[00:00:00] Hey everyone welcome back to the show we are excited about today's episode it's
[00:00:05] with Gunner from Indiana paddle surf company he lives in one of the
[00:00:10] windiest places on the planet Fort Ventura so it was a great time just getting
[00:00:15] to know him having a chat about his life how he found when his racing career
[00:00:20] and also the work that he does at Indiana paddle surf so I hope you really do
[00:00:25] enjoy this episode now if you haven't had the opportunity to listen to last
[00:00:29] weeks it was our first ever Q&A episode and as with balls Mueller so we had a
[00:00:36] great time asking him all of your questions so if you haven't had the
[00:00:39] opportunity I would listen to balls this two episodes and just take that
[00:00:44] information in super fun so don't forget if you want to support our show there
[00:00:50] are multiple ways to do so the easiest ways to follow us on Instagram YouTube and
[00:00:54] on your favorite podcast provider like Apple Podcasts and Spotify if you
[00:00:59] want give us a five star review those do go a long way to help our show grow
[00:01:03] and become more visible if you want to help out in the day today visit winglife
[00:01:08] podcast.com and click on support us to donate a few dollars or jump on a
[00:01:13] monthly subscription so we appreciate your support and we hope you enjoy
[00:01:17] today's episode. Welcome to the winglife podcast where we talk about wing
[00:01:28] foiling and the lifestyles of those who enjoy this great sport. Alright hey Gunner
[00:01:33] super stoked to talk to you today thanks for joining me on the show.
[00:01:36] I welcome thanks for the opportunity. Nice did you get any win today living in
[00:01:43] a beautiful place that you limit? No unfortunately not we've had great swell
[00:01:49] for the last week and really really good but been really light and like the
[00:01:55] last two days it's been glassy. Perfect for surfing but not great especially I've
[00:02:01] got stuff to test. You can't wait for wind at the moment so yeah nice for those at
[00:02:09] home. Where are you? Where are you living? I live on Fort Eventura that's one of
[00:02:15] the islands from the Canary Islands. Canary Islands are like this archipelago
[00:02:20] that's off the coast of Africa that however belongs to Spain. It's sort of
[00:02:27] volcanic islands and sun and we're right in the middle of the trade wind area so
[00:02:31] it's for windy and nice beaches and reasonably warm water all year round so you
[00:02:38] do water sports it's basically paradise. Yeah I guess so for those like
[00:02:42] who aren't familiar with it when's the best season for wind and waves and alacata?
[00:02:48] Our windy season the trade wind season is from April till September in that
[00:02:53] time when you come down you're pretty much 100% wind guarantee depending on
[00:02:59] what spots and what wind directions there are there's always somewhere that's
[00:03:03] pretty windy and then from October until beginning of April it's the sort of
[00:03:10] North Atlantic wave seasons because we get a lot of the storms and they push
[00:03:14] that groundswell through so yeah then we're pretty much surfing every day or
[00:03:21] bike is so foiling. Yeah that's pretty cool for people of ranging like I know
[00:03:27] we're a rainfall podcast but a bunch of our everybody kites and wincers too so
[00:03:31] there are spots on the island that are beginner friendly is it a lot more advanced
[00:03:35] like like some other islands and stuff like that. We have a good mix of
[00:03:41] swi actually love living here especially also working here for testing gear
[00:03:45] it's because we've got perfect beginner spots we got really advanced spots
[00:03:50] we've got super dangerous and gusty spots so we can pretty much there's
[00:03:54] something for everybody here. In the summer let's say like especially for
[00:03:59] winging and guiding it's really good for beginners because consistent wind
[00:04:03] and there's no swell so almost all spots the waters flat so it's great to
[00:04:08] learn especially for winging. Here's on the winter it gets a little bit more
[00:04:13] difficult finding pure beginner spots with our waves because they're like
[00:04:20] with the swell it can get a bit choppy and a bit wavy but there are still spots
[00:04:24] like in the south I can sort of enter where they have the World Cup where it's
[00:04:27] practically flat all the time. Okay and what kind of winds are you
[00:04:31] knowing me getting there in the summertime. In the summer like so we have the
[00:04:35] full range up in the north where I live I live up in the north near Corlecio
[00:04:40] we have like unaccelerated trade winds so it's typically between 15 and 25
[00:04:45] knots every day depending if it's northeastern north and down in the south
[00:04:50] it's ballistic because they get like a double venturi effect like the wind gets
[00:04:54] pushed through the island and sort of into a valley and it out again and there
[00:04:58] you've every day it's like 25 knots plus gusts of 40 sometimes 50 depending on
[00:05:03] how warm it gets. A windy tap that's great yeah. So how did you like where were
[00:05:12] you living before and when did you move to Ferdinandshire? I was living in
[00:05:18] the UK beforehand I mean my history is really long I mean half German half
[00:05:24] Chinese and unfortunately born in Iran my parents were then and we're open
[00:05:30] in Indonesia and then I went to study in the UK up in Manchester. Oh cool
[00:05:36] which study till computer engineering and accounting and finance. All right okay
[00:05:43] so how did you go from accounting and all that kind of thing into wind? How
[00:05:47] that happened. I mean I've been flying and building kites since I'm like 10
[00:05:51] years old I've always been like full on like I love stuff that flies so my
[00:05:59] cousin my older cousin got me into like kite flying like bought me like first
[00:06:05] plastic kite and stuff. I fell in love with that never since then I've been
[00:06:08] into sort of just flying kites building kites and just doing stuff like that
[00:06:12] and when I was studying in the UK I started power kiting and then kite buggy
[00:06:17] and kite buggy racing and stuff like that and that like around 1999
[00:06:23] automatically involved into going on the water with those kite buggy kites
[00:06:28] with like wakeboards and surfboards and it's sort of all you got into kite
[00:06:31] surfing and then as soon as I really got into kite surfing I realized I don't
[00:06:37] like doing it in the cold and I saw I had I saw an ad for a kite surf instructor
[00:06:46] which was the flag Beach Center in Fortive and Tour they were looking for a kite surf instructor
[00:06:50] who spoke German in English so I was like that's perfect for me. I'm not staying at the UK over
[00:06:54] the winter and I took the job here and then I fell in love with the place and
[00:07:02] they're much decided to come back the next year and then stayed. Oh wow okay. Then you picked up
[00:07:09] where you doing training and then picked up other side work kind of thing or was it training enough
[00:07:14] or was working in the system. I was working full time as a kite instructor
[00:07:19] reflect beach it was pretty busy back then and did that for good few years but also around that time
[00:07:27] I mean even starting 2002 I was already sort of getting sponsorship deals with Wippicabek then
[00:07:34] and then Greenone and then in 2004 that's essentially when I stopped teaching and then basically
[00:07:42] I got my first big sponsor with Peter Lincard boarding. They were basically sponsoring me
[00:07:49] from then on I could stop being a kite instructor. So competing on tour all that kind of thing?
[00:07:55] Yeah exactly. Oh wow okay so what like what were your favorite events when you're competing
[00:08:02] and dispensed events like the one here down in the south back then those sort of like
[00:08:07] highlight because it was a huge event big party and so on and also together with the wind surfers
[00:08:12] and then the events in Cabaretay were awesome. Awesome and then of course the World Cup in
[00:08:18] Germany is the same people boarding World Cup that was just amazing because that's huge like set up
[00:08:26] and like it's also like a next bowl for all the gear but also massive concerts and
[00:08:31] now the spot's really good too so that's already like the biggest event of the calendars. Excellent.
[00:08:37] When did you get into like kite foil racing because I know that was your pretty big thing for you.
[00:08:45] Yeah I mean the, I mean I've been racing like in competitions since being in beginning
[00:08:51] like what's I started with kite buggy racing and then 2005 the PKRI had their first border
[00:08:58] cross so I basically competed the border cross which was all I think was the kite cross tour
[00:09:04] came second in that overall and then we started like kite the normal kite board racing started
[00:09:13] around 2007 and heavily into that and then when I basically went from Peterlin to Fly Surfer
[00:09:20] and basically 2010 I became German champion for like normal kite board racing
[00:09:27] and did that for a while but around 2010 also I got my hands on my first carofino hydrofoil
[00:09:34] yeah it's not good you already dealt to about that yeah yeah it's not going to be good. This is
[00:09:39] really cool it's really badly made and it's not working that well but it's really cool
[00:09:47] so I mean I had that for a while then I broke very quickly and so I mean
[00:09:54] like Shaeber I was working with with my boards to be decided to essentially start building
[00:09:58] our own here and then sort of back in 2010 from there. Oh shit how just step back a little bit
[00:10:05] into your kite board racing like what kind of speed are you hitting back then? I backed
[00:10:11] them we're compared to now like super slow when we had the the big tanker boards like the the
[00:10:15] trifin basically win surfboards with the kites we were about maxing out around 25 knots 27 knots
[00:10:24] in races that was like pretty fast back then and that was like when hydrofoiling came around it
[00:10:31] was already like hey look on my little free ride hydrofoil I'm already faster than the most expensive
[00:10:36] hydrating you have at the moment so we already knew where that was going and actually luckily
[00:10:44] we went to the Olympics with with the with the big trifin boards but luckily we got kicked out
[00:10:49] again because if we hadn't been kicked out it would have we wouldn't have started foiling as quickly
[00:10:54] because when we were in and the Olympics there was a lot of pressure not to introduce any new gear
[00:11:00] because we don't want like a lot of evolution like in the Olympic class at least back
[00:11:06] 2012 that was definitely please do not pack your hydrofoil at the Olympic trials which is don't
[00:11:11] people to see that so it was actually good that when we got kicked out again at the end of 2012
[00:11:17] then 2013 like people like Johnny and so on were like pushing it a bit more and then people
[00:11:23] realized that oh these hydrofoils are a lot quicker upwind than that any of the other gear
[00:11:30] yeah the Johnny's first race he couldn't even drive or attack and he still beat everybody
[00:11:37] oh shit yeah so it was like then everybody knew it was like okay this is this is over with these
[00:11:42] massive uh unhandly boards and hydrofoilings going to be the future and also with the foil
[00:11:48] kites coming in we were basically able to push the low end of the sport really like far down so
[00:11:55] sailing in like five six knots at full speed was all of a sudden possible you know with the trifin
[00:12:01] boards it was even with like a 21 square meter like fly Christopher kite in six knots were extremely
[00:12:06] slow but with the foils it's like I'm not 20 knots plus and then you know reaching of 30 knots so
[00:12:12] and like nowadays if you're like the top 10 in the Olympics they're all reaching speeds close to 40
[00:12:19] knots in the strong wind races so 40 knots so you're nearing like almost 80 what 80 to 100 kilometers
[00:12:27] an hour almost ish not 100 but yeah 80 to 70 it's like 78 kilometers an hour so like that some of
[00:12:32] the races yeah it's getting quick how have you seen the evolution from like your caraphyno that
[00:12:38] you broke to like how did you guys start at the start then like you obviously just went in and
[00:12:43] just looked at the things that were breaking and tried to try to make them better yeah the biggest
[00:12:48] thing for me was essentially making something that was a bit more higher quality and more durable
[00:12:54] and all right there wasn't even actual any real carbon in the original caraphyno um so we're like okay
[00:13:01] we're gonna make something proper and then looking at a bit of actual hydrodynamics a little bit
[00:13:06] not to make it but the biggest thing that at least we did magma was we wanted to get rid of the T-bar
[00:13:13] we were like this is this is a pain in the ass to travel with you know having the mass and a few
[00:13:18] slosh can doesn't fit in the board bag well so or the first thing we did was right how do we split the
[00:13:23] mass from the fuselage section all right we're the first oil brand back then I mean of three I think
[00:13:29] existed back then um that essentially went not we're separating the mass from the fuselage
[00:13:34] rules which will make easier to basically travel and also have different fuselage links for them in
[00:13:41] do you have any of those originals um on your unfortunately not damn let me try to say
[00:13:47] we were selling them we were selling them faster than we could build them so every every one I made
[00:13:52] for myself was sold within like weeks of them being made which it annoys me because I usually
[00:13:59] try to keep like I have a lot of my old board prototypes all in my garden but on the foil side like
[00:14:06] yeah well from the really early days you don't have any of those first prototypes left over which
[00:14:11] is a bit of a shame I don't do that so how did you then do that first initial connection
[00:14:16] with fused and masked actually not so much different from what it is nowadays um now we
[00:14:23] took uh essentially the concept from the tuddle box sort of about having it sort of a tapered
[00:14:28] plug on the mast that would basically slot into the fuselage okay what we did a little bit different
[00:14:37] was that we had a sort of rounded radius on the front which may mean as like the front
[00:14:42] screwed wasn't holding as much pressure it basically could be held in almost just with one
[00:14:47] screw in the back yeah I was a bit bulky that system but that worked pretty good um yeah and the
[00:14:53] front wings pretty much like standard sort of front wing detached from the fuse latches normal
[00:14:58] three screws and then stabilizer in the back how did you tune that stay leisure because I know we had
[00:15:07] levitas levitas is a really cool screw system for for fine tuning their tail and whatnot
[00:15:14] what do you think about that how how did you guys tune yours back then um we didn't
[00:15:21] be tuned with shims back then when we were actually designing and testing um that screw system that
[00:15:28] levita fused uses is something that was used on there was a brand called spots sure if you know them
[00:15:36] spots were the first sort of really good racing foil brand you really knew what he was doing
[00:15:45] and he had this really cool thing and he came up with a system to basically with the screws
[00:15:50] um trim the the stabilizer for different conditions
[00:15:55] and all that was pretty cool it had its own problems and so on it's not thought
[00:16:01] this is a system that you don't really want to use as a normal rider essentially as a normal
[00:16:04] rider you essentially want uh here's your foil it works you don't really been missing around too much
[00:16:09] with your stabilizer actually stabilizer changes a lot um that's why a lot of people can get it wrong
[00:16:16] um there's also wide a lot of misconceptions of actually how the stabilizer works especially in
[00:16:24] regards to uh pitched ability uh of the overall foil system and essentially what's happening with
[00:16:32] the shifting of the center of gravity so we can go into it probably the easiest easiest way
[00:16:39] to sort of explain it is like when i design a foil the first thing i actually tune in is not the
[00:16:45] stabilizer the first thing i tune in is the front wing because everything sort of is based off
[00:16:52] that so um i will basically get the front wing flying basically straight because essentially
[00:16:59] the front wing is always going to fly at its assigned angle of attack every profile has got an
[00:17:04] angle of attack where it works usually that's weaned sort of uh zero negative one and positive one
[00:17:12] depending on what profile we're using and then once you figure that out and you've got your board
[00:17:17] in a in a decent delta with it i mean some people like a completely parallel i'll make i prefer a
[00:17:21] little bit more like nose up but essentially you have that working and then you can start working on
[00:17:26] trimming the stabilizer i typically use a very sort of standard neutral stabilizer when i'm
[00:17:32] trimming in the front wing and then i start worrying about this little bit of extra fine tuning on
[00:17:36] the stabilizer okay because once you got that the front wing more or less flying reasonably stable
[00:17:44] that's when you can sort of add a bit more extra pitched ability less can add a bit more speed
[00:17:49] making the whole thing a bit looser by changing the angles but also overall you can
[00:17:55] get a lot better result by actually designing the proper stabilizer for that front wing
[00:18:01] okay like there's there's a good angle of attack for your stabilizer too from its profile where it's
[00:18:06] working at its best to compensate the pitching moment from the front wing and you're pitching your roll
[00:18:12] and once you sort overshim it or undershim it you're always sacrificing something you either got
[00:18:20] getting pitch instable or like way too pitched stable or it's getting it kicks up too hard and
[00:18:25] things like that and so i'd rather try to get the the stabilizer to work really well with the front
[00:18:32] wing sort of by having the right design not so much over having to put too much angle the
[00:18:38] attack change it to it okay okay all right that makes sense and now did you learn all of this stuff
[00:18:47] as you went through your riding like when you started magma and stuff back 2010 so you've had
[00:18:53] what is that 13 years 14 years now of of just experience a lot of love trial and error
[00:19:01] and a lot of YouTube videos and i had to teach myself cats CFD everything pretty much
[00:19:09] i mean i knew from building kites you know how to make things fly and how things are balanced in flight
[00:19:17] but i had to basically figure out how to basically design and build these things and especially when
[00:19:22] started trying to go into manufacturing it opened a whole new penthouse box of things that needed to be
[00:19:29] learned well i think it's the first software standard software that you guys use or is it just
[00:19:35] something that you that you kind of tried to tinker and find i think i mean most people are using
[00:19:43] actually still trial and error and there's some uh
[00:19:48] there's like some sort of like software like davky from used to work for a rush
[00:19:54] he sort of is designing his own sort of um oem sort of foil software for example and
[00:20:01] people are getting into that but especially in the beginning there we didn't have any reference so
[00:20:08] i actually started working with a like RC model um software just to basically get the basic
[00:20:14] geometries and the profiles sorted out but then i'd actually have to take all that
[00:20:19] but i'm not building an RC plane i'd to take all that into um like a CAD program like solid works
[00:20:26] and draw it properly so we can make molds and so on okay and where did you get all your molds and
[00:20:35] all that kind of stuff done um back in the day that was a pain in the ass back in the day
[00:20:41] that was we have to send a files to to germany and then we'd have a guy there who basically cut
[00:20:48] them and then i'd have to fly to germany pick up this massive block of mdf or aluminum
[00:20:54] this will be back to fortivantura so we could laminate um now it's a lot easier um over there i've got
[00:21:01] like a massive 3d printer okay uh i just i 3d print the molds now and i can be my i build my
[00:21:10] prototypes back in my garage oh well now why they all just uh it's really yeah it's really quick
[00:21:17] so i take the the mold takes a big like for front wing like a meter-spat front wing it takes
[00:21:23] three or four days to print the mold and then laminating you know if you discount the drying times
[00:21:28] laminating is like two three hours total using pre-preg carbam or using like no just handly hand layup
[00:21:36] okay all right the problem of living here are the canaries as you can't get any of this stuff
[00:21:41] down here like uh we break needs to be uh refrigerated and so on so yeah we can't get that down
[00:21:48] here um plus i don't i don't have i don't my house isn't big enough for an auto cleave which basically
[00:21:53] it's an oven which cures a repreg and yeah in the future maybe but uh for now this normal
[00:22:01] hand layup with carbon knowledge and the turnaround time essentially like said within a week i can
[00:22:07] test a prototype oh no way okay so beautiful yep so what happened so where did you go from magma
[00:22:15] to to where you are now at indiana yeah um magma we were pretty successful in the beginning but then
[00:22:23] we sort of made the mistake when sort of falling started taking off a little bit we decided we
[00:22:28] wanted to do mass manufacturing and then we got involved with the wrong factory which basically
[00:22:35] ended that project very quickly the bankrupted us and so there i'm sorry for not spending any
[00:22:42] my own money doing this yeah um and then at that time i was i was uh working for fly servers a team
[00:22:50] manager and so on and uh was racing full-time so yeah just spending my time basically racing
[00:22:59] developing new foils just basically for myself and trying to sort of do something and then actually
[00:23:05] started um doing review videos um for foils back then which he fairly nice best phone so on and uh
[00:23:13] um sort of when sort of the kaiful racing started and then the normal racing sort of ended i
[00:23:23] took a few years off and i started my own shop stuff like that so wasn't in that much into the
[00:23:29] sort of the development side of foiling at the time and then um and then surf boiling sort of came
[00:23:37] about a and that's how i got involved with indiana so around 2014 2015 started sub foiling surf
[00:23:46] foiling and things like that um started having the big foils and so on so like oh this is really
[00:23:52] cool and then um in 2016 um the boss from indiana was um on front of into our for holiday
[00:24:02] okay and sort of wanted the kite foil lesson they were in the kite foil yeah and then he was
[00:24:09] like yeah this was on like yeah would you like to um you know develop a board like a like a sub
[00:24:14] foil board with us and so on oh yeah sure and uh work with their shape at their time
[00:24:21] a bit more and then we had our first like sub foil board and then they came around
[00:24:27] year later and like how we've got a few of these like china foils we're thinking about getting into
[00:24:31] sort of foiling also like it for the brand and i was like no i can actually design you a foil that's
[00:24:38] lot better than oh yeah i'm china thing and you're like okay let's do that and then sort of
[00:24:44] that's how that sort of happened oh that's so cool yeah so i was working freelance for them all
[00:24:50] the time until last year alright so still be see being a pro rider for different brands and then the
[00:24:56] thing with north um was was happening and was working uh with north and so on for a while
[00:25:02] and then when that ended essentially i started working full-time i don't know so i already last year
[00:25:09] okay now like i just heard of indiana and there's a lot of other people out there that haven't
[00:25:14] heard of them yet so where is the brand based out of the brand is based out of ziric in Switzerland
[00:25:20] and it actually started out as a skateboarding brand you're sort of an old like slalom
[00:25:29] winserfer or longboard not winserfer slalom skateboarder like longboard skateboarder from
[00:25:34] let's say late 90s early 2000s um then they might say something actually one of my first skateboards
[00:25:41] which you still have garage is from indiana so i actually knew the brand i was like oh it's you guys
[00:25:47] cool um so yeah so they started the skateboarding brand the the CEO maro's strobele he's actually
[00:25:56] like really successful like sort of slalom skateboarder so um yeah so him and his partner started in
[00:26:05] janas they had skateboards and so on and then when the stand-up paddling started they're like oh we
[00:26:10] want to do this we can get into it especially switzerland and it's a paradise for stand-up paddling you
[00:26:15] got so many lakes uh near the big cities and so on so by natural for them to get into it
[00:26:22] and um okay that's how they sort of came out yeah our balls at ours in our in the showroom
[00:26:30] all right yeah we have a really cool office directly on the lake like if you scroll down there's
[00:26:36] a picture of niki or jernosales guy like that's sort of the lake there i felt like the little dock
[00:26:41] starting platform right off the right off the office uh out of the office or practically
[00:26:46] well sorry i'm gonna scroll up here everybody just listening we're just taking a look at their
[00:26:52] their website indiana slash our dash sorry paddlesurf.com oh yeah that does look pretty cool
[00:26:59] that's right in the back of the office that's that's yeah so basically that's of the main
[00:27:03] period and if you look straight behind that there were all the bolts apart that's the alpha
[00:27:07] that's the indiana headquarters so oh wow man that looks beautiful yeah yep she got this beautiful
[00:27:14] little bay or i guess not it's not really bay it's more of uh one of those things call me i know
[00:27:19] you basically it's a it's a small harbor small harbor that's what the word i was looking for okay
[00:27:24] near a little dock and yeah gotta be be careful not not not to hit any sailboats when you're
[00:27:29] when you're when you're pubbing rough yeah fair enough fair enough that cool little spot though
[00:27:35] okay so they approach you you started working for them um how do you like that so far
[00:27:42] to your what's your first year i guess full time yeah it's full time i mean i've been less of this
[00:27:47] i've been making foil boards for them and for us for while so um not it's great because it's
[00:27:54] there it's a small brand so very progressive small team of people to work with um so yeah there's
[00:28:02] a lot of cool new things coming um soon except it's spending a lot of time especially this last year
[00:28:09] just building and testing and just trying to make cool stuff so um we're gonna be introducing most
[00:28:17] of us i think two weeks at the boat show in diseldof so can you share any of it with us now uh where
[00:28:25] did you wherever you made those big kind of improvements or where do you see things going
[00:28:29] um well we're we've been working on sort of a new sort of at least for us a sort of a more
[00:28:37] high performance system where everything is just a bit more streamlined so for all the new foils
[00:28:42] are coming out at indiana they're gonna look a lot nicer they're gonna be faster the whole system
[00:28:47] is gonna be a little bit more integrated um where come up sort of look a more monocoque system where
[00:28:52] the front wing is integrated with fuselage um something you've um seen from like f1 for example
[00:28:59] well very integrated with that um we've got new masks that we've been working on thinner
[00:29:07] mass with high margillous carbon just essentially trying to push um the performance side on that thing
[00:29:13] i've been working on a full range of new front wings for winging and surf foiling downwinding and so on
[00:29:21] so well like i'm really like hoping for wind now because of it yeah it's time for which
[00:29:27] everyone is in the water um so yeah oh that's pretty good that's exciting stuff yeah i tried
[00:29:35] AFS's foil their their mono um yep and it was pretty sweet actually um but here back on your
[00:29:42] website a little bit so you got inflatable stops sorry yeah composite you got surfboards you
[00:29:48] got foil boards you got foils you got wings paddles accessories ranging from lecious to fins to
[00:29:56] yep a bunch of and then okay then you got some metal it's uh um do you want to get people
[00:30:02] home with your quick overview yeah so i mean indiana started basically as a stand-up paddle um
[00:30:10] brand so obviously we have the whole stand-up paddle side the surfboard side um also quite
[00:30:16] heavily into sort of the indoor surfing as swiss brand there's quite a lot of like indoor
[00:30:21] indoor waves um in switzerland okay so we're quite heavily involved in that and then again being
[00:30:29] swiss brand uh wake wake surfing and stuff like that um also quite a big thing and then with on
[00:30:36] the foiling side um yeah we've pretty much got full range of inflatable boards hard boards you got
[00:30:44] three ranges of hard boards or more wave oriented to have performance stuff um that i designed
[00:30:51] and evit monday's sort of the flat water sort of lake orientated wing boards
[00:30:57] and now i've got three three or four ranges of foils cover everything we were one of the first
[00:31:02] brands to sort of do really big foils for uh for pump foiling for dock starting oh okay we used
[00:31:09] going at the thousand one hundred p which is like first one which was massive big profiles of it
[00:31:14] anybody could just jump off the dock and and pump oh sweet and swiss sort of pump
[00:31:20] pump foiling and swiss sort is just massively taken off it's insane how how many people do it there
[00:31:27] yeah i mean they got a lot of lakes and a lot of docks and not a lot of restrictions in that
[00:31:32] respect respect okay now i come to for example guys and they're saying that that like designing a good
[00:31:39] pump foil is actually pretty hard yeah it is okay let me go into when i first designed that first
[00:31:47] one like almost what Peter almost burnt down doing the the the CFD's um simulation um because
[00:31:56] we hadn't done anything that big before i mean but however nowadays there's a not a lot not a lot
[00:32:03] a lot has changed in the last three years it's gotten a lot more streamlined it's gone a bit more to
[00:32:07] sort of the performance thing um but nowadays we sort of know what we're doing what we need uh for
[00:32:13] pump foils yeah what's harder now we've got really good team riders like these 13 year old kids
[00:32:20] which are like now we want to go super fast we need a super small like 800 square centimeter pump
[00:32:25] foil and we want to backflips and all this stuff so yeah it's a bit that that is a bit more
[00:32:32] difficult because it's it's stuff that i can't test anymore it's gotten to a point where it's like
[00:32:38] oh you need some uh you need some kid I'm gonna kite with it i'm gonna wing with it
[00:32:44] tell me what it's like when you pump this uh because like i i can't dock start something
[00:32:50] that's more yep but the next generation they're just they're just kicking ass on this stuff
[00:32:57] well if there are three things to build a good pump foil what would they they'd be
[00:33:01] what what's required to make a good one the first thing is durability people really underestimate
[00:33:08] especially on the bigger ones how much um pressure these front big front wings with the profiles
[00:33:15] that are on there um create on all the connections um you will see especially if you've got thinner
[00:33:22] aluminum masks or card normal carbon fuse slashes you can break those fairly easily um dock
[00:33:29] starting um you know you also have quite a lot of ground contact or contact with the dock so
[00:33:35] the first thing is trying to make these things as durable as possible that's like when you're
[00:33:38] designing and you're already thinking about that so that's the first thing the second thing is
[00:33:43] essentially efficiency and glide you want something that once it's up and flying we'll stay up
[00:33:50] and flying easily so you don't have to put so much of your own power into it uh so basically
[00:33:54] you don't have to pump like a crazy person all the time you can glide and relax a little bit um
[00:34:01] yep and then on the third thing is trying to keep the thing fun because it's actually very easy
[00:34:06] to make a massive front wing that just goes straight yeah yeah once people learn yeah they don't turn
[00:34:17] that's where there are like some like massive things like other like that are designed for
[00:34:21] like long distance pumping yeah for example like the beta foil which is amazing for just pumping ages
[00:34:29] but that's all you really can do you go straight line you pump for a long time but um especially
[00:34:35] people that are like i'm not into like pumping across the lake i just want to like do a few rounds
[00:34:42] and i want to carve hard no i want to like pop a little air or something like that so you're still
[00:34:47] trying to design especially now foils that are still more versatile and fun all right so a lot of
[00:34:53] that comes down to you trial and error but you have an idea of how the foil is going to perform
[00:34:57] and you create that and it has a proto they let you know and then you can make tweaks as you go
[00:35:03] exactly yeah okay cool okay so you're doing boards there foils there who's designing wings
[00:35:11] because i saw you guys had wings as well i'm at the moment we have a deal with ozone so basically having
[00:35:17] indiana branded ozone wings so at the moment um selling the fluxes and the flies um so that's the
[00:35:26] way it is at the moment we're always contemplating you know maybe coming up with our own wings but that's
[00:35:34] another product which is just a lot of stuff to do at the moment our catalogs really full so um
[00:35:41] yeah at the moment we don't really have our own wings but yeah we have the ozone wings
[00:35:47] um out of all the disciplines that you've done over the years like what's your favorite one
[00:35:53] if you had like half an hour for example what would you go do
[00:35:59] that's the hard
[00:36:03] for me i have it's it changes all the time um i have weeks where i'm like totally back into sort of
[00:36:11] kite foiling and just kiting them like i'm loving this and then then man on then i've got
[00:36:16] wings on like no i then you got really good conditions for winging you know like i love winging
[00:36:20] you know you have like two meter three meter waves like howling wind i was like no i love this
[00:36:24] and then at this other times where i'm like oh no it's super it's super glassy like the
[00:36:29] this last week it's super glassy surf foiling it's so amazing and at the moment the flat water
[00:36:35] paddling that's also like something i'm really into like i look forward to my i go out every morning
[00:36:41] um and we'll just do an hour of just flat water paddle ups now that would
[00:36:46] i don't care how do you say i know it's yeah that's great it's good exercise it's it's hard as hell
[00:36:55] um so it keeps you fit and then a really for me it really improved my paddling
[00:37:02] because i mean most of my life i've been in sort of a mediocre stand-up paddle year but i've
[00:37:05] been doing it for close to 15 years um but in the last two years of like properly getting
[00:37:11] like flat water paddles to the downwind gear and like my levels really exploded so i'm a way
[00:37:17] better paddler just through figuring out how to get um up on the foil just paddling
[00:37:24] what's the like i've seen a bunch of people do it um what was the hardest thing for you
[00:37:29] on there um finding the right timing essentially uh because once we had the boards
[00:37:36] like i'll get this should be a lot easier than it was before so may flat water padel ups um
[00:37:41] i made a video for like eric terry and my friend of mine here like back in 2016 you were already
[00:37:45] paddling up on bog standard subfold back then so now we've got really easy boards to do it which
[00:37:53] you have to put in less energy but the biggest important part is that uh paddle technique and timing
[00:37:59] so you have to be able to first of all paddles a board that's that narrow
[00:38:04] and the board i use for flat water padel ups 19 inches wide like that it's uh no no margin for error on
[00:38:12] that thing and uh it like i said if if you're slightly off on your paddle technique you can
[00:38:19] paddle as hard as you want you're not getting that combination of you pumping with your feet
[00:38:23] and accelerating forward with the paddle to get up on the foil so once once you have it it's like oh
[00:38:30] this is easy but it took a long time just to figure it out a lot of hard break but a lot of lost
[00:38:37] weight too so and it's all good on that respect all right lean and mean for the camera and then
[00:38:42] you're out flying that's all right exactly yeah okay that's cool nice um i was just reading one
[00:38:49] of the question here that that frank had wanted me to ask um he was saying specific wing fall race
[00:38:54] boards with a deep tuddled box are getting more popular for the i w s a racing tour any indiana race
[00:39:01] boards um any indiana race boards you come up with oh i guess you're saying that there's
[00:39:08] something that you guys are gonna kind of do no um we have essentially a race board which is like
[00:39:14] sort of my pro model the g pro 74 when i was racing on last year um on my own personal one there's
[00:39:21] a tuddled box built in um because i was using a myke slab foot and with with racing you just
[00:39:30] gotta accept that the gear that people are going to be racing on is not the gear you're gonna be
[00:39:36] selling as at least with the deep tuddled box um it's not like on tracks where you can just go
[00:39:43] all right um for this person you're gonna put now the the mast in this position it works fine
[00:39:49] for them and you can put whatever foil they want um for the racing foils we have you essentially
[00:39:55] only have two choices at the moment you've got the chubanga v3 or you have the myke slab foils
[00:40:00] and 90% of the fleets are on the chubanga but those already have two different mass positions
[00:40:05] so a tuddled box really tuddled box really limits you to that one foil
[00:40:11] okay so it's not sort of something so it's um not just the one foil but also your personal
[00:40:19] preference of where you want that position what rake you want and what allows you to go fast
[00:40:23] so it's more of a custom thing so if a racer is gonna put one of those two foils into his board
[00:40:29] he's basically have to pull gonna put that box in there get the right tuning and so on
[00:40:34] and that's not something you can do on the production side now we can't just go here's the
[00:40:38] Indiana race board it works with the chubanga it won't work okay and what do you have a
[00:40:46] do you guys have numbers there of the percentages of what consumers are getting versus just kind
[00:40:53] of like free ride pump to race to to whatever for your numbers for production
[00:41:01] it's but difficult i mean we had it like last two years been extremely weird for the industry
[00:41:06] uh we had like massive growth in the first two years when we getting started and then sort
[00:41:11] everything crashed last year with the situation in europe so we're still sort of recovering from that
[00:41:18] but um not can't really talk about like concrete numbers no it's okay just like
[00:41:24] clear with the boss yeah like 20% of your people maybe race and 80% is more just like every average
[00:41:30] day um so much kind of racing the racing let's say that's about like one or two percent
[00:41:36] okay so sadly are into racing and uh um and of those seriously racing you're talking about like
[00:41:44] in switcherland like five or six people you know in each country maybe five or six at the moment
[00:41:49] that will grow especially there's a lot of Olympic interest in we so that will grow but at the moment
[00:41:57] it's still relatively small like on the on the tour we've got fleets like about 50-60 people
[00:42:02] full international fleets at world cups so like say it's not a lot of uh of guys at that high level
[00:42:09] okay all right on a local level where people are in normal gear there it's it's pretty good
[00:42:16] there we've got to prefer to even split between freestyle and race yeah because race is something
[00:42:21] whilst everybody can do freestyle and wing has now reached a level where it's practically just
[00:42:27] for the kids like at level so high now and so so risky now like a you risk injury if you try to keep
[00:42:36] up with that level and like you know break so much here oh 46 I'm out of it
[00:42:42] it's yeah i'm 40 now my buddy wall you know max Robinson he's on tour he's uh he's still our young
[00:42:49] he's young enough but I think he's early 30s now but um even he sings and dude like I'm the
[00:42:56] I'm the old dog here now like everybody yeah it's insane when you freestyle is is old like
[00:43:03] like i said you you feel after 30 that's for me like i hit 30 in the first thing i have but i blew out
[00:43:08] my knee like the next day it's like the warranty expires when you get the 30 and then you see like
[00:43:15] chris and and mallow and those guys triple quadruple rotations like going double forwards
[00:43:22] and stuff like that it's insane you know yeah what have you seen there um on fort event here it must
[00:43:29] be insane watching the kids practice it yep it's like i mean it's some of the stuff you you you'll
[00:43:38] see like at the world cup level it's just like you can't you can get your head around it anymore
[00:43:41] just like windsurfree style it's there's so many rotations so many tweaks and with the wing
[00:43:47] he got the extra element they're going super high now like on the event and grand canary at this
[00:43:52] year it was insane i think i saw uh benya mean my from duo told he went for this massive forward
[00:43:58] that was at least like eight nine meters high you know i landed it clean uh i mean he's first
[00:44:05] sought on the on the camera i was like he's gonna eat it he can't no one can land that and he landed
[00:44:09] oh man that's insane we had a real like frank put together a real about that when i was talking to
[00:44:15] Tom because we had our first like uh gwa wing fall special on the show and um he's like yeah he
[00:44:21] was trying to get it was 10 meters and then rotating fronts and then landing i think he went up
[00:44:26] to 14 or 15 but then he was like dude there's no there's no way i'm landing messing you let it go
[00:44:32] but it's insane now this is free style is not for everybody and then it's it's the thing
[00:44:38] sooner or later it does end your body will let you know and i was super lucky with kite free style
[00:44:43] like until i hit 30 i was completely injury free oh wow impressive many many times i should have
[00:44:50] actually you know it's seriously injured myself but no but then as soon as you hit like i hit 30
[00:44:56] it was like left knee back you know if i had two back operations because of kiting it's just
[00:45:02] eventually your body just can't take it anymore especially with the kiting was the boots
[00:45:07] we're just we're actually no longer kiting we're just wake uh wake boarding so we're landing hard
[00:45:12] all the time and that takes a toll um and free style wing was fun the last two years
[00:45:19] okay they're keeping up because essentially we could still land soft
[00:45:23] and now it's just like there's no soft landings anymore it's all just
[00:45:28] all still the wall full speed super high super hard
[00:45:31] well so then your foie'll just sink sand in your board smacks and stuff obviously
[00:45:38] if you're lucky i say if you land at a weird angle
[00:45:43] they get scorpion and like your your back hits the back of your rail because you've been basically
[00:45:47] bent double and stuff like that can go wrong you you slip out of the footstrap on on a landing
[00:45:54] that's a favorite you know so your knees are gone so
[00:45:57] so i had my i had my time for freestyle ones okay i was happy like i think two years ago
[00:46:04] i i think i came third next a second next to jermy burlando on the canary and championship
[00:46:09] and i was like i can live with it next year i'm done it's what kind of moves and stuff for you guys
[00:46:16] throwing back then in the first year basically the you standard 360s backs um
[00:46:23] um a lot of like on water tricks i think back then i was doing a lot of let it backwind and sort of
[00:46:30] uh my shirt the my my the bat wing thing we put the oh sweet yeah that thing looks awesome
[00:46:35] downwind and stuff like that so basically that that was still scored fairly highly in the
[00:46:39] first year but then after that it was oh everybody's got to do it forward everybody's
[00:46:44] got to go for double triple rotations okay no yeah i think yeah they're working on double
[00:46:50] back he's not thinking stuff yeah yeah well i said that's the you get it wrong you break gear
[00:46:55] and it's just like something about willing to go through anywhere no it's fair enough like how easy
[00:47:00] is it to get out i guess yeah you probably get gear fairly easily there but it still takes a bit of time
[00:47:06] yeah but even then you know um at a certain point it gets expensive
[00:47:11] wider shields are not what they used to be um sure so unless you're top in the world
[00:47:15] you can't afford to break a board every week or four times for sure so that's very true yeah
[00:47:23] huh that's why i mean racing is a lot easier on that respect you just have you have one set of gear
[00:47:27] that's typically survives you at least the whole season this yep so like a very different risk
[00:47:33] of injury in that sport are you racing um in 24 i'll be doing a few races not not as serious
[00:47:41] these last year um next year i'm definitely gonna do defy wing because i've been missing that every
[00:47:47] year because it's we usually been in conflict with some other event and i couldn't go
[00:47:51] because defy wind is basically balls of the wall go fast long distance and in in how we wind
[00:47:58] so up to safety right yep and it's already going to be like a thousand wingers there this year so
[00:48:04] it's going to be interesting oh yeah like have you done it as just a kiter or wind surfer before
[00:48:10] no like i said every time i've i wanted to go it's there's been something else i had to go to
[00:48:15] all right i have to be the pro mod do a lot to do tours they always conflict with each other somehow
[00:48:20] so you always have to miss out on some events that would be freaking unreal i think to go see that
[00:48:25] that would be so special yeah i'm really looking forward to it so like this year is the year i'm going
[00:48:29] to be doing that i'm still thinking thinking about if i do the spanish championship again try to
[00:48:35] defend my title there but it's also just i'm not as motivated as i used to be like just
[00:48:42] to go to like competitions like even on national level to win stuff doing it for so long
[00:48:50] but we'll see i think that's sometime in in march or something so i've got time to decide if i
[00:48:54] want to do it okay do you find the work that you're doing now with indiana is starting to take over
[00:49:01] that space like is it fulfilling in the same way as competition used to be kind of thing
[00:49:07] yeah i mean it's um especially the last sort of half year where i've been spending a lot of time and
[00:49:13] the workshop essentially building foils again because in the like they said last five years it's been more
[00:49:20] about here's the design have somebody else build it then you know go to production and you know
[00:49:25] we'll test that where you know what i'm doing now is a lot more back to the roots that the hands
[00:49:32] on thing basically building it quickly here testing it's sat a lot of sanding back to the computer
[00:49:38] print out the next mold build the thing again get back on the water and really just
[00:49:44] going back to that root like rooted sort of r and d work where you actually discovering new things
[00:49:49] so it's been a lot of fun i'm trying to sort of see where i can push it to so i'm basically making
[00:49:55] the foils right exactly how i want them and sort of make them fast and fun and
[00:50:01] especially now with the downwinding sort of opening that side something that is fast but still glides
[00:50:06] it can be paddled up and like the minimum of like small trump so all right so good low end then
[00:50:13] is what you're saying good maneuverability and then you want to make sure they last level well
[00:50:18] yeah i'd like to try that this summer like i had a divinco rail in every year
[00:50:22] and there's a couple spots that i think would be super fun to try that um i was riding some older
[00:50:27] arm trunk foils which are still kickass but uh it would be sick to try some mid aspects of some high
[00:50:33] aspect stuff to see what that kind of pumping glide and because i always find h a's are fun but i
[00:50:39] i love turning quickly like snappy quick little turns and the h a's don't afford me to do that but
[00:50:46] they're for a different use that's why i was curious about m a's to see how snappy and how quick you
[00:50:52] can turn with those um through while still downwinding or downwinding or really downwinding sorry more
[00:51:00] so just like swell riding downwind oh no then yeah yeah the yeah swell your ma is always going to give
[00:51:06] you it depends it also depends on your ride style like if you have a more surface style
[00:51:12] you're like a lower aspect foils going to give you this like so that bit more snappy turn
[00:51:16] but you have to ride aggressively it's like uh the high aspect foils allow you to essentially take
[00:51:22] a break and slow down it's from over longboard style okay let the wave take you and so you don't
[00:51:27] have to worry about where you are on the wave and you know keeping that pressure off with
[00:51:32] the lower aspect foils you also have to keep in mind that because you don't have that glide that
[00:51:37] you have to really stay on the face you have to turn hard you have to actually surf aggressively
[00:51:41] which is really fun but definitely not as easy well is there anything else you want to talk about
[00:51:48] introduce um people to kind of cover it a few bit things which has been pretty fun
[00:51:56] already i mean the next sort of step along you'll see when the new boards come out we'll
[00:52:01] introduce like said at the boat um like i can talk about my new pro models that are coming out
[00:52:07] because like sure yeah the the gpro 74 that that is available now it's sort of like your normal
[00:52:14] standard i mean i've had that type of board that type of design since beginning of wing foiling
[00:52:20] not all the other brands have caught up um it's sort of i we're pushing more into especially for
[00:52:25] like light wind side really narrow a little bit longer but really narrow boards not quite as long as
[00:52:32] like your downwind boards now so i just find the downwind boards yeah they'll get you going in
[00:52:36] light wind with with the wing but they're still massively big i get even a seven foot boards my
[00:52:42] pin is still too long to wing with and have fun um well we're starting to get more taking that
[00:52:49] concept into sort of the wing foiling in the surf boiling sides are getting narrow boards around
[00:52:54] 17 18 inch width but still keeping around 70 80 liters of volume in it so basically have really
[00:53:01] high efficient light wind boards which are of our still nice and light and fun to jump and
[00:53:09] also something like for riding like the racing falls like the 540s and so on that you can still get
[00:53:14] going in light wind yeah that's something sense we're gonna see yeah pretty sure almost the other
[00:53:21] brands have got similar boards coming yeah key key trim kt was saying that his boards are gonna
[00:53:27] a little bit narrow a little bit longer i think everybody is kind of going down that trenderate now
[00:53:33] yep definitely so just looking at your your boards right now i'm back on your website what is EU and CH
[00:53:40] mean on the use european market for the european union and the CH is Switzerland because
[00:53:47] Switzerland is not for the you so different tax zones so that's why they have to be two different
[00:53:52] shops okay and where can like does anybody from north america kind of anywhere else working in
[00:53:58] buyer here um yeah actually there is a the us web shop on there i think you know okay select us
[00:54:07] also okay yep and they have they don't have all the products and they have some this warehouse
[00:54:15] there so we're starting to grow it there i mean the us market for european brands a bit difficult
[00:54:20] getting in there were you know still trying to find the right distribution how to get all that stuff
[00:54:24] um done so it's still affordable we can sell it to the us but shipping is is insane yeah i heard it's
[00:54:31] crazy yeah yeah so yeah i heard it's unreal um over it should be easier now actually is forgot to talk
[00:54:39] about that um indiana are essentially changing the concept next year so we're moving away from
[00:54:46] shops a little bit we're just going to keep a few dealers like sort of as competent centers
[00:54:51] while we're pretty much going the route of going direct to customer sales so we can pretty much
[00:54:59] take out the middleman in that respect and like i said for in like places like the us be able to
[00:55:05] sell a bit cheaper and still be competitive so yeah i think i think a few places even some big shot
[00:55:13] like i think i even heard do a ton or thinking about doing something like that like some bigger ones
[00:55:17] are going to start to say that it um yeah but maintain a few stores so i guess there's two ways
[00:55:25] of looking at it you might put some people out of business and um but i guess it's getting
[00:55:32] getting more hyper competitive i guess right that's true i said it's been very difficult to sort of
[00:55:38] you know keep the margins at a reasonable level to still make money okay and keep the prices
[00:55:43] you know cheap for the customers i mean the i mean the industry has never been like a very high
[00:55:49] margin anyway for the brands so um it's gotten more and more difficult especially with the problems
[00:55:55] that were around the world for the last two years um especially transporting stuff back and forth
[00:56:01] is getting extremely difficult and if to really keep an eye on especially shipping like somebody buys
[00:56:07] a board a lot of that price of that board is just basically shipping the board to the customer
[00:56:13] nowadays so well it's good for stuff for people for all of us to know too right because
[00:56:20] like it's not all it's not all going into your bali trip at the end of the year and it's definitely a
[00:56:25] lot of it is going into yeah all this are d and then shipping big time okay that makes sense
[00:56:32] do you like those trade show events like is that something that you enjoy going to oh yeah
[00:56:37] yeah i said especially especially the boat is like you get to meet everybody again and
[00:56:41] basically i mean we let's say we're all competitive against each other but we're still like a
[00:56:46] industry small so we're all friends yeah so everybody knows each other so it's actually really
[00:56:51] cool to basically catch up with everyone at least once a year especially nowadays where there's not
[00:56:56] so much let's say travel interaction going on at least with like the people work in the industry
[00:57:02] um you know it was before you'd always always go you know with the team to all the world cup events
[00:57:07] and so on so like nowadays with the managers and the team managers it's going to like the trade shows
[00:57:13] it's actually a big party to meet up with everybody again you haven't seen like in most of the year
[00:57:18] oh man that's also really good to see essentially how especially the water sports business
[00:57:24] sort of fits into overall sort of say who that's not water sports like the water business
[00:57:31] it's like the boat trade show and disel Dorf it's the water sports is like the smallest part
[00:57:35] and everything else around they got all the diving and those massive yachts and so on
[00:57:39] oh yeah those people sometimes come into the water sports and go yeah this is really cool
[00:57:45] this is this this boiling stuff is cool and this oh there's still wind surfing going on and
[00:57:49] you know it's basically getting new customers cyostore coming from the other sort of boating
[00:57:55] industry okay yeah there's there's a lot of money in those a lot of money there a lot of
[00:58:01] super high expensive like my cousin helped sell these boats in Toronto and they're bringing in
[00:58:06] like quarter million three four and a thousand dollar things for for his company right that he's
[00:58:14] helping sell and now but we got at this new new truto tax up here so now they have to mean
[00:58:18] they have to lower the price of their boats because half that they got a big percentage kicking
[00:58:23] where you're back to government now so they're trying to get cheaper boats because it's cheaper
[00:58:27] going on the States which is the exact same problem we're having here with gear right shipping and
[00:58:31] taxes and all this kind of thing that eats so much of it so nice well hey it's pretty fun
[00:58:37] chatting with you it's great to meet you well thank you for for chance interview yeah absolutely
[00:58:44] well hey everybody thanks a lot for joining us tonight and actually before we we send it off
[00:58:50] if people are interested to learn more about Indiana where where should they go
[00:58:54] um visit our website in jenna paddle surf.com all the products are on there and all the information
[00:59:02] is there we also got quite a lot of useful like information and tutorials and stuff like that
[00:59:07] on our youtube channel in jenna paddle surf beautiful all right thanks gunner thanks everybody
[00:59:14] we'll see you from the next one