. I struggle on the landing and I having a hard time pulling those off what works best for me was first of all not pointing super high up wind before you do it.

So bear off a little bit, maybe started to reach practice in light wind, and don't use a super short math. So it's probably an 80 centimeter. Math would be good for more, would be good for it. Make sure you can do a three 60 in the surf off the back of the wave. So if you have just pump out, get your three 60 down, off the back of the wave and then for the wing part of it, it's tricky.

What I like to do is jump and basically shoved the wing back as I'm writing and then bring it over my head as I come around. But that first initial rotation where your body rotates before the wing will make a big difference. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you turn the board before the rest of the body.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm starting to. I want to do a more and more tweaked out. So instead of just a flat three 60, I want to do like a more, yeah. The ones Baltz Mueller does those backflips where you goes up and then you flips the wing and then throw them with the rest of the body. And that looks super cool too, but I'm just not brave.

I think. Yeah. The biggest obstacle for me with COVID because it's way more intimidating before you do it then after you do it yeah, just pointing the wrong way and doing the three 60 is way scarier than the crashes. So what I like to do is go into one and just, you just have to get in your head and be like, okay, this crash, isn't going to hurt.

Realistically, you're going to be fine. And you do one and you crash, you do another crash and get used to crushing. And then once, once you do that, you're comfortable sending it harder and harder. It's a different patient video. Is it where you're doing a three 60 on a prone board? Do you know, is it this fun or this one, or I wasn't going to ask you, like you doing three sixties on the wave with the prom board.

Yeah, perfect. Three 60. Let's talk about you doing the three, three 60 on the wave. Walk us through that move a little bit. Yeah. The first few times I had a lot of trouble. What would happen is I pump way out in front of the wave and I felt no matter how far it pumps in front of the wave, I couldn't make it back around in time.

And I tried that forever could never do it, but the tricks that helps a lot was to pump out in front of the wave and then wait, like a second where you just stopped pumping for a second when you're way out ahead. And that'll slow you down enough that when you do the spin, you don't you can actually make enough turn for the wave.

The other thing is you don't need to lean over super hard if you do that one second, wait you just do a normal bottom turn and it works out interesting. I think Clinton had some,

I've watched watch, watch how he comes to the bottom and then wait.

Yeah. I, this is just a question out of curiosity, like how much of your skills would you say are from like pure talent and like natural ability and how much is from just hard work and repetition and keep trying and practicing. I don't really like to believe that you'd like a natural talent, but I credit a lot of my skills and knowing what's going on with the foil.

I like the first few times I tried, but what I thought of Oh, this is just like flying a plane, I'm flying a plane under water and knowing how the foil works and how it will do it, what it will do in different situations helps understand. What I'll feel when I put it in a situation.

Like what happens when I put it in the foam? Or how does my board redirect water or just really paying attention to yeah. What, you're, what you feeling and what's happening with your gear when you do this thing also, it's, so it's not just talent and practice. It's also like understanding how it works and mentally basically in visualizing it basically, or the thing that helps everybody obviously time on the water.

I've had so much time on the water, but I'm watching video of yourself. And you want, no matter how good you are or how new you are to the sport, getting someone to take a video of you and watching that. And either, either having someone who's better than you look at it and tell you what they think or just comparing it to videos of people who are good at it.

And just pay attention to what they do with their body, with what they do with their head. Yeah, mostly body positioning. That'll make a big difference, but emulating other people's like the card to do the move you're trying, right? Yeah. That's a good one. We were talking before the interview too.

And I thought that was really interesting. You said that if you listen to a podcast or listen to that conversation like this, that we're having then on the way to the beach and then you go out and you just in the right state of mind already. So can you I always get super stoked either.

If I meet someone sometimes I'll talk to someone who's like a aeronautical engineer or something. And after that, you're so psyched and it's such a good mindset to go foil. Or you listen to a great podcast or long form video, and it puts you in that analytical Headspace.

Where, when you foil you, you can pay attention to exactly what you're doing. And as you're doing it, you think about what's my body doing my foil, doing how's my setup feel. And it definitely helps with your focus. I think one of my goals for every move every way is simplify it in my head as much as I can, but the less I think, and the more it goes on subconsciously the better I arrive.

So I try and boil everything down to where I look. You get everything subconscious controlled in your subconscious. So when you want to do something, you just look in certain places and it happens. So I can cut back instead of thinking about what my, instead of actively thinking about everything, I just look back and train your body to do everything it needs, because that frees up a lot of head space for learning new tricks or it frees up a lot of mental space for quick reactions to things.

Yeah. I think we all know that feeling that you get when everything just works out perfectly and you're listening, listen sync. So how, like, how would you describe that? Like the perfect mindset and where everything just meshes together and your body and mind just worked together perfectly in stuffing and with me.

Yeah. That definitely lines up with the less going on in my head. So sometimes, yeah. That's all right. You were just saying you try to analyze it and stuff like that, but in a way that you analyze it can be counterproductive. You don't analyze it a moment. That's the important thing you got to analyze it before and after.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. When you're doing it, you just have to let it happen right. Or something not yet. And that's why I also heard a big part of everything I do to just having a really well-tuned stuff. If you're set up as well, you don't have to think about compensating for it and it doesn't do anything unexpected.

And that, that helps you get in that kind of flow state of where everything just lines up and works perfectly. Yeah. I love that. That's another thing I wanted to ask you cause you, you obviously try a lot of different gear and change things around and test different things. But the flip side of that, to me, if I have a setup that works, I just like to just use it exactly the way I used it last time don't change anything and then just know how it feels and right away I can get into that slow.

Versus when you trying something new, then you always have to spend some time learning it, figuring it out. And it, like after a while, if you using the same setup over and over it, then it becomes almost like part of you. Yeah, totally. That's part of who I explain it. I try and do it a lot.

I try and change that up. Even when the waves are really good. If you ride one set up for too long, you I feel myself losing perspective on how it works in the general world of things. So by changing things up a lot I'm trying a lot of different here. I, it kinda gives me a good reference of how other things work and it's important that you tried new stuff when the conditions are good, as well as when the conditions are bad.

If you see this, it's easy to say, Oh, the wind sucks today. I might as well just try to try my different telling her or move the map. But when it's Epic, it's hard to do that. And also if you don't have much time, because you don't want to have to come back in to chip or something like that, right?

Yeah. Yep. So for example, I've profiled a few times, and that's just such a good way to dial in your gear because you can bring to bring your wings and your tools and your, whatever, everything on the sea, in Epic conditions, you get so many waves that you have your fill. And I usually start. With trying the most.

I tried the most experimental stuff first. I tried the stuff that doesn't work first. And then I figured, Oh, this doesn't work. If I'm not fresh. And it doesn't feel good, fresh. It's not gonna work then slowly you change. And I always try and end my session with something that does work really well, because that puts you in that positive kind of thinking where you're like, Oh, that was such a good session versus.

Ending on something that doesn't work ruined. Yeah. I see. That's always what I always try to end every session with a good wave or good move, or you don't want to if you just crash and you're like, I'm going to go in and it's no, I gotta do at least one good wave or one good move.

And then once you do it, you just see, once you do that good mood, you have to cut your losses there and just go okay, I can't this tops that I'm not going to do anything better. That's exactly. That's always the best way to leave the water. Then you can't wait to get out again the next time. But yeah, I, especially as a designer trying to set up that other people like is important and trying new gear from other manufacturers it's important and it all, it gives you a good idea of where the sport's moving and what people are happy on, what you could possibly improve on.

I have a question about that actually. So has, have you tried something that you thought in theory, this is not really gonna work? I don't think this is going to be good, but then you got on it and you were surprised. It's Oh, this is actually has merit. Like as, have you had anything like that in the experiences like that?

I would say my current surf wing, that. I just like the profile I used on. I was like, let's just try it. Let's just see what happens. Because it's just totally again, when you showed earlier. Yeah. This one, the airfoil totally against what I felt would work well, and same with the detailing I tried, but it ended up working amazing.

I think a lot of people would have been more secretive about that. So super cool. Yeah. The whole spirit of the sport and sharing and enjoying it together. That's super cool. I think, yeah. Thanks so much for having me on. Yeah. All right, Kane. Thank you. Congratulations. You made it to the very end of the interview.

And like I said before, if you're still listening now, this show is for you. You're part of a very elite group of about 5% of the people that actually watched the whole thing. So congratulations, you are as crazy about wing filing as I am, and I hope you enjoyed every minute of it. As much as I did. I think I could have kept ongoing forever.

And I actually did. We did keep on going a little bit. So if you're interested in printing 3d shims for your foils or designing your own. Foils and the programs I can use as, and so on. Super cool. How much he shared here and he didn't really hold back anything. So thank you again, Kane for being so open and sharing, I really appreciate that this show is made possible by blue planet customers that support our business and make it possible for me to make shows like this.

And I want to say a special thanks to customers who ordered the PPC wings over the last week. Since I posted that review last weekend. And two weeks ago, I posted the interview with Sam loader, the designer of the PPC wings. So I just want to give a special shout out to those customers who order the PPC wings.

Last week, you made this show possible. You were the sponsors of the show. So thank you, Matt and James from Hawaii, Brooklyn, Dominique from California, Mario from Germany and everyone else who supports our business. And if you're not already a blue planet customer, next time you're ready to buy some equipment.

Please consider us. And I think you'll find we have excellent equipment, great service and fair prices. Please check out blue planet surf.com and support the blue planet show. So at the end of these interviews, I'm going to always try to have a special message for those of you who are still watching the five percenters out there.

And basically today, my messages, please remember to have fun, share the experience. Help others be safe and be inclusive. So let's keep the sport fun and enjoyable for everyone. So thanks for watching. Please give it a thumbs up. If you enjoyed it, subscribe to the YouTube channel. The videos are always ad-free for the first week.

So get to watch them right away when we post a new video by subscribing and clicking on that little bell icon. So you get notified when a new video gets posted and keep watching because there's some more bonus material coming after the outro. Thanks again for watching. See you on the water. Aloha.

If you look at the ship section, there should be a download link to a Google drive. I have a bunch of STI STL files. If anybody wants to design their own tail. I try and I think I have the MSC connection on there at the Armstrong connection on there. That should be compatible with the A-plus.

And I try and keep everything relatively open because I don't see why it's all public stuff. If you go in and look one, you can measure it. I like helping anyone out who is looking into designing their own gear. That's super cool. W would you be able to coach someone if I wanted to learn how to do this kind of stuff, would you be able to do like private coaching on how to use the 3d software and stuff like that?

Yeah, maybe. And I could definitely direct you to some good online resources for it too. But yeah, I'll try and make that part of my site and give a lot of good information on foil design and choosing different designs and what they do better or worse. I'm pretty good. So people have the information you're good at using shape 3d design boards.

And I guess you made, then you're able to design foils on there too. I just haven't really played around with it yet. What actually I use mostly XFL or plain whatever analysis kind of design program. And I used like a rhino seven for surfacing and for actually creating the model, but one program that I really like, it's called tinfoil.

And it's this guy on Instagram who had a there's an app on the website that you can use, but he made it, he made a program or a website that he designed fins really easily for windsurfing. And they have all that. You can export it in all these different file types. And he just has been updating it for foil design and actually for just designing wings, aside from connections and everything, it might be the best foil design software out there.

Because you can export it into , which is the analysis, which is an analysis program. You can export it into solid works FPL for 3d printing. You can do a whole lot with it. And he's a smart guy, so definitely check out. Yeah. Since coil. That's a good tip. Appreciate that. Any other cool stuff you want to share that?

If you're interesting, cool stuff. Yeah. Tinfoil is great. Anyone looks for it for the, cutting out like those  you said Dennis like Hawaii what is it? What was it called?

Oh yeah. Like way back in the day when surfing. Yeah. So he has like a CNC machine and he cuts up the . He is, he has a few, a couple of temps and CNC machines and yeah, I sent him, I did the design of testing and he does the actual construction of it. So tons of credit to him, because he's definitely, wouldn't be what they are without his insane perfectionism.

Do you have to hand finish it or is it, does it come out of the machine almost? No, he hadn't finished, but and that's what makes a big difference. It's just the Hanford finishing on it is perfect. Whatever I designed the file down to the down to 107 millimeter, you can see. And in the finished product.

Yeah. I, my, the first wing I designed and prototype, it was like, real thick beginner foil. Basically, four there. And the sample I got that was G 10 fiber gossip was like, it probably weighed like 30 pounds, the front wing. And I maybe not that much, but it was super heavy.

And just getting to the water is really hard. And I thought this thing is not going to work. It's just too heavy, but then sliding at the first time, I was like blown away. It felt so smooth and steady, and it was just really nice in the water. And it wasn't really a disadvantage. Like how have you had that kind of experience with those real heavy?

Yeah. One thing this materials I really liked because it's super consistent. And plus with the CNC, machining, like every telling you get is going to feel exactly the same. There's no differences due to layoff or they're all the same strength. They'll all flex the same. They're all exactly the same shape.

And I've been riding heavy gear for a while. Actually, this set up pretty obvious, an aluminum fuselage and a solid T 10 front wing, like for example, my 800 hotline weighs one point almost 1.2 kilos. Just the wing and twice as heavy as say an Armstrong boiler or set up or something like that.

But yeah, my downwind front wing is a beef and I don't really notice it. So in the water can make a difference. Yeah. Unless you'd only be hairs or something like that, hold on. I'm also doing pretty big. I've been doing pretty big Arizona and it's fine. Strapless era, different story and maybe like crazy rotations, probably different story.

But but for most of your writing, it really doesn't make a big make a difference. Yeah. Yeah. And then what about the compete comparing aluminum mass to carbon mass, and different? I guess I like the feel of programmatic more because especially tapered design paper for master grade, you can, because the flex is really important.

It's near the base plate and when a carbon mask you can have that sick and have the bottom still fin for what a dragon it's a much reactive feel, limited master grade, the national LeWitt, a master is pretty impressive because reasonably stiff, but insanely light. And even, I've wrote the act eliminate mask and I'm problem with it.

Especially for telling if you're not in the air, like you can write such a heavy set up and it works just fine for towing. Actually. It's helpful to have a little bit heavier gear, especially the boards get to have a little bit more weight in the board and the foil, I think actually. Yeah. And like smaller surfing, pumping as long as your board light your board, actually not even your board doesn't even have to be light as long as the nose and tail light.

You're pretty fat, mostly about low swing weight in the board. Yeah. Swinging that, swinging a big, heavy board around, it will take way more energy than a big, heavy foil. And that'll make the biggest difference to your writing.

The board. The board makes a bigger difference than a lot of people realize

you can ride anything once you're in the air bodyboard you're writing. Cool. Cool. I'm I'll let you go now so you can get in the water or do something fun. Yeah. I got to go shifting, so yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks so much. Take care. . 

Sam Loader PPC Wing Foil interview- Blue Planet Show- Episode #6

Sam Loader is the owner of the Pacific Paddle company in Auckland New Zealand and the designer of the PPC wing.  

Interview transcript:

Aloha it's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show, where I interview wing foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders. These are unrushed, long form, in-depth interviews, where I'm trying to learn not only about wing foiling technique and equipment, but also try to get a deeper understanding of the guests, their background, what inspires them and how they live their best life.

This show is available on YouTube, where you get video, and also as a podcast in audio only, just search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast app to listen to the long form interviews on the go. This show has a lot of video where I'm filming myself, wing foiling with a back mounted camera and people always ask questions about that.

So just preemptively. I wanted to show you how I record it. If you can see this GoPro max camera, a 360 camera mounted on my back. And then afterwards I can edit it and show the footage from different angles. So it's a cool system. So this is a homemade harness windsurfing harness with Camera pole.

These are also available commercially. So I'll put more information down below in the description. So check it out. If you have any questions about that.

The last time I went on a trip off the Island of Oahu was to New Zealand in February, 2020. This was when the virus was raging in China and right while we're also opening a new shop and so on.

So it was a crazy time for me, but I made it over there to visit with Dan Regan. Who's our New Zealand do planet distributor. Thanks so much for inviting me. And we went to a beautiful place called Paula Nui, where they had the Auckland paddle Fest. And that's where I met Sam loader who owns a business called Pacific paddle company or PPC.

And we stayed in touch afterwards and he emailed me about this new wing he developed. So I was curious, he sent me a sample. I tried it. And, to be honest, I've tried most wings that are available on the market today. And I can honestly say that it's the favorite one I've tried so far, just the combination of a lightweight pot, very powerful for its size, easy handling, very neutral on the wave and just so many nice features that I like about it.

So we talk a lot about the wing and the development. And so on in this video here, I'm also planning to make a detailed product review video that I'll post on a YouTube channel shortly, probably within a week or two. So stay tuned for that. And for now you can go to the link below or appear to get more information about the wing on our website.

So without further ado, here's my next guest sound loader with PPC. All right. Sound loader, welcome to the Duke science show and stoked to have you. And it's been a while since I saw you I guess right before the pandemic we met and Paula Newey in New Zealand and he took me tow and foiling, which was awesome.

So thanks for that as well. But let's talk a little bit first about your background, like where, where did you grow up and, how did you get into the whole watersports and your business and so on? So I grew up in Christchurch, which is South Island of New Zealand. And I actually grew up skiing.

So in the mountains a little bit. So a lot of people don't know I've a ski background and competed a little bit and traveled and went to the U S and stuff. But yeah, The, I guess the whole water thing came about. We used to go to Fiji as a family just once a year, pretty lucky to do that.

But my parents just said they couldn't get me out of the water from the start of the day to the end of the day. So I was, they were pretty much going down to the beach at night time and try to find me and whatever I was doing, trying to swim with fish or whatever. I don't know. I was just, I've just been addicted from those are my first kind of memories of just being addicted to the feeling of just being in the ocean and now I just kinda need it.

And I'm actually a bit more comfortable in the ocean. Just like all of us, I think all of us addicts. Do you remember where that was in Fiji? Like I was there a couple of years. It was Castaway Island. That's where he needs to go. And it's kinda, it is, it's kinda near like tomato and Tavarua. Yeah, we actually went there by boat.

Yeah. Castle. It's a beautiful spot. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Little family spot, but. And then obviously later in life, went back to Fiji and went to spots like the Moto and sift around. And I was just thinking, cause we went a year before the pandemic and I was just thinking how good the wing would have been over there.

Surf in the morning, there's always a breeze that comes up. So it would have been pretty unreal having the wing then make star.

Okay. And then can I ask you how old you are now? I'm 34 coming up. And then, so how did you get into business? Like how did that come up? Probably it's a long story. Went to uni. Didn't know what I wanted to do. Like probably most of us I just got an office job in Sydney and I thought this isn't me.

Went back to New Zealand, saved up, did a bit of building. And saved up and bought a plane ticket to the U S and ended up working for a company over in the U S for a little bit, just a surf retailer, and then met up with some shapers and stuff in San Clemente. And yeah, I guess worked over there for a year, came back here.

This was around the time of the boom. So I, yeah, just started learning to design and designing SOPs and yeah, I imported my first container. I think I was about 27 imported the first container to New Zealand. I think it was like 12, 2012, 2013. Those it's not even, yeah, it's the boom.

This was growing really fast at that time, man. You obviously pretty. Pretty deep into it. I was pretty young obviously and sold the first container in two weeks. And I thought, what is this crazy? This is too easy sort of thing. I I've got another one, and then I just, and then it just went from one thing to another and I really just love designing boards and yeah.

And now here we are quite a few products later. Things keep changing, which makes it interesting. So this is your website Pacific paddle company.com. And this is your shop that you so yeah, so that is the shop in Oakland. We've been here two years. I actually, I should have had a photo of my first shop was in it, it was in a paddock just with a couple of containers just when I started out.

But I sold this premises a few years ago and we just made the move and never looked back really. Nice. So that's in tech Poon in New Zealand and it's it's 15 minutes down the road from me, so pretty good location, pretty good lifestyle. And then I guess when did you start getting into foiling and selling foil gear and all that kind of stuff?

So I remember seeing foiling, I think it was like Kai and Connor and stuff. They were on the kind of rice boards cut in half and I just went that's ridiculous. I have to try that. So I think it was the first batch of foils that came to New Zealand. I think it was go for at the time. So I, I got my hands on one of those and yeah, I was just thinking how hard it was.

I think it was a little, it was a little wing and I was just thinking I got dad to actually tell me behind the GSC. Cause I went straight out in the surf. Actually, I thought I can do this. And I just got rolled. So I got dead to, we hired a jet ski learned behind the ski and it was, yeah. And then from there on out, I dunno, just things have just been developing so fast.

And now just the amount of different folds that I've tried. I'm sure you're the same. It's just being crazy, like development from where they began. I think it's so much easier now for anyone to pick it up. It was pretty hard back then. Small board, small wing, small everything, and yeah. Yeah. It's yeah.

I'm looking at your Instagram page here. It looks like you're deep into wing link. That's like your main thing, huh? Yeah. It's it probably needs to be, I probably need to maybe get some stand-up pedal action bag in there, but I dunno, it's just been. Yeah, it's just been so easy to, to wing lately, just with I dunno, it's just looking for waves as I still love surfing.

Still love it, but winging is just so much easier. So I'm just enjoying the fact that you can just drive down the road two minutes from the shop and jump in the water and have a good to ask question. I'm sure you relate to being busy, having a shop and a brand. I was going to ask you cause you're probably one of the only guys that I know actually, who has the shop and the brand.

So you it's a funny scenario sometimes to kind of way to cap or you think. Yeah, we're definitely similar in that respect. I've been in business since 1993, so it's been, like almost 30 years soon. And I learned over the years to delegate, try to delegate as much as they can.

And definitely the shop is run runs more or less without me being there all the time. So I'm fortunate that way to be able to take care of that kind of the backend stuff. And then do you try to get in the water and so on? But your feet, like before you got into Wingfoot and you were definitely into more to stand up paddling and stand up surfing and all that.

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And like looking at your store sales, like how does foiling compared to standard palling? I know for us, like during the whole pandemic standard paddling has been super popular and, people just getting in the water, especially entry level boards and equipment has been selling really well for us.

How has it been? I think to be honest, it's been refreshing just with the whole foil thing taking off and new Zealand's quite a small market, so set pedal got pretty, pretty saturated pretty quickly here. Like everyone has this standup paddleboards may, maybe I'm not focusing on it that much anymore, but it just the largest sort of chains they bought in huge volumes of stand-up paddleboards and.

I just I just love the fact, I think I've jumped on foiling because it's pretty hard to replicate. It's quite Dean Nicole, and it's kinda, I love that kind of specialized, part of it. And I feel like it's not going to get saturated too quickly, stand-up pedal did, but I'm definitely going to push stand up.

I went for one the other day. Actually, there wasn't any wind, so it was, there were waves. So it was actually refreshing to get on a wave. You can't I dunno, you can't compare that feeling to winging, but yeah, it definitely looks, yeah, I was pretty sucked dominated wasn't I back in the, yeah same as I was in our shop, and we're still, for our shop, we still are, so it's a majority of our sales are still Santa paddle.

Boards and, I still stand up paddle eye and I just go into racing and that kind of stuff. We have a training group that meets every Wednesday and so on. Still doing that, but it's definitely like my, when I have time to go in the water, I usually try to go on a windy day so I can go a wink.

Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. You're going to go back up to the top here. Yeah, and I started standup foiling, but then once I got on a wing for a boy, just being able to be on the foil the whole time that to me made was so cool. Just to be able to be up on the foil for your whole session, pretty much not have to paddle it back out again, so that's definitely a draw, a wink flailing.

Yeah. Yeah. And not have to use the jet ski so much. I think about it like. Everybody's got their own jet ski, holding onto the wing. You're just getting towed back out to the lineup. It's crazy. Yeah. And no pollution, no noise. Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. I guess recently you had the America's cup in New Zealand and and I guess, tell us a little bit about that you had this posted this video of you guys foiling in between the races.

Yeah, it's been honestly pretty crazy with all the America's cup stuff going on lately. I think we're pretty lucky to have all the best sailors in the world in one location, for the last year, two years it was, it's just been crazy. This, yeah. Okay. This year was a bit of a mission.

So earlier in the, in this story, I meet the helicopter pilots. They came into the shop and they want some wind gifts or, yeah, like everybody's into this thing. So even the pilots filming this, filming these races yeah, we want to win. They came in the shop and then I just said, Oh, we might be out there.

Cause there were a bunch of us. I grabbed Josh from the shop and an Olympic say it was snowy. And we just went out to the course and I just said, look, there's going to be a chance we're going to be out there. We might be near the course, if you want to do a sneaky little fly by maybe in between races.

I just had my fingers crossed. They saw us, but they saw us and it was crazy. It's actually about five knots of wind here. I, so it was hard to get on the foil. It looks as though it's like windier than it is, but it's pretty light. So we all got up on the fall, luckily and heard the sound of the choppers come over.

We couldn't really believe it that they were going to film us in between the race, but I guess it's cool because it was on the live YouTube feed. We get this kind of, it's pretty sweet getting this around the world. So yeah, they came over and like they were filming us super close. Like I've there was one pass.

The chopper came over and I the wash from the blades, just seeing the wing and fly into my face and I just got nailed, but it was awesome. So we were, that was like an awesome memory. We got back to the boat ramp at an hour after dark and cause everybody's gotta go five knots back after the races.

So there's all these sort of boats. It's crazy. Just the most amount of boats you can imagine just going five knots the whole way back to Auckland the city. So now that was that was it was a cool day. Yeah. Yeah there's, those sailboats are just amazing. And I guess they're really driving the technology of the whole foiling technology and computer science and all that kind of stuff for it.

It's really amazing stuff that they're doing and the amount of money they're spending on it too. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, I was talking to the American magic guys. A couple of them. I shouldn't say this. I think they spend up to about, I think 150 million and, they do a couple of races and are out and it's pretty brutal.

So I got pretty as I was gutted at the time for them. Cause I got to know them pretty well, quite a few of the silence for American magic and yeah, it was just outside of the house actually when I put the hall through the boat. So yeah, it just goes to show the gear is.

Really pushing the limit and that, that close to breaking everything. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. Pull that was pulled goodness. And so he's the tremor for American magic. So he stands beside Dean Barker. Who's this, who's the helmsmen. And he's been like, as soon as they're out of the cup he's been like winging every day.

I think he just takes me just then he came for a win. So it will be all these guys are temporarily unemployed, so they, it's pretty, pretty cool to see. When he like every single opportunity. That's awesome. Yeah. So a little backstory. Like we met and stayed in touch, and then you had emailed me like that you're coming out with your own wings and if I wanted to try one, so I said, sure.

Send me a sample to test. And then I got it and I was really impressed. It's the, it was my favorite wing. I've tried so far and I've tried a lot of different wings just as really nice handling and smooth power and has that lofty feel, and is this a great wing? So congratulations on that.

And I've seen a bunch of footage of myself. Using the way the PPC Wayne, this is my friend, Jeff doing a one-handed jump, but a lot of this is shot with a GoPro max. That's mounted on a pole on my back. But yeah, so I just wanted to ask you a little bit about the, the whole process of making your own wing design and, the how you, the whole process of doing that, and how he came up with that design.

Yeah. Again, long it's a bef the wings came out and it was, I think it was yeah. 2000. Where are we now? 2000. So it was 2009 into 2019. When the first bunch of wings came out on the market. Something like that one, two years ago, right? Yeah. Yeah. We, I, yeah, so I made sure I got pretty much when they first came in and so I had a good amount of time using quite a few different brands and stuff and figuring out like, pretty quickly, like what I like.

And didn't like, I it was funny when I first grabbed a wing, I was like, sweet. I just grabbed my stop, a little foldable, which is 80 liters and went down to the light near the shop and I just got owned and everyone laughed at me. So I went back off and got like 140 liter board and then I got it.

But I've only got a little bit of exciting background. Like I said, optimist when I was a kid. So I don't have a huge sales background. So mainly just surf or board. So I got it, but I was pretty surprised at how quickly, like I progressed. And then understood quickly, like what a win should be or how it needs to feel to be an all round or kind of what you want.

So I kinda, they locked down happened. So then it forced us. We were, I was living at manga magnify at the time, which is an hour North of here. It's kinda this cool little area with thousand people and it's got an inlet and a bar and it's really good place to taste and stuff.

Luckily I had the jet ski as well I just started going for it really with with getting wings made and getting them seen and tasted them. I think we did about 29. 30 prototypes. Can you go a little bit into the the different variables that you tested in the prototypes and what made you yeah.

And what the final design was based on? Yeah I S I worked alongside a top seller maker and like we, so we started with a frame, we had something to begin with. And then from there, the main, there are so many different things that we played around with, but the span the leading edge diameter, that was actually probably one of the trickiest to get, right.

We went, too small, two 32 with the Strat and the leading edge. The leech tension was like a huge one. And I was lucky enough to actually talk to some top sellers here and they used the wing and checked it out. And, we we've had some pretty top people looking at the wings through the prototyping process.

Which is pretty unique. So yeah, just to get like the F the first wings were flappy and they weren't that good. So that through Twitter, I'm making these fine adjustments. We even got a pretty good wing around like 15 or something. And then we just tweaked a few things handle positioning was probably one of the hottest, just going back and forth.

Just to get these things balanced. Cause yeah I just found that so many wings were kinda, too far at the back or too far the front or something. And I don't know, I just this pure kind of middle kind of feel that you can just power on with you backhand. So that's the goal and it was amazing.

It's millimeters with handles. Like we'd go a millimeter too far back, and then we'd have to go, a little bit through the forward and just get them right. But yeah we got there in the end and just, we were able to kind of video from the jet ski and just, see the thing flexing in the air if there was too much flakes or, we got to a point where we got pretty happy.

It was pretty rigid. It was, on 90 kg and it was yeah. I feel like it's the combination with between, li like the white the balance and the path, without being too bulky, it is nothing worse to me than a bulky one. It's hard to use. And yeah. What was the dishes disadvantage of going with a thicker leading edge?

Cause I find It's the Wayne where it's great, but the tips are pretty flexible actually, right? It's not that it doesn't feel super rigid. The structure of the tips of the wing anyway, when you go to yeah. When you go too thick, every time we went to too thick and the leading edge, it just lighter stuff.

It's okay when you go when, but as soon as the wind just, decreases a little bit, it just doesn't fly quiet ride. It just, it's just a little bit too bulky and slow, and it's amazing how much the thickness adds to weight. That's what we were figuring out. It's yeah. So it's such a fine line between getting it right.

I think as thin as you can go by, but while keeping the frame as rigid as you can. And in saying that it sounds really simple, but it was different. The wing was definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to be involved with, designing and prototyping and made boards that people really easy.

The thing I really like about the wing is how nice it flies in neutral, when you're on a wave and you're just holding it next to you behind her, just flutters and sits there really like it's very well behaved. It's like a well-behaved dog on a leash versus the other wings. You always have to control them, the other wings are, they don't just sit there in neutral as well.

Yeah. So what, how did you have it, was that part of the prototype process too, or? Yeah, a hundred percent. Cause that's a big thing for me. I love surfing. So when I'm on a wave, when I'm winging it, I definitely want to be as unmindful or whatever the word is of the wing as possible.

Just to forget about it when you're riding. So I thought, yeah, with the design, without saying too much, it was definitely the Strat, which played a big part in that. And just bringing it a a little bit lower bringing it down a little bit compared to the leading edge which definitely helps Stabilize it my, my dad's a pilot, so I've got a little bit of flying background.

I've got I nearly got my PPO, but I've got to do a few more hours, but I do have a bit of knowledge with flying. Actually the coolest experience I've ever had was definitely been in a glider. And like I noticed is it two to one for a fringe trench wing? I think he's, I don't know how to pronounce his name, but I can see, he glides he skis and does all this stuff and he puts it all together.

You can see that he just puts it all together and it's pretty cool. Yeah. I recently just watch a video of him doing some amazing stuff on the waves, right? Yeah. He's pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. That's my goal for sure. So just point breaks, wives the place that, you were in a power in a way with with the oven that that's a pretty cool spot for the wing when the winter.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have my stuff on my gear over there when we were there for the standard paddle race. But but yeah and I decided to say thanks to Dan Regan who invited me over there and he's our distributor and a distributor in New Zealand. And he's really, he really got into Wingfoot link two years where he was more of a standup paddler and then he got into stand up foiling and now he's heavily into winging.

And I think he said that you got one of your wings too, right recently. Yeah, he did. He's loving it. So I saw him last week, caught up with him for a quick coffee. He's good to have around. He's a bit of a froth, so he's yeah he grabbed it and loves it. So that's good. We're yeah we're getting a few wings out for sure.

And New Zealand, so yeah, it sounds like you've been selling out every time you get them in. Like how many have you sold so far of the, I think we might've sell it about 250, maybe in New Zealand. Mostly it's just in New Zealand. That's just New Zealand. Yeah. So that's, it's not too bad.

Because New Zealand only has what like 7 million population. Yeah. Five I think. Oh, 5 million. We have a lot of sheep, so yeah. No, I think it's about five, just over five. So yeah, it goes to show the amount of people that write, who are into watersports here. Yeah. It's pretty cool. But yeah, it's pretty satisfying seeing the wings out there flying well and getting really good feedback.

And yeah, one of the big things for me is just listening to customers and just getting really, and just listening to them with feedback. And, some of them might say some crazy stuff, but some of them, a lot of your customers say pretty stuff that you should listen to. So that's been definitely one of my designing definitely got always listened to the customer.

Yeah. So what about your board? We've got your boards in the store from Dan, which is cool. So we're starting to sell a few of those people are loving them. Yeah. That's awesome. Good. Glad to hear that. Yeah. Thanks for carrying our boards. Appreciate that. And then, yeah, I was going to say then this drawn footage I'm using the four eight, and then in the other footage, I was using the three eight analysis of a five eight.

So you have basically one F one meter increments. Two eight three eight four eight five eight, right? Yeah. Yeah. I know a lot of companies use percentage increments, but I wanted to keep it pretty simple. And we tried that with prototyping and we tried percentage increments, but it just worked out that 2.8, 3.8, 4.8 and 5.8.

Worked really well for the size and for the wind range that, that designed for, yeah. I was surprised that duo is going with past meter increments. Yeah, they're doing like four or 4.5, five and 5.5 and so on. And but I don't know anybody that's going to buy every single size in that range.

So it's like people want to only buy a one wing actually. Yeah, they do. I'm trying Convince people they need to for the whole wind range. And yeah, one of my things when designing the wing was definitely to design, like the 3.8 to me has quite a big wind ranch, like depending on what foil you're going to use, I can use a 3.8 and like 10 knots up to 25, which is pretty cool.

And that's what a lot of customers are saying as well that out the wind range without wings is really good for the size. So I noticed quite a few bigger wings on the bucket didn't really have the path that they should have had for the size. And that was my key thing. So making them as small as possible for as powerful as you could possibly give them.

But I think there's a long way to go. I think we're only scratching the surface. Yeah. I definitely agree with that. I think there's. It's definitely a lot of opportunity for improvements. Yeah, especially I think the wings and the foils too are, and just seems like the foils keep getting better too.

Actually I w so what kind of food, what's your favorite foil to use right now? What brand and what foil wings do you like to use? Ooh, putting me under the pressure here. Cause I, I know the guys at Armstrong pretty well. AMI and vivid and stuff. I'm loving the Armstrong stuff. Yesterday I went fishing with Adrian Roper who does exits, so I'm using a bit of that.

And I've been using a little bit of Moses as well, but I'm kinda coming back to Armstrong a lot for winging, just cause the white and jumping and it feels pretty good on it, my fate, but it's funny these questions cause you know, by having a shop, I've got a, I've got have the sh the shop cap on, and yeah, like the wing is probably like half the weight of an access foil with aluminum.

Yeah. Access has that way. It's sometimes it's not a disadvantage of, it makes it feel more solid somehow and more rigid and a lot of people loving it. Yeah. And the access, on the Armstrong foils, which what's your favorite wing T wings to use? I kind of chop and change between, I don't really ride anything over the 15, 15 hour, if it's super light maybe the 1850, but it's between the eight 50 and the 1250.

I and depending on what board I'm on. So if I'm on a little board and it's windy I've got a 33 liter little four O so I'll probably use the eight 50. And then if it's a little lighter, I'll probably use like a 60 liter board with the 1250 or 1550. It's 1250 as a lot of Lyft, actually. That's a really good fishing foil.

It's pretty, it's got a big window in Arik and it's a good one. Like for point breaks and stuff you can pump through sections and yeah. I'm just loving love. It's cool. Being able to, it's cool. Actually not having my own foil and being able to try all these different foils right now.

I know you've got your own foil, but you use anything, right? Yeah. I've been trying everything and I mean our Carver foils are the ones that we are on. Those are more, a little bit more entry-level are they really easy to use and forgiving and stuff, but they're not super, they're not the most high speed and most high-performance ones.

Yeah. So I've been playing around with a lot of different foils while at the moment. Like I recently just started using the axis eight, 10. Have you tried that one? It's yeah, that's a really nice one. I really liked that one a lot. Before that I was using mostly the seven 60, which is also one of my favorites.

It's a really good seven 60. And if it's really like the eight 62. But yeah, those are and then on the Armstrong, 1250, or even a 10 50, it's pretty fun doing in waves.

Yeah. It's very current. Yeah. Talk a little bit about boards. You just emailed me a picture of second late latest prototype. Yeah, let me, so they talked a little bit about board design and what you like to use and stuff like that. Yeah. So we've, we were lucky enough to have a shape next to the shop.

And it's been really cool with prototyping and just get the made so I can see the blank and get them done pretty quick and take them out on the water pretty fast. But yeah, so I'm gonna bringing out a new model, which is slightly wider. I just feel like, yeah, my, this model is, it was pretty good.

The only thing, it probably lacked a little bit of stability, maybe, for the bigger, slightly bigger new people for the board linked. So I kinda, it's probably what you're doing, I'm just trying to get as much volume as possible and keep a swing right down. Trying to keep a pretty parallel line and a kind of a square towel after this board had a port entail.

And I kinda, I, I realized, that it's okay for some people, but, you want to make it easy as possible, right. For people to grow, to grow the sport or whatever. So yeah. These are wider than a Dick concave, which is proving to be pretty cool. Yeah. And a, yeah, you have two stringers in there.

Yeah. Two cabin stringers that go right through and right through to the front of board through the track to the back. And yeah, I'm going to do a arrange of bullets made in New Zealand, which is a different thing for me. I've always got most things made off shore. So I think that after the pandemic is being a support local kind of thing.

So yeah, I'm going to, there'll be a ranch here made in New Zealand, so it's cool. Yeah, that is cool. Yeah. And the bottom shape, like what kind of contours do you have on the bottom of the board? So pretty smooth, kinda, it's just a double kind of double barrel kind of concave that actually runs through the whole board now.

I've smooth it out a little bit, not so drastic. And then the board's got the same amount of nose Carrick and a little bit of tau kick. I find quite handy getting up on the foil when you're whinging, but yeah, it's, the bottom is like our first model, but just, it just continues.

The concaves just continue straight through straight out in the back. Just getting the motor would have flow through the board or whatever. But yeah, it seems to be working pretty well. It's probably it's took it out the other day. I had a few people using it and yeah, people, so the size that it's pretty stable.

Yeah. On the wings, the biggest, you touched on it a little bit, like the biggest size you make right now is 5.8. Is that correct? Or do you make a bigger one?

Yeah, I was going to say personally, I find that like, when you go too big on the wing, it like, cause it also increases the wing span and it's it tends to touch easier on the water. And you end up not getting. That much more power by adding more surface area. It seems is that kind of what you're thinking?

Like I know some companies make seven meters even bigger than that wings, but I've never, I've tried, but I've never had the desire to buy one that big, because it seemed like at that point I'd just rather not go winging and do something else. Yeah. I totally agree.

My thoughts. Exactly. I think there's even like a nine out there maybe, but yeah. I a hundred percent agree. I feel like when you're holding something that cumbersome, it yeah. I don't know. It's odd to handle it. Just go towing, go surfing, go fishing. No, I, yeah I don't know. I'm considering doing something around six.

But on the only, only considering, but I'd rather play around with new materials and see if we can get the same amount of grunt and just reduce the weight a little bit before we just start going bigger to get more efficiency. Cause I think that possibly maybe with a material change in the design change, we don't have to go bigger to get more pal.

Yeah. Interesting. You talking about materials? I just talked to Todd from ocean rodeo yesterday and about there, they're coming out with the Lula fabric frame, leading edge and and this which is like a super light material, and still very strong that lighter weight. So is that what you're talking about?

New materials is, are you considering those. Yeah, I had it. Yeah. I had to look, I knew someone was going to come out with that about a year ago or two years ago. I looked at that material, but wise just, wasn't it doable with production, but it's different. It's pretty cool that someone's doing it.

I think I've got a couple of things going on right now in New Zealand, but I'll keep you in the loop with, but yeah, I the pricing is crazy. It's like twice as much as a regular wing house in terms of, yeah, like right now, I think like recreation wise I'm really happy actually with what we have and everybody getting into it, you can almost, yeah.

When you change materials and you make them super, super efficient, you're kinda dealing with a pretty small market. I think we're going to go there when we start racing if we do. But my things in the surf and in the waves, but I guess with every sport we're probably gonna, it's probably gonna go rice, isn't it?

With wing on my thoughts and then I think we will see some pretty drastic material changes. Like you do, with the Moss, the four-lane Moss, the sails are carbon cloth, like super, super thin been through a few international Semite, Sal makers factories here in Oakland.

And I've seen some pretty cool stuff being produced, but again, it's, cost-wise, I don't think people are going to pay 3000 or 2000 us for. Oh, they might, for always want to have the best, so if something is clearly clear, then I think people will buy it, but it has to be significantly better it's for them to spend that much money, I think.

But yeah, I was going to talk about the handles real quick too. I find myself on a 3.8 and 4.8 using mostly the widest grip, the front handle and the back handle. And then on the five eight, I use like the middle handle in the back. Is that the same, like you do or is that how you design them or, yeah, I go to the Y I go to the widest group as possible and least it's if it's absolutely nuking, I'll probably use a smaller wing anyway.

So I think with every wing I used the widest possible, but I've got a pretty wide span. I actually went a little bit narrower. But do you find the, have you used the widest the front and the back and the 5.9, do you think that's a little bit too wide? Is it is it both ways? And sometimes when I if I want to jump out, grab the back handle, but for regular riding, I find that on the five, eight, the second to last handle in the back work better for me, for some reason.

I dunno. Yeah. And I think it's just going to change with everybody's spans and whites and styles and, sorry. You think it needs more handles? I noticed some manufacturers. I came from the, I came from the duotone wings w whichever, boom. And then, yeah. Yeah. And for so it took me a while to get used to the handles, to be honest when attacking and stuff like that.

I would miss the handle though. I'd have to look where to grab and, but, over time you're going to get used to it. And now I can actually pretty much find the handle without looking for it most of the time, but having the rigid handle definitely has an advantage. And then I dunno, I think that's something that could be improved so on the wings is like the handles.

I think having the center inflatable center strap really helps with keeping the wing on the water, floating. And then also when you're flying on the wave, it's a neutral, it keeps it flying straight, it doesn't take talk back and forth, like the, without the center strata tends to do that wandering thing, instead of slacking.

And. But yeah, and that's what when I did the interview with Alan cadets, he mentioned that to the new duotone slick wing, cause it has an inflatable center strategy. It's more at handles nicer because of that. But yeah, I think that's something, I think I just had to get used to the handles too, but it took me a little while to figure that out.

Cause the nice advantage of having the stiff boom is that you can just slide your hand back and forth and you can just grab it anywhere. And then bringing it out. The water is easy to grab underneath the wing and describe the handle. So it took me a little while, but now that I'm used to the handle, I think it just as this is good and it definitely feels a lot lighter without the boom.

I tried to make the handles like as rigid as possible. So it had a Bloomfield. Cause a lot of people in New Zealand and obviously in Maui and everywhere and Hawaiian wind surfers who are quite boom orientated, but there's been a few people hardcore boom guys that have used outwin who've just gone.

Yeah, no, this is cool. We can deal with an inflatable Strat now. And so that's cool. So you sold about 250, there's a New Zealand. I find that amazing. Is that like when you go out on the water or like more than half of the people on your wings are like, yes. Yeah. I think like we we we are actually the only ones in New Zealand with a shop, whether on brand.

And I think that helps to be on it, and there is actually no one in New Zealand. These is Armstrong, but you know that they're more international. Yeah, I focus pretty heavily on the local market. It's pretty good for me and, but I just really wanted to have a good wing.

So my goal was never to just rush and put cause I had an opportunity to put a wing out straight away when the first ones arrived, but I just waited. I just really wanted to put a good wing out and yeah. So w we'll just update probably every year I've noticed a couple of other brands have updated quite a few, some are on like generation three or four or something now.

But I think I'm going to just every single year. Yeah. Have a different version and we're working on it now, but it's a long way off yet. And yeah,

right. Yeah. So anyone in the U S if you're interested in these wings, you can get them from us at blue planet surf. And I'm finding just to come out with, I told you I would make a video about the wings and I'm planning to still do that. Probably post that a little bit after this interview posts, but yeah, let's talk a little bit about just wing foiling in general, and then, some other random stuff, but can you talk a little bit about where you're at with your wing foiling and like what you're working on?

Do you have any new moves that you're working on or what are you into these days? It's hu it's tricky one. Yeah, I think for me now I've been going to the Lake a little bit to test product, but now I'm just every time that winds up, I'm looking for a surf spot. So it's and this is why I find winging really cool, because it's I I didn't mention that before, but it's bringing all these different kinds of sports together.

So you've got sailors and surfers and all these different kinds of sports coming together. And I'm noticing, the sailors, they love going fast. They love putting on a NHA wing and, or, smaller wing and going fast. It's not official, but my friend snowy, he's an Olympic style that he got like 30 knots here the other day, which is pretty fast, I think for winging.

And then for me yeah, it's definitely finding surf spots. So finding point breaks and. I like wave riding. And the wing is just the answer, you don't have to get the jet ski all fueled up and go. Although when there's no wind, I love toe foiling. But yeah, for me, what I'm working on right now, I guess just going bigger.

So bigger is like hitting the rents. You guys, it looks as though you got some pretty sweet conditions over your way. You'll so you definitely try to get in the waves too, but I find that sometimes, for winging or spoiling in general, you don't necessarily want to have the biggest steepest waves.

You just want a, more of a mellow not too steep of a wave basically. Cause it's hard to control the foil and the faster steeper wave, unless you have, if you're tall, you, then you can use a tiny foil. So it's a little different. Yep, exactly. I reckon you need it's you need a really good combination of waves and wind.

If you're going to drop your foil size. Especially if you're out somewhere on a point break and the tide's going out, like you you don't want to be stranded out there. And so I'm going, there's no one board that I'm using at the moment. So if I'm playing on a point break, I'm gonna use a board with a bit more volume because at least it's like really nuking.

I don't really want to get stuck out there with nothing. And Paula noise is pretty shocky. Is that Paul? I knew he, like, when I was there, the wind was like straight off shore. Is it, is that the normal conditions there? Or they getting like Southeast, which comes right out the beach, which is pure crusher.

So it's yeah. So it's perfect. It just comes straight up and hits the point. So you're just like round and round. And I dunno, I think even goes out for seven hours. He gets in trouble with the wife. That's such a beautiful place. Yeah. Yeah. What are you working on? I w all kinds of stuff that I like one that I've been trying to pull off.

This is my friend Daniel trying to do backflips. There's a couple of of he's starting to do that, and I'm thinking about it, but I haven't really throw myself backwards yet, but I have been trying to do the spins, into the wind, like turning the board through the wind, and then it's weird, cause I landed a couple of them.

By the first time I tried them. My first session, I tried it, I landed a couple. And then since then, like that was like three or four months ago. And I haven't been able to land a single one since. And I think it's all the way, getting the wing right on the landing, it's tough.

Same thing happened to me. Yeah. It's almost I don't know what, cause I, I used to be able to do threes and rodeos and back flips and front flips on skis and the snow. And then I thought, but I dunno with the whole wind thing, when you get here it's definitely a lot of, and that's why all these wind surfer, these guys like balls and stuff, they just know exactly where to put the wing in the wind to help rotate you around, which is, yeah, I need to try it a lot more.

When I did a three, I keep the wing just facing one way and I passed the handles around it's I did it, but it's probably not the right way to do it, but it would have for me, that's us Dean is doing it too and stuff, but yeah, you did that way. If you do it that way, you just have to stick the landing perfectly.

Cause you don't have any power in the wing if, until you grab it again, and so when you teach beginners or you get people into winging, what are your, like your top tips to give to beginner wing feathers? I'm in the shop cause we teach people we've got a jet ski luckily, and we take people out and teach them how to foil first, before the wings so that they don't have to at the same time to do together, which I think is crazy.

I think you should do it. I, my opinion, I think you should learn to foil first and then grab a wing, play with it on the land, maybe jump on a skateboard or something, but get a feel for the wing and then combine them and put them together. But I'm always just saying, just go big, just go bigger than you think with everything.

So big with a board, big with a foil and and yeah just make it easy and go out when there's wind. So 15 knots all over. When you're putting it all together. Yeah, definitely. When you're starting out it's hard. It's you need more power to get it going, like bigger wing, bigger foil, more wind.

And then as you get better, it seems like you can go down in size with everything because once you figure out how to pump it up and get it going. Exactly. Yup. Yeah. Any other tips? And then there's the whole, cause there's a whole thing. Like I think there's a fear with people buying a board that's maybe too big and then they progress and need a smaller board.

At the shop in New Zealand, we're gonna, we're going to lease some bigger boards. So it's seven foot by 32 kind of barges. We're just going to lace them and just the people can learn without maybe buying a board straight away. Then I'm going to buy it back and resell it again or something.

Yeah. Yeah, that's kinda, it's probably not like the greatest business side, profit idea, but I think it will grow the sport, what we need to do. I think. Yeah. I think you're right. The, it definitely, the, it's definitely much easier to learn on a bigger board. These, this board I'm using as a wing, the wing master for four six, and like it's no, no good to learn on.

It's just too small and too to, get on your knees and it's tippy and hard to use. And, but once you get the basics down, then that's kinda what you can use, so you all grow a big board pretty quickly. And I usually tell people, try to get a used one or borrow one from a friend or something like that instead of spending, and don't spend a lot of money on a really big board anyways, because you're going to offer exactly.

Yep. And yeah it's not most affordable sport in the world, but yeah it's quite a bit of gear. It's what quite a few people maybe put off with the gear or whatever, but I think that's definitely going to become more affordable and a lot of different options.

This set up here is actually one of the first times I used the PPC wing. I think I was the second day I use it and right away I felt really comfortable on it. Oh really? I brought it right away. Pretty balanced and yeah, no, that's a great way. It is. It did a good job on that. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about just life in general.

In terms of what else are you interested in? And do you have any hobbies or cross training or other sports or interests. Yeah, I'm actually looking forward to taking the wing to the mountains and I'm like jumping off some cliffs. I've seen some cool footage with Kai and stuff lately.

So that's been pretty sweet and yeah, we just saw I'm really pumped on like winter coming, which is weird. Cause yeah. So I'll definitely be taking the wings to the mountain. Where do you go? I guess on the South Island you go where do you go and which model? Hopefully down South, I've got some friends in Wanaka and Queenstown.

And so we'll stay down there. Actually. That's another thing, a lot of people are just winging on the lakes down here. I'm like, it's perfect in the summer they get heaps of wind. So a lot of people are yeah. Loving it down there at the moment. So yeah, there's that. And then I play a bit of golf.

And then I like fishing, cause it takes my mind off. Boiling. Cause I do it for, a job like you. I dunno. How do you get away from it all? A good question. I just try to do stuff that's meditative and not yeah. Where you can clear your mind, and I love to go hiking actually.

Like I was a score on solo hikes, try to go where no one else is around and just get out in nature and immerse myself and not listen to anything and just try to be almost empty, just clear the mind, basically not think about stuff too much. Yeah. Finding golf balls the other day golf course.

Yeah. I really got into golfing. I figured that's something I can do when I get old

for me. Yeah. It really takes my mind off things.

You have to focus. Yeah. I You have to focus on what you're doing. Yeah. That's quite frustrating. Like a daily routine. Like when you get up in the morning, first thing, there's certain things you just do it as a routine. I usually just get up and have a. Have a call. I have a coffee with my family four year old Tanika and and I'll check the wind straight away.

So like I never used to check wind charts, but everyday it's just chicken, the wind shot straight away. It used to be a swell chart that kind of chatting. So I'm checking that. And then and then it's kinda, no, I don't think I'm a UAE with a shop, so I've just got to be a little bit involved there.

And so what's yeah. So what's your typical day? Like a day in your life or what's it like? Typical day, get up, check the wind. If there's wind I'll definitely win. Cause I've got staff, I've got Denise in the shop she's really organized and I'm pretty lucky there.

I'll try and hit out of the water. If I can't hit out of the water I'll come into the shop and I'll pretty much figure out what I need to do to work on the wings. So the boards, or I'll go next door and have a look at some blanks and pretty much, and then just deal with a bit of production emails, how it is that affects tree stuff.

Just make sure everything it was running smoothly. Really. There's no day where, every day different, which I love and if I can get out, and that's why I love winging so much lately, because with when it was busy through the summer, I could at least get out on the water for an hour and just recharge with the wing and to get back to the office a little bit.

And then, yeah, I'm pretty I'm pretty cruisy guy. Get back, watch him, watch a movie with a family. Pretty chilly. You have a four year old, this is a Boyer girl. Izzy girl. And I can't wait to take her and get her into this, so I think she's ready to get on the foil board with me.

Nice. Yeah. That's, it's cool too. That seems like the younger generation is really interested in it too. This sport just has such a broad appeal, which is which I find cool. It's not just us older guys, yeah, exactly. That's what I think a lot about lately with wings and stuff and boards just, yeah.

Designing them for kids actually. And just I go, I went around quite a few of the yacht clubs here and a lot of New Zealand has a pretty good reputation for the sailors. I think in a lot of the clubs were looking at winging as a form to teach the kids how foil works.

With the latest America's cup stuff, it's how many kids would just fall on it. So I think, yeah it's actually an affordable way. How to figure out how foil works. The wings sit up. I was going to ask you, when you when you're wing feeling, do you switch your stance or do you keep it like in place?

Like I do I keep it in place? Yeah. I'm a surfer. Yeah. If people are people have somebody all the time about it, but I don't really care. I've learned twisting and point my back foot, you forward a little bit to open up my body and I can put pretty high now on my backside. Oh, check this out.

This is my friend Derek he's. He has like lines on his wing so he can hold it way up high. It's like almost a cross between winging and cutting, so it's like most of you. What about you guys switching your stance? Are you guys staying in the sear stance? My good friends are staying in the surf stance, and I think, especially when you're using really small boards, it's, that makes it hard to, to switch. But I think one, once you if you didn't learn to do it in the beginning on a bigger board, yeah. It's really hard to figure it out on a small board. It's just most simple.

Yeah, I did it at the I did it the other day and it just felt like I was learning for the first time. So maybe that's something I'll work on actually switching my stance because I know for a fact it's going to be bitter. If you're doing the GAAP, when reaches and stuff, you just point high a hundred percent.

Yeah. Oh, I just realized did I wasn't sharing my screen. Huh? I thought I was screen-sharing this whole time. Sorry. I thought that I just going along with it. Oh geez. Okay. I got to show this. I got to show this footage of Derrick. Again, so that just realize it didn't have my screen sharing on wait I to go back here, but Schutz.

Yeah, I've been playing video footage and was talking about it's full time, but

Derek Yamasaki, his name says this footage is pretty cool. It's got lines on the wing. It's like way up high. It's kinda cool because when it, when the wing is higher off the water, you get more power to, yeah. Cause it's a little bit windier up higher. Let's talk a little bit about the whole pandemic and all that.

How has it affected you? And I know New Zealand is one of the few places where that's been relatively unaffected by the pandemic. Normal life is pretty much, you guys are pretty much back to normal. Yeah. Yeah, I feel I was pretty lucky. Honestly, it's yeah, it would be, we've had it pretty good.

We've had a couple of lockdowns that we, business, the business had to be shot, which is it's pretty tough shutting up is, but, I looked at other countries it's way worse. So I actually, yeah we kinda, when the pandemic happened, we would go to level three and we can all just say can we wing?

And we'd, we'll just meet up down at the local wing spot and we could at least wing in kinda hit the water and go for walks and stuff. But yeah I feel like we're in our little bubble here. Yeah. Especially with the older America's cup stuff going on. It's yeah. I just feel pretty lucky that you guys have you guys been in a similar kind of.

I know, we've had several shutdowns and and a lot of people out of work cause there's no tourism and stuff like that. So it's been a lot of people pretty seriously, yeah. That, that definitely a lot of tourism sort of companies down in, especially Queenstown down South, relying on.

I think, some of these America's cup sailors staying in hotels and then a lot of the only ones at the moment. And I spoke, talking to the hotel managers saying that, you'd have to book a year in advance this time of the year. So it's certainly affected tourism. And but I think we're just fortunate enough to be in this industry.

And a lot of people just, they need it, they need to take their minds off things. Wing, foiling, surfing, and these sort of sports have been pretty busy like busier. And I think we've seen that. With supply demand issues in factories, things like that. But yeah. Yeah. And you had a hard time getting enough inventory of your boards and stuff like that.

We were having issues with that. We can't, we don't have enough boards and stuff. A hundred percent. Yeah. We were, we run out of bullets of return mounts even. I always have boards in production. I get some of my boards made in Vietnam and it doesn't matter where, so yeah. And fright has tripled or nearly quadrupled in price since three years ago.

So it's difficult, but I'm making it work.

So for people that are I know a lot of people during the pandemic, like being stuck at home, they feel lonely or, depressed or anxious and stuff like that. Like how, do you have any friends that go through that? And what would you tell people? Or do you have any advice on staying positive and living a good life?

Cause I, I listened to Rob your podcast the other day and I agree with him. Don't listen to the news too much, and just get out there because yeah I think the city didn't use a lot and just get in, I dunno, just, it can really create a lot of anxiety. I think if you just, the sky is still blue, it's, if you can get out there and just enjoy it and safety yeah, I I've just been watching a lot of Netflix.

That's the only thing, a lot of good Dockers on Netflix lately. Yeah. Yeah. I dunno. There's a lot of good stuff then you don't know the formula one stuff was crazy seeing those guys, the new season three and how they handled the pandemic and they still made it work, and there's a lot on the line, I think. Yeah. The first one was canceled in Melbourne, but the, they still had a season of formula one and it's just a line in that sport. So it was cool to see like things are still continuing, but I'm traveling. That's pretty cool. Oh yeah, just having the America's cup here was, ah, it was just amazing, meeting up, having good chats with Jimmy and paid and Dean and stuff.

Dean Barker. He's the helmsmen for. American magic. He's a Kiwi and he's he's learning to wing at the moment. So like he, yeah, he must be like, I don't know. I shouldn't say maybe 50, 50, 55, but there's, to me, there's like much of an age limit on whinging, which like, I love about it. It's huge.

Like I had an 88 year old come in the shop the other day wanting to win and I'm going to teach him. That's awesome. So I'll teach him on that big board and I'll do it safely, Chuck a helmet on him, but I think also, so that'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking about what you're saying about the the news and stuff like that.

And I think on social media too, it's I guess they call it doom scrolling. It's once you start looking at those kind of Yeah, negative news and stuff. It just feeds you more, as like the more you look at it, the more it feeds you. And it just puts people in that state of it's like almost it's like poor design, I was like people that are already anxious, you get they just get more and more of that.

And it's it's terrible. Yeah. There are a lot. I like to ditch my phone every now and then. I, w when I'm fishing the other day, I thought about checking it on the water, but no, I just, I, yeah, like when I know, cause I lived in California for a good year and a half and I I know how it is over there.

There's a lot of stuff going on. It's kinda, it's not like New Zealand, so it's kinda, there's just a lot more noise. I feel like we're away from it a little bit here, but I can see in other countries how you can get pretty wound up in it. Even, yeah that's what you focused on too though, yeah.

It's like you said, it's you know what you know what you don't have to look at it. You don't have to look at your phone all the time. No, I, honestly, I think a wing has kept me pretty sane the last year. It's been like, I'm just stoked. It's kind long. Who would have thought we'd be holding onto this wind thing and having such a blast.

But it, I feel like it has actually say, be quite a bit like mentally, like to have this, to look forward to every single day. So it's been, yeah. It's yeah. It's going to be around for a long time. I think I don't think it's going anywhere. Yeah. A hundred percent agree. It's kept me saying to, for sure.

Yeah, no, don't okay. Your videos and look at your more motor and tropical, consistent winds and stuff and get pretty jealous. So as soon as we can travel on, yeah, we're fortunate. But it's not always like this either, this week, we're not gonna have any wind, probably no wing floating for about a week.

Sometimes people come here for a week and they think they're going to be winging every day, but it's not like that. Maybe 50% of the time. It's good, might come here for two weeks and not get any when you know, I'm, mommy is always windier. If you're coming, you want guaranteed wind.

Definitely Molly's by the place to go more than a wahoo. Yeah, I love Maui because she goes, islands is like a funnel. It funnels the wind between the Westmont mountains and Holly, I believe it when we were playing from a wahoo to Maui and there was no window Oahu when we took off.

And when we arrived in Valley, it was, did Palm trees were just like, it was like 30 knots. It was crazy capping everywhere. Yeah. It's pretty crazy like that for sure. I just, yeah the wing didn't exist then. So it was just downwinders. So you just pretty much started your business by yourself and grew it and did you have any help or partners or anything like that?

No. So I feel kinda, it's funny cause like a lot of these companies around me and I've got quite a few people involved, I look at pretty much every company around me, like Armstrong, they et cetera. I feel like a bit of a small fry cause it's just me, but yeah it's almost it's not too bad being small because then you can do shorter runs and make sure that, your product's still at the top of the game.

You can do it in a way where you don't have to have such a big sort of volume kind of machine. I dunno, it's hard to explain, but yeah, a lot of the other companies I'm looking at have 10, 20, 30 people we've just got a few it's just me and the factories and a couple of stuff in the shop.

Yeah. Yeah. Is there anyone you want to thank for their support or that's there for you and. Just my panic, probably just for putting out with me and family and stuff and, everyone that supports me in New Zealand at the shop. And yeah, I'm just going to keep developing keep the product improving.

That's my goal for the next few years, anyway, just to keep improving things. And right now you're doing mostly, most of your sales are just consumer directed. You're just dealing directly with the customers more than, yeah. It's directly with customers. And I think, yeah it's pretty unique to be able to just taste here in New Zealand.

I think we've got a pretty cool place for testing. Like at the time where I was testing the wing, there was no one around, so that was pretty cool. Just being able to do that with no one, like coming up to me on the beach and but a guy like that is cool. And when I'm an Oakland, like you come out from the car pocket where we wing it tech burner, you're going about like 10 to 20 people around you sometimes like asking you what is this new sport?

So it's pretty crazy. Yeah. Yeah. And I, for people here in Hawaii, like going traveling to New Zealand is really nice because it's only one hour time difference, really. So you don't really even get jet lag, you instantly adjust to the different time zone. And then, that's a different day, but the hours, it's only one hour difference the daylight.

And then you're in the opposite side of the planet. So it's your winters are summer and the other way around. So I guess it's nice for you guys to come to Hawaii in your winter when it's summer over here. The cuvees come here for that. Yeah. Definitely breaks up the winter. I feel like up North though, it's not too bad. I used to live down South freezing, you'll be winging with gloves on. And that's why I keep thinking about handles with gloves. Just making sure the gap's big enough, but for the colder parts of the world, it was the thing to keep it.

I didn't think of that in the United see, went to Russia and the guy's ah, I'm using my three millimeter gloves. That's feeling a little tight. So I thought, Oh, dammit, maybe I'm going to have to make a bigger bet for the handles. But yeah, I dunno, just seeing these wings around like different parts of the world, especially like Russia and stuff.

And it's crazy seeing, your own brand around the world w in Australia are I've got a guy over there, Jason, a wing man. He's doing pretty well. So people are loving the wings and ALS, so that's cool. Yeah, I think it's for me I kinda just love my life like right now. And I love my lifestyle and I think I don't want to grow super fast or get an investor on board.

I'm happy just doing what I'm doing right now. Yeah. Self-funded, that's all, I think always the best way and just better to grow slower, but keep the ownership and be able to do. That's my philosophy and I guess we're actually similar in a lot of ways that, I volunteer shop.

So a lot of direct. Yeah. Yeah. And you ship all around the us, right? Drop. Yeah. Yeah. We do a lot of air cargo shipping. It's actually pretty affordable. We actually have free shipping on our website because we can, just included in the price when we sell so boards online.

That's so cool. Yeah. So how about you? Do you ship to Australia too? Do you ship boards or mostly just your wings or everything, or, like it's a little bit harder, I think, for it to ship from New Zealand and yeah, it is, it's pretty expensive. So mostly the wing and that, that's a good thing about the wing it's been pretty affordable to to seeing around the world.

Boards are another thing. I think if someone wants to sell bulls of stuff, go to Phillip and China. It's I think it's crazy if writing boards. I, yeah, I used to if like prototypes, which yeah, I think it used to be like 1200 New Zealand or something just for one little board. So it's quite cool being able to prototype and just prototype in a New Zealand now with the boards that but yeah, I think, yeah, the wing is great.

It's so small. It just doesn't take up any storage as well. So I think. Yeah. Do you find that easy to totally it's easier than the board. You don't have to package it. It's already comes in a little box. Yeah. Unloading a container of SOPs is a big job or a few containers for you. I would say. Yeah, it is. I'm just looking at your background.

It looks kinda like one of those fake zoom backdrops, but you earlier, you showed me your backyard. Can you show us your little pool and stuff yet? It's a real background. It's not a fake background. Oh, is that right? Yeah.

Yeah. I heard Baltz molar. Talk about practicing backflips on the trampoline with the wing in the sense. Have you tried that? I should probably try that actually. I, cause I it'd be hard with that.

There's actually a big like trampoline place down the road. I might have to bring the wing there. It's like a big open one I take is either. Yeah, I should do that. But I'm like, cause I can front flip and back flip on skis. I I know the feeling. And I think it's going to be the same. I'm just too scared to try it to be honest, but I'm going to try it, the helmet on, but it's the same feeling because once you get over with skis on any way, the skis and boots, the weight just pulls you back around.

It actually feels pretty natural. Like when you get you just naturally just keep going around, you can spot it. So the wing between you and the lining and then the foil above you, it just seems stretchy. I haven't gotten around to trying yet. I think I'll leave it to the pros. Yeah. Yeah, I, that was interesting too, that Encore is, was saying he, he doesn't jump at all.

He just like focused. He's such a good winger. But all he does is stay, he stays on the water, which, I makes sense. When you get older, you don't want to get hurt and stuff like that. And yeah. And just I to enjoy jumping too much. But it's probably not the best thing to do for my body.

Same. And I'm actually surprised how it's actually not that jarring on your body. Like you can, it's quite cushiony, especially when, it would be probably more Jari, but it seems we can go pretty high without too much, jolt on the body, which, yeah, it's crazy, especially. Yeah, I wanna, I want to be able to jump on waves and jump back into the wave.

I think that's the next goal. Yeah. I Definitely having that wing and being able to hold it above you. Like a parachute just really helps with land softer landings, even more so exactly on a wind surfer. You can't really hold it in that position. When you come back down and you have to come down pretty hard usually, but on the wing, you can really come down pretty gently if you do it right.

But you can also come down pretty hard as she, if you don't have the wind in the right position or whatever, and that's all the best. All right off I find with when it is really windy, you're going to want to go for a small wing, but it's going to be tricky with is so late lately I've been taking bigger wings out, trying to take bigger wings out in stronger winds to seeing how big of a wing I can take, like in 29.

So I've been I've been using like I, it was 30, it was 30 knots the other day. And I was using a 3.8. And I should have been using the 2.8, but the 3.8 just, made is so much easier. And then it's so you can just spill a bit at you, yeah. Pretty easy to lose power just by spilling a bit out the back.

Yeah, that's true. That's the one nice thing too, that you can really de power pretty easily. And if you overpower, just put it over your head and let it Slutter you know, so yeah. All right. I think we went over everything I have on my list here. Do you have any last words, anything else you want to share or talk about?

No, I'm just really looking forward to coming over visiting and over your way. Look forward to having you visit Hawaii and I'll come back to New Zealand too. When they'll allow Americans back in, I just got my first shot of the vaccination and should get my second a week or so we haven't we bought it.

I think it's coming into a fixer in, but I think we've just got it rolling out. So hopefully that opens up the borders a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to see how it's, how different it is distributed. And around the world, Israel is already like fully vaccinated. They're vaccinating kids now, and then other countries don't haven't even started the started yet. But a New Zealand, you pretty much got it under control there. You haven't had any cases for awhile, right? For awhile, we had one case the other day and like prime minute, it just goes full into lockdown straightaway.

We knew anything about it. That happens. I think it was, yeah, it was one we had a lockdown for one week and then it's, it's nothing now, so yeah. Do you think that's an overreaction or are you happy that your prime minister's on it like that? A lot of people think it's an overreaction now.

Honestly, but then you got to look at the other side, like what happens if there was a big outbreak, it would be a huge IVIG, what's one week of your life, just catch up on some other stuff and go for a walk or for your family. And, yeah, I dunno. So every time we've had a lockdown, it's just given me a time to actually catch up.

And work on designs. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I no, I'm with her on that one, so that's good. Yeah. It seems like new Zealanders are really supportive of the policies. It seems and it's nice that you can live your life normally the rest of the time, if there's no cases and you can just go about your normal business, right?

Yeah. Honestly, it seems pretty normal. And then you'd turn on the news and it's not, but it's like these I'm American magic guys, Nick diner and Paul Goodison and stuff. I know that traveling around the South Island right now, but they both told me like, they don't really want to go back home right now.

They don't, they're going back to Italy actually. So yeah, it's been, I didn't mention it's been crazy just having all the teams, Prada, American magic any OSS, all just coming into the shop and holding the wing and. Giving me a feedback on the wing and w talking about loft pockets and different materials.

That's been pretty unique. That's been pretty special. So I feel like, yeah. Going to be some interesting developments coming out soon. I think so. Yeah. No, that's super cool. Alrighty. Thanks so much. Oh, I was going to ask you earlier, you mentioned that you watched the the interview with Rob widow.

Did you watch did you watch it on YouTube or did he listen to the podcast or I just curious did you listen to any of the other shows and what are your takeaways or any tips and ideas for the show in the future? Oh yeah. And also who should I interview next? What is that like? It's funny.

Cause I I thought about doing what you're doing like a few months ago, but not going to do it, you're doing a great job. Like I've been watching him on YouTube, on TV, I've been watching them with me and Kate and like Annie and stuff. I really love the athlete. Interviews, but then again, like having guys like Robin, stuff's pretty cool.

And I actually watched that because I was hoping to learn a little bit about the new Armstrong system that we're selling in the shop. And for a lot of customers asking me a lot of questions at the moment on that, but it's pretty damn, it's pretty simple, it's just a, it's a product progression.

It's just couple of extras. Good. You own the old and yeah, so I've put the anxiety out for people who think they need to buy a whole new set up. Yeah. Maybe interviewing army Armstrong about that would be an interesting topic, huh? Yeah. I was thinking, yeah. Yeah. Have you reached down to AMI?

No ask one he's he's cool. He's he's a character for sure. Yeah. He's erupt, like it's always fun working with those guys because yeah. He's just one of those guys, he's the test pilot. Don't put them in front of a computer, but I dunno. I want to see, I want to see guys like John, maybe pick up this thing.

Cause I like watching the Villa on YouTube and I like way guys like John, and some other pro surfers that picked up foiling and they love it and they say, Oh, so I'm thinking John, if you're sailing and foiling, why aren't you whinging? Maybe he doesn't see almost something. I dunno, it'd be.

I want to see some of those guys pick it up. Yeah, it might be tricky to get them on the show, but I can try and then I, but I try to do it about wing foiling. So maybe, yeah, maybe I need to get them to start wing filings first and then I can interview them. Yeah, exactly. No Kelly, Slater's got a house actually near here, so he's just, he's building one or he helped me quite a lot up near megawatt when we're testing the wing.

So it'd be pretty fun to see him on a foil. Yeah, mostly. Yeah. But no, I dunno. It would maybe you've actually had pretty the athletes that I was gonna suggest and everybody's probably suggest any, but yeah, I'm trying, I'm re I reached out to his dad, so that's the only email I have, but I'll try to get him on the show for sure.

Working on it. One of the, one of the recent, maybe Paul Goodison or Dean Barker, one of what are the American magic guys, does it mean that you do it and I've got a different perspective so that I think that'd be quite cool to talk to you. Yeah, for sure. If you have his contact information, I'd love to maybe you can introduce me or something.

Yeah. I Interesting to learn about the foiling sailboats, yeah. And that's cool. It sounds like he's pretty hooked on winning right now, too. Yeah. Yeah. And it was crazy. Cause at the time enough to come out with them, they took me out on the chase boats and stuff. So I got, I looked at the, it was pretty close up and it's just crazy what they're doing.

And the limits that pushing. But I think at any single every speed, right? The foil has a maximum. No matter what it is for sure. Yeah. I That's one of those things too, about the speed of the foil. I was like, you were talking about the 30, what is it? 30 miles per hour.

That's super fast, but really the limit is set by the foil more than anything. I think the wing and the rider can go faster. It's just like at the, you start to overflow. But then if you have a thinner, smaller foil, you can go faster, but then can you still get it going?

And I know that's a question. Yeah. It was 30 knots that I was pulled snowy Hanson. He's an Olympic sailor here. So he understands how to hook up to the wind. And I'm like guys like that, they pick it up so fast. And yet the F he was actually using a kite foil. It was about 500 and it was quite a long fuse and it was a cut tail wing.

The racing caught car with a, and he got their top speed on the 4.8. And we would test him between the 5.8 and the 4.8. But he got the, you got the highest speed on the smaller wing, hooking up to it. So you could really hook into it. Yeah. So that was hooking into, was he using a harness or no?

No, he wasn't. He wasn't, he was just those guys. I dunno, just bring it right into the route of the board. It like creates this hit. I heard someone talking about that the other day, actually. And I tried it the other day, like bringing the wing into the rail of your board and you just create this like vacuum and you just keep it real fast.

It just goes so fast. Yeah. More power than the link. And it's like closing the gap. It makes, and we're just going to be seeing like so many cha progression with foil spin sooner, faster. Yeah, I'm thinking too, like the, the leading edge is pretty thick and that the thick bladders, you have to have it, like you were saying that you have to have that for the rigidity of the leading edge when it's inflated.

But it seems like there's if you've made it rigid and then you could have a much thinner leading edge and there would be less drag. If you're really trying to do top speed and racing, it makes sense to maybe work on something like that. Yeah. Having a thinner, leading edge, maybe.

Yeah, a hundred percent. It's no secret when you look at the America's cup boat or any yacht the leading edge of a master's is oval. It's not around. It's going to be aerodynamic. I think a circle is probably the most inefficient shape to go through the year or something so that, but when I, when we use these wings to me, like they're pretty efficient.

So at the moment, so it'd be crazy to see where they're going to go when they do start, the leading edge is thinner and a different shot. I think it's going to be pretty interesting. Yeah. In a way I'm almost wishing that it wouldn't get, go that direction. It's all everything's extreme.

Cause it's, to me it's just so much fun and like, why, do we really need and wind surfing, you have the speed boards, you have slalom racing boards, you have like foil boards, you have freestyle boards, you have wave boards and beginner boys. It's do we really need all that stuff and different sales for every sport and stuff like that just seems like too much.

Yeah. I agree. I agree. It's really fun right now. Their gear feels great. Yeah. Keep it simple. Keep it simple issue for the people picking it up. Yeah. A hundred percent agree with that. Yep. I think that's a good way to end the interview. Got the. Sirens going by, but yeah, I think thanks so much for joining me today.

And maybe we'll touch base again in a year or so when you have some new stuff coming on, more stuff to talk about, or when you here in Hawaii, maybe we can have a live interview

or maybe I'll. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. It's always good to keep in touch. Thanks Sam. Take care.

All right. Congratulations. You made it to the very end and don't leave yet. Cause I have a message just for you. So from YouTube analytics, I know that over half the people that click on the video link on YouTube leave within the first 30 seconds. And by the very end of the video, only about 5% of the people that clicked on the video are still watching.

So that means you are a part of the top 5%. So you're at the very tip of the pyramid. It's like you're at the top of the sport and influencer and you're the ones I'm making these videos for the 5% that's still watching now. So I'm not rushing these interviews. Obviously. I want to get as much information as I can, and I hope you feel the same way that these are super interesting to me.

I really enjoy these conversations and I hope you like them as much as I do. So we're the ones who set the directions of the sport of wing foiling. And I think we can all agree that we want to keep it safe and fun and inclusive for everybody. So that's my commitment to you, and I hope you agree that's what we want for the sport.

I really appreciate all the great comments on YouTube. I read them all. I try to respond to every comment. Feel free to leave your comments down below. Any questions are welcome to, it's always good to have. Some questions and ideas for new videos to come out with. And please give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it.

That really helps our rankings on YouTube. If we get a lot of thumbs up, then more people will get to see the videos. I also want to give a shout out to all the super fans that always watch and comment. One of them is Joe skill. Who's a paraplegic and he's super into all these winged feeling videos, and he wants to learn how to win for land a sport wheelchair with a small wing.

So I think that's super cool, Joe. I hope you get to try that and let me know if there's anything I can do to support you people like you are awesome and inspire me to keep making these videos. I'm stoked at people like you, who comment all the time and you know who you are. There's a lot of other guys, David last quiz, and a lot of other people that always comment and give us the thumbs up.

So I appreciate that. I'm really excited about the next interview as well. I'm going to talk to candy wild from Molly, Katie, Molly on Instagram. He's a young athlete from Maui, super talented Waterman, and also a really a deep thinkers and listened to some of his interviews on the progression project, which is another really good podcast.

And just, he has so much in depth information about how the foils work and so on. So I'm really looking forward to learning from him and sharing that knowledge with you as well. So stay tuned for that show coming soon within the next two weeks. All right. Thanks for watching. I'll see you on the water Aloha. 

Rob Whittall wing foil interview- Wasp V2, Armstrong A+, Episode #5

Rob Whittall is co founder and head designer at Ozone and a partner at Armstrong.  He talks about his background the Wasp V2 design, the Armstrong A+ system, and how to live a good life, enjoy!

Interview transcript:

 Hi, it's Robert Stehlik with Blue Planet. Welcome to the show right here in my home office, in the garage. And I interview foil addicts, like myself.

 I wanna say a big thank you to our sponsors. This show is brought to you by people like you, Blue Planet customers who support our business and you know when our business does great, I can do fun stuff, get on the water and do interviews like this and share it with the world. So thank you so much to our customers for your support.

And I just wanted to mention to the wasp V2 wings we're talking about here in this video. Are available at blue planet or, they're on the way. So they're being shipped and we should have them within a few days after this show airs. And if you're just call our shop, we can take pre-orders or ship them out right away.

Were probably going to be one of the first dealers to actually have them in stock. I'm stoked about that. And of course the show is with Rob Whittall. He is the co-founder and head designer at Ozone. And he talks about the Wasp V2 design really gets into detail on that after we go over his background and so on.

And then after about 46 minutes, we start talking about the Armstrong A+ wing system. Or basically upgraded fuselage system. That's really interesting stuff too, that was just released by Armstrong. And then my favorite part was at the end when we just talk about life in general, the pandemic and you know how to live your best life.

And so thanks so much for being a great conversation partner, Rob, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did at home, or you can listen to it on as a podcast or watch it on YouTube either way. We do, I do have pictures and video in the, on YouTube, but listening to it as a podcast is another great way to listen to these super long interviews.

So thanks so much for welcome to the show, Rob widow. Great to have you. This is actually the first time I have a designer on the show is someone who actually designs the products that we love to use. Thanks. Thanks so much for joining us. Your w where are you right now? Thank you so much for that.

I'm currently in a regular New Zealand. Let's start a little bit just with your background. What, where did you grow up and how did you get into water sports? And, what's your business background and design background and all that. Just start from the very beginning and take your time code details and tell us a story.

Knows me, knows I like to talk. So you'll be you're good. So it all started actually with in my youth with hang-gliding. My father was a pioneer in the UK, in the hang-gliding city. And so we grew up with time gliding from the age of four and five onwards. I got my first hang glider flight with my father on his back sort of piggyback style when I was about five years old.

Those memories stuck in my head until I was 16 when I was actually allowed to go flying. And illegally the flying solo. In those days, the prerequisite was you have to be sick. So at 16 I'd shown a lot of interest in motorcycles, but my father steered me away from motorcycles and offered me handwriting lessons.

Instead if I would stay off the motorbikes I said, yes, went hang-gliding for my first lesson and just knew straight away that I'd found something pretty special. And from then on it just blossomed into a handline in Korea, I run around the world, competing hang-gliding ended up working for some factories in first I was just testing gliders to check that they'd come out of the factory to spec and, they flew straight and everything felt how they should feel.

Then I started tuning hang gliders and charming hand gliders and working with the sail makers. But then after a few years of that paradigm and came along, moved into paragliding because it seemed like a good thing to do anything that got me was attractive. So I was handwriting and paragliding together, and I had quite a successful competitive career in both those sports.

And it just everything kept pushing me towards the design. It wasn't something that I was prepared for. I was prepared for it because I've spent so many years already working with designers and working within the trimming and testing of these things. And one day the sort of the design became available and I sat down and Started to learn to to actually process these imaginary ideas into reality.

And it's been a lot of fun and giant.

So the 3d computer stuff you taught yourself or did you get any formal education in that kind of like engineering or design like that? It's all self-taught, it's, self-taught, I'm fortunate. I'm very lucky that the ozone program, for instance, is something that I've grown up with. So for me to use it, it's very natural because it's progressed from, very basic design program in the early days to what it is today.

And because I've grown with that I can use it very quite effectively. Some of the other cap programs, obviously that. Complicated and written by other people and such a solid works in these kind of things. I can't use them, but nothing with nothing like the the knowledge, because really when you know a program intimately, then you can get the most out of it.

It might not have the most features, but if you can use the features that does happen yeah, it can work well for you. Okay. So I guess your earliest childhood memories that kind of got you into these kinds of sports was flying with your dad on a hang glider, basically. Yeah. My, my thought has always been an adventurer, the.

Sort of inspired us to, and, gave us the freedom to go and explore and to push ourselves and to to enjoy all these things. Again, he was amongst cyclists. So we also grew up with motorbikes. He'd take us, he'll walk in, let us climb rocks and trees that most parents nowadays would be, going, Oh my God, it's too dang gross down that and do that.

And my parents were just gone to the top of that. Let's see your plan to the top of that. It was just encouragement all the time, which was, it's a very positive way to bring a child up. I think a lot of things I hear today or where their parents is that it's the parents' fear that, that holds the kids back.

The kids have got tons of skills and they're ready to learn skills, but the parents are afraid. So they don't really let the parents, they don't want the kids to say what the kids should be doing, what she's climbing trees and rocks. And occasionally you might fall off a breaking out, but guess what?

It's good learning. So they never tried to hold you back from trying crazy things. I don't think of them as Gregory. I think of them as normal. I consider the things crazy because you're here on this planet for some great experiences in a very short time. And with what I know is available to us and sensory stimulation I want to try all these things and do all these things because.

Th this there's a beauty and a, an expression in all of them. And so why wouldn't I want to do all of them. So I pretty much do all of them. That's awesome. So I guess your background was like, I guess first hand gliders and then paragliders and then when did you first start getting into cutting?

How did you even, like, how did you hear about it first and how did you get into that? The cutting we actually we just started ozone back in, this was the first, at the very beginning of ozone. It was made two friends and we started it as a paragliding company. And so we were fully ensconced in the in the paragliding world at that time.

And. Basically kite surfing had just started, but I was a snow sport man at this particular juncture in my life. I was flying in the summers and snow sports in the winter, heavily in snowboarding and speed. And of course, cause I like to do everything.

What actually attracted me was snowcats in that syllabus. First they mentioned the magazine and snow collecting and literally, the following weekend I was Jason Snow because it was just, Oh my God, whatever that is, I need to do it because how were incredible in the mountains where the Kelly, I could see flying already.

I could see a skiing and snowboarding, these three passions of mine all mixed together. Oh my God. I got to get up there and do that. So pretty much the following weekend, myself and Matt Taga one we were in the car driving out to this place that we knew you could smoke. And we had literally two days on full line handle counts and, full line handled guides.

And we went back to the office on Monday morning. And when the people that were buzzing, like there was no chance that I found was, could do anything about from say, okay, let's try and smoke because me and Matt were just fully induced and yeah, we wanted to make snow accountants. So we set about making snow accounts and after a few years of snow, mainly because we wanted to wait until the patent, but Bruno like a now hat.

Finish because we didn't want to step on anybody's toes. We couldn't afford to get into the business in that time, but just a fresh paragliding business and all the constraints of a new business normally financial. Yes, we couldn't afford to pay that back. So we just said, let's just wait, we're not in the area.

We're in John Snow. And then the patent ran out and we decided it was time to take a 4:00 AM to the water as well. And so then I in a roundabout way, I've ended up enjoying now all these sensations in the water, which is fantastic. Yeah. I guess when you started ozone, that was before there was even like the instate of leading edge credits and all that kind of stuff.

It was this Ram here. Wings or, yeah. So that was the very early days and that it was you and a friend who started ozone? Yes, it was me and two friends. We started the CAD department lights later. That's when Matt came in, but in the beginning, yes, it was, we were, one of them was the British team manager for the British paragliding team.

Then there was myself and I was on the paragliding team and my other friend, Dave, he worked for AirWave paragliders back in the day, they were quite a big brand and our big manufacturer. And yeah, we just decided to get together and do our own thing because, you always think you can do better than the people that we're working for.

So we set out to. To have a go at doing that because maybe there was a little bit of dissatisfaction in that, it's a long time ago now and it's a lot of water under the bridge. Yeah. By the way, we have a really bad thunderstorm here right now and there's like rain just pouring down and it's probably, I don't know if you can hear it in the background, but it's it's really raining pretty loud right now here at fender and everything.

But no worries. But and then, so this was all like you, I guess you grew up in, in Raglan as well, or is that, and you're where did you grow up in? Was it, yeah, I'm an English man and I came from Yorkshire, a place called elites which is a very beautiful parts of the country on the very few days that the sun does shine.

Okay. And then what brought you to New Zealand? Oh, it's been a long trip. I guess what will happen to us? My sort of international hang-gliding and paragliding career took me all over the world. I've ended up living for quite a few years in Germany, quite a lot of years in France, the States Spain, Dominican Republic.

And then I always had this idea that I needed to go and spend time in New Zealand because of the small population. There's only 5 million. And so I decided this 15 years ago and here we are I made the decision to go to New Zealand. I have left in between, but I've left only for work, but now it's been almost 13 years.

I've been basically in rattler. And it's a great place. It's facilitated some amazing aspects of my life. Yeah. Ragland is really a beautiful spot. We've visited there a couple of years ago and yeah, it's just a beautiful place so I can understand why you settled there. And then ozone is based where's the headquarters of ozone or is there a headquarters?

There is a headquarters. There, there's a couple of them. The sort of kite surfing department is in spreading and near Barcelona and the paramedic department is in France and they are nice. And then for some reason because I can hear the design department for the colleagues in New Zealand, so also Matt, the owner, one of the owners lives here in Ragland. We've got a great test ride at Tara and Brian lives nearby as well. And if we need help, everybody wants to come to New Zealand for a holiday. So we only have to put the word out, Hey, if anybody wants to a bit of testing time down in New Zealand, normally there's somebody to come along.

So yeah, it makes a lot pretty easy. Yeah, no doubt. And then I guess you're also, I guess you're the head designer for ozone, but you also design for Armstrong, right? For army Armstrong and Armstrong foils. You do all their foil designs and the wings as well, or. No, not at all. I'm a partner in the business obviously is from New Zealand.

I met army he's an infectious character is my really great spirit. And at that particular moment, he I've known him for five years before this, but so five, 10 years ago, I've known him for about 10, 12 years. And then about five or six years ago when it started the foil business he needed a little bit of financial help.

So I got involved helping him financially and the business got kick-started and it was working, but it was a massive strain on him. Because we are working between here and China and also being new to all this kind of business, it was a pretty difficult. So I sat around a set about finding some other partners and we'll pump it up.

And that was how Armstrong really came into life. But in terms of design and development, I just help out with the testing. I give her some ideas on what are, I work with which profiles we might use on some files, but I don't do anything apart from that. The AUA news, all army, the actual, the true design is all.

He's the guy who's. I'm not plugged in to the water. He's plugged into the water I'm plugged in. So I stick to what I do for sure. There's theory that crosses both. But my sensitivity or, I believe my sensitivity for design is in flying things because I just, I feel that I have just a better connection for that.

Once we go into the water, just like I can jump on all kinds of hang gliders and paradigms and feel what I want to feel. It can do the same thing with all kinds of files. And if I don't protest with the foils, he's testing for the high-performance guy and I'm testing for the kind of the average Joe, because I just don't have those super skills Ollie's through Waterman half.

I'm just a, I'm just a wannabe. You're born in there. Like you said, that was your early childhood experience flying. That's probably in your being, so that makes sense. So the funny thing is that he's grown up on boats and sailing around the world with his father and, just has absolutely that connection.

So it's, the similarities are crazy, but it's just with different mediums. Neither of us have the mathematicians or scientists. We're all which is something I always like to remind people Because some people are surprised that neither of us have had any sort of formal education in this.

But what we have to understand is that mathematics and science are only explanations of nature, something religious plugged into nature, and they don't need the mathematics and the science to be able to find the right answers, the math, mathematics, and science are there so that we can try and have a broad spectrum of understanding of how something actually happens or why something happens.

But it's only a language that doesn't mean it's actually better than actually being connected. And someone like I just say that these plugged in and because you watch the last weekend, for instance, we went and tested some files, just telling him to some waves that ABI can jump from the very most high aspect weighing with.

The fastest tail on with the most shims in the backs of it, the whole thing is as fast as possible. And he can just get straight on that ride, come back, change the whole rig down to something like something made way with a slow tail on them, notions in the back and just an HS front wing or something and write it incredibly.

The second D stands on it. I crushed both at both of them for a couple of waves until I find your YouTube and then I can be a lot of work. I got it, but I don't really feel comfortable. So

I'm the average guy tester and the guy of itself, because you obviously need a sounding boat because it's very easy to get carried away with performance, but. I always feel like, Hey man, just don't leave me behind. It is so true what you said about the science part aspect of it, because you can't really, there's so many things that you think in theory, they should work, but then when you try it, it doesn't work.

So it's all about the feel and testing and R and D that's, you can't really predict how somebody is going to work until you try it. It seems like these sports. So that makes a lot of sense to me. And yeah. So the, it's more about the background of understanding what is actually involved in sport.

Then the theoretical part is really the secondary or afterwards, you can explain it maybe with the science, but why? I think what's also important is that everybody only goes home with a feeling right. That feeling isn't tangible in it's only tangible through yourself and through expression.

You don't put that feeling into maths and science, do you to go home and say honey, I had this amazing day. I re I, I released the power of the wave and at 2.5 tons of volume just behind man. That's not what do amazing the feeling out there was insane. So you're taking a feeling home, so you don't have to break it into silence, or it doesn't have to be developed from science.

Just, the testing for example, whether I'm testing a a paraglider or a wing or Italians or fathers, I'm only testing the feeling, it's what is the sensation that this thing is giving me that, is it easy to define that? Is it smooth? Is it progressive? Is it forgiving?

Yeah, I'm thinking too much to try and get the power out of this thing, or, there's the handling slow. Those are the things that are actually the relevant things for me. When something isn't working then, and in my mind, I'm drawing this picture of what I've built and then I'm trying to think, okay, so why is that not working?

Why is it not doing that? And go back home and look at the computer. And when I say, look at the boot, so I just started, you see the drawing, all the, the the 3d image rendering of it. And yeah. Okay. So it wasn't doing this. So maybe if I do that, it'll give me that result that I'm looking for with its better handling on whatever.

But it's all through just feeling. I can't plug in some mathematical formula, but to say, give me better handling. It's only imagination. Imagination. Yeah. Also just I always tell people like for Santa Palio and all those sports, where balances involved and things like that, you can't really use your mind to your mind is in fast enough yet.

It's almost like your nervous system has to take care of those adjustments. And if you try to think about it, it's just too slow, you have to have that confidence that your body will automatically regulate it. And then just it's really too, it happens too fast for your mind to think about it almost, yeah. It's definitely to be able to analyze it. Okay. So tell us how you got into making the wings. Like how, why did ozone decides to make a wing.

or whatever, this, a great scenario, because because I was getting into, in the business with army and I was very supported untainted that I really enjoy sub filing. I still love stuff for more than going toeing into the biggest stuff or whatever. I just really love catching waves on stuff.

And then, I saw one of the Slingshot weightings, and I suddenly felt with a guy riding it with writing us up with a foil and the wagon. I just thought now that actually is a really good way to get lots of time on the folder. And, cause I was subtitling, I just wanted more time on the foil because I wasn't that good at the time.

It was crushing way more than I want it to be. So I just, yeah that's the way. And literally went to the guys in the office and said I've been to make a wine and a couple of days later and literally just all happened at the same time. Kai had just started riding Rios and he just randomly sentiment.

He might have out of the blue saying, Hey, I don't suppose you're going to make any of those wings. Yeah. It just so happens.

It was a good little match as well because we were going to do it, but it's definitely a little bit of an incentive having. The idea that Kai wants one as well. So I'm not the only guy here with my hand up and we should be doing this. Yeah. It started from that. Obviously I can economically we've just launched the V2 and a big one I can just say is it was a reaction to something starting.

And that was my reaction to this thing starting we are in business at some point you have to put out a product and I was very happy with it at the time because it did what we wanted it to do. And it's been, relatively successful and people enjoy it. But I can definitely say that the two, because there's been more time is much more refined and yeah, just Has a multi giving character, much more forgiving characteristic than the bit you want, but

it was a new sport and everybody was just Hey, this is what I got. This is what I got. So it was nice because there, there was quite a few different types of designers out there and development doesn't just happen in one person's mind that happens through, seeing what other people are doing and all right.

Okay. Maybe I should try that. So now we understand the pros and cons of the boom having a booth yes. And not having a booth and lots of other little things, bits and pieces that, the Slingshot, the inflated trailing edge, it was an interesting concept. It probably isn't a viable in terms of consideration, but maybe we'll come back to.

But, yeah, so you've got to see all these new ideas and people edit what they have and that we get to refine the ideas and perfectly make them better and better. So the sport becomes easier and more fun, more accessible. It's pretty amazing that you had Kailani as a test pilot, from the beginning.

That, that's pretty awesome. So tell you, so let's talk a little bit about that V2. The, it looks pretty similar, like visually the design didn't doesn't look like it changed a lot, but what are the things that you find on this V2 version of it? Okay. The first thing that we were looking for was a better balance in the hands.

The pretty one, I felt that you had to pull the handle too out all the time to get the power out of it. And they worked enough power in the front end. What I would like is more power in front of him. And as you pull, look back on that power increases on the backend to match the front of that.

And so you ended up with a of that. So we spent a lot of time on this, working out that balance a lot of times, moving the handles up and down just to, to get exactly what the thing that's required. The next thing we did was so when you, sorry, when you're flying it, which channel do you use the most?

Or what, I guess it depends on the size of the wing too, but as a design team. So you would use mostly the middle back handle or the backpack handle or just to, there are different, various different styles and understandings our concept predominantly built, but the way that I like to STEM and I'll wings.

Okay. I liked the Wydown stamps. I find it more controllable in many ways. Stance. So predominantly I'm using the, and the pivot in the front, and I'm always on the backhand, unless it's flowing

pretty much around the most power is when you're on the back Campbell. But our wins are designed around either on the front, the lower end of the vape. And then on the very back handle is once it starts getting rid of windy and you're feeling like that too much, then that's where the big towers. Okay.

It's a, it's quite a wide stance, but if you want to bounce well, normally it's good to have your outs out. Most people don't bounce very well. So that's another reason why they have . Okay. Putting on the headphones. Cause it's so noisy here with the rain.

Yeah. It's a real downpour here. Crazy. I hope it doesn't flood. We're right at the quotes close to the water. So we, I guess this garage flooded before, so hopefully it doesn't get to that point, but yeah, it's coming down, but yeah, like I find myself using mostly the back handle myself as well.

Just feel I get more power out from having my hand all the way back. Okay. And then you added windows two. It looks like do some words. Oh, when windows looks like you added windows, you didn't, the original ones didn't have windows. We actually, we have some on order. And they're going to have like our little blue planet logo on it.

So I think that's super cool that you're you let people put on their own logos on your w on the ozone wings. And then I have to say too, that the way you have your factory set up and the ordering system is, cause we're also dealers, obviously we sell the ozone and we, we saw Armstrong as well at our shop, but just being able to go online and place the order and then see what's happening with the order, make the payment.

And then, and this is just a very nice system and it very clear about how long it's going to take. And when you get to get it and stuff like that, which unfortunately is not the case with most of the other brands. So that's something we're doing our best, that those guys have done an amazing job with the production facility.

And just so you know, the listeners can understand Please with the ozone wings at attention to the detail, but it's taken in the manufacturing of these things because it's actually our factory that we set up 20 years ago now in now it's literally like a massive extended family. We look after our work is very well.

We give them a breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and if there's overtime, which they really enjoy with them again we have health care pay above all the average wage. We try and when people say we're a little bit expensive, yes, we are a little bit expensive because we don't produce in China and we have our own factory and paying our work is more than what is normal.

But the reason for this is the quality that they produce for us. Because we look after them and we have great systems and they get us their best work. Literally, if you look at the stitching, it's all straight

the factories in Vietnam

and yes. Do you go there often? Do you travel to the factory often? Obviously it's not last year, but usually do you go there regularly or yes. Yes. It's important that the developments of movies spend time and not sometimes for both parties, it's good to see the difficulties in some, in the manufacturing and construction of these things, because it's very easy to get.

Karen away with complexity, but someone has to make the stuff. And then someone has to make the stuff, within a time schedule because we can't produce the craziest things in the world, but we're going to cost an absolute fortune because the summer time I put into the production, nobody wants to buy them all by phone.

So everything has to be understood. So sometimes you can go there and just see a process of struggling with, and literally modify the design. So the selling machine just has, 10 mil clearance next to a seat. And so that it can run free instead of them having to stop lift out over a foot down again.

We, so it's very small things, but we have a massive attention to detail and construction, and I hope that listeners and viewers can see that cat that is tempted. Yeah. I just had an interview too, with Annie Reichert who, one of your team writers and yeah, she said, one of the nice features too, is that there's two valves, so it's easier to deflate the stress now.

And I've noticed like a lot of guys here on a wall who had problems with the the stra bladder folding in and then popping. So w what did you do to fix that issue? It's basically now tethered on the inside. That's why the zip is up front. So it's easy to get to that. Yes.

Now it's tethered. So a strings attached to the end of the end of the bladder to the strep.

You can see that I've got a street with a back hole in the center where it was the previous model has described running all the way down. Along the side of the day, tried to match

the reason we've done message to lower the center of gravity, because obviously by this time, then the white, which isn't really ideal. And so now we're down lower back minus the wind sit more stable because now low, it seems, it also loves and loves better when you have that little panel, because it just allows the wing to flutter easier, right?

Yeah. Yes. Exactly. One thing we've done is we brought tips, so that helped him to bear with the water as much. Because definitely again, the video was was the winglets. We did that. They happen in the beginning. We loved it that much anyway, because we needed 25 knots. We didn't even know how to talk.

As we got better at that lead him to ride and lots of wins, the tips got into the layer. So they've been sheltered by about 2,250 millimeters on baby for winter. So it's quite a big difference in that way. You've got much more without tip interference. Okay. That's nice. Another thing I noticed is like your, the, your window placement is pretty similar to the Armstrong wings and whatever people say is that.

It's hard to see through the window because the top window is too high to look through. And the bottom window is covered by the strut, so I dunno what made you place the windows right there? Is that from feedback or I'm just curious the reason that when does a person that believe it's the best place for them to be, I would like to be scratch it.

for those listening, we just got interrupted by,

took a while to get get it back up again. What were you talking about? We're just talking about a windows. Yeah, and I did, I was just explaining out, making an excuse. I'm not quite sure which it was the reason the windows are where they are is first. You do have the ability to see that's the most important thing you might have to move the wing to be able to see.

Yes. Okay. I agree. But what I didn't want to do is put it in the next panel out because that panel is too far out. And so the reason it doesn't cross a panel is because I don't like to have things like different materials in a panel crossing because sewn together, then you have different stretch characteristics.

And in, especially in seams, it's better to not have different spectral characteristics because that love is in every seat. Obviously there's more load and At some point, if there's different stretch characteristics, it's not going to want to live next to each other properly throughout life. So that's why the window count be a bit further up or because diamond needs to do in the next panel, which is too high or it's where it is.

And like I say, it only takes a quick I'm good. Oh yeah, you can count. So I'm a total advocates at the window since the sport is getting bigger. People need to be able to see, especially on the, so when you are with Kelly surfers, Windsor , all these different crops now that are on the walls, they all go up when to very different, random angles, compare to each other.

So you need to be able to see what's happening when and where on a regular basis. But if you have to look for it and look for that, it's still not job to be aware of. Who's around given a window,

but it's still that. Just move your hands 10 centimeters and you consume plenty. And I guess another concern with the windows is that you want to be able to you don't want to increase them right when you're rolling it up. And so I guess it's probably easier to roll it up without creasing it when it's right next to this truck, then when it's in the middle of the window.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter whether it's because you can produce that stuff. We've got the special space center stuff. Oh, okay. So it's not a concern now. Yeah. We've had all the windows in a minus 25 degree conditions and no way, and we've been using them and, off desert conditions. No problem.

So are these pictures taken in Raglan or where is it? Where are these waves here? These waves are in Ventura. Oh, Fuerteventura okay. Yeah. Yeah. I guess ozone is a pretty cool global company. Huh? The good thing is the Spanish guys buy the main sort of parts of the hub of the Chinese certain departments.

It's very easy to go to flight to Ventura or the Canary islands under the Spanish flag. So it's just very cheap flights that you can probably get flights for 50 bucks, right? Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. All right. So basically the advantages of the new wing are that handles handle placements better.

The tips are less likely to catch the, is the leading edge diameter changed at all, or it has only four minutes or it's gone slightly bigger, but on the other sizes, it's virtually the same.

The other thing is with that baffled in the, the baffle rip down the center, it's allowed us to increase the fitness of the profile. So there's a,

there's more power and it's easier to access that power. The back handle is very, what's the word responsive in increasing the pal. Cause we've got quite a high CAMBA profile. This is what you call the baffle here. Yes. That's the battle, it's one of those things that, does it have a deeper profile?

Did you change the curve of the profile at all? Or? Yeah, so it's deeper in the front, deeper in the front end, the overwhelm, and another reason why it has small, but the main things that you're going to notice when you fly it is it's much more stable. You just get on it and it feels a plush is the best way to describe it.

It's just blocks to the standard. Oh yeah. This is very effortless. Nice progression on the power. You will notice. Now the front hand is loaded quite nicely. For instance, on the beat one, I was always getting my My lights, aching, like crazy on the backhand side would just be, Oh my God.

Cause you're just pulling them the whole time. And now being more balanced in the backhand, it's just a much more relaxed. So it's more comfortable to ride. It's more stable when you have just surfing on the front one. The V one had a tendency to flip over slightly regularly. But the two, it just sits there and doesn't do anything it's making generally it just makes it more comfortable.

It's more user friendly. Is the weight similar about the same or the weight of the wings? It's about the same as you want or to tell the truth? I can't tell you the right, because it's probably on the website. But not really much, but it will have been weighed. I can only imagine that with the window compared the new handles a little bit lighter, we're probably looking at virtually the same light.

So it's quite a lightweight especially with the CG, with that struct it automatically feels in the ed lights up because it just sits that, if you just get it up in a bit of Oh my God, it just flies into the cell. So it feels water, but I think it's actually manufactured infection lights.

Okay. Very cool. All right. Do you get, can you talk a little bit about the new Armstrong, a plus system? Do you know much about that? Or were you involved with that? With the work on that you were okay. I'm going to share some pictures of that and this, I guess when the time I'm posting this interview Armstrong will have this up on their website.

And so the new they're, they just announced it to the dealers, but this is the A-plus system. So they made some changes to the, as far as I can tell the fuselage has these barrel nuts that go through the fuselage kind of horizontally, right? Or why don't you explain the differences.

Yeah no, it's a you started with the right thing. The first thing that everyone should understand is that everything that we currently have is compatible with being the plus system. So every, all the wings you've got, it's not a problem at all fit for work. It's all good to go. The A-plus system, as you can see here in this one, in this diagram that we have up now in the photo, you haven't, now you can see now that there's a barrel that's on the top of the front line, right?

If you go to the top of, yeah, exactly. That, so that barrel nut is now going through top to bottom, which just locks the front ring on and then you've got the barrel nuts on the side of, yeah. So that's that one. Exactly. Yep. And then you go to the side of the fuselage and we've got one going in horizontally.

Yes, exactly. Inside of the mouth side. So we've got going in horizontally, that goes all the way through the fuselage and on the other side. So basically these are opposing forces that tighten themselves together and squash whatever's in between just that little bit more. And as you can see with this new high aspect where the ha 1125.

This has got an aspect of 9.8 to one, which is very high aspect. These wings have due to that enormous span and the fact that they are very powerful for their size. They have massive forces being created. We needed to develop a system that would cope long-term with those forces. Now, what I can just tell you is you can stick that wing straits on the rear that you have with no A-plus without the A-plus fuselage and it will work and it'll probably be fine, but over a long period of time, you might notice that there's a bit of wet between the fuselage and the mask, because these leverage loads, when they just keep working effectively, it's like super fine grit, sandpaper.

Over a very long period of time. We'll start to love each other and they'll make it a little bit of Slack. And so that's why we've come up with the A-plus system just to minimize that micro movement so that when not wearing out the fuselage of the mask, but as I said, you can still use that one tomorrow on any rape.

This is of the outlet. Yeah. And then they also offer a kind of a retrofit where you can actually a kit where you can basically it has a jig and you can drill out that hole yourself and add the nut and strew basically to an older or an existing Armstrong mass and fuselage. So that's kinda cool that, sorry, just to make one thing clear at the heart of the A-plus system is the fuselage.

And the reason for that is. Because the the barrel nut that goes through the mask and then through the fuselage has to go through that time Tanium. And this is a new hole. So you won't be able to have this barrel, not today on if you have the old system, because fuselage has a solid titanium and account pro presenter of it.

So the key thing for the whole thing is the fuselage. If you wanted to upgrade it, you can buy a new fuselage and then you can, re-drill the mosque with the Oh, you can drill the master, put in the barrel, not to cross the mask and you can drill all your front lens to have your front load.

Okay. For the battlements at the front. So basically that's why. Even, but you can still ride with everything. You've got just putting new wings on. You just won't have the battle of knots and Mustang in the front way. So yeah. So basically that basically though, the older fuselage, you cannot you can't add those barrel nuts on an old shoe slash cause basically you're saying, because you can't drill through the titanium rod in the middle, is that the issue you can't drill through the titanium rather than tap it, it takes interesting.

Yeah.

There's still no problem writing it without it's just that climb and that is going to get slopping because of the fact that I'll not sloppy, but there is going to be some play in that because there are massive forces with those supervisors. Sure. And that's the app, in foiling, you don't want any play between the mass and the fuselage and the front wing, especially if there's any kind of looseness that makes the whole thing feel sloppy.

Like you say, you said, you want that to be super rigid and stiff. So I guess the other differences, the tail wing as different as well. Yeah. Instead of having those titanium 3d printed shims, you're using plastic shims design. Yes. Now the title of mine can go directly on to the fuselage.

All existing title. Wings can go directly to the fuselage as well. Although the new eight plus system tailwinds, or just been slightly modified to, to basically fit it more elegantly. But oldest stuff, you've got some, there's no water to that. And the reason we did this was it's just easier to have.

A solid fitting with the master and the tailwind and just have the small shin adjustment if required because the titanium ferrings, although they were great, they were quite expensive. Whereas we're giving these things away for you. Yeah. That was one of the things I, like what retail, I think they're like $70 or something for one shim, so that's definitely not cheap.

So I guess these ones cost a lot less to manufacturer I'm sure. Yeah.

With the fact of the matter is that the Armstrong, ethos and philosophy is we basically want the best stuff that we can have to ride because, w when now the age that we've been through enough sports and used enough, Averaging crappy equipment and some very good equipment to, to know that it's much nicer to have really good equipment.

So yes, we may be outside and expensive, but that's because we're not really compromising because we don't want to compromise because we've got to go out of there and ride it. And I'm out there for the best feelings I can possibly get rather than something that we'll do. That's why, we had the tie to it and ship it and because of the time, that's what we thought was the best thing.

Okay. We've now love that. There's another way of doing it and it's simpler and it's cheaper. If we can, anything that we can make cheaper, then we can, we will, because obviously it's good for the customer and man. Yeah. As long as it doesn't affect the performance. Yeah. I've noticed definitely with Oilers, once you get addicted to the feeling of foiling then price becomes less of an issue, for beginners, they always.

Worried about price, but then once people get hooked, then I guess they're willing to pay for the drugs. You call it price insensitive, yeah, you don't care about the products you just want the next day fairly like start, I don't know, but it definitely the case that people just want to get.

Whatever's the best thing they can get, but tell us about this new wing. The H S 1125 it's I guess the first, really super high aspect wing that Armstrong make made. Right? Is that the case? Yes. I think it's the highest aspect when available on the market. I'm not sure about this, but basically we've been in the throws of making this for a year and a half.

Development is. Of these kinds of things is very difficult and time consuming because you're already looking for definite progress as such. And so yes, this has been the result. And it really is quite interesting if you, Oh, if you're winging it. Okay. Obviously with the big span, you're going to lose some reactiveness, but you're going to be very surprised that how quickly this thing can turn.

It still turns pretty damn good. If the tips come out again, we've been working on the section of the tip to stop the tips ventilating. So the tips can come out, nothing happens. You just carry on. The glide is amazing. So you're pumping and the timing that it takes or put it this way, you don't even have to really contemplate.

Your tax, you just to have the thing up wind and slowly move your hands over and I'd bring it down. I'm just still gliding with loads of speed and super easy. Just January, take the wing again and fly off. It's yeah it's pretty amazing. It's a great step in our progress. We're not going to talk about the rest of the market because the rest of the market is whatever the rest of market is, but for us, it's certainly amazing and we're all enjoying it.

When I first saw it. I just thought there's no way I can like that. It's just, it's too out there. And now I'm riding it all the time. I just love it. This is pretty smallest surface area, but like in terms of. Lyft. Obviously a high aspect, you always get a little bit more lift than on a low aspect wing for the surface area, but compared to the other wings what is it similar in lift to a 1250?

Or is it more like a 1550? Or what would you compare it to, in terms of the feel for the lift wise? That's difficult to hunt competitive like that. I normally think there the only limitation to a witness getting up, getting the thing for them. This is how it's how much speed it takes to get it.

Yeah, because it's high aspect. It doesn't have grounds, but once you get it going, it's got glide. Like you can't believe. And yeah, I love drag. So in that trade off, yes, you lose the grunt at the bottom end. So you've got to pump a little bit more, needs a bit more wind to get going, but once you going, the speed is phenomenal.

The glide is phenomenal. I'd say you've probably got the speed of the eight 50 with the glide of the ADT, but in a very different, but a much faster it's. Firstly, I haven't tried other hot before Ohio that follows on the market, but from what, from within what we do within the Armstrong range, something completely abstract because it does everything very differently.

It's still, an easy enough to use foil, in the glide in the way it reads it, it does well, but it's not like anything else. It's it's quite busy. But I think you're going to see a lot of people. Maybe a little bit of an initial hesitation, but once they get going on, there's certainly you're on flat water.

Oh my God, this is the way this is the way. If you're wanting to ride waves, you can still cruise on wipes with it, but it is a bit more technical and you don't have quite the maneuverability, but, I was with army just the other day and he was, yeah, he was riding the wave. I guess once people get good enough and used to it, Yeah.

Yeah. I find too, when you have a really high aspect, weighing it, with the wider wingspan, you just, if you have a longer mask that allows you to tip it over more, or, if the mass is too short and relations to the wingspan, then then the wing ends up breaching real easy or the, the tip comes out too easily.

And then that makes it a little bit harder. But I think with a longer mass you can go you can go wider on the wingspan as well, but let's talk about, sorry, just to recap on that's a very good point. We have that wing is best used with an 85 master longer. For sure you can't use it with a 72.

But, the wine Spanish, huge, the tips are going to be out quite long, then the tips can breech and it's not a problem, but you know that the trade-off with high aspect is that you are going to need the longer masks really. So this tailing, is this telling the same as this one? This one looks like it has like more V2 it or something.

Yeah. Yeah. This is the flying V and this is a little bit this is inspired a little bit by sky drama. And then because the America's cup is going on. Oh, incidentally, the front follow the the Halm 25 has been through the team, New Zealand computer that, that design computer to be analyzed and refined.

The best guys in the world have actually been looking at that have input and in what it is. So it really is about as cutting edge as we can get right now. And it's the segment of the tail. If you notice the tail, and if you look at the the foils that are on the America's cup yachts at the moment, obviously there are all these so army is very good friends with the sailors Jimmy respectful of people very good friends like out towing together that followed into we need together.

They're there, they're all involved. There's been a lot of. With this run up to the America's cup. Cause you're going to sit in the America's cup now, but obviously for us, it's been happening for a long time because it's happening in New Zealand, but New Zealand is a very sailing, orientated place country because it had a lot of coastline and a lot of people live on the coast.

So we're very water orientated. And we've also got a museum, has a big history and segment. So that has affected how I would design that Armstrong has happened because of spending time with those guys and those guys being involved with us. And it's all just played off on itself. So it's been fantastic.

And the knowledge that those designers have is phenomenal and the computing power they've gone through something and you can dream. Okay. These are the, these are some of the most. I think people in the world throwing money at designing the best things as they possibly can so that there was some very educated eyes run over those smiles.

Yeah. I believe it. Yeah, it sounds pretty cool. I was looking for this somewhere. There's some pictures of Jimmy Spithill foiling and stuff like that, but I don't have him on my computer right now. Try to look it up. Yeah. Jimmy and Pete head to head. Awesome. Fantastic. As well. Super high. I am Stu and these guys are training.

These guys are fit. That they're not sat down drinking champagne on the back of the bed. Now, this is lovely. He's got a Holly and it's just, I find it phenomenal that in their free time that they're running around chasing for them because of the feeling they're on the way doing dabbling quiz, towing it with Amil, with the East coast and the West coast.

It's just yeah, this is put it this way. The job is sailing, but I passion really is for, yeah. So for yourself personally, do you spend most of the time on the water now on a wa Wayne foil board? Or do you still go sub foiling or what do you do the most when you get? I'm in a lucky position.

I'm involved in everything designing tights and loss. Know so basically messing around on cars. So the 50% of the time, and then I'm missing around sub 20% of the time and maybe with the women 30% of the time. Obviously our work and colleagues is still the majority of my work is we have a big Reagan ship, always needs tending.

But for sure, I'd love to, to go from a way now for a couple of hours of that, and then get sat behind the computer for a while. Wait till the wind comes up and then go for a constant

prototypes. Then obviously I'm intent on other types, whether that's, but otherwise it's either work a little bit of flying. Yeah. For me, I just find like you were talking about it earlier too. Like when you get on the wing if you have a two-hour session, let's say if you're sub foiling, you might catch maybe five to 10 ways and maybe spend, you get 10 or 20 minutes on actually up on the foil.

If you're really good, that would be probably the max versus when you're winging, you can be up on the foil, probably like 90% of the time, so in terms of, that's why I think too, like when I started wing flailing, actually my foiling progressed a lot faster because I spent so much more time getting comfortable on the foil and all that kind of stuff.

It's helped my standup foiling as well, but now I kinda, yeah, when I'm set up for anything, I feel like, Oh man, it's I'm not getting enough time, yeah, but. It's all good fun. And I just love riding waves too. And yeah, sometimes the wind gets in the way but still it's like my friend Derek says, it's you have an Uber ride back out, like with the wind, it's like you, yeah, you got your Uber ride back out to the break, so you never have to paddle and stuff like that. So go ahead. I think that's why I love the way quite a long at the moment. I'm sure there'll be something else come along. So maybe not the same thing, but there'll be something that's going along. But what I like with the winning is that you get so many, you get so much diversity with the foil because I can go set up and then, if there's a sweat and.

Do some downwind in the wing and ride some waves or some bumps. And then if there's some real waves, then I can ride the waves with the way. And if there's no way, just going around and messing with them, just practicing your taps in jibes and some three sets there's and blah, blah, blah. It's just, it's all very better for you to can enjoyable.

It doesn't matter. There's no wires. No problem. Let's do this.

Yeah. It's a great tool for a diverse sort of enjoyment. Yeah. And it also opens up the sport of foiling to pretty much the whole world, as for, before you had to have a wave or, a certain type of wave even for foiling. And now it's just yeah, all you need is some water and a little bit of wind.

And and you have a huge wind range, too. If you have a big wing, you can go and really light, wind, and a few, strong winds. You can still link for me now I'm either in the four weeks or the three minutes. And then if it's strong, but if it's lights are a big enough for me to, I'm happy to change the wing under the water to have more fun riding than I always prefer to have a small one, just.

Maneuverability and comfort it's much nicer, but maybe the big guys feel happy with the five, but the fullest good for the three super nice as well. I can normally pump up with, three the same in the same strength. One was a Canada four if I just throw up. So just I'd much prefer to ride it.

1250 is my standard, but I'd much prefer 1550 on the state of the three meter in my hand, then compromise that because once this is small, you can do, you have to worry much less, so the attacks and jobs and trips, and once you get on the letters, Yeah. Having a small wing just makes everything so much easier, but so when you on a four meter wing, what's the lightest wind would you say you can go out and with the 1550 or, in a four meter wing?

I'm pretty confident that I'm good at 10 to 12 and 1250 and the full meter one. Okay. It's not pumping up electric fit, but we get it down.

And sometimes it's just waiting for that little Gus to, I guess what people, when you start out, it seems like you need a lot more wind to get it going, but once you get good at popping up on the foil, maybe waiting a little bit for the right Gus and then quickly popping up once you're up on the foil, it's so efficient that you really it's almost like you, you could almost go down half to half the size once you're up on the foil, once you get it going and you have that apparent wind coming up.

Yeah.

What do you think, how far it's come in? Such a short time? Both the foil development and the development isn't happening just because of the wings, but now we, the wings that definitely helped them with development. Because, it's giving us another opportunity, but we went up the fall. Just in a year and a half, we've come so far with some nice far wins now, and the happenings are getting better.

It's only going to get easier and more fun in the future. So do you have, like you're saying, there's probably going to be another thing coming in the future. Do you have any thing any ideas or crazy ideas about what could be next or things you want to try or she's your technologies you're playing around with, I've got a feeling the advent of the electric battery age and about the electric power age is, w we're scratching the surface now with with the folio boats, but. I can imagine a little electric power pack on your back or something where it's more of a fan rather than just like a powerhouse, but electric it's waterproof a bit like the diving things that they use in the water, but about that.

And it's just a fan, whether you'd go out there just to accelerate up on top of the foil, the wings are so defaulted that you can just some little pumps every now and then go out, catch some waves, the hood. Who knows that the human imagination can take us anyway. Know, it's just a, it's a case of a little bit of time and effort.

So I'm sure we're going to see some things. Yeah. I was wondering too, if there could be like a combination between kind of winging and kiting, like where you have some short lines that you can like, kinda let the wing of final at higher may not my friend Derek actually does that.

He has this long line on his wing and then he just lets go and holds it by, by the line and that's higher up in the air and he gets no light wind that helps because you get a little bit more wind once the way is a higher right. You have more power and yeah, no worries.

Oh, your

battery technology is not quite there yet.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. W what else do you want to talk about? Any, anything else? You want to get into I'm not really well. I honestly, Rob, I think we've covered a lot, but it was good. Yeah. I think we're about that. But like I say, it was a total pleasure. I hope that it brings some form of entertainment maybe.

Yes. Yeah. Entertainment is the best thing.

You know how people that are addicted to foiling, they'll spend the money to get the best thing, things that they want, but also in terms of consuming information, like I'm always surprised how many people actually listen to these interviews and listen to the very end. But especially all, all this stuff you talked about is super interesting.

I'm really interested in it and I'm sure there's going to be plenty of people who are going to eat it up, yeah. I, I certainly don't I'm a positing is my understanding of my feelings. So everybody's different. Some people like this, some people like that, I've got no problem.

We're just doing what we can do and enjoying what we can enjoy. If you're not an expert, I don't know who is, but I guess none of us are experts

if people like it. People like the things that, the themes that we create, then that's fantastic because that's what it's about. Really. We're just facilitators and we're just sharing that common feeling. And so people that are feeling that fantastic and people that another brand is feeling. No problem.

Don't enjoy it. Just the main thing is people are out there experiencing and enjoying sports and nature. Yeah. Actually there's a couple more questions I wanted to ask you. I almost forgot. So usually I ask all my guests who should I interview next? Who do you think would be good to get on the show and talk about wink, flailing?

Unfortunately I think. I'm going to say someone who's probably difficult to get on the show, but I think it'd be interesting to know what Kelly, hi Kailani. Oh yeah, for sure. Mainly because I'm not I'm impressed with this guy because I have chosen to ride some. I was by the, by I'm impressed with the guy because he can cross over all these sports and, just are still looking at me without if they'll do I find that just the crossover between some forms set up messing around with, but this guy can go pretty much next level on everything all the time.

He obviously loves this because he took all that to Jones. I, yeah. Some of that footage, he's just on a regular 12 foil board, but let's say he catches air and it's he's floating down the face, almost like a Pelican flying along the front of the wave, the sun, the updraft of the wave.

Just almost, it's almost like paragliding, yeah. What he's doing, it looks like he's just hanging in there for a long time email. I'm not pretending although I'm sure we're friends, but you tell me by email is that expressed that he had expressed once a week to be able to fly down Jones.

And of course, my background in flying, I can see straight away. And obviously now what I do in the stuff, I know how the through the water just creates its own up graph. And as soon as he said, I'm just thinking God it's possible. And so we are working on a special one for him to do that.

You can't hold a drip man down and the guy wants to do it now. So I didn't really think was ready for that kind of thing. But he decided it was Oh, that's cool. So you actually working on that kind of a glider wing that can basically float in that updraft, that's coming up the face of the wave.

And just I wouldn't say at the moment, we're just working on the special link, especially when we're just working on a way for him to satisfy what he would like to find that. So

I don't know if that's a win for everybody else or whatever, it's just. Look at what the guy can do. If we can facilitate him to do something kind of something else, then let's do it. Yeah, totally. That's good. Yeah. Okay. The other thing I wanted to talk a little bit about is just, the whole pandemic and the whole situation in the world and how you've been dealing with it.

I know, like in New Zealand you guys have been probably one of the, one of the few countries where you're like, I guess pretty much unaffected by it at this point. Like you can just go out as normally and go shopping without a mask on and all that kind of stuff. But how has it affected your life and was there like, is there a silver lining to it and how have you been dealing with it personally?

Okay. Excuse me. So the silver lining to it is that Basically society. The Cuban spin sees is also like a muscle. If you don't stress that muscle from time to time, it doesn't get stronger. The muscle is currently being stressed and already we're beginning to show signs of strength and we weren't weak and we were vulnerable.

And that we're beginning to understand that this bigger than is applying to them. It followed you. And the potential of the human existence to go forward is probably with a little bit more awareness than we were displaying before. So in that respect, yes, there is still the line for myself personally appearing very lucky I have to go to the States right in the middle of this thing, which I didn't want to do.

But I have to go to the States. Then I went to the Dominican Republic. Then I went to Spain. Then I went to UK. I think I went somewhere else to Germany. And then I finally came home and I managed to Dutch. COVID the whole way I came back to New Zealand where life is just carrying on totally as loss, which is a blessing.

Fantastic. And as I came here and just drove into town, so people everywhere and restaurants for people living normal life after the full month, I've had nothing was normal. It was very galvanizing in my gratitude for being here. In New Zealand, because with a small population it's relatively easy to control.

And at the same time might have me truly appreciate the, there are people who are having a massive discomfort, an auction because of this this event. Yeah, I hope that it gets played up soon and we can return to some form of normality, but I hope that normality is where a lot more awareness of and gratitude for life.

We take it for granted and we're also better considering myself, and so if there's anything that opens our eyes to that, then I think it's a good thing. Yeah. I think just being able to connect with people like we are now over zoom. I never used zoom before, before the pandemic and now it's like normal.

Everybody knows how to do it and then send someone a link and we can talk like this and see each other and talk like we're sitting across from each other. So that's pretty cool. Okay. So when you came back to New Zealand from all the travel, what was the procedure to go back? And I dunno, what is it?

I thought New Zealand was completely shut down that you couldn't travel back and forth, but you can only travel to DC, London rested. And when you came back, you had to go into that two week quantity and it wasn't it was relatively strict, but it wasn't terribly strict. And yeah, I got tested twice.

And if you were playing and you were allowed out, it seems to work quite well. But like I say, this is a big Island where there's lots of satellite communities. There's only 5 million people. Everybody's relatively well educated. If you couldn't control it here, you couldn't control it anyway. And although it was a lot of praise for the prime minister, she did do a relatively good job.

But like I said, if you couldn't control that hair, then you know, you're pretty helpless because this is being able to control it. Hawaii is an even smaller Island or islands group of islands, even less population. And we weren't able to keep it out. You know what I mean? Cause we were so a tourism dependent, they just waited too long to shut it down.

But But, I don't know. You can, it's also like it's a trade-off, is, how much economic damage is it worth to save those lives? It's a hard question, so yeah. Yeah. It's a hard question, but the biggest problem is, and stuff.

I find the question, disappointed how much economic damage we have, so economically minded, but we've lost really the true value to life because economics comes before and to a certain degree, it has to, or it has to come in unison. But let's face it. Economics has been at the forefront of the modernized existence.

So let's say at least the last hundred years, it's all about economics now. And we forgot to nurture any of the requirements around nature that can help people's fit recognize that, we were overturned, again, we were over tourism, everywhere and everything. And it's not, we've actually found that it's not helpful.

It's happy to make some money, but at the same time, there's people traveling on planes everywhere. And basically all they do is consuming and leaving junk behind, but blah, blah, blah. It's just, okay. That's true. And to destroying the places they're visiting too, the economical balance.

How healthy is economics not there? So we need these extends to push us and make us professional. No, I totally agree with that. Yeah. Especially the, just the environmental impact that we're having on the earth, obviously like the global warming and stuff that, all the concern about that kind of took a back seat to let's control this pandemic and at any cost.

But I guess one of the results was, less travel, which resulted in less pollution. Definitely, yeah, all that air travel all over the place is definitely not good for the environment, but but it sure is fun to travel. This is something I'm looking forward to being able to do again, yes. And, I love travel. I've been traveling all my life, but I can recognize that. Every flight time about pretty much every flight time always been a proper price tickets. I don't really use my at the small super cheap airlines that are just literally busing people around Europe, delivering them so they can, instead of being an England consuming, they take them to Spain that, and consuming that and blame something two weeks and then ship them back again at $49 a ticket.

So we can, we're working on a mass scale rather than that, an economically viable stand while you're paying 300 bucks for that seat. They've just minimized it. Lots of flights, super cheap, get them going. We'll make the money, know that it's one business model, but it's a business model. We don't really need it.

There has to be a price for that travel. And if it, if we're make it too cheap and too easy, then yes, the effect is on our atmosphere. Everyone gets a cheap, fantastic. Actually it's better to have an expensive holiday and have less of an effect on him. Yeah. And yeah, I think somehow there has to be a way to price the damage that you're causing into the cost of the ticket like that, because that, that $99 ticket probably causes $200 worth of environmental damage, so that needs to be somehow taxed or it needs to be calculated into the cost of that ticket, cause like in the long-term we got to be basically incentivize being wasteful and it's also one of the things that this ask them is it has incentivized people to stay at home.

And then Joey, where they live, people are always having these ideas about, Oh my God, it's going to be so amazing. If I get over that, Hey, open your eyes. Most of the time, it can be amazing. But you've got, these are aspirations for something over there. So you can't really get in and focus and enjoy what you have because that's the thing that's going to bring the joy and you've only got this and I want that.

You can't have that. So you better start looking and enjoying this and, New Zealand, tourism, and now a survivor from New Zealand. But we used to have an influx of dominoes every year with overseas tourists. We haven't had it, but sometimes people are traveling within the borders. Yeah. Yeah. I've been living here on a wattle for over 30 years and now just for the first time went to this on a hike to Kyle crater, like I'd never been there and just being up there on the mountain and just seeing this view and being out there as awesome.

And it's yeah, probably just as good as traveling around the world to see something somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah, so as it really that's what the cool thing about traveling is that the sense of adventure and seeing new things and having new experiences. And, but yeah, a lot of that you can experience much closer to home if you want it to.

And so just that mindset. Cool. What do you do to keep your keep a positive mindset and stay healthy and young at heart. And so on, any secrets to life that you can share staying positive. If that's purely, that's a choice you have every day you wake up in the morning, you might get a good day or a bad day.

You can sell them, problems that are actually only molehills into mountains that spoil your child. And what I try and do is wake up a bit grateful to be alive. The sky is great. Enjoy your gray star. If the sky is blue and  breathing, you've got a chance to have a great, the next, 18 hours while you're a white guy or whatever it's going to be.

Just get up and go and make your life happen. Big act to motivate connect with nature and. Yeah. So the those are great tips. Yeah. I agree. Like it's almost impossible to be in a negative mindset if you're grateful for everything you have. So if you remind yourself of the things that you're, you can be grateful for, that's definitely a good way to stay positive.

And then, yeah, the same for us. Yeah. Getting out there, getting out on the water, getting into nature is always a good way to change changing mindset. I feel very lucky that I don't have a TV. So my life isn't indoctrinated with other people's rhetoric, it's only indoctrinated with what's actually is my day and what is within my rail.

And for sure you can say that it's good to, to know what's happening over in Guatemala or the weather or whatever. But I can't affect it. Its relevance to me might be life-threatening but I'll deal with that when it happens. The best thing I can do is to not have all that extra noise affecting what my real life is, my real existence, which is what I have here.

I cut over from the noise and the TV is the biggest my cultural and vehicle has ever been created. And that generally feeds in the modern day drama and people bring that drama into their own lodge because they see it on TV every day and too much of it. And it's all overdramatized. So that's now how they think they should be reacting to things that happened.

Whereas it's drama, TV, they're overreacting to everything. What we should be doing is switching it off and doing anything else. All right. That's a great way to end the interview. I think that's really good advice. I don't watch the news. I like to stay in farming, but it usually I try to read it, and from a from a good source, I like to read the economist and get all my information from that.

All I need to know about the world. And it's more kind of, it's dry. It helps me fall asleep. Yeah. That's something like the economist as intellectual content, fantastic. I like the economist when I sit down on a bike rack or whatever, but what I'm talking about here is this is mine, not pollution.

It seems to me that the mass of the population hasn't wanted to have, but this is. A tool just to take out the go live. So you go and do what they want you to do, which is spend money. And they don't really care about you spending money by this latest thing. We don't need cases, shit, John because well, or whatever, and overreacted, because you've seen it on TV and stuff.

Yeah. And eat junk food. Don't exercise consume lots of drugs and die young after you spend millions of dollars in medical care. That seems to be like how they want you to live your life right now. Exactly. And there's such beautiful lives to be lived if you just wake up and actually take control of your own life.

Live it and stuck with old junk rubbish. And it's so easy. Yeah. One of my favorites is people don't believe that you can be happy all the time because there has to be a ying and a yang. Why not? I'm pretty much happy all the time and there's no secret to it. It's a choice, you can, something comes along, it affect you like Oh at least the sky is still blue.

Oh, fantastic. It's where you choose to put your thoughts. We just take them away, put them somewhere else. Yeah. It's like having a default your default is happy and yeah. Sometimes you get knocked out of it, but then like you get back to your default state, which is, yeah.

Don't let it affect you for too long. It's just to remind yourself like, okay, this is most of the time. If it's not life-threatening for you or your family, it doesn't matter.

That's true. All right. Great. I think that's really good stuff. I love it. Thanks so much.

Yeah. When you come out with some new stuff out, I'll hit you up again for another interview and keep it going maybe in six to 12 months or whatever. There's new stuff to talk about. Yeah, but also thank you for your enthusiasm to generate

enthusiastic people that helps spread the knowledge. So thank you very much. All right. Yeah, no problem. I would do it because I enjoy it. So it's easy.

I have a great night and we'll talk soon.

It alkalizes you? Yes. A bit of a tweaker when it comes through. I like to balance my bad habits with some good habits, but I've got plenty of bad ones too. So you drink water with Apple cider vinegar. And what else you said baking soda. So alkalizing, I, I've heard that putting a little bit of lemon, fresh lemon juice in the water also.

Alkalizes you, even though it's an acid, so it just doesn't make sense, but I guess it, alkalizes your system. That's what I've been getting. Yeah, that's what I've been doing in the morning. I just drink water with a little bit of lemon juice, and that seems to work. I'm actually told this is one of the best ways to start the day, but I can tell you how to make it even better for you.

There's only a certain amount of effective goodness in the juice. The best thing you can do is freeze the Lebanon and in the morning, grate the lemon with the rind internal as well as external. And a lot of the goodness that's in the lemon, is it in the rind. So by, by doing that, and so that's my go-to first drink of the day.

It's just grated lemon, frozen lemon into water. That's my first one. Then I get into the car. Yeah. I love coffee too. I don't think I'm going to stop drinking coffee, but it, yeah, it's easy to get addicted to the caffeine, but I find that one of the hardest things to quit. It's caffeine, but yeah, like I said, Ben's stuff is another one.

Yeah.

Annie Reickert wing foil interview- Episode #4

Welcome to the Blue Planet Wing Foil show, episode 4 with Annie Reickert, a talented young water woman from Maui.  Annie excels at surfing, big wave riding, foiling, and wing foiling.

Interview transcript:

Aloha, it's Robert, thank you so much for tuning into the fourth episode of the blue planet show, which I'm producing right here in my home office, in the garage. It's all about wind foiling. I interview athletes, designers, thought leaders in the sport of windfoiling all about wind foiling, but also about whatever else they're doing.

And just trying to get to know them a little bit better and, talk about life in general. I've been really enjoying meeting all these people and talking more in depth, it's a longer format. So if you don't have enough time to watch the whole thing on video, you can also listen to it on the podcast.

Of course, on Apple or Android devices, just look for the blue planet show, do a little search and should come up and you can listen to it while you're driving or doing other things. But watching our video is great. Cause we sh I share like some video and photos and so on. So it's easier to visualize.

I'm a very visual learner. So I like seeing what, but what we're talking about. And I really appreciate it, all the great feedback we've been getting. I know it's such a small group of people in the world that are into wing filing, but everyone's super enthusiastic. And I love getting comments like this one.

Yeah. Wow. When I saw the interview was 90 minutes long, I groaned at the end. I didn't want it to stop. You guys were fantastic. What a great conversation. It was so interesting to hear Alan's background and about the early days of wing foiling. Thank you so much for putting this together. It must listen for all the addicts.

Thanks so much. That's a great comment. Love it. Keeps me going for sure. And I got actually two great shows coming up. Today's show is with Annie Reichert, who is an amazing young athlete, 19 years old from Maui. And we talk about her doing crazy backflips, big wave wipe outs at jaws, growing up in Maui, wink, foiling tricks, foil gear, dealing with the pandemic and you know how to live a good life.

And those are the things I talk like talking about with people not just wing foiling, but life in general, and you know how to live your best life. And just getting to know them a little bit better on a personal level too. So the next show is going to be with Rob whittle. He's a co-founder and head designer at ozone.

So he w I asked him a lot of questions about the new wasp V2 wing. And then also we talk about some big news from Armstrong foils, where he's also a partner and helps with the design and technology. So really interesting stuff, if you're into the gear. And then also, he's just a super cool guy. And we just had a great conversation about, life and the pandemic and, just living a good life.

And without further ado here is Annie Riker from Maui, any record, welcome to the blue pad show. And how are you doing today? I'm good. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me on yesterday. We had some really heavy floodings here on Oahu and my friend's house on the North shore got flooded and I read it on Maui, had some pretty heavy rains too.

What happened there? Yeah, no, it was crazy. I had just gotten back the night before from a trip. I had just flown it and I woke up the next morning and it was just torrential downpours all over Maui and yeah, unfortunately haiku, like the North shore of Maui got hit super hard. And I had a couple of friends whose houses got swept away and just a lot of damage, which is, so unfortunately, especially for the haiku community.

Yeah, it was a very unexpected turn of events when I got home. But currently like the ocean is just completely chocolate colored. It's is about as Brown as it can possibly get. But yeah, I'm hoping everybody can recover as soon as possible and that the rains let up for a couple of days.

Yeah. So you just got back from a ski or snowboard trip on the mainland. You missed about two weeks of really good wins here. I know that's what everyone was saying. I think the waves were subpar, but the wind I heard was just like off the charts. Incredible. I'm sure for you guys on a wall, it was crazy too.

But it was nice. I haven't been off Maui in a while, so getting to go and enjoy the cold weather, which is such a kind of different turn of events from here was really fun. And it was nice to get back in the snow. Cause I haven't, I don't think I've snowboarded in two or three years. So it was super enjoyable.

And you went to Jackson hole, you said? Yeah. Yeah, it was incredible. I was with a bunch of friends that were like a much higher level than I was so getting to go and follow them around and progress at a much quicker rate was really exciting. It wasn't like incredible snow, but we had beautiful sunny conditions, which honestly I think was almost, it was worth it just because it was so nice out every day we were spending time on the mountain.

My second interview on the show was with Baltz Mueller. And he thought that you're going to be the first female to land a back on a wing and that I should interview you. So I thought that was a great idea. And so that thanks for coming on the show. And but talk a little bit about this like this.

You, I guess you're trying to back flips on it's dropped in messed around and messed around with wingback flips and just with prone back flips like this. And I think I got pretty close to the winging one, and then I ended up popping all of my wings and then winter rolled around. So I I took a break from that and focus more on the big wave slash surfing side of things.

And I'm excited to bring it back the summer. And then, yeah, I was out, this is the status video I was out with Jeffrey Spencer, I think he's like the back flip King of whinging and I, the opportunity to go out with him and we were just messing around toast surfing, and then we also brought out a foil, which was really fun and.

I got to try that, which is it's really cool. Cause that just gives you the opportunity and you can just put yourself in the perfect spot, especially when you have, we were using a ski in that picture. He told me out, and then I let go and did a back flip off the way. And so that was really fun. Cause I think it'll also help my writing when it comes to the winging tool, just cause I had so many opportunities to practice that over and over again.

Then I didn't land at that session because the jet ski started to run out of gas. So we had to head back to the Harbor, but I'm really hoping I get the chance to go out there and try that again. Soon when the wind lets up and the rain kind of subsides. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. I have some friends who were doing it, like just pumping back out and then doing flips off the waves, going back out, pumping back out, which I find amazing.

I can't even imagine doing that, but yeah. Getting pulled in by the jet ski definitely helps. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I've tried a little bit of the pumping back out in the back flips and I think it's, yeah. It's a lot harder than it looks, these guys that do it, they just make it look so effortless, but it's just so crucial to be at like the most critical part of the wave when you're ready to like, turn and spin and yeah.

Like lining up and making sure I've gotten pretty close a couple of times, pretty much just like right under it and just barely faceplant. But yeah, I think hopefully it'll all come together and I'll be able to figure that out eventually the summer is that's the goal. I think. Yeah. It looks like you're getting really close and then I guess you're good friends with Jeffrey Spencer.

He makes it look so effortless when he does those backflips, right? Yeah. No, it's amazing to be out in the water with all those guys, Jeffrey pie fan, his little brother. It's amazing. Just to be able to watch them because they make it look so effortless and I'm like, why can't I do that? You guys make it look so easy.

And yeah. So it's encouraging. Have they given you any pointers on how we have a little bit of a delay? So talking over each other a little bit. Sorry about that. But yeah. So what are some pointers they've given you to try a back flip with the wing. I think what the wing, I think, it's pretty interesting.

Jeffrey has a really different technique to PI versus like balls. There's all these different guys. They have really different styles in it, but some of the technique and advice Jeffrey's given me is just to bring your front hand or like your top hand in, and really set your line.

And I think it's like the ballerina spin theory, which is when you're turning, so you don't get dizzy, like you want to like, keep your head and then like at the last second, move it. So you keep your center of gravity aligned. And he said it was just kinda like a SIM like similar thing with the wing, just so you don't get like super disoriented and yeah, he gave me some other great tips.

And I think definitely when I try it again, I'm going to need to go back to him for some more and he's going to need to come in, coach me and help me along. So you can yell at me if I'm doing it right or wrong or not. That's interesting. Yeah, I was wondering about that. Cause I've been, I haven't attempted it yet, but my friend Daniel is doing them and, or attempting them and he always seems to like, on the way up loses, as a boy comes up, she come out of the straps and the board goes flying and then everything comes on top of the board falls on top of him basically on the wing.

So it's scary, but I know like Zane Schweitzer, he throws his head back. Like he just really throws himself backwards. And then I think, yeah, Jeffrey Spencer, it looks more like he's keeping his head. And then at the once he's like halfway through the rotation, then he looks for the landing what's his head's different ways of doing it, but yeah.

I guess you just have to be committed to making that rotation. I think that's like the, honestly the biggest part. Yeah. It's all about the commitment because yeah, when I was first trying it, I'd get like halfway through and then get really freaked out and just bail and ended up back flopping.

And before it would come down on top of me. And so I think it's honestly like the safest way to do it is just to go as big as you can and just fully commit to that to that backflip, which is a really intimidating thing to try and figure out. And I'm still trying to master it myself. I know. It's so impressive that you try and hit anyways, but so you have tried it with the wing as well.

I have, yeah, I've tried it and I have some really funny pictures and videos that one day the world will need to see. But yeah, it was it's really fun cause it was right after Jeffrey. Got it. I think everybody saw that video of him doing a back flip and they were like blown away and I was two and I was like, Jeffrey, you need to teach me how to do this.

And it was really cool and I've yet to actually do it fully and right out of it. So I'm excited to pick that back up. Hopefully when the waves died down and the summer months come on us. Oh did you mention that you had some pictures on your phone that you can share? Here's one of me trying them.

I don't know if you guys can see that. Yeah, so I got upside down, but I didn't make it much further than that. And there was some videos. That's what happened to my friend too. And when I saw him do that a couple of times it was like, Oh my God, that I can see how I, I heard that the Spencer brothers destroyed all their wings when first, when they practiced them there.

So I guess, no, it's definitely, it's not gentle on the equipment or the people when you're trying it. I will give you yeah. I'm sure. And probably wearing a helmet is a good idea. Do you ever wear a helmet? In the, in those videos? I actually was usually when I'm just normally winging it always, I feel like it throws off my balance and I don't, but in that situation, I definitely watched Jeffrey attempted and come some near close foil collision.

So I wear a helmet just to be safe. And I definitely think it was, it felt good to have it on. It just made me felt like more confident and more, yeah. Ready to attempt it. Awesome. But yeah, I wanted to actually start with just telling, tell us more about your background and like how you grew up and things like that.

Yeah. Start from the beginning. I'm born and raised on Maui. I've always been like gravitated towards being a super outdoorsy kid. My parents always raised my bro. I have a little brother named miles. My parents always raised my brother and I had to be super involved in sports and all that stuff.

And I started surfing on the front of my parents' board when I was. Two or three, I believe. I used to wear like floaties on my arms and go out there and they'd hold me on the front as we were just catching like tiny whitewater. And yeah, I think I've had a super deep connection from the ocean from a young age.

My dad was always super active and he loved the ocean. And so I think it was like a natural progression for me. And yeah, I was also just like growing up on Maui. We do live in an Island, we're surrounded by ocean, so it is a natural progression to end up doing some sort of water sport or at least spending time in the water.

And for me growing up, I did all sorts of different sports, like soccer and volleyball and all of those. And And then when I got more into surfing and then I discovered standup paddling, that was where I decided I was like, wow, like maybe this is something I can do more than just for fun.

Maybe I can compete in this. Cause I always did, like surf contest as a little kid growing up and they were so fun, but it was more just what you did in Hawaii. It was just, if you're a part of the surfing community, you'd go down and spend all weekend competing. And it was just a fun thing for the kids and the families.

And then yeah, when I did discover sub surfing and that was right when Kai had gotten into it, it was like the pinnacle of everything at that point. That's when I really fell in love with it. And I realized that I wanted to do this more than just for, a fun pastime.

And I started competing in that and I traveled around for a while and in sub surfing and separating. And then I got involved in the down winning side of things and the channel crossings, which honestly is still one of my favorite things. It's amazing to be able to be in the middle of a channel and cross something as treacherous as one of the, the Hawaii channels, which has such kind of like a great history around it.

And did the most recent, was that 2018? Yeah, that was, I foiled it. Yeah, I've done it twice. I believe for 2017 and 18 probably. I guess before 18, 19 in 19, I think I was so excited to do it again. And I'm hoping that if everything is, willing and that we'll be able to do it again this summer, too.

So tell us about that. Were you able to fly on the foil most of the way across? Or was it a lot of up and down where you had to restart a lot? Or like how was that whole experience? Yeah, it was unbelievable. I think the first year I ever did it, I actually, or the first year I ever did it on the foil, I went there with the intention of paddling it on my 14 foot step forward.

I had just learned how to downwind, foil. I'd only been doing it for two months before that. And I'd only done like a couple Maui runs. I don't even think I'd done a Harbor run yet, which is like about 10 miles on Maui. So I didn't think I was prepared. I was, I was super intrigued at this new sport, but I didn't really think that I was going to attempt foil it.

And then. I got a call from Kai right before the race. And he's I think you need to foil it. And of course, I was incredibly tempted and I brought all my oil stuff and I decided the night before that I was going to foil it. And that was amazing that year. I believe I came off foil probably eight or nine times, which, how things have progressed, which just seems like a crazy number.

And then the second year I ended up just coming down. I fell once and then the rest of the time I was up in foiling. Wow. That's really, that's amazing. Yeah. Compared to Chi and Jeffrey and all those guys, I think they didn't even fall, but for me it was such a big improvement from the year before that it just was amazing.

And I think the most taxing part of downwind foiling is getting back up. It's like the. It's like the more you fall, the more tired you're going to get and the more taxed you are. So it was even easier for me than the previous year, just because I also spent a lot less time on the surface of the water and a lot more time gliding across the channel too, which was awesome.

And it was really fun, to, to like work on improving equipment over the year and dialing in the down winning equipment. Cause I think it was such a new sport the first year that  happened with foils and then the amount of progression that happened between that one year was really cool too.

So I'm excited and looking forward to doing it again, hopefully in the com coming years, hopefully this summer, but we'll see. Yeah. So what about the very end once you got close to Portlock point, like I guess then you hit the off shore winds and stuff like that. Like how far did you get before you dropped off the foil?

Yeah, it was, that was brutal. I think at that point I was so ready to be like done at that. I was just head down completely completely in my zone, just going for it. And I didn't make it that far in, I know Kai, I think like comp like halfway through the Bay, which just seems like the craziest thing.

But I I made it probably like 30 seconds inside the offshore wind, and then I didn't link up with any bumps or any wind and that I ended up just paddling on my stomach, the rest of the way, which definitely at that point, I'm like, I've made it this far. I can keep going, come on. But it just feels like such a crazy crazy feed at that point, too.

Oh, here's some video of jaws. I guess it would be a shame not to talk about, Oh, this is you getting ragdolled at jaws. Yeah. I do tend to face plan a lot. I've noticed this is a very funny video of me. Funny. It looks scary. Yeah. I think in the moment, it definitely, wasn't funny. But I think hindsight now that I watched the video, I'm like, wow, I'm glad I survived through that.

I think yeah, when I did first originally fall, it was like, I didn't think I was going to get sucked over the falls. Everything was going great. And a guy ended up going in front of me and it just threw me off a little bit. And then I hit a bump and that's me. And then I popped back up, actually I got a breath in and I felt okay.

And I didn't think I was going to get sucked over the falls at all. And then I just I made eye contact with someone in the channel and then I ended up just I felt this like sucking feeling and, getting like stuck at like the top of a wave at jaws is just one of the most like terrifying feelings.

I think you can you can go through as a human and then. I slowly felt it sucking me over and I realized what was happening. And I got one big breath in and then held on for dear life. But it was pretty funny, just the turn of events. Cause I think the video itself is just, you see my little head slowly going into oblivion and yeah, he was getting a breath.

Oh gosh, that was my one last breath. And I think I realized, like I realized what was happening. Did you wear one of those vests with the air where you can pull the air chambers or whatever? Yeah. So pretty much everybody now at this point has has one of those on out there. It's something I think it's, you don't want it to be the only thing out there, keeping you safe and keeping you alive.

You really want to rely on training to do all that, but it is something that's so helpful to have just because it does give you that extra bit of protection out there. And I did end up pulling my vest on that one. It definitely helped me pop up a bit more. And then I came up smiling. I honestly came up laughing because of the entire situation, because I had survived something so crazy.

And then it also just because of everything that happened, I tomahawked down a wave, went over the falls and came up and I had a great tow partner who was ready to grab me. The second I popped up, which was great too. Who is your tow partner when you go on tour at John's? Yeah. So a lot of the time jaws it's someone named nano.

He's an amazing, he's actually a tattoo artist from Maui. He's amazing tattoo artist. And he's done a lot of water safety at jaws in the past, and I'm lucky enough to have him in my corner for when the waves get big. And then a lot of the time when it's smaller and we're not a job, they'll either go toe Jeffrey Spencer, or my good friend, rich Lenny.

We spend a lot of time on that Maui artery and get to enjoy that, which is so fun, just because you get to surf with pretty much just friends and catch endless waves and you don't have to paddle back out. And I think that's probably one of my favorite things to do when the winter months are upon us just cause it's so awesome to be out there and share a lineup with just a couple other people.

Yeah. Having the jet-ski just makes it feel a lot safer to always, cause it's, I, don't why the sound always comes on. Sorry, but yeah, I just having the jet ski to makes it feel a lot more safe and you always have someone that can pick you up again. But but yeah, I can only imagine, so on that wipe out that we were watching, did you pull the rip cord or did you just come back up without it?

I did end up pulling the rip cord or the cord yet just because I got so like initially like Tomahawk down the wave, I'm sure as you saw in that video and it's so many somersaults that I was already at that point so in shock and out of breath that I felt like I should just play it safe and pull to make sure that I popped up as quick as possible.

And then it's also a thing where, the quicker you pop up, even if you can handle the whole down the more energy you're going to have in the West tax, you're going to feel. So for me, it's almost like saving myself and giving myself energy for the remainder of the session too.

And I had enough cartridges in my vest that I was able to pull and pop back up. And although the wipe out was scary, it wasn't quite as bad as I initially thought. So it was it was all good in the end. And an interesting story came out of it too. Was that the worst wipe out you ever had or do you, have you had worst ones?

I don't know. I think visually that was definitely the worst wipe out I've ever had, but I think I've probably I in the jaws contest last year I fell on my first wave and I think that was probably a worst wipe out, but it all blends together after a while. I think that was definitely the most visually exciting and crazy to look at.

You did the paddle in contests at jaws. So tell us about that. I think, for me probably to date, that was one of the best days of my life. I've always dreamed of surfing jaws since I was a little girl. I've gone down to watch it with my dad. We've hiked down to the cliff. And I honestly like never, I didn't ever know if I really would have the opportunity to get out there and if I had the chance.

And so when that day came and I got the call and I was asked if I wanted to compete in that event it was a dream come true. And it was a magical experience. And I think it was typical Mallee fashion. It was incredibly windy and the conditions were crazy and hectic, but being out there and sharing a lineup with just a couple of other people at a wave, like that is so incredible.

And then the fact that I was, I got pounded, I survived and then I also was able to complete a ride and pull off in the channel was. One of the best feelings ever. So yeah, I'm so fortunate that I have that opportunity and I came in third, I believe in that event. And I'm really looking forward to hopefully getting to compete in that again and yeah.

And giving it all I got. Cause it was so amazing to be out there in that lineup. And I'm excited to return to that. Yeah. It seems like you're just getting started too. Cause like how old are you now? I'm 19. Yeah. You're still a kid, so hold on. Young lady I should say, but yeah.

It's awesome that you're at your age already. I think at that time you were probably 18, or 17 or 18 though. You're already charging waves like that to pop up paddling in nonetheless. So yeah. How do you compare, how would you compare like paddling into the wave versus getting towed into it?

Yeah, I think it's such a, it's a very different kind of thing because with the towing, you have so much more control initially, just cause your tone to the wave before it even breaks. And you have a lot more time to prepare, but I think with the paddling, it's also so different because you're alone out there.

Like you don't have a jet ski coming to, tell you under the wave, it's up to you to choose the waves that you're paddling on. It's up to you to get yourself in those positions. And so I think they're two really different things when it is super windy. It's really nice to have the option to tow on Maui.

And when you do have the rare opportunity to paddle out there it's a whole other thing. Cause I think it's just that much more rewarding when you can pile yourself alone into a wave like that and pull off into the channel. It's an incredible feeling, no matter how small the wave is just being out in that line up and being able to successfully complete a ride out there is it's really cool.

So I think, yeah, to answer your question, it's definitely really different, but both of them have their own really amazing kind of different aspects. So th the situation, it looks like a nightmare jaws bearing like reading right in the impact zone in the wave coming down right now. It's right on top of your head.

That was the wipe out I was talking about earlier. That was that one. Definitely it rattled me a little bit, but it was really fun to come out the other side and be okay. And I ended up getting more pounded. I think I fell on the first wave of the set and then. I have a friend out there who always tells me, never go on the first wave of the set.

Of course, I went on the first wave of the set, which is that way. And I ended up getting more pounded by the second wave than I was like, I initially got by the first wave. Yeah. It looks like the first one. You said the barrel. Yeah, exactly. But I learned my lesson the hard way and now I know. But yeah, that was definitely an experience.

You're brave. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about I guess this show is supposed to be about wing foiling, but you're doing, you're doing so many different sports that I just want to touch base a little bit about the other sports you do too, but so yeah. Tell us about downwind foiling.

Do you do it mostly, I guess you still doing mostly with the paddle or do you also do just prone foiling on a prom board? I love downwind foiling. It's super cool. I think I was so in the sup downwind being without a foil for the longest time and adding a foil to the mix, it's just like the dream scenario, because you're going that much faster and you have that much more ability and kind of to move around through the ocean and fully take advantage of the bumps.

So for the most part, being on Maui and doing a Mikko run, I'm so used to having a paddle in my hands that we will use a paddle most of the time, just because when you do paddle out of Mullica Goltz, which is where 99% of the time we launched our downwinders from there aren't really waves to catch with a prone board and you can dock start and pump off from Flatwater, but it does make it a lot harder.

And so usually I'll use a paddle just because I'm used to having one. It doesn't add that much more. Equipment for me. And I know occasionally if you can, the waves are big enough. You can catch little waves and do shorter downwinders, but I think you could also go out a lot farther when you have a paddle too, just cause in the event that you do fall I can just pump myself up pretty much anywhere I need to be.

Which also it adds a level of security too. I think there's part of it. When you don't use a paddle, it's it's exciting and it adds a level of uncertainty. If you do fall, you just don't have the option to, but when you do have a paddle, you have more freedom to take risks and work on doing turns and going faster versus playing it safe.

Yeah. Awesome. There's a pretty big group of guys here on Oahu now doing just downwinders on their prone boards, but they, they stay closer to the surf. So if they do fall in, they can paddle back and and just get started in with some white, light washer or, an on an insight breaking wave versus trying to start on the Oh, in the open ocean, which is super hard.

I'm sure. We've seen, I've seen videos of Dave Kalama just like paddling on a long prone board with those paddles on his hands and just like powering himself into the waves. But that looks incredibly hard. Really? Yeah, no, that's actually, that is like completely, it's amazing too. I actually saw his son.

Austin Kalama, who's an incredible foiler wing foil or big wave surfer, et cetera. And I saw that Dave was using those hand planes to down one foil and Austin was actually using them at jaws, which was really cool and a wild theory. Cause you can just get into the wave so much earlier. So I'm really curious to see what the two of them are going to do with those hand plans.

Cause they're, I don't think they've been used a whole lot in the ocean sports world, but it'll be cool to see where they go and yeah, the fact that Dave can get up without a paddle, like it's certainly is really exciting. And I'm curious to try it one day. Just to see, because I think at that point sky's the limit, so it'd be cool to mess around with that.

Me doing a down winder with some friends it's been really fun to see the progression of foiling. And, I think at first it was just, windswept people and got a little bit of everybody, but now there's so many different people coming from so many different sports and I used to never be able to do downwinders with certain friends.

And now I have people, I have some good friends who are professional kiters and they've gotten into wing foiling, and now we can all go on downwinders together and. It's really fun and opens up so many new possibilities for everybody in the water sports world. So I think it's really exciting that this is caught on as much as it's caught on and I hopefully continues to progress as much as it's progressing at this point.

Yeah. Super impressive. What you're doing any actually, yeah, maybe tell us a little bit about your technique. When for jumping can you give some pointers on jumping? Like how you do the takeoff and like just walk us through a jump on the Wingfield board? Yeah. I think equipment is super crucial in these moments because if you're on a huge clunky board, it's going to be a lot harder to get yourself up and going.

Or at least out of the water with the board, I think up and going, it will be easier. So I think making sure that you're on a smaller prone board is super super nice and having a wing that you're fully powered up on. I. Pretty much all the time, unless I am trying back flips or something, or I it's crazy one deal, use it for a meter.

I don't ever go smaller most of the time. And so for me, I think like the biggest technique thing is really knowing how to use that foil and the edge back rail of your board to your advantage. As you can see, usually I keep my upper body going just straight, like sideways, and then I'll bring my lower body and my legs and I'll throw them up when the very last second you can see it, how I drive my board into the wind and drive my board like up above.

And that's what really gets the foil to launch out of the water and really gets that like final pop. And then it also lets you stretch your body up too, which kind of gets you prepared for the landing. Cause sometimes if you get all hunched up in a ball, it's a lot harder to land versus if you're spread out and you let the wind bring everything back together and back in place at the right moment.

It really seals the deal. So that's how I do it at least. And also helps you cause sometimes if you do jump, just going straight down when you end up getting a lot of momentum downwind, that it makes it a lot harder to to land successfully. Versus if you do use those those swells and bumps to your advantage, it can help you get that initial release from the water.

I don't know if that makes sense, but that's how I do it at least. Yeah, no, I totally agree. That's what I always tell people too, is like probably the most important thing is to really turn up wind before you take off. Because that, that having that upwind momentum lets you hang in the wing a lot more than cause if you go jump straight with, sideways to the wind, you lose the pressure in the wing and you don't get that upwards lift.

So super important to really be carved into the wind before the, before you take off. Yeah, most definitely. I think that's probably one of the most crucial aspects of it. And then I've also found that once I am in the air this was something that I learned with lots of hard landings, but once you are up in the air, you really want to like sheet in with the wing so that you hold and you don't just free fall out of the air, but you pull in with your, I think your right hand if you're going in, but just your lower hand, you pull in with the wing, just so it does capture more wins.

So you don't end up just completely dropping out of the sky, but it's more of just a gentle float down to the water. Yeah. You used your wing almost like a parachute when you're coming down. So he coming down softly or gently fall as much as possible, right? Yeah. No, those are good planners.

Let's talk a little bit about equipment for for winging yeah. Have you, do you have the new wasp V2 wing? So can you tell us about that versus the original wasp Wayne? I just recently actually started using the V2 and all of these videos, I believe they're all, I haven't posted anything with the V2 because it's yet to come out.

But yeah, I'm really excited about the progression and the direction that ozones taking it in. It's super exciting. I think from everything that I've tried, it's by far the favorite wing that I've I've written so far and it's really cool. Just, the V1 and the V2, both of them it's they're really good and all sorts of different types of conditions.

Cause I feel like certain wings I've tried, they really thrive in light when conditions are they're really good enough or and like absolutely new wind. But with this it's really cool. Cause I feel like it's it's really Good and both types of wins. So whether it's, barely lending enough and you use a five meter or you go on your three meter because it's nuking 35, 40 knots the entire range can handle completely different line and range of wind, which is super cool.

And I think the adjustments that they've made from the V1 to V2, or just those final touches needed to really seal the deal and make it in my opinion, one of the best wings out there. And I think it's definitely the one that I would choose to ride whether or not I was sponsored by them or not.

And yeah, I'm really excited for kind of everybody to get, to try it and to hear everybody's thoughts. They added some really cool new additions that are super exciting and some new windows. So it's easier to see some different handle placements and yeah, and overall just the shape. It just makes it a lot more agile and responsive and you're just in control that much more.

So I think if you have the opportunity to get your hands on one, it would be really fun to try. Yeah. We were getting a bunch soon where they're supposed to be shipping, I think in a week or two, where it's supposed to get them in our shops are eager to try it. But like visually, is there a difference in the width of the wing or the size of the leading edge or what's changed and how has the handling different than the V one?

Yeah they actually had, they added a window, which is great. Cause I think you're always riding blind without it. So now you're gonna be able to see through and make sure. Yeah. So actually regarding the window, would you say having a window is an advantage? Is that something that you appreciate having, or do you feel like it's not really necessary?

I guess that's one of those debates that our people are having, yeah. Cause I think like with an added window, you do sacrifice certain materials that have to be used, et cetera, et cetera. But I think. For the overall kind of the sacrifice you'd have to make. I think it is totally worth having, just because, there's a lot less, less likely chance you're going to run over one of your friends that way.

Cause you can see what direction you're heading in. So personally I think it's a great addition and it's not the entire way as clear plastic. So it really doesn't affect the the writing ability at all. It just does add something and it makes you that much more comfortable and I got pretty accustomed to not having it.

So the fact that it is there now, and I don't have to lift up my wing to see where everybody is and if I'm going to run someone over is it's really nice and convenient too. And then I think, yeah, some of the new aspects, they have changed the shape a little bit, but I think technically like in the technical and tech specs of it all, like they've added to that you pump up the center Strat and the leading edge separately, which is really cool because I think I had multiple occasions where I would pop a wing or break it and you're swimming home with a completely deflated wing.

Versus if you do end up popping one part of it, that way it's going, one part of it will stay deflated, which is great. And it makes it a lot easier for you to make it in with your wing and hopefully fix it too. So yeah, I'm excited to see everybody get out there and try it out and see everybody's different theories and ideas on it.

But I think they've they're continuing to progress swinging as a whole, which is exciting. Yeah. I like having two separate valves too, because yeah. Before you always have to push the air out of the center strut, and then it takes forever to get down and then pushed the wind back on the beach.

Yeah. Not that easy. That's cool. What foils do you use and tell us about the foils and the, and then the boards, but foils first. Yeah, I I have the opportunity I ride for MFC and for the hydro whole company. And the relationship between the two, the hydrofoil company is it's an R and D company, so they don't really mass manufacture anything and then MFC manufacturers it for the hydro company.

And I pretty much used the Hydro's foils for 90% of the writing that I'm doing. And I think for me, like it's really amazing to get to ride on all of them just cause they are, they're an incredibly versatile set of foils, whether you want to go toe foiling which in that back foot video, that's what I was riding.

I have an a thousand wing that I use. That's probably the foil I use the most out of all of these. That's what I use for winging. That's what I use for toe foiling. And then when it gets into the more surf boiling side of things, I will use a little bit bigger foil, which is usually between the 10 75 Hydrus foil or the Or the 1250 hydrofoil.

And then when I do that, downwinders, if I'm not using something that's been custom built by the hydrophone company and that's, a high aspect foil, if I'm just going out to mess around, I'll use the 1400 Hydro's foil because that's also, it's also great for them when being in it. It adds that little bit extra lift with the bigger size, but it's still totally numerable when you are down winning and, navigating through the bumps.

So wing wise, yeah, it's really nice to have a foil set up like that where you can just switch out the front wings and the sizes. And it's still very similar riding, but it really does handle such a wide variety of foils. And I'm excited to see what these companies get up to next and how they continue to progress foiling.

And then as for the mask, which I think that varies for me quite a bit, I usually go back and forth between an 80 centimeter and a 70 centimeter mast. Unless I'm telling in bigger waves, and then I'll go up to something longer, like a 90 or maybe a hundred, but that doesn't happen most of the time when I'm winging.

So like in this video, for example, I use an 80 just because it does give me that extra level of kind of support and you're able to gain so much more speed without having to watch for popping out of the water. And it just, it adds that level of insurance almost that you do have more time to react if it feels like your fall is going to pop out of the water.

And then when I'm jumping too, I feel like it does help me gain speed and get me more momentum when I am about to jump to. And then when I'm down foiling, I use an 80 again. It does make it a little bit harder to pop out of the water just because your foils under the water a little farther, but. In the long run, it really gives you the ability to jump jumps a little bit easier and not have to risk popping out of the water.

And then when I'm just surf boiling for fun and, small waist, high waves, I will use the 70 mass just because I think risking hitting the reef a hundred times in one session is it's not worth it. So I'll use the 70 and that just, it really gives you the ability to turn and card. Like you're on a short board almost like this.

So I think that's also a really good reason to use the 70 when you're in smaller waves. Yeah, no, that's a good good summary. I noticed that like, when I used for winging for a while, I used a one meter mass for winging. Which, it is nice going over chop and stuff like that, but you do give up it just feels more tippy a little bit.

And then also for jumping, it's just your, it's just a longer way out of the water, and it's just I like 80 or 90 seems to be the sweet spot for winging for me too. But, and then obviously for surfing or anytime you're in a shallower area, then it's nice to have something a little bit shorter.

Yeah. Saves your foil and for the reefs and the turtles underneath you. Yeah. What about the what about the tailwind? Have you played around with the tailwind wings in different shins and stuff like that? Can you maybe tell us what you, your, you learned from playing around with the tailings. Yeah, definitely.

I've I've messed around with pretty much a little bit of everything. I think my favorite tailing I use right now is the two 25 MSC wing. It's a great it's works for everything. I use it for down winning for winging, for surf foiling. And then also if I do want to go a little bit more aggressive or I'm going in bigger waves, I'll use the 200, which is a little smaller and it just adds such, an like addition of turning and maneuverability and the foil, which is really fun too.

And then I think for me, what I've recently been experimenting the most with, which is super exciting is the lengths of the fuselage. So usually like when I first started winging and getting into all this and I'd use a 63 centimeter fuselage and then I slowly got shorter and I went to a 58, which was really fun and it just adds, it does make the foil a little bit more tippy, but it also adds like a level of responsiveness that I wasn't getting what the 63.

And then it also just like when you are in the surf or you are trying to jump and turn up when at the last second, it really just lets the foil respond to you that much more. And then I recently tried a 53, which is, I think is short as I've gone so far and I haven't tried anything different, but I think right now, like that's my favorite setup to ride.

I have my 80 mass with my a thousand front wing, my 53 fuselage and then my two 25 back wing. I found that for me works the best, just because it does let you card, even though you are on a longer mass, which sometimes will inhibit your your turning radius and your ability to turn, it really doesn't honestly affect you that much, just because I do have a set up underneath the the mass that just lets you turn it feels like you're like surfing on a short board or something it's really incredible, super loose.

Have you noticed that, like you, it's easier to turn when you have a, more of an angle on your tailing, like a with a more, like more lift angle on the shim. Have you played around with the shins at all? I have. Yeah. So I use the red shim, the red or the blockchain most of the time, I think in the MFC Like lime, the white shim is neutral.

The black shim is plus one and the red shim is plus two. So the Red's like the highest amount of lift you can get. And I don't feel a lot of additional turning ability when I sh switch out the shims. I definitely feel different. It doesn't go as fast when I use the red versus the black or the white.

But I think also the foil does tend to be a little bit more jumpy when I use the white and it'll dive a lot faster or it'll do things that aren't quite as expected that I don't want it to do. And so I feel like I have it more in control and I do use the red sham, which is why I predominantly use that.

But I haven't felt a lot of effects with the turning, but it's more on the speed and kind of just the control and the lift with it. I've tried the MSC only a few times, but I've noticed like I was using the white CIM and I felt like when I was going into the turn, it almost felt like I wanted to drop, like you had to add to lean back in the turn.

So it would stay up, which was weird to me because most forests tend to lift when you go into the turn. So yeah. Did like almost the opposite of what I was expecting. So yeah, I can see that probably the more the red or black shin would probably be the one I would use too. Okay. And then what about boards?

What do you use for boards? Yeah. So I'm lucky enough to get to work with Katie surfing. He shapes most of Kai's boards. She shapes the Spencer's boards, Jeffery Tiffin. And it's really cool because I think all of us have given him different parts of advice and he's shaped these incredible foil boards, whether you are down winning or you're winging, or you're surf foiling, he's really mastered the shape and he's made some amazing boards to work with.

So he's pretty much what I'm using right now. Not just in the foiling, but in the surfing. And he's my sole board sponsor at this point, which is really exciting. And yeah, I think for the foiling side of things, he's really gotten it all dialed I have for winging and prone foiling. I use the same board.

It's a four, three. I think it's 25 liters, I believe 24, 25 liters. So it's pretty small. It definitely sinks on me. It acts is it's about the same size is one of my short boards. So it's the same same amount of, leader's just squished into a lot smaller board. And that's, it's amazing. He's added, like if you flip the board over, I wish I had it and we had it with me right now, so I can show you guys but yeah, if you do end up turning the board over and you get to look at the divots and all of these technical things, he's added where, where he has like a step up where the foil plate is, and it really lets you pop your foil out of the water that much easier, which I think is something that certain boards struggled to do.

Cause it does feel like the board's almost been suctioned onto the water. And with this, it doesn't feel like that at all. It really feels like it wants to pop out and release and give you all the control that the foil wants to give you as well. And and yeah, so the amount of progression that I've seen over like the past year with him and these boards and getting to work with Chi and everybody into making them a foil board that performs as well as it performs is been really cool.

And I'm excited to see kind of work continues to grow and go to. No, it's awesome. To just have one board that you can use for pretty much. Yeah. Prone, foiling and wing foiling. Very much the one board quiver that you can just put in the back of your car or whatever. It's that's the one thing I like about wing folding houses, how simple it is and how small that equipment is.

You don't need to have a huge, standard Palo, Reece board or whatever, like that, everything fits inside the car and stuff like that. It's pretty nice. But what about foot straps? Do you use the same foot straps for winging and prone, flailing or use different straps? Yeah, I have four or five pairs of the same foot strap.

I use it for whinging, for profiling, for tow in surfing, in big waves. So pretty much I feel like just for me, it makes it really easy to be able to rely on just one foot strap and note, no matter what sport I'm doing, it's always going to be the same. And it's always going to respond to me the same. I don't know the name of it, but they're just like the declined foot straps.

They're black and white. They're super sturdy. Oh, was it really fat ones? Yeah. This yeah. What are they called again? I forget, but yeah, they don't make them anymore. Unfortunately we can't like, I love those too. I forgot what they're called now, but those are great straps and super. Yeah, I believe, I think they still might have a couple of pairs haiku, cannery.

So if you're over here at all, you can go grab her. Exactly. But for me, those are my favorite bootstraps, just cause I had a couple times I tried different ones in the past. And I felt like when I was prone foiling and I lay on them, like I'd pop up to get up on the wave and put my foot feet and the foot straps and they like wouldn't pop back up.

They weren't springing enough. So like the footstep would just be pressed to the board and I'd be trying to fit my foot in there and it wouldn't work. And then I ended up, either spending the entire way, figuring that out or falling off. So for me, I think they are pretty stiff and they can be uncomfortable to lay on, but it's worth the sacrifice if Still having footsteps that are that reliable and that easy to use.

So that's pretty much what I use. Every time I do end up going with fresh straps and occasionally I'll go prone, foiling without foot straps, just to mess around and just see how many waves I can pump in a row. But yeah, most of the time that's on every foil board I have other than the downloading.

Oh, I was going to ask you, like, when you were growing up, do you have an early, like your earliest childhood memory of the ocean where you're like, Oh, this is so much fun or I love this, or, like something that you remember about like one of your first memories that, where you fell in love with being in the ocean.

Yeah. I think there's quite a few from like different ages. But my family had this thing when I was younger where we'd spend Sundays at the beach. So we call them surf Sundays. And there's a wave on the West side of Maui called poo Amaanah. And that's where I grew up surfing. That's like where I learned to surf.

That's where I caught my first wave by myself. And I think it was, I have one vivid memory. It was a day middle of summer, I think, I believe, I don't know. I was, I think I was probably like three or four at the time. And my parents would do the push and catch strategy, which is like I'd paddle myself out to the lineup.

My dad would be standing in the waves. He pushed me onto a wave. I'd stand up by myself, catch the wave. And then my mom would make sure I didn't go into the shore break and Tableau to the beach and she'd send me back out to my dad. And there was one day that I remember doing it and. We had ended up, we got a bunch of my other younger friends at the time to come over.

And it was just one of the, like for me, like one of my earliest memories of loving the water and feeling that joy of not only enjoying it myself, but spending it with other people that I love and and care for. So I think that for me, like being able to catch waves by myself, or at least being on my own board and being out there with my parents and other friends and family, I think that was for me, like what I remember most vividly and remember falling in love with it from that moment.

That sounds awesome. So your parents support your water, sports ambitions and stuff. Is that, is this what you want to do as a career or what are your goals and plans for you? As you grow up. Yeah. I wouldn't be able to do this if it weren't for their support. And my mom, my dad, my brother, all of them, they're so supportive with everything.

If I ever need help, they drop anything to come and help me, which for me has been, a game changer. I wouldn't be doing any of this. If it weren't for them giving me the opportunities that they've given me. And I'm so grateful for that. And yeah, I think at this point it's really hard just with COVID and everything and the way that the world is right now it's hard to make a plan.

And, but for me, if I could have my dream scenario, I want to be doing this as a career for the rest of my life. This is what I love spending time in the ocean. I want to eventually help the ocean and And give back because it's given me so much and it's fulfilled me so much so far in my life.

And yeah, I think if I could choose one thing and if I could choose how I do want to pursue the next 10 years, I want to continue to make myself the best water women that I can be. I'd love to be the best water woman out there. I'd love to be performing at the top level and all of these sports that I'm doing right now.

And then I continue to learn other sports too. I really want to get into kiting and windsurfing hopefully, too. So I think, yeah, if I could have an ideal scenario would be getting to pursue this for a lifetime and getting to enjoy the water for as long as possible. And yeah, I think, I'm trying to set that up so that's what I have the opportunity to do.

And I'd also love if eventually that doesn't work out one day. I'd also love to go back to school, probably. I guess we'll see, I'm trying to get my options open, but I do have a goal in mind and I hope that I can achieve it one day. Okay. Talk a little bit about other than water sports.

Do you do any other like cross training or do you have any other hobbies and other interests in life? Yeah, I I have a couple I've gotten a mountain biking last summer, actually a lot. So I really love mountain biking. We have some really fun trails on Maui. The macula forest is amazing.

So getting to do that, and I think that's great cross training cause you're biking uphill and then you turn around and go downhill. And that definitely adds a really good cardio workout into my daily active, like activity routine. And then cross training wise, I spent a lot of time running, whether it's on flat ground or on the beach or through sand or whatever.

And then I also spend a lot of time in the gym. There's a really cool gym on Maui and I get to work with some of the best athletes there, and it's really fun. We all get get a great workout in together and not just surfers, every type of athlete or water athlete on Maui that Molly has to offer usually goes to that gym.

So I spend a lot of time in there and it's really inspiring and cool to get to, spend time with all of these people that I idolize and look up to. And then like off of all things active, I really love to draw. I think that's one of my biggest, like at-home passions. If I'm just here and I don't have any work to do, and it's been a long day and it's just a nice way for me to decompress.

I love to sit down and doodle and draw and yeah, it's been something I love. It's something fun to travel with too, just cause, if I'm not reading a book, I can sit down and just sketch something out or, draw something. All right. You're an artist. So that's awesome. Can you can you tell us about a typical day in your life?

Like a typical day in the life of Annie? What's it like, what do you do? Yeah, I think right now with winter still being in place, it definitely varies depending on the time of year, but I think if I were to say like right now, a typical day in my life is I'd wake up. I waking up pretty early.

I usually wake up around six every morning, which is before the sun comes up and I'll leave my house. Maybe we'll get some, eat some breakfast, really fast, leave my house. And usually I'll go and check the waves for surfing. And if it looks fun for surfing, I'll go and get a quick session. And usually with some other friends.

And then if it doesn't look ideal for surfing, I'll go for a run just because I feel like, I have the opportunity to do all these things and running really helps me even out all of the different things that I do. And sometimes I feel like. Foiling a make me lopsided because I am just in one stance most of the time and running helps me straighten everything out, which is nice.

So if the waves, aren't amazing, which with Maui there's definitely quite a few days where it's blown out already or too small. I'll go for a run. And then after that, usually I'll come home and if there's anything I need to get done on the computer, or, running errands, et cetera, et cetera, I'll do that.

And then usually I try and find time for a couple other sessions through the day. I'll go and check it for downwind or for winging maybe another surf session in the evening. And then a lot of afternoons I spend in the gym too. So I think it's all very dependent on the conditions, but a typical day for me is usually three or four sessions on the water.

And then also, enjoying time running or in the gym too, if I'm given the opportunity. That's impressive. Now you got a lot of youthful energy, you know what, one of the really cool things about weighing that I've noticed is that it seems to be really popular with young kids. Like I'm surprised like how, yeah.

How I think a lot with stand up paddling, a lot of times when kids are into it's kinda cause their parents that kind of got them into it or bought them the gear and are growing with them and stuff like that, where. As for wing filing, like I recently had a kid come into the shop and I don't know, he's like maybe 13 or 14 years old.

And he had saved up all his money. He came with his dad, but the dad was like I have nothing to do with this is, his purchase. He saved up his money and he wants to get away, cause his buddies are doing it and he's been surf foiling. Now he wants to get into wing foiling. And I don't know, it just, it seems it's, it is an expensive sport.

So it's, it's hard for young kids to get into it, I think. But there seems to be an attraction to it, like almost like skateboarding or something like that where it's a cool sport versus some of the other like wind surfing and stand-up paddling. I think we're never really that considered cool among young kids.

So w why do you think that is. I dunno. I think it's part of the foiling thing, like foiling a couple of years ago really came back into fourth and I think, all sorts of people love to do it, whether it is, a grom just starting to surf. I think they're super interested in it versus someone who's been surfing windsurfing or kiting for, 40 plus years.

I think it really has an attraction for every person who loves being on the water. And I think it's just an extension of that with winging kiting and windsurfing are the two main wind sports and they've been around for a long time. And I think with this new rise of whinging is like a smaller baby Windsport that's coming up.

I think it's. Caught the excitement of a lot of probably younger kids, just because it is so new and fresh. And I think, the people who are excelling in the sport, like Kyle Lenny's and they make it look so high-performance and so exciting. And it's something that's so new and it's progressing so fast.

I think that's probably a big reason why, so many kids are getting into it just because it really is and that's why I started doing it just cause it looks so fun and so exciting and something so new that you, can't not want to try it. And I think I think, and I hope it'll continue to progress and that kids will continue to get into it.

Cause I think they're the future. And if we want the sport to continue to grow, we're going to need all sorts of different generations to be excited about it. And yeah, that story that you mentioned about the kid coming in and saving up for a ring is really cool. Cause you think, that's like something you get from the surfing side of things and the fact that it's continuing to whinging and foiling and all of that is really cool too.

Yeah, and I haven't seen a lot of young women getting into it or girls. What about Molly? Do you see are you like, do you have any are you like a role model to other girls that you see out there or what do you see on that side for the females? Yeah, I hope to be a role model.

That would be amazing. But there's a couple of girls here who, yeah, they're improving really fast and they're charging. That's super cool to see. I have a good, if one of my closest friends whose name is Olivia Jenkin, she's a professional kite surfer and she's incredible. And she's gotten amazing at it and it's really fun to have someone female at my level and get to go with her and.

And there's a couple other younger girls, there's one girl named Rio on Maui. Who's absolutely killing it. And it's really cool to see her so into it. And so excited about foiling all the different sizes of wings and also just getting into winging itself. And then yeah, it has been cool. And I've had the opportunity to take a couple of girls foiling, not only winging, but foiling and also winging.

And yeah, it's cool to see the fire get lit inside them. And I hope that they continue to want to get out there. And I haven't had the opportunity to wing in many other places other than Hawaii and Maui, but I really hope that when I do have the opportunity to go and travel and get out there that I'll see the same thing, which is other females getting out there and enjoying the sport.

Cause I think, it's for everybody and if we can all get out there and enjoy the ocean or whatever, body of water we're on, that's that's really special. Yeah. Awesome. So who do you go out with the most? I know it's always more fun to go on the water with friends, so who is your like group?

What's your posse of wing feathers? Yeah. I think probably my most the people I go with the most is Olivia, my friend that I mentioned Jeffrey and fin I go with, I love hanging out with them. They're like my brothers. Cause we went to school together when we were younger. So I've known them forever.

One of my closest friends Ridge, I go out with him all the time. I see Kyle out there constantly. I'm sure, Katie Maui came to wild. I go up there and see him out there all the time. So honestly Malley is such a tight community and especially in the water sports community, that pretty much anybody, who winged foils on Maui we'll share sessions constantly.

So I think those people are probably some of the people I see the most consistently, but I'm constantly running into people and having, fun sessions with with all sorts of different water, sports community people on Maui. So for future interviews for this show, who do you, who should I talk to next week?

Who do you recommend talking to? Oh, I don't know. I love to see Jeffrey get on here. Cause I think it'd be really fun to hear the original back flip King. Talk about all of his different style techniques. And honestly, I think anybody, I think it'd be really cool to hear another girl talk to whether it is Olivia or someone else outside of Maui.

Yeah, I don't think you can go wrong, but I think talking to Jeffrey would be really cool. Yeah. Maybe I'll ask you to connect me with him. Yeah. That'd be great to talk to Jeffrey and then yeah. Other women too, for sure. I think that's one of the things that, that Baltz Miller mentioned that we sh it shouldn't just be guys, we don't want it to be just like a guy sport.

We want it to be inclusive. So that, I think that's why I'm happy to have you on the show too. W a lot of people have been struggling, during the pandemic being stuck inside and, maybe feeling anxiety and whatever. Has it a pandemic have had any silver linings for you?

Like something that has there been things that are better than before to you? Or like how has it affected you? Yeah, I think it's an incredibly hard time for everybody. Just, the world itself is hurting and that's always really hard to see, but for me my dad usually travels a lot for work, or he did at least before all of this.

And he hasn't been just because of everything he's been working from home. So I think Getting my entire family home in one place for this long. It was the majority of last year was really special because usually we're always running around in different places, in different parts of the world.

And having us all together and home for this long was really special. So I think for me, like outside of the water sports side of things, that was something that I I found and we were able to, make something good out of a bad situation. And that was something I'm really fortunate in the time we've had together.

And then, I think being at home for this long that's something that's come out of COVID for me. Cause I had trips planned and events that I was going to do and they all ended up getting postponed or canceled. So I think just being able to enjoy this time I've had on Maui, which is, it's my favorite place to be is also been something I'm really fortunate for.

Okay. Yeah. Thanks. So do you have any thing that you do to keep yourself in a positive state of mind or any tips for people that are struggling with, be feeling lonely or just being in a bad state of mind? Do you have any thing that things that you do or that you can recommend or, yeah, I I think it's something that everybody struggles with at some points, especially with everything going on.

And for me, it's hard to say because I'm hoping that everybody watching this gets to, enjoy the water at some point. But I think for me, like whenever I'm in a bad mood or I'm having a hard time doing, dealing with something, or I'm just frustrated if I go and get in the water no matter what sport it is, even if it's just for a swim, but if I go and get in the water and I'm in my it's my happy place.

If I'm. In there. I automatically, my spirits are lifted and I feel better. So I think, for anybody who is struggling, if they do have the opportunity to enjoy the ocean, I'd say, go and take advantage of that. Or, if it's just immersing yourself in nature for me me being out in nature, whether it is the ocean or it's, taking a walk outside or being in a forest or something beautiful.

I think that for me is that's my favorite place and that always like fulfills me and makes me feel at home and at peace again. So I think that's, that would be my word of advice for anybody who is struggling with, just get out there and be outside. I think that's a good good advice for sure.

Yeah. Awesome. So is there, who are your sponsors or who do you want to thank for on the show like that who's helping you out and helping you as an athlete at site? I'd like to thank yet. Anybody who's helped me get to the place. I am not just sponsors, but in equipment terms and and like that, the hydrophobic company and MFC, I wouldn't be able to, do any of this stuff that I do without their amazing foils and Katie.

I'm really grateful for all the support that I've gotten from them so far. And then through ozone getting to ride, their wings has been really cool too, and getting to work with the Maui crew. And then also all of the people outside of Maui through their company has been really special.

And then, yeah, for me, like that's, those are my biggest sponsors right now, and I'm really grateful that I've had the opportunity to work with all of them. And I hope that I can continue to work with other brands in the future, but I think, I wouldn't be where I am if it weren't for those brands.

So I'm really grateful for that. Awesome. So in, in terms of like moves and maneuvers, are you working on anything new? Other in the beginning we talked about doing a backflip, but are there any other moves that you're working on right now or are things you're trying to figure out or learning?

Yeah, I think the back flip for me is my main thing right now. I want to learn it, not just in the foiling. I really want to learn a back flip surfing too. That's a pretty hefty goal of mine, but I when your toast surfing, you're, you have a trap, so it makes it a lot easier, but I really want to learn how to do a back flip toast surfing.

And then of course, backflip winging and a back foot prone, foiling. So I think back flips all around and then the winging side of things. It's amazing to see what balls and and. Tiguan and Jeffrey and all those guys are getting up to, I feel like every time I opened my phone and look on social media, there's like another crazy thing that they've accomplished.

So definitely I'd love to try some of those crazy twists and corals that they're doing. And incorporating, they're bringing the wind surfing side of things into it, which is pretty wild. I don't even know what to call those things that they do, but I'd really love to try a couple of them in the coming months.

Yeah. Have you tried to do like the spin, like where you turn the board into the wind, like the three 60, but it's more like a twist and then a flip, have you tried that? Yeah, I've actually, I made two or three of them and this was a while ago before winter time. Cause I feel like with the winging now I'm more spending time on the waves and spending time just jumping and not doing anything like super technical, but I did figure out a couple of those Pre winter time.

And that was super fun. And I'm excited to kind of mess around with those again and see if I can remember how to do them. Yeah. Yeah. It's so I've been trying them too. And the first day I tried it, like my third attempt, they actually pulled it off and I don't even know how, but, and then during that same session, I pulled it off another one and I was like, Oh, I can do this pretty easy.

But then that was like maybe several months ago. And I haven't been able to pull off another one since then. I dunno, no, the wing, I like, I have it too much over my head or spins too far or something like that. It's I have a hard time pulling them off, but yeah, just have to keep practicing, yeah. But that's what makes wing, folding so much fun. I think that it seems every time you go out there you progress a little bit or you learn something new about it. Yeah, totally. It never gets old being out there. Yeah. All right. So any, anything else, any other things you want to talk about or any last words for people?

Yeah, I think that's pretty much it. Thank you so much for having me on. Thanks for everybody. Who's listening to me, Blab on for the long. I'm really grateful that you've had me on here and yeah, it was really fun talking with you. I hope that we can meet one day soon. Yeah. Thanks Danny. Yeah. I If you come to all, let me know and we'll go win winning together and thanks for coming on the show and yeah, I I'm, I was surprised like, it seems like we've been blabbing on forever, but I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people that are going to watch the whole thing and want to listen to everything.

Surprisingly it seems like it's like such a tiny Part of the population that's actually interested in this stuff, but it's very, everyone's very passionate about it. I think so. Yeah. We're a tight family. Yeah. Super cool. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day. I guess there's no wind today.

What are your plans for today? I think I really love to surf. I'm going to go see if it's a really bad idea to get in the chocolate water on Mallory right now, but I'm really wanting to get in the ocean. But we'll see if not, I'll probably go for a run or do something else, but yeah, just right now, I need to go get the gills wet and get in the water.

Yeah. I guess not too close to any creeks or any run off places, right? Because yeah, it is like over here to this hot chocolate city. You don't want to go. Yeah. A lot of stuff floating in the water right now. Yeah. All right. Have a great day. Thanks so much. Talk to you soon. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks so much, Andy, for being on the show. Thanks for listening and watching. Remember, you can also listen to the show as a podcast on Android or Apple devices. You can just open the app and search for the blue planet show, and then you can listen to it while you're driving or doing other chores and so on.

So that's a good way to listen to it. If you don't have time to sit down and watch the whole thing on video, but of course video is the best way. Cause we're going to try to share always images and pictures and video. I'm a very visual person, visual learner. So for me, it helps to have that visual along with the verbal.

Yeah. So thanks again for watching the show. Hope to see you next week with a great interview with Rob widow, from ozone and Armstrong. Really good stuff in there. So hope you stay tuned next Saturday. And remember if you subscribe to our channel and click the little icon, the bell icon, you'll get a notification when a new video comes up.

And if you watch it during the first week there's no ads. So after one week we monetize it. So then YouTube starts playing those annoying ads. But if you listen to it for the first week, it's ad free. So that's a little bonus for our subscribers. If you enjoyed the show, please don't forget to give a thumbs up, helps us on YouTube and and yeah.

Leave your comments down below. Constructive criticism always welcome as well. So thanks again, everyone for watching. I really appreciate it. Stay still get on the water and I'll talk to you soon. Aloha. .

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

For more information on Alan, visit: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPKTLpvmGrT0JN_NGHv4BNQ/featured

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AlanCadiz/posts Lesson business: https://hstwindsurfing.com/hst/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hstmaui/

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.

And I appreciate it. Of course, please, if you like it, please give it a thumbs up. It helps our ratings on YouTube so far. Our reception has been really good of the first two blue planet show episodes. So I'm hoping to build that momentum some more and a little tip for our viewers. If you subscribe to our channel and listen, watch the interviews in the first week that we posted.

You get to watch it ad free. After a week we put we monetize it and it starts playing ads on YouTube. So the best time to watch is during the first week right after we post it. And you can also click that little bell icon by the subscribe button. And that will give you a notification when we post a new show.

So you can always stay up to date and watch it ad free. That's just a little bonus for our subscribers. So again, thanks for watching and I'll see you on the water. Aloha. 

Balz Muller wing foil interview- Blue Planet Show Episode #2

Transcript: Aloha! It's Robert Stehlik Stehlik with Blue Planet.

I hope you like that new introduction video at the beginning. This is the second episode of the blue planet show. I'm just recording it here in my home office, in the garage. So I'm trying to slowly improve the quality of the show. It just got a new microphone and a better webcam, and then also working on improving the wifi connection.
So the quality of the video will hopefully be better in the future. Yeah, cause I'm just using zoom calls, recorded zoom calls to do interviews with the wind foiling athletes and thought leaders all about the sport. And it's just blowing up right now, wind flooding or wind, ding, whatever you want to call it.
And hopefully this show will just throw more fuel on the fire and just get everyone stoked on the sport. I'm super excited about it myself. And it's really cool to learn things from. Athletes like Baltz Mueller who is super inspirational, just doing all these crazy moves and hearing him talk about visualizing and dreaming about a new moves and then pulling them off.
So he's really on the cutting edge and it's so cool to, to get him to on the show here. And at the end of the show, I asked him who to interview next and he suggested I should talk to a female and then particular Annie Reichert from Maui. So I'm trying to get her on the show. Next. I messaged her. The best way to watch this show is on YouTube.
So you can follow the videos and the visuals along with what we're talking about, but these are really in-depth long videos. So if you want to listen to it while you're driving or doing other things, it is not also available as a podcast on both Android and Apple devices. So if you go to Google podcasts or Apple podcasts, you can just search for the blue climate show.
It should come right up. And you can listen to it while you're driving or doing other things. And the first episode with Zane Schweitzer is available on the podcast and this new interview is going to be available within a couple of days as well. Thank you so much for listening to the blue planet show.
Of course, make sure you subscribe to the blue plan and surf channel down below. Give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. And without further ado here is Baltz Muller. All right. Balz Muller. Thank you so much for joining me. How are you doing today? Awesome. Yeah. So for you, it's at eight o'clock in the morning, right?
And all my coffee for me in Hawaii. It's 9:00 PM.  We have an 11 hour time difference, but I'm going to bed soon. You just getting up. So what have you been up to? We just had an awesome weekend and now I'm looking out the window and it's not snowy, so it's a good day. And it's gonna be windy as well.
It's actually, it's it was windy the past weeks and Combined with some very nice snow. It was a, it's a dream to live in Switzerland at the moment. And I can, I realize that the industry realized now these days that we need good wetsuits and it's insane to see how this sport, how this water sport is growing insane.
And there've been so many people on the water the past weekend. Yeah. Some people ever even scared and they were telling me all how this will end up in the summertime. When now in the middle of the winter time, they're already like 40 to 50 people on the water, and yeah, so basically a lots of action on the water these past days.
And and as you can see also some action in the smoke.  Come complacent only missing the waves. Oh, only really missing the waves Bob out. That's what I'm always telling the waves. We come precise with the wing and the foils because we really start surfing the flat water with the wind and those foils.
They they, with those FA those forests, we pretend we actually surfing waves. What was it?
That's my tree to follow the smell. One of these next one of these next days, we got to figure out how this is gonna this gonna work. As you can see, it didn't really work so far, but all the friends are telling me it's supposed to work. Cause the tensity of the snow is probably like 10 times.
They kid and water, but if we would have a steep Hill and lots of speed, it would work. Everyone is laughing, everyone was laughing and they were all like you're choking and it's completely full, but I think it's possible. And the reason why I tried it now, it was the past two seasons. I was always talking to the one that we got a snow for it.
Like everyone was like, you.
So frustrated. Tell us a little bit about your background.  You're I think you're a 26 year old, or how old are you? Actually, I'm 20. I'm not sure if I'm 26 or I stopped counting, but I feel I'm still young. I still feel young even though in the morning, a bit stiffer after a long day of sailing yesterday when you yesterday.
No, but I'm I'm born and raised in Switzerland. It's not that common for a watersports and also did lots of snowboarding as a kid. I still love snowboarding and I grew up in a family with two brothers and were all fully into water sports. So with the parents, we always traveled to the sea.
And I think that's the reason why we got into a whinging windsurfing, all those sorts of sports. And my background is windsurfing. I'm still a professional windsurfer, even though I feel like I should train more for windsurfing and Too much into winging lightly. My job is still professional freestyle windsurfer.
It turns into professional winging, I think as the industry is turning into winning as well, so yeah, that's basically my short story. Tell us a little bit about how you got into wink foiling. Like how did you first get started with it? Now I think one and a half something some summer to one and a half year ago, I was quite late.
I saw the first guys already trying the first champs and I was like, Whoa, we got to do this. And I've, I'm into foiling since the very beginning and windsurfing almost. So Dean it's been almost six or five years foiling with the winter skiing and this, this feeling of foiling it changed my life.
I always, when I'm back on the normal fin board, I feel like it's ridiculous. Ridiculous straight. It's not that loose and free and the foils they changed my life. It feels like riding on a cloud. That's what the very first beginning the guys were telling her, it's like cloud surfing, you're flying and this loose three dimensional feeling.
It's just insane.  The change from the wind foil with the sail to the wing was not that. Crazy. But in reality, the fact that you're not connected to your board anymore with windsurfing, it, it blows my mind from the very beginning. So like the first day on the first day on the wing, I already tried, I don't know, three sixties and everything like spinning around.
I had most trapped on the board on the very first day. And the board was like hundred 40 liters. So a very good beginning. The second day I took the board with the straps and I tried straight to three 60 in the air.  Took off instantly. And and from that day on, I couldn't sleep anymore without dreaming about women winning and winning tricks and flips and any sort of rotation.
So it took off like this. It's pretty amazing that the stuff you've been doing. So w who is your partner here that you're winning with? Yeah, I'm actually living together with my girlfriend ever.  Together we're mostly always motivated  some, one of us is always motivated to get on the water.
Like yesterday, everybody was even more motivated than me. Cause the wind, it seemed to be nothing. And then we run down to the beach in the wetsuits and it was, it's five degree. The water is even colder. So we ended up at the beach. There was almost no wind, no Whitecaps that we were like for pushing each other.
So there's a great community with my girlfriend, of course, with a raw ham. I think Rowan Michael is a very close friend and we're daily pushing what's possible on the phone, but it all started together with my brothers. They they also jumped on to the first, we were freestyle windsurfing together.
Then we jumped onto the wind foiling, a freestyle stance, and we started to push each other, like the level. One guy was trying a trick on his foil. The other guy tried a trick on his foil. That's how it started. We were like pushing each other to get insane. And the funny thing is now my brothers, they're not into wing falling yet.
And that's the craziest thing. Cause they're still like, There still Oh, I want to keep stick. I want to stick to windsurfing. Cause otherwise I will stop it there. I think there know what's happening, what happened with me? So they're a bit scared that they now they got one project Catholic kind of child.
So he's, his time is limited on the water. So he's more focused on freestyle windsurfing at the moment. I'm pretty sure next summer, like they won't resist, they can't resist anymore. When you see how many people are now winging yesterday, it was a random winter day, freaking cold. And I saw so many wingers on the water.
It's it's so cool. Actually almost a bit scary. Yeah.  Here in a way I've noticed that it's almost more people whinging than wind surfing now here on the wall. Who anyways. Yeah. And it's also diverse is safe. It's surfers it's stand up for others and paddlers windsurfers kiters.
Anybody wants to try it? So it's as a very broad appeal, it seems and this well, quite a big community of newcomers with no, or actually almost no work. The sport background. Which for me is I still remember two years ago, everyone was super like against me. They were like, Oh, one another water sport.
It's gonna kill. It's gonna kill our community. We anyway, that's small. And there are not enough people in both. This will ruin it, and then over the last summer, I could realize that there were so many new faces at the beach, and now the windsurfers, which are fully against it, they're still like, Oh, now there are so many people on the water, but slowly and surely they all start whinging.
And then he, from the first session, you have a big smile. The first moment you're flying it. It's changing your life. It's like the best powder free ride snowboard day, or like the greatest surf day. That's what I feel. So this is some footage here from, is this some Brazil when you were at that world cup?
Can you tell us about your trip and what you did over there?  Brazil, it was very unsure if it's going to happen or not, but we were invited for the first wing for a world championship. It was the second one. That was the first one in silver planner. But it was not yet like officially.
So we, we got invited to for the less than Brazil and it's a city spot in the middle of this huge city and the condition usually are not that great, but they're awesome for winging. It's funny. It's funny to see how you. How you can actually travel around the whole globe, get to a spot where the conditions are not awesome.
And then having such a blast winging with the world best best riders. And that's what actually happened. Yeah. As you can see now, there's for the lecture for the recipe. Yeah, really. We were living the dream in the middle of this pandemic. Beside, beside we took a COVID test almost every day and had to get to strict strict borders to enter the water.
It was so much fun in the water.
How was it traveling like w was it difficult to get there and. And it was good to show at first sight of what could be possible in this new sport, especially with Misa the Brazilian who's surfing. So nice. And also the one who, who makes us dream and really like small or flat waste, they're writing it and they're making it look so good.
It's it took off there. But where it really took off was the week after the competition. When we all went to Jericho Quora, and we were like, everyone was a bit stressed out because for the competition, it was weird. We didn't know what to expect. We didn't know what the church gonna reward or not.
So they were they were definitely what they wanted to see were tricks in the waves. They wanted to see us riding the waves and doing tricks in the waves. But the waves were so hard that we almost couldn't get into into the waves because it was basically only a short break. So we were riding the shore break and that was very scary.
I saw some wipe out zones going to play that. Let me see if I could find it back in Brazil, but there's so much lately there's so much content. There's so much writing. Pretty much in the short run. There's the wash. Yeah. Together with Rohan.  It was the first official competition and we pushed hard.
I would say the more than five guys can completely pounded in the short break cause we just wanted to right away and there was no wave.  We ended up being most of the beach. And as I said before, in the end, they was good. We all came together and then we tripped for to cherry Coke war up in the North.
And that was such, it was such a nice trip because there was the, of course there was the F1 photo shooting, so left in all invited and we were scoring some awesome waves together. And pushing the limits forward falling weavers. Yeah. So it looks like a lot of your inspiration for the moves that you trying to is from freestyle windsurfing, right?
Like you trying the same moves and then, but it's actually, it's, it looks like it's almost easier to do without the wind being attached to your board, right? It is definitely on there much more possibilities. And the craziest thing is that it's actually easier to get into it in windsurfing till you get to a certain level, your champ, your port, I don't know.
It takes you maybe two or three years. And in winging, I would say after two months, you're able to do your first tricks and yeah, you should look at the numbers of writers doing tricks on the water. There's very limited freestylers out there. Maybe, the world tour is like the Brighton 40 people in the world, freestyling and it got so complicated with all those weird double tricks in there that no one could follow anymore.
And I was already now after just one, one season of freestyling, I will tell that they're more wing freestylers that Windsor freestylers. Cause it, it simply, the. So do you is growing now, not anymore into winter freestyling, they're starting straight with Winfrey styling as it's something you, and it's combining the kite free stylists and the winter freestylers.
So they're already double as much writers involved. And the cool thing is how it's combining the styles of the surfers, the freestylers, the kite freestylers. As as Maxim Tablo, for example he's one of the world's best freestyle kiters and these he's putting his moves on to the way now his cart moves and it's combining all the disciplines like kiting surfing, windsurfing.
I it's good to see. And as you said, it's with the right gear. It's. It's accessible for everyone and the right star. Yeah. So let's talk about that a little bit. Getting started. Can you give what kind of pointers do you give to people that are getting into the sport? What would you recommend in terms of equipment and technique and all that kind of stuff?
I think the most important is that you better not looking for a board to buy for your first session. Maybe the best is even to make three or four lessons on basic beginner gear. As you can see, the sport there I was using is a 60 liter board. I would say it's the advanced board for a really good writer, but for getting into it, you need a big board.
Do you need something with 140, 160 liters? So you're floating on your first day. And then on the second day, you can almost go down 40 or 40 or 50 liter going down on a hundred liter board. And then I dunno, after one week of riding, you probably will find your 80 liter board as your prime board for a gusty, like wind conditions.
And some of them probably after one month right at 40 liter port. So if I could give any advice is if you want to get straight into winging something new and you haven't any water sport or for sport background. It's easier to learn wind foiling than any other fall sport I would say, but with the right gear and the best would be probably to rent some big gear or get yourself a beginner lesson and then buy yourself a medium volume board.
You can progress some, and don't think too extreme, not plan to do any flips in your first two months, but. Planned to get all those free writing tricks, which is so nice. You don't need to think about the jumping for me. I was almost one year. I was riding 182 board, so quite a big board, but I was mastering all the tax, the chives, and this gets unlimited.
You can keep on trying, and training your your tricks. Yeah. And the  foil, it's like a 2000 square centimeter foil. But what kind of, what size spoils do you use now? Mostly like for years freestyle and wave riding and things like that. Yeah. I think it's what I'm using these days is like a three foil set up like three wings.
So I still love to use the 2,100 foil, which is the beginner foil. But it's also my light too and foil. So in conditions like yesterday with eight nuts, I used the 2,100 in conditions. Like the day before, where we had 40 knots, I'm using an 820, so a much, much smaller. And for me, when I figured out with 1,500, 1,720, I can pretty much compass beside all conditions.
But it's a difference between the steady wins in Hawaii or the gas, the Swiss conditions. That's what I realized. In Switzerland where we have conditions between five to 50 knots to good day and the wind tolls, they're so crazy. There is no, no wind at all. You drop down even on your big wings.
So I realized we're using quite big wings compared to two ocean spots where the wind is steady and nice. But I still recommend if you get into waning to use a big foil for your first sessions, cause it's just way more fun and it's much, much easier. You can also fly that lower speeds and take off earlier and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, it definitely, for beginners it's much nicer to have a bigger foil. Exactly in her way. Here in a while, we don't really have super strong wind either. You're not like modeling, but if you're riding waves, I just find a smaller oil is so much nicer on a way because you don't get overpowered by the, before it doesn't reach this.
And as well, I realized riding waves on a big fall. You're constantly pushing yourself. Down in a bad position as you're not really using the way, if you're trying to escape the way. So when it comes to surfing, you need a high performance surf foil who actually does too much. But that's, that's, it's another sort of, it's another discipline, even I would say it's still winging, but it's a good point.
I'm wondering in which direction it will turn. If it will be. As it is now, like all in one, that bit of racing, a bit of surfing mean the freestyling, or if you will turn ridiculously into racing as it did in any other world to sports. I hope not. If you could design your own contest, like what, how have you what's like a perfect competition to you?
Like what if you could say, this is how I want the clients to be, what would you do? I would do a serve freestyle race competition, all in one like that. Yeah. But it's like the, it's like the old school surf competition where the hat you get racing through the short break, I'm doing tricks in between.
This would be, this would show the ultimate Waterman and that would even change to gear. Like you need to control any and every gear, like a Waterman's leak. So that would be my ultimate competition. If it would exist. It's, it already exists.
Tricks. And, but you also have to go as fast as you can surf the waves as well. Okay. We had a raised in Tarifa at the second world cup. We had the race, it was called the surf race. There was a. Two upfront laps, and then a down moment lab where we had to serve. Like you can see now in the back of, we put the wing behind us and we were surfing down.
It was hundred meters surfing down with the waves. We were not allowed to lift up the wing. As long as the board would touch the water, we will be on zero speed anymore. So we had to go up wind full speed with quite a big foil. And then we had to surf down the chop. And the feeling was nice. Except some of the guys took very fast equipment and they were much faster upward than the other guys.
And then they have to struggle on the down when it was a cool format and it needs to keep, we need to keep the fun in it. Otherwise it won't be America's cup and only polished high performance foil will we'll have any or any Chinese. We will see
your wig. It's that was that was a stupid stand, a in a very safe like Uber, where the wing would just blow up the shore and that everything would have been safe, but it's very dangerous. And I wouldn't recommend anybody to get out on the ward to, without at least treat out the wing leash. And if the conditions are freezing cold, like they do here, if you lose your board, you're also screwed up.
So it's much safer to use a leash, but also the question like, any, or every question in in waiting at the moment, it's hard to say what's perfect. It's hard to say. Wherever we need it. I mean their wrist leash. I use my wrist. I use the wind leash now around my belly, so I have all my hands free.
That's what I do. It's unlike this. We can even swim. For a short second, you can swim normal with both hands.  But then if your board leash and your wing leash gets get screwed together, it's also pain. Yeah. It's hard to say. I would, anyway, these days I would say nothing anymore.
Cause in probably two or three months we looked like easier. If we did it that way, I won't, I personally, I wonder how the Wing's gonna look like in three months, right? Is there any kind of, do you have any new developments that you're working on and or board or coil designs that like you're experimenting with new prototype?
We, last night I almost couldn't sleep. That was always like my brain is spinning and thinking. And they're definitely a few, if you knew you progress, I'm not sure if it's a progress all the time, we try something. It feels like trial and error. And you're not really sure if it's a benefit or not.
And at the moment as well in Switzerland, it's very hard to get new products with the pandemic crisis. So it takes us almost. Sometimes it takes us three months from the moment we had an idea till we get the first try and then it ends up being very frustrating. And you realize that you're not, you're stepping you stepping back sometimes almost.
So the moment it's not that easy, buy them a goal or a wish for me would be for freestyle. I'm talking for freestyle when it will be a boom. Cause I still prefer the boom compared to the handles for freestyling, but there's so much benefits. And also, the boom is, again, it's more weight.
It's not that simple anymore.  It's hard to say at the moment with MCs, we have a very cool and easy product where we can do freestyle tricks, whether it's surfing waves or even just beginning winging. It's not bad, but we can now no, for sure. But yeah, I agree. I really like having a blue more or like a planned or not makes it much easier as a, before the wing and grab it anywhere you want and you can use to rest, and do the small movements.
I realized a lot. We have such performance wings. But if you twist  your hands, nothing moves on the wing, he just stays in one place. So then I'm asking myself, why are we using such high performance wings? If we don't even can do the fine tuning, the final test mean by the, by your hands.
In windsurfing and kite surfing, it's the smallest wrist change can make a huge difference. So I'm sure there will be lots of development in this direction just to, to progress the sport. We'll see. But everything is still, it feels like everything is just at the beginning. Yeah. Maybe it's only been around for about two years commercially available where you can buy a wage.
Hasn't been that long. What about your boards? I noticed like the, your Emmy boards, they have those parabolic rails  we'll make this snowboard rails. Yeah. So what is I do? What is the thinking behind that sheet? , for sure it comes from snowboarding, the designer, Woah.
He's he used to be a very good snowboarder and what he wanted to get into the water sport were those carving abilities of a negative rails. And for sure, the negative res they, they need a certain flex to work, but we it's, we're not able to make flexible snowboard style surf boards at the moment.
 Still be from the very beginning. What's so cool about this project is Amie project it's from the very beginning we tried outside with, we thought outside the box and we tried something else. And from lots of common and very famous shapers, I'm old, they're very traditional they're. They don't really think outside the box.
They don't want to, I don't even want to try something that feels unnatural. So the coolest thing about this this Ambi project was just we try retry and we fail and we realize stuff. And what I realized with the negative rails, one of the biggest benefits. Now we're talking about just foiling as the tail is quite big.
You can fully stand into your straps before you get going. So the volume is very compact below your body. And you got a super good balance. So that makes it easy for the takeoff before you're flying and as well, the negative rails, they keep to keep you more straight going forward on slower speeds.
So you, it feels like you're taking off earlier with the negative rails. And of course when we using the boards without the fall, you can feel the CARF. There's a certain different card to it. Did you S you almost, it feels like you're gaining speed through the CARF.  It's a very cool project and it's different now.
I like trying new stuff and Yeah. Sometimes it works out if it or everything comes together. And with those Ambi boards, the greatest thing about Ambius that Burnwell as a shaper is not telling me, Oh, you're crazy. This won't work. He's just Oh, let's try it and see where it goes and where it brings us.
And it even brings us into big storms, this clip. Yeah, that's actually on Saturday, we were expecting a store like this as well, and then it just didn't happen. It was it was flying water at certain points, but it was between zero nuts to 50 knots. And and it was almost it was unsaleable and wind surfable.
But with the wing, we had quite a lot of fun. It was just super Gaston. So you would say super strong winds. It's actually easier to wing foil then to Windsor for you if it's gusty. Yes. Because with the custody, yeah with the custody, with the gusty winds, the problem is if you get a gust in your sale, the forward movement is not really happening.
It's just blowing into your sail and you feel a lot of power in your sale. You're not going anywhere. And with the wing as the wing, you're always able to stabilize the wing and put it in uterine so you can release much more wind. So a very strong gusts are are much smoother written with a wing.
That's true. Right then.  It's a cool thing that year. It's still involved in all the business sports, like wind surfing and that crossover. It's pretty passive. Yeah. Even today I want to go kiting today. So that, that's the cool thing you're trying any and everything.
You just do what you feel like and then get out on the water. See, you're always wearing a helmet. Have you had some really bad experiences? I've had some bad white box where you hit your head. Yeah, I used to have very bad winter five pounds, but I'm wearing this helmet already since I think 14 years.
It's still the same helmet. No, my dad, when I was, yeah, my dad, he bought me a helmet. When I got into doing the first pre-style windsurf tricks and I'm still wearing the same helmet, just took, I took out of a layer of foam. So now it fits again. Perfect. But In the past. In the past years, I had so many gnarly crashes.
And when you look at this home, it probably wouldn't be a, it wouldn't be a certified safety product anymore. It's full of scratches and cracks. But , even with the helmet I knocked out in the water. So it's definitely a good relationship to that helmet.
Probably. I probably would miss. Yeah. That's the crazy thing. The crazy thing about water sport is if you, if something happens on the water surface and you're lying, knocked out in the water, you probably won't surf anymore. Any other day, you probably will become. So you always need to, you always need to keep in mind that you're playing.
Playing on a dangerous surface, but that's also nice the surface. It's a big playground where you can do whatever you want. But I'd rather be safe than sorry. And then missing out on any or many good sessions to come. That's why I'm comfortable with my helmet. Yeah, that's good. Let's see. So you're lucky, but now I also need to find A good safety rest, because I think with those flavors, they're good impact.
This is really important during these days, it's getting a bit scary and to foster so sharp. So I'm not that I'm not sure in which direction we'll go. Maybe this voice needs to get a bit softer, even soft edge or something is I think it's you don't want to stop yourself on your on your winglets. Yeah, pretty sharp down.
Yeah, I see the industry and are producing lots of safety equipment as well, which is definitely good. Yeah. Yeah. So talk a little bit about your training and arm also like visualization, like you said, like you dream about it and stuff like that, but like when you learn a new trick, like what's the process I don't know when you learn how to do a back flip or something, walk us through the whole process.
As you said, for sure you need to treat my budget drink. And I'm always telling you need to be able to close your eyes and visualize your body movement from 360 degrees. So if you're not able to visualize in which position you're gonna pull yourself or throw yourself and British, so you will go half rotation up and then drop down straight and nothing happens.
So you before you're trying it, you can always say trial and error, but if you try and there, or you're only going to hurt yourself, it's much smarter to try. We try to visualize your movements or maybe try them before you get on the water on the beach, on a trampoline. And I even took the ring on my, on the trampoline and I was doing flips.
I, I didn't put too much pressure in the wing. So I was trying to flips on the trampoline with with the wing in my hands. And I ended up landing on top of the wing on the trampoline, almost chewed out the trampoline. It's safer. It's safer too, to be able to do the body movements before you get onto the foil and then destroy yourself.
Cause it's different and awkward with the foil to do a flip, but but that's definitely the most important is to Treme about the trick dream about the rotation and And maybe even before you get on the water, close your eyes one more time and then get out and try it the way it feels safe and the way it feels natural.
And for sure, for me, it's this, as you can see this flip here, it's from the winter background, it's almost the same movement or the same move as it in wind surfing. So that definitely helps if you're all at the If you're already at a certain level in wind surfing or kite surfing but still it's for me, it's it's exploding my mind.
What's still to come because it's like a combination of a back loop and a push loop and you but you never really get back when you're not in the mood. You just yeah, but still I see people already trying some. Back when that air rotations, also also by mistake, I had some backward pushes and as you said, it's increasing the speed enormous, but it's probably also the way how we going to do doubles spins or something as we're doing it in windsurfing.
Now these days with almost seven, seven, 1250 rotations in the air. So there's still lots to come. Yeah. And again, I w I'm really thankful these days that the wetsuit industry realized that surfing is not only happening in Hawaii.  Now these days I feel comfortable more with a very, with with with the good suits we're having, because it's not only board shorts riding, sadly for me at the moment, that's still, yeah.
Yeah. So what kinds of, what do you use when it's like freezing cold outside? Yeah. Now these days I'm using the O'Neill suits and I'm mostly, I'm even warm in a four, three, but what I'm always telling everyone is it's useful to make like a onion layer. So you have a thin, like crappy low, and it gives you an extra layer.
And that keeps you warm. And these are lates yourself. And the problem are only the hands it's on the body. You won't feel cold anymore. These days with the suits, it's just the hands and the head of the feet. We, the
exactly. I'm wearing a very cat, like almost a five millimeter hat, but the problem. The problem with those tech hats. It closes your vision, the closest, your orientation, and you feel like you're yeah, you feel like you're in a bag or something and you can't really function.
So that's the problem, but it also gives you a bit of safety. It feels like you're on destroyable as you're progressing. You explain what you do here. Like you switched the wing before the rotation, when you're still on the water, you're already starting to spin like a wing man. Exactly. And on this movement,  it's the main part of district is happening before the takeoff.
As you said before, when I'm pulling the wing backwards, I put so much tension on my body. And as the wing is pulling the reverse and the board is still shooting forward. It generates such a fast rotation and it's it's very similar to the takeoffs in snowboarding. When they're going over a big kicker, they throw themselves before they actually India into the rotation.
And they they generate those weird core rotations. They're cold. And yeah, as you can see it's happening now also in winging,  watching this, that you, I guess that, is that something that also that you learned from windsurfing freestyling, whereas this sort of thing, this is something you, but it's the.
The way I started doing it. I was thinking about I was thinking about the wind surf tricks and with the freestyle tricks, we're talking, the says, are we putting the sail back winded? And we load it up in a, in an awkward position. And as it gets loaded up in this awkward position, it wants to get back to neutral again.
And as it twist this back, it generates this rotation.  There's definitely much more to come in this direction also, really. This is both sides jumped out of those sides. Now we're also jumping in all of the regular stance and this is a backwards rotational. I'm also sure it's possible with a fro forward rotation.
So there's still much more to come. And when we get through this clip here, At the, at one point a bit later, there will be a double pop move and it should, it's supposed to come soon. And I think those back to back, chumps going to be something for the future as well. This one here, this one is just a regular moves and now this one, so there's the first rotation landing and straight to second pop and And then the other one that land backwards and you ride the flow backwards.
Okay. Exactly. But what I think what's definitely also possible is like this year, the back loop and a landing perfect on the wing and taking off straight again, like the air chair, the air chairman's sitting on their forests and they're doing like one flip landing, another flip landing and other flip landing.
I'm curious maybe all industry believers turn into some, maybe we will get some, one offers, so only one wing, and then we could go probably better both ways like 20 kiting. It's already existing 24 Berlin where we're forced actually can go both ways. Definitely not about the cat. Look it up.
It's a 20 filing. Yeah. They're like two same similar wings and they can go both ways. I'm excited to the time to be alive. Yeah. That's awesome. Very interesting stuff.  And you're working on some new moves is there anything that, that you're trying to do that nobody's done before?
In winging there at the moment, latest trick is it's the chief's role, et cetera. It's a common winter move. One of the first rotations in winter thing it's existing, maybe 40 or so. And I'm stoked. I'm able to do it in windsurfing now almost with closed eyes and just the past week. And I was trying some cheese rolls with the wing.
And the rotation felt awkward and weird, but I might need to rethink the take off and it's definitely possible.  That will be another three rotating over the strep. I was twisting my front hand and I was pulling the strap backwards and turning, like throwing myself over the leading edge.
The problem was actually the takeoff as the wing was churning the rotation, but the foil was still behind me in the water. And then when it tripped over me, it just just stopped the rotation and nothing's been, they just did like a straight air with the foil above my head in a scorpion position.
No about them. There's much more to come. And at the moment, I'm just waiting for warmer conditions. Cause it's the forecast for next week. It's all below zero, zero degrees. So it's going to freeze the wings again, and I'm not realized when the wing is frozen, everything is so stiff.
You just don't feel like you want to try some new stuff. But but still it's just so much fun being on the water and writing. Have you damaged a wing because of the free does it break easier or crack or anything or the bladder breaks or something like that? No. Have you had any problems with it about the ladder?
I'm not yet. Sure. If it's definitely, if you pump up the frozen, when you got to be careful. But what I realized with the window material there they cracked quite easy with with cold temperatures. So that's also a main reason why our first wings, they had wing windows.
Then we put them out of the GAM. Again, the windows. Now we get windows again on our wings cause we need it for the safety. We don't need it for the performance, but we need it for the safety. And at the moment, yeah, with the winter says it's the same, this PE material. It's just get stiff when it's frozen.
The cannot be material is more brave. It doesn't really. It doesn't really hurt the call, but but the bladder, I'm not sure. And the other day when I was pumping up my frozen ring, I was like, Oh no. So I was very careful, but so far sometime. So when, I guess like between snowboarding, when surfing, winging, kiting, you basically get on outside pretty much all the time.
Do you ever do any other sports I cross training or other exercise? Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to say that, as you said, with all this action sports with lots of physic effort I really am when I'm going and getting back to bed, I'm bummed. The main focus I really need to, you really need to look at is staying flexible.
Does it as when it gets into the shoulders gets into the arms you actually gain your muscles where you, but which you haven't experienced before and so important that you stay flexible. Cause it's a it's your it's your insurance for your old days? I would say that's what my dad always tells me.
 I'm doing lots of yoga. I'm doing lots of pounds or thing. On a rolling on a skateboard. I really liked this this sort of exams and it's, I wouldn't say I'm into CrossFit or anything like this, cause I'm doing the CrossFit on the water, but besides that, I really need to stay flexible and I'm doing yoga on a regular base.
It's good. It's good for the soul and good for the body.
I think we. Went over most of the questions I had for you. I, what kind of, what do you think will happen with wing filing in the future? Do you see it becoming very, a very big sport, like bigger than wind surfing, kite surfing and all those sports? Or what do you think? Oh, that's ECS as football as it material.
It's a lot of gear involved. So that doesn't really, that doesn't really puts swinging in a, in a. Benefit position compared to windsurfing a win, but definitely I see it lightly. It attracts lots of people and it will be there and it will be there to stay just as any other world to sports.
I'm curious to see if it makes the Olympics. It probably will take 40 years or something to convince everyone that it's. It's it's nice to look at and definitely this the question of the spore will be if it gets too crazy and too complicated, especially the freestyle part and At the moment, the way it is now, it's accessible for everyone and that's why it's boosting up and it's exploding.
And I hope it stays that way and it gets many people into water sports and puts a big smile on our faces. Yeah.  When people want to find out where body, Is the best place to look at your YouTube channel or your Instagram. If you want to find them on Instagram, it's ridicule.
And then your YouTube channel is just yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So what else do you want to talk about? Any, anything else you want to cover your youth wing, floating in the snow? That's a pretty good one too.  Yeah. What that, what the hope is that Yeah. As you can see here with the freezing hands it's it's, it didn't stay.
You see how people go into that much pain to just get on the water and enjoy this sport. And just yesterday I was thinking we were all out of our minds. There were like almost 15 to 20 wingers on the water and in the summertime, they only used to be like three or four people out.
And it's just as winning recently hit our beaches and yeah, it's so cool to be part of this new revolution. Let's say it's a revolution and yeah, I just hope it's we're not gonna have any future body damages with all that spinning and flipping around because it looks a bit awkward there as I'm trying all those weird tricks, those new tricks.
But it feels good being out there and I can't get enough of it. I want to get out again and excited to get on the water in 30 minutes. Yeah. It's so cool to watch you per your progression too. I remember seeing some videos of you maybe a couple of years ago when you were trying some of these spins or just wiping out, I've been out.
And I was like, what is he trying to do? But then now you're pulling them off and it's. So amazing to see that. Thank you. Thank you. So who's your, who do you think I should interview next for the show? It's a good question. I would tell what I'm really curious about is the girls side, especially the Hawaiian girls like army.
I just saw her throwing a backflip yesterday in the star. On these thoughts. Okay. I saw her showing a backflip, but I'm so curious if some of the girls will do backflips soon wing back flip soon. And I think there are a few girls up on the list. Olivia on the, and also, or my girlfriend. Definitely.
It's cool to see that also the girl's side is pushing that the wing sport. And even yesterday there's been a few girls on the water. There was no, none of them was kiting or wind surfing and there'd been a few girls swimming. So it's cool to see that it also gets to go. Walter. Yeah, for sure. No, that's really good.
A good idea to get a girl on the show. I should do that. Yeah. Awesome. Cool. Otherwise it gets another dickhead sports like all those tight, tighter windsurfer. We actually suffering. We self create too many mans at the beach being like testosterone. And it's good to see the change also in winning it's.
Many new faces on the water. Now that's a good hype. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Let's get started. Yeah, so you have fun today and get on the water and post, keep posting all those videos. That's great. Thank you. And I'm looking forward. I'm looking forward to wa to visit Hawaii one of these days. I hope that it's still off my, on my pocket list.
I haven't reached that far yet. Hopefully one of these days it'll be great to meet you here. Okay. Awesome. Looking forward to working with you guys for sure. Cool. You take care.
All right. So that's it for the second episode of the blue planet show. I hope you enjoyed it. Please give it a thumbs up. If she liked it, subscribe to the blue planet, surfing YouTube channel down below, listen to the podcast. And I hope to see you next week for the third episode of the blue planet show.
Thank you again for watching. See you on the water. Aloha. 

Zane Schweitzer- Blue Planet Show- Episode #1

Transcript:  Aloha! It's Robert Stehlik with Blue Planet Surf.  Welcome to the very first episode of the Blue Planet show. I'm here in my home office, in the garage, and my neighbors are doing construction. So you might hear some noises from outside. I'm super excited about this new show and my first interview is with Zane Schweitzer and the show is all about wind foiling and lifestyle and technique.

And so on equipment and anything about wing foiling which is what I'm super passionate about right now. And I want to know more about it. So that's why I want to interview all the top thought leaders on the leading edge of the sport athletes, designers, and so on. And next week's interview is going to be with Balz Muller He's in Switzerland. So we got a big time difference. I'm super excited to get him on the show as well. And talk a little bit about his super radical moves in wing foiling. I was inspired to start the show by Eric Antonson's progression project podcast, which if you haven't listened to it, you should check it out.

I've been listening to it when I'm driving around. It is really a great podcast? And I'm going to post these interviews not only here on YouTube. But also on podcast channels.  That's going to be available soon. So if you don't have time to watch the whole thing on video, we will also have this available as podcasts.

And I know it's pretty long form interviews, but I know if you're into wayfinding as much as I am, you'll be interested to watch the whole thing. So in this video, I asked Zane about his background as a Waterman. He started really young as a professional windsurfer and then stand up paddler. And then now as a professional foiler and also a coach and teacher.

So he has a really good background. And then he talks about an accident. He recently had a really deep cut from his foil and the, from in the waves. And there's a lot of learning experiences that he shares in that. So it's good to listen to, but the visual is pretty gory and bloody. So if you're sensitive to that, he might want to skip ahead to around 30 minutes where we started talking about wind foiling, actually wind foiling.

And then we talk about when filing a bunch and then at the end, We talk about life and life during the pandemic saying positive, having gratitude and so on. And that's actually my favorite parts of stick around for that really good stuff in the end too. So I hope you enjoy the show without further ado.

Here is Zane Schweitzer. All right, Zane. Thanks so much for joining me. It's my first time doing this blue planet show. So super stoked to have you as my first guest. Yeah, thanks so much. It, yeah. It's great to have an opportunity to chat with you again, it's been a while since we've got the connect. So let's start a little bit about your, tell me a little bit about yourself and I'm gonna screen share and play some video of you growing up from YouTube.

Let me see here. I was going to play this video.  Can you see that? Yeah. All right. So tell us a little bit about yourself growing up and all that. Yeah, I grew up here on West Valley over in, Kahana and, being surrounded by my big brother. Who's five years older than me and all his fans and as well, my, my parents.

And all their friends I got to be surrounded by some pretty amazing watermen and water women. I think my brother really had a huge influence on me though, because at that time all him and his friends were like my heroes, like they were all the up and coming junior pros and the sharp board surf world, like dusty Payne and Ian Walsh and Granger Larson and clay Marzo.

And so I was always chasing those guys around and. So I got introduced to, big wave surfing at Honolua Bay at a pretty young age, just chasing them around and think big wave surfing, really set me on a journey to just be super in tune with the ocean. When, as soon as I started feeling like the excitement of riding big waves, that's when I really fell, I was just caught by.

No. And for all by the ocean, because the, for that time, I was probably more enthralled by my little mongoose bicycle, but yeah, pretty quickly, started to, get into winning, surfing and all that kind of stuff. And on the professional tour, I was about 12, 13 years old. When I first started on the professional tour for wind surfing.

Yeah, I really, I first met you. That was that battle of the paddle, right?  The second battle of the paddle when you were just a little grim, I think just traveling by yourself, doing the race when you were still pretty young and yeah, and that was years after too. I was already a pretty.

Familiar with traveling at that point, by the time standup paddling came into the world. But it's cool to see it go first full circle. Because when I was competing as a professional windsurfer, all of a sudden Starboard's started to make these standup pallet boards. And of course we heard of them seeing like guys like Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama out, driving paddleboards, doing downwinders and stuff, staying fit.

I would sent us, sent me one actually Connor Baxter, and I believe we're like the first people in the whole country to, to get a standup paddleboard from star board. And we had so much fun on them before the wind surf event started. We would we would bring these up pal events on our travels and, before the wind came up, We would be out in the water, palling around catching waves and, doing all that kind stuff.

And everywhere we went, people were like, what is that? What can we try this? And we would, young little, 13, 14, 15 year old. And we were like hosting clinics all over the world already at that age at wind surf events, sharing this new sport of up paddling and. And it's cool to see it come full circle.

 We've seen kind of standup Palin and go from being,  this little, a niche of a thing to the world's fastest growing sport. And now here we go again, we got star board sending us hydrofoils. And earlier before that, I got to work with Alex, a Yara and this was my. My real first enthrallment with Stan, with with hydrofoiling excuse me.

I tried it before with Brett lyrical when I was probably 10 years old, but it was just like one time and I was able to get up and go in, but my legs were too small for the strapped in boots. Cause at that time it was on a first-generation rush Randall. Foil Bret lyrical and all the boys layered Hamilton, all those guys were using and, they had one on the motu Island and, they asked if I wanted to give it a go and I threw my feet in it and was able to get a feel for flying, but never, I don't know.

It just was a one-time thing. And until I saw. Alex testing these downwind foils. And I got involved with that early round of development with Gofoil and I, it just changed changed my world for sure. The first time getting out on a foil one of his gold foils, I remember riding it all the way to the beach and thinking this is the funnest thing ever.

Like it was my Dan, the Hina, which I grew up riding and Hola Hina doesn't really ever get too exciting if you're, used to surfing barrels or, overhead waves, it's more of a longboard spot. But with the foil, it was so exciting. These little knee-high away, we were able to, ride all the way to the sand and then even pump back out.

And this was. Before pumping was even a thing. It was just like, wow, we can make our way back out there. It's just Johnny, and it's amazing how fast it's changed because that feels like that was just months ago, let alone years ago. And  the gear has really changed.

At that time we were putting 12 foot six race boards. Onto down lenders with the foil. And then we literally Ross mucin the owner of starboard and cornerbacks there. We would, you're on the boat. Cutting a foot at a time off the board. Oh, okay. 12 foot six then it worked. Let's try 11, six, then there's Stan on the boat with the hat saw cutting a carbon fiber all-star race board just chopping foot after foot.

And then we got down to I want to say we got down to maybe eight feet or nine feet long. And the foil was just too far forward. At this point, it was like, it was just a scrap. And we're like, okay, now we know let's just go small. And after that I put a foil on my shortly after that. Maybe not immediately after that, but Modify the box huddle box onto one of my hyper nuts, a 69 hyper not, which was one.

I know I've used that board a lot. Standup paddle surfing. And I already had the board around in my garage and had this thing modified for a go for oil. And it was so fun to be able to get out on a down Linder and just. Not even touch the water from malico bolts all the way to call her the Harbor, but not only that, the be going faster than I ever could have imagined and having so much fun the whole way down.

It's. I don't think I've done a normal download mirror on a support. And it's probably been about a, I'd say four or five years since I've done like a solid season of training on a race board for down lenders  racing scene. You gave up on that pretty much. I didn't give up on it. I just, I'm having so much more fun doing other things and so much more other opportunities doing other things.

There's, there was a few years in my career and in my life stand-up paddle racing had the most opportunity and there was a, it was floating my lifestyle to be able to be a big wave surfer at winds there for Astana, pallor, but really I was floating it from stout, pallor races and.  Now I feel like we have, we've had a little bit of a shift in trends, stand-up paddle racing and it's just taken a little bit of a dip and either foiling and wing riding or just taken off.

And my sponsors are excited about it too. So if I love it and my sponsors want me to keep doing it. Then why go compete in a Lake in Europe to go paddle 17 miles flat water? For me it's not exactly where my heart is it, but I'm all, I'm definitely a guy who sees opportunity. And so I knew that I could train and I could be a great paddler.

And I've won most of my world championship event wins that are under my bill or from racing. And it gave me so much experience to travel the world and to, get a taste of, really what it's like to be a true professional athlete and racing racers. I definitely it's different than surfers.

You get into diet, you get into training, you do everything you can to get that incremental increase. And so just transferring those skills that I've learned in professional stand-up paddle racing. Into my surfing lifestyle, whether it's big wave surfing or foil surfing and wind surfing, I feel like I'm able to, make goals and smash them.

And it's whether it's a mental obstacle or did I say mental, whether it's a mental obstacle or a physical obstacle, I think between the preparations that an experience in these different areas of sport. Can can implement it, even if it's just I'm just the, my wife and I are starting up our own a foundation this year.

And it's funny because a lot of the lessons I've learned in sport, I'm transferring into business too. And yeah, but I, you do a lot of good things like beach cleanups and looking kids and all that kind of stuff. Is that what your foundation is going to be doing too? Yeah my, our unofficial not-for-profit that I've ran for about 12 years is the insane super drums.

And we've introduced over 4,000 kids. We've lost track by now. It's been so unofficial, but definitely I'd say over 4,500 kids in the last 12 years to ocean spore and ocean activism and conservation. And our main goal of course, is getting them stoked on and having fun with each other.

They're on the water. And then at the end of these

Oh, and then at the end of these events, get the kids hands on with the beach cleanup or some sort of a science and education exercise around coral reef for microplastics or the Marine biology and the. Eco diversity in the area, there's it's a lot of fun. So that's something I've been enjoying doing on my travels and at home, on the side of competing and and training.

And it's really rewarding because I give so much credit to where I am right now as a professional athlete, because of all the lessons and all the mentorship. I've had from, guys like Dave Kalama and my dad and Brett lyrical and Archie CalEPA. And I'm just so grateful to have had these these positive influences in my life.

And I think growing up, my parents always encouraged me to share those same experiences. And now at COVID hitting, all contests going to nothing, it was a good time. I thought to really actually make our foundation official. So yeah, this is maybe one of the first public announcements actually.

But our new foundation is  and Yeah, we'll link to that and have a place for people to get more information prepare. When I asked you by doing this interview, you told me you were laid up with stitches and so on.  Just wanted to get into the story. I probably just posted this video a few days ago on YouTube.

So tell us about this day. I just stopped telling the whole story with what happened and stuff. It started off as, a pretty fun day just trying to hunt for some waves. And I knew it was a pretty windy day. So I brought my wing foil and foil gear as well. And  scored some waves at home, the little Bay first surfing, and there was a blast and the whole time I'm looking at the wind line, just thinking all it's cranking Lynne.

And I cut my S my surf session, a little short to go wing foil at one of my favorite shrimp training spots, unless Molly, and it's a little more countryside. There's usually no one out on the water when I'm, if it's windy out. And definitely the only person, laying foiling the area.

And so this same to go for this day. So I went out on my own very quick session. The tide was pretty low, which is normal for this spot. So I'm just getting my board out, upside down with the foil up and right before I cleared the reef, there is a set that came and it wasn't a big set, but it was, it was about head high, little overhead.

And it was enough for me to hesitate letting go of my board because I had no leash with my board. And so I held onto my board, like just bear hugged it. And in the whitewash, as I'm getting pounded my foil swings around and mix my leg, or I might've even kicked the foil. I'm not even sure. Which part of the flow you hit or are you not sure?

I'm almost positive. Just from the shape of the cut. My mom was positive. It was the trailing edge of the tail wing. And it wasn't very wide, but it was very deep. And that's why I say that because my tail wing isn't super wide. But it went a good inch and a half, two inches all the way to the bone.

And so that's why I think it was the tailing. And the buzz is probably the sharper to it. Yeah, exactly. And so I'm guessing it was that trailing edge of the tail wing and was able to get in at an angle to go. Go down deep as opposed to slice. And so when I got, it definitely hurt, it felt like more of a Charlie horse at first, but as I'm getting back on through the waves, I'm like, I felt something flapping a little bit against my leg and I'm like, I lift my foot up out of the water, which you could see in the video.

I'm like, Oh man, this, I cut myself. And just went straight in from there. And  learned a lot through this video and as well through my talk there, because I ended up doing tying my leg a little bit with my leash. It just seemed like the right thing to do. It was already attached to my leg.

And I tied off my, my my calf a little bit thinking, I could slow down the bleeding and That for everyone who's watched this video and I've included in the caption as well. There's a big, biggest learning lesson for me is you probably don't need to turn a kit an injury, unless it's too big or messy of a cut to have a pressure, a wrap on.

And so a pressure wrap would be better. And once I get back to my car, I realized, Oh, I got duct tape. And so I ended up using duct tape and And I also didn't know I had this little, I almost forgot I had this little first aid kit in my car and it had these gauze pads. And so that would've been ideal instead of tying it, just putting the gauze or a clean shirt or something, and then wrapping duct tape, a pressure wrap for a cut like this the time that a tourniquet would be necessary from what I learned.

Is say if it was like a really wide open cut and you can't just put something over it to stop the bleeding and so yeah, I could have actually made my, then my situation worse if if I had a long drive, luckily I only had about 30 to 40 minutes before I was taken off the tourniquet and being seen by a doctor and Yeah.

So that was my biggest lesson from that is yeah. Mean, I think for everyone who's into sports in general, but also hydrofoiling or surfing and that's over reef, it's always good to have some sort of first aid kit. This one that I had in my car was crap. It's a generic first aid kit now.

After really having to deal with that. I'm like, I've re reassessed my first aid kit and I have a nice, a good sized bottle of alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. So immediately you could wash the wound and the area around the wound. You could have a bunch of gauze. There's, my gauze is great and duct tape or our ACE bandage.

Cause then you could do a pressure rap, but I was lucky that I had some gauze, cause I probably would have ended up just doing a dirty shirt or something. Yeah. It looks like that duct tape was the best movie they made because then get a tight on there. Obviously we have a little bit of a delay here.

That's why we sometimes talk over each other as  silence, but So in terms of like your learning experiences, obviously you said first aid kit, that's suitable for deeper cuts and stuff like that. What about Foil Hatton lane or, have you thought about just like Sandy, the trailing edge and here for us to make sure it's not as sharp or like any other learning experiences that you've been passing a hundred percent.

To avoid all this, just wear a leash, like I, I had a 10 foot surf leash in my car that I used for my surf session before. And I actually, I was like, shoot, I forgot my foil board lease, which is normally a short. And thick leash. And and I held my longboard leash from my hand for a moment.

And I'm like, ah, nah, I'll just know these shit today. It's nothing too crazy out there. This is just another session. I'm always out doing this anyway. And I, and because I didn't have Alicia on my board, I held on to my board and I kept it close to me. Whereas if I just had a leash on my ankle, even though it might not have been a dangerous day or anything that I can't.

Control. It was a random situation where I chose to keep my gear closer than it needed to be. And so add a question button, this video real quick. It said that the clinic closes at 3:00 AM. You got there at three 15 and then, but then all of a sudden you're inside. Is that the same clinic or did he have to drive somewhere else or no, I had to drive to a different clinic all the way down.

All right. No, not to call Louis. Luckily there is another Hina clinic open that closed at four and I was able to go visit them. Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah, I was wondering about that. Sorry, I should put like the little annotation or something on the video, so people know. Yeah. It seems like these nurses are really cool.

And and then I was, I'm not going to show all thing. It's pretty gross. But then you actually pass out while they're stitching you up. Yeah. The funniest part was, these nurses are they're foil and they surf and we're already friends. And so when they saw me come into the office, they're like, Oh, what happened now?

 And we got to, we we got to have fun with it and everything, but yeah, why I asked if they don't mind me filming and they're like, yeah, that's cool. Just don't pass out on us all laughing. And I'm like, yeah. Okay. Whatever, I'll be fine. I normally am pretty good with with all that injuries and treating, being there to treat yeah.

But I think I got a little overwhelmed because I'm stitching, they're stitching me and I'm filming. And then all of a sudden, my mom called and my mom, when my mom called, I went to go answer her phone call. And as soon as I lifted the phone to my head, I just remember saying, I think I'm gunna. And I just.

Went out. And luckily the other nurse that was there, caught me from rolling off the table. Oh, they also injected some like local anesthesia. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they, they really had to go deep in and clean it out. So  they shot me with Santa Ana, STI whatever pain relief stuff. And then they really got in there and scrubbed it with With these these hospital grade bristles.

Yeah. So that's a important process, clean it because you don't want to get an infection, especially when you have a deep cut like that.  They ended up doing three different layers of stitches, one against the bone to close up the muscle. And that, that bar, or that bottom layer, and then another in the middle to pull together that Whitey, fleshy, fat look and stuff.

And then another layer on top to close it all up. And by day two, I already felt an infection coming on. When my leg was starting to get swollen, my glands were getting swollen. I called up the doctor and I'm like, Hey I think it's getting infected. And so I came in and sure enough, it was They needed to on day four, I think it was, they reopened the whole thing.

They cut open all three layers of stitches and they had to do this process all over again, where they got in and scrubbed it with the same stressful thing and and just flush it with beta Nene and all that good stuff. And and yeah, it got pretty bad actually to a certain point where I'm sure you're pretty familiar with staff and Marissa Robert, being here in Hawaii for so many years, but it's nothing to take lightly.

And I've been hospitalized many times and threatened to even, have a lambs cutoff if it were to get any worse. And so I was on top of it, but. This infection happens so quick. It was crazy. And it got to the point where I was like, they almost sent me to the emergency room to get antibiotic Ivy, drip just through my system or I'd have to pretty much stay there for 12 to 24 hours and be monitored.

But luckily we were able to catch it, and they reopened it. They were really aggressive with the cleaning and the draining process when they, when this. Dr. Heidi here stitched me back up after reopening it and cleaning it. What she did was she placed a rubber piece of tubing on, under the the bitches.

And so for them, for the following days, it could actually continue draining out as it's healing. And that's what really, I think, did the job, was, that getting back in there and cleaning it.  And now I'm on the man. I think I'm in the clear and hopefully be back back on the water in the next five days or so.

Nice. Wow. What an experience, huh? Yeah, I've had the same thing happened on my back like that. I hit the back the reef, lift my back and have a big cut and they sorta shut it and then it got infected inside and you had to reopen it and stuff like that was pretty, pretty bad zone. Whenever you have cuts like that, you almost have to heal from the inside out.

Yeah. Otherwise it's and so you got the C bacteria. Yeah. It's gnarly, but anyways, let's not talk about that anymore. It's pretty good. Yeah, we got viewers tuning out. Get nosy. Yeah, maybe we can

but yeah let's talk about wind fighting. Cause that's what my show is really supposed to be about wait, it goes into some wing foiling there after the doctor clips. Oh yeah. Let's play this one here. We get on West Molly last night. It's a good one. But yeah. So how long have you been waiting for now?

I could look back at my journals and probably get an exact date, but  want to say. It was 2018 where I first got to try one with Alan kudus and Pete Cabrina at Kanawha or out wind surfing. And I saw them using a prototype Cabrina one. And I remember thinking, I, I saw it around cause Kai had his videos folk now with one of his wings on the early on.

And this was around that same time. And. I remember talking to uncle Alan and uncle  I can I sample, I can sample uncle and they both looked at me with the most concerned look and they're like you don't have one of these yet. And I'm like, no, I don't have one of those things yet.

Like what I try and they're like, God, this is the only one we have, like in all of Hawaii besides the one I had. Yeah, but just don't do anything crazy on it. And I'm like, okay. And and they were all pissed, because I got up on the thing and right away, just boom, just, I was up and riding and doing planning, jibes and tax.

And I came in, Oh, that's pretty fun. They explode Mitch. And they're just all pissed. Like you just came in and out and we've been trying to do this for weeks and you and I met, I even threw a backflip on my first run out. And I, I remember thinking,  just from all my wind surf experience right away.

And of course with the foil experience too, it was easy to put it together. I got up and ride. I'm like, okay, this is cool. What else can I do? Let's just roll the emotion of a bathroom. And I remember thinking like, Oh there's some potential in this for some pretty fun stuff. And , I very clearly remember sitting down that night and writing an email to to Stan and saying, Hey, Spann, I know you've been a little skeptical, wondering if this wing thing is going to be a trend, but  think this thing's going to stick around.

I think it's pretty functional, and sure enough, here we are What two years later, three years later, I don't know what it was winging is taking over the community and in Maui at least, I mean on Maui everyone's winging. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. They call it the wind surfing crowd, but also the.

Circle the prone surfers, I got into foiling and now they want to win foil. So it's almost like a bigger community than stand up paddling or wind surfing was that it seems like, yeah, just what's in many ways, it's bringing everyone together, which is cool. It's bringing everyone into one community, which it should be.

It should be the ocean community,  and that's why I've really loved my experience with wing. Foiling is. Just like you said,  we're the real popular spa on Mallory right now is called Hulu Harbor. Now that's also one of the more popular spots for canoe paddling. It's also one of the more popular spots for foil surfing over at the break.

And so now you have all these different communities merging together and everyone's getting a little taste for the wing stuff itself and yeah, so it's really cool to be able to also, I think the most unique thing though, is seeing surfers shortboard surfers, cause to me, a lot of my friends who shortboard surf are the most closed minded when it comes to being multi-faceted with multiple sports on the water they just don't care to do anything else.

They just want to serve for you. If it's not good enough throughout the board, they don't want you to do with it.  And now I have friends who are like totally transitioned into foiling and wing riding, where it's hard for them to even get on their shortboard anymore because they just have so much more fun and feel that sense of freedom that we get to feel.

And I, I don't think surfers truly understand that sense of freedom that a wind sport has. But it's, a lot of surfers has had the opportunity to get into. Hydrofoil surfing. Now, hydrofoil surfing is a good stepping stone into downwind riding. And then once you get into downwind foiling, you're like this you're tea, you're getting a taste of what that freedom is like.

But as soon as you put a sail on your hand or a kite in your hand or a wing in your hand, You could just explore anywhere you want. It's a real special activity too, that really taps into the freedom of accessing all these different places on the water and being able to just explore up and down the coastline.

So Zen, obviously in this video, you're doing like three sixties. You're practicing, like doing them over and over trying to get them done. So can you run us through kind of step-by-step what exactly what you're doing and like your hand placement and so on. Just give us like a step-by-step run on.

Yeah, totally. And if anybody's interested for some more of this step-by-step stuff, I have a zero to hero wing boarding tutorial on On, I believe it's a free wing YouTube channel. We have seven episodes currently including a three 60 deep, really breaking it down. Should we take a look at that one?

Okay. Probably better. So as I'm talking and get a better visual. But yeah, I've also, since COVID opened up my coaching and mentorship online to virtual classes, and so I started up the water sports division on belays coaching to IO real popular soccer coaching platform online. And we did we did a partnership with them to do foiling surfing and stand-up paddle.

And so that's been a lot of fun too. People have been sending me a lot of foiling and wing clips lately, and it's a lot of fun to be able to break down these different maneuvers and help people from home, improve improve their confidence on the water with the foil or with the wing.

Yeah, no, you've always been really into coaching and analyzing the technique. Yeah, I think that's something I really like about your videos to you're trying to break it down and make it easy to understand, but actually it's about tax and jive, so that's probably a little bit more applicable.

But yeah. Like for more, a little bit more entry level stuff. Yeah. So one, one of the biggest things that people I think are asking me about are inquiring about on my social media channels and as well through my coaching is how to better their jobs and tax. With switched with switching stance.

A lot of people coming from a surf or up paddle background aren't as familiar switching their feet with each turnaround as say a wind surfer or a caterer, it might be. So what I found to be a really easy breakdown of the jive is to be able to first do a little edge up wind. Don't just get lost going downwind because then you lose power in your sale.

And so what I, what are your wing? Excuse me, before you turn downwind for your jive, do a little edge up when it's like to have power in the wing, or just make sure you have power in your wing, and then you could actually follow through and lead through your turn. Do a nice turn, holding the wing up above your head.

And once your nose is pointing straight down wind, you can let go of your backhand and then start to transition your backhand to your front hand and your front to the back. And that's the point where then I'll start to do a little pump with the board up and down. And I switched my feet with the up and down motion.

I found it to be a lot easier to. Go through that little quick motion of changing your feet from regular to goofy, or regular motion with that up and down pump with that rollercoaster motion, as opposed to just trying to go straight, stay still and then jump into position, and so that's something to really keep in mind that a lot of my students have found to be super helpful is both do your turnaround first with the wing.

Once you switch your hands, your cross stance. Then you could go up and down with the little pumping motion, little roller coaster. And then on your, before you start driving down from a higher altitude, you could slide your slide your back foot to the middle position and do that quick transition from from your back foot to your front foot.

And of course everyone's weight distribution and pivot points is going to be a little different according to their board and their foil. And it really just takes time getting that confidence and the quick shuffle. But remember that the wing is going to allow us to have the S the ability to do that shuffle, and also the slight engagement of the foil up and down.

And so give  your foil something to do with that up and down motion before you go into that switch, and also make sure you have a little bit of power holding your weight up. So you do a little wait lists of footwork. Now one of the best exercises to practice this kind of stuff.

I think for cross spore is his longboard surfing,  doing your cross, cross stepping and stuff like that. Also even just walking a curb in the parking lot before you go out, walk the curb and cross step your fee and maybe practice doing some quick changes with light footwork from one stance to the next.

And Yeah, for the most part it's repetition. Even for me coming in from a windsurf background, it took me a little bit of time to really dial in getting comfortable and, still to this day there's certain situations where I'll choose to stay in my goofy foot stance. What I mean, especially

when you haven't really, the smart board is actually, it's pretty hard to switch stands on. Yeah. You just don't have weapons room for two foot straps and stuff in the front to it. So you're on a wall and most guys that ride in shorter boards, they just don't switch their stance. But, and then another helpful tip is to when you do switch stance at the beginning, it's good to just.

After the jive just dropped on the water, switch your feet and then come back up on the foil again. That makes a lot easier, until you're comfortable moving your feet around while you're up on the foil. Yeah, totally. You could bring the board back down to the water and have that extra stability for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Those are good tips. What about these jumps? Any, can you break those down? Yeah.  No for a little bit there. I was like starting to get a little bit I'm bored with the three 60 and this donkey kick. Cause it was like like everyone was doing it and it seemed like it was one of the only tricks you could do.

And sure enough, that, that motivated me and I'm sure a lot of other people that try and get creative doing other things But these three sixties definitely gave me a lot of excitement in between that transition, cause the donkey kicks are probably the first maneuver I worked on and really dialed the three sixties, both front side and backside both into the wind and downwind were really fun.

Variations of maneuvers to work on. And so I'd say the easiest variation of the three 60 is the downwind rotation in your normal stance. So not S not switch, not on your backside, just going out with in your natural stats are going in. If your natural stance is going in holding the wing doing a nice edge into the wind.

Okay. And then a slight poll on the backhand as you kick your back foot out behind you and rotating downwind. And that one is a really fun variation, but what helps is to the quicker you transfer your hands. And as soon as you, you get off the water with a slight edge into the wind.

Then you could give a little poll with your backhand, but it's more so just kicking out that back foot and almost doing like that one 80 motion with the the foil board. Once you let go of your back hand, that's, what's going to really light up your rotation. And so if you want to slow down your rotation, like in that one right there, I held on to the last moment to keep my rotation steady.

And I'll have a change of pace, but if you want us to really speed it up, let go of that back hand, switch your hands and you get that quick rotation. Yeah. Now once you do come down, you've got to switch your hands really quick. Now this was actually a. Different from what I was explaining the X thousand, a backside one, but that's a good example.

There's four different variations of three, six. These you could do your natural stance, your switch stance. And then you could also do it with a downwind rotation or an up window occasion. Have you tried the ones with the up? I've been trying to do the ones with the Uplander rotation, but keeping the sail keeping the wing and just spinning the wind when the wind have you tried those.

It's so funny. Every time it looks like that every time I want to do one of those, like three sixties without into the wind without letting go, I ended up doing a backflip or like some sort of a sideways backflip. And it's funny because I have wing riders. Ah, shoot. I'm spacing his name. One of one of the last, so there's that wing event in Brazil?

I think the guy got sec, second place. Oh yeah. Paul's Miller, right? Who got first place? Paul Mueller. Oh, and then what's his name? A younger kid. Yeah. I'm from new Caledonia. Tetouan yeah.  Teton. So Tiguan. Actually messaged me and he was like, dude, how in the heck are you doing your back?

Flips like that, like more like straight up and down. And I responded back to him, dude. How in the heck are you doing you're sideways spinners?

Yeah, it's just, our unique style is more I'm I more naturally can throw the top to bottom.  More like up and down type of flip, but I have a harder time with that more horizontal spinner.  seem to have the opposite where he maybe has a, some sort of a block for the straight up and down, back flip, but can do the sideways back flip slash three 60.

And so I've been actually playing around with it quite a bit and still haven't. Felt super comfortable with that maneuver. But I do feel like the backflips are keeping me real busy. The other day I came pretty close to landing a double back. Oh no, maybe walk us through the back slope. Yeah, like what's I see it's almost like you're doing a windsurfing backs will be look for a steep ramp and you just throw yourself back, but can you break it down step by step a little bit? That's something I've been wanting to try. This is the backup.  As a windsurfer and for the Winster viewers that are listening you can relate to this Robert, approaching a lip or a wave for a back loop and a friend, a push loop is a little different, right?

So I was making the mistake early on with my back flips of going too far into the wind. And there's a certain point where just the wing would be like awesome all up against my body. And then it's hard to bring the wing back in a position where it's getting powered up. And so then I started approaching it more like a push loop where actually just before you hit the wave, Go at a straight reach, maybe even a little bit on a downwind reach.

And so just slightly downwind into the wave so that you could actually have the power in the wings throughout the rotation or throughout the majority of the rotation. And so you could see right there, there's a moment where  the back wind the wing like a push loop. But I'd say it's easier to do this with a little bit of download, as opposed to a little bit of upwind.

And so right there, slight back wind. And then what you'd want to do is not have it get stuck in that back winded position. You want to be able to whip it right back up and over your head. So the more you could have the wing powered up throughout the rotation, the more smooth it's going to be.

Okay. So you're saying go a little bit upwind more yeah I guess like a push loop, but then, do you think about throwing your head back? Like just trying to take, so I'm a takeoff. Totally. Yeah. So I take off point your point downwind slightly. And I like to think of it more so with the,  you angle the wing from pointing forward, like it is now to all of a sudden you just drive your upper pant your forward hand up your bottom hand around, and you're looking over  your front over your shoulder, behind your head and really throwing the wing like this, like whoop.

Back towards the beach, you load up the power. So then you point it straight up in the air and then  your hands continue that momentum behind you. Now, all of a sudden you're swinging the wing behind you as your body's arched. And then from there you just got to, you time the arch, depending on how big your jump is.

You arch more. If it's a big jump. And you are less than tuck. If it's a small jump for me, I have a lot more fun throwing it off of waves because I could get way higher and I could just have more fun with the arch and play with it a bit more. But the Flatwater ones you really have to spin them quit.

You want to like it's all with the flat water ones. It's more of that slicing rotation. Like you go full speed. And you slice your foil slightly up Rand, a little bit. You hit that chop and immediately you're just throwing your feet up into the air. As your wing is getting powered up to the sky and pulling and throwing behind you.

And with the Flatwater ones, I think it's really important to pull that front hand, pull that front hand in. And back when the wing sooner, rather than later. So you could  fold the, fold the flip as opposed to the smooth roll. Yeah. Cool. Thanks for that breakdown. Let's talk a little bit about here and stuff like, so what.

 What have you learned about, the foil gear, the wings and all that kind of stuff?  Any, anything you can share on that? Just all top secret stuff. Not, yeah.  Try and ride whatever I can,  I'll try and give tests, test rides on all the gear, because I think.

I think there's a lot of concepts floating around, but everyone's doing the same thing,  or at least in the past, it's been like that everyone was making the same type of thing type of design. Now you have people getting a little more out of the box. It's in a little more risky with the designs and concepts.

And so testing gear right now is more exciting than ever. I of course work close with star board and AK durable supply coast. So the most majority of my sessions, I'm riding the star board foils or the AK foils. I've found that I've just wanting to go smaller and smaller. That's one of the biggest things that I've noticed with a lot of my wing riding lately is Anything with the wing in my hands, I'm probably going to be using a 1300, a thousand or an 800 on now.

And so quite small wings, as opposed to what you might be riding in the waves. My most used wings Wing size for the actual LinkedIn. The inflatable wing is a four meter and a five meter. Believe it or not. Especially because I like a smaller hydrofoil wing. I sometimes prefer to have that little extra power to get me up and going.

But of course on now you get away the three meter a lot. And those days where you do have the three meter wholly could really just feel so lively to be able to do some quick rotations and flips and things like that. But there's something about the four meter and the five meter that just flows.

If you just want to fly high and. And flow.  Usually end up going one bigger than I want. Yeah, easy for beginners.  We usually recommend going with the bigger foil just because it makes it easier to come up out of the water and it's more stable and you can fly under then, yeah. The smaller foils are just once we get on a wave this cause the big foils. They're just not fast enough to keep up with the bigger ways or faster moving ways. And then for attorney to inquire that you do get that just the small nor the veteran really almost right. Yeah.

Yeah. Th the idea is, the bigger, the more lift, the smaller, the less lift now with less surface area and a smaller wing, you also have the opportunity to go faster.  Would say if you're learning, you want to go on something around 1600 to maybe even 2000, if you're a bigger guy. Most of my lessons that I teach I'm at our foil school here on Maui. Cause we've been teaching hydrofoil as one of our primary activities, our surf school It's, most of our lessons are getting guys out for their first time on a 1600 behind the boat or a jet ski.

And there seems to be a pretty comfortable size to not be moving too fast but have nice slow speed lift and control. But as you start getting better one of the things that you're going to start to notice maybe before speed, is that ability to roll into your turns. And so as a intermediate or beginner rider, you might not want to be rolling into turn so much.

You want to do more flat pivotal turns where you're keeping the board flat, and you're just doing these direction changes, keeping the board flat, but. As you start to get better at it, you can have a little bit more opportunity for maneuvers, by leading into enrolling into your turns, the wider, your span is on your wings.

The harder it is to roll into turns. And so that's one of the biggest reasons why I've really wanted to go smaller with wing riding. Because a lot of the time you're edging, right before going into the air for a big jump and a flip I'm edging into the wind for that last little bite of power.

Or edging downwind, a little bit to release power. And so being able to have that little extra control of edging into the wind or Dowling turning side to side is important because as soon as the tip of the wing, Breaks the surface, if you're rolling over and you have a wide wingspan, th it's you're not going to be able to lean over as much before that wing hits the water and breaks the surface and then gets X-rated and you lose you lose all your all your lifts because air gets under the wing.

And yeah, I think if you're working for more performance stuff, think about the width of your wing. Not necessarily just the size. Yeah. That's why I also like the super high aspect. Wings are not necessarily that easy to arrive because yeah, when you turn it, when you try to turn them, they breach more easily because they're so wide and I have such a wide wingspan and they don't have occurred.

So having a lower aspect, sometimes in the ways it's actually easier to use a narrower phone. That's not as wide. But as I'm sure you're starting to see in your, local foil spots, it's, there's different types of foils. You have some people who are just really into pumping. Some people who are, who could care less about pumping and they just want to get their terms to be a little more critical and just make it look more like a shortboard maneuver, and then you get other guys who really want that. Just smooth ride and be able to not really turn too much, but just feel like their Cadillac, they're just cruising, and so depending on what style you want to achieve it's going to determine  your gear, and so if you like to pump around and you like to connect waves and you want to just stay up and riding, then Hey, a high aspect.

Foil 13 to 1600 is probably going to be really nice. You might really like just pumping around catching plenty waves, but if you want to do start to do break the tip and do really nice snappy turns and really sharp radius turns, then maybe a more medium aspect, low aspects, foil.

It's going to help for those sharper turns. So you were saying you do beginner lessons for foiling and stuff.  Maybe, can you talk a little bit about the most common mistakes people make and like sweet. Get some financing, just beginners, I guess the very beginning four-lane tips.

Like what? Cause sometimes once you get more advanced, it's harder to think about  The challenges of learning. Yeah. Yeah, totally. One of the, one of the biggest things that I think helps for the student is to start with a clean slate, try to approach this sport humbly and almost forget about your previous board riding knowledge, because our surf knowledge, if we stick to it could hinder us.

I also recommend doing some sort of mentorship or lesson if possible, because you, I've seen a lot of people who are very talented athletes, just beat themself up and spend more money than they need to both on gear and maybe even medical bills. There's a, there's an appropriate way to do this.

And I, I tell you what. It's learning behind the boat or jet ski with a coach and in a controlled environment with the appropriate learning gear.  If you're a first time rider, you buy a kite surf foil on Craigslist and you Mount it to your short board and you try to go paddle around. I tell you what you're gonna have a hard time.

So if you can. Get behind a boat or jet ski and start off with very little movements, keep your body and the majority of your weight over your your front foot, which is counter intuitive from other board sport. And also keep your center of gravity straight over that for oil or. More so you could think standing upright, which is also counter-intuitive from surfing.

A lot of times surfing, we want to get really low and sometimes our butt and our chest has a tendency to get over the water foiling. We really want to try and bring our way over the foil. And so in the beginning, I'm always reminding my students, your center line, make sure your feet are completely along the stringer or the center of the board.

Make sure you're starting off with the majority of your way over your front foot to keep the board on the water, make a goal of keeping the board on the water before you get into flight. And then from there you from control on the water, you could slowly distribute your way back towards your back foot and slowly achieve lift.

Now, one of the biggest things that's going to help with the smooth transition here is to immediately shift forward again, because achieving lift is so much more easy than controlled landing. So as soon as you start to feel like you have control of the board on the water, your body over your front foot, then check your posture, stand up or rack.

Keep  your body more upright and control that weight distribution back towards your back foot. And as soon as you feel that lift shift forward again, nice and smooth and bring the board back down because that transition. From nose up to nose down, lift to land is what's going to give us all of our control.

It's that transition up to down, that transition from water flowing on the bottom side of the wing to the top side of the wind. So as soon as you feel that lifts shift forward again, and then you can take it slowly from there a little higher and shift forward, bring it back down. A little higher shift forward.

And instead of bringing it down, just neutral, level it out, you're not going higher. You're not going lower. You're just have it level. You're focusing on your eyes and your breath your eyes focusing out in front of you, and also focusing on your breath, minimizing your movements, because the best thing you can do, especially if we're talking controlled speed behind the boat, holding the rope.

Is keep your movements minimal and control your weight distribution from the front to the back and back to front. Do you have people like when they are being on the boat yard to all try to get out of the week or do you have straight behind the boat? Oh, totally. Yeah. I think you'll feel real quick.

Those bubbles from the weight and this these. You want to immediately get out of the bubbles and out of the weight in order to feel a little bit of control and feel that smooth sensation of foil moving through water,  relate it to an airplane. Would you rather be flying on an airplane it's her the whole time, or would you rather be flying and smooth air?

No, it's the same thing. If you want controlled flight, then try and find smooth water outside of the turbulence from the engine. All right. Yeah, it was this really good point. It's going to begin here. I appreciate you for sharing so much love to my YouTube channel, Robert. Yeah, I got it. That's the whole idea of play some videos while you're talking.

So talk a little bit about like on Instagram you were showing some I had some footage of you when filing a jaws, getting  guess you were actually let go of the wing and then the assertive without the wing. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, totally. So that was really exciting.

I was a little under prepared as far as my equipment goes, because I only had My smallest wings I could get my hands on from AK was an 800 square centimeter. And this is something that I pump around on and surf with in shoulder high waves, but it was the smallest thing I had. So I decided I would build my experience out at payoff, then see how it works.

And so I was out on my normal setup that we saw there in that video for eight. A four eight board with an 800 square centimeter foil. And I didn't have a jet ski year or a budget to pay for a team. And so I went out there thinking, Hey if it's a tow day and or if it's windy, I'm not going to miss on the action.

I'm just a pump up my, and go wing into some waves and have some fun. And I was just thinking of it as like a way to stay out there and have fun, right. Accessibility opportunity. And and yeah, I ended up having a lot of fun, getting into some waves with the wing, and that was the first day anyone's ever taken a wing out at out at Paoli.

And it was not as functional as I thought with that foil though. And the wing itself, because I couldn't get going fast enough with the speed of that wave. I kept feeling the sensation that I was stuck at the top of the wave or at the middle of the wave using my wing. And eventually with, because what happens?

The wave moves so fast and it hits the Tradewinds to the point where the wind is literally going straight up. It hits the wave and it just creates a parent lift going straight up. And so as I'm dropping in, down into the wave, the force of the apparent wind against my inflatable wing is more. And so I want to drop in, but it's actually lifting me out the back.

And so I thought. I'm just going to ditch my wing. I took, I went back to the channel. I took my leash off of my wing. I I  gave a little heads up to one of the jet ski drivers and I was like, Hey, I might let go on my wing. Can you get it? And he's okay. And so I went into the wave and I, right as the apparent wind started to catch me and lift me up, I let go of my wing and was able to just continue riding the wave with my hydrofoil.

But, even then I realized it's not just my wing, that's slowing me down. It's actually my hydrofoil too. I mean my 800 Senan square centimeter hydrofoil, I felt like I was completely maxing the thing out, just leaning so far forward, trying to keep the thing controlled and Yeah, I still, I couldn't quite go as deep as I want it to or get as critical.

I really ride how I wanted to, but regardless I got to build experience foiling out at  and I got to learn a lot about what kind of equipment might work and what isn't going to work out there. And no, after talking with Kai, he was like, dude, you're crazy. I can't believe you're out there with that foil.

And I'm like, what do you mean? And he's I would never ride anything like this size on anything bigger than like a 300. And I'm like Oh shoot. Okay. 300, 400 good. That's a hell of a lot smaller than 800, I was happy to be able to pull off what I could with what I have, I don't have the big budget to make custom wings or a big budget to have water safety and jet ski teams.

But I got to have so much fun that day with the self assist, with the wing and riding with foil. And it was a good day for it. So it wasn't super crowded. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm waiting for my big wave foil though. I told star board and AK I'm like, dude, I need a foil to push start building more experience in big surf because I'm comfortable in big waves.

I really want to push the limits. I just need something that will allow me to handle that speed. And in that force, I'm sure. A few days after that, I think Kailani was writing. Even postseason a video of him, like getting these errors on the off the face of the wave and like floating down the face of the closet.

Yeah. And that was actually just with a normal toe board. Yeah. He's pulled into those ways, right? Yeah. So that was, I wanna say The end of Jan. I don't quite remember when he did that, but the day that I went out was January 3rd and sixth with the win-win. And later Kailani went out. I want to see later in January and he got surf his toe team pulled him with with the tow rope on the jet ski and one hand with the wing and then got into it on his toe board.

No foil. And then as soon as he grabbed on to the wing, it was pretty much fly time because that apparent window I was telling you about. And there's definitely something to be said about opportunities for just no foil on a toe board, having fun with that apparent lift. And if you're a, if you're a hang glider then, you look for those locations where you have that apparent lift to give you that nice long flight when you when you slide off now, this essentially the same thing, except the mountain is moving into the wind.

And so honestly, I can't wait to try that. That looks so fricking fun. What you guys did with the with the tow board and the wing. I'm really excited to give that a go. It's pretty inside. It's a little hesitate temp for me though. I'm as I'm goofy footed. And so as soon as I got get off the water in that situation with my body, lower body, all twisted my upper body, my lower body wants to start doing a three 60.

And so it's but I'm going to get, I'm going to find someone to tow me in like that and give that a go once. Once my injury heals up, for sure. Yeah, it's amazing. He gets so much float out of that. Like this fund here a lot of brands go straight up the face. So it's like this floating in the air.

It's so cool. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. If he sees an, if you see, tell him, I'm interested in talking to him about that too. Charlie, let's just talk a little bit about, advice, life nutrition what you do to. Hey saying during the pandemic and stuff had gotten any advice for people? I know I, during the pandemic, I went to know so many people are struggling with loneliness or addiction and things like that.

Depressed,  any lifestyle or any tips on living, living your best life,  as Robert, we're very fortunate with our location here through this pandemic. But we still have experienced, a taste of the law, the lockdown and business closures, and,  it was a pretty crazy time even on Maui.

I'm not sure what it was like on a wall, but it was wild and I'm very grateful that I was able to be home through this because there is a A short time there where I was stuck in Indonesia through February. And all of a sudden borders were closing. Airlines are shutting down and I couldn't get home, no matter how much money I had, I couldn't get home.

And it was scary at that point, but luckily, we were able to find a flight home and I made it back. And so I started off this pandemic with a good attitude because. I was facing the reality that I might be in a foreign country without my family through this really uncertain times. Early February when I started, when literally all of Bali shut down and my contest dollars there for canceled, all of a sudden, I tried to get flights home.

You couldn't even get connected with the airlines. They've busy slides shut down too busy. And so it was. For me to get home and be with my family. It was like a sigh of relief. But then I started realizing this is actually real serious. Like I started losing a lot of my sponsorship funding. Our business shut down.

Our surf school had to legally shut down. Our All pretty much all our whole community had to stay inside for a certain time. And  started to feel like, Whoa, this is our whole lives may change. And I didn't want to let that consume me too much. And so I I tried to stay as busy as I could, however I could, whether it was, Keeping up with home workouts while at home, I'm doing pushups and pull ups and sit ups and rebuilding my website and catching up on emails and all that computer work that I always put aside because I'm having too much fun in the water.

That first month was like a lot of catch up. I was able to catch up on stuff and then the second month came and I'm like, Oh, this is still happening. And, Still not making money for anything, not are any of our businesses are sponsors. And so I started to realize, I need to get creative, making some money.

And I started offering online coaching through since we couldn't do coaching at our school, I started doing online coaching and I S I got a lot of people doing wings, full and foil video submissions for personal coaching. And that kept me pretty occupied for a bit. One of my big goals that's been lately, keeping me really motivated is starting my foundation.

I mentioned earlier, I have had an unofficial not-for-profit for over 12 years called the insane super gums. And now we've we've decided to go all out and get our five Oh one C3 and. Get us in a position where we could do more for the kids in our community. And so our mission at  is to inspire the KCI, to choose healthy, active lifestyles that uplift our community and environment through mentorship and sport.

And and we try to get kids stoked on surfing or paddling and boiling and in return inspire them to be ocean guardians themselves and care for. This natural environment that, that brings so much opportunity into our lives. And we offer scholarships and equipment.

And and so now that I actually have this five Oh one C3 filed and we got our website going and it's the last thing too. If someone wants to donate, where do they go? They could go to  dot com and that's K a H a. K U K H i.com or they could reach out to me through any of my social media and I'll share the info.

Our website is not public yet. We're still working on launching and we should have our five Oh one C3 paperwork within the following month. So we're, so my wife and I are really excited about that. Because now it'll give us a chance to  maybe even. Get more kids that we want involved in these programs because in the past, we weren't legally allowed to pick up people.

They had to already have rides. Now that we have a foundation, we could actually pick up at risk kids, underprivileged kids, alternatively abled kids, and be able to physically take them to the beach and and get them set up with scholarships for equipment, for mentorship. For education and science based programs and a hundred percent with the goal to give these kids passion on the water and a reason to to be guardians of our community and environment.

And  that's been keeping me so excited lately and, especially with this now I'm, can't be in the water at all. It's been really fun. But for everyone out there who is on more serious lockdown, I have friends out in the Philippines and all over Asia, we're still it's serious lockdown.

And the best thing we can do in these times  is true and keep our mental and our physical fitness up, and our mental and physical health is so important. And so it's too easy to get caught up, looking at Facebook or YouTube or Netflix all day. If you're locked up in your home, give, make a goal, give yourself one hour, start with just one hour to yourself, whether it's trying to do some stretching, some breathing, a little bit of physical fitness and exercise.

Even if you have a tiny little studio apartment, maybe that means just doing some Wim, Hof breathing, maybe that means doing some push-ups and pull-ups maybe that means doing some journaling,  and getting familiar with a daily routine that you could have. That's all, distractions, because I think even for myself it's so easy to just wake up and.

Get sidetracked in work or in social media or brand caught up with the overwhelming, whatever you have going on in life. And I noticed that if I don't give myself that time, which is usually best in the morning for me, first thing, just give myself that time to, to know how I feel, to know what I want to know.

If it helps me throughout my day. Yeah. Sorry then to drift down do you have a routine things that you do every morning? Like a certain routine that every morning do for care? Exactly. Like what you do after you get up? I love to drink tea. So tea is a good routine for me. I'll wake up, I'll get some tea going.

I like to do my morning journaling. My morning journaling consists of a meditation. That's instilled it. It starts off with writing down three things you're grateful for. And and this was a practice. My grandmother left with me.  She told me that grab at with the attitude of gratitude.

You'll never have an excuse to be unhappy when you're grateful. You'll always have something to be happy for. And so through these times, I think it's more important than ever to stick to my journaling routine. And I've kept up to this over the last 10 years, almost to the day, no matter where I am in the world.

And so I try and I'm keeping to that, my morning journaling starts with gratitude and then it starts with three things that I could do to make today. Great. Three things that would make my day feel proactive or feel. Feel successful. And first thing in the morning I'll sit there and it might even take me 10 minutes to really think what do I want to accomplish today?

According to how I feel, according to my current state of mind and my wellbeing what do I want to do today? And just those three little sentences that I write down that determines every choice I make for the rest of the day. Then if I met with the choice. To watch a Netflix show or to work on my website because I did that little journaling in the morning.

I'm not going to get sidetracked and procrastinate. I'm going to get straight to one step closer to my day, being successful to my day, being one step more amazing. And then I'll also finish it with A daily affirmation on a community a community goal, which I call a blue life choice. And Robert, if you've been following me over the year, as you've probably seen this hashtag I've been sharing,  live a deep blue life deep hashtag deep blue life, hashtag blue life choices, hashtag embrace the power of choice.

This is my way of taking my daily. Journaling and meditation, which is very selfish, but that's the point of it, right? It's to it's the tap into our own. It's the figure out how, what we want to accomplish for how we're feeling. But I believe from over 10, 15 years of journaling, that my most. My most prized days that have stuck with me both in my mind and in my heart and stand out the most.

When I recall my journals are the days in which I could accomplish a goal that helps someone else, or that helps our community. And so a blue life choice is my way to recite an action that will uplift me immunity or environment around. It could be something as simple as planting a tree.  Or supporting the local farmer's market or it could mean doing some coaching online with one of my students who's been wanting to do some coaching.

Maybe it can mean sending a thoughtful message to a friend or family member that you haven't talked to in a long time. Heck it could either need writing a review on a product so that it's changed your life, or it could mean, A number of things, it's the possibilities are endless, and the more you start to practice gratitude, and the more you start to bring in others into your daily choices, the easier it starts to become, to be grateful and to be there for others and to be there for your community.

And I think that's why I'm so happy. I owe so much, it gives me chicken skin because. I think back to my grandma giving me my first journal and you know what she said, Zane, if you journal you'll never forget your experiences with the world and its people. And if you're embraced the attitude of gratitude, you'll never have a reason to be unhappy.

And I owe so much of my success, my mind state. And my values to the simple practice of taking a few minutes each morning and even each evening to journal I've I, I even take that same practice and into the evening, but then I'll write down three things that made today. Great. Three things that I actually did and accomplished that made today.

Great. And then I'll write down something I could have done to make today better. That's awesome. I love that. And so for me it's the base of my mental my mental health, but it's also the foundation from my manifestations and my journal thing and my hour of choice, because we might not know it, but we rely so much on our subconscious calls to action.

And we sometimes have to, be a little more conscious with these practices is that we know are gonna be more that are gonna be healthier for us. And yeah. I might rather get on YouTube and watch some killer surf videos or or go run out of the door and surf even.

But I know if I don't do my journaling in the morning, I'm missing out on an opportunity I'm missing out on. On bringing my day to the fullest. I'm missing out on truly tapping into how I feel today. Yeah. Good. Awesome. All right. I think we went way longer than asked you to schedule, but I really appreciate it.

That was really cool stuff at the end. I think that's good advice. Advice, but I dunno what do you want to leave people with and who do you Where you want to plug in anyone spot your sponsors or I know, cause last time you met, you gave me your book and you talk about the journaling in there too, I guess a lot of it.

Also your stories, I guess I've, I haven't journaled since I was like 18 years old, I think, but maybe I should start doing that again to  good way to start your day for sure. I like that.  I'll share with you my favorite journals if you're looking for them, cause there's a few that I like that that really fit this style of journaling.

And I'm actually working on publishing my second book which is this exact style of journaling. We just talked about with those blue life choices incorporated into them. And  guess to leave everyone off, I'd like to share my gratitude for all my supporters online. Like over the years I've tried to separate my life online and personally, because I find it in authenticate myself, but I've found that through these times, I'm so grateful for my online community, because it's given me a voice through this these times it's given me a platform to stay, to feel like I could keep busy and to keep sharing with others.

And I think that's a huge part of me. And I didn't really realize that truly until I was stuck at home on quarantine is how grateful I am for all of you guys that. Tune in to my Facebook or Instagram or watch my newsletter every Friday or, it's and for those guys who take it a step further and actually get to the share surfs with and get out on personally with, yeah, I think we all won't take those experiences for granted after this time with COVID, but but yeah.

Thank you to all the viewers and also. So my sponsors that I have today, they're still behind me, even through these challenging times, a star board and an AK foils and Maui Jim sunglasses on Lewis surf, co you know, Celsius energy. Now foods appreciate it. Robert MuTu for giving me a chance to talk story with you.

Sorry. Oh, sorry. My bad here. And then the wifi disconnected and I lost Zane at the end, but I help you guys as much out of this interview as I did. I learned a lot helping you too. And if you liked this show, also check out next week's interview with Baltimore. And we post a new video every Saturday at 7:00 AM coy time.

So make sure to subscribe to the blue planet surf YouTube channel down below. And give it a thumbs up. If you enjoyed it, ask questions and comments, questions for future interviews that you want to know about. And let's try to answer it all. So thank you so much for watching. See you on the water. Aloha