Episode #33 - Mike Raper

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Wing Life Podcast, where we talk about wing-foiling and the lifestyles of those who enjoy this great sport. Hey Mike, thanks a lot for joining. I'll thank you Luke really appreciate it.

[00:00:20] For those of you that don't know my name is Mike Raper, the brand director of the North Force North Cuybe Wooding, but today I think we're going to be talking about foil, so I want to go the foil for off-on, so we'll all crash into that. Awesome.

[00:00:33] I'm based here in New Zealand with the product and marking team, so I run the North Force brand. We're going to have fantastic team of designers, engineers, markers, and yeah, we're really lucky, blessed to be in Auckland, which just has a range of fantastic conditions all year around.

[00:00:50] Really lucky. Oh yeah, New Zealand is like we're now in so many different beach breaks, so many beautiful little spots there. Yeah, how long have you lived there? I had so many being back here about six years, I think yeah.

[00:01:04] Actually learning to be a North Islander if that makes sense, New Zealand's can be split into two islands, one in the far north and one on the south, I was originally sort of family and everything from the south, but we've moved up to Auckland for six years ago.

[00:01:18] So I'm just learning to be what we call an Aucklander, but yeah, absolutely loving. So there's some tropical conditions and the serves always on. So it's pretty good spot. So where were you born, Mike? Born in New Zealand, Wellington.

[00:01:34] But move to Hong Kong when I was coming back five years old, okay? I grew up in Hong Kong until I was about 15, 16, came back here at school university, down on Canterbury Crosschurch and then lived in Hawaii for a year and a bit off and on and then

[00:01:52] to basically travel with David while I was so lived in Italy for a year, brand headquarters originally for former brand that I worked for and then eventually ends up moving to China Hong Kong.

[00:02:04] I worked in Hong Kong for about 17 years, I think it was just managing the Green and Bre. Oh, yeah, yeah, a lot of fun. It's been great fun. So I kind of consider myself a little bit international in that sense, done a lot

[00:02:18] of traveling and okay, last count. I think I visited about 60 something countries. Oh, no way. Luckily in the industry predominantly, so good beaches with wind and surf. So I'm about a pretty good, lucky journey. So that's pretty awesome.

[00:02:32] Hey, when was the first time you came into contact and got the bug to even start in wind? Wind, oh man, young. So I grew up as a Sid Gruff in Hong Kong dead was a sailor competitor in sailor.

[00:02:48] The International Matt Schrake racing circuit and I was kind of, you mentioned came a rear con with all the, I'm coming up club. So no, I was super, I was one of those little grums that grew up in the up club in

[00:02:57] the water sailing, we were eating, found surfing in a young age, not that surface great and con with, wasn't too bad. And managed to get into the sailing competitive sailing, de racing, did a few worlds and fun 15s and various other levels.

[00:03:13] But mainly found the wind surfing when I was about 11. Really excited, really lucky to have some of the biggest manufacturers of one surfing equipment in the world based in Hong Kong in China. Oh, you know, that's a new, that was Neil, and Gastra back in the day.

[00:03:29] So he's to get your Robbie Nash Gastra, Wade, so a handmade arms and beyond don't pick Neil Pride sales racing. So I could buy them all it. They know me, you know, not a lot of people read them in Hong Kong, so I could pick

[00:03:41] them up for a few under dollars each. So I was always super lucky at sort of storm university and he's helping out to come back and pick up fairly inexpensive here. Because you know, recognize it, by boarding and surfing, foiling, bill, fairly expensive

[00:03:55] sports, what I call luxury water sports. So yeah, it's honest to be able to afford a lot of equipment. Oh yeah, no, Duke time. No, I always had that bag that never, I'm on the water, so two, three days a week.

[00:04:07] And just love, absolutely love what I'm doing to be honest. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, that's one thing I talked to a friend of mine today and we're helping out another job done in working on.

[00:04:18] And I was the guy gets to live in his passion and work in his passion. And it's like, hey, like he runs a bike shop and he's an avid cyclist and I said, hey, would you ever use you anything else?

[00:04:28] He's like, no, no, like when do you find that niche where you can put in like, I know you've been putting in a lot of hours. You guys have been really busy over at North, late, they with a lot going on.

[00:04:41] When you find that niche, you can, it's an accelerated like it's not you know, judging I guess as much as more and you can connect with passion and love and and all that kind of thing. Absolutely. It's, I mean, I can send myself super lucky.

[00:04:57] I've always been in the right, basically, right time, not the smallest person in the world, but I've a different work path. And I'm pretty good at straining myself with really exceptional people. So I think that's kind of my super powerful had one.

[00:05:11] We just connecting with good people, smart people and being able to work in the industry. And I think I've been in it now for about 30 years. So I've considered myself a little bit of an old timer. But you know, still trying to stay young and focus 1050.

[00:05:25] But yeah, I'm still as frothy now as it was back in the day. So you know, just being able to work in China for most of the, you know, not easy and, and basically, until I think 2017. I was spending a lot of time up in factories.

[00:05:41] He's been a day a week in factories, just working through the manufacturing processes, product development and the cycles and the systems that work in there. So as, you know, we were lucky to, just being lucky to have that balance of both sports, based on competing, kiteboarding early days.

[00:05:56] I'm sort of some of the early red ball competitions events they got to write it at a fairly high level. And then transfer that passion into making products for, you know, kiteboarding beginning. As I mentioned, for Kareena and then, we've seen more recently from North from about 2018 onwards.

[00:06:14] We took back the North brand. Well, we had the brand that we took back the license from Baltimore. So I was asked to set up team here in New Zealand where we brought together some of my

[00:06:26] favorite people in the industry and luckily they kind of were jumped on board and saw the opportunity of working with a brand like North has access to North sales technologies and materials. You know, a lot of good-brain realized that North sales was established 1957.

[00:06:41] And houses incredible heritage of making materials. Hence why we've got so much energy and effort into our wings specifically for wing boiling. A lot of it comes down to materials and that material technology transferring into, you know, the elongation properties or working with materials and designs to really

[00:07:00] get that form and function, I'm working together at a more of the deep, hopefully, the more affordable price. You know, recognising products are kind of up there in prices, premium pricing but we're trying to give our customers the best technology we can

[00:07:14] to the lowest possible reach out price. So it's been really exciting. You know, it's a, yeah, incredible journey and a lot of fun. Yeah. So what was your first entry into the industry if we can touch on that?

[00:07:28] I was early days, I think it was a, I used to work retail during university holidays. I was kind of trading and buy things up and come from China and bring them back to New Zealand, so that was part of my income.

[00:07:39] And then the other part was working as a wing surf instructor and a surf instructor. So it's been through that. So some majority of my income, so ended up working at retail store. That kind of led to wrapping and being an agent in New Zealand and then

[00:07:58] Australia and then working with the sales force for the old brand in Europe and helping them in the early days. So I think I did that in 2000, 2001, I'm trading my age here a little bit and then I got that kind of transition to an

[00:08:11] offered to move to Hong Kong to where in the New York wide headquarters and with the upright win surfing and with Kibrinat in peace. Some of those other brands and I took that opportunity around with that kind of

[00:08:21] silver soiled little bit to the devil and the sense that Hong Kong doesn't have the best conditions to be honest. But really enjoyed the ability to learn from boss liking your pride. It was just one of the legends in the industry.

[00:08:35] Just morally ethically, really honest and really sound. But they're just able to be nimble whilst still running a pretty big company, pretty big brand. So it learned a lot. You know, if you come in, it pounders first and spit and

[00:08:48] froth and we'd we'd move and we'd change and we'd pivot and we'd try to improve our products. Over that time, just learned to see you around. And also creating really good relationships with clients and suppliers are as much

[00:09:01] apart of this business as anything, reading those long term partnerships with them and the understanding like every day we talk about how amazing our partners are on the manufacturing side that the knowledge experience they bring to the partnership is just incredible.

[00:09:16] And we really rely on on this partner's hugely for our designers, engineers, and project managers. We're totally, so no, it's sorry, yeah, so I've been around for a while. But as I mentioned, started the North again in 2018.

[00:09:30] I think we designed an entire kite-waring range in just under 12 months. Well, and launched in market 2019. We're a little bit late. You see the foiling market, we were looking at kiteboarding for those first couple of years and just really investing in majority of our time

[00:09:43] and getting a really solid kiteboarding foundation. So we've gone from zero to an hour in 2018 to I think we're now number two in the market kiteboarding. So it's done a phenomenal good job to get a really solid consistent range of products that are performing.

[00:09:59] This episode is brought to you by Saladida Kiteschool in Laventana, Mexico. If you've caught some of our stories yesterday on Instagram, you'll have seen that. I just got in a couple epic days of Dan Winding. We got a 10 kilometer Dan Winder done with my buddy Mickey

[00:10:16] from Salt Spring Island. Today I got in an epic one with my friend Britt. We went from Latuna all the way to the beach and back. Heck of a fun time. If you're looking to learn, there's nothing better than getting a lesson from

[00:10:31] the pros at Saladida Kite School. They are positioned at Latuna and now that I've been here a little while, I've gotten the opportunity to visit to a couple different spots. It is one of the more beginner friendly beaches with some nice sands

[00:10:44] so you're not walking on any rocks. They do offer professional jet ski, assisted kite and wing foil lessons. So once again they're at Latuna. So if you want to grab a beer after grabs a ice cream, grab anything. It is a nice little hub there.

[00:10:59] So you're not just stuck in the middle of nowhere. So they have you covered if you want to learn a kite foil or looking into Dan Winding. They got top quality gear as well. So don't hesitate book your lesson today by visiting Saladida

[00:11:13] Loveentana.com or send them a message on Instagram at Saladida Kite School, at Saladida Kite School. A high-sale books, winning competitions, hitting the podium is constantly so we're really proud of the success of that business and that allowed us to

[00:11:31] do change a little bit and we started developing foiling products at the end of 2019. So we were a little bit later to the game compared some of our major competitors. And that definitely put us on the back foot, but it also gave us an opportunity to

[00:11:48] test their products, benchmark their products and really clarify, sometimes if you're at the bleeding edge it's quite hard to sometimes make a product and it does or doesn't work. We were able to benchmark off their products and really decide a direction for our brand.

[00:12:06] Just an hour of goal is to really keep it simple, keep it easy to use. But most importantly, still keep the performance to the product. With a really good sort of affordability. So I still believe North foils especially are some of the most

[00:12:21] high performance and affordable foils in the market. However, a lot of our competitors have just got a little bit more of a snowball effect with a lot of people recognize a different brand and they buy what they see.

[00:12:34] But you know, I always ask everyone please give them a give-and-off try. We've been investing really heavily recently and to not only the wings and the boards, but most importantly, foils are hydroproiled system. And that's been a really big push for us.

[00:12:49] Yeah, let's go into that system because it's unique. It's interesting and there's good engineering behind it. So let's go in. Let's dig into this boat. I think so. Yeah, I mean, we kind of, it's a classic, I always say this to everybody just

[00:13:05] flip over and North foils and fuel, but just put some weight on the wing and just fuel that the bend of the mast, it's especially a carbon mast. And fuel that torsional flex by twisting those wings to the

[00:13:17] forward and the after. And you'll find that the geometry and the stiffness of our so-and-a foil carbon system is as good if not better than some of our competitors. In fact, our standard carbon system even on the data because we measure it all ourselves.

[00:13:31] That data, we are actually up there with some of the high modulus systems. And especially the connection between the mast and the fuses critically important. We have a system called geolot, which we've patented while and that really does give us a rest of the performance

[00:13:47] between the mast, the fused and the front wings. We've worked really hard with being a little bit slower in the beginning, but we really ramped up over the past three, four years to start to deliver some phenomenal front wings performance wires.

[00:14:00] And I think we've really come from a sailing heritage background with earlier product manager for foils. There's a naval architect so his understanding of fearing and shapes and what works and what doesn't work has been amazing. But most importantly, his ability to

[00:14:16] he's a concert specialist. He's freed-sprie's live sleeps, carbon. Oh wow. And lay up some materials and that again, combination without wing design and denion, who's just the most intelligent person I've ever met is that they're able to make these samples and prototypes

[00:14:33] that we can put out to our testing and really push the limits of what's possible. So we're really proud of the series of wings that we have on the market is basically three of them. Okay. There's the HA series which stands for

[00:14:48] high-spig ratio, which is very high speeds and real fishing glide. But they do have quite a high-stores speed so they can sort of drop off for a quite high speed. So you're going to drive them at a high speed.

[00:15:01] Great for racing, great for winging if you're turning in on huge waves, some of the smaller wings that just fantastic speed, allow you to get out in front of the wave and race some of those big 30-40

[00:15:12] wave faces. But all the way down to the question, just say, can I hop on my two footers? Can I use that in surfer on a two footer? Not yet. It's easy to come. You've got to drive them fast.

[00:15:24] And that's why we've kind of got the HA series here and others are smaller percentage with ourselves. The majority of ourselves are in what we call the MA series. So this is a medium-aspect ratio series and it sits in the middle of the

[00:15:37] performance and the MA has a huge wind range. It got really good bottom-end so they've got a very low-stores speed. Yet when you're pushing with the wing or if you're throwing on some big waves or riding prone surfing you can really drive them at a super high speed

[00:15:54] and not as fast as the HA's but you know what? Not far off on the speed spectrum. So big speed range, quite a narrow span, really fun to roll and carve and turn. And as a family of products you can

[00:16:07] start on the biggest MA is that the 24-21850 in the packages, 1500 even. And this is what we kind of call our beginner intermediate series subsizes. So if you're really big dude let's say you're living in Florida, you've got light wing conditions you can get out the 2400 or the 2100

[00:16:25] and you can get up and get riding. However the 21850 kind of about package wings those first wings you buy if you're getting into this fork really easy to use. It's really easy to get up on foil and most importantly all of our wings and that series happening

[00:16:43] incredible pitch stability. Now not everyone knows what's pitch stability is but what it means is when you're going at a slow speed or a high speed the pitch of the angle of the wing doesn't change. So it's

[00:16:56] really stable. It says really consistent. Some of the brands you have to move you wait for as you start to go faster because the wings start to lift. Yeah, um because they're creating so much lift or when you start to

[00:17:06] a little bit slower some others some of the wings kind of have it tend to drop down a little bit so we've made sure that all of our wings no matter what size having incredible pitch stability. So you do not need to

[00:17:18] move your feet on the board and that's across as she is across a J-range in a range and our S-F range which I'll come into when they're saying yeah sure. Yeah, M-A range. Victory can those those thoughtful sizes. Those are kind of a big volume

[00:17:32] service especially to a lot of people coming into the sport makes you really easy you can use them as you like wind front wings in the future and then as you get down to the next sizes the 1200, the 1050, the 850, the 700, those next four smaller sizes

[00:17:47] are amazing to free ride winging. You can ride away, you can go fast, they've got a low-stall speed and they still got a really familiar feel that you've had on the bigger sizes. My personal favorite coming up is you're going to put some out before the meeting but

[00:18:02] switch for example that's our 2100. All right and that's as you can see it's a pretty big wing but very, very easy to use and has an incredibly tight toppings the M-A, 850 things in comparison so in the same range of products

[00:18:26] but the M-A, 850 different you can say it's going to slightly lift or shape has a really nice tight toppings in your turn very fast, brief bun and just rolls from side to side. That's an US wing so these wings are only just launched.

[00:18:45] We call them the M-A V2s we had a range of M-A's in the beginning but we've really been working on these fast 18 months through the whole range of sizes and the feedback has been fantastic. Retellers, consumers, schools, writers, everyone's come back and just say

[00:19:03] one of the best all-round I'm not just saying that I'm genuinely one of the best all-round M-A wings on the market so if anyone's listing please give them a go. White personal that that 850 is might go to most of the time I'm 92 kilograms

[00:19:19] over 200 pounds a little bit of a dead bob but working on that. It really works well for those the 850 is just set that beautiful balance for size that just works so well. You can still pound them a little bit but the roll on the car was just phenomenal

[00:19:36] and it's just got such a low-stall speed when you're going for transitions, jobs, especially tax. Just kind of carries you through those tax so jet and unions. Isn't it crazy? I'm so yeah we're really proud of the administer.

[00:19:47] Isn't it crazy that we're talking gate 50 and we're talking about Glye and we're talking about easier transitions because before you're just dropped like a stone. I literally just had a friend he's just got back yesterday and he's just spent like through

[00:20:02] some mower and just been watching progress over the past year, year and a half and he's literally gone from his big wings and I said no dude take the 850 take it to mower. He's like Mike it's too small we're only ever ridden like 1050s,

[00:20:15] more or less than you know 1200s came back and he goes you savor it. I think just having that consistent wind and having a cow's sort of 35 or 42 front wing is just meant that he's

[00:20:30] having amazing ability to and and he just came back and he said the roll was incredible wave riding was amazing the top band he said it's just blitzing people on the water for speed, he said on transitions and

[00:20:43] slowing down and carving on the on this way to set the low really low straw speed was just an on mower. So now we're super proud you know none of the wings have any tip reach or ventilation along the wing to it's the

[00:20:55] flow just water flow just really reconnects beautifully to the wings so yeah super proud and come wait for everyone to tip it with ease and they won't like because of your earlier stuff as soon as you got any part of the

[00:21:06] foil out of the water it would just collapse. Yeah yeah it was I think it's been a big learning curve for us. We've now none of our H.A. series in me series or S.S. series have any tip reach issues with

[00:21:18] we've figured out how to, was that giving any IP away we've figured out how to resolve that and make sure the flow just connects immediately afterwards. Oh beautiful I think the other the other the other wing series that we have is the

[00:21:31] S.S.S.S stands for surf so effectively the surf series kind of operate at the lower end of the speed spectrum so they've got me relatively low speed. They don't have a super high top in speed but if you're

[00:21:44] into wave riding and carving and kind of most people I see a pretty big marketer people who go winging on a crank out wind and deep power the wings off the leading inch and just

[00:21:56] surf down when like you can it's kind of like a powder run just got lump some bumps everywhere you can crank those tight turns on some of those bigger open ocean swells and coming and riding sort of pull out before you

[00:22:07] get to the beach break and the S.S. series really allows you to do that. We launched the 1230, the 1080 and the 930 in March and we're just releasing now being new S.S.S.S.S certainly it MysT-30 and

[00:22:26] S.S.S.'S-18 are and honestly the S.S.S.S.S for coming late might one of my new favourites for wave daddy and early planning so the S.S.S.S really is fantastic for prune surfing so it's really

[00:22:40] our surf range of boards you can down one with them they do have a lower speed so when you get into those open ocean as well as really big ones. We don't recommend SF series, but if you want to get into the

[00:22:51] sub, you want to get into the train surf, you want to do so small lumps and bumps for downwinding with a Hamgod 2 on the fetch and we have fairly close period. Then that SS work really, really well, especially the 680. So, incredible feedback from team riders, customers,

[00:23:08] and the SF series just big. And also actually for some people who want to use a wing for light winging conditions. Sometimes they find the SF series is if you just want to go on,

[00:23:18] you don't want to go in super-weaking fast but you do want to go out and you just want to carve turns and you want to do transitions with coming without coming off the foil. You can pair

[00:23:28] the SF front wings for that as well. So, really versatile wings both the SF and the M-A series. But the M-A series definitely has a biggest win-raint. So, if you're a winner, go M-A. If you're a

[00:23:38] winner who likes a little bit of surf, go maybe consider the SF series and give them a demo at your local retailer. And if you want to go super fast, the HE series definitely definitely

[00:23:49] a lot of time. And obviously it's super important to pair the rare stabilisation with the front front. Yes. It's very unstable. People don't make it or a lot of people make it is not

[00:23:58] pairing a really fast stabiliser with the fast front wing and a slow stabiliser with the slow wing. You just don't want those to want to get that combo correct. Because if you get it wrong

[00:24:09] and you've got to say, you've got a really slow front wing and you've got a super high fast rare stabiliser. It's just not going to engage and create less debt that low speed. So,

[00:24:19] you really don't have anything there or she gets. So, make sure you've got a slower rare stabiliser. You've got a oil riders guide is the fantastic A to Z on the entire North

[00:24:32] foil system. It really does help you understand what do I go aluminium do I go carbon to what length of master go 72 85, you know, wings predominantly at a five, front knees can also 72, can be 85 on the big days over here days. And then obviously

[00:24:51] the benefits of those products. And most importantly, what front wings is you buy a sonar four edition and that means a mast, a fuse and a rest egg was it in a bag. And then you're able

[00:25:02] to put a front wing you choose a front wing that you want to go with that. So, our system was completely modular. You'll never grow out of it. We have no intention of changing the system.

[00:25:12] So, once you buy into that into that ecosystem, that modular ecosystem, you know that you can always pair and play with different fuse lengths to 60 700. Could we check out your fuse? Would you have any fuses around that we could see? Yeah, it's a little bit salty because

[00:25:32] I was out on that yesterday but lucky man. Fixed a year. So, we had what we call the C600, C700, C700 fuselage length. So, 600 is being a six-year mill from from no

[00:25:45] set it or a so-tipped tail. Then we also have the 700. This is a 600 of got here just paired with eight-settie front on SS830 front wing. Okay. And then I've got a new S185 rear stabilizer.

[00:26:02] One just on there. Nope, it's just going to go to for some less smaller days when it's going to waste to set it head and the half wanting to variety on the surf. I'm really fun but

[00:26:13] that the benefit of our system. I don't know if you can see that but it's just come back a little bit. Been in fit of that is so, is that you can see some of the industry have their rear stabilizer

[00:26:25] below the fuselage which they have else above on the top of the fuselage. It's actually a little bit higher than front wing. The reason being is that when you get close to breaching,

[00:26:37] a lot of our competitors when they breach the front wing, you fall off the board quite easily. So all about front wings. I'm sorry, all about saying our systems. The rear wing is actually

[00:26:49] positioned on top of the fuselage which means it's in clean water but most importantly it's an early warning system. So when you're riding along especially winging and you just come a little bit too high to the surface, you start to breach your stabilizer before you breach your

[00:27:05] front wing. What that means is that it becomes an early indicator that you're getting really close to the surface and if you come up in high your front wing is going to breach. So what happens is

[00:27:16] you get this feeling on your back figure like, oh, I'm about high and you're quick to pick weight forward and nine out of ten times you're able to avoid front wing breaching. Oh come

[00:27:27] so we just call us early indication for breaching and it just makes such a huge difference to riding. People don't realise but I think mostly industry, you know the a lot of the industry

[00:27:38] is still based on putting their rear stabilizers underneath and you just don't have that benefit. So it's one of the key features of the North Sainar 4 system. Oh cool, hey could we check out that geolark that you were saying that you had patented? Oh yeah so the geolarked

[00:27:54] makes you geolark is at the connection between the OEC the mast here so it's a bottom of the mast at the top of the mast. I've actually got the screws plugged in here so I can't fit it into that

[00:28:06] okay because I need to untrue the screws but for you this the system goes into the into the fuselage and it's a wedge fit which means the load from the all that load that's coming through

[00:28:23] is going in an wedge and there's no load on the screws. A lot of a comparison has a lot of load on the screws. Whereas we the screws literally just hold it in place but what's happening

[00:28:32] is you're pushing this mast into fuselage and that wedge fit is creating a moment. So all that iningey from a physics perspective is coming through and being perfectly distributed along that fuselage and that's what gives us a really stable stiff connection system we call that

[00:28:51] geolark because it locks into place so we're really really proud of that connection system and then obviously the on the front of the wings you can see it here. On the front of the wings we just

[00:29:05] have a connection of three three bolt connection system all about all about hardware is entirely m8 okay so there is no combinations of m8, m7, m6 every single tool in our system is entirely you'll notice the measurements the screw sizes are listed on actually printed onto the screw

[00:29:29] okay and the size that we recommend for each wing is also so it's kind of cool proof in the sense that you just can't really get it wrong. No, I think we do have a really cool shim system

[00:29:38] and if you can see the green yep on the tip they're just running at one degree shim on there at the moment there was a pretty small day and I want a little bit more front pressure and the

[00:29:48] shim kits another great way for getting more advanced righty of playing around with the system and just playing around with the feels everyone's got different feels everyone wants different fun for pressure but out of the box it's perfect you don't need to tune it and that's actually

[00:30:02] one of the biggest benefits of the north system is that we've done the maths and we've done the physics on you know I'm surrounded by pretty incredible engineers who we've kind of worked out

[00:30:12] a formula where if you can imagine you've got a front wing rear stabilizer the center of lift in the in the front wing is always calculated the distance between the lift and the front wing

[00:30:24] and the front to the mast that distance is always the same so you always know that this the amount of lift coming from your front wing in relation to where your mast is is always the same

[00:30:34] so no matter what fuse you're running no matter what wing you're running you've always got as really consistent feel which means that mast in the track on the bottom of the board that's pretty consistent like you only ever need to gently maybe move it forward

[00:30:49] sort of maximum one inch minimum one inch at the back we've got a lot more track there if you want up but most time our customers just don't need it out of the box of foil's work really well

[00:30:59] and we have an indicator where roughly if you're an 80 kilogram rider and we have the indication and that's where you start if you're a little bit lighter you can you can move the

[00:31:07] track back if you're a little bit heavier you can move the track forward but based on your weight you have a really consistent feel for all of our own our systems so I talked about that

[00:31:17] pitch stability, talked about the stiffness, talked about then no need to unlike some brands where they've designed the foils in different times and and over a period of time we've always designed

[00:31:29] to this formula to make sure that you have a really consistent feel for all of the north foils and so not for assistive nice that in combination with where it is all aboard is critically

[00:31:39] important as well let you know where you put your back foot strap convinced your thumb foot strap when you're standing on the board is super important as well a lot of people don't realize

[00:31:49] that with enough board you can to get up on plane as we all agree is one of the hardest things to do so getting up on plane off the water releasing some water on foil is really important now that's

[00:32:02] when you don't have a seat naked in the beginning we're not using foot straps you're just gently left up on our north fork however if you do have a little bit of pump technique we've designed

[00:32:11] now boards foot strap positions to be perfectly matched with where the masters in the in the box track system meaning you can slip your feet into the foot straps before you get up on foil

[00:32:25] you can slip your feet into foot straps when you get up riding they will be an exactly the same place you don't need to move your feet around the board before you get up on plane and once you're up

[00:32:34] on foil a lot of brands you have to take your back foot out you have to lean a really close to the front foot so you got your front foot in the foot strap or your back foot's kind of floating

[00:32:43] huh they need to do that to get the weight forward to get the board flat and off um we found if you can get both feet into the foot straps before you get up on plane that's when you pump

[00:32:55] like if you ever stand still and you put your feet together it is an example if you put your feet together ask your friend to push you you'll fall over if you have your feet you know shoulder

[00:33:03] works the part your friend pushes you your so much more stable oh yeah and that's what we've worked on is making sure that you can get both you into the foot strap before you get up on plane

[00:33:14] and that enables you to give a really good hard pump so you're not falling over and that will help you get up on to form what easily a lot of our competitors have a lot of

[00:33:23] volume at the front of the board and not enough volume at the back of the board so what happens board just sinks sorry the tail sinks back and you can put your front foot in the first

[00:33:33] strap you cannot like competitors board put your foot at the back of the board you have to put it right next to your front foot to flatten off the balance of the board the volume distribution on the

[00:33:42] board to get the board flat we will know when the board's flat it goes faster through the water and that lifts up onto plane faster but if your board's sinking at the back it's really

[00:33:51] hard to get your board to plane through the water quickly so you can disengage and reduce the friction so really important lots of volume in the tail of the board foot strap with positions

[00:34:01] really important we calculate both of those in relation to the mask position in relation to the central left and the wing we've kind of find there's four calculations that fifth calculation which is critically important giving away a little bit of IP here is the front foot

[00:34:16] is that central there so when you push down on the front foot if you don't have your front foot right position you'll find if you push down the the foil will just stay there but we want the

[00:34:26] forward to go down and lift up and so you're able to change the pitch angle and that makes it big difference when you're bouncing and you're rolling on a wave or a lump or bump being able to have

[00:34:37] that central method and that fun foot and finding that sweet spot so we kind of found that that formula, that perfect formula. So that's what we've been working to and I think that's why

[00:34:45] a lot of our customers when they first ride us set up from north like wow that was easy and the performance comes and they're like wow you know the the performance is there that

[00:34:54] easy abuses it we talked about as a brand trying to focus on making this sport easier more accessible for the average consumer customer to get into it and it's like you know it's not like

[00:35:04] keyboarding we need 10 hours of lessons and structure you're pretty life in there in the hands with with foiling you can get a couple of lessons and then you know maybe some of our

[00:35:12] prone structure will are school but then pretty quickly you can learn from a friend or an aunt and uncle, cousin brother mate just who's you can keep an eye on you for those next five

[00:35:23] six sessions and within ten sessions that the learning curve is so fast we're so lucky with winging in the sense that it loves gusty conditions you can paddle out to get in trouble

[00:35:33] you can paddle back in without sinking into the water like this just so many benefits to to foiling and then and it kind of opens up wing foiling just I think that there's world of opportunity with all these other amazing foiling products you know yep foiling sports

[00:35:48] sorry meaning a prone surfing kicks out wait, wait foiling both foiling just getting up on on a boat yeah and this first try it's just getting up and forward on the boats pretty exhilarating

[00:35:58] a lot of people yeah big time and obviously all the way to diamond winning and pumping and and you know there's just you look at that tree of branches of different sports you can do now it's

[00:36:08] pretty insane really it's pretty so quickly yeah you've brought the wit it's crazy how quickly it's accelerating as well and then so where are you getting your ideas from for like your v1

[00:36:19] mAs to your v2 mAs are you getting that from obviously team riders public okay in the era I'm experienced just just in general with you know with a customer's feedbacks obviously really key a lot of our test riders just just being hey Mike you're genuinely we just really

[00:36:37] want to do this this and this we're really looking for the performance in these directions and and I think obviously Daniel and earlier kind of the the more intelligent sight of the team they're able to work out with CFT and with the experience that they've got from

[00:36:54] sounding and boat building and neighbor architecture how that works and just having that science is it really you know you get if when you can you can just ride and test without the science but

[00:37:06] you're always experimenting you're always yeah what if we did this what if we did that there's no science behind it whereas we've been incredibly lucky to have the science because there was a

[00:37:16] hey look we do this it should do that and you know eight out of ten times one out of you know four out of five times um that right and and we go out we test on what we come back and go a holy crap

[00:37:28] that was next level we completely now in this direction but maybe there's a sacrifice here how do we improve that just kind of it's it's multiple iterations we're incredibly lucky to be based

[00:37:39] here in Auckland sort of has been the Hayme America's Cuphead past few years and and we've got our sister company is actually a lot of people don't realize obviously with North Sales but also with Southern Spars the Southern Spars is the thing manufacturer the world's largest

[00:37:55] masks on sailing yachts and dunes and well the luxury yachts but more importantly the racing sighted their businesses phenomenal they do virtually America's Cup rigging from from all these super height performance composite specialist and they've got CNC machines and they've got

[00:38:13] rable drill molding and a prototyping iterations then we've got this fantastic partnership with Southern Spars the CEO there mark um and we've just been able to set up this really rapid prototyping iteration system so we can go out regularly iterate iterate iterate and it's that that compact

[00:38:30] fast development cycle that's really giving us the edge at the moment help to enable test release theories the years idea is get them on the water and you can test in G10 but it really helps be testing in the materials you're going to manufacture from so pre-prepared carbons

[00:38:46] and making sure we get the core materials correct I'm really does make a big difference that feel of those obvious wings in their system so yeah incredibly privileged to have them literally you know 15 minutes down the road um and we've got a great relationship with them so

[00:39:00] just pranking through the song this is my whole beautiful nice and how far into the future do you guys go before you like releasing your obvious iron de-ing so is there some obviously

[00:39:09] and you can't share it which is fine but what is it that you guys are like how far do you have stuff that you're like oh I can't wait to share this in a couple years or yeah I've got to be

[00:39:20] really careful I hate that I hate that yeah we're going to be super careful of course yeah for sure now it's good I'd to be fair you know we've got so I can I can be a little bit open we've got some

[00:39:31] really cool pump wings coming so you know the flat water pumps in fishing lakes Europe you know just people city going for jogging the morning grab if you got a dock in there and

[00:39:42] in something close by take a running jump go for pumped 20 minutes year legs absolutely fried you're going to incredible cardio workout and come back in and you know that's that's your

[00:39:53] that should buzz for the day you know you get that kind of angrily off the edge really often you don't have any sports dates on the sea of length so you know the pumping is growing I think

[00:40:03] especially in places like Holland and Europe and flat water locations where there's not a lot of wind but there's a lot of water I think there's a huge amount of opportunity for

[00:40:13] some foils I'm going in that direction so yeah we've got a range of pump flores coming out in the year year beautiful and we also obviously working on the downwind foils yeah and it's as far

[00:40:23] something we kind of you're been working on for about a year now we're holding our release with just we're really happy bench hiking against our all-image better especially doing into our single of their their wings we've been really lucky to bench hiking in so

[00:40:37] all those products we obviously buy all of our competitors products testing but most importantly just making sure that we're able to push that that makes tip for the fort and I think you know we're you know we're still playing catch up on the on the downwind

[00:40:50] to shore and in the pump but you know there's some brands that have had some great pump wings out for a few years but you know when you really analyze them you ride them day and day out

[00:40:59] you start to realize what the the pros are and sometimes what the cons are so just trying to eliminate those cons and come out with we what we believe we hope to be the best pump wings

[00:41:09] best downwinds and features so no it's definitely something we're working on for sure they're actually quite hard I was talking because I talked to a couple brands and they were saying

[00:41:17] there was big big spans and to make them because I tried one and I found it and I was winging with it but it was obviously it's designed to be slow but it just hit a brick wall

[00:41:30] so it was like obviously winging with those like if they've got to be mixed so if you're thinking like okay this is such a big span it would be a great wing to wing on it was like it hit the wall

[00:41:41] really quickly turning it like turning it it turned but obviously because it has a wide ring spent it's for a specific purpose so that's what because I got to try one of them this summer

[00:41:52] I think it was a 16 50 or something and yeah and it was not meant for the conditions that I was in but I'm curious because everybody's going that route and we interviewed a couple athletes

[00:42:06] like Marcelo Whitt and she was saying oh downwinding is gonna be easy but as soon she hops on a paddle you're like this is so much harder than I hit anticipated and that can just

[00:42:15] picture through your head right because you're like right you're on a skinny stand up paddle board and you touch down and then you've got to get up on foil somehow it's cool like I love these

[00:42:25] videos actually I think so yeah I mean it's a great thing about it's for them so much just the evolution more brands is just cranking and you've got sometimes you have these little

[00:42:36] small brands that kind of niche brands that are kind of may have a breakthrough in one direction need you need sometimes you have other brands here and I think everyone's just that that's

[00:42:45] a fun and bit at the moment you know that's what I'm fizzing off from the daily basis is the just being responsible product like it's just is just seeing all these different avenues

[00:42:55] that you can basically like we're going for a generic foil that does everything to me is really niche areas that where they need very specific design characteristics for the to get the performance you're looking forward to make it easier for example down wanting to get up on plane

[00:43:14] but still have a really high top in speed and we'll be able to operate in slower ways or higher speed waves so they're true that those choices were making daily basis from design directions

[00:43:24] is can be really challenging oh yeah but that's I guess you know any if it's not hard to do that it's there's normally not a lot of fun so yeah I think we've we've been really enjoying

[00:43:33] sort of learning along the way and and sort of implementing what we've learnt hopefully in a direction that people can appreciate it for me oh yeah for sure and you're just mentioning

[00:43:42] about your V2 mass yeah there's just we don't have a V2 mass but we've got it we've got in the mass we've got an aluminium mass around what we call the AF that a aluminium foil AF series

[00:43:55] when we have the CF series which is a carbon foil series and the CF series comes with a range of different sizes 72 85 95 and we are working on high-matchless mass for the future but I can't

[00:44:10] talk about that in too much detail today okay they're really excited about you know the our bottom line at the moment is if you benchmark our carbon mass against most of our competitors and some high-mogless you'll find the stiffness of the system is quite amazing and

[00:44:23] that's been one of the core reasons why we're selling so many carbon system versus aluminium Alvdome gave me wrong aluminium systems great it's great to learn I'm you know 3040 for say less expensive but what it customs getting into the sport see that and they say well

[00:44:38] I could buy an aluminium but the in FSP 3040 more if I'm really going to get in this sport I may as well go to carbon so the aluminium works well for schools centres, dinners people are not really that sure they're going to get into the sport

[00:44:51] and they can be sold easily off but most people going carbon then obviously there's a percentage of the market you really want to be the highest performing mass possible and that's really high modulus mass coming out you know we're definitely just working on that for the

[00:45:05] new year so good for I'm very excited to introduce that range bit at the moment we're frothing about the MAs we're frothing about the new SF series and and really excited to

[00:45:16] get some of our new wings which were just launched then the new mode pro and then you laughed which are both both of these are using some some pretty cool technologies and

[00:45:27] materials we call it in we 45 just go to the northcapu.com and have a look on the website you'll don't need to listen to me and there's a lot that's explained probably a lot clear a lot more efficiently they're doing a good job at the the N-Whe 45 materials

[00:45:41] basically yeah you can even materials so it's a it's a woven fabric that has a very low stretch and then we put a film backing on the back which has fixed the across wheels like next by like

[00:45:54] a film basically with with a weave and it means that the materials are incredibly stiff it's also a lot lighter so quite often a lot of the the backgrounds that you use in most standard plastic sport ranges of products for a lot of our competitors is 161 70 grams

[00:46:13] we've managed to get this in we 45 down to 105 grams so it's a really big reduction in weight you know see the allus of this world at 80 85 not far off there but they don't have the crazy

[00:46:25] price tag of the little you know a little wigs and it's not for the little and and it's at the moment that's what we've been focusing on and trying to make really high performance wind wings that are reasonably affordable I'm not saying that cheap they're definitely

[00:46:39] they're definitely up there they're not crazy biceps and then we've been combination on both of those wings is both on the loft and the load we we've also been playing around some the canopines we've been suggesting you canopy this year into the mode pro called the matrix

[00:46:55] canopy it's a little bit heavier than a standard 55 gram canopine material but it's very stiff and it's about three times stiff in fact which means it feels the beginning of the season first time

[00:47:08] you write it on the road pro compared to one year later the shape and the profile of the wing keeps it it keeps its original shape it doesn't deform and bulge and look like a shopping bag

[00:47:19] most of those lighter weight canopines look after the one season and then they just they're just wrinkled and and just no in mirrors as good as the matrix canopine so I've been working really

[00:47:29] hard on keeping that stiffness but on the walk the width and the bias just making sure those stretch it just doesn't stretch because when you introduce such a stiff airframe and you put a standard canopy on it the canopy bulges so you have to pair a talk about

[00:47:45] the common season yeah the airframe with the stiffness of the canopy type break and that really allows you to have and keep that beautiful geometric shape without wrinkles and bulges and keep the performance of the wing all the way the other benefit of the stiffness is incredible

[00:48:02] like not only does it let you go really fast and hold it down on another 5 7 knots on the top end like that's that's a biggest benefit out of matrix and the mode pro is and you can hold these wings

[00:48:12] down on another 7 10 knots of conditions whereas normally you'd be battling and fighting a wing mode pro you can hold onto it in every dust you just ride it through just de-pari your back

[00:48:23] and then you're so comfortable but what allows you to do is go really fast and we know with swinging the fast you go change your angle of attack the fire you're going to jump

[00:48:32] and when you've got that stiff wing instead of it folding like a rock and flummishing and dropping down at stiff brain holds your body weight when when you land you get the sort of beautiful

[00:48:42] hang time and you've got that ford momentum so that when you hit water you've actually got a few knots of ford momentum and that allows you to get back up from the foil again so when you always

[00:48:52] classic to what anyone go out the first time on a mode pro they jump way too high they can flip you over rotate them evenly fall over straight away because they're just they're up there for

[00:49:04] cool it really does help with these wings you're fine just first time your jump just take a little bit easy from just ease into it and then kind of push yourself as you get the timing right

[00:49:13] over time but it just you know really proud of the mode pro range it's it's a wing designed it does everything through ride through style way riding but it really is a high performance

[00:49:24] free ride wing free ride remaining it's got a good bottom in it's got a good top end and this is our second version of the mode last year was mode this year it's a mode pro and we've had time

[00:49:36] to refine the design and again every iteration makes a huge difference in performance so we've really proud of that second wing we've got that just launched is the loft pro yeah so when

[00:49:46] we're just a throw on the end it just begins it's like classic material it's a set of next step up and performance materials and the loft pro also features the M45 and only comes in two sizes

[00:49:57] oh seven meter and eight meter there's a dedicated light when wing so really it works in as I said place you like Florida where it's 10 knots you lucky you get 12 knots you know it starts to white

[00:50:10] cap at 12 knots so this is what we call sub-white capping conditions meaning you can get going in six, eight, ten knots depending on your technique but I warn you it has no top end I get really

[00:50:22] is designed to just pull you up onto foil we designed it so you don't need pump technique where it just has this raw power this raw grunt that drives you forward doesn't pull you down

[00:50:32] when it doesn't feel like a truck it feels like it's it's pulling this power is giving you board speed that allows you for the cup off come come up on foil and disengage the friction from

[00:50:44] the water so really proud of the the no the sorry the loft pro I've been selling extremely well as she lost here in the sea it was called the night when lost here we just gave it a nine

[00:50:57] loft this year and called it loft pro you got somebody's on Vancouver Island out in a summer spring that are like six to seven knots and they're like what the heck how what do I

[00:51:07] do well what do I do well what do I go for so hard to come by and even the guys like all my buddies and auto here same thing it's like they want to get out and that kind of stuff there's a

[00:51:15] bunch of brands that they've tried and there hasn't been I'm actually I'm looking for it to try and loft to get an idea of what I can get it going for like I have some years under my belt obviously

[00:51:27] nowhere near what are our wonderful pros are doing but just to see how what is that difference it would be awesome to be able to try that thing out to see because it's hard to come by some brands

[00:51:37] who are dedicated more into wave like their their bigger wings are it's just a big MAC truck and it's like yeah like everything's huge and it's like well it's not that fun to ride the what I'm curious

[00:51:49] yeah absolutely stoked to try it yeah this this two schools of opinion here you can go for a large front hydrophil wing and go for slightly smaller big wing uh windwind but once you're up and

[00:52:03] foil it's kind of dragging and that's slow and it's it's just I get frustrated because there's so much dragging just your arms feel like they're getting called out of your sockets because

[00:52:12] your wing is taking you forward but your foil will so slow it's just so much strain on the body that um versus going for slightly smaller hydrophil wing which has really nice glide load friction

[00:52:23] and having a big windwing it has a huge amount of power so we've designed these wings some of the competitors have quite high-spig ratio wings but you get a lot of tip strike meaning

[00:52:32] as you're riding the windtits just keeps hitting the water and falling over so we've made our called width quite narrow so the aspiration was a lot lower okay um and this length's a little bit

[00:52:44] longer but we believe that gives you a huge amount of power which is manageable powers it's not you don't have to be super careful conscious about it we just as a guide we kind of recommend anyone

[00:52:55] round about 85 kilograms 85 kilograms so 190 pounds um anyone around that weight and below she goes to the 7m and anyone over 8580 190 pounds should go for the um 8m obviously you're for a total person definitely go for the bigger wing yep if you're a smaller person

[00:53:16] recommend swarling sort of like white that does affect it as well yeah for sure um but yeah a lot of fun to ride like I never thought we were gonna be riding and like it's insane it's been

[00:53:27] saying like and if you've got a wing a hydrophil wing which has high glide and low um low drag like high efficiency you can ride through the lulls because you just if you get your high enough

[00:53:39] when you board yeah you know front wings kind of close to the surface you can kind of glide for good 100 meters if you want to whip before you hit that mixed up so it really does help

[00:53:50] in those conditions sometimes versus I was saying before having a small wing with a big hydrophil wing hydrophil wing this big hydrophil wings just got so much drag they don't allow you to glide

[00:54:02] through it so now when you're starting to go out for long distance runs and you want to cruise up when you want to go down when but you know it's gonna be steady all day so 10 knots 12

[00:54:12] once you can go out it's a lot more confidence and you can really go adventure when previously you're probably just sitting on the beach and just going you know what I've done I've made

[00:54:20] the lawn I've taken kids to school I've done everything I've got the time off work I've remodishing to focus I'm at the beach and you know what I can't get out there there's nothing more

[00:54:28] frustrating so I think this is really unlocking a lot of fun sessions for a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise be able to get out on the water when that's so yeah definitely and sometimes

[00:54:39] that's all the wind you're gonna have in that specific location and it opens up the possibility of a brand new sport a brand new thing for for somebody to play with and then that's

[00:54:49] that's huge I can change somebody's day and sure yeah oh that's cool um hey is there anything else you want to cover about because I know you it sent me something over about the motto for your brand

[00:55:01] and I really like that about north and what it stood for that was pretty cool oh okay yeah yeah yeah so we've you know we've done a bit of work on the brand in past our 18 months to years where

[00:55:15] we basically took on the new NES logo from Appleraan company north sales and we've introduced us into our products we're still north we've nothing has changed our our total voice and messaging we are very much still you know we're trying to be a really authentic brand that

[00:55:32] and we're trying to continue to be that brand that people yeah so I hope see they're like north and they're like where we're going and our ambassadors our writers are just the nicest most inspiring group of people you've ever meet no I always say becoming a room and

[00:55:47] sit down want to one of our team writers you're just like oh you know that people you want to get to know they're definitely people who have arrived they're not on their way there you know

[00:55:57] they're people that know who they are and and really have experiences to share and they're all about making everybody better not themselves and that's not you know not over themselves should us yeah so it's been a really cool part you know it's a great crew international

[00:56:15] of of pre-inspiring writers and and I think from a brand perspective you know we've we took on this new NS logo and we're introducing it slowly but the brand and M.D. has been really well

[00:56:27] received you know there's a lot of brand recognition out there on the special world of sailing for the north sales brand but yeah we we we we're north we're north type wedding we're north

[00:56:36] foils we're just north we'll just happen to have a new NS logo but most importantly you'll you'll see there is a horizon in that logo and then that horizon is divided it's got two

[00:56:47] half circles for those who can't are just listening and podcast and safety we have two half circles and one represents the wind one represents and that's kind of like a horizon line and it's kind of an author's a direction that's somewhere you're going towards a horizon quite

[00:57:04] often you're adventuring you're seeking but most importantly it's when that water and that wind come together that's when you have that alchemy that magic now that's that's what that's one our sports all about it's all about you know yes you can have a good surf but when you're

[00:57:20] especially winging, riding um when the winds up and or you need wind to create swell so those those that they're alchemy the elements of wind and water coming together that's the world

[00:57:31] we live in that's you know kind of half-oved in the the low tide and the high tide and most importantly we we celebrate constantly how freaking amazing our sports are you know the the north's our tagline is

[00:57:44] it calls and I think it just holds so true took us a long time to come to that tagline but for us we're just a lot of deep soul searchings to what does what does this sport mean to us

[00:57:55] and I think as you it calls you can be sitting there checking out the forecast you know every few hours or every time that dates um in the office or wherever you are in life and and you're kind

[00:58:07] of watching the whole time but then when you look outside you and suddenly that wind shifts and you everyone's got their their tree where the indicator leads always and see you all there and they

[00:58:18] hear on the back of your neck goes up and you know it's on and I think that that feeling that that that sport calling is not just a sport calling to us but but it's also just been connected to

[00:58:28] nature being alright I want to sound too hippy-dephy but just being being in in nature so me as it's huge for us in the team they all agreed that being connected to nature and having equipment

[00:58:41] that that allows us to be in nature and perform at a flight level riding in nature just you know those experiences you everyone's probably got it those Kodak moments they snap shots those memories

[00:58:52] of that wave or that that ride or that beautiful sunset or whatever it was like on the water or the experience just being like friends you know that's that's those moments and that's

[00:59:03] how the sport for us calls to us so yeah it it calls as kind of it is an embodiment of of that emotion and how the sport makes us feel yeah that's well put and it does it calls and I have a

[00:59:17] buddy who moved from Ottawa to Bali and he wasn't connected to surf but he's been a little bit more connected to surf since he's moved there and just because it's all around him yeah and he's like

[00:59:28] man the level of there's just it's something that I talked to with other friends as well who are more more seeking I guess there's nothing wrong with searching seeking for as much wealth and money as

[00:59:39] possible but it doesn't matter necessarily how much wealth or money you have with these sports like you'll look at some of our athletes and all the athletes that are pushing it's time it's dedication

[00:59:48] it's passion you can't buy that you can't buy some of these guys are able to do now they've earned it over the course of 10 15 whatever years and all their specific disciplines but that's

[01:00:00] another thing it's almost like this little it's a bit of a bad jamanar and then to be connected with brands that see that and recognize that we carry stickers we put them on our cars it's so

[01:00:10] much of part of us and who we are and how much a lot of the time we're looking for quiet spots in the middle of the woods all-growth Vancouver Island and that's where we sail and it's kind of

[01:00:23] that special connection that you're like this is where we go and this is what we do and and everybody's welcome but to do have to earn it a little bit yeah you got to have a bit of grit

[01:00:34] you got to have a bit of perseverance and you can carry that through family life and through work life and through all that so no I appreciate that I listened to that and I read it and that was pretty cool

[01:00:43] yeah I'll thank your appreciate it yeah I was there's there's a lot of time and if the energy thought put into it and they were just trying to reflect who we are and what we're about

[01:00:53] but it isn't it great that that feeling that community I mean just for me I love the citing forwing pruning, toeing, surfing, down when it like there's just all these little pockets

[01:01:03] of crews that I'm in a WhatsApp group so path them but now we go somewhere and we just ride together we share that experience and I think you're right well I can compare some to surfing like

[01:01:13] it's my life surfing and means some pretty in house-federal places where locals are just like losing in everything else and what a breath of fresh air, citing and foiling is because you know especially in citing you need someone to support your kite bandjip so you see everyone's

[01:01:29] naturally super friendly and I think foiling because it's such a useful we've got such an incredible guts it's I love foiling because there's winging specifically because it's only more women coming into the sport you know just in comparison to other sports it's 25 30 cent and that for me just

[01:01:46] means so much now got two young girls I'm 17 and I'm 19 and and now I've got my youngest one's getting into it and she it's just it's it's really nice to to that those communities I'm

[01:01:59] right I want to ramble it up yeah I'm 50 with you yeah it's huge absolutely and it's opening up like we have it's opening up sport for anywhere for up to because the median age I think of

[01:02:11] our wonderful podcast listeners are like 65 right and it's like they've converted it's not a well yeah that's the downside of us for especially winging is it is more expensive

[01:02:22] it's my idol that's all kind of it's on that that it is it is a lot of sports it's it's I'm fortunate what should could be more affordable you know it was trying but but it's it's

[01:02:33] it is unfortunate for those who've got the disposable income who have the time to be able to go and do a sport I mean we should all consider ourselves pretty done privileged to be able to

[01:02:45] be in this time period in life to be able to be able to go out experience this new sport and and have the feelings that we're buzzing about but yeah I think we have to also

[01:02:53] recognize so the humbly that that it is my experience of it and if you do I always tell everybody like if you can teach somebody bring somebody on board if you don't mind you know maybe it's a

[01:03:03] wing that you've had a couple seasons and it's not really worth a lot than just to find those people that they have the passion but maybe don't have the income to do that and share it with them

[01:03:14] you know I'm pretty shocking I'm always finding people that I kind of patch year together and and trust just to try and get them out of the water you know but it's it is yeah we have to

[01:03:22] recognize it is definitely it is did reasonably expensive especially when you get into the higher and it is and we should have to willow river Tonkin on the show so he's a pro rider from

[01:03:34] core and he was working I'm just looking it up now here because he was working with I'm not going to be able to find it now I'm a but he had a surf to serve so I'm finding that some athletes

[01:03:49] are coming forward and they're helping in this area where they're developing these kind of grass for his not for profit projects this is a bit more surfing oriented but I'm sure it's

[01:03:59] going to expand in different areas as well and they do take in a whole bunch of gear so a little shout out to Willow for what he's doing over in Mauritius but there is a pool there is helping that

[01:04:09] to be able to kind of help and I know some schools like the school they work with elevation there on Van Island they do their best as well to help at anybody that can come out that can

[01:04:19] and we're always doing our best to help out and on the other spectrum it's giving people who are older who an opportunity to expand extend that sporting life like yeah absolutely like I

[01:04:33] look at my dad there's a prime example you didn't learn to kite board until he was 65 good for him and he's now 79 and he's still kiteboarding and unfortunately he's just had a couple of injuries

[01:04:45] as he broke his wrists and his sprain is leg um, kiting about 34 weeks ago but he's frothing to get him's for him and so I think there's just that the impact on the bodies

[01:04:57] just not as high why you haven't got that constant banging and shattering like to do with the kite board or surfboard and and I think the yeah it's just I'm hoping how look I hope I can keep

[01:05:09] falling to a well-entimate that's that's the game plan let's go um just you're sliding there just could body completely exhausted that's that's kind of the goal that's a um but yeah I think

[01:05:19] you're right just trying to share this sport with as many people as possible so like I'm always just trying to not not to make money but just genuinely it sounds wrong but just genuinely to share the

[01:05:29] start and why it's it's how do you how to get people into the sport and share what we've been so privileged and lucky to experience oh yeah no like we're fortunate that this this whole

[01:05:40] kind of genre found us because it adds so much to your life and definitely and it's great to be able to connect with with so many different enthusiasts and people have been in the sport for such a

[01:05:50] long time right like that's pretty cool that you've been able to see and that job was quite fun into into lots of pretty cool people on you how do you find that it's really cool and humbling

[01:06:01] in the sense that it's such an honor to be able to have those conversations with people right because through I found wind through like a very serious motorcycle accident and I lost that motorcycle

[01:06:11] community and then when I found wind community it just kind of it just brought me in as like whoa so I can camp in the wilderness and do this and it strengthens my body and then it's like whoa so

[01:06:22] then that and then you you it became an extension of who I was so then to be able to have these conversations with people who have who are fortunate to find it before me I found at the 29

[01:06:33] but they found at a 10 13 and it was like whoa how does that feel like where did you where did life bring you because you found this yeah like did it did it make you into this kind of person

[01:06:43] or did it help teach you this or what did you learn from it and that's the kind of cool aspects of no it's becoming more and more fun for me and obviously a super nervous at the start but we're

[01:06:53] getting there you take a look wow it's and it's just a quick show I mean thank you for for spreading the word you know it's and spreading love it's it's I think that's why you know

[01:07:05] it seems you reached out I was super keen to come and have chat to you because I think the work you do is is really important just to you know not everyone has time to sit down watch videos but

[01:07:16] you can throw a podcast on you can put it on 1.2 speed which I thought sometimes it's a little not saying here others can be a little bit slow and yeah I mean just to just get that that

[01:07:27] wealth of information I mean and how lucky we now in this they have podcasts to be able to I'm just like so I'm like I read so slowly so audio and podcast for me it's such an amazing

[01:07:41] amazing way to learn and understand other people's perspectives so my massive shout out or that I'll for sure no I appreciate your time today as well because I know you guys are working

[01:07:51] on a bunch of things behind the scenes which is really exciting and so when is the MA launch that's coming up it's coming up literally I think in the next week also well yeah I'm hoping

[01:08:05] when podcasts are live so hopefully within if it's not on the website then check in the next days and hopefully it is if not please subscribe to our newsletter it's got a it we don't bombard you

[01:08:18] it's minimal posts and it's not only it's anyone something is important or it's good information would please feel free to sign up to join newsletter I think you get Penguin you land on the website the website is northkb.com for all falling stuff please check out download the

[01:08:35] North Royal riders guide it gives you all of the information you can ever want way more efficiently than I do it's got a little chart so tell us what wings with what stabilizers and it recommends a

[01:08:47] source it goes really cool links to our designers notes videos where you get to go I'm not that I'm not an engineer so and where our engineers and designers can go into absolute detail on the performance characteristics and materials measurements all that's enough if you just want

[01:09:04] to geek out like I do sometimes and just check it out then you can really can sort of dive deep into the designers notes on our YouTube channel how beautiful subscribe to YouTube channel on

[01:09:15] northfoyos we're not quite boring it's in the clinic and you can just see all those updates for the videos and your products and engineers providers and all that whole that whole

[01:09:25] side of it and and we've also got just to mention we've also got a Facebook page with northfoyos and where it's just community people so they're coming in together sharing what they're doing

[01:09:35] on what we're up to and yeah so we just follow us on Instagram there's another easy way just not foils and you can sort of check what we're doing and what we're up to you awesome

[01:09:46] well hey man thanks for joining me today and taking the time and is there any wind out there are you going to maybe sneak out for a reason we know actually you know what there is the

[01:09:56] softening ice 17 20 awesome this it's going to be epic I've we've got our Christmas party we've booked it early trying to get a good deal with that so we're I'm I think we're going to go and

[01:10:07] have been an adventure and then um I have some third new couple of drinks to sort of celebrate you know just ended year sounds good I'm getting around to get hope that goes well excited so I'm

[01:10:15] full she got on the waters today no that's not hopefully hopefully I will be getting it's Friday I mean full cost let's go to Saturday Sunday so I'll be just definitely keen to get out

[01:10:22] it comes for you get test like excited alright my hey thanks for joining me man and I'm sure we'll talk soon thanks like really appreciate it absolutely hey everybody we'll see you next time