Episode #37 - Armie Armstrong

Episode Transcript: 

Luc Moore (00:00.942)
you

Welcome to the Wing Life podcast, where we talk about wing foiling and the lifestyles of those who enjoy this great sport. Well, hey, Army, it's really nice to see you again. We had a little bit of a chance to talk at EWSI and we got a little reel on there and just love your enthusiasm, love your energy and love what you bring to the table. Not every brand has that. And it's really nice to see when...

When the people working there are just as stoked and as excited as you are. So it's an honor to talk to you tonight. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.

I think, well, most people who are really serious in this game do come from a place of passion, wanting to make gear to push their own experiences further. And that's definitely where we started. And it's what we still do. I mean, the passion for foiling and loving the sensations it brings us is what drives us forward every day. And we just want to make the best gear that we can to access those. Really, it's just a feeling of freedom.

Foiling us so and we're stoked to be able to share that with as many people as we can and so thank you everyone That's you know got our gear. Thank you very much and hope you are enjoying the glide as much as we are Oh, yeah, absolutely Who who designed your Armstrong logo the original logo? Yeah This logo. Yeah friend of ours Andy banks and Raglan design that he's a he's a really talented graphic designer good friend of the brand and Yeah, my partner Rob Whittle dragged him in and got him involved and Andy

Luc Moore (01:39.47)
Andy designed this and did an amazing job. It's a great logo. We like it. Yeah, I like it. Simple and just says what it is. Yeah, definitely. It gets to the point, but it is really nice. Yeah. It's quite funny. Starting with that, it's quite an interesting one. The logo was kind of like when we were first coming up with a name, we actually had a bit of resistance. A few people like, oh, no, you'll never be able to trademark that logo. It's too, it's been, you know, it's too, it's a too known.

entity. I'm like, yeah, but this is my name. This is my surname. And we liked it because we were really trying to build a system that didn't break. That was our primary goal to start with. And so the artwork, the name worked for what we were trying to do. And then, yeah, we talked to some lawyers and some lawyers were like, oh, it's going to be really hard. It was a little bit tricky in the States. Obviously, there's a bunch of product and branding around that. And interestingly enough, there was a...

a toy called stretch Armstrong was one of our, um, you had to actually write a very nice letter to those guys. One of the big toy manufacturers out of the States and explain what we were doing and get them to sign off our, our trademark. Oh yeah. Fair enough. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, sure. That was popular as, as I'll be back in the day in the States and stuff too. Yeah. Hey, no way.

Cause I guess we're making toys at the end of the day, but they're definitely fun toys to play with. So where are you right now? I see some, almost looks like crocodiles back there. Yeah, we can do a little mini tour. I'm in the Boatshed office in Auckland, New Zealand, Aotearoa. And this was originally my father's architecture studio. So he worked here for years when I was a kid and had a whole team of people working here at the desk. It's kind of messy at the moment. It's not like this. It's kind of, you know, that's the main workstation.

Sometimes Nathan's working here as well, but he's away at the moment. I'll take you outside for a little bit so you can kind of understand. Oh yeah, 100%. So yeah, this is a boat ramp that I helped my grandfather build when I was about four. I don't know if I was much help. And you were there. So yeah, there's the office side here.

Luc Moore (03:55.245)
This workshop, I won't open the garage, it's pretty chaotic in there at the moment, but, oh, you can have a look if you want, but yeah, that's where I built the first foils, sort of handmade wooden prototypes initially, and then we moved on to the G10. So here's some, I'll grab this one. Oh, sure. Have a bit of a look at it. Then we machined, once we got really tipped, we started machining some G10 foils. This was a kite foil originally, and there's, like, it was kind of, this was like, I call, this was like our,

our frankenfoil stage where I was just making anything that came to mind and we were just trying it and some of it worked, some of it didn't. But yeah, really exciting. And this was all basically put together in this workshop and then the CNC was done up in North Auckland. It's a bits and pieces and this fuselage, pretty interesting story. This fuse is actually machined out of a piece of an original 12 meter America's Cup boat hull.

There was a bit of carbon that was being thrown away that I'd salvaged and actually ended up machining this fuse out of there. So yeah, this was our first vertical that actually worked. There's the original, that's actually the Armstrong family crest. That was kind of our original logo that we then updated obviously to a proper, properly designed logo by Andy and Raglan. So yeah, really exciting. A lot of circles on the way, but this foil actually, this was the first...

This foil actually went quite fast, it worked for us. And on my very first session, I was kite foiling it and I hit a big kawaii and like stunned the thing so badly that me and my mate grabbed it, we dragged it into the beach and smoked it up and had it for dinner. So yeah, this foil worked. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I guess you never know, right? Well, that's what happened. I thought I'd just hit weed, I aged it really badly, went over the handlebars and then look back and there's this fish, you know, half dead on the surface. So...

Yeah, that was, I call that a successful test session. Oh yeah, it's very, did it ever happen again or was that only a once in a lifetime kind of thing? I have had a couple of other fish, but I've never caught the fish. Like this one was a decent sized kawaii, which is a local really beautiful red meat fish that you can smoke up. They just taste gorgeous. And yeah, but since then, yeah, no, I've just, you know, usually try and avoid, avoid eating fish if possible.

Luc Moore (06:20.589)
Nice. How long ago was that that you were building and sort of started to tinker into that in that foil world? It was kind of, I guess it was, you know, we were playing, I was playing around with all sorts of these bits and pieces between, you know, 2013 and 2016. Basically 2012, 2013 was a massive time in New Zealand. I talked about it a few times in some articles and stuff, you know, for, and everyone knows like, well, not everyone, but I think everyone should know.

You know, the America's Cup in 2013, San Francisco was probably the most exciting America's Cup ever just in terms of, you know, the incredible comeback that Jimmy Spurdel and Oracle staged against Team New Zealand. We had one win and they had to win eight or nine in a row and they did, which was pretty depressing for everyone in New Zealand. But the main thing was that was when the America's Cup really transitioned to foiling properly and Team New Zealand were the first boat to achieve that. And I was sailing in the harbor with my parents and

The boat was just 72 foot cat blasting up the harbor at just ridiculous angles to the wind. It seemed to us like it was just going straight up when we couldn't even work it out at the time. And I was like, okay, that's the future. I've come from a sailing family. My grandfather built boats. My dad's been a sailing addict his entire life and grew up on his boat, luckily. And yeah, I was like, okay, foiling is the future. That's it. And we got it to kite foiling. That was the most accessible at the time.

and broke everything that we bought. So we were like, okay, I'm kind of a gear thrasher. I range between 88, 90 kgs. So, and I like to jump stuff and push stuff in the waves as hard as I can. And I don't have the best finesse sometimes, especially with kiting. I used to just push hard and sometimes you'd land pretty decently and I was breaking a lot of gear. So I was just in the workshop fixing it. I'd always been helping out with the boat building stuff.

and so knew how to use a bit of epoxy and carbon and the sandpaper. And so that's pretty much where it started. And then we saw, well, we were addicted to foiling. And then I was friends with Robbie Whittle, who's a top kite designer for years and years. And he was in Raglan and I was living in Raglan at the time, which is a cool little surf town on the West Coast of New Zealand. And we were like, hey, there's a gap in this game for something that's really strong. And

Luc Moore (08:41.869)
To be honest back then, kite foil racing was progressing pretty fast, but the rest of foiling hadn't really even happened. And so we started tinkering with these kite foils and, you know, surf foil, we were toe foiling a little bit as well. And it's definitely inspired by Laird and Rush Randall and those guys in Hawaii. It was really inspirational. And Laird and Terry Chung actually came to New Zealand and did a toe foil session. And I was lucky enough to be out on a jet ski with Daniel Kitioka and watched that. And we actually were filming.

we were sort of contracted to film part of that. We did a bunch of filming from the water for lead and those, those, those, those

Luc Moore (09:40.269)
that people like and that was it. Wow, good for you. Yeah, I love your setup. I started originally, it was on just an entry -level aluminum kind of setup. And then my buddy from Montreal, that was working at a store, he was like, man, you gotta try this. This is like the next level. And I was like, all right, all right. So I jumped in, got it. And night and day, night and day difference, the glide, everything. It was just, I was in love right away. So it was amazing. So, and that's, I'm still writing an older, one of your older foils.

but I still like it. So it shows to the engineering and what you guys put into that, those original setups, because a lot of the time you got to keep swapping gears. So yeah, no, it was pretty sweet.

Yeah, well we did there's a couple of things like Robbie's a really smart guy We had a lot of discussion about the system at the start that we wanted people to be able to evolve You know their foiling journey through different sports and with different foils with the same you know basic rig and we've stuck true to that and it's been it's been a you know a challenging process and we really I went away and talked to a lot of you know boat builders and a lot of people about

you know, how to get the fibers, you know, working as best as they can. Especially at that time, there was a lot of issue with, you know, like I said, we were breaking a lot of the kite foil rigs because they were built pretty lightweight at that time. And, you know, for us with the fiber net here is one of our master, and you know, the fiber, you know, the key unidirectionals or, you know, we have some slightly off axis, you know, 10, 15 degree fibers as well that run up around the bottom bracket and down the other side. And that's...

pretty tried and true layup system for connection points using carbon fiber composite, whether it's rigging on America's Cup boats or, you know, whatever. And so that's why we came up with this bottom bracket system. And it was about the fibers connecting from the vertical around this connection point here. It's a tapered fit, you know, inside here and in the front foil. And the reason for that, I actually, I've got a fuse over here. We can all dig the crab that. Yeah, sure. I'm just curious. Yeah.

Luc Moore (11:45.453)
Yes, and I've got, so it's just kind of easier for me to talk about at the same time. So this taper goes both ways. And the reason for the taper is primarily so that we want it to be able to fit thinner foils on in the future. So like we've got, you know, now we've got the new HAs, they're a lot thinner than, you know, our original foils. And we knew we'd want different thicknesses of foils. And so we wanted this taper, we wanted, you know, a ton of...

We wanted all of the primary loads to be taken on this, but then in terms of the rotational loads, we've got our screw fittings that hold the rotation. And this taper allows us to have thin foils mounted onto this without really big bulky fairings. So that was a decision. We talked a lot about that right at the start, and we were kind of lucky we did. I mean, Rob's a really forward thinker. And we sat down, we had a lot of discussion about...

what sort of dimensions we should make with this. And that, you know, this dimension is driven by, you know, what sort of foil sections we thought we might be using in the future. And so far it's worked right down to 475s, our small foils, our fittings still function cleanly. And then this dimension of the long bracket of the mast, that is all about the fiber. So like I talked about before, you know,

the fiber wrapping around here is the best way to optimize the strength in carbon fiber basically is to have a big radius that can wrap around. And so that's really where the system concept came from. And I was looking at bottom brackets and driveshafts of ships and boats and thinking, well, okay, that's a shape that's been around for a long time. It's holding load and a lot of load.

and it's hydrodynamic, okay, let's work with that. And then I sat down with my father and we drew up the hex that went into it. It's a large hex section. And then, you know, we've got all our screw fittings with the A plus system, we have our barrel nut as well. So that's an eight mil barrel nut on the other side of this M6 screw. So we just added this, you know, to the system for longevity, effectively.

Luc Moore (14:09.741)
And there is, I mean, the one thing with our system, because you don't need grease or anything on the screws with our titanium, so our titanium rod, most people probably know we've got a titanium rod that goes all the way through and all our tapped fittings are in titanium. That includes our mast top, harv, our t -nuts, everything. Because the stainless to tie connection is just a beautiful, snug connection. You don't need grease. It's not gonna corrode. It's not gonna fizz. But if you leave this together,

especially in sandy water, a little bit of sand can get in here and you can get a little bit of wear inside these parts with sand in there. And so you do actually need to pull this apart every now and then and give it a wash out if you're in sandy water. That's something, I mean, we probably should talk about more. But the screws do hold the roads actually loads. However, like with anything, you're going to need to keep your screws in good order. And it's just something that people

should realize with carbon, and most people do, is that it's an anode and salt water, and so even stainless will fizz. It's why we coated our screws. This is a tie coating, PVD coating on the screws, but even with that, when you get a little bit of wear and the stainless is touching the carbon, the stainless will corrode, okay? And so you get a little bit of tea staining, which is just the stainless actually fizzing against the carbon.

That's the little rust, that's not an issue. You can clean that up with a little, you know, steel, I'll give it a clean, but the screws themselves probably good for, you know, we say six to 12 months in the manual. So read your manuals, check them out. And we give everyone a spare set of screws. So yeah, keep your screws good and you won't have issues. If you let your screws corrode, then they can break and then it's a bit of a pain to pull it all out. No, fair enough. Yeah, I take mine out. Obviously I fit it in my car, so I have to take it apart every time, but.

Yeah, but that's a good point about if people are leaving it together longer, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. It's just one of those things. The ocean is a harsh environment for any material. Don't worry about that. It's why we've used the tie with the carbon. That's the best combination that you can have for threaded parts, for sure. However, you still want to have fixings like screws and bits and pieces. And so just...

Luc Moore (16:28.141)
realized the screws, they're not gonna last forever. And we definitely made a decision, yep, screws are cheap and easy to replace. So this is our recommended replacement schedule. And we give everyone a full spare set. So you've got a decent amount of time with what you get with every part. And if you wanna get a new screw set, it's 20 or 30 part. It's been really cool to see how people have...

gone from earlier foils and they just bought new foils and stuck them on their kit and they can evolve their foiling journey into all the different sports that foiling's been out. That's probably been the most exciting thing for us is just seeing where people have taken the sport, especially with winging happening when it did. It was just, I guess, the best thing for the sport. And it's just mind blowing how winging's grown.

And that was just the perfect timing I suppose. Yeah, I think everything kind of vortex together and just collided and then exploded into this just it's just endless possibilities with with foiling It's it's unbelievable what you can do and with all the new things that are coming out right now and all the new stuff that you guys are working on Must be a pretty fun time to be in the industry Yeah, it's it's it's crazy. Like you don't you actually don't really know in 12 months really

what people could be doing with the gear. So that's really exciting, but also very challenging because you're really trying to think two, three years ahead. We don't like to have gear that's just going to cycle annually. We bring out gear when we're ready, when we're happy with it. And sometimes that takes us a couple of years or more to actually come up with a new bit of gear, especially foils and the development of the foil process. And we want that

that rig to last, you know, be good into the future because when someone invested it, for sure there might be something that has higher performance down the track, but we still want that thing to be really good for someone, you know, for a long period of time. You can still, I can still jump on that early fours and get out there. Yes, they're not going to pump as well. They're not going to ride as far, but you're still going to be fun to ride. Every day you get up and you're, you're definitely, you know, pushing the gray matter as hard as it can.

Luc Moore (18:49.581)
Yeah, I don't do it. Like how do you stay in the cutting edge of everything in this regard? Because there's so much coming out. For a start, I do love foiling and I love all the foiling sports that I do and I wish I had more time in the day to pursue them. However, I did spend 10 years, you know, in my youth basically surfing, kite surfing and paddle boarding. So while that was, you know, I kind of quit my job and spent 10 years doing that. So I can't really complain, but that is what evolved into, you know.

making foils or making this brand, I guess. So I'm really lucky and I had to work hard at some point. So this is it. And you just got to get up every day and be committed to what you do. And luckily, and as so much comes down to luck, I just met the right people at the right time. And now we've managed to build the team out where we have, you know, we brought on Nathan Chu, who's just an amazing connector of people and also, you know, really smart guy too. He's really driving us, you know, in the direction that we need to go.

and bringing all sorts of new consultants in. And I guess that's probably the most exciting thing for me as a learning journey because I learned effectively through trial and error. Yes, I sailed a lot as a kid so I could understand, you know, sails and how they work in boats. And I had a pretty good understanding of all of that. But, you know, foils really, you know, I was a total virgin in 2012 and, you know, 2013. And we started with some kite foils and...

2016, we started with our first production staff. And then, you know, 2018, we really had, we started getting some traction on the market. So that's pretty recent history really. And so the journey from me has been a lot of trial and error and learning from all sorts of people around me. But now we really have tapped into, you know, with Nathan, top design experts who have had full careers in boat building, you know, top end boat building.

hydrodynamic engineers, CFD experts from a wide spectrum of fields. And we're bringing those guys in to help us with key elements. So like the performance mask, I mean, it's a classic. So this one, we knew we needed to do a big mask upgrade, you know, a couple of years ago. And we started working on this project and we're like, okay, as with all things foil, step one, we need to start with the section.

Luc Moore (21:11.501)
And we managed to tap into a good friend of ours, Riley here in New Zealand, who's also getting into winging. And that's been a great thing too. Like a lot of these people, they're getting into foiling, so they want to be involved. And it's just connections through doing the sport. It's just, that's why it's that. It seems like luck, maybe you create your own luck. I think partially we do. It definitely is interesting how that flowed. And so these guys, Riley got hold of literally,

a couple of the top foil section development experts on the planet, guys that wrote X -Foil, which is one of the key bits of software for, you know, analyzing foil sections. And they came up with a few sections for us for this vertical after doing a bunch of numbers and looking at sections that have been used in the industry, sections that we'd used, what sort of structural engineering we needed with the fiber because...

Figuratively, you need a certain amount of chord and thickness for the structure to have enough rigidity, right, regardless of anything else. And then you've got to draw up the section shape to work with that to give you the nice flow through the water. And this mask, it actually has, like it does have quite a lot of taper top to bottom, but it's what we call a gradual taper. And it's...

developed to give you the best transition of load from where you're driving it through it to the foil and then be as hydrodynamic as possible down the bottom end. So yeah, these have been out for a year and I would still say these are probably the most advanced vertical on the market in the surf foil world, definitely. I mean, kite race, there's a couple of kite race rigs out there that are being used in the Olympic kite racing and they definitely,

are going next level with their verticals, but they're very specific to kite racing. And you probably wouldn't want to be thrashing those rigs in the city at the price that they are. Yeah. It's like getting back to the workshop and keeping them going. But yeah, it's that combination of efficiency and durability. And it's been, like I say, the process of that has just meant I've learned,

Luc Moore (23:35.021)
so much and it's I feel like I go to school every day pretty much just about it's really exciting. Hey let's um how did you even come up with the stripes and whatnot because I don't know yeah I want to know right. Well um the stripe story it's kind of it's kind of a pretty fun story we were fluffing around with foils and then a few people that we knew had interactions with sharks um and their foils.

Shall we say? There were a couple of cases in New Cal that weren't so pretty. And then there was a pretty lucky case on Maui. I mean, one of the top sub -racers was, down -witting was just happening. And he had a battle with a bull shark hitting his foil. He was bashing it with his paddle and managed to escape unscathed. But the foil definitely, they look quite a lot like a stingray, which is definitely a favorite food source for a.

some of the larger marine fish out there. So, and I was a big fan of Jacques Cousteau when I was a kid. And Jacques Cousteau did, I remember this experiment watching it. He was a French explorer that you're under famous underwater, you know, cameraman slash explorer. And they did this study where I don't know exactly where they got the idea, but they had a striped board that they baited compared to a non -striped board.

And sharks that hadn't seen the stripe pattern before, they always turned, they swam up and then they always would turn away. And it was something, you know, their science was sort of saying something to do with the shark not being able to tell exactly how many objects it was. And so I was like, okay, well that works. Did a little bit more research. There was a company in Aussie making wetsuits with stripes on them as well. So I'm like, okay, there is a bit of a thing here. Let's put stripes on our rigs. And it kind of looks cool, but let's...

because it has a function as well. And then I met an interesting Colombian artist on a trip coming back actually from doing some work at a factory. And we kind of became friends and I was talking with her about the stripes I wanted to put on these foils. And she said, I'll send me an outline of the foils and I'll draw something up. And yeah, she came up with this double -tapered stripey pattern. So yeah, Juliana Duran is her name, super talented Colombian artist.

Luc Moore (26:00.429)
And then Andy Banks, graphic designer in New Zealand came up with the logo. So we put that on top and that's it. That's been our, I guess our trademark since the beginning. That's pretty cool, eh? That stuff like that comes together and it becomes such a, like all you need to do is go down a beach and you see these stripes like, oh, you're on Armstrong, eh? Oh yeah, you're on that, eh? Yeah. It's pretty, yeah, it's phenomenal. I do love this double -taper pattern. Yeah, I like it. But this...

You know, the geometry of this double taper, you know, she came up with that and we've stuck with it, you know, for, I don't know, for every part that we make, every foil part that's in the water, we're just, it works and it, you know, yeah, I don't know, it's definitely worked for us and yeah, we like it. Yeah, cool. So bringing in all those engineers and bringing in, is there a reason that the whole industry is going more towards that? And,

end of things, like making it a lot, lot more sophisticated? I think there's just, there's been so much work done, you know, especially in the last, you know, 15 years in this field by people who have been involved in hydrodynamics, you know, their entire careers and really, really smart people. And I think it's, we're just, it's, I guess it's that crossover. Like a lot of the sailors who are, you know, in those really top end projects,

you know, the F50 sail GP or the America's Cup or, you know, the round the world boats, you know, with the big foils as well. It's similar, it's a similar design crew putting all those hydrofoil parameters together for those projects. And they're interested in foiling and, you know, they're interested in wing foiling. A lot of them do it as a recreation because it's much easier and less, you know, takes less time than getting out on a boat. And so...

I guess there's that knowledge base that we're lucky enough to be able to tap into. And I think that's happening across the board for everyone. I don't think we're particularly unique in that. And it's fantastic. It's great for the sport. Like it's, you know, it's, there's so much work already being done that these little gains and we are, I mean, I guess you call a little gain, but that's the beauty. I mean, you make a small change to a foil section and it makes a really big difference to, to how it works. So, uh, yeah, it's really exciting. I mean,

Luc Moore (28:25.709)
It's just great. It's like this perfect vortex that's come together and everything's swirling together forward and it's really exciting. Oh, nice, man. That's so sweet. Let's talk about... You were just working on a whole bunch of foils and I was talking to your team. So what can we share? Yeah, we've got the new HA oil range. So the HA's were the first project where we really got involved with the boat guys and then got a bit of...

you know, intelligence from them. But now we've been working much more closely with the whole group of people and we are ready for the next version of our HA4 range. And we are very excited with where this range is at. We're gonna have 580 up to 1180 and 100 cm square increments. So a really wide range, 7th coils. And this is the 980 I'm holding here. And the magic with these coils really comes from the section again. And we talked with...

a lot of the guy, the foil experts, shall we call them. And one thing they said is you want to start with something that you really know and just change the section. That's the main parameter you want to understand first and then get the outline, the aspect ratio, the ronder, get all of these other elements working with the section. And so we got a friend of ours in West Oz.

Chris Porter, who's actually an aerospace engineer and working for some pretty interesting, you know, Australian military projects, among others. And he did a foil section study for us, looking at the speed ranges that our HA4s working at, some other HA4s, and really honing down what foil section would work for the speed ranges of surf foiling and connecting and glide. And so...

We did a bunch of analysis with some GPS, looked at some numbers and gave Chris some speed ranges that stall speed, takeoff speed, top end, glide ratios. And he then had a good look at a whole lot of sections and came up with a few. And we put those into our previous HA foils and some of our MA foils. So we didn't change anything else. We just put the new section into the old foil. So we just made one change. So we committed to a bunch of mold.

Luc Moore (30:53.517)
And it's interesting, like originally when we were prototyping, like especially back here in my workshop, I was grinding bits of wood and hand shaping everything. But what we've discovered is with the foils, you know, the layout and the technology of the laps really important to how the foil feels when you ride. And so we've transitioned now, which is we're really lucky, you know, having our own, you know, foil manufacturing facility. But we've basically transitioned to our prototyping in.

the same steel tooling and molding process as we use for production, which means that foil construction is exactly the same, even through our whole prototyping range. Okay. That's cool. It's really cool to be able to do that and we're pretty lucky. And so, yeah, we put this section into our own foils and a few different sections and we ended up on this section that we're using here, which is, yeah, it's got a little bit of under camber on the bottom and actually a ton of reflex on the top surface.

And the combination of the leading edge radius and the camber and the curves just mean that this section really likes to stay high in the water column. And it's really easy to bring back up, which just gives it that really efficient pump and glide that we were looking for this rate. OK. Then you've got to tie in the aspect ratios in the rodler with that section so that you can turn the thing where you want to turn it. We're really excited where these things have got us to. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah, they look.

That would be super fun to... Oh yeah, okay, we have some turndown, okay.

For those just listening, we're getting a very nice show of the new AHA, so make sure to hop onto YouTube if you want to check out what we got going on right here.

Luc Moore (32:40.685)
Beautiful. Yeah, so that range has been kept us pretty busy. But this year, you know, Nathan's an amazing facilitator and we looked, you know, he's been with us for a couple of years now and we looked at where we wanted to be. He drew out a five and 10 year plan, which I, to be honest, I've never looked fan far forward in my life before. So it was a little bit scary, but really exciting at the same time. We went, okay.

This is where we want to develop, this is where we see it going. And hey, we were open, we were flexible as well. But what it's meant is that this year we've had the APF pump foils, new wings, new board range, the HA range coming at the end of the year, and the downward performance foils. And we've got tails and everything feeding into that as well. At the beginning of the year, we had the performance master, the MAs, the master of the MAs coming. So we've had a pretty big year. And when do you sleep?

Well, they do so. Everyone says that if you find something you love, it's easy to work. I'm just really lucky. Honestly, I got to come back. I can't, you know, it's just, yeah, I'm really grateful. And thank you to everyone for getting into foiling. Keep doing it because, hey, this is the best one you could ever have. And yeah, every day. Yep. There's definitely could have more sleep, but at the same time, every day you get up, it's so exciting just to, you know.

see what people do around the world on the gear. Like every day someone's doing something cool and you're just like, wow, that is so epic. Okay, I gotta get spin more time on the water so I can get better. Did you think that foiling, cause it had been around, did you think it would explode into what it is now with all the different disciplines, all the kids getting into it? It's really interesting. Like the gestation was kind of long. I mean, you know, Laird and Rush Randall and Robbie Nash and Pete Cabrera and you know,

Campbell Farrell, a bunch of early adopters were toe foiling on those sit down adapted Mike Murphy foils 20 years plus ago. And it took a long time for kite foiling even to kind of happen. And I think it was the America's Cup that really put it to the forefront of people's mind and thinking and pushed, got people pushing. I don't think I'm unique in that at all. And it's no surprise that...

Luc Moore (35:01.997)
You know, Mike's lab out of San Fran was probably the first foiling system to really go next level, especially with the kite racing. And he's in San Francisco, which is where that AC was. So I think, I do think there's a big connection there. Okay. But yeah, I mean, Mike Murphy is a real character and he's one of our main contacts in North America now. He looks out to the North American wake market for us because he's been dealing with that industry for forever.

And he's the original co -inventor of the Sit Down foil. And yeah, he's blown away. I talk to him all the time. He's not surprised because he's been a foil addict for 50 years. Oh, sweet. That's amazing. But yeah, he's just stoked with where the industry is at and happy for his invention. I mean, he invented the original vertical.

Fuselage front wing tail. I mean, that's what those guys did. That was, you know, and the basic system is the same now as what those guys made. Yes, the different materials, different shapes, but you know, that single vertical fuselage front wing tail like, hey, Mike had the original patent on a vertical with the bolt -on fuse. I mean, yeah. I was talking to George from Delta about some of that, those days. And it's just so fascinating learning from.

from all of you and just getting to see all those different stories and how it evolved and how you all kind of got into it yourselves, right? It's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he was really into the kite foiling, which is where a lot of us came from because that was the first development really in what we might call modern sport foiling, I guess, outside of those tow guys wanting to ride big waves in windier conditions.

And it's just really snowballed from there. And it's just an exciting, exciting time to be involved. So yeah, it's, yeah. I'm happy to hear that. When did you decide to get into boards as well? Like, obviously you're making - Well, actually I was doing boards beforehand. So I actually ended up working -

Luc Moore (37:21.741)
After chasing SUP racing around the world for a while, I was making my own SUPs and racing on them. And I ended up working for a Kiwi guy who has manufacturing in Asia. And I was working with them, helping them implement Peel, Ply, and some other boat building technologies in their factory, and just helping them with some quality control in a factory. But that was primarily manufacturing race SUPs, surfboards as well, but their primary at that time.

mid -2000s was race up. So it was really big, big game, you know, much like Foiling is now it was really exploding. The race paddle boarding was, you know, the battle of the paddle, the Molokai Tawai, all these events, he big on the scene. And so, yeah, it was really exciting. And that was where I really got my introduction into production. And yeah, Tom's a great guy. He taught me a lot about how factories function and it made some great contacts. And so, yeah, I was working on boards for quite a while. I did a few years, you know, off and on in the factory.

And then got addicted to foiling and was like, okay, now we're going to make our own foil system. And luckily I had some contacts in manufacturing. And so, yeah. Oh, that's cool. That's kind of how it worked out. We made boards at the same time as we made foils. I mean, hey, the early boards were pretty ugly, to be honest. I mean, yeah, I've got one here. I don't even know if I want to drag one. Oh man, I'd love to. Do you want to have a look at one? This is where I was probably too influenced by what the boat guys were doing. So here you go. This is our first.

Titefoil and Titefoil board, which is 411. Bye.

40 liters. So there you go. Beautiful. 411 40 liter kite board, tow board. And I was probably too influenced by the Canon ran what we were trying to like at this point, this is 411, which back then was very short. We thought this board was really short, but an actual fact, you know, it's for where we're at now yet. We've got, we've got, you know, our current wing boards are smaller than this, but I was, you know,

Luc Moore (39:28.045)
kind of a bit to try to channel the catamaran thing with the front end of the sport. But yeah, some of the other elements of the shape worked and we made, didn't make too many of these, we made a fugue. We were all tuttle box back then. So. There we go. That's a piece of history right there. Yeah. I mean, I can't, I keep that one around to remind me to, you know, to think a bit more before committing to, to, to carbon. Oh, well done, Matty. I would frame that for sure.

Keep that, keep it. I've kept one. Yeah. I got too much junk and I do have to do a clear. I got too much stuff in this shed. But anyway, fair enough. Evolution of wings. It's come huge, right? Like from kind of like a floppy bed sheet that you kind of held on to, to the high performance wings that we have going on with different canopy section, different pieces. Like it's, and then now we're going into non -stretch materials and yeah.

Well, it's the same with anything. It's just a beautiful thing to be involved with the development process and everyone pushing forward. And for us, our first couple of efforts, we were finding our way 100%. And we had to do it because it's just such a great fun part of the sport. I don't know quite why. I was doing a lot of other foiling. I picked up a wing and for some reason straight away I went...

This is just so fun. It is probably the simplicity, you know, no kite lines. You can paddle out from a rocky coastline somewhere on the lake and go winging. Whereas kiting, you know, always has that thing where you need a lot of space to set up with your lines and everything. And so even though I'd, you know, kited for years, it was, I guess it was just that freedom of just the simplicity of rigging up and heading out. So the development side for us meant, you know, we're busy with boards and foils.

And we are primarily a foil company. And so we were like, okay, if we're going to properly do this, we need to get some people who have been developing and designing these kinds of products for a decent period of time. And so we started searching, you know, globally for who we could partner with for developing, you know, our new wing, which became the XPS. And we found some great, you know, French design guys who just, they're really thoughtful, really smart and

Luc Moore (41:54.605)
Yeah, we had a great time developing that project with them. And luckily for us, you know, the market went through this weird phase after COVID where there was, you know, a lot of the brands had a lot of stock and like everyone was freaking out, not knowing what was happening. I mean, you had the, you know, the troubles in Europe, which didn't really help, I don't think with the market. And so there was a bit of a lull, you know, for a...

Probably the whole of 22 really was kind of a weird year for everyone to - Yeah, it was tough times. And probably the first half of this year as well. And so there wasn't for us, like we would thought we needed to get a new, you know, we're like, oh, we've got to get a new product out at the beginning of 2023 or even, you know, late 22. But in actual fact, we decided actually it's not the right time and we're not ready. Primarily we weren't ready. We just started this relationship with these guys. We wanted to actually -

push that properly and see where we could get to by doing a proper development cycle. And it was really rewarding because each time we learned something, they were very structured with their prototyping process, which was, we learned a lot from it, actually. It was really cool. And how they broke down, you know, making each change and getting progress on the wings. And it was just, yeah, great process to get a sample, you know, go through the pros and the cons, compare it to the previous one.

and then go, okay, where to next, make that plan. And then yeah, a few weeks later you have the new wing in your hands and trying it. It was, yeah, it was just a great time. Oh yeah. And that was right. Like New Zealand, you guys may not remember, but New Zealand hung onto the segregation slash lockdowns for a lot longer than the rest of the world, probably a year longer. We ended up being in lockdown a long time. And for us, it was kind of, I guess it kind of worked out because we were, you know, instead of traveling around,

you know, like we usually were, you know, to a lot of places, we were really stuck at home and we could just focus. It was really simple. We had our, we know our locations and we were just testing wings in the same place every day. And it's actually probably one of the hardest things for testing full stop is the conditions. Because if you test the same, exactly the same rig in two different locations with different conditions, it has different, a different feel. We're just the energy in the water.

Luc Moore (44:13.165)
the chop, the reverb, there's so many things going on. If you're really trying to understand exactly what's happening with one bit of kit, you have to make a change but keep everything else the same and that includes the conditions. So it was lucky for us that we were stuck here, it just was kind of lucky to come back to luck again, I don't know why, that we were stuck in New Zealand and we had to test in the same place all the time, which ended up being the best thing we could do because we really tuned in to what...

those different features of wings, you know, were doing. And then we came at the end of the process, I think we came up with a pretty nice product. That's where we're stoked with Outskiller. Yeah, I got to try out that new wing this fall. And I liked the webbing on top of the carbon there. I liked how it performed. It pumped well. Yeah, it was a good wing. Yeah, it's all about, that wing was all about something that felt great for a wide range of use. We weren't targeting race. We weren't targeting freestyle.

we're targeting wave, we just wanted it to be able to do all of those things really well. And it's achieving that and it's just a great, comfortable, fun wing to ride. Yeah, yeah, it definitely is. I found that. I found that and I wasn't sure what those handles were because like on the onset, I didn't know it was carbon on the inside, but it was stiff and it was like, oh, it's a mixture of both. And I was like, this is pretty sweet. So no, that worked out well. Yeah, so we're calling it a hybrid handle.

There's pros and cons to every handle system. And we just felt at this stage, we preferred that style of handle. It's a bit more forgiving on the board and on your body. So there's a little bit of flex there as well, which kind of helps. I can get to this elbow sometimes in my right elbow. So that was from, I kind of injured that paddling in the Molokai to Oahu one year.

paddling far too long on one side and it was hurting and you're in that race, you're gonna just carry on till you get to the end. Yeah, little, little injury, niggly injuries. So yeah, just a little softer on your body. And we like it, but hey, there's plenty of great options out there now. So that's the most exciting. Anyone getting into the sport, hey, you get by any decent brand, you're gonna have a good time.

Luc Moore (46:37.229)
Who originally designed your first kind of bags that came out? Because compared to some other ones that were coming out, like when I got my V1 from you, their bags and all that, like when you got this, you felt like you had, okay, I got six bags, I got all this stuff, I got my parts, I got like, it came with everything. Now, not everybody did that. That's one thing I did like. You're paying X dollars for your foil rig and the most damage that happens with all this stuff is when it's not in the water when you're.

putting it in your car or walking down the beach or whatever. And so we made a bag system up and that was myself and a friend of mine in Raglan to have a bag that would pack with every part, but also when everything was together, board foil, front foil, tail foil, you put the bags on and everything fitted and you could put it on the roof of your car and drive down the road with the bags on. So that was, that's what I did. I generally, I always have racks on my cars.

And I just leave everything together and just put the board on the roof. That's what I do at the end of my sessions, just drive. But I put all the bags on, right? Because sun, you know, bugs, I don't want that stuff on my foil. So yeah, we just were like, yeah, the bags got to work for the kit. I mean, why you wouldn't do it bag? I guess you'd be surprised because that was the one thing. And there's all these little pieces that make a choice for like a consumer end kind of thing, right? There's all these little decisions that different people do. And it was like,

And yes, so anyways, that was just one thing that stood out for me that I thought was interesting. Well, we use the gear every day and so we know like what makes it easier to use. And if it's just seems obvious, I don't know, you want your kit to last as well as it can. Yeah, you do. We're proud of this gear. We want people, we want it to last for people. So yeah, we've done that across the board without, we do it with our boards as well, which I mean,

It makes sense because you want, you know, boards are, light boards are fragile items. I mean, hey, we make them as durable as we can. We use full Inegra wrap underneath the carbon, which is, you know, the strongest way you can make a composite board in terms of the fibers. And, you know, that's great. But if you bash a board with something hard, you're still going to ding it, you know, regardless of how the board's made.

Luc Moore (48:57.869)
in any board, unless it weighs an absolute ton, you know, you can ding. And so, yeah, having a bag with it just makes sense. Okay, no, fair enough. Is there anything you'd like to let everybody know about your new releases and why they should hop on this new stuff? Well, I mean, we've got the Wing FG board range has been out for a little while, and we are very excited with that range. That's been a decent time in development and...

The team riders are just absolutely loving them. I've been loving them. They're just simple, easy to use. They feel great to use and they really, you know, hone down what we think a wing board needs to be and 10 sizes in the range. So something there, no matter what volume you need. I think they're quite compact for their volume. So you don't need to step down massively in volume with those boards. Just be aware, unless you're really ready for it. You know, you can...

stick with a similar volume maybe to what you've got and it's going to ride like a much smaller board. And that's paired with our forward geometry, which is a pretty big thing. Like we've had forward geometry for a while, but you know, having the tracks further forward in the board paired with the foil system that works for that just makes the board ride much smaller. Yeah, definitely. So, not really, really excited about the boards. The XPS that's been going great. We talked about that.

No, we're just excited by seeing people out there shredding on that. The downwind performance foils, I mean, they are a really interesting area for us because after the kiting and the sub foiling, we did get into downwind. I got personally on downwinding in a pretty big way because I've been sub racing and I was like, yeah, I'm going to do these sub races I used to do on a big sub on a foil. And I was making foils for that and I was the only one doing it.

Obviously Kai was doing a few here and there. And yeah, in 2018, I think there were seven or eight of us at the start line for the M2O. So very interesting times. And the downwind foiling, it's actually another surprise how much it's developed in the last year. But let's say two years, really. But especially in the last year, it's really become a thing in the sport. And I guess that's...

Luc Moore (51:21.709)
because foiling is maturing a little bit as a sport. And so you've got a lot of people who are already quite good. And downwind foiling is demanding. Don't get me wrong, it's not easy. So it's possibly the most demanding side of foiling, but it's also the most rewarding. And I think surf foilers or surfers generally, actually, it might become, it might really become a big part of the future of foiling that might be surprise a few people because surfers,

For a start, they're getting into winging more than they ever did with windsurfing and kiting, and I'm not quite sure why, but maybe it's because they're doing a bit of surf foiling in the small, crumbly waves where the surf isn't great, to keep themselves in shape. And the downwinding, I think, is really going to appeal to surfers, because when it's really windy, the surf isn't great, and it gives them a long, really fun ride when the surf's pretty average. So yeah, I mean, we've got, there's some top...

who are just absolutely loving the downwind at the moment, putting out great content of going with downwind missions. Oh yeah, it looks so fun. I think, yeah, it's got a really interesting journey, the downwind. So yeah, Downwind Performance Foils, they were developed 100 % for blasting downwind. And yeah, they're a pretty exciting full range, ton of bottom end for quite small foils. So you can get up and make them go, but you can also go really fast on them. So yeah, no, pretty cool.

Pretty true to the times. Nice. All right, so we've got a bunch of stuff then. And so that's cool. Where are you off to next? I know you just came home and you're kind of traveling everywhere. So are you home for a bit or? Yeah, I've been up at the factory for a while. We spend quite a bit of time in the factory facility. Just making sure all of our material supply is bang on what it's supposed to be. All of our processes are accurate.

and also improving our processes. There's always something you can improve. And we always do, whenever we discover an improvement in the layout and we do a lot of testing, a lot of that information will be coming soon about what we do. We have our own test facility in the factory. We've got a lot of specialized equipment for doing that testing. And it's really important in the stability and consistency of the manufacturer to test all the materials and...

Luc Moore (53:45.165)
Also randomly select parts in production and put them through full testing right up to breaking tests. So just make sure that everything is consistent and we're improving the whole way. I love it. I get up every day and you can see it two ways. Hey, there's problems to solve every day, but there's also things to learn and improve every day. So every time you solve a problem, something gets better. So it's in life, nothing's just simple and...

all down and dusted. Like there's always a small improvement to be made somewhere, which is, I love it. I think it's great fun. Yeah, no, it is. And I think that's what keeps pushing the sport and that keeps bringing new products out that we love to ride. And it just brings out new and new different sensations. Cause there's a lake that I sail on all the time on Vancouver Island. And I was just thinking it's pretty long and that would be a pretty fun downwind run. What sort of breezy again? Oh, oh there we can get up to 30.

30 knots, yeah. Nit Nat Lake is one of the most infamous ones, but we could definitely do a nice little downwinder from up there and that would be so fun. So it's opening up possibilities for so many people. Epic, well no, well that's right. And it becomes a real, like downwinding is a real adventure sport because you've got to, you're going from A to B, you've got to work on your logistics, you've got to figure out options if the weather changes, you've got to look at the weather properly because you are going, you can be going quite far out to sea.

you know, down a bit of maybe in a hospitable coastline. So it becomes, yeah, more of an adventure sport than just a little mini session at the beach. So it's, yeah, it's a whole nother dimension of foiling, which is, yeah, it's so fun. When you go out, do you bring GPS watch? Like in skiing, backcountry skiing, they got beacons and stuff. Like, do you think that'll be the next thing that'll be come out with this?

Sport like just - For downwinding, yeah. You either take your phone if there's coverage or definitely you take water packs and some flotation of bits and pieces if you're doing a big offshore mission. But yeah, for testing, we use GPSs for sure. And we have some pretty cool devices that we can bolt onto the board that give us really accurate data, a lot more than a watch, proper sailing tools.

Luc Moore (56:10.285)
But for downwinding, yeah, I mean, the most important bit of gear is probably your leash and go with friends and make a plan like any, it is, you know, especially for in the ocean somewhere, it's more of a, you know, a proper ocean adventure. So yeah, just taking precautions. And yeah, you'll be good.

Yeah, it's good just to mention that, but nice. Well, heck, we covered heck of a lot in an hour. Is there anything else you want to - Well, that's an hour already. Sorry for talking so much. Yeah, no, no. Is there anything else you want to talk about or bring up or let people know? I don't know. I mean, just thanks a lot for having us. And yeah, to everyone out there that's got some Armstrong gear, thank you very much. We're just, you know.

really appreciative that you're out there and we hope you are loving riding the gear as much as we do and there's lots of new bits and pieces coming that you can jam on your rigs and get out there. So the main thing to everyone is yeah, keep enjoying the stoke and push your progression, whether it's winging or dock starting or whatever kind of foiling you're doing. I mean, have fun and thank you for doing it. It's just so cool to see everyone getting involved.

Oh yeah, it's more and more and more and in a time where we needed more joy and more happiness and stuff because of everything that was going down worldwide, this has come at a perfect time. And I think that's the main mission that when I talk to everybody who's running a brand, it's the same thing. They're just so stoked to be able to share that stoke, which I think is what this is all about. 100%. Well, hey, Army, thanks a lot for joining me tonight and I'm sure we're gonna have you back on to chat more gear and.

Thanks everybody for joining us. Awesome. Thanks everyone.