The Blue Planet Show

Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Blue Planet Show. Today's show is extra special. I got to meet with Jimmy Lewis. Derek and Lucas and I visited his workshop in Haiku in Maui, where We, he showed us his whole workshop, gave us a full tour, showed us his house as well. He even gave us t shirts and signed them. This is the t shirt he gave me. So that was a super fun trip and I highly recommend watching this one on YouTube. I'll post it as a podcast as well if you're doing other things. But the visuals are great. He shows us the full tour of his factory, his dust collection system, how to shape a board from basically hot cutting it with a hot wire cutting the blanks installing inserts foil tracks his philosophy on shaping and how he was inspired by sea planes when he developed some of the early foil boards. and showed us a hydrodynamic plate mount that he developed for the air chair and then how to get sharp edges when you're glassing, how to shape a twisted V tail. So he's not holding back, sharing whatever he knows. So cool of Jimmy to give us all the details. And at the end of the interview, I'll also make some special announcements about the Molokai race, a couple other things. Stay tuned to the very end. Thanks so much for watching, and without further ado, here is Jimmy Lewis. Tell me again about the design and how you came up with that kind of, the, this guy, Vitor Marcal, he's a lifeguard captain on the North Shore now, right? And he's been a lifeguard for as long as I've known him. I've known him for a little over 20 years. And he was one of the first guys foiling when Laird first started foiling and using the boots, to bolt themselves onto the board and those air chair foils. They had like snowboard bindings, right? Yeah. So they just And so Vitor was pretty progressive on it, to know that he needed to adjust his foot straps sometimes or his bindings. So he had me put these tracks on. And, Vitor was really good. He could do jumps and backflips on a wave with that air chair, and he'd said, Yeah, when I jump up, jump, and I come down for a landing, my board would always stick. And he asked me what kind of shape could I do so it wouldn't stick so much. And the first thing I thought of was a seaplane, because they're made to land on water.

Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show where I interview foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders. I talk not just about the equipment technique and so on. but also try to find out a little bit more about their background, what inspires them and their plans for the future and so on.You can watch this show right here on YouTube or listen to it on your favorite podcast app. Just search for the Blue Planet Show. I've been trying for a long time to get the Spencer brothers to come on the show and I finally met up with them after the Molokai To Oahu race and I got them both on the show today. So really stoked about that. Finn recently won the Maui to Molokai race and the Molokai to Oahu race, even though he had a major infection on his foot. So congrats on that. And they are both amazing athletes, not just in wing foiling, but also downwind foiling, prone foiling, surfing. They do everything. Really great guys to talk to. Hope you enjoy the show. So without further ado, here are Finn and Jeffrey Spencer. Alright, Finn and Jeffrey, welcome to the Blue Planet show. It's great to have you here. I've been trying to get you for quite a while. And then I finally ran into your dad at the finish of the Molokai Toahu race. And then Jeffrey gave me your text your cell phone number. So finally getting you guys on the show. Stoked. Yeah. Thank you for having us. Yeah. So you're on Maui. I'm on Oahu. And on Maui, just, since the Molokai race and not too long ago, I was in Lahaina like right before the Maui to Molokai race and everything was fine and now it's all gone. So can you talk a little bit about the fires on Maui and what, and. If you know anyone that got affected by it totally, yeah, we we had this storm that was passing to the south of the islands and it was like, usually it's not too concerning because it didn't look like it was actually going to hit us. But what happened was it ended up generating extremely crazy strong winds, like through the whole thing, but there was no rain or anything. So it's just. Like the most windy it's ever been, especially over on the West side in Lahaina. And they're just not used to having, that crazy amount of wind. So tons of stuff was getting knocked down. And I think just in the chaos, like the fire started, it was, there was ones on both sides of the island. There was some up country up in Kula and then also in Lahaina. So it was probably pretty difficult to be able to actually like. Control everything, especially in that amount of wind. It spread extremely quickly. And yeah, it's pretty devastating, but yeah, most the entire town of Lahaina pretty much burnt. Quite a few places up country as well, but look, it wasn't as bad up there. Yeah, it's not as densely populated now, at least but yeah, I was just reading in the paper this morning that there was some like live video of the power lines getting knocked over and then just falling into the grass and just like a line of fire starting instantly. Stuff like that. And then yeah, the wind was so strong that day that it just spread super fast and I guess people didn't even have time to. To get away, it's pretty, pretty tragic. It's like probably the big, the worst fire in, in recent history. Yeah. And then, so do you know anybody that got affected by it or lost their home or? Yeah. A bunch of our friends on the West side that we know and grew up with Santa paddling and foiling and surfing and just lost everything like lost their homes and pretty much everything. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, so if yeah, and then I guess I talked to Zane yesterday who lives over on that side too and Zane Schweitzer, he, and he said like they don't need more clothes and stuff like that. Everybody's been sending clothes, but they just need like certain things like VHF radios and containers and things like that. They need it quickly. So because shipping stuff there, it takes a while, so anyway. Probably the best way...

Please also watch the video version of this show on the blueplanetsurf youtube channel for lots of cool footage- video by Lucas Purcell Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show. Today's show is not an interview, but rather a recap where I talk about my experience at the Molokai to Oahu race and what I heard from other competitors at the race. So let's get into it. Okay. So after a three year break for the pandemic and so on, the Molokai race, It finally happened again in 2023 and for the first time it had a wing foil division. So I was really excited about that and signed up for the Wingfo division, as well as a bunch of us from Oahu. And a couple weeks ago we went over to Maui and winged from Maui to Molokai, and then did the Molokai Holokai, and then Molokai to Oahu, a little training run. A couple of weeks before, and then the day before the Molokai race, we flew over and stayed at Kalua Koi, at our friend Eli's place. Beautiful place, right on the water. Here's Derek taking a little cruise on his bike down the path. And at Kalua Koi, the wind is pretty offshore, so the water's smooth on the inside. And the day before the race, the wind was pretty light on the inside, but once you got a little bit offshore, it was pretty strong winds. And Eli and Derek were decided to use our new prototype wings. We had a six meter and a seven meter version of our new wings and Eli was using the seven and Derek, the six meter. And then I opted to choose the, my tried and tested seven meter alien wing that I've been using. Here's Nani. So we're just warming up a little bit the day before the race, getting out there, feeling the water, and so on. Of course on the inside it's pretty smooth, and then once you get further out in the channel, the the water gets a lot rougher. So the evening before the race, there was a little race meeting, everybody meeting on the lawn. at Koala Koi and then they served up a nice dinner afterwards. So for us the energy at this event was amazing. People come in from all over the world, a lot of people from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Japan. It's great to see everyone again after like years of not having this event, to see all the top paddlers and foilers from all over the world. It's really cool and to see familiar faces from previous events and so on. So for me personally, this was I think it was like the 11th or maybe the 12th time I did this event. I did it, mostly on stand up paddle boards, or all on stand up paddle boards. I think I did it eight times solo, two times as a team, and then this is the first time I did it as a wing foiler. Derek Hama was collecting signatures for his poster, so that was a really cool idea, and he got a ton of signatures during the event. And this is Terry from Virgin Islands, Alan Cadiz from Maui, just hanging out, chatting, and getting excited about the next morning. And then you can see water is... Pretty calm nice sunset, of course, lots of escort boats. Usually the evening before, escort boats will come close to the beach. There's no harbor there you have to swim out to the boat to get your equipment. Usually the boats take over the equipment. come over from Oahu on the boat. But I usually opt to take a plane because that ride from Oahu to Molokai can be pretty rough when you're going into the wind and into the chop. So it's a pretty rough ride, but many people come over on the boat, but I always prefer to fly over. And then, yeah, you pick up your gear like you I picked up my board and wing from the boat the night before. And here you see a lot of escort boats the morning of the event. Then they have the pre race pule prayer, Hawaiian prayer. And then everyone's getting pretty excited for a safe and fun crossing. And yeah, the pule is always... A great great way to get ready in the morning. Everybody picks up a satellite tracking chip that tracks the race. So that's a good way for people to follow the race live....

Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show, which is all about foiling. Today's video is basically a recap of the Voyager X Wet Feet downwind race here on Oahu. It was probably the biggest foil race we've had here on Oahu anyways, maybe anywhere. I'm not sure, over a hundred participants. So it's cool to see so many people entering. Standup paddle racing has been shrinking, but foiling is definitely growing fast. I'm talking with Brian Tricario and Derek Hamasaki. Who finished first and second in this race, in the wing foil division. And we got some really great footage from many different people filming along the way, so I really appreciate everyone submitting their footage, sending it to me so we could put together this video for you. We have the first part, which is a quicker recap of the race, put together by Lucas who also was flying the drone and so on. And then the second part we go into a little bit more detail and showing a lot of footage of the race itself. Harold was in a dinghy following the whole race with this camera, so got some good footage from along the race, so I hope you enjoy it. Without further ado, here is the Voyager Downwind race. Aloha friends, it's Robert with Planet Surf and I have Alex Aguera with me here getting ready to get on the water for the maybe the biggest down wind foil race ever. What do you think? I don't know about that, but it's got quite a lot of participants. I heard there's a hundred people competing today, so it's big. Yeah. And it's all foiling. Standup foiling, wing foiling, and then also some guys are doing prone foiling from Cromwell to the finish, which is by Suicides. Yeah. What are you using today? I think I'm gonna use a 6.5M and a 600 foil 96 liter board. Good float board. There you go. A big combo. Yeah. And then the wind, it's windy today, so that kind of is good for a bit heavier guys. Yeah. Hopefully I don't get lit up too much. Sometimes I really light guys like Derek are really good at light wind. But then, I don't know, Derek. You say something too. What were you talking about? Talk about your equipment. What you got. Oh, I got a same like Alex 600 front wing hand wing is six meter and a 10 inch tail. Trying to go as fast as you guys. They should have a category of their own, oh yeah. Listen to you. It's called oil company owners. So yeah. We'll add that next time. Oh yeah. So we see you. And then hope you enjoy the race. Okay, so I got Derek Kawasaki and Brian Rio here with me, and we're gonna do a little voiceover of this race. So thanks for joining me guys. Yeah, no problem. Awesome. Thanks for having us. Yeah. So we're gonna talk a little bit about. The race. Do a little race recap, talk about who is in the race, the equipment strategy, technique, conditions, training the upcoming races in July. And then also, how, how standup foiling compares with the wing foiling. And the first part of the video is a shorter recap of the race with some cool drone footage from several sources. So we got Lucas filming at the beginning for some. Water shots from Derek and also Jeff Chang. And then Harold is the guy in that dingy who's, who filmed the whole race with his cell phone. So we got some cool footage of the whole race. In the second part of the video, we're gonna show a little bit more detail and go into like more detailed stuff about racing and winging and. Standup foiling and all that. I tried to get Kane to Wild on to join us too, but I didn't hear back from him, unfortunately. So I'm trying to get this video up by tomorrow, Saturday, a week later after the race. Pretty exciting. So maybe you guys talk a little bit about the start, right? Go ahead, Derek. Okay. The start was Pretty, it was pretty organized. People was spread apart, wingers were drifting further up, wind. We could fly up wind and then just sit with the sub guys going down. So we all just hung out. They gave us a one minute prior to they said...

Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show, which I record right here in my home office and talking to wing foil athletes, designers, thought leaders, anyone who has something interesting to say. And today's interview is with Olivia Piana. She's an amazing world class athlete, not just in wing foiling and surf foiling and downward foiling, but also in standup paddle surfing, standup paddle racing, wind foiling, kiting and more. She has several world titles in her name. She talks a little bit about the challenges of competing as a woman in these male dominated sports and her about her goals. And then this summer, the moca Oahu race is coming up. We talk about that she's entered to race in that one of the few women doing the downward foiling. I'm entered in that race as well, so I'm looking forward to doing more interviews. Talking to athletes that are entered in this race before and after. So hope you can join me for some of those interviews. As always, you can watch it right here on YouTube or listen to it on your favorite podcast app. Just search for the Blue Planet Show. So without further ado, here is Olivia Piana. Okay, Olivia, welcome to the Blue Planet Show. It's great to have you here. Thank you. Hello, Robert? Yeah, so it's you're in Portugal. I guess it's 7:00 PM for you, for me. It's eight o'clock in the morning and Hawaii. Yeah, thanks for joining me and from the other side of the world. It's pretty cool that we can talk like this on Zoom, yeah. I've never talked to you before, so it's good to meet you virtually. But can you talk a little bit about like, how. Start from the very beginning. Where were you born? How did you get into water sports and what, how did you get into what you do today? I was born in Marsai in south, south France. Then I grew up in ban a very small city in the beginning of the Alps. So I was an hour and a half away from the coast, from the Mediterranean Sea. And I, so I grew up on a very natural place with the mountains and I play many different sport. When I was kid, I had the luck to have my parents that really gave me the opportunity to discover many things. And my mom is a windsurf fan. And when I was kid she brought me on the windsurf and yeah, I just totally fallen in love to a windsurf thing when I was 12 in in the Mediterranean Sea. And I wanted to dedicate my life to it. It was my dream to be wind surf for pro and to compete around the world and to win titles. And I had my my like some champions that I really loved. And yeah, that's that's how I discovered the patient for the ocean, the wind and the wave and wind surfing is my first sport. Okay. And then, so like you started at 12 years old and then you got into windsurf racing right away or like competing with windsurfing or, yeah, I started with windsurfing P dub race, slalom race. And so I went with my mom. My mom helped me on the competition and she really loved it too. And I start to travel a bit more. I never compete a lot on the wave, even if I really loved the wind surfing on the wave. But I guess, racing is much more easy to compete than wave riding. And when I was from the Mediterranean Sea in France, it's not really wavy. So yeah I had more opportunity to race and to do slalom. And and yeah, it was the only thing I will be more lucky to be a man a man that, a woman in windsurfing because it was not that easy to have a sponsor and help to compete and to, but I did it anyway and I really loved it. So you like yeah. You're basically, you're saying that the sponsors were not as helpful when you, for women, like they didn't support women as much as men? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think it's it's a system that the industry is mainly men and then they think the women don't buy the product and then they design the product for the men. And then there is no woman into the sport. But it's more about the history of the sport and the mentality and the vibe on the beach and...

Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show. Today's interview is with none other than Jimmy Lewis, who is a legendary shaper. He got started at a young age shaping surfboards and then moved to Maui where he got into making windsurf boards. And at one point he was making windsurf speed needles for some of the fastest world record breaking sailors in the world at speed sailing events. And then he got into kite surfing and kite boards, and then standup paddle boards, and now foil boards. So he's a very versatile shaper. Some great stories to tell, and really interesting interview and entertaining as well. So you'll learn more about his design philosophy, board construction, and lots of good stories. So it's a longer interview, so take your time, re kick back and relax. Watch it here on YouTube with some visuals, or you can also listen to it as a podcast on your favorite podcast app. So without it further ado, here is Jimmy. Okay, Jimmy Lewis, it's a real honor to have you on the show. Thanks so much for making the time to talk to me and the guests. So I'm just stoked to be able to talk to you for extended period of time and ask you all the questions I have. And so yeah, thank you for coming to the show. Oh, I'm happy to be here finally. I've seen the other ones. I go, why doesn't he call me? I appreciate that. Thanks. So yeah, so we'll get into all this stuff that's currently going on, at eventually I want to talk about your board shapes and your foil boards and equipment and all that kind of stuff. But I, first of all, I wanna start with just going into some background, I know you have a long history in the sports of water sports Tell us a little bit about, start at the very beginning, like how you grew up, where, where were you born, how did you grow up and how did you get into water sports and how did you start shaping boards and all that stuff. Yeah. My dad was in the Air Force, so I was born in Canada, I think after World War ii. My mom and my dad moved around a lot. My dad met my mom after World War ii. My mom's brother was a Air Force buddy of his, and they he brought my dad over to their house after the war. And then he met my mom, and I guess we moved around. They moved around quite a few years. Eventually we moved to Redlands, California. I believe it was in 1956. So I was I was born in 51, so that would make me five years old. And went into kindergarten there, went to grade school and stuff. And then in I don't know if you're old enough to remember the sixties, but that's when the surfing craze really was going crazy in the early sixties and we lived inland. But my older brother, I have two older brothers, two years apart. So my older brother I think was, if I was like 11 or 12, he was 15 or 16. And he he had a transistor radio that my dad had brought back from Germany. And I remember listening to all the rock music and the surf music on the radio coming outta his room. And he started getting interested in surfing and so he bought a surfboard. And so naturally me and my other brother wanted to do what he did. So we all started surfing and I think I bought my first surfboard. It was a pop out vessy and it was like a pig board, that vessie pig shape. And started surfing, I think. In the summer of my sixth grade, and I remember my mom took us down, took me and a friend of mine, just us two, down to Cardiff, which was quite a ways from, we, like Newport Beach was 60 miles in away. Redlands was like 60 miles directly inland from Newport. And anyway, when we really started getting into surfing a lot, we would drive down to Cardiff, but I don't know why my mom brought us down to Cardiff that day. Me and a friend of mine, Hanson Surfboards, was across the street, not directly from Carter Reef, but just a little south of that. There was a restaurant on the beach there called Sea Barn. It was like a little old diner of those sixties type diners Okay. Where all the surfers...

Aloha Friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to the third season of the Blue Planet Show. I started this show a couple years ago in my home office, in the garage during the pandemic, just to get to know other wing foilers find out more what drives them, what inspires them. And as always, I like to find a little bit more about their background and just get to know them a little bit better and learn for my own benefit. And I'm stoked to be able to share it with all of you. I get people coming up to me all the time saying I'll watch your shows all the way to the end. So I'm one of the 5% that watches the whole thing. So stoked to hear that. And I know many of you are also listening to it as a podcast while you're driving to the beach or going foiling and getting stoked or just listening to it while you can't go in the water because it's too cold, or you're traveling or whatnot. Stoked. Always to hear that kind of stuff, super stoked. And today's guest is James Casey, who also has a great podcast. So if you haven't listened to that, it's all about downwind foiling. You should check it out. And he also has a coaching club that you can join to learn about downwind foiling. He's an amazing athlete. He holds the record for the most kilometers foiled in one day. And a great coach for any of you who want to get into downwind foiling. And he also invented the sport of winging upwind and then deflating and foiling downwind. Really cool stuff that he's doing and pioneering also designing and testing equipment and so on. Without further ado, here is James Casey. Okay, James Casey. Welcome to the Blue Planet Show. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. I've watched a bunch of these shows and yeah, it's cool to be on here myself now. Yeah. And I've been listening to your shows while I'm driving and getting stoked and motivated to do more downwind foiling. So thanks for doing that. A lot of really good information on your show. And I want to get into that, like Doman foiling, your Casey crew or the coaching crew, and then also the Moloka race, and then your announcement about joining Code foils and all kinds of stuff. Your record 213 kilometer record on a foil all that kind of stuff. But before we get into all those things, let's talk a little bit about your background. Let's go into a little bit like where, where you were born, how you grew up, and how you got into water sports and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So yeah, James Casey. I was born in Sydney, Australia, and it's basically the east coast. And my mom and dad both surfed as a kid. They took me out surfing and like a boogie boarding first and then surfing. And I think I got my, I remember vividly actually gave you my first surfboard when I was like, probably a bit of a late starter compared to people nowadays, but I was like 10 or 11. I got like this PCUs, four Finn, super nineties board, skinny nose, like super pointy, heaps of rocker. But that was my first board. This was just one of my dad's old boards that he didn't use anymore. Yeah, this is your board now. You can, you can take this here, this out. And yeah, pretty much surfed all through my teenage years. I competed in like board riders, so I was I won the juniors movale board riders season sort of competition. But then I got 18, 19, I started getting worn in my rugby union. So I was playing a lot of rugby. Played for the, I guess the local club, the Ringer Rats, and was, I played a couple games in first grade, but I was basically just too small to be to be, following that dream as a, as an athlete in rugby. I was also competing against basically , who's now the Wallabies captain, Michael Hooper. So like in people who watch rugby would know what I'm talking about. But yeah, I was playing rugby against him a lot, so rugby was always, I was always second field to him, but I just loved it. It was great camaraderie and that sort of stuff and, but I was still juggling my rugby and surfing and basically as a rugby player...

Ken Winner, wing foil designer extraordinaire talks about his background as a pro windsurfer and how he became a designer at Duotone and developed the first inflatable handheld wing for foiling. At first there was little interest in his invention but once a few people tried it, the sport of wing foiling really took off. Transcript of the interview: Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik. Thank you for tuning into another episode of the Blue Planet Show, where I interview foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders. You can watch this show right here on YouTube or listen to it on your favorite podcast app. Today's interview is with Ken Winter, the designer at Duotone wing designer extraordinaire. And as always, I ask questions, not just about equipment and technique, but also try to find out more about his background, what inspires him and how he got into water sports. So Ken was really open in this interview, shared a lot of information about wing design, even showed his computer screen where he designs wings. So that's at the very end of the interview. So you don't want to miss that part. It's really cool if you're into Wing design and wanna know more about the materials and the construction, the design and Ken's philosophy. This is a really good show for all that kind of information. During this interview, I'm gonna play a little bit of footage of Alan Cadiz Wing foiling in Kailua. I got some drone footage of him, which was after this interview, but he's using the 2023 Duotone unit Wing 4.5 meter wing. I'll play some of that in the background. Thank you so much for your time, Ken, and for sharing all the detailed information. So without further ado, here is Ken Winner. Okay. Good morning, Ken. How are you doing today? Good morning. I'm pretty good. All right. It's a little bit of a rainy and windy day here on Oahu. How's the weather on Maui? Same. Same. Yeah. Yep. So have you had super stormy winds the last few days? It's been crazy windy here. Yeah, it's been gusting 45 at times. Do you actually go out in those kind of conditions or do you wait? Yeah. Windy days. Yeah. It's pretty fun. Yeah. So you've been doing what you, what do you do on days like that? You go on a down window or you just go go off? I only do down windows with my wife nowadays. That's her favorite thing. Otherwise I from a friend's house over on Stable Road and Peter actually lives on Stable Road and so we launched there, go out race around a bit, test different wings, hydrofoils. Nice. What kind of equipment were you on in, on those super windy days? Anything from a two to a four. Sometimes we go out pretty overpowered just cause we have something we wanna try and we don't have many choices. Some days we just have to go and do what we can with what we have. We do a lot of prototyping in the four and five meter size. We do a fair amount in the three meter size and then smaller and bigger. We also prototype and test quite a bit, but maybe not as intensely. Nice. Okay. But before we get more into all the equipment and stuff like that, I wanted to get talk a little bit about your background. So tell us a little bit about start in the beginning, like wh how, where you grew up and how you got into water sports and all that kind of stuff. was born a long time ago, 1955, so there's a lot of history there. You don't wanna hear it all. Grew up near Annapolis, Maryland. Did a fair amount of recreational cruising type sailing. My dad owned boats. Built a lot of stuff when I was a kid. Owned a couple boats when I was a teenager. Started windsurfing in 75. How extensive do you want this to be? Started windsurfing in 75, won the world championship in 77. We won again, 80 in 81. We had the right there on Oahu, where you are. We had the World Cup, the PanAm World Cup, which I. Actually, yeah don't worry about making it short. Like we, we got time. So just actually like how did you get into windsurfing? What was your first experience with that? Or what were...

Mike Zajicek and Stefano Moris make some of the world's fastest foils. When I researched their foils to use for wing foiling, I could not find much information online. After many months of waiting, they were finally able to make time for an interview. The timing was great since I just received the 600 Mike's lab Foil from them that I ordered months ago. We talk about their background, how they started designing and making foils and go into detail on their foil design theories and construction. For more information on their foils, please visit: http://www.mikeslab.com Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show, where I interview foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders and get lots of good information for all those foil crazy people out there, like you and me. This year I didn't post a lot of interviews, but I'm ending this year, 2022 with a bang, with two really good interviews. Today's interview is with Mike's lab founder Mike and partner Stefano. They make some of the best foils in the world, the fastest foils in the world, hand-built in San Francisco and in Italy. The story, background story is really cool as well. know, Mike grew up in Czechoslovakia, communist Czechoslovakia, where he started building windsurf equipment and making it for his friends. And then escaping over the border, risking his life to escape Communist Czechoslovakia, and ended up in the West and eventually in San Francisco, started making windsurf boards again for some of the top athletes in the world, and then getting. Foils at the time of the interview. I only had one quick session on my 600 mike slab foil. Since then, I've been able to try it more and also use it on a really long downwind run in epic conditions from Hawaii Kai to White Plains where we winged like about 40 miles downwind. Super fun. And that's why I could really tell how fast this foil is. I went out with some really fast guys and was able to of smoke them in some of the runs just because the foil was really quick and easy to control and I was just able to make these big drops on these big bumps. And so I had a great time with it. I might include some of that footage in this during this interview. And then also I have some really nice footage of Alan Kez using his five, I think it's a five 40 Mike's lab foil in Kailua. And got some cool drone footage of him going super fast on that foil as well. I hope you enjoy the, this interview and next week's interview is gonna be with Ken Winter. He's the designer at Duotone and making some of the best wings on the market and also was really the first one to make inflatable wings for foiling. He's definitely a pioneer and a really good story. Started. Windsurf professional, and then got into the design side of things. And he really shared a lot about the, his wing designs and philosophy and et cetera. So that's a really good show as well. And I'm gonna post that the following Saturday, which is December 24th, and wishing everyone happy holidays. And without further ado, here is Mike and Stefano with Mike's lab. So welcome, Stefano and Mike to the Blue Planet Show. Today's show is about Mike's Lab foils. Thanks so much for joining me. I've been waiting for quite a while to get you on the show. And I finally got my own Mike's lab foil. I've only tried it one time, unfortunately, but really really excited about it. So welcome to the show. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. And actually, let's start with where you are joining from, so we're spread out all over the world here. All right. I'm in Sienna, Italy, and I'm close to San Francisco. Yeah. And then I'm in Honolulu where it's morning time. And I think for you it's Mike is midday and for Stephano, it's late in the evening. So thanks for making the time to, to join the Blue Planet Show. , my, my video is, Doing funky stuff, but, so anyway let's talk a little bit about your background. I just heard Mike saying that you you basically had...

Jason Tangalin and Pono Matthews and the Foil Fever Ohana organized the Foilers of Aloha Classic foil contest on Kauai, held on Nov. 26th, 2022. The event was blessed with great conditions, a stoked community of foilers and next level performance in the waves. This interview contains drone footage of the contest, the second half also has footage documenting our 3 day trip with the crew from Oahu, we scored good wing foiling conditions on the Friday before the event. If you can, watch it at high resolution on a big screen, enjoy! Watch the foil surf contest highlights video here: https://youtu.be/BUQSkESvnjg We hope you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the blueplanetsurf YouTube channel, we post a new video every Saturday morning, Aloha! Please come visit one of our shops on Oahu: Hale'iwa shop and rental location: Blue Planet Hale'iwa 62-620F Kamehameha Highway Haleiwa, Hawaii 96712 Tel (808) 888 0786 Open daily, 9 am to 5 pm http://www.blueplanetadventure.com Honolulu store- - Hawaii's SUP and Foil HQ: Blue Planet Surf 1221 Kona St Honolulu, Hi 96814 Tel (808) 596 7755 open 10 am to 5 pm Hawaii Time, closed Wednesdays and Sundays http://www.blueplanetsurf.com Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bpsurf/ Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blueplanetsurf Find Paradise Aloha! Transcript: Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show. I know it's been a while since I posted the last show, but today's show is awesome. You don't wanna miss it if you love foiling. And I also have two more interviews scheduled. I'm really excited about those. One is with Mike's lab, Mike and Stefano, they make some of the fastest foils available. I just got one after waiting for many months for it, and I'm excited to try it and talk about it on that show. And then also I have an interview scheduled with Ken Winter, who I've been get trying to get for a very long time. He's a former windsurfing world champion and the designer of the wings at Duo Tone. So I'm really excited to talk to him about wing design and so on. So stay tuned for those two episodes. And today's show is all about the Foil Fever Ohana, Jason Tangalin and Pono Matthews, the organizers of the Foyers of Aloha Classic event, which was held last weekend at Kalapaki Beach, which had some of the most amazing performance and conditions in any foil contest to date. So you don't wanna miss it. And if you have a high speed internet connection, You are gonna want to watch it at full resolution on a big screen cuz the footage is amazing. But of course you can also listen to it as a podcast on your favorite podcast app. During the interview, I only played the footage from the contest, which is of the first half of the interview. And then we just kept talking story for a long time. So I also included footage from our first day on Kauai, where we had two really good wing foil sessions, some really good footage from of wing foiling on Kauai in the second half. And then also the day after the contest, some surf foiling mark Surf foiling at Kak Beach. So I really hope you enjoy this episode of the Foyers of Aloha Classic. And without further ado, please welcome Jason and Pono from the Foil Fever Ohana. Welcome Jason and Pono to the Blue Planet Show. Thanks so much for being my guest today. Yeah, no problem. Right on. So yeah, I just got back last weekend you guys had that awesome contest at KAK Beach and the conditions were amazing. I was just telling Jason, I think it was, probably the best foil contest yet, in terms of the performance to a whole nother level and then the conditions and everything. Just an amazing event. And yeah, congratulations on putting together this awesome. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. And then also, just the whole community that you put together, all the people that are involved in it and the, the party afterwards with food and everything. And it was, it is just...

Wing Foil Interview: Sam Loader with PPC Foiling is back on the Blue Planet Show Aloha friends! This is Robert Stehlik, Welcome to another episode of the blue planet show, where I interview wing foil athletes, thought leaders and designers right here in Honolulu, in my home office. And in today's show, I'm interviewing Sam loader, the owner of PPC foiling based in Auckland, New Zealand. We're talking for the second time on the boot planet show. In the first interview, we went more into his background, his business and foiling scene in New Zealand. This time we go over, what's new over the last year and all the equipment he's coming out with. We talk about the soar boards, his new wings the foil he has planned. So stay tuned. You can watch it right here on YouTube with all the good visual content, or you can just listen to it. Audio only as a podcast to search for the blue planet show and your favorite podcast app. Okay. So without further do, here is Sam loader, right? Sam, welcome to the blue planet show back to the boot planet show for the second time. How is everything going for you? Cheer, Rob, thanks for me back. Yeah, it's been it's been a while since the last show. It seemed it seems like, yeah, it was actually a lot's happened. Now it's been going, it's been going really well. It's been going really well. Been extremely busy. I've never been this busy in my life, but At the end of the day, at least we're at least I'm designing, foils something that we love. And so yeah, it's just been pretty full on since so much has happened since last interview that then we it's it's crazy yeah, so hence why the catch up yeah. So it's, it is great to catch up again and like for anyone listening if you haven't watched the first show, if you're interested in, at Sam's background and so on, just watch that one, we're gonna talk more about your business, your equipment just what we've learned over the last year with what's just changed what's in the coming up in the future. And so on. That's what I wanted to discuss with you mostly. And I have a few questions also from Dan and a few other guys in New Zealand. So I'll try to get to those as. And gonna try to keep it in within an hour or so if we can, but we'll see. Will you call me up on my birthday? So you a bit of be worth it, Rob? Happy birthday. Yeah. I hope you, are you taking the day off after this? I know it's morning time for you in Auckland, right? Yeah. Honestly, I want to take the day off and I want to say I am, but I'm probably not. I'm probably just gonna do some emails. Probably gonna cover the shop a wee bit. We've got the guys coming in the afternoon. I think Josh is coming in and but yeah, later on, I'll chill out. We'll go out for dinner, stuff like that. Pretty cold in New Zealand now. Yeah. It's winter time for you. Yeah it's dropped a lot. It's certainly not summer anymore, but it's, there's still breeze, so there's still good conditions for testing. And by drop, it's only dropped to about a three, two wetsuit, so it's it's not too bad down south has got some snow, so we've gotta go down there a little later. We, the skis up maybe take a win to the mountain, I always wanted to do that, so yeah. So I'm sure you have a lot of people coming into your shop asking for that are beginners just getting into it. So I, I just wanted to always start the show with some tips for newbies people getting into the sport beginners, what do you tell people? What, what are some tips for people getting into the sport? Yeah, since, I don't know how long it's been since it started, but. I think right now, because there's so much information out there. Like when someone walks in the store, we, we just, my game plan is to try and simplify the whole process. So it's quite, it's overwhelming. When you look around, you can see Royal boards, wings, and people just go, whoa, where do I start? But we've written down like a, the board, the wing really simple, we've actually got some...

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....

Aloha friends! It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show, which I produce right here in my home office, in the garage. In today's interview, I speak with Adrian Roper, the man behind AXIS foils. We get into some tips for beginners, and then we talk in detail about foil design, how to set up the foil properly, how different things affect different things on the foil. New designs he is working on, the mast, importance of stiffness, the fuselage, the angles of the foil. So many cool technical things. I learned a lot from this show. I hope you do as well. I wanted to apologize in advance. The auto focus on my camera keeps going in and out focus, and it's very frustrating for me, but I didn't wanna stop the flow of the interview. I hope you can just overlook that and focus on the technical details in the interview. You can watch this interview right here on YouTube, or you can listen to it on your favorite podcast app. So I hope you enjoy this show and as always, please give it a thumbs up if you like it, subscribe to the blue planet surf YouTube channel, and without further do here is Adrian: Okay. Adrian Roper. Welcome to the Blue Planet show. Thanks so much for joining me. How are you doing today? Good, thanks. Yep. Beautiful sunny day. And it's pretty glassy out there. So it might be a good day to go fishing. Nice. And you're for you. It's like the middle of winter right now, like for us it's summer, but you're on the other side, so it's pretty nice. Is it pretty cold or how cold is it? It's cold, like compared to Hawaii it's cold, but still went foiling yesterday and had quite a good session. Excellent. I didn't have a full on thick suit on either, so it's not too bad. Okay. Yeah. All right. So this season that I'm trying to start a little bit with beginner tips right away in the beginning. Last year, I always did that as an afterthought at the very end, but I want to start with some good tips for people that are new to wing foiling. And then we're gonna talk a little bit about your background and and get more into. The equipment side of things and technique and so on. So let's start with that. What are some tips you have for people that are new to wining foing same look, we have quite a few learners around us and I guess one of the biggest things is when you're learning, you don't know how to pump properly and getting up on the coil is the biggest. Just getting up and going. So having a little bit bigger hydrofoil than you might normally think, is a good idea, cuz it helps you get up and also having a slightly bigger wing as you improve with your skills, you don't need quite so much having an easy writing foil makes a difference. And like with the access stuff the BSC range that we came out with, the bigger ones, the 1 0 6 oh and the nine 70, they were particularly good and they are particularly good for people to learn on. And then we've also introduced the recently the SES, which is like a complete package and that comes in 1 0 4 oh and nine 40 and it's basic and simple. But it works really well. And it's a great entry into the whole access platform. You can, upgrade it as you want bits and pieces wise. But it they're both the BSC range and the SES are particularly good for learners. You can stand in slightly the wrong place, you get away with a murder with them and they just, they still ride along quite nicely easy to carve, nice to ride. Okay. So using a. Big foil and a big wing. That makes a lot of sense. And then, yeah, so you have that super easy start package now where I guess it's made particularly with beginners in mind. Yeah. Yep. Same base plate, same mask. The fuselage is slightly different, but it's similar to our normal red fuselage. The front wing was based on a BSC wing. But we've rounded the ends off more so that you can't stab yourself so easily. And we also, because we're, it's a different construction, we've made it out of colonial wood. So it's a solid wood core...

Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik, welcome to season two of the Blue Planet Show. On this show, I interview wing foil enthusiasts, athletes, designers, thought leaders, and go into great detail on technique, equipment, but also tried to find out a little bit more about the person, what inspires them, and how they live their best life. You can watch it right here on YouTube. For those of you who are visual learners like myself, that's really helpful to have that visual content. But of course you can also listen to it as a podcast on your favorite podcast app. Just look for the blue planet show. In this interview with Alan Cadiz is we start with very basic beginner tips, the top five tips for beginners, and then we get into a much more advanced stuff as well. So there's something here for everybody. And we also talk about equipment, including what Alan used in the recent wing foil race on Maui that he actually won against other wingers that were less than a third of his age. So a nice work Alan, on that. I really hope you enjoy this interview. If you do, please remember to give it a thumbs up here on YouTube and subscribe to the blueplanetsurf YouTube channel. And without further ado here is Alan Cadiz: Allen, welcome to the Blue Planet Show! Actually, welcome back to the blue planet show. Thank you for inviting me back. Yeah, so we, we had a great interview last year and there was one of them actually, it was the most popular video on the Bhutanese show with almost 40,000 views on YouTube and then a lot of listens on the podcast as well. You always have great information. People love to hear about it. So that's great to have you back on the show and just wanted to catch up and see what happened over the last year. So what's new or what's the latest and greatest that's going on Maui? It's during the last year, it's just been more, more winging. We've had consistent wind all year on winging is growing in popularity on, it's still been quiet, with COVID winding down. It's not as many people as in the past, but we just had our first competitive event in three years. And what else is new? That's cool. Yeah. We're going to get into that more later that definitely hear about that Patagonia, kite and wing festival, but to get started like last year, I'm usually asked all the more advanced questions first that I was interested in. Hearing about, and then at the end I asked the guests to talk a little bit about beginner tips, but I want to turn it around the other way, start with the beginner stuff and then work up to more advanced things. Cause I figured that most people that are really into winging are gonna watch till the end or listened to the end and the beginners, we got to get them into it right in the beginning. So I asked you to come up with your top five tips for beginners to get into wink foiling. And you not only prepared some answers, but you've made a little video from what I understand. So let's start with that. What are your top five tips for beginners? All right. Thank you. Yeah. So I was thinking about those tips and there's so many different things. But I've tried to think about the key things and I put together a little timeline video here. Tip number one. And I just pulled these clips out of my inventory of clips and start on a big board. Now this is a winter Ford. We have a surplus of wind surfboards here on Maui on you can, you might think a sup board would be a good substitute, but you really need the daggerboard unless you can put strap-on fins on your support. I don't recommend using the support. It really needs to have something with the daggerboard now. And I recommend this for people who are just learning, how to use the wing, just to learn the basics on you can learn on a set board a foil board, but I recommend a large foil board to start with. Here, I've got Frank my, my pay here. He's a very skilled. And using a smaller board. It's challenging. So as a beginner, if you're on a smaller board,...

Aloha friends, It's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to season number two of the blue planet show. If you're watching this, you probably already know that this show is all about wing foiling and the personalities behind the sport. I try to go a little bit deeper, find out more, get the good, juicy stories and just learn more about the people and how they live their best life. So I hope you can join me for another season. Today's show is a really cool talk story session, with four of Oahu best wing foilers. We just give each other advice, you know, for more advanced stuff like wing foiling in onshore wind, how to handle your wing without getting in your way. And then also jumping off the top of the, off the lip then landing back in the wave. But we also talk about more entry-level stuff. Just like how to get up on the foil and tips for beginners, like how to get started in this cool sport. So I hope you really enjoy this conversation. I just wanted to apologize that, you know, it's been a while since, last year's 16 episodes. I got really busy opening a second location for Blue Planet that we now have a new shop in Haleiwa, it's running pretty smoothly now. And then around Christmas time or COVID, and I was really feeling low energy and not that good for several months. So about a third of the people who get COVID actually feel the long-term symptoms. So I hope you're not one of them, but I'm happy to report that my energy is back. I feel good. I'm excited to produce more shows. So I'm going to, re-interview some of the people that I talked to last year and also talk to new people, and I really appreciate everyone's suggestions, comments on blog. Um, keep them coming and I appreciate the support. And, uh, so yeah. Hope you enjoy this cool conversation with my buddies. All right. Thanks for joining me guys. Today I got core Eli, Derek and Lucas here with me to do a little voiceover on a video that we shot a few weeks ago. And I wanted to talk a little bit about winning an entre when like riding waves and entre wind. Cause it's something that I always find a little bit tricky with the wing handling and stuff like that. So, uh, Luca was the drone photographer, um, that day and then Koa, Eli and Derek, and I were all in the water. So I'm going to screen screen-share here and we're going to play this video. Can you guys see the screen? Okay, cool. So yeah, this was kind of a rainy overcast day and you went to another spot first and that was. Raining. And, uh, we're unsure if the wind was going to be good. So we kept going and, um, and then the wind seemed really light and we weren't sure if it's going to be windy enough. So we ended up sending out, um, or. To see if it was windy enough. So tell us a little bit about that call you are the first one to go out. How was it just to get going? Yeah, it was a bit nerve wracking just because it was my first time being there and I was just like, oh no, what if I go to the sand bank and like hit the sand and like, just get stuck and hoping that the wind was there. Yeah, it's kind of a tricky spot because if you can't get up on foil, you end up getting, you know, pushed downwind into the bay and like basically on the, on the shallow sand. Um, but once we saw you, um, able to get up and going, we all pumped up and went out as well. And then this is actually, um, at my second session, I came in and got the camera, my back mounted, um, GoPro max. But yeah. Um, I w what I wanted to talk about a little bit, like, one thing I struggle with is when you're, when you're riding the wave going, you know, going with the wind, I never know where to place it. So it does like, cause if you put it in front of you, you end up getting, um, kind of dark winded, and then sometimes when you put it behind you, then it gets like stuck on the water. So, um, maybe Eli, tell us a little bit about how you, how you handle the wing, um, and entre conditions. Um, what I had when I try to do is have it luffing behind me...

Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show. On this show, I interview Wing foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders and ask them in-depth questions about wing foil equipment and technique. I'm also trying to get to know my guests a little bit better, their background, how they got into water sports, what inspires them and how they live their best life. As a visual learner, I'm adding visual content that you can watch right here on YouTube, but you can also listen to these long form interviews on the go as a podcast, just search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast app. Today's interview is with none other than Armie Armstrong, the founder of Armstrong foils. It's amazing how he built a business in just a few years from a few prototypes to one of the biggest manufacturers in the world of foiling and a wing foiling equipment. We just got some of their new boards at our shop here in Honolulu. Really nice, Innovative features. And he talks about that in this interview also about growing up on a sailboat, learning how to walk basically on a sailboat, sailing around the world with his parents. So that's a really cool back story. I thought I also want to say a special thank you to our sponsors. This show is brought to you by people just like you, that support blue planet here in Honolulu. So next time you're shopping for new gear. Please check out blueplanetsurf.com. And I think you'll find that we have great quality, service and pricing, so you can't go wrong getting gear from blue planet. And of course also you're supporting content like this and making it possible. So thanks for everyone who supports their business. All right. Army Armstrong. Welcome to the blue planet show. Thanks so much for coming on. How are you doing today? Oh, awesome, man. Yeah, we're just about to go and test some prototype foil. As soon as this is finished, we're out on the water. So yeah, life is good. We were locked down and Zed for awhile recently, and it's all for a year and a half behind the rest of the world with the COVID thing. So we're going through it now. I don't know. It's crazy, but yeah, we were allowed back on the water. Yeah, a couple of months of that was pretty bad locked off the water. So now we're back into it. You weren't allowed to go even on the water at all during lockdown, you had to stay in your house. Basically. Yeah, it was pretty hardcore. And then even now, we're, I guess we're almost two and a half months into it, like a lot of businesses of open, so it's pretty hard for a lot of people. I'm just super lucky that that you guys in the states seem to be charging ahead and carrying on and Europe as well seem to be back to normal. So fingers crossed. We hit that way too. Yeah. Not really back to normal, but people are just tired of arranging their lives around COVID, and basically just like at some point you just have to learn to live with it. I guess that's the thing, but yeah, like last time we met was I guess like about three years ago, I think in Raglan maybe two years ago before the, before this whole thing. Yeah, that's right. When that was that your last international trip? Probably one, no, actually I went to New Zealand again, like a year later, which was in February, I think, February on 2009, 19. As the pandemic was already going on in China right before they stopped the travel international travel. So that was a good trip. But so now you're in Auckland. Yeah. Zeeland it's it's. Summer's just starting, you got nice weather over there. Yeah. It's just starting. And yeah, we're lucky we're at a lockdown and we're back in the water. And yeah, we're just getting through pretty exciting list of prototypes and, moving ahead, once they put in. Let's start in the beginning. Last time we talked to you, you mentioned, you just said that you grew up on a sailboat sailing around the world with your parents. So I don't want it to find out more about that....

Aloha friends is Robert Stehlik. Thank you for tuning into another episode of the blue planet show. on the blue planet show. I interview Wingfoil athletes, designers and thought leaders. And I asked them questions, not just about wing foil equipment and technique, but I'm also trying to get to know them a little bit better, their background, what inspires them and how they live their best life. You can watch this show on YouTube for visual content, or you can also listen to it as a podcast on the go to search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast. I haven't come out with a new blue planet show for awhile. It's cause I've been super busy. You might've heard that. We took over a new shop in Haleiwa on Oahu's north shore, formerly known as tropical rush. We just opened there and I've been super busy, getting everything set up. It's really exciting, but it also, it takes a lot of time. So I haven't had as much time for the YouTube channel and the blue planet show, but I've been waiting for a long time for Alex to come onto the show and he finally had some time to do it. So I got a great interview with him. Alex is nutty about wing foiling. He's coming out with GoFoil Wing foil boards and wings. And of course he plays such an important role in the development of the sport. He basically invented the foil that allowed Kai Lenny to do downwinders on a big long board. And basically kick-started this whole sport of foiling in the surf and now with wings. So thank you for that, Alex. And without further ado, this is the interview with Alex. All right, Alex Aguera. Thank you so much for joining me on the blue planet show. So how are you doing today? Doing great early in the morning, over here. How are you doing Robert? I'm good. Yeah. So I'm on here on a Oahu. You're on Maui, nine o'clock on a Wednesday. So yeah. So tell us, let's start a little bit with your background. Where did you grow up and how did he get into water sports and like early childhood to start from the very beginning? For getting into water sports, it started when I was let's see about 14. We went on a family vacation. I grew up in Clearwater, Florida, by the way. And. We went on a family vacation to the Virgin islands, British Virgin islands, and we're going to be on a sailboat and, do the bareboat charters where you travel around to each of the islands. And it's, it was just a fun, two week trip in the, in a place where we'd never been in places that were super clear water like that crazy, it was just fantastic. But anyway, the captain of our boat, we had hired a captain who would sail us around to the, for the first week. And then we were on our own. The second week, the the guy would put this wind surfer in the water at this one place where we first started called Soper Sol and Tortola. Any of, they would start sailing around with him and his other captain, buddy friend, on this funny looking sailing craft that, ended up being one of the original. Baja style windsurfers. So this would be for the original windsurfer was some of the first boards that oil swipes, or it may, and it looked like a big, giant, long board made out of a fiberglass. But anyway, when we got back to Florida after the chip, my dad wanted to check this out as a possible, get the kids doing this. Cause we were riding motorcycles and stuff at the time you wanted to get us off of motorcycles. So he calls up Hoyle Sweitzer, which was windsurfing international or whatever. They called themselves. At that time, this was really early. This is like 1975. And oil tells him, he goes, Hey, I'll sell you six of them and make you a dealer, so it was like, okay, we were the first dealer and in Florida and it all started from there. We started wind surfing right in 1975. And that's how I got into all these other sports that have evolved since then. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. Foil Schweitzer is Zane Schweitzer's grandfather who basically invented the sport and had the patent and everything....

Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show. On this show I interview Wing Foil athletes, not only about the technique and the gear that they use, but I also try to get to know them a little bit better, their background, what makes them tick, what inspires them and how they live their best life. It's a long form format. So if you'd like in-depth information, then you're going to love this show. I really appreciate you. I know not everyone has time to watch it on YouTube with the visuals. I think it's great, but you can, of course, also listen to it as a podcast with audio only, just search your favorite podcast app for "the blue planet show". Today's interview is with Kevin and Kaden Pritchard. Kevin Pritchard is a multiple time wind surf world champion. Him and his brother, both Matt Pritchard and Matt's son, Kaden is 12 years old and he's only been winging for about a year. And he's already doing crazy moves: back flips and he's working on forward flips and he breaks down technique for me on the Flaka, which really helped me out too. So there's some really good stuff in here. And just the whole story about the Pritchard family living on Maui, basically because a friend gave a wind surf board to Kevin's dad. So that's what led to the whole family living that lifestyle now. So I thought that was great. Really interesting story. Good to see the two generations together and hope you enjoy this show as much as I did. And without further ado, please welcome the Pritchards! Okay. Kevin and Kaden Prichard. Welcome to the Blue Planet Show. Thanks so much for making some time to join me. How you guys doing today? Yeah, thanks for having us. I was like, checking you out on that. On the internet and it's oh, let's do something. Could be cool. We've got Kaden who's starting to really start to rip on the wing foil. And yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Thanks for reaching out to me. I appreciate that. And and I saw you, you just started a YouTube channel and blogging and all that kind of stuff too. So I always like to collaborate with other people that try to create content and stuff like that. So it's great to have you guys, and you're both on Nali right now, right? And where are you at? It looks like you got a lot of gear behind you. There we are in my dad's workshop or yeah, his dad. We have a little rental. Wind surfing thing. So renting the waves and stuff over here on Maui. And my brother does a lot of lessons teaching, wind surfing. And he's been, has he been teaching leaning to a little bit Kayden? So your dad is Kevin's brother. That's how you relate okay. What's your dad's name? Okay. And then Kevin you been a long time windsurfer multiple time world champion and stuff like that. So then what, can you talk a little bit about your career actually, let's start with where you grew up and how you got into it and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I grew up in California and actually my brother and I, we started windsurfing together with my parents and my mom and my dad. And like we all used to travel around, we'd go to hood river and we lived in California, so we just started my dad was addicted to it, so he just took us with us and just, we all fell in love with the sport and it was super fun and yeah, just started wind surfing all the time and we got into it and then my brother moved to Maui in 92. I think it was. And then I moved in 94. And then we just started going, doing the world tour together and just like step-by-step got better and better. And then yeah, it was awesome. We, he won a bunch of world titles and I won some world titles. It's crazy how a sport can take you and change your life. It's like we started in California together and now our whole family's here. And then he's had a family of two kids and it's pretty fun watching the Caden grow up to in the mix of, what we used to do as a family, go and wind surf and all this stuff. And his, my dad, his grandfather is I would say...

Damien Leroy and Gwen Le Tutour have been on a roll, posting two great instructional videos per week and helping lots of people getting started in the sport. They are humble but are clearly exceptional humans and motivated by a desire to help people. Interview transcript: Hello friends. It's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the blue planet show. in today's show. I'm interviewing Damien Leroy and Gwen Le Tutour. We talked about their background, how they got into watersports, wing foil technique and equipment, what inspires them, and how they love to share their stoke with others, watch it here on YouTube. Or you can listen to it as an audio only podcast, just search for "Blue Planet Show" in your favorite podcast app. Today is June 19th, 2021. And this month you've been posting two videos. Every day. One video is part of our video contest and one of our blue planet videos. So I hope you can join us for the daily videos contest and our blue planet daily videos. We're going to decide the contest winner on August 14th with a $2,000 price. So to enter, please check out the link below. And send it to your submission. Today's guest Damien, and when are amazing human beings, they're very humble, but I'm stoked to have him on the show. If you've winged foiled at all. You've probably seen some of their great, amazing instructional videos. They do a great service for the sport. And so without further ado, here are Damien and Gwen, Damien and Gwen, welcome to the Blue Planet Show. Thanks so much for joining me. Let's get started a little bit with your background. Maybe Damien, tell us a little bit about, how, where you grew up and how you got into water sports and all that. One, thanks so much for having us and we appreciated and how I got into water sports. Technically I've been in water sports since I was like two, but I grew up a ski racer in Colorado, which was on snow a little bit different, but truthfully. Really get involved with the water. Much until my like teens. I was training in Mount hood, Oregon, and I would go to the Gorge. I'm sorry, I'd go to the coast and boogie board. And I thought surfing was way too hard. And boogie board was like the coolest thing ever. And yeah, it just more from there. I saw kite surfing. I was a big ski racer. And kite surfing was the unknown and yeah, I that's kinda what got me into it was ski racing, seeing it in hood river training at the gore training in Mount hood and visiting the Gorge. And I had some injuries, he racing and went to Florida, Naples, Florida. And my best friend in Naples was flying one of these kites. And I didn't know him at the time and I walked up and he just handed it over and he's oh, you gotta try this. I was just like, whoa, what is this? And for that's where it started truthfully. I'd say how long ago was that when you got into college? Ah, man, that's I was 18, so for like close to 21 years ago. Yeah, it was at the beginning. Things were super, truthfully, even in the Gorge, people wouldn't talk about it. It was all wind surfing and you'd see one or two guys, which for sure was probably like Corey Rosler and maybe Lou like visiting or something, but nobody was doing it. Nobody would do lessons, nobody would talk about it. And and my buddy in Naples happened to buy a kite and just learn on his own and it was awesome. And then I got connected with Cabrina right in the beginning and was just been super blessed ever since. And I've been riding with that company for a long time and just incredible family, credible group of people and just super grateful because I was able to become moral champion and do all sorts of things in the sport. But more than that, I was able to give back and. Share the knowledge that I've learned throughout my incredible adventures. I'm now back with people, which is the most rewarding thing you can do. And I read that at one point you were kiteboarding world champion. Yeah. I just did everything. I tried everything so...

Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet show. On this show, I interview wing foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders and ask them in-depth questions about Wingfoil equipment and technique. I'm also trying to get to know my guests a little bit better, their background, how they got into water sports, what inspires them, and how they live their best life. I'm a visual learner, so I'm adding visual content that you can watch on YouTube, but you can also listen to it as a podcast on your favorite podcast app Today's interview is with the very first wing foil world champion, Titouan Galea from new Caledonia. If you're into wing foiling as much as I am, you've probably already seen the videos of him doing crazy moves on jumps, back flips on the face of the wave, big airs, riding big waves in New Caledonia and other places. Really impressive stuff. And of course also being able to pull these moves off under pressure during competition and winning the last couple of world championship events. Titouan breaks down some of the most advanced moves for us, Step by step. We also talk about his background, how he grew up in new Caledonia and now lives in France and about his board, foils, wings and what the future holds for him. So without further ado, please welcome the talented Titouan Galea. All right. Titouan, thanks so much for making some time to be on the Blue Planet show. How are you doing today? Great, thank you for inviting me. Yeah. Awesome. So here in Hawaii, it's it's 10 o'clock in the morning and for you it's evening, right? Eight o'clock or something like that? And you're in Montpellier France. Is that right? Yes Okay. But originally you grew up in new Caledonia. So can you tell us a little bit about, your background, how you grew up and how you got into water sports? Yeah. Born in new Caledonia and my father was doing windsurfing and kiting, yeah. Maybe around 2000. So yeah, he teach me when, so thinking like surfing when I was about like eight or nine and yeah, I've been projects learning where mainly and some other places yeah, since. Maybe I was 12. I started doing it quite often. Studying wave kite surfing mostly. And then what else I've done? Yeah. Foiling came like maybe six years before. Maybe seven. I started with kite foiling on my own when I was about 18 years old and yeah, just one year after I moved to France and I joined the French team of kite foiling. So I've been doing lots of wind sports and yeah. Then the wing for the game. So two years ago, and now I'm doing a few other sports most of the time. Pretty much. Yeah. Awesome. Congratulations on being number one in the world right now in the rankings. That's pretty impressive. How old are you now? 24 actually, I actually had to look up new Caledonia. I've never been there, but just for people to know where it is. So this is New Calidonia and Australia and Hawaii is here. And then this is new Caledonia, right? There's a place nearby, which is very famous. Is Fiji. exactly the same swell, like Cloudbreak receives So yeah, we have same waves as other spots, so yeah, it's really nice space. And actually it's much more like it's windier in New Calidonia then. Yeah. Most of the time it's yeah. When you're in New Cal. So what's the prevailing wind direction. So what is the prevailing wind? So yeah, Southeast is like this way, right along the coast. For the surf, is it better on the south shore? On the north shore? Both? Yeah, cause it's windy almost everyday. It's tricky. Sometimes a winter and a bit north is so we have good surf on the west coast. Now we surf manly on the west coast. All disposed comes from south is south. Yeah. From depression, south hemisphere. So all this welcomes between a New Zealand and Australia and they, most of them come from south Southwest. So it's all all the stuff sports on the west coast. And so I guess the best ways are probably in the, in, in the winter there, which is...