Wing Foil World Tour & Surf Foil World Tour Show Episode #12 - Recap of Leucate 2025

Luc Moore
All right, Tom, thanks for joining me in another episode.

Tom Hartmann (00:31.822)
Hello, nice to be back here.

Luc Moore (00:37.297)
You're in a beautiful little botanical garden this morning. Whereabouts are you in this lovely world?

Tom Hartmann (00:42.062)
Yeah, I'm currently in Vienna, Austria. Yeah, just let's say hanging out in Europe for a couple of days between our event in Leucat and the next one that's gonna start in a couple of days in Sicily and Italy. yeah, spending a few days here in Vienna in between and that's why I have this nice...

little background here in this apartment.

Luc Moore (01:13.693)
Nice.

Luc Moore (01:24.412)
All right, we lagged for a second, but it's all right. How did Lucat go this year? I heard the cranking wins and I want to talk about this SFT 40 knots, F1 style racing that you guys had, but how did this event go for you guys?

Tom Hartmann (01:45.344)
Yeah, it's been, it's been a really good event, must say. I've been going to the Mondial d'Ivon for probably 20 years as a competitor, as a tour manager in windsurfing and kiting and now winging and SFT. So I've seen it from all kinds of parts. And it's one of the most...

Yeah, known and most traditional, I would say, wind water sport events in Europe. I mean, it's been the 28th edition. So it's a long time this event is running already and it has been hosting windsurf World Cups, kitesurf World Cups, know, Dunkerbeck, everybody has been there at some point. And now since COVID basically, the

Luc Moore (02:21.136)
Whoa.

Tom Hartmann (02:36.917)
The main sport of the event is wing folding and it was one of the first stops that we incorporated in the wing fold world tour when we started. And now also the SFT has been part of it. And I think it was the windiest event I can remember ever being there. Not in terms of being the strongest wind. I think one of the strongest events was last year. We had a couple of days with nearly 60 knots.

Luc Moore (03:03.868)
.

Tom Hartmann (03:07.127)
We didn't have it that strong this year. We still had 40 knots on one day, but it's been windy every single day of the event. And that's pretty amazing because the region in south of France is known for its strong wind, but it's usually not windy every day. So if you have a week of an event, you probably get three days of wind or maybe four days of wind where you can compete. And the rest of the time it's sunny and no wind and time to chill, eat baguette and have some.

French cheese and enjoy the sunny side of south of France. But this year it's been the day I arrived till the day I left it has been blowing non-stop. And the funny thing was it has not been blowing always from the same direction. So because Leucard has the famous wind of the south of France region is the Tramontane, which is the wind that comes from the Pyrenees down the mountain, which is also the same wind, the strong wind.

Luc Moore (03:44.499)
you

Luc Moore (04:00.891)
How sick.

Tom Hartmann (04:06.817)
that you usually won for the big air event in Baccarat, the GK Big Air World Cup that has been happening three weeks ago, four weeks ago, which is just around the corner from Leucat, it's just half an hour, 20 minutes driving on another spot. And we had the tramontana wins in the beginning for the first two days, which were strong with 20 to 40 knots. And then it turned around.

straight the next day without a break and it came from the south from the opposite side which is onshore and wavy which had this for three days and then it turned back to Tramontane and the last day we had again Tramontane from the offshore winds with 20 knots so we had all kind of conditions you can have from 40 knots offshore, 20 knots offshore to 15 to 30 knots onshore so it's been

Luc Moore (04:55.899)
Whoa.

Tom Hartmann (05:02.773)
It's been delivering all conditions you can imagine and that's pretty unique. I have to say this was the first time I saw this and we have been competing every single day. had the wing foiling we had on the GWA the first two days we were pushing for the freestyle obviously because it was the strongest forecast and that was really good, really amazing. And then we had four days of free fly slalom racing every day, which was, you know,

luxury that we usually don't have so we had so much time on the wind that we could really use the best times of the day and use like we did seven qualification races and the super final and all the qualification races were basically every day in different conditions so it really showcased the best person, the best rider with port tech, starboard tech, starts, flat water, onshore with waves with really good surf, free fly, really downwind properly.

And then, yeah, a slalom with the best eight men and best six women on the last day just before the prize giving. So perfect. And with the SFT, we had only three of those days where the Surfful World Tour was running with wing foiling and one day of E-foil and two days of pump foil. And yeah, on the E-foil side, we had the strongest day of the week.

Luc Moore (06:03.098)
.

Sweet.

Tom Hartmann (06:27.457)
during the eFall racing which was 30 to 40 knots and definitely challenging for a eFall competition. But I really loved, you know, how what I like with all the people that come into the event. Doesn't matter if it's wing falling, if it's eFalling, if it's surf falling. Everybody knows, you know, how the conditions can be there. It's not that they wish for it when they eFall in 40 knots, but you know, they're used to to deal with it if they have to.

Luc Moore (06:33.082)
No way.

Luc Moore (06:49.998)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (06:54.451)
So, but you could really see those people who were the locals, the guys from PWR foil, which is a local E-foil brand that's producing actually E-foils down there in the south of France. And they were the main sponsor of the event too. You could see that those guys were the most used to it, to ride in those conditions because they sometimes do downwinders with that strong wind with the E-foils. Yeah, we had to modify the course a little bit to make it

Luc Moore (06:56.621)
Yeah.

Luc Moore (07:02.458)
.

Tom Hartmann (07:23.169)
bit shorter and the direction of the course was adopted a little bit so that you don't have to go straight against with the headwind for 40 knots. But it was challenging also to start. mean, once you're flying, it's one thing and you can keep it safe, but just to get started in 40 knots on an E-foil is not easy. And yeah, on the pump foil,

Luc Moore (07:32.185)
Fair.

Luc Moore (07:47.756)
Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (07:48.398)
We had two days and we started on the first day really early because there was like the lightest forecast and we had zero wind and glassy conditions. But then the onshore wind turned on. So we stopped and the next day we had 30 knots onshore and we had to, yeah, we had a, in the first day we had a dock start. So we had four custom built start dock ladders on the beach. Yeah. So we had this,

Luc Moore (08:03.097)
Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (08:18.379)
Especially made there's a company in the south of France that produces start letters. They are pretty awesome I have to say I I saw photos before I wasn't sure how good they work, but they actually worked really well So it's like a letter with let's say a two meter long board Where you can take you run on and you do your start But you can do a couple of steps and you can put it in the water as deep as you want So depending on how high you want it, so we had five of those letters

Luc Moore (08:44.281)
.

Tom Hartmann (08:48.051)
and had people on a parallel like racing against each other, four people on the dock at the same time around the course. But then on the second day we had it onshore wind with 30 knots and the ladders didn't work to start anymore. So we decided to run a format more like a downwind. So we took people on the ski, brought them upwind. There was a start line about 300 meters upwind from the beach. Let them go on top of the start line and then cross the start line and downwind to the beach.

Luc Moore (09:13.848)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (09:18.355)
as quick as they can, pumping or riding the waves and then Hawaiian style finish like on the beach and then running through a finish line without the board that was on the beach. And it's been a lot of those people haven't done it yet because not everybody has a ski obviously to practice this. But it's been pretty fun and I think the people really, the participants got quite a hang of it although the weather was really terrible that day, it was cold and raining a lot, it was not really comfortable to hang around the beach that day.

But yeah, that's what I said, you know, I'm always stoked to see how much passion and fire all these athletes have in them and doesn't matter the elements. And everybody wants to push this sport further. you know, we met a lot of new people from the French, Pumf oil and E foil community. And yeah, also maybe a couple of people, you know, more events that we're going to see in France on the, on the SFT side.

Luc Moore (09:50.04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (10:18.667)
So that was, I think for the weather, it was not the easiest for the non wind powered foiling disciplines, but it's been a good stage, I would say. You know, it's a big event. mean, the Mondial Levant, as I said, it's one of the bigger events in Europe, the oldest events. You can count about 50, 60,000 people that visit the event in the week. So there's a lot of audience and interest of people watching it. Also on the wing foil, I mean, we had

Luc Moore (10:40.253)
Whoa.

Tom Hartmann (10:44.981)
Although it's been during the week and it's been holidays, but we had a packed beach with a lot of people watching the Surf Freestyle and also the Free Fly Slalom. And there were a lot of new people as well. was, you know, on the wing fold, was really surprised and happy about the biggest number, I think, of women we had so far. I think we had 18 or 19 women in total competing on this event.

That's a really good number. new faces, know, and also on the men's side, always a couple of new ones showing up. But of course, the young ones are, especially in the surf freestyle discipline, are more more ruling the show. It's been a tight battle, you know, with Chris obviously the reigning world champion. mean, he's the only one who has something to lose, so he needs to fight to...

Luc Moore (11:14.422)
that's awesome. Yeah.

Luc Moore (11:28.247)
Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (11:41.24)
to maintain the title and all the other kids are hungry to grab it off him. know, the two Austrian twins that had first and second place in Jerry, they finished just behind him on second and third. And then the fourth boy in the final was Benjamin Karstenkolt. You know, that kid is known, know, and he's been, Benji was fourth, so he made it into the final. He rode really well. It was his first, more or less his first world tour event.

Luc Moore (12:00.401)
You Benji

Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (12:11.949)
because you can only start competing with 14 years. So this is the first year he's going to turn 14 this year. This is the first year he's allowed to be on tour and being straight in the final. I think it's a great accomplishment. But I mean, yeah, it would have been too easy if he would have away wins on the first event. So I think he has to gain a little bit of experience. He was definitely riding super well just in the final. I think he was fighting with a bit of back pain and maybe also a bit of a mind game.

Luc Moore (12:22.484)
Wow. It is.

Tom Hartmann (12:40.409)
I mean in the end the boys are all the very similar level so having the right competition mind is also crucial and being focused and getting your things landed, your tricks. But also a couple of other people, know, new ones that we haven't seen yet, young Frenchies from other countries too that did a great performance and haven't been on tour before. So let's see, another season.

another game and still quite a few events to come. So it's going to be an exciting battle, I think, for the surf freestyle title this year on the men's On the women's side, mean, Nia has been performing again as usual. But I think for her,

Luc Moore (13:15.413)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (13:36.44)
This year is the year where she can probably for the first time make it happen, maybe to win all disciplines on the tour. So I think that's what's on line for her. I mean, no pressure, but being somebody who can win all four discipline titles in the same year has never been done before. So if she managed to do that, the wave title she's got already and...

Luc Moore (13:47.477)
Yeah

Luc Moore (14:00.209)
Whoa, that'd be that'd be crazy for her.

Tom Hartmann (14:04.181)
Yeah, she's going with surf freestyle the way she does. She has a good chance. On the surf slalom, on the free-fly slalom, I think it was a good fight between her and Kylie. Had so many races. So surf slalom, think, yeah, it was close. I mean, also Kylie took a couple of wins, but yeah, in the end. On the final, she made some mistakes and she, yeah, Nia was pretty safe on the final, I would say.

Luc Moore (14:17.041)
Mm-hmm, it's close. Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (14:34.219)
And on the men's side, yeah, it's been a good fight too. mean, with this new system since we landed last year, you you do seven eliminations and then the top eight only qualify for the final. And if you're in the top eight, you still have a chance to win. If you're not in top eight, you're out already. But in the end, yeah, it was the old dog. mean, old dog. He's not old at all, but I call him old dog because he has a lot of experience.

Luc Moore (14:49.322)
Hmm.

Luc Moore (14:59.925)
He has no grace yet. Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (15:03.777)
and that's Francesco Capuzzo. It was crazy, I think on the final of the top eight men, there was only Italian and French. No other nationality. Eight guys in it, I think five French and three Italian, and that's it, nobody else in there.

Luc Moore (15:12.383)
Really?

Luc Moore (15:18.296)
They like to race over there.

Tom Hartmann (15:20.779)
Yeah, so it was a pure Italian-French battle for the Free Fly. And I think it was well deserved because as I said, we had seven qualification races with very different conditions. So it wasn't about luck only, you really had to show consistency. And I think winning after that for Nia and for Francesco is well deserved.

Luc Moore (15:44.489)
Mm-hmm.

Any on the surf freestyle, any new moves that you hadn't seen last year? Any kind of, did anything that stood out?

Tom Hartmann (16:01.261)
Good question. mean, I wouldn't say there was anything like particularly like never never seen before. There was. I don't remember exactly a couple of new tricks, but I think what was really impressive and what the judges were really rewarding was going big and clean. So it was more impressive even though I wouldn't say it was like a lot more technical than what we saw last year. But in terms of execution,

Luc Moore (16:09.182)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (16:30.413)
The very technical tricks already in terms of execution and the height and considering that it was flat, there is no kicker. And I mean on the second day with 40 knots, obviously a lot of boys were on a 2.5. The height and how clean the execution and landing of tricks was as well as obviously some combos like front flip into front flip.

Luc Moore (16:33.086)
Yeah.

Luc Moore (16:45.822)
That's insane. That's insane.

Tom Hartmann (16:59.457)
or front into backflip. Yeah, they have been pulled off as clean as they can be. And that was rewarded quite well, rather than showing a really technical move, but not going high enough. So that was a very clear message from our head judge as well.

Luc Moore (17:24.526)
Now talking about judges, you got Max Robinson in the lineup this year. That's a new.

Tom Hartmann (17:30.634)
Yes, exactly. We're really happy about that with Max. He decided not to compete anymore this year and we've been talking. He has been somebody who has always been very active in contributing to the tour in terms of being in the writers committee, he was always really active in trying to evolve the sport and has been really proactive on feedback.

working on the rule books together with our sports team. have a sports committee and we have an athletes and writers committee for each discipline and we have regular meetings developing the rule book together. And he was always very, very involved in that. And then last year we started talking and he's obviously one of the older guys and he knew he's not going to be up there in the top trying to compete with these guys. He's still amazing, don't get me wrong. I think he can still be there.

But obviously, he is now trying to develop in another direction. so, yeah, we agreed to have him, let's see, I this was the first event he do. I hope we will have him back at some of the next events as well for judging. But it was really great to have him in there because obviously, you know, in the other tours like the kite tour that we run, basically nearly every...

Luc Moore (18:28.83)
yeah, phenomenal.

Luc Moore (18:41.715)
Mm-hmm.

That's true. That's true.

Tom Hartmann (18:55.233)
body of our judges is an ex-athlete, an ex-pro rider. And in wing foiling, as the sport is so new, you don't have that yet because all the good guys are still competing. And now it's starting to happen. We have Max, we also have Noik Canteloop. I mean, he was competing on the tour before as well as Sam Carenz. So we have a really good panel now with Sam Carenz, Noik Canteloop, Max Robinson. They are all like real...

Luc Moore (19:14.451)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (19:24.097)
wingfoil pros. mean, Max was the one who competed the most out of those three, but also the other two did compete before occasionally on events. We have them on the panel. Yeah, and having also, you know, different nationality, getting somebody from Canada in the panel, that's a good mix too. And I think he did a good job. I think he liked it too. And he, yeah.

Luc Moore (19:32.732)
Hmm.

Tom Hartmann (19:52.974)
He's really focused in that and working. had a good debriefing with him as well. It's also very interesting to listen to people, obviously, that come from the athlete side and get into the crew, the organizational part. Like myself, when I did it, and I switched from competing into being an organizer or a tour manager or a race director, you really bring a little bit of...

Luc Moore (20:17.052)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (20:22.923)
let's say different view of an athlete view into the thing, which is very interesting because if you're always on one side of the stage, let's say, you, mean, I always try to look at things with as many angles as I can. And I'm asking athletes and organizers and industry and crew about feedback and their feelings about things that we need to develop to get a good, you know, a good day, some good data to make good decisions. But

For sure, I haven't been on the athlete side for many years and then having somebody like Max coming into the crew side who brings a fresh input from that side is really good. That's really constructive and I like to listen to those people as well and understand what their point of view doesn't work well, what can be better, what are.

Luc Moore (20:53.189)
Yeah, balanced. Yeah.

Luc Moore (21:07.728)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (21:22.445)
I mean, in the end, can never make everybody 100 % happy. That's normal, but you really need to take care that all the stakeholders, let's say all the parties involved in the tour are heard and that they feel home. And I think this is something I really like in the Wingfold tour, that there is still a very good collaboration between all those parties.

Luc Moore (21:26.738)
No.

Luc Moore (21:49.957)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (21:51.19)
It's not pushing too much on the one or the other side. I think we really try to do a tour where the riders feel welcome and happy to compete and the rules and so on. And then on the other side, you also need to find formats and competitions that are happy for the industry, make the industry happy to be part of it. And then obviously you need to have a concept in a format that organizers are willing to buy and to run an event because if...

if that's something that is not interesting for an organizer, nobody will do an event. So you need to think about all these components, let's say.

Luc Moore (22:21.426)
Yeah, no definitely.

Luc Moore (22:27.857)
Yeah. And you need judges that are personable, that get along with everybody that are good at business meetings. And yeah, that's Max right there and hell of a writer. Like definitely the best writer from our entire area. And we're just super stoked to see him on the world stage like that. Cause he was just so passionate when we were sailing on Lake Ontario together. And I'm going to try to drop in and see him cause I'll be in Toronto in a few weeks.

Tom Hartmann (22:48.875)
Yeah.

Luc Moore (22:55.1)
So I don't know if he's going to be home, but I'll reach out and see if I can at least, cause he's launching his own school and coaching and stuff. think he just got sponsored by North and Mystic as far as I'm concerned. So it'll be nice to, nice to catch up with them and to see how things are going. But yeah, I was super stoked to see that and see a local boy on there for sure.

Tom Hartmann (23:05.068)
Yes.

Tom Hartmann (23:15.927)
No, no, awesome.

Luc Moore (23:18.321)
And so we talked about pretty much GWA on that side. We also touched on the SFT. Now it's SFT and 40 knots, for example. I just want to reach back to that. It's kind of cool that you're going to have so many varying conditions for this new tour that's launching forward, right? So it forces athletes to train in a variety of different conditions. They're not just going to go out on a glassy lake and they have to like

kind of build their skills and patch all this stuff together. I find that kind of fascinating. It's going to add another element of, of entertainment as well. think.

Tom Hartmann (23:56.045)
No, does. mean, I don't think 30 to 40 knots is the conditions where most people go out and train e-foiling, but it's doable. know, it's doable. it is, is. But you know, when I saw, and when I, when I saw those guys coming out of the, I mean, there was a bunch of, you know, very mixed people, obviously, you know, we had one women taking part. had even a guy, a one armed.

Luc Moore (24:01.336)
It's not ideal, but...

Yeah.

But they're the pros, right? It has to be hard.

Tom Hartmann (24:25.837)
a guy on an e-foil competing and he did it. I was amazed. But it just shows me as well, as I said, was also... Yeah. One arm, mean, the other arm he had the remote. But I mean, just to get up on the board with one arm is not easy, I can tell you when I saw him doing it. And that in 30 to 40 knots, that's not easy, even without wind.

Luc Moore (24:31.306)
that's amazing.

Luc Moore (24:37.263)
that's so cool. Yeah, I never thought about all those.

Tom Hartmann (24:56.713)
Once you're flying, yes, but getting started, try it. If you get on the E-Fall and try to not just use one hand to get up on the E-Fall and start it, that's not easy.

Luc Moore (24:56.93)
Yeah.

Luc Moore (25:09.005)
No, not at all. then swimming in case you got to catch your board or some. It's another thing.

Tom Hartmann (25:14.5)
Yeah. But yeah, it just showed me as well how passionate and how stoked those people were. Because as I said, I mean, it was 40 knots, it's not warm and it's 40 knots and still trying to fight on the course. Obviously we adopted the format a bit. But it's been exciting to see and I think it also shows that, I mean, probably if we do it again in a spot like Leucat, I would...

Luc Moore (25:33.74)
Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (25:43.007)
choose maybe to put the event on two days so you have a bit of flexibility to move with the weather. I mean of course it can be windy 40 knots for two days in a row as well so it's not a guarantee but it gives a little bit of flexibility to choose the right time to run. And I think yeah even in Pensacola when we did the E-Fall in Florida

Luc Moore (25:53.241)
Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (26:08.397)
It was on the second day, was pretty windy and pretty choppy and all the riders actually found his words really interesting because it just makes it so much more technical than going on glassy flat water. It really shows how good your skills are. But for sure, yeah, think if we don't have any wind, I mean, that's the conditions most people look for, like in any sport. I think it doesn't matter.

Luc Moore (26:14.701)
Yeah, you're right.

Tom Hartmann (26:38.057)
Obviously, you want a wingfoil in waves, you want the perfect waves in the right wind direction. And if you want to do slalom, you want the perfect wind. If you want to do freestyle, you want to have the perfect wind. And the same is for e-foiling. If you want to compete, you want have the perfect conditions, which is zero wind. But it's not always like that and you need to deal with it. And the good thing is, think with e-foiling, can kind of do it in... If you can do it in 40 knots, it means you can do it in anything.

Luc Moore (26:38.156)
Yeah.

Luc Moore (26:52.164)
Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (27:05.023)
even though that's not the conditions you really want to go out on a free session. But it's doable. I think that for example, pump foiling, it's a little harder. That's why I said we are still learning with every event we do. And obviously, we had a discussion with the athletes there because the first day we did a dog start competition with these four letters. So there was a time trial.

Luc Moore (27:08.88)
for sure.

Luc Moore (27:28.121)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (27:30.121)
first single race, so one by one getting the time done and then out of this first time to race course, which was very simple, just like starting one by one, going around the buoy, coming back, taking the time. Everybody was seated into the competition and then we did two rounds with a, a chaos system that you know from any other sports. We've always four people or five people in a heat and then the best two advancing into the next round. So four or five dogs next to each other starting at the same time around

the same course coming back, two of them being eliminated and then all the way till the final. And that was a really great show, close to the people. was obviously no wind in the morning on that day, so it was warm, people want to hang out on the beach. It was a good atmosphere and then the wind started to get onshore stronger and stronger and then obviously when you have even 30, 40 centimeter waves.

It's really tough to start with the beach with the letters because you need somebody who is holding the letters, which is doable. But even that you might have the letter underwater, out of the water, underwater, out of the water. So it's really difficult to time. so then for the, so we did like two, two of those eliminations with head to head races with four people and

Luc Moore (28:32.905)
yeah. Yep.

Tom Hartmann (28:55.563)
Yeah, it was interesting because Eden was also in Pensacola, a Swiss athlete who was really good. He won the first elimination, but then on the second one in the final, he made it to the final, but then in the final he fell on the start and then Pamp falling basically when you fall on the start there's no way you can catch up unless all the other guys fall in as well.

Luc Moore (29:05.603)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (29:21.483)
But if all four people fall in, okay, that's quite a small chance. At least one of them got to make maybe the start. So he was fourth in the final. And then we had Benjamin May, who did the Windy event in Dusseldorf. this was his second event and he got second place in both races. We did it like hard. So overall he won first place.

Luc Moore (29:28.59)
Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (29:46.862)
But there was some new French guys as well, really strong ones. We had some people from Switzerland, had obviously a lot of French, we had US that lives in France. then the next day, as I said, we had a really strong forecast, so we knew we're not going to use the letters. So we explained the format that we're to take people on the ski and do kind of a...

I would say a mix of a downwind and a pump format. But we didn't count. Yeah, it was very interesting, but we didn't count it into the event ranking. We agreed, you we had a discussion with the, with all the writers together if we should count it in or not. And in the end, we, we agreed that we're not going to count it. We're going to do it as a single day event and there will be a winner of this, but it's not going to count into the SFT event ranking so that

Luc Moore (30:20.599)
Yeah, that'd be pretty interesting. Yeah.

Tom Hartmann (30:42.679)
that will count for the world rankings. Only the dog start part will count for that. because obviously we also didn't know how the downwind gonna work out because we've never tried that with getting people started on a ski. And you must understand, all of them were, nearly all of them had only pump foil equipment. That means they have really small boards, five liters, eight liter boards. And starting behind a ski with an eight liter board without foot straps on it.

Luc Moore (31:02.369)
Yeah, no kidding, that'd be hard.

Tom Hartmann (31:11.007)
It's also not easy in 30 knots. It's not something that everybody can do.

Luc Moore (31:13.964)
No, yeah, that's true. And especially the size of those front wings and stuff and what they're designed to do.

Tom Hartmann (31:22.463)
Exactly, and then you have these front wings that are not designed for any part of wave and then you downwind on it on a, let's say, one meter swell on these huge high aspect pump wings. So a lot of people didn't have also the right equipment. So it wouldn't have been fair to count that together, but it's something we really discussed and also brainstormed with the riders to be open to because in the end, if you run an event anywhere in the world, you never know what the condition is going to be unless you're in a pool like in

Luc Moore (31:33.356)
Yeah. shit.

Tom Hartmann (31:51.916)
Germany and you know this is a static weather conditions and will never change but if you are somewhere you know even though it's a wind a lake that's never windy you can have wind and you need to adapt the format to that so that was great I think to learn and also see for the athletes you need to be ready for anything and in the future maybe you know we

Luc Moore (31:56.305)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (32:16.075)
When it comes to pump falling, we can leave that open if it's a dock start or a beach start or start by jet ski or any other means. That's really interesting because the sport is still so young, you know, and a lot of people come together at the events and new people with that started pumping in very different conditions. mean, just the discussion we have at every event, you know, the first question I get from every rider is, how is the start dock looking like? How high is the start?

Luc Moore (32:29.526)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Hartmann (32:45.163)
Yeah, because for sure, and I understand because everybody's used to something else. know, some people are used to basically jump down from a one meter twenty dock into the water and other people are starting super low and only use 60 centimeter masts. So you need to find a solution that's kind of fine for everybody because everybody comes from a yeah, comes from a different training ground, you know.

Luc Moore (33:00.812)
Mm-hmm.

Luc Moore (33:10.171)
training, anything, what they use. Yeah, absolutely.

Tom Hartmann (33:13.229)
I mean there are people who can start from everywhere but if you're not used to that method of starting or that height of starting or how many you know some people obviously are used to being able to run like five meters before they jump on board and other people just jump off a rock you need to use completely different I mean not completely different but you need to use some different equipment that say for that you know the more you run the smaller front wing you can use because you take off with a lot of well as when you

Luc Moore (33:16.214)
Mm-hmm.

Luc Moore (33:38.937)
yeah.

Tom Hartmann (33:39.745)
When you jump out of the start without running, you need to use a bigger front wing because you start with a low speed and you can use an 800 or 700 front wing like some of the guys do when they run. And obviously a bigger front wing is slower, so you want to use the...

Luc Moore (33:53.419)
True. I understand the concept. Can I do it yet? Not yet, but this year I'm going to get it.

Tom Hartmann (33:57.102)
Yeah, it's a, the start is a crucial part of the dog start palm folding. It's not easy and obviously managing the start well can put you ahead. So once you start behind the ski, that's also the thing, you know, not everybody wants to have the same speed when starting behind the ski because of the equipment they use. So if you are on the ski, you will depend on the person.

that is pulling you and how he's driving the ski and which speed he's going. Well, when you're on a start dock, it's all on yourself. You're the one who starts on the same dock like the other person and there is no other influence in it.

Luc Moore (34:41.759)
that's fascinating. Well, that's, we're all curious to see how this entire tour and how all these disciplines develop over the course of the next years. And you guys are heading off to your next one. What? In a couple of days, you said it starts early May.

Tom Hartmann (34:55.699)
Yes, exactly. starts first May. We're in Sicily at the water festival. It's an event that's happening already for three years in the south of Italy. Water festival Sicily. We're going to have palm foil and efoil competition. yeah, basically it's a huge beach party, this event. It's a water festival on a summer opening in the south of Italy.

with DJs every night and yeah, a lot of people, think they're expecting a couple thousand people coming there. And there will be clinics, there will be, you can try different, it's an event where people can really participate, even if they don't know the sports, they can try wing foiling, palm foiling, towing behind the boat, e-foiling, SUP. So a lot of activities going on and in the evenings,

You will have fun at the parties and that's going on for three days, four days.

Tom Hartmann (36:10.381)
Is it lagging still?

Luc Moore (36:12.299)
I lost you for a second. Yeah, you went dark for a second. I lost you for a second. But that sounds like that's going to be a pretty fun time in in Italy. And you guys have some pretty cool ones. We're going to talk about that in the next episode not to front load this one of what you guys have coming up. But thanks for coming on today. I hope you enjoy a couple down days. And how are your flights to Italy? Is it a lot less than

Tom Hartmann (36:15.926)
Okay.

Luc Moore (36:40.17)
30 hour adventures to get out to Sol is a little bit easier.

Tom Hartmann (36:44.141)
Yeah, yeah, that's just a two-hour flight straight away. Although it's leaving at 5.30 in the morning, so still have to go to the airport at 3 in the night. But it's just a two-hour flight straight to Palermo.

Luc Moore (36:49.225)
Nice.

Luc Moore (36:54.888)
Oof, okay, yeah.

Luc Moore (37:00.442)
nice. All right. Well, hey, have fun there and enjoy that event. And we're going to catch up soon and see how that one went. Now for people that are looking to follow the SFT and to stay up to date on a live event. should they just check your Instagram? Like what's the easiest way for them to kind of stay if they want to follow along, let's say for one of those places.

Tom Hartmann (37:19.115)
Yeah, think follow our social channels, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube obviously. mean the tour has just started so we're trying to get more and more content on it with each event and also other things that happen in the world of foiling. And if you want to have more information on the tour when it comes to the dates and events and locations where we're going to go then check out the website which is surfourworldtour.com.

Luc Moore (37:49.937)
And we have some exciting news coming, but we're going to drop it in another episode. So make sure to come back and tune in for there. All right, Tom, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. And yeah, we'll chat soon.

Tom Hartmann (38:02.701)
Alright, see you soon.

Luc Moore (38:04.615)
Alright, bye everybody.

Tom Hartmann (38:06.862)
All right.