Wing Foil Interview: Clifford Coetzer- Unifoil on the Blue Planet Show episode 20

The Blue Planet Show

In this conversation Clifford Coetzer, the founder and designer at Unifoil goes over tips for wing foil beginners, his background, how he started making foils and started Unifoil, foil design evolution, construction, stiffness, tradeoffs, testing prototypes, foil characteristics, and more, I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did, thank you for your support and positive feedback. Aloha, Robert Stehlik For more information on Unifoil, please visit: https://www.uni-foil.com

Transcript:

Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik welcome to another episode of the blue planet show in today's interview. I'm speaking with Clifford from uni foil. He's in South Africa, I'm in Hawaii. So there's like a 12 hour time difference. There's a little bit of a delay and so on, but it's a great conversation.

And we get into detail on foil design tips for beginners tips, for more advanced people, all kinds of technical things about the foils. I'm trying to wrap my head around all the different aspects of how everything works together, and Clifford's really good at explaining it and making sense of it.

And obviously he's tried a lot of different things. He's one of the first people to come out with the high aspect foil. And so he's definitely one of the pioneers in foil design. Really good conversation. Hope you enjoy it. Please make sure to give it a thumbs up if you like it, make sure to subscribe to the blue planet surf YouTube channel down below.

I'll put some links down in the description as well. For the uni foil website, you can watch the blue planet show right here on YouTube, or you can also listen to it on your favorite podcast app to search for the blue planet show. And without further ado here is Clifford. Okay, Clifford. Welcome to the show.

How are you doing today? Good Robert. Thanks for having me on man. What a privilege? Awesome. To finally meet you. Yeah. Fi glad to finally get you on the show. So here in Hawaii, it's 8:00 PM in the evening. And for you, it's 8:00 AM in, in Cape, in South Africa and Jeffrey bay. That's where you're at. That's right?

Yeah. Just the start of the day. Yeah. So how long have you been living in Jeffreys bay or is you born and raised there or? Uh, No. I was actually born in Johannesburg. But at a young age I moved over to England and then I've been coming over to Jeffrey bay on holiday. So I've actually got a house year.

I've been coming here for 20 years and then about 10 years ago, I actually moved to Jeffrey bay. Excellent. So trying to start off season with some tips for beginners last year, I kind had it, the, of this, I asked the question, what are some tips for beginners, but I wanted kind turn it around. So for the beginners watching, what are some good tips for people that want to get into wing foiling?

For myself, I only started wing foiling last year and my biggest tip is to use the right equipment. That is critical. So myself being a bit of a heavier rider I'm about hundred and four kilos, about 230 pounds to use the right equipment is essential, especially if you in light wind. My advice is to be overpowered.

Rather a wing that is a little bit too big a board that is too big and a fo that is too big. It just makes the whole learning process so much easier. If you use your equipment, that's too small. then it becomes a struggle. It becomes, it's just hard work. It's a nightmare. So in the beginning, overpowered for sure.

If possible I would recommend one or two sessions behind a boat just to be pulled behind a boat and just get, just to break down the whole process so that you don't have a ring in your hands and a foil trying to do both at the same time. So if you can get going with just the foil behind a boat toe session, get just the feeding of the foil coming up outta the water.

Great. And then with the ring itself, going on just the normal sub-board walking on dry land, getting a feel for how the ring works and then combining the two together. I find that works really well. And of course, nothing beats having someone who's got experience, if you go off by yourself it's difficult.

But if you've got an instructor or someone who's already wing foing and they watch you, and they can tell you're doing this wrong, you're doing that wrong cry. This cry, this, that, that advice is gold, highly recommended. If you go like a school or something rather go someone who's already competent at wing, foing it, it just makes the whole process, the whole journey so much more pleasant.

Yeah. Those are some great tips, I think. And I think most of us. Everybody's still new to the sport. So we remember what it was like to learn and are happy to help others too. Yeah, just ask for help. And and just keep in mind too, that it can be dangerous in the beginning too.

If if you fall on your foil and, as a surfer, like usually you try to kind catch yourself if you're falling, but that's the wrong instinct when you're foiling. You wanna just eject as, as quickly as possible 100%. Yeah, 100%. I think in the beginning days when you're trading water, you only kick the foil once or twice and you learn very quickly don't trade water, rather hang on the board, but yeah, with foing you, you learn very quickly, don't try and save it rather as you say, object off the foil and get going again.

It's so much save so much easier. Okay. I'm just put, pulling up your website here. So out of your lineup what, which foil do you like for someone your size? What foil did you start on? I started on a hyper I started on, on, we used to do quite a big one a two 50. I then switched over to the two 10, and that's what I use now at the moment.

I dunno if much about the hype's been around for quite a few years. So we are actually working on a version two at the moment, which will be released very soon. The hyper ones have been out now for

20, about five years now. So they've been around for quite a while. Yeah. So that's actually a high aspect wing. Yeah. So you were one of the first to you to bring out a wing that was had a really high aspect ratio, right? Like one of the first to bring out a wing like that.

Yeah. So what happened was I was working with with Ivan and Nathan from signature at the time. And they started doing down winding here in Cape town. And I said to Ivan can he put a GPS on Nathan? And just to see what sort of speeds is he doing? And I knew immediately that a high spec would be very efficient.

So I started doing prototypes and I did the first high spec for, and yeah, watching those GPS graphs was well, it was amazing to, to see that he could be on the fo for so long. Cause I back then, if I was on the foil for 60 seconds, this is a long time. And you had, he was writing for 13, 14, 15 minutes at a time.

So it is yeah, just pretty amazing. . Yeah. And Nathan seems like a super talented kid too. Yeah. Very much he almost, I think he, he actually beat Lenny across the channel in the mole race. The first time he came over here and just was able to pump upwind and pass him. Sorry.

So sorry. Did you go to that event? Actually? I did that race too. Myself. Yeah. I saw them flying by me. I was on the stand paddle really? Oh, must amazing. Went was twice as twice actually, or just actually demo demoralize I was watching that. I was watching that, that event from here in South Africa because they had all the GPS markers on all the riders.

And then as the foils guys started right at the end and it was nervewracking. And it's three o'clock in the morning here and I'm trying to be quiet, watching this race and I'm at my parents' house the next day I'm flying out to Canada and, I'm chewing my nails what's going on.

And then yeah to watch those little blips on that map, travel between all the riders and just blast through, it was certainly an amazing highlight. It was yeah. Phenomenal. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That was amazing. But anyways, let's get into the whole. Relationship with signature foils and the foil design and all that.

I have lots of questions about that, but let's start your just your background, like what, like, how did you grow up? How did you into water sports? How did you into foiling and foil design? And so as in

Born in Johnsburg I really enjoyed I went to a technical school. I really enjoyed engineering. got my first job at engineering company doing fluid dynamics, doing hydraulics doing press design which I really enjoyed. I enjoyed the whole process of designing something, drawing something, and then going down to the workshop and actually seeing it being manufactured and being made, and then being installed on site and actually being utilized.

I've got a real kick out of that. It's something that that I really enjoyed. So at a young age I moved over to England and I was staying in England, but then I'd come back to say every year and. I think it was back in 2002, somewhere around there, I was in Cape town and I bought these two flexi four kites that they stack together and then you're flying them.

And I, the part of these kites was really awesome. And I sat there on the beach and I see this guy come over the road and he's got a helmet on and he's got this board on his one arm and this package on his other arm and he comes to the beach and he rolls this thing out. And it's just this massive long.

don't know what it was, and he starts pumping it up and he had this kite and I was like, whoa, I'd seen it on TV, but you actually have someone doing it right hand in front of me. And he was the only one on what we call kite beach in, in Cape town. And when I saw that, I was like, I've gotta do this.

So the following year I bought a kite obviously a cab black tip. I'm sure you know those guys, but I think everybody started on one of those coats and. Yeah that, that pretty much started my consulting journey, but I never got anywhere. I just mowed the lawn and did the occasional jump because I was living in, in, in England and I'd only come over for, month or two at a time.

So I never really progressed. And then in about 2015, it was 2014 somewhere on there. I moved to a little Tanya in Africa called ner and I had a whole bunch of mates who were into surfing and yeah, initially I started up again, started kit surfing and started progressing a little bit better.

And that's when I saw the, a video on, I think it was on YouTube or of, I, oh, we gotta try this looks cool. It looks difficult, actually looks impossible. I was with the, and it was like, gonna, if you try it. So I had a workshop doing CNC. I did a cutting service and so I just knocked up some molds and made this foil and we went beyond the boat and this meter long mot and this thing, picking it up out of the water, just this totally surreal, crazy feeling.

I still remember it like as just yesterday, it was. So your first foils, you actually C seeded the mold and you laid up the foils inside a mold, like right from the start. The first, all my friend wings have always been in, in The very first mask that I made was just wrap ground a wood core.

But from there everything was done, from CT molds, it's just so much easier than having to sit and sand apart afterwards. So when you were in England, you studied engineering in England or what were you doing in England? No I, I moved to England. I moved to England. I was 23 somewhere around there.

And what made you decide to leave South Africa and go to England? What happened was that they made it possible to get it a two year work visa. So you could go over to England and you could travel around and, go and check the place out. And I went I was only planning to go for a year and I came back to South Africa and all my friends were still doing the same thing.

Everyone's still getting to the same place. Nothing had changed. And I was like I've only got a year left on my visa and I'm looking have this opportunity again. So I'm and yeah. Someone and I staying there for 10 years. Did you in England been England? All over , but I was staying in London for a couple years and then I moved north to, to Peter.

I was in Luton for a short amount of time then up to Peterborough for eight years. Okay. So you never did, you did, like you said, I guess in school, you enjoyed engineering and so on, but did you have a formal education in, in like aeronautical engineering or foil design or ring design or anything like that?

Or just it's all self taught more or less? Yeah. On the aortic side. Yes. I took go to college but I didn't do aortics or hybrid dynamics that, that all came much later on from radio control, the aircraft

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, came to while that interviewed him and he has like a really good understanding of the whole engineering side of the foils as well. But he, and he, I guess he just taught himself and how to use the programs and all that kinda, stuff's pretty impressive. And he has like a background in, in glider airplanes and, or, model airplanes and so on.

But anyways, yeah, that's interesting. I'm just cur curious, like how you figured all those things out, I guess just by, by trial there. A lot of it, I guess so, yeah, there is no engineering class for hydrofoils really, it's, we very niche at the moment. Yeah. I think maybe in the future they'll do something, but the principles beyond a hydrofoil and a small aircraft is very much the same.

The end result is very different, but the principles of flight are very much the it's

design just basics of

is I guess the big thing is the, that water is much more dense than air, obviously. So it's that, and. Fluid dynamics are different probably too, but yeah,

South Africa to,

from there, I made this first foil and realized that it was way too small. It was only about a, I think it was about a 600 square centimeter. So you needed like 20 kilometers an hour, whatever it was, plus just for the foil to engage that you could lift up. So the wipe parts were classic.

Every session you, you had come out with this, whiplash. Continued designing different ones and trying different ideas. And eventually I started getting this pile of all these prototype foils, stuck in the corner of the workshop and, I didn't wanna go and just throw them in the bin.

It's just, it's, the amount of time that you put into them and the cost of the material. So I thought let sell them. So I put them on on our local second for website gum and. From doing that, I had one guy buy one and then his friend phoned him and it's listen, you made a foil for my friend.

Can you make me one? And slowly but surely I, I just started making all these foils and just one after the next and just, I just snowballed. But that was all kite foils. And then my wife she's from Canada. She wanted to move to Canada. So we started the process of of getting my visa to move to Canada.

And we left doing NASN at the time. So we moved to Jeffrey's bay. When I was here, I was like I've gotta do something while I'm waiting for my visa. I wasn't expecting it to be a, you a couple of months kind of thing. And in the end it took just over a year. So while I was here, Jeffrey's a good mate to mine.

He he saw one of my fores in the back of my truck. And he is what is that? I was like to kit for him. So he is like, cause he's a surfer. So I think it was probably a week later, he phone me up and he goes, listen, can you make one of these things for surfing? I was like, yeah, I can't see why not.

Let's try it. Back to the CNC at that time I sold my business. I didn't have access to a CNC, I to go to another mate mines place to U CNC. So I made up this this four of the surf world and it's actually Gumby. He were actually on the way to the beach and this thing was busy curing.

That's how excited we were to, to get in the water. So anyway, he jumped in the water and he started pedaling out. And a few minutes later, a couple of his mates picked up and just they don't know that there's a fo at the bottom of his board, he's just laying in the water and he, and the wave comes and he paddles.

So this wave and he stands up in this fo picks up out of the water. The guys are riding work blocks. The guys running were like screaming their heads. So I could hear them from the beach, this cause it just unheard of it just unseen. He was, he is literally the first guy, probably in South Africa.

I dunno. But one of them definitely the first guy in, the Cape that had been on a surf for, so that, that pretty much started the journey of surf oils. And from there I had to Because I didn't have access to a CNC machine anymore. I had to machine up steel molds. So I went into an engineering shop and I had, that is when I came out with the vortex 1 75, which later on came to be a very popular foil.

Okay. It is about around that time that I spoke to Ivan from signature and we started chanting and was like can we collaborate on this foil? And, can he use the foil design? And I was like, yeah, for sure. And at that time, foiling was still. Pretty much for surfing was pretty much in its infancy and I'd never ridden anyone else's foil before, so I didn't really know what foils were supposed to feel like, I've only ridden my own designs, my own feel, and I'd never ridden anyone else's foil, so I wasn't too sure.

What is this supposed to feel like? But I just aimed for having as even foot pressure as possible on the front and back of the foil and yeah, that's, that was pretty much the design that us on the map, if I can put it that way. So signature foils it, they approached you because they heard that you're making good foils and then basically you started making designs for them.

Yeah. So how did that relationship work and then how did you start your own brand? While you're also cause it's a little bit confusing cuz basically their foils are exactly the same as yours or are they different? No. Only our only, only when we first started. Oh, okay. So the vortex they called it the PTH.

And then ours, the hyper they called it Theros but they have got their own design end out cause obviously we totally independent now. Okay. And then I guess your newest foil is the vortex, right? No, the Viper. Oh the, the Viper. Yeah. Yeah. And then, so the Viper is from what I understand a little bit of a blend of between it's like a little bit of a blend between the best aspects from both the vortex and the hyper, that's right. So our vortex is our low aspect foil which is very popular in, in, in the early stages. And everyone's pretty much transitioned over to medium aspect or high aspect foils, just cause of the efficiency. The efficiency's so much higher on, on a narrow wing. So what everybody wanted was a foil that, that, that surfed like a vortex, but pumped like a hyper.

So then did a collaboration with Adam Bennetts and this is what we made was the Viper. OK. Yeah. Okay. So in, in the early days, yeah, you had the collaboration with signature fo, but, and you still designed their foils, right? No, they've got someone else who's doing their designing now.

I see. Okay. And then what made you decide to start uni foil? Or how did that get started? It just from sending the foils out of my workshop it just snowballed and, eventually it's you gotta came up with a name brand. I was like, oh, that is a lot harder than you think , it's not easy to come up with a name brand.

I'll tell you what. Yeah. And, there's so many different names of what do you call your product? What are you call your brand? And in the beginning I actually had names of various fishes which I called the foils. And, but I still didn't have a brand name.

And one day I was just thinking about it. And I just thought, uni being one being like a uni cycle and I thought uni foil and I was like, that's it? That is what I'm gonna call this brand uni foil it relates to being number one and it relates to being, a single file that you're writing.

And that's pretty much how I came up with the name of uni. Yeah, like a unicorn that's still coming okay. And yeah, and Adam Bennetts is an amazing foiler yeah, like he phenomenal so a lot of I guess having good team writers like that I'm sure is very helpful. When in designing the foils. Yeah, no, he's got crazy talent. I think it's absolutely imperative that you have a team writer who has the ability to give you feedback that you can work on. Yeah. Very important. Okay. So yeah, I remember to came over to Oahu for this event that we had a few years ago that it was called hundred wave event and he had a team and the team had to catch a hundred waves and he had one of those signature Albatros foils, and they had a whole team of signature team.

And, but came to wild was just like pu pumping around in circles, like catching one way after the other, just catch, like that's the first time I really saw someone just pumping like that. He does, he makes it look easy, but yeah, so talk explain to me how why are high aspect foils so efficient?

What makes them more efficient in medium aspects and what, what are the what are the good and the bad? What's the good and the bad of the high aspect? Like what, yeah. So just kind talk a little bit about that know, and then also why you go, why you went back to a medium, more medium aspect versus a very high aspect

way is a wing that has a very short cord line is always going to have less drag than a wing with a long cord line. Cause it's the amount of time that the water takes to travel over the cord. That's what gives you your drag. So if you can reduce that down you have less drag.

So the highest was designed to be as efficient as possible. It was purely designed for straight line to get from a, to B as efficiently as possible. So when I started designing that Ivan gave me GPS records just showing the average speed that Nathan was riding at to, I think it was 20.

One or 23 kilometers an hour, somewhere out there. So I tried to optimize the efficiency at that speed to get as little drag as possible. So high aspect fours is all about efficiency. The disadvantage of high aspect fours is they do tend to not turn as well. Being such a wide w span they're not really intended to be written in the surface as much.

That is my theory back then. And then these high aspect foils reached away and there was some riders that started using them in the surf. And I was like, no, you're not supposed to do that, that they're not made for that, but the guys were ripping on them. And I was like, wow, that's amazing, that they got the ability to turn that foil the sharp as what they could, but that's the real disadvantage is if you're an average to get a higher expert to really turn it, doesn't want to, it tends to Trapp pretty much on rails.

That's why we came up with the mid aspect, foils mid aspect, foils for surf. Foing is just way better. These vis, when I get out on a session I actually just feel like I'm adding Bens, when you're doing these turns, cause you just, what I found with the high aspect stuff was you went along with the, for the right it'll going to the left and it's okay, we're going to the left and you pretty much follow the four where it wants to go.

And it's a bit of a wild beast and changing over to the right. But you just think turn left and you do this nice, turn to the left. They just turn incredibly well, fair enough. The efficiency isn't as high as the hypers, but it's not very far behind in, in terms of pumping.

So how did you achieve that and sorry to interrupt you, but how did you achieve the that turning the more turn in the Viper versus the versus the hyper just automatically by getting to a low it's gonna turn better that immediately it's gonna allow to turn better. Then the hyper profile is actually quite a slow profile.

It's not a very fast foil. It was only made to cruise at, like I said, 22, 25 K an hour. And it, it does a very easy lifting for and the VI though has got a completely different profile. It's quite a bit faster than the hyper profile, but the front cur of the wing also helps it to turn.

But of twist in the ring also helps it to turn. So there's me, there's different things that you can do to the foil to change its characteristics. So it, little bit of curve in, in the curvature of the foil itself. Yeah. So what happens is on aircraft, you've got DRI where the wings are like this.

So when you're flying with it with an aircraft that has DRI, when the wings start to tilt over to the side, you have less lift on the w that is tilted. So then automatically it selfs. So now on the hydrofoil, that's the opposite. You actually put a curve into the ring like this. So when you turn over to the side, you lose the lift on the side, that is got the main lift.

So automatically you're making the fourth unstable, so you're making it so that it turns a lot easier by adding in that little bit of a curve. Then I guess the downside of adding curve is that it makes it a little bit less efficient, cause the tips are not creating as much lift, right? Yeah.

Yes. Or the surface area. Yes. Your actual area versus your projected area is not close, between the two, so then you lose efficiency, right? Yeah. Last week I talked to AIAN from access foils and he said to him, like the surface area of the wing of the foil is not as important as the wing span and the aspect ratio and things like that.

Like he said that's why they use the wingspan as a measurement rather than the surface area. But your foils, you measure the surfaces square inches. Is that the number on the foil surface inches? And then is that the projected surface area or the it's actual, the actual surface it's actual, actual, actual surface area.

Yeah. Okay. So how would you say high aspect foil, it seems like it creates a lot more lift at the same surface area, right? If it has a wider wing span, but a smaller surface area, it seems like it creates a lot more lift. Is that correct? You say it does generate a bit more lift.

It's more efficient. So the lift data generates it generates it with a lot more efficiency. Basically, so it's basically your surface area dictates what amount of force your foil can pick up, not your span, not your cord. They do two degree, but the main thing is the surface area of the foil.

So that's why we measure our foils in surface area. In hydraulics, the formulas, ethical speed times a, pressure times your area, it's got nothing to do with span or anything. And it's the same with the foil. When you're designing a foil and you're design a foil to lift a certain weight, you go on the surface area times the coefficient of lift, not the span.

If we had to measure our foils with span our low expect foil has the same span as like for example a VI in 90 has the same span as a vortex one 50. If I had to say that the foils measured on the span, it would be very confusing to go through the different ranges or different designs of foils.

Based on those numbers when somebody phones me up and says, what size foil do I need? The first thing I'll ask is what is your weight? Because your weight dictates what size foil you're gonna riding at whatever speed not the span of the foil. That makes sense.

But I guess, because like you said, because the high aspect flow are more efficient. They basically create less drag. So you basically create, you can go faster and then that creates more lift because you're going faster. Is that basically why it feels like a smaller high, it just seems like a smaller, high aspect flow, smaller surface area, high aspect flow creates more lift than a bigger low aspect foil to me, but I guess it's because of the speed yeah.

That you're traveling at higher speeds. Yeah. So a high aspect foil will have a much wider speed range. A low aspect foil tends to ride in a much narrower speed range. And then it blows out, whereas a high aspect foil can ride slower and it can ride faster. So your speed range on a high aspect foil.

The speed window is definitely bigger. Yeah. Okay. You like, people used to say, like for beginners, it's better to use a low aspect foil cause it's more predictable and easier to use versus high aspect foil. Would you say that still applies or would you yep. Yes. I wouldn't necessarily even go to a low aspect foil, just a medium aspect, foil to learn to foil on, on a high aspect.

Foil is you're going to make the journey very painful. It's not recommended. There's tons of guys that have done it. Now I'm talking about surf oiling for ring foiling different Keer fish for surf oiling to learn to surf oil on a high aspect foil. Definitely don't recommend it.

It's and also it depends on your skill levels and your abilities and stuff. But generally I would recommend to, to learn to surf for on a high aspect for it, it just makes it so much harder, so much more difficult. With w foiling it's very different because you've got the third or, or something to hold onto.

So your stability is, you are way more stable with a wing in your hands or kiting your hands than, without, so for w foiling, that's fine. You can start to learn on a high aspect quite easily. Okay. So would you say that winging is the one of the easiest ways to learn how to foil or what, like you said, behind a boat?

Yeah, I guess behind a boat is probably one of the easiest ways, but without having a boat, if you, yourself, what would you say is the easiest way to get into foil? Oh, without a doubt ring foing is it's way easier than without a doubt ring foing is so much easier. And it's like I say, if you have the correct gear, you can be foing in three, four sessions, easily.

Okay. It depends on age abilities conditions. But you can be easily foiling, in three, four sessions, I've got a bunch of mates that have learned to w for who already are foiling, however, but to, to learn to winful, you know, they're riding toe side on their first nation. But as I say, if it is possible and you can go out behind a boat first just to get that initial feeling of the foil, picking up outta the water.

It's very weird that, when you first do it, and if you're learning with just a a wing as a power source it's a bit of a challenge, but it's certainly a lot easier than trying to learn with the kite that's. Yeah. That's next level. Yeah, totally agree on that. I've, I recently started using a more high effect of foiling.

And one thing I noticed is that when you hit some turbulence in the water, like there's foam in the water or something from a wave, it seems like they just drop right away versus a lower as yeah. Lower aspect. Foil will be less sensitive to turbulence. So why is that?

Why are they more sensitive to the turbulent water? Dunno how to say I just presume, because it's the amount of water on, on the surface area of the bottom of the foil just cause it's air. Yeah, dunno.

Yeah. So you're not like, yeah, I was puzzled why that is. I guess it's just maybe cuz like you said, it has, it doesn't travel over the foil as long. So maybe, yeah, I don't, I dunno, but I thought you might have an answer for that, but no, I haven't got a clue. Yeah. Okay. But I liked your explanation of why they have less drag just basically cuz it takes the water less time to travel from the front leading edge to the trailing Android.

So it just slips to the water faster. Yeah. Also your, your Paraic GRA is also a lot lower because on a high spec foil, you'll find that you fall nine times outta 10 is, is going to be a lot thinner than a lower aspect for the lower spec. Foils tend to be quite fat and junky where high spec foils are a lot thin.

So you also goes lower drag just from your frontal drag. Yeah. And you said you're redesigning your high aspect, foils your hyper line. You're gonna come out with a new version of it soon, or? Yeah so the hypers have been, not now, like I said five years now, I think that came out 2017 and a lot of guys want to go faster.

So the hypers were made to, to cruise at 22, 23 K an hour. That's just their cruising speed. So yes, that can go a lot faster. But the hybrid twos are now going to be purely for ringing. And then we bring in out a different range for down winding. So the hybrid twos are going to be quite a bit faster.

The store speed will be a little bit higher. They're going to be aimed purely at in foil. So with foiling, you can have a higher stall speed on the foil, cause you've got that source of power. Like how much higher is the stall speed? Even for, I kind being able to kind like at the end of a jive or attack, if youre almost, you're almost stalling and then you can pump back out of it.

It's nice to be able to do that without dropping off. But but having a super efficient foil is also a really nice and then having a higher top end, but I guess it always comes at a price on the low speed as well. But when you're talking a faster profile, is it just thinner or like what how did you make it faster?

I'm just curious. It's a completely different section. So the section that was used in the, on the regional hyper, the maximum thickness was at 25%. If I remember correctly, somewhere around there and now the maximum thickness has just been moved further back. So you have a little bit less lift.

You make the foil, excuse me. So when I made the hypers, because I didn't have access to a CNC machine, I didn't have I didn't have the luxury of trying many different variations Nathan and Ivan were flying to Hawaii to do the age two NTO. And I didn't have the luxury to, try this fall and that fall and try this section.

So I had to play it safe if I can put it that, or I had to use a profile that I knew for definite would work. I didn't want to make a four that was too fast and it just too advanced that would stall, if you had a store halfway out and you couldn't get going again to be game over. So I had to come up with a four that I knew was going to work and it just gonna play it safe.

And I knew from the data at the time that he had a very good chance of a podium finish, even winning the race because of the speed of the foil. And I could calculate over the distance, what sort of time to take him, to complete the race. But that was five years ago.

Things have changed. Guys' abilities are just going through the, and so many people who are, who have got the talent and the skill to, to push the foils. Now, you've got access to stronger carbon. You've got the access to Highest, higher speed.

So it's just what the guys want, they wanna go faster and faster. So yeah, it's about time that we do a revision on the hybrids. Yeah. The technology has changed so much in just the last few years and they have had the race cuz of COVID. So it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Like they'll probably be it'll be probably a whole different ball game, by the time they hold it again next year, maybe. I guess it's not happening this summer either, but yeah, it'll be interesting to see like all the progression. And then what about the aspect ratio? Did you keep that about the same or did you make it even more high aspect or it has got a fraction higher.

They're sitting at about eight to one now, eight, just over eight, somewhere on there. So just a little bit higher on the aspect ratio. So the first we're going to be releasing the first three, which is the one 70, the one 90 and the two ten first. And then at a later stage we'll release other sizes.

And you said there, like there's different wings for winging and for down winding or are they the same gonna be the same just by size or how? We bring it out a completely different range for down winding. Oh, wow. And then what about mass? I was curious about mass links looks like at this time you only have two different sizes of mass.

Is that correct? Three, we've got 7 50, 8, 30 and nine 50. Oh, you have a nine 50. Okay. Yeah. Then if it's on the website yeah, on the website, it only had two options. When you look at the mass choosing the

eight 30, so you also have a nine 50,

that's something I think definitely for do for wing foiling. It's nice to have a little bit longer mask because the chop and stuff, you can just fly over the chop without it, without having to follow the contours of the water, basically as much, but I guess for like down winding and surfing, having a longer mask can be a disadvantage because you don't, you're not as connected to the foil.

You're more up higher. It's just that little delay that it takes turning from rail to rail on a long mot. Timing's different, everything's different. So generally the gas start on the seven 50 and if you're riding slightly bigger waves, then the eight 30 the nine 50 is it's not as popular.

I use a nine 50, if I'm out in open ocean like you said, you don't have to hunt all the time, skimming over the cross. That's just, on the long, last it's awesome. You just blast over the top . But generally in, in the actual waves themselves I won't use a nine 50.

I just, I don't like the delay from turning from rail to rail. I prefer the eight 30 it's yeah, way better. Okay. Interesting. And then yeah, so what about mass stiffness or like the whole stiffness? What are your, what's your take on the importance of stiffness and are, is that, would you say it's very important and like what are you trying to accomplish with stiffness or versus flex and stuff like that?

That's a lot of people asking that question. You have to follow the trend. So people want stiffer Mo you've got a supply stiffer. So if that's the trend and that's what people want, then that's what you have to supply. I personally don't, on the winful our MOS are, for me personally are, are more than stuff enough.

We have actually. We working on an extra stiff mask at the moment. I've just written the first two prototypes and yeah they extremely stiff. If they're totally necessary again it's up to each individual or what they want if you want a very stiff ma yes. So for me, I like the efficiency of a thin our standard ma are 12 millimeters thick at the base.

So once you've written a mast with that efficiency in that speed, to go to really thick it's, that's what we love about is the efficiency. So you chopping off efficiency. So if you still have a, that the stiffness that you require, then so much better 20 writing, a 20 millimeter thick mot if however, you are required to to need such a stiff ma for pumping or for whatever it is, then, that's what you need to get.

So we've also got a, an extra stiff mot it'll be available soon. It's not on the website yet. We're just finalizing the layout and the stiffness. Yeah. And then I've, I've noticed too that your like basically your front wing and your fuselage is all one piece. And I guess that's also to take out any kind of play or flex between the front wing and the fuselage rate.

So this is something that I learned right at the beginning of making foils, cause my FOS used to be separate. The fuselage of the front ring used to be separate and I quickly realized that this is a weakness on the foil just because of the twist. So you'll see, there are no manufacturers that make or none that I can think of that make a separate carbon fiber fuselage.

And the reason for this is because of the manufacturing process of having a two, five mold. Cause when you close the mold, you have a join line. And if your material doesn't cross that join line carbon is its weakest in sheer. And that fus just splits open the moment you apply a force on it.

So right in the beginning I realized this, that Having these big wings on, on, on the, on a separate fuselage is not gonna work. That's why you'll see when guys have got separate fuselages nine times out of the 10, they might have made out of aluminum. So the first generations of the uniforms the fuselage in the front w were all just one piece, but the shipping and the traveling was just a nightmare.

It was just very difficult to travel with it. And that's why we then put a split in the fuselage. But a one piece front wing and fuselage is far superior to having a connection there. And you'll see quite a few manufacturers that have changed over to this design purely for that, because it is superior in stiffness, right?

The moment you have it there you drawing Allows for movement. So does, can you still adjust the angle between the front wing and the tail wing, or is there like somewhere you can trim it imperative, absolutely imperative that you are able to tune the foil to your liking. Yeah that's that's a given you have to be able to tune your foil to, to your liking.

I've had two riders come from a to station and the one rider is the other one. Oh, if just had a little bit more front foot pressure and the guy's no, you mean a little more back foot pressure. And the guy's no, a little bit more front foot pressure. And they've just rid the exact same foil and they've got two different fields, so if you want that little more front foot pressure and you can't adjust that angle, what do you do? So if you have different weights, if one person raises 80 kilos and another one raises 90 kilos, you're gonna want to have a different feel fair enough. It takes years of experience to, to actually help, to feel the difference and to start to fine tune, as to what you actually like and what works well with your, what do you call it, ergonomics that that you like in, your style of writing.

But there's definitely a shift in, in fo foyers going from backward press for is going from back foot pressure to front foot pressure. A lot of guys start falling and. They all write back foot pressure and slowly but surely they, that they're transitioning over to front foot pressure cause they see the advantages of it.

Okay. So talk a little bit about the construction process and how involved are you in it? And so are your foils?

Yeah, so we've had a absolute nightmare with manufacturing just from being able to produce the volumes that we need and the one manufacturer that we had didn't follow the layer requirements, that are stipulated to the factory and they applied what they've been doing for another customer.

And I said, these wings are not gonna work. If you don't do the layout exactly the way I'll tell you to do them. And we had a batch of foils flail. So that was extremely frustrating. And to get them to follow instruction was also frustrating. So in the end we actually had to find a different manufacturer who would follow instructions, implicitly exactly the way I wanted them to, to.

To lay these SWS up. And when we had the first Vipers come off the from this factory I said up on in Australia, cut the thing. And he is what? And I said, got it. So they cut the foil up into, I think, seven or eight different pieces. And we just reverse engineered it. Cause when you burn carbon you burn the epoxy off and you left is just the carbon and you can see exactly how it's been laid up.

And I just wanted to be sure that they followed instruction on the way that must be laid up. And they literally followed every single layer and the Vipers are absolutely bomb proof. You can go crazy on them. They're so strong. So yeah very happy with our current manufacturer. And just all the details, all the small little details they, that they're falling to thet.

So our current manufacturer is the best that we've had and the quality of the product shows it to hear that. Yeah, the fitment is beautiful. The finish is beautiful. The strength is beautiful. The the flex, everything on it is just 12 cars. I'm very happy with our current manufacturer.

So I'm assuming, because to make a large volume production you have to basically go to big factory in Asia probably. So how has COVID affected that? I I guess it's really hard because you can't really travel to the factory and see what they're doing, so you kinda have to wait to get it and cut it open and see if they actually did what you asked.

Yeah. That's that's tough. We kinda had a lot of issues with our standup paddle board production and stuff too during COVID. So actually let's talk about COVID a little bit, like, how was that in South Africa? It was pretty bad too for a while, right? Yeah. Yeah. They shut the country down for quite a while and then pretty much standard protocol throughout the world, I think.

And then slowly we started reopening up with a lot of restrictions. It was difficult. Obviously I had to, I stopped R and D here. It does. Yeah, very difficult for Unifor because we had just started on the vis we'd moved factory and it put huge delays in, in our manufacturing.

So yeah, we literally went down to an absolute crawl with being able to supply a product. Cause we had nothing that's so frustrating. Cause especially during the pandemic, so everybody wanted to get in the had free time. Yeah. Everybody wanted to buy stuff, but was so hard to get

challenging very much. So would you say that like for UN what are some of the biggest challenges for you right now that

what's keeping you at? Again it's one of those things I've I've been able to keep ahead as to The call for product for, which ways is the market going and to be on top of that and to listen to what people want. That is very important. For example like you're bringing up stiff masks, if people want stiff stiffer MOS, then you need to build to supply that that's, that alone is a challenge because, you need to be able to read the market and read what's required.

Yeah. The thing is that sometimes people don't realize is that everything's a compromise, like you said if you want stiffer, you can make it thicker. You can make it heavier. But then is that gonna be better? Depends on the person. If, a heavier person with a big wingspan foil for them, it might make a big difference having an extra stiff mass versus, a lighter rider with a smaller foil that's surf oiling.

Exactly. They might prefer really thin mass and they don't mind a little bit of flex. So it really really depends on the use case and stuff like that. And you always give up, you give up one thing and you get another thing. But yeah, there's no, no free lunch in designing things. For me, I say pick two fast, cheap or stable which two do you want? Because as you say, it's all about compromise. If you take from here, you've gotta give there, if you give there, you've gotta take here. So it's all about compromise. And that, it's also a bit frustrating because you can't make each foil for each specific rider.

So you can have a a guy that raises 200 pounds that is riding a Viper 90 on a towing, but you can also have a person that raises 120 pounds, the exact same foil and they can do, but it would be nice to have one where the lighter rider rides, a lighter foil, it's impossible to manufacture like that.

It's. Yeah. Yeah. And you wanna able to use the same mass on your big foils as you would on a small to, in foil that you don't wanna switch? Ideally yeah, you would use a, you would use a thinner mass for the higher speeds, but yeah, but it's not really realistic that to buy different. Yeah.

Yeah. Especially the carbon mass are so expensive we got into for build construction for a while too. And we had so many problems. I just give up on it cause I just leave it to guys like you, that specialize in it. But one thing that I found really interested when interesting, when we were laying up mass and testing them was like, if you have the unit directional fiber, like how do you put the layers together?

Cause if you put them all straight, then you get a very, that side to side, but then it has the torsional twist, then if you put them angles and you get like torsional stiffness, but not not so much side, side bending stiffness. And then I started reading up on it and I guess there's like all kinds of for jet fighters and stuff that get, make carbon wings.

And it's it's pretty complicated technology, but yeah do you, I guess it's probably your secret sauce, but you wanna talk a little bit about that? How you do the layups and stuff. Nothing makes up for experience. Experience is the key. My, my very first carbon MOS that I made outta the mold was a 100% flop because the first MOS that I made was just over a wood core.

And it was, it just perfect, to spine. And the first malt that I made, I just thought, if I go a little bit thick on the carbon this is gonna be incredibly I'm uh, seven years ago is this seven, seven years ago. And I made this MOS and it's an absolute noodle. It's just terrible, and I was like, you know what, what's going on?

What did I miss? And, just did a little bit of research and little bit of reading on it. And I was like, I just missed the absolute basics of it. And when you have a ma that is constant cord versus a ma that is tapered your tape is far superior to a constant cord.

And so quickly calm the CNC cut tape type it ma and yeah, night and day difference. But for actual layups schedules, you. You just have to test, you have to lay up Dele tests. And yes. See what sort of stiffness you, you require from that. So why? Yeah. So why is a tapered mass better? I guess obviously the forces close to the board is, are the highest right, where the master attaches to the board, but why is that? And why is it more efficient? Why does it taper master? It's just the mechanics of it. It's just the mechanics of how it works. You driving your two faces in the triangle it's and the thickness because you, those two layers are trying to share each other.

So when you push those two layers, apart from each other, you your strength goes up exponentially. So if you can make the base of the MOS thicker and then tape it down, because you only have probably what a third of the, in the water most of the time. So if you can have just the part of the, that's exposed to the water as thin as possible, you have, you definitely have to a cord.

And then, but doesn't, then don't, doesn't it cause more like torsional flex and stuff at the end of it, if it gets the, or do more torsional flex again it's what is acceptable and what are you chasing? What you, what is, what are you trying achieve with this? If you want a,

then nothing makes up for the thickness of the cord. If thicker cord, it's always you if, if go go to a thicker cord, it's always going to be superior then going to a higher you can get away with a low

on a very thick cord. Cause that distance is imperative. It's what makes it so much strong. Okay thanks for this deep dive into flow design. Do you wanna talk a little bit about other equipment and I know you make wings as well, so what are you trying to optimize for in wing design and like what's your goal?

So we onto our third generation wing now. Again, it's also it's also been a long learning curve. I don't design the rings myself. We have a manufac a designer who designs for the manufacturer. But we just wanted a ring that was user friendly. So something that had a lot of low end grant, because I think that's where a lot of guys struggle is the initial takeoff on the wing.

So to have low end grant was definitely high on, on the list and then just very user friendly. We didn't want anything that tucked or dived that, that is actually the first generation that's shown there. So we actually two generations down from that. Those are old pictures. Oh, okay.

We've just released our new wing. That's called the pin. It's on the latest pull magazine. You'll see. There's the address in the latest falling magazine. Okay. That would be released probably in the next four weeks, six weeks kinda thing. So how does, how is it different from your, from these older designs?

Everything from the actual outline of the wing to the materials used now using triple rip stop in the canopy and just refined many things like to me, what I didn't like on the initial wings was the amount of handles. I don't like a wing with lots of handles, that you gotta move your hand from handle to handle.

So that was one of the first things that we changed. So the new wing has only got three handles which makes a huge difference that in inability that you can just move your hand slightly up and down the handle and, to keep where wherever you wanna hold the and just the there's you can see on that there's only three handles,

which picture? Sorry. A little bit lower down. Just if you scroll

this one here, little bit more, little bit more, little more. There we go. Oh, this one here one. Yeah, actually that's just the second generation. You just close that and you look at the one just above where you jumping in the air. Yes. That you'll see. There's only three handles on that ring.

Correct. So that is our current. And then you it's also with still without windows though. So the five meter and the six meter has windows the two, three and four doesn't have a window. Just because the bigger sizes tend to be that little bit bulkier and, to move a big ring out the way.

So we decided to put windows on, on the bigger sizes. OK. OK. And then what do you design boards as well or not? Not at this time. We are in the process of doing our boards. Again, the website will be updated very soon. We're working on a new, completely new redesign of our whole product list.

So over the next, probably three, three months, you'll see that there's going to be a huge change in products available on the website. Nice. Yeah. Glen Glen is one of your team writers or distributors here on the north shore too. And I interviewed her as well, and she's pretty amazing.

She was like wing fulling, pregnant at overdue already, like she was already supposed to be in the hospital giving a birth, but she was still winging in big waves. But anyways, she's amazing. And yeah and she seems to really like the foils and she does, she's amazing on the foil, so that, and Ted as well.

So I know there's some good writers here using them. Yeah. Yeah. So what's the what's the foiling scene like in South Africa? What, I guess it, it in where you live it's a crowded there. Isn't a, like a Jeffrey bays a crowded surf spot. So it's not easy to foil there.

So what do you do for foiling? Like where do you go? Where is that? Where the happening places and what's going on. So our conditions don't favor foiling that much here in Jeffreys by itself. The if you go down to, to lower point with the waves got a little bit less energy, you can foil there, however you are going to upset a lot of the locals.

So we don't recommend it. You in know, foiling and surfing, it's two different things. And I think safety is very important. If you are going to foil there, you need to be a competent foiler and you need to know what you're doing, and you need to steer clear of the service cause you're just gonna upset them.

So I don't recommend foiling, at the foing at the surfing spots here, we have got other places that you can go foing. We mainly tow foil, so we've got the luxury of being able to choose from a variety of circuited spots where it's just, two guys and that's it. But with wing foiling, we have got a southwesterly wind that blows here which blows from the town next door St.

France to Jeffrey bay. It's about 10 kilometers. And I've done it once and it's awesome. So I'm really looking forward to the summer to, to a lot more that's pretty much

focusing this, doing this start winding, so be very excited. And is that with wings? Oh, sorry. Is it with wings or with paddles? No. With wings. Wings, definitely with wings. Yeah. Yeah. Just, I just find it so much safely, something goes wrong. With the w it's just so much easier, I think later on our progress to, to, just being paddle only or prone only, but at the moment, definitely with wings yeah the safety aspect is just so much higher with the wing.

If something happens, the wind dies, whatever happens. Yeah. That, that's true. It's just much easier with the wing cuz you're always gonna be able to get back up on foil again if it's windy enough. But but I've also heard horror stories of people like losing their wings or like the leash ripping and the wings go flying away.

You're like way outside on a small wing board and then you have to paddle in, so yeah. Yeah. I dunno if you've ever, if you've ever lost a foil. I've never not a leash. The actually I've broken leashes before on, on the board, but usually in, in the waves. And then, usually the board ends up in the channel somewhere and you can get it, but the wing like actually lost the wing one time and it just ended up, like from diamond, it ended up in Waikiki and somebody got it.

And then I got it back, like weeks later, but I, somebody heard that I lost it, but yeah, it's a good idea to put your name and phone number on your wing. yeah. If your lease breaks, if your lease breaks on a foil board and you added sea, there's no way you're catching that board. It's got, yeah, it's strong takes off and it just, it just goes on its own.

Safety is extremely important. We don't any incidences you knowing, so always go out in group. We still, in early days, we, we will out with a backup jet ski or a backup boat just in case something happens. You rip your wing, whatever it is I wanted to be a pleasant experience.

Yeah. And then also always go out with other people. Like the buddy system is always a good idea and don't wanna do stuff by yourself and get in trouble. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that's putting a lot of us off is a lot of us come from a kiting background and because our wind is offshore we never cut in the offshore wind because it's just too dangerous.

Whereas if you go wing foiling you eliminate a lot of that danger just because, the dynamics of w foiling is just so much it works well even in the offshore wind not recommended for a beginner obviously, but having that mentality of coming from the kiting background it, it really is something that sit in your mind, it's I'm going offshore, wind.

So yeah. Yeah. It's just one of those hurdles that you need to get around. What I find is guys who don't have a kit kiting background, they feel nothing. They're just gonna jump in the water and there they go, because they haven't had that fear put into them from getting an offshore wind kite.

Yeah. Challenging. Interesting. Yeah. I've never I never really got that much into kiting. I was into wings, wind surfing. For many years and then, kiting camera on, I was like, ah, I like windsurfing better still, but I tried it a few times, but I never got good at it. But then when winging came around to me that was like the freedom of not having the wing attached to the being able to, it's kind a little bit of a hybrid between kiting and windsurfing.

I, so I so wish that I started earlier with this wing ringing because I still stuck with a kite and I only started last year with it. And I so wish that I started early on because when it actually came out, I bought a wing of just too small and it just frustration. It just so frustrating.

And then last year I got a couple six meters and total game changer for me, having a wing that's the correct size. And yeah, I wish I started two years ago with it because it, like you say, it gives you that freedom and you can go anywhere you like. And what really appeals to me is to be able to, to de power the wing, on, on a kite, you can't do that when you're on the wave, you've got such a narrow section that you can ride in.

If you go a little bit too far to the left in the kite, toss out the sky, if you go forward to onto to the right, then you are, you're pulling against the kites. So you've got such a narrow little spectrum that you need to ride in, kite fo, whereas w foing. Go for it. You go where you want a wave power up again, and you're going, yeah.

With the K2, you can't like totally de power it because then it drops out the sky. You always gotta pull in the lines. So with the wing, you can really totally just de power it. And it's pretty much not there anymore almost. And it's you can, it's to toll and surfing without needing a jet ski, really you can to yourself into waves basically, which is pretty cool.

Not exactly if it's strong offshore winds, it does catch quite a bit of wing and wind. And it's hard. It'd be nice to not have it on the wave. But I guess there's some guys like experimenting with dropping the, like getting on the waves and dropping the weight or something and then coming back I've some of those videos, the guy just tosses the ring and there you guys like, yeah.

I'd like to be able to do that. Yeah. yeah. That's interesting. But anyway, so I guess in South Africa, the biggest win wing foil scene is probably in Cape town then, that's cause there's wind and there's like a wind scene and everything. So yes. Is that where you like where would you say, do you sell the most foils is it in, in South Africa or where, which market is the most.

Lucrative for your most successful? I only deal with south African distribution, so I only sell in, in, in South Africa. But yeah, Cape town definitely is by far the fastest growing and the biggest scene seen um, it just works there, they you've got wind all the time in the summer season.

So yeah, it just works really well. Yeah. And a lot of Europeans come when, cause it's when it's winter in Europe, it's summer and Cape town and they go down there to enjoy the wind. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I was in Cape town quite a few years ago and I hadn't been to, to dolphin beach in, in years and pitching up there and you see literally, 50, 60, 70, 80 kites, it's crazy.

It's yeah. Just hundreds of, yeah. Yeah. And I guess that's not the case where you are and yeah. So I guess you're, it's more, it's actually kind more rare to see foil people foiling there and Jeffrey, or not as many to go ago, just but is, are there ways that are like GE, like when you do go to foiling, are there ways that you can ride super long ride, get super long rides on the foil like that?

Like the, those kind of secret spots you're talking about, or, yeah, we've got like our local spot where when the swell comes through, we just go through and tow there. But there are some places where you can get really long rides yeah for tow falling. It's completely different.

Because of the, like I said, you've got the accessibility to choose you want to go. We don't really have crazy big waves or anything here. There's a couple guys in Cape town that ride dungeon, which is a massive wave. It's an absolute monster wave. Not for me though.

That's yeah, it's a bit crazy. Here on the north shore, a lot of times when there's big waves on when you're wing foing you can catch the wave. From two miles out and ride it for like almost a mile before you get to where the surfers can catch it, so we got like this huge playground and then we just kick out and then the guy, the surfers get like the last little bit right before the wave hits the beach.

But so it's pretty cool. It just opens it way up to be able to get, the foils are so efficient that you can, you don't need a steep wave. You just need a kind of, a little bit of a wall or that's something you can ride. I think as the sport progresses I think you'll have a lot more people seeing exactly that, that, that's why surfing never really appealed to me because the amount of time that you're on the wave.

The amount of time that you had to dedicate to the sport. I just didn't have that, that luxury of that time and to go for a two hour serve session and catch 3, 4, 5 waves, of 20, 30 seconds each, that, that didn't really appeal to me at where's cutting, you're on the board all the time.

You have a two hour session you're on the board for two hours. And I think this is when more surface see, sees an appeal of foiling where you, like you say, you can go out crazy far and you can ride for so much longer. I really think that we, in the infancy of wing foiling it's just going to grow exponentially.

Yeah. Do you think it's gonna get crowded or where people are gonna be not telling other people where they're going, because they don't want more peoples to show up or something like that. I think it's still a long way from that because there are so many spots, it's the same as with surf oiling, guys are now looking at areas that you'd never considered to go and surf because the conditions don't work.

So I think it's gonna be the same as wind foing. As, as long as you've got a decent wind a steady wind, then it doesn't even have to be that steady, but consistent. Yeah you can go jump in the wood and have a blast of that. Yeah. One of the beauty, beautiful things about wing falling is that you can really do it anywhere.

You don't need waves, really. You don't, you just need water and wind, so you, and you don't need like a big beach where you can launch a kite or whatever, you can just walk down some rocks and jump in and go wing, pretty much anywhere exactly that's, it's really opens it up to pretty much anywhere in the world really, which is pretty cool.

Yeah. Yeah. So for you, like you said, you've been waiting for about a year. You wish you've done it sooner and stuff, but would you say for learning, is it mostly practice or is it more talent or, would for your yourself, would you say that you you learn just, is it just putting in the time to get better or do you take things from other sports and its like certain things you already know and learn learn to observe and.

To me, wining foiling is no different than riding a bicycle. If you can ride a bicycle, does it require talent to ride a bicycle? Not really. It requires the time to, to climb on it. And to spend that time to, to get your muscle memory, to, to recognize, the inputs that are required to balance and windings exactly the same.

So anyone that is able, that has the time to dedicate to the sport can do it do need a measure of fitness especially, when you climb on that board and you fall off and you climb on that board and it wears you out pretty quick, so you do need a level of fitness, but if you can ride a skateboard, you can w for that's the way I see it.

If you've got the time to dedicate it, you don't need any special talents or anything like that. No. Obviously if you don't come from a boarding background, it's gonna take a little bit longer. But I think it's a, definitely not a very difficult sport to learn. I would say it's pretty much on part to, to learn to kind arguably maybe even easier because you don't have that fear of being.

Ripped through the air so I suppose you do have the fear of falling on the foil, but mean that's. Yeah, but yeah, to, to anyone if you're looking to start wing foing the sensation is just incredible. It's you know, when you're spectator you watch it. It's a bit boring, it's it doesn't look that great, but when you're on that foil and you're flying it's yeah.

It's an incredible sensation. Yeah. It's funny. Cause pretty much everybody, including myself when they first saw winging that doesn't look that cool, I was like, and you tried. And then I said the same thing. Yeah. You're instantly hooked on this, that, that sensation of flying over the water.

It's incredible. Just being able to do it without stopping, like when you're surfing, you always have to paddle back out and then you got another minute on the foil and then you have to spend 10 minutes to catch her next wave. But winging. Exactly. You're just like always flying back and forth and you can exactly.

It's an amazing sensation. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about your friend Gumby. He's actually the one who emailed me and told me I should interview you and stuff. But he said, he's your toing partner program. Yeah. Yeah. So I've known gum before for quite a few years.

And as I said earlier, when I said I think I at his mum in-law's place and he saw this that toe for that kit for in the back. He's a full on surfer and he saw that and I could see, something he is he's intrigued by it, but those first few sessions that got him going the was just through the roof.

It incredible. It is just so to this foil and yeah really a milestone is the beginning for fors. Yeah, just and then, then, yeah, yeah, just through the years, he's he's pretty much been the first guy to ride my prototypes. Now we've got dedicated team riders, in, in the first early days, myself and Gumby regard to foil and whatever we're writing together learned to, to toil from Gabi.

So are when you go toiling together, are you similar weights? Do you use the same board and foil setup where you got each got. Use the same? No we use the same setup. I'm a little bit heavier than what he is. He's I think nineties or mid nineties he's taller than what I am and definitely more skillful.

He's just got a really nice flow to his foing. I've struggled. I struggled with a, to fo coming from the kit falling background, when you it's the same as ring foing when you've got something in your hands, it just makes it so much easier. You've got that stability to turn and everything.

Because I didn't serve when you don't, when I don't have that stability in my hands, it took me a while to, to get that feeling of just standing on the board and not having that extra support in your hands. So it took me a while to to get used to that. Yeah. You have to be a lot more centered to fly on it without holding something in your hand, you have to be right over the foil.

You can't be like off when you, yeah. Yeah. And on a kit ring, it's so much more forgiving. Cause if you still lose your balance, you can just pull on the ring or pull on the kite. When you're toe forwarding, there's nothing to put on. But yeah, we've had some really amazing sessions. . Yeah, I've really enjoyed the time.

Yeah. I have a friend Jeff Tang, and when I go with him, I just use whatever he's using, cause I know he's like about the same weight and same skill level more or less. So we just always share the same board and so much easier. But pretty much everyone else. I know they, each per each person has their own setup, so they have to have one on the jet ski and one in the water and then they have to switch it out and stuff like that.

It just, when you know, and then when a big wave comes and you have to get that fo out the water, you got two, two sets on your, on jet ski it's of dangerous. It sounds like a nightmare. Yeah. It's I think it makes a lot of sense to just have one, one board and foil to deal with and rather than two.

And what's really cool is that we've got a system that works. We know how to, to each other into waves, we know how to pick each other up out of waves. We know that we are in, when you're in the crunch zone, we know how to get out of there. So explain to me how exactly you do it.

Like when there's a wave coming and there's a guy in the water, you gotta pick him up quickly. How do you handle it? How do you manage the well what's different between gum and eyes. I'm goofy and he's natural. Oh. So I turn the other side of the ski, he toes on the other side of the ski.

That's just the one thing. So when I, to him, I turn clockwise onto on two waves. When he tells me 80 clockwise on two waves. And no, no straps on the board. Did you use straps? No. No, no strapless. So when. When we in the white water to be able to recover the board quickly enough, and to recover the rider as well.

So instead of trying to get the rider to get to the board, to put it onto the sled, the driver of the jet ski just picks the board up and puts it in the footwear of the jet ski and the for just sticks out just the one side and then the rider can just grab onto the sled and you're outta there.

So we actually, we were talking the other day and we're like, we need to put a handle on this board because when you're trying to grab the board with just one hand and that's, the other thing is when you pick up the board, I naturally always go to pick up the board with my right hand. And that's your throttle hand.

And I'm like wrong side, then you pull the strap off the throttle. I let go the throtle, so I need to help to, keep my hand on the throttles and I need use the other hand, you emergency's

S working

quite refined. Yeah. So that, yeah, one way is to just let the, yeah. Get the board and then get the person or whatever. But what we found, what works pretty well is if you put, if you flip it upside down, have the foil sticking up. And then the jet ski driver grabs the foil and puts it under, like puts the mass under his butt, sits on the foil.

And then the rider jumps on the sled in the back. But it's if the rider and the foil are still together, then he just chucks the board onto the sled with the foil up, as you say. Yeah. And he lies on the board and then you outta there, if the two gets separated then the guy that's that's riding the jet ski sometimes has to pick up the board.

So it depends on how it falls apart. But most of the time I'll pick Gumby up and then we'll go and pick the board up afterwards. But now recently with the smile that we've had, when obviously we don't use a leash the boards ended up on the beach cause it just takes off and it just goes so we've been using, we've been using quite a small lately, which we've been really enjoying I was actually surprised.

That we were riding such a small coil, but it's yeah. What size wing are you riding in the it's a 90, it's the Viper 90, it's the smallest in the range. And I've had a few guys tow fo with it. And the first thing they say is that they're so surprised that it's a 90.

They say it feels just so much bigger. Yeah. When you have the speed, anything feels big. Cuz you create like the speed is what creates a lift, right? It's like when you in a big wave, when you're going super fast, it's like, it always wants to blow out of the water no matter how small it's really, it seems like, yes.

I've actually got guys, they're and they're like, can you make a smaller, we need something smaller. We need 60 or a 70. So I'm sure when I get chance, I'll making a few small prototypes. Interesting. Yeah. So what's new and what's what does the future hold for foiling? What do you think we're kinda at a close to getting to the maximum performance or are we still away and still got a lot of room to there are things that I think are going to Come into foiling.

I've said a couple years ago, it's just gonna be a matter of time until someone starts putting moving surfaces into foils. I'm actually surprised no one's done it yet. Where you'll have stabilization on your foil? I started drawing it. I started toying with the idea, but it's, I've just got so much work on at the moment to go down that rabbit hole is, it's a long rabbit hole.

But I think it's just a matter of time until someone puts a couple servers on the foil with the stabilization system, and then you can remove the stabilizer and you can have an app on your phone or a remote or whatever, and you can dial in whatever stability that you want on your foil. So I think that ultimately is the until someone does that interesting.

So you're talking like a SVO. Automatically stabilizes the foil, making it like, almost like an autopilot foil that you don't really have to control as much with your own body weight. You can control the sensitivity of the foil through it. At the moment we use a shim to change the deadly chain.

Need to go and take the two screws out, put, just show me or however your system works. Whereas if you have a digital foil you just type in a number and it'll automatically work to whatever you've adjusted it to. So it's not just your Frankfurt pressure. You can change the roll rate, you can make it self stabilizer, you can make it unstable.

You can, the parameters are endless that's and I think until it's done, you're not gonna know, but I think that is going to change foiling again, the same way that high aspect foiling high aspect wings changed foiling. I think digital foils will change foiling. It'll be like a huge step.

Interesting. Yeah. Actually I interviewed mark Rappa horse too, and he actually experimented with something like that and he said it was kinda a fail. Oh, really experiment. But yeah, he wanted to make a foil that basically. Takes off easily at low speeds, for down winters, easy to take off, but then as you go faster, you want it to reduce the drag and have less lift basically as you're going faster, you're going the less lift you want, so that, there's definitely kinda yeah, that, that would be awesome to have a foil that creates a lot of lift that low speeds when you wanna take off and then becomes exactly low drag and low and fast at high speeds, so exactly.

If you just dial in a little bit of on your, like you say, as you take off, get you up on the foil, dial in a bit of reflex at whatever speed it is, or it can be trending gradually and you are there. So that, that in my opinion is the ultimate if it's going to be done, if it's possible to do it, we'll have to wait and see.

All right. So tell us a little bit more about yourself. What's your daily routine and do you go surfing or like for, other than, and working do you have any other hobbies or do you have morning routine? What's your typical day? Yeah, pretty much. Oh, you froze.

Are you still there? Yeah, no. So as I was saying, I've got a list that I work to and. I just go through what, whichever task has priority. And I just work through that list. So you know, like today obviously we dialed in to do the podcast and then there's afternoon, I'm going toiling.

So I've got some new gear that I want to try out. We've come out with a new range of stabilizers. I'll show you here. Have fun

basically.

Listen to, to point is part of the job here.

yeah, that's right. So these are our, these are of tails. So all six of these tails are actually different. So C, G 10, or what is kinda, yeah, these are all CNC G tens like how it came to entails, right? Yeah. So the purpose of these tails is ums, a new idea that I've been working on and it's to help the riders who are still riding with backfoot pressure.

To transition over to Frank pressure and to see the advantages of it. So there are three stabilizers in, in, in the pack and by going through the three different tails, you'll it'll it'll, what's the word it'll show you progressively how you progressing in your foiling. So I wouldn't recommend them for an absolute newbie cause you're not gonna feel the difference.

So once you're already fo and you can do a top turn and a bottom turn, and now you're starting to become more efficient and you're starting your boundary. That's the purpose of theses is to push that boundary that little bit further. So that's what I'm working on. You I'll them and trying them just, just continue developing them, but that's one of the next releases that you're gonna be doing.

OK. So can you explain that a little bit to me? I thinking, so basically the tail creates a downward force and the creates an force, right? So when you have more back foot pressure, that means the tail doesn't have as much downward force. So you kinda have to compensate with your back foot pressure.

So basically by creating more downward lift you create more pressure. Is that's right. So what it's down to personal taste, and if you naturally you like more just about every foiler that I've spoken to, that has come from surfing has started off, liking backward pressure.

But it has a disadvantage and that is when you're charging down the face of a wave, because what happens is the front of your board wants to dive and now you need to lean backwards to stop the, of the board diving. And you shifting your, of behind the center of lift, creating an unstable platform.

Your now becomes unstable and it's difficult to control. And that's why I'm saying to the guys shift over to front foot pressure. Cause when you're charging and you charge down a wave, if you've got front foot pressure, you're shifting your sense of gravity over the center of lift, naturally creating a stable platform.

There's a saying for all the guys that fly radio control airplanes know, and that is, and those heavy airplane flies terrible, but a tail heavy airplane flies once. And that's because it's unstable it, it doesn't handle. And it's exactly the same with the hydrofoil. So if you struggling with your foil setup and you have rear foot pressure put in a shim or increase a little bit of of of the deck angles that you get a little bit of front foot pressure and automatically you'll make the floor more stable.

And it's difficult. It's the same as guys that go from surfing to snowboarding, surfing, all back foot pressure, and now you're going down the mountain and now you gotta put all your front foot pressure onto your front foot gang down the mountain. It's the last thing you wanna do, but you gotta commit and you've gotta do it.

And if you do that, then you can make the turn. And that's what I recommend to guys who are still falling with rear foot pressure is to slowly precision over to front foot and your start, everything changes. And I think it's the next step on the ladder onion.

Yeah. Yeah. Lot parallels, snowboarding, where you kinda have to yourself down into turn down the hill to carve a nice turn, right? You can't lean on your back foot. Exactly. Exactly.

Kind the same. You want really? Cause the front wing is where you is your, where you, that you're, you're riding the front wing, not the back wing. So yeah, I personally like, very balanced toil. I don't like it. I don't like excessive front foot pressure. I can't keep my front pressure as light as possible.

However, as you're going through the speed range, if you get to a point where the foil tux, you don't have enough front foot pressure, so it becomes pitch sensitive. So if you, if your fo is pitch sensitive, then you are riding a tail stabilizer that's too small. So either increase the surface area of your tail stabilizer or increase the angle.

So that creates more downward pressure you played around of the way its to the board. I get, I guess basically the boarder I guess early on when people were just sticking the plate Mount stick on mounts, on their surfboards and then they had a lot of rocker in the tail and then the foil was angled down too much and they couldn't gets on the takeoffs and then were usings to get more lift.

But then thing is the downside of having too much Pitch angle, then you end up at higher speed with flying, kinda with the nose pointed down where it to keep it, keep the foil in the water. So do you, have you played with that? So I saw that right in the beginning when I started making plate Mount MOS and I realized that I would say 70, 80% of the foils that are being sold were being retrofitted into surfboards and naturally you have a rocker on the surfboard.

So all the first generation unis all had a natural tilt in the mast. So the actual base plate had a already built into, oh

yeah, I did those MAs for probably two years, maybe three years. And then there were a lot of companies that were making dedicated foil boards. And I said to the guys, as long as the back of the foil board was straight then you could use just the standard MOS, but if you had a bit of rocker in, then either you need to shim the mast to get the fuser large parallel to the board.

Yeah that's pretty much how our first uniforms were made with a built in Angle in the base plate. And then only later on when the gas started making foil boards that I actually changed to a flat base. Yeah. Yeah. But I think some people don't realize how much of a difference that makes and how the feels like you, you put just onem between your makes a big difference.

Like just how the board handles too, yes. And this is one of the things that I encourage especially newcomers to the sport is to move the gear around. Don't just put in one place and force yourself to learn it. I took a couple guys out for a session and just by moving the mast on the board made such a difference because I was writing cause I'm a heavier guy.

And the guys that I taking out were a lot lighter just by shifting that Mo just that little bit back made the difference, whether they could actually get up and get foiling and whether they couldn't. So I only, excuse me, I highly to if you're a newcomer to move your mast backwards and forwards in the boxes, cause every four is different.

Every manufacturer is different. And to try and dial in, the sweet spot that works for you because what works for me is not necessarily gonna work for you. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And then. A lot of times, it's not a big change. Like you don't need to move it like two inches, you just move it like a half an inch or something and that'll make a noticeable difference.

And it's also even to the conditions, if I go out and I see, oh, conditions are big, then I'll shift the mouse back a little bit. If I see, oh, conditions are small, then I'll shift it a little bit forward. So it doesn't necessarily just stay in one place. And it all depends on and nothing makes up for experience.

It's like the kits when the guys guard, what size kits shall I use? It's the same with the foil? What setup should I use? Where should I put the foil? And by riding more and more you become in tune with us, where to put the mask on the board, little bit back, a little bit forwards.

I, I think a, in a way it's also been a frustration. I'm writing different gear all the time and I don't become in tune with just one set. Although I must admit I go the Gumby, he's 5, 1 30, where's it bring it, cause that's all we write all be to together.

And now we've shift to the, but yeah that's a way it's an advantage, but it's also disadvantage of writing, gears, constantly changing, trying this and trying that and trying this and, but it's, I enjoy it. It's. Kind a dilemma for you too, because it's kinda part of your job to test different gear and you always have to keep trying different things.

But then on the other hand to me, like I'm kinda the guy that once I figure out what works and then I like to just kind make it my own stick, I just leave it for I'm gonna, and then every time you ride it, you become more used to it. And it becomes kinda, you just develop those nerve.

I dunno, like the muscle memory, you just you know what the thing's gonna do. But trust in the world. Yes. It's like the analogy you said with the bicycle. Yeah. It's like right. Learning to ride a bicycle. But every time you change the flow, you have to learn the new bicycle. Maybe the wheels are a little bigger or whatever, the handle bars there or something like it's different.

Every time you ride change something, you have to learn it again. But if you use the same one over and over again, you become very proficient and very used to it where you don't have to think about it. It just, it becomes a natural thing. And that's also very valuable. So I think both, both there's value to both to try new things and learning, but it does.

But also once you have something that works for you, just use it and get good at it. You don't always have to some people are just always buying new stuff and changing stuff and they never really learn how to use it properly. So before they get the next one. So there's, yeah.

There's a little bit of truth to both. I think so. Very much. All right. So what do you wanna leave people like getting into wing, lot of people that are watching, just learning and,

and things out. I think what's important is I get so many guys that throw me up and I want a foil. And the first thing I ask is what do you want to do with the foil? And when it's a complete newbie, he wants to do everything with the foil, and I was like you need to pick which category do you want to go down?

What kind of foiling do you wanna do? And what do you wanna do with the foil? So that's important is what is your end objective, if you want to w foil cause a w foil set is you can transition it over to surf oil, but it's not really ideal. You can use surf oiling on wing foing equipment. Yes, it is possible, but what's important is to see what is the most important thing to you?

What are you going to be chasing? What is that you want to achieve? So if it's w foing, it's important to get the correct gear for it if it's surf oil, get the correct care for surf oil. So that, that is my advice is to buy the correct care for the job. There's nothing worse than, seeing something for sale for sales and it's cheap buying it and it's not right.

Rather get the right gear. That's going to help you to achieve what you're wanting to do, from the right design to the right size. It's so important. So important. Yeah. It's of, yeah. Like when they buy a footboard, they want like the seven and one, they want the one that for up surfing.

It's good for winding. It's good for and pro too. And one board that does everything. And then it's yeah, we, order a like that for you, somebody one, but it's not gonna be good for any of those things, cause it's just yeah, it does. It does all those things poorly. Yeah. Yeah.

Doesn't do anything well, but yeah, but I guess for beginner that it might work because at least it gets them into it. It's kinda like the soft top surf, they buy Costco to get them started something to get in the water with and learn the basics. But then yeah, once you figure out what you wanna do, that's, it's not gonna be the right.

It's not gonna be the right anymore. But anyway, yeah, it's also, it's a very difficult line to you, to give advice on with even board size, I see boards that are hundred and 60 liters, and I'm like, that is a massive board. I personally would never recommend someone to buy something like that because you're gonna use it twice and you've outgrow it, so if it's for a serve school yes. But to actually go and buy something that is that big it's just too big, UN unless you have a big guy or something, but it's so important that whoever's making the recommendation to the equipment that you're using specifies the correct equipment.

It's yeah. That's so important. Yeah. Very true. Yeah. And that's actually another good tip, but like when you're starting out, maybe. Go take a lesson at a school that has a year board that a couple times, and then you buy a board. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I highly recommend to, to hook up with the local guys and just get advice, what equipment are they using for the conditions that they're writing in and you just need to do your research.

Don't buy something on a impulse because it's the latest gear or it's cheap or it's whatever I've seen such a surge to guys buying really high aspect Royals, and then you see them all for sales, a few weeks later on, on eBay or whatever, because they don't accomplish what they're trying to do.

So yeah. Super important that you do your research and you get the gear that is right for you. Yeah. Don't get the gear that you need in two years or next year when you're good at it. That doesn't make sense. Exactly. It just makes the learning curve so much harder. It just makes the whole journey unpleasant.

It's not enjoyable because it's a frustration, that's one of the reasons why I never got into surfing because I felt that I would come off the water more frustrated than what I would go in. And then it just didn't appeal to me. So you that's the same with oiling. If you don't get the right gear, you're going to come off the water more frustrated and what you are going into the water.

Yeah. Okay. Get the right gear. Yeah. Wing can be very frustrating in the beginning, for sure. There's not quite enough to get up on the foil or something like that. Struggling. Cursing. It's the, you it's hard to compare to anything else. Really. So it's an extremely rewarding sport, I must say.

Yeah. Okay. Awesome. I think that's good on, thank you so much, Clifford.

Thank you very your time. I try to call you again and see what's new and new all the new stuff. Fantastic. Thank you. Yeah,

foil. Yeah,

we'll see. Have a great day. Okay. You too cheer Robert byebye. Okay. So we got a little bonus material here. I asked if he still had this first flow that he built, so he showed me this photo. So talk a little bit about that. So that was the first prototype that I made. It was actually the cord was actually a lot less.

You can actually see where I've extended. It can you, you can see my mouse point a. So the cord, the ring actually stopped over there. And then I added this section here on, because the four was too high spec ratio and it is, it just didn't have enough lift. So then I just patched on the back section.

Yeah. Just get an idea of what sort of size that I'd need and yeah. You can see the dust on it. It was, but yeah, that, that was the first surf floor that I ever made. Awesome. And then this is all one piece. Like you, you just glassed everything together. It looks like, or no, the so that was a separate fuselage, so that fuselage was bolted onto the front wing.

That's where I realized, the talk on the fuselage is just immense it's not gonna hold it. And that's when I changed the design to include the fuselage into the front wing which has been probably one of the best things, that I've done because the force that is exerted through there is huge.

And the proof of that is the amount of companies that have changed their designs to, to include the fuselage onto the front wing. Cause it's just, it's definitely superior, your responsiveness is that's just so crisp. Yeah, that makes sense. Cause basically your whole body weight gets transferred, or the foil.

It creates the lift and every force from the foil versus everything else is goes through that point on the fus between the Fu and the master front, a lot of force, that's the most, most stressed area on the foil without it out. That, that connection from your front wing to, through the fuselage, to the MOS, cause you're twisting it you trying, share it a bit.

So yeah, it's imperative that, that's really strong. Yeah. And then I guess also the way you lay up the fibers inside the mold to, to those stresses is important too, right? Like the cause you have to have basically that the direction of the fibers has to match the direction of the stresses.

And then looks like you using ATU box or like earlier on that was a what they call the KF box. Oh, it was specifically for kit surfing it a kite foil box. So the first generations of them had just one bolt in and then later on they put two bolts in, so it worked well.

Okay. I thought that was a cool little bonus thing, but at the end, the picture froze and I lost Clifford and he said he had a power outage. Couldn't come back on, but that was cool to see his original foil, this first foil he built that's where it all started, he's definitely a pioneer, one of the first to design high aspect, foils record breaking foils for down winters and so on.

So thank you Clifford for your time and hope to see you again in a year or so. We'll come back for another show at some point. Thank you all for watching. I really appreciate the blue planet customers that make this possible. The people that support blue planet make this show possible. So thank you for that.

And and that's it for today. Have another show coming up soon. So thanks for watching. Make sure to give it a thumbs up and we'll see you on the water. Loha.