Wing Foil World Tour Show Episode #10 - Recap of Boot Expo 2025

Tom Hartmann (00:00.512)
Yeah, sure.

Luc Moore (00:01.766)
I think. FT and Buddha, I think.

Tom Hartmann (00:05.856)
Yeah, I think for both. think the boat event has been a very interesting event on both sides on GWAM and the SFT. You know, in terms of this was the first in wingfoiling, the first ever indoor wingfoil competition, you know, and I mean, it's not that doing wind sports inside a closed hall is something new because windsurfing did that back in the 90s already with wind machines.

Luc Moore (00:24.871)
Yep.

Tom Hartmann (00:34.872)
Paris and other places. when it comes to wing foiling, was the first ever indoor World Cup. Also, obviously, it was a good experience for our top athletes as well. For most of them, was first time ever doing wing foiling with assistance of wind machines rather than doing it outdoors.

So they had to get used to this quite a bit and they didn't have much time to adapt to it for it either. We were really limited with the time we were able to use the and compared to the pump foilers that can just jump in the pool whenever they want and pump around, still for the wing foil you need to press the button, turn on the wind machines. They're not running the whole day so their time of practice was really limited.

Luc Moore (01:33.159)
How much time did they actually get out there? And how strong were those things?

Tom Hartmann (01:39.286)
I don't know exactly how strong the wind machines were, but apparently they were producing around 12 knots of wind. But I think this was really like in the ideal distance of the wind machine, like close to the wind machine. So when you, because I still remember that from the indoor windsurfing events, I was participating myself once in the indoor world cup in London in windsurfing. And I mean, I couldn't figure it out at all for me. had a really hard time there.

And the wind machines were way stronger, but obviously with a foil, you don't need as much wind, but still, you know, as soon as you are 10, 15 meters away from the wind machine, the wind decreases a lot. So I would say on the downwind end of the, of the pool, was probably six knots, five, six knots. So you, there was no chance, let's put it this way, that once you get off the foil during the competition to get back up on foil.

Luc Moore (02:21.124)
for sure.

Tom Hartmann (02:38.37)
with your own power.

Unless you would have the really suitable equipment like a long board with a huge pump foil, you can probably pump yourself up with some existing. But let's say with a normal wing foil gear, would be very, very difficult. Not impossible, but very, very difficult. So what we did on the wing foiling side was that the wing foilers had a 2.8 cable, wakeboard cable system as an assist to start. So they get pulled up by the cable onto the foil.

You know, do one length behind the cable flying, then let the rope go, jive around the mark on the other side. And then from then on, continue by themselves. But quite soon everybody figured out, you know, what setup to use. And actually most people in the beginning tried obviously their normal wing foil setup, what they would use in the free fly slalom competition with an 800 race foil.

fairly small board and a big wing and that didn't work at all. actually the more and more because they didn't need to start really except with the systems of the the of the cable system, they could go on really small boards, which were way more efficient to pump. So a lot of them were actually using pump for boards of very small boards with bigger pump for setups.

Luc Moore (04:13.251)
no way. Okay.

Tom Hartmann (04:13.448)
So they could, they could really, and not that, that, that big wings actually, you know, most of them four zero, 4.5. I think the biggest one I saw was a five zero because in the end it wouldn't really matter how much power you have in your wing, but you need to have a good handling. And if you have a six meter wing and you need to turn it around in the gybes with nearly no wind, it will just be more in your way than anything. So most people would just like have a wing that gives them stability and some power to hold on.

but really try to have a fast pump foil and a small board so they can effectively pump around the course as well. And then it was, we left it completely open. So there was just a buoy on one side and buoy on the other side. It was completely open if you would do jibes or tacks. And it was interesting to see that everybody had a bit of a different strategy there. Because if you do a jib, usually it's...

quicker, you come out with more speed, obviously than in a tack, but doing a jibe around the buoy, you also go away from the wind machine. So when you get out of your jibe, you have a lot less power than if you are tacking into the wind and actually finishing the turn closer to the wind machines. Yeah. So there was different techniques. Some riders did actually jibes on both sides. Some did tacks on both sides.

Luc Moore (05:28.174)
interesting.

Tom Hartmann (05:38.39)
And some did one side tack, one side jive because like this, didn't need to go upwind, you know, you would go to the other side, do a jive, come back on the downwind part, then tack on the first buoy again, and then have a straight line again and jive on the other side. Like this, you never need to cross and you have a shorter distance. Because the pool was about 60 meters by 20 meters, 60 meters long, 20 meters wide, only one meter deep. So.

The athletes had to use short masks.

Luc Moore (06:12.239)
Yeah, exactly. weren't sure how deep the pool was going to be on our last show. We had talked about it. Okay, so it was only three feet.

Tom Hartmann (06:17.016)
Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (06:20.942)
Yeah. Most people wear on, let's say 75 centimeter mast. That was like the standard I would say. Um, but it was about one meter deep. Yeah. The problem is that the pool, physics, if you would have the pool deeper, it would be too heavy, you know, because that size of pool of 60 by 20, if you add half a meter more of water, it adds obviously another 50 % of volume of water on it. And it would have been

Luc Moore (06:47.259)
Wait. Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (06:50.886)
heavy and would have broken the floor. So because I've been asking why they couldn't build it is that in theory they can actually make it deep but it's not a problem but they will not get the permits to build it because it would break the floor underneath.

Luc Moore (07:07.354)
it's ground floor like built into a foundation or no.

Tom Hartmann (07:12.638)
Yeah, there are two levels below. yeah, so under the pool with the... So but in another let's say in another and also the other thing is that the more water you have in the pool, the more pressure get on the side walls. Like, effectively pressing the side walls. So there was, you have to imagine the pool is built like a wall of concrete, a bricks.

Luc Moore (07:16.521)
Imagine that. No thanks.

Tom Hartmann (07:41.984)
And then there is a layer inside that is closing the pool. And then they put water inside, but it can only hold a certain amount of liters also on the side walls. So the more water you have inside, you need to build stronger side walls. Yeah, it's quite complex actually. know, people think it's just a pool and that's it and a few wind machines and then you go.

Luc Moore (07:50.147)
Mm-hmm.

Luc Moore (08:02.084)
Yeah, they could blow up.

Yeah

Tom Hartmann (08:10.348)
Well, the reason why the boat show is actually right after Christmas is because there is no other show in the Düsseldorf, in the fair, in the trade show. The whole venue, the pool is getting set up three weeks in advance. They start building it. Three weeks in advance, yeah, they start building the pool, they put the water in.

Luc Moore (08:30.425)
They built three weeks.

Luc Moore (08:35.582)
okay.

Tom Hartmann (08:37.422)
then they need to heat the water. It's in the January. mean, you have to imagine outside temperatures were minus five. So they need to heat up the water to make it actually possible. You still need a wetsuit, but I think the water temperature was like 18, 19 degrees.

Luc Moore (08:44.042)
Mm-hmm. Look a little cold.

Luc Moore (08:55.609)
Oh, that's not too bad. Yeah. What is that? 60s? I think so. So for those that did not catch this event, whereabouts was it? It was in Germany, in Dusseldorf. then it was at that Buddha. Is the Buddha close to Germany, correct? Or the biggest?

Tom Hartmann (08:57.612)
No, that's okay.

Tom Hartmann (09:15.416)
Correct.

Tom Hartmann (09:23.63)
Correct. is the biggest boat show in the world. Yeah, it's huge. It has about in the world. Yeah, it has about 200,000 visitors throughout the whole week. It's the biggest boat show in the world with anything about water. I mean, the biggest motor yacht sailing boats, you can go and buy them right away there or at least look at them if you don't have the cash to buy them. But

Luc Moore (09:28.684)
or in the world.

Tom Hartmann (09:52.234)
and anything else that's, that's happening on the water and in the water. mean, there was a diving pool. It's not the only pool in the exhibition. It's the biggest one, but there's another pool and it's one of the sailing holes. think the whole trade, the whole boat show has probably 15 or 16 holes. And one of them is the surf hole, which has this pool inside with the wind machines and everything that's about

sports is happening in there. So all the brands of foil brands, windsurf, SUP. So within the boat show, was the GWA Wing Foil Indoor World Cup. There was the SFT Pump Foil World Cup. There was a SUP World Cup. There was a windsurfing, a tow-in European championship and a wakeboard event as well with obstacles in the 2.0 cable system. So this was all happening.

Luc Moore (10:48.371)
sick.

Tom Hartmann (10:49.582)
in that pool. And that's why also the time was obviously limited. You know, we didn't have the pool available the whole time just for us. We came in on the first weekend and we had that Friday. The boathouse was not officially open yet. So we had, let's say the whole day to train and got people like train the formats of competition that we wanted to run.

Luc Moore (10:59.915)
That's what.

Tom Hartmann (11:17.37)
We ran a slalom format, so it was a one by one timed racing because we couldn't have two people in the pool at the same time on the wing foiling side. you have to imagine, yeah, it's basically was like a ski race.

Luc Moore (11:28.996)
you're mentioning...

like F1. Mm-hmm. that's cool.

Tom Hartmann (11:35.726)
So, so you go one by one, everybody sets a time and then the others tried to beat the time. And we had huge screens on top of, were three huge, uh, LED screens on top of the pool where you could see, you know, the profiles of the athletes, the rent, the current rankings, the timing they get in. And you would really see, uh, each lap they do. What's the split time? Yeah. Like in the ski res, know, okay, the guy's a second behind and he needs to catch up here and there. So it was actually really interesting.

Luc Moore (12:01.26)
Hmm.

Tom Hartmann (12:05.806)
different to what we do in other events where people race on the course against each other and battle against each other. It was just a battle against time. But so we were we were testing this on Friday, the formats the starting. But I think on Friday, yeah, we had, then we were split between pump foiling and wing foiling. But probably the wing foilers, I would say they had two, two and a half hours total.

Luc Moore (12:16.086)
Yeah, that'd be sweet.

Tom Hartmann (12:35.414)
of training time, which is not a lot. If you consider we had 18 athletes taking turns, I would say everybody had probably six, seven runs before, before it actually got into competition to figure out what equipment they want to use and how to start the best way with the cable and so on. That's not a lot. and, but yeah, you could still see, you know, every attempt people were,

Luc Moore (12:39.2)
Mm-hmm.

Luc Moore (12:57.888)
No.

Tom Hartmann (13:06.21)
getting, they were improving the technique and it just got better and better. And then on Saturday we had the first round of competition with 18 people and then the best 12, yeah, no, the best 10 qualified for the finals on Sunday who was taking the win.

And then on Sunday we modified the course a little bit and made it a bit more tricky, a bit longer. So for those guys to, yeah, to make it bit more interesting. And we had, think on the qualifying, everybody had five attempts with the best time counting. And then on the final, everybody had three attempts with the best time counting.

Luc Moore (13:38.765)
really?

Luc Moore (13:56.672)
So I was able to find the results here. So we had Axel, Joachim came first, Bals Bueller, Benjamin May, Alan Fidit for the top four. Congratulations. And then the lady side.

Tom Hartmann (14:12.876)
Yeah, I think, I mean, we have to say that Michael Balz and Alan were probably the only ones who have been already in the pool wing-flying before because they were there last year just to try it out. But everybody else was the first time in the pool.

Luc Moore (14:24.093)
post.

Okay. 12 knots too, eh? That is not a lot of wind.

Tom Hartmann (14:34.978)
No. No.

Yeah, but I think they, yeah, no, no, it was, it was, it was really fun. have to say it was, think, you know, from our side, we were, we didn't give any official world titles for the indoor championship right now. was an indoor world cup. It's a special event. It's not counting into the free fly rankings, obviously, because it's an invitational, not everybody could compete. But the boys and girls really loved it. You know, I think,

Luc Moore (14:38.857)
Well, that was fun.

Luc Moore (15:02.325)
Hmm

Tom Hartmann (15:07.776)
It was such a different way of running a competition, you know, exactly when you're up to, know, when you need to be ready. I mean, we were, we were really trying to build a good show around it and create the atmosphere like in an ice hockey stadium, you know, like we called them in one, one by one on stage with their big profile pictures on the screens. The crowd was like going crazy. you know, like everybody,

Luc Moore (15:24.575)
Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (15:35.874)
giving handshakes, coming in and presented everybody. There was a huge stage just in front. And then you press the button, you turn on the wind and then the guys and girls get their equipment and then it starts. And it's very easy to follow, you know, and you're, I mean, the spectators were a meter away from the action.

Luc Moore (15:49.428)
sick.

Luc Moore (15:59.092)
How many people are in the stands?

Tom Hartmann (16:03.308)
Well, I think at the same time, hard to say, a couple hundred, would say, maybe a thousand, a thousand, no, but at the same time, but I would say you have, as I said, the whole boat show has 200,000 visitors in nine days over two weekends and the week in between. So I'm sure everybody that comes to the boat on one of the days passes by at the pool at least once.

Luc Moore (16:19.166)
Thank you.

Tom Hartmann (16:30.83)
You know, so they are circling around and it's changing all the time. you know, you don't have people who stay there for half the day. Most of the people stay half an hour and then they go to the next thing to see. But I, yeah, for definitely a couple, a couple of thousands that have been watching wing falling there, um, over the, over the two days on the weekend. That's for sure. Yeah. I mean, we've been, the times have been communicated pretty well. So a lot of people knew when the competition is on.

Luc Moore (16:44.062)
Yeah, that makes sense.

Tom Hartmann (16:59.974)
In between competitions there were demos and also people could try by themselves, which is obviously not as attractive to watch for the spectators rather than for the people who get involved. And then around the whole, we had also the exhibitions of the brands, you so you have also the brands showing their products. Yeah, it's great setup.

Luc Moore (17:13.46)
in the meantime.

Luc Moore (17:26.204)
Mm-hmm, you guys gonna do it next year?

Tom Hartmann (17:29.25)
Yeah, pretty sure. We had already a debrief with the organizer. They were really happy and yeah, we probably might even add a bit more to it. I don't know if we can do on the wing-fall side freestyle because there was a couple of the boys were trying tricks like Titoin really wanted to land a backflip and Anko was trying some backmops.

But due to the, yeah, let's say light winds and also the shallow pool, it's not the easiest to do freestyle. But let's see, you know, I think with a bit of training, we can have a freestyle show as well. And then on the SFT side, we were doing only pump foil. I think we might add e-foiling to it next year as well.

Luc Moore (18:22.397)
Well, I think this is the first time that we actually get to openly talk about the SFT. So you got officially launched.

Tom Hartmann (18:31.756)
Yeah. The SFT has been launched just before Christmas. The SFT, well, we kept it kind of quiet until then because we really wanted to set it up properly. But because due to the fact that our first event, was at the Boat Dusseldorf was about to happen and started communication, we had to launch the platform as well. But we didn't promote it too much until the event actually started.

And, because you really wanted to start with the bus and I think, it was really interesting as it's, as I said, it's been, didn't open it, the, the event, publicly so people could just sign up and compete because our time was limited and we couldn't take, and we could have probably had double the amount of participants who would have opened it up. we treated it as an invitational, but it was tricky because it is a

You know, it's a first time thing. There's not many rankings yet in the pump foil discipline. So, yeah, it was, it was not easy to select the right people. had a, I think a good mix of couple of bigger names that came, you know, come out of other foiling sports that are also doing pump foiling. So the SFT covers, I think we talked about it in our last episode, but the SFT world tour covers non wind powered foil sports.

It's a platform that's there. At the moment we're having the divisions, pump foiling, surf foiling, wake foiling, downwind SUP foiling and e-foiling. But, you know, there's a lot of subdivisions and probably new foil sports that are going to come up in the next year. So we might add something to it even. But this is what it is right now, how it is structured on these five sports.

Luc Moore (20:24.786)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (20:30.062)
But in the Bo Düsseldorf, we ran an only pump foil as the only discipline of the SFT. The idea is of the SFT to combine foil sports because we really see the potential of bringing up combined foil events with different disciplines. That's where I think we can all be stronger and we can all build a stronger platform. we are not only individually

trying to promote each discipline or events or a tour. Like this, we're going to have events in the future in different locations where it's going to be two or three or four or five disciplines combined. And then you get a lot of more athletes to get a more momentum. And also a lot of athletes do more than one discipline. There's a lot of athletes that...

Luc Moore (21:12.627)
Hmm.

Tom Hartmann (21:25.166)
you know, surf foilers, they also take part in a pump foil or in a wake foil competition. Maybe e-foiling is a bit of a different story, but even there you see links. And that's the idea behind the SFT. So we have just launched it and we have just done the first event, which was really, really successful. I think we got super good feedback of the pump foil event. And I think for most athletes, this has been an amazing experience.

as you know, I'm pumped for the competitions exist partly, but not on that level, you know, and getting this level of attention really feeling like stars in a stadium in the pool with a lot of spectators was the first time for all of them. And, or for most of them, let's say, that are coming from other sports, but it was what I had to come back on. What I wanted to say is it was really interesting to select the group of writers that were able to participate because we had on one side.

the, let's say international big names that we wanted to have, that are not necessarily specialists in pumping, but maybe in some other foils sports or got sent by brands to be there. And then we got, yeah, we got those brands who were at the exhibition and had stands at the boat. We had, we allowed

all of them to include some team writers as well in the competition, obviously to represent their brands that were there at the the boat participating. And then we also wanted to obviously have the stars of the local heroes of the regional community. And there's quite a strong

know, pump for community in the center of Europe that's far away from the sea, like Switzerland and Austria, south of Germany, even north of Germany. it's really interesting that there is quite a few people that are getting into pump foiling that are not any kind of surface, you know, they don't have any surfing background. haven't done any surf sports. I'm saying surf.

Tom Hartmann (23:49.856)
sports on purpose, meaning they never been on a surfboard, like kiteboard, like a surfboard, like a windsurfboard or a wingfoil, with or without foil. There's quite a few people that come from, are fit, know, they're good sportsmen. They come maybe from cycling, from ice hockey, they have strong legs and they just, yeah, like to, especially the Switzerland community has a really...

strong growing palm foil scene because they got lots of lakes and not that much wind so they have glassy conditions all year long to train and usually they don't mind the weather either so yeah so we we a mosquito

Luc Moore (24:35.266)
Mm-hmm, gathered up there. Where's that, a mosquito?

Luc Moore (24:43.152)
Thank you, mosquito coming. Yeah, so out of 21 riders on the guy's side, you had 10 German riders. And then how many Swiss? One, two, three, four, five, six Swiss. And I think French are the rest, right? Yeah. So very good representation from the Germans, like 50 % pretty much.

Tom Hartmann (25:08.706)
Yeah, of course. mean, the event was taking place in Germany and was obviously easy for them to participate. the Germans, certain regions are growing and getting a strong, pump for community. There's one in the North, in the South, in Berlin. The sport is growing and they have a lot of lakes too. And yeah, we had...

Luc Moore (25:13.667)
It helps.

Tom Hartmann (25:36.896)
It was funny up to the event, know, lot of the boys and girls I haven't even met in person before, no? I mean, we just invited them and I met them in person first time at the event, but they've been like once we announced, okay, and they knew they're going to be in and what the format is going to be. Because in pump foiling, we did a like a parallel slalom. So there were two dogs next to each other and they would start at the same time and pump a slalom course forth and back, but each one on its own course.

So battling against the other one in the best of three heats. So you would need to the others, you know, you would do one race and then you would switch to the other track. You would do another one. And if it's one-on-one, you would have a third one that will decide the winner. So it was always the best of three battle between two people. And

Luc Moore (26:06.96)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (26:28.908)
Yeah, there was quite a few ones actually who sent me videos in advance saying, look, I've been training, I've been here in my local swimming pool. And they let me train in the pools like you said. So it was interesting to see how ambitious and how serious some of them were taking it already in advance.

Luc Moore (26:38.264)
Yeah

Luc Moore (26:49.463)
well, you're adding so many different avenues. Like the wakefile will be super fun. get your fur. Yeah. E-foil. That could be a Canadian and American story. You just what? Power up your e-foil. As much power as you can and rip around. Like, what's the premise behind that one?

Tom Hartmann (27:12.492)
Yeah, at the moment most of those disciplines are based on racing, not expression except the surf foil and the wake foil obviously. But I can see that evolving, know, I mean we will have on the e-foil side, yeah, races, slalom races where it can be either single one on the course or multiple races on the course together. I mean also the pump foiling we will on the next event.

but the next couple of events are going to be pump foil outdoors. We're to have pump foil competitions where it's not going to be parallel. So we're going to have four or five or six docks where people start at the same time and then like a board across, go around the same course and can knock each other off, which is a bit more exciting to watch as well as well as for the athletes. But in Dusseldorf in the boat, the pool was too small to do that. And we might do that next year.

Luc Moore (28:09.583)
Are you putting CCs or horsepower limitations on the wheels so that people can't put a massive engine back in the...

Tom Hartmann (28:18.782)
Yeah, on the E-Foil side, will be regulated to production products. mean, obviously you need to regulate it when it comes to engines, otherwise somebody will always show up with some customized tuned machine that's going to outdo everybody. So the products need to be on a production status. You need to be able to buy them.

Luc Moore (28:26.753)
Alright.

Tom Hartmann (28:48.396)
in a shop that you can use.

Luc Moore (28:50.025)
that's what you can do. So no organizations on the motors or any of that stuff for E-Foil. You'd have to be able to.

Tom Hartmann (29:01.643)
Yeah, you can tune them. I mean, if you know how to tune an engine, but you cannot put other engines in it than what is sold on the production model.

Luc Moore (29:13.038)
OK, all right, well, you never know that that would actually be pretty fun. So you guys are heading to Pensacola. February. March 2nd, that's your and that's going to be going on there. So you'll have wake foil, surf foil, pump foil and e foil. That will be pretty exciting or to head net there.

Tom Hartmann (29:15.918)
Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (29:24.653)
Yes.

Tom Hartmann (29:41.378)
Well, yeah, we want to, to at the Pensacola foiling week, which is a big foil get together, let's say with a lot of different foiling disciplines. We'll be joining the party, let's say, and, you know, making sure there is some, also some competition going on in different disciplines, but this is also, I think an event that's a bit different to the other concepts. So here the.

The participants, there will be a lot of people who actually gonna try out different foilsports. They come from the one or the other and they wanna hop on and try the other ones too. So things are not running at the same time, but we're gonna team up with some local people like the Foilsurf Race League gonna be there running a format and yeah, we're gonna collaborate with them.

the same of the week after they're to have the event in Cocoa Beach for a surf race league. And then after that one, we'll go straight to Cape Verde where we're going to run a surf foil, probably toe in event in Ponto Preta. So it's going to be at the same spot where the wing foil is happening. But on one of the days when we don't have wind, we're going to run a surf foil division.

which is most likely going to be toeing if the waves are firing. I hope so. we don't get that, we will run a prone for a competition maybe at one of the other spots. But the idea would be, know, in that event, we have a really good setup, we're going to live stream it. So we really want to have a spectacular show. I think it's going to be an awesome one.

Luc Moore (31:12.781)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (31:39.296)
And if we get pumping conditions, it can be quite epic.

Luc Moore (31:44.205)
yeah, so that will be March 13th to March 21st. So we are looking forward to talking with you right afterwards. you'll have, not only will you have that WAVE GWA contest, but you'll have that SFT there.

Tom Hartmann (31:58.774)
Yes, exactly.

Luc Moore (32:01.804)
You have stuff on your website here like Abu Dhabi and then.

Tom Hartmann (32:06.316)
Yeah, Abu Dhabi, Leucat, Leucat is gonna... Sorry?

Luc Moore (32:11.009)
What's Loose Tick?

Montenegro. Where's the, I'm just on the ear. There's an Eiffel Elevant in Lustica, Montenegro.

Tom Hartmann (32:20.928)
Yes, that's the end of the year, like September.

Luc Moore (32:22.87)
and then.

Yeah, OK, so those are the ones on your website, but you guys will be updating. I assume when new ones get out.

Tom Hartmann (32:30.39)
Yeah, there are quite a few. I'd say these are all most likely to happen or are confirmed. You can see where it says scheduled. It's already confirmed or to be confirmed. But there is quite a few more. Actually, we are negotiating right now in different parts of the world to see if we can get some more events connected. I think this is the main idea now in year one.

These are events that are already existing or some that are new and they want to get something going. The beauty, I'd say, of these non-wind powered oil sports is that they are not weather dependent. So any festival about water sports, and it doesn't need to be anything with wind sports, can actually host such an event easily in a day or two.

Luc Moore (33:14.08)
Mm-hmm.

Luc Moore (33:23.84)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Even if like you always you can run well, I guess wakeful you're to want some flat water or else it would get a little a little gnarly. So like no wind for that one. E-foil same kind of thing. Pump foil same thing. So I guess when it's windy you wing foil and when it's not windy you got a whole new disciplines that you guys can showcase. Congratulations for setting this up by the way. Like I know it's a lot

UWA, you're always working on stuff. Same thing with this. Like, congratulations for getting this off. And for, for that first.

Tom Hartmann (34:03.438)
Yeah, think it's been a really good kickoff event, boat. Obviously, with just one discipline, but I think it really right away showed the potential of where you can take these kinds of events. You don't even need to be outside. You can just do it in the pool. And funnily enough, there was already two people actually that approached me there and said like, hey guys, I have a pool as well. I want to do something like that.

Luc Moore (34:13.74)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (34:33.326)
And we can set it up if you want. So maybe Indoor will become its own discipline at one point already.

Luc Moore (34:33.612)
you

Luc Moore (34:38.772)
Well...

Luc Moore (34:44.235)
I very well could. Yeah, you never know where that's going to go. I guess you just need some wind machines. That's all. So that's cool. All right. you've got some time off, right? But for GWA, and so you've got time to spend time with family, get back home for a little while.

Tom Hartmann (35:01.952)
Yeah, I'm actually on vacation right now. I'm in Sri Lanka. So with my family, haven't been on a vacation for five years. So it was about time to go somewhere where I choose to go myself and not for a competition, an event or anything. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I'll be in Sri Lanka now.

Luc Moore (35:05.739)
Hmm.

Luc Moore (35:11.753)
I can imagine. Yeah.

Luc Moore (35:22.325)
Yeah, you don't

Tom Hartmann (35:28.302)
for a couple of weeks actually before I go to the foiling make to Pensacola. go straight from here to Pensacola and maximize my time here with the family. Have my surf foil with me. I didn't bring any wing. It's not really windy here. It's all about surfing and surf foiling. I have been, unfortunately I've been like ill for the first 10 days of my trip. So I haven't been in the water much yet, but just have recovered.

Luc Moore (35:51.726)
no.

Tom Hartmann (35:56.2)
and yeah, hopefully get some water time. But yeah, still obviously working and preparing for the event, especially with the SFT, there's a lot happening at the moment. So things that need to be done and set up. I'm really excited about this new project with the SFT. think it's, you know, it always motivates me to start new projects. And I think it's the right time now for this.

think foil sports in general are gaining momentum at the moment and you can just see how people get hooked on it. And it doesn't matter if it's somebody e-foiling or if it's somebody surf foiling or if it's somebody pump foiling. I can see the same spark and that's why the concept of bringing all these sports together.

and being non-dependent from the wind. mean, obviously downwind SUP falling needs a bit of wind and you need a bit of conditions and surf falling needs a bit of waves, but you can do that in a lot more places than a regular surf competition. for pump falling or wake or e-falling, mean, pump fall is the most simple one. You don't need much except the starting dock, which you can always build somehow. And there you go.

Luc Moore (37:01.599)
Hmm. Hmm.

Luc Moore (37:18.282)
couple of them too. North has one, think there's another one that must have copied their design because I saw it on a forum and it looked awfully like the dock starter. I can't remember. I can't remember who put it out. But even though here just for some for some stats, it's 50 % wingers here at least in Mexico, it's 50 % kiting 50%. And then there's like a handful of windsurfers that are kind of sprouted. But for the

Tom Hartmann (37:28.046)
FFFF-

Luc Moore (37:47.658)
It's foil. And then we have four or five, two or three guys working on patterns. And I'm playing on that little pair of wings. We've got three others playing on pair of wings. it's more of an intermediate discipline, but extremely enjoyable as well to do. And you get a lot of props for it now because I'm an early adopter.

So everybody is like looking and stuff. Oh, it is because they all have theirs. So you'll have a guy replying, hey, bro, I'm getting my next week. How is it? So it is pretty fun to take product and put information. No, congratulations.

Luc Moore (38:37.034)
We're going to be in a little bit.

Luc Moore (38:41.738)
away from the sand and get back to mainland. That's gonna be super fun. And we're hoping that Frank is gonna be able to come down. We're just gonna attend the event and check things out. So that's gonna be super fun. So looking forward to seeing you guys there. And yeah, hope the season goes well. We're gonna kick off with a lot of people. You saw some of those posts following Benjamin around and he just came on the show and he's ready.

Tom Hartmann (39:01.198)
Yeah.

Luc Moore (39:11.091)
He's ready.

Tom Hartmann (39:11.342)
Yeah, I know. Everybody is scared already. Especially on the freestyle side of things. It's going to be interesting. Yeah, I mean, he's been around and everybody knows him. He's been training with a lot of the guys that are on tour and they all know his level. And now he's got the age where he can compete. So, yeah.

Luc Moore (39:15.304)
it

Luc Moore (39:32.347)
It's going to be something like I Patrick and Chris around one day. So I just saw them at the GoPro on the head and I sat as they were throwing, I don't know, 14s and all these loops like five feet away. And, obviously I'm on a surf oil, right? So I would hit top speed and that's when they would just take off into their high gear. Obviously can't keep up with kids. But holy shit, like you don't realize how high they go. And second thing,

You don't realize how many times they fall and then boom, try it again, try it again, try it again. So like the determination from the kids to like, if especially when they're learning a new trick, they might fall seven at 10 times. Right? No, that cause you. And you don't realize all the potentials for injury, especially when you get to our age, you're like some of the pain, but how they.

Tom Hartmann (40:14.414)
Yeah.

Luc Moore (40:25.192)
persevere through that and get better and then like some of those moves are on lock now is really cool to see close up front. So amazing like absolutely amazing riders the stuff that we're working on is immediate riders like think about so.

Tom Hartmann (40:43.754)
No, but that's also, I think, where we need to take care a little bit. mean, it's amazing to see how freestyle and all these tricks evolve, how quick it goes and the level goes up and up. But at one point, and we have seen that in kiting and windsurfing with the freestyle disciplines too, it starts to disconnect maybe too much from the average wingfoiler that says, well, okay, this is absolutely amazing, but I cannot follow what's actually going on there.

Luc Moore (41:06.44)
Mm.

Tom Hartmann (41:12.704)
and how difficult it is. And this is also, yeah, I would say a tricky mission on our side, you know, in terms of the judging criteria. And we've been adopting this constantly on the tour in wing foiling that one thing's, you know, you always want to push progression, but you also don't want to make the show boring where it's just about perfecting the one trick or the other. And you really want to

and see people push the boundaries and, know, as it two years ago, it's been wing passes and backmops. And, now, I think, at the moment, most spectacular tricks we see are probably like really big rotations, you know, if it flat spins or, or double backflips, or, mean, I'm pretty sure soon we're going to see triple backflips as well.

But you need to go really big for those. And that's, think, really impressive. mean, these are not tricks where, you know, that's what we're always trying to look for in the execution on the tour and explain the athletes. Everything needs to be powerful height and powerful. And even if you do the most technical stuff and it's just a meter and a half high, you cannot get points as somebody being eight meters in the air and landing a trick, even though it's less technical.

because in the end you want to have a show. And obviously the goal is to do the most technical tricks and the biggest one at the same time. That's what you want to aim for, but that's I think also the best show.

Luc Moore (42:57.384)
We also have to take care of our children and make sure they don't blow up their hips at 15. So there's, there's, I want to make sure, cause a kid will just go for it. Like Benji's 13 and you want to make sure that he takes care of his as well and doesn't burn it out at 18 cause you're jumping 60 feet. Um, so I understand there's so many different variables and you're trying to attract it in the crowd of people who will, like me, I might never put straps on. So you, but.

Tom Hartmann (43:03.276)
Yeah.

Luc Moore (43:26.783)
I think it's just nice and cool to see kids being passionate about something in a time that kids were getting more and more isolated inside. Now they have a variety of different sports could be pump E all those different kinds of foiling that's showing up, which I think as a tour that pushes so much youth development, I think that's an awesome thing. You have so many tools now for them to at least stay off their phones for 15 minutes, which is right.

Tom Hartmann (43:54.098)
Yeah, well, why do you still want to check all the tricks that the other guys do, no?

Luc Moore (43:56.408)
I'm kidding.

Boy, buddy, thanks for. And chatting about that SFT and about your first. Germany, I know I think Matt and Frank went over to check it out. They're pretty stoked on it, but looking forward to finally meet you in person in Florida. Looking forward to that and. With your family and stuff, finally get some time away.

Tom Hartmann (44:19.255)
apps.

Tom Hartmann (44:25.198)
Trying to, yeah. But you see my evenings are still busy on the computer.

Luc Moore (44:29.862)
Then you have us bugging you, hey, you wanna come chat? You wanna come chat?

Tom Hartmann (44:34.894)
It's all good for a good purpose. No, for sure. I mean, I'm not here only for a week. It's the thing. I'm here nearly a month, so I have some time to enjoy as well.

Luc Moore (44:48.775)
Our second episode of the foil life and we've stayed away from wing foiling for two episodes. had Brian on from the SF surf foil race league last week and then SFT. So we've done well. We stayed away from wing in, I think next week we're going to get back into wing in. So, all right, everybody. Thanks for, look forward to seeing you soon, Tom.

Tom Hartmann (45:00.845)
Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (45:09.646)
Hmm?

Tom Hartmann (45:14.478)
All right, see you soon, bye bye.