Wing Foil interview- Spencer Brothers on the Blue Planet Show Episode #30

 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 to support Maui's is by making a donation. Absolutely. Yeah. The best way is like supporting the families directly. If I know personally, like the Clayton's and the flex from paddling, they're good family friends and there's tons of others.

We're able to find them on there, especially social media has been a really good way for people to communicate through all this and the Maui strong foundation as well as a really good resource that they're able to take the funds and use them wherever's most needed at the current moment. That's another really good one to donate to.

All right. Yeah. Best wishes for everyone on Maui. That's just a tough situation to be in for sure. But anyways, let's talk a little bit about you guys. How, where did you, have you always lived on Maui or how did you grow up? And, what, how did you get into water sports and all that kind of stuff?

Yeah, since we were, We've lived here since we were babies. We were born in Canada, but basically our entire lives was here. We weren't even a couple of years old when we moved here. So yeah, it's just been my way. But interestingly, it took us a while to get super into water sports. We did a bunch of, the average like school sports growing up team ones, like basketball, volleyball, stuff like that.

And then we started stand up paddling around. Probably 10 years ago, actually, at this point, but then just from there, like we always had fun bodyboarding and surfing and Santa paddling and then got into it from there. Yeah, right on. Who's older or what are your ages? I'm older and 19, 22 and 19.

All right. So I guess when you started, you were. Like around, I was probably 13. We'd always play in like the shore break with boogie boards and, when we were really young, but we didn't really start like getting into it more. Until, yeah, until I was 13 and you were probably like 10, 11.

Yeah. Yeah. And that was that your dad taking you down, down to the beach and putting you on a board or did you just show interest in it or like, how did that work out? We would actually, we'd go over to the west side near Lahaina, we'd go to Laniopoko and the waves there are super fleet friendly, the best place for any, anyone to learn.

We just take long boards and stand up paddle boards and spend the days over there in the summer. Nice. Nice. Okay. And then how did you start getting into foiling? What was how did you first start foiling? I think it was a while ago now. I think before it all started, we talked to Alex Aguero about just trying some surf foils.

Cause he was making kite foils at the time. And then it was funny, he said he had just started working with Kai Lenny on the same thing. So then we started doing that with them, just went to Sugar Co. and had the first GoFoil prototype that we tried and then just started going to the west side a bit and just getting into it and then Kai put out that video of him downwinding and that just exploded it.

Yeah.

Then everyone was like, Oh, I want to try this. But you were basically tried some of the very first prototypes that Alex was making him. Totally. Yeah. We just be like us in the beach down here, just going with Kai and on this old sub board with a tunnel box drilled into it and Yeah, just testing stuff.

It was fun. Yeah. And then where are you mostly trying to do downwinders or more in the surf or both or what were you guys doing? Most part, it was in the surf. For the first couple of months. And then we started to try a couple of downwinders and realize that it was super fun. So then we started doing that a lot more too.

Yeah. The foils quickly evolved to be good enough for downwinding. Yeah. And then in the beginning you were using GoFoils and then I guess at some point you got sponsored by Slingshot or or how did that evolve? We'd run GoFoils as well and it was great. And then we had an opportunity to.

To try the slingshot stuff as well and it worked really well for us. So yeah, we, we met with Tony Ligo. She's a awesome designer and Yeah wrote with them for a while, which was amazing. Okay. And then did you have like influence in the design and things like that? Developing products or not so much.

They just would send you stuff and you'd play with it. We'd help them test stuff, but we're a lot of new stuff and the wings and then all the coils and boards. And so it was super fun. Learned a lot from that for sure. We're definitely still very early on in like our experience though.

So it's not like we were saying like, oh, this is. What you should do to make it good, it's like more just Feeling it out and helping as much as we could. Yeah. And then probably the equipment you were using on Maui was like smaller and you guys are lightweight too, right? It's probably like smaller than what they could sell to the average consumer, right?

So yeah, and then you were some of the, I think, were you the first to do a back loop on a wing foil board or yeah. That's awesome. I remember seeing that video and I was wow, that's insane. Yeah, I just remember we were doing them surf foiling off of waves. You could come back out and hit the ramp.

And I'm just thinking oh, I think this would probably work with the wing after I just had a wave session. And then right after that, I'm like, in my mind, I could see how it would work. And then after that, I went straight back out that night and tried it for a few hours. And then. The next didn't get it, but I got like close.

I like fully saw the potential. And then the next day I yeah, went out and tried again and somehow made it work, which was honestly really strange. Like usually if you're trying a new trick, it takes a lot longer to learn. Like even for me, it I usually take weeks to figure some stuff out. But I think the backflip is just so it's such a natural movement on the wing of the foil with that, that it it worked out pretty well.

So what are, after people say, are you doing it? Then a lot of people figure it out how to do it, but, I'm still doing it, being the first to do it is always you don't have someone else's videos you can watch to figure out how to do it. So what are the biggest challenges of doing a back flip with a wing?

I think a lot of it's very mental because it's it's difficult to, see yourself actually going upside down with the foil, especially. And I think the most important thing safety wise is just to keep your feet like in the straps with the foil facing away from you. Cause as long as that's good, it's not, you're not going to connect with the foil, which is pretty much the main way to hurt yourself if you're trying it.

And after, after time of doing it to the biggest. Things that I've learned to help is if you're able to do one surf foiling or even start with a backflip on a trampoline and then transition to do one surf one, so you get the feel of how you move through the air with the foil on your feet.

And then, after all that, if you can transition to doing it with the wing, make sure you have enough speed, really stay strong, it's easy to get disconnected with your legs and your upper body when you're going through it. Yeah, if you're able to work on all those things, it makes it a.

Much, much more possible. Nice. Okay. Those are some good pointers. What about the wing handling? It seems if you don't get the wing right on the landing, you end up getting backwinded and falling into the wing. Like, how do you deal with that? Totally, yeah. A lot of it's for a lot of wing tricks, so much of it's in the takeoff which, or how much speed you have and what direction you jump when you get in the air.

So for that one, it's really about Making sure you get enough height and angling off the window a little bit, because if you turn up too much, you'll come around and that's when it'll backwind. So if you're a little more angled down away from it, when you get that height and then suck your knees in and pull it around, it'll really focus on just pulling that top hand up.

It'll not catch as easily when you're coming out of it. Yeah. You guys have amazing Instagram accounts. I'm just looking through it. I'm going to actually screen share this a little bit and maybe you can tell me how far back I need to go to find that when you first started doing backflips, it's pretty close a little further, I'd say.

What is this? You're wearing a plastic bag. That was a ghost costume for Halloween. But yeah, a lot of it was not easy to breathe in if you ended up in the water. I think right there. I think, yeah, with the red board on the left and this one. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So let's watch this. Oh yeah. I remember what, Watching this and being blown away, and you have a really small wing too, I guess that, that helps too, right?

Absolutely, if especially if you're learning, the smaller the wing, the easier it is just to maneuver. I'd fully recommend if you're beginning, if you can get a good bump or ramp of a wave to go off of, and then a small wing, it's by far the easiest way to learn. That one right there is a three meter wing.

Yeah. Just having less wingspan makes it easier. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. That compact style definitely helps as well. Not like you getting a huge amount of air, but that probably helps to getting high, the higher you get, the more time you have to rotate. But then I guess there's also more risk of injury, right?

Probably, yeah. It's tough because sometimes you think so, but giving yourself more time to rotate in the air, actually, it just makes it easier. That's one of the things now I always work on with, especially the backflip, is I just try and get as high as possible. And you don't actually, unless you're going off a massive ramp, you don't end up going that high, just because you have to consider up.

But then also as soon as you start pulling the wing back, you, you stop going up, it you just want to give yourselves as much time as possible to come around. Okay. Is there like a, another video you would, that one, your mouth is on right now is a pretty light. This one. Yeah. I'd say this is when I've got it consistent. I'm still using a bit of ramps, still not that much height. It's still pretty early on, but this was, I was feeling more comfortable with the double. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. And then you're doing it, on the way into the beach, just cause that's your natural your natural regular foot or why is it that you're doing it on this tack?

We're both regular footed. So we pretty much all our tricks going in, which is a bit of a bar for here. Cause. If we were goofy footed, we'd have way better ramps, but yeah, we try and make it work going in. It's good for surfing here since you're with the window a lot of the time, but yeah, for the wind sports, it's not as not as easy to find a good ramp.

And then what about you, Finn? I guess you probably picked up the backflip pretty soon after your brother, or how long did it take you to figure it out? A while, actually. I started trying them pretty soon after, but I had never really done a backflip doing anything before. So I was doing them very weird and not going over backwards, like doing them sideways a bit.

And then I went to a trampoline park and learned and then felt comfortable doing them and then went surf foiling and learned them going out off of waves. And then the next time I went, I was getting them down a lot more. Yeah. Finn was funny. His first attempts were so sketchy, which is why I say it's so important to keep the foil away from you and learn all the backflip stuff because he would get straight upside down and then just fold in half and land on top of the wing.

But as soon as as soon as he figured it out on the surf foil, it was like night and day compared, for his technique compared to what it was before. I think it was later. It's so important to do this. All your backflip flips? Yeah. Yeah. I've seen, I've had friends who are trying it and it just yeah, like the board coming off their feet in the middle of the jump and there's like the foil landing on their wing and getting, trashing many wings and all that kind of stuff.

And plus, yeah, it looked dangerous. What is this move? That looks nuts. But a backflip without the, without using the wing basically. Yeah, just going out and then you drift the wing and then do a flip off the wave. Wow. Yeah. So you guys are definitely on the forefront of all these tricks, but let's talk a little bit about the races.

There was a lot of races over the last month. And and you guys both of you guys did really well in in these races. So let's talk first, I guess about the Maui to Molokai race. I, I was there and experienced it and just saw, I saw you, Finn like I was wing foiling too, and I saw you just disappearing on the horizon, just going it seemed like you were just going in a straight line as fast as you could locked into like a real steady, fast downwind angle.

Yeah, the wind angle was pretty good. We were able to pretty much shoot straight from the start to, the Kanakakai buoy or the Kamalabouyam, the Kamalabouyam, yeah, and it was just weaving a bit downwind from there. But yeah, that first leg was pretty straight and just. Going super fast the whole time.

So then, yeah, and I talked to Bobo Gallagher. He said that he didn't really see you until clo until you guys got close to Molokai. So did you see Bobo at all or after maybe 10, 15 minutes into the start? I think I did a turn and he kept going, and then I just lost sight of him for the, until around the buoy.

But that whole race, I couldn't, or that whole section of the race, I couldn't really see anybody, so I had no idea where I was. And then . When I got to the booty I saw him a fair bit ahead of me and I was like, oh, shoot I gotta speed up. So then I just worked super hard and was going as fast as I can to catch up.

And then we're, that gap was staying pretty similar to him ahead of me. And then I think once the wind got a bit lighter, I had a bit bigger wing and was able to pull up to him and then pull ahead to the, towards the finish. . So what size wing were you on? I was on a six meter. Yeah. And then Bobo was on like a 5'5 or something.

Yeah. Yeah. And then, and you were both on the same foil. Like he showed me the duotone foil. He was using like a kite surfing, kite foil. Yeah, we were both on the Daytona race foil they have. Yeah. Daytona race. Yeah. That thing was, I think probably the foil is the most important thing for going fast.

And, but of course also the wing is important for, because that's what powers you along basically. All pretty fast foil and then just a big, powerful wind. You can go as downward as possible. Yeah, and then when and you finished in 114 or something like that. Is that right? Yeah Which is amazingly fast for whatever it was 28 miles or something like that, right?

Do you know what your average speed was on that run? I don't I think until the wind got lighter is probably around 28 to 30 miles an hour and then once you got lighter, it really slowed down a lot So at the end when I came towards the end, like everyone that was in my kind of around me just came to completely came off the focus, it wouldn't just completely died for a while.

And then after a bit, then there was another gust and I was able to get back up on foil and fly over the line. But how was it for you guys? Did you have the wind completely die and you have to like just pump or how was it at the end? It got pretty light. I think even on the six, I was pretty underpowered and probably for Bobo on the five, five too.

But we were both able to pump our way into the finish. Yeah. Yeah. So then, and you ended up finishing all I guess it was pretty close to like he was a minute or two behind you only or something like that. Yeah. So yeah. And from what I could tell is it seemed like you had more of a straight line and Bobo was trying to go more downwind on the way to Molokai.

Yeah. So what's I know, like when, cause when the more downwind angle you have, the less power you have in your wing, basically. So how did you figure out your ideal angle to the wind and to the waves? And did you just go on a straight line or did you try to use the energy of the ocean or like how do you maximize your speed?

It was mostly just using the winds and just trying to go as downwind as I could. And then just, Yeah. To keep enough power in the wing that I was able to go pretty fast. And then when it got lighter, I had to bear, go a bit slightly more upwind. And then, yeah, just trying to have as much power as possible.

So yeah, you have to do that to keep some pressure in your wing. But do you try to weave a little bit to use the bumps or do you just go straight? Do you make any adjustments? When I, when the wind gets lighter. Then you can use the bumps a bit more, but when it's really windy, you're going a lot faster than them.

So you're just cutting straight through. Okay. Or like it, you have to stay super focused when you're doing that. Cause you have to go up and down and try not to over foil or hit your board on a bump. And then. Yeah, especially when you're overtaking a bump, then it's easy to overfoil behind it, right?

As you're coming down the face. What size mask were you using? I was on a 105. Okay, so pretty long mask, too. And then that, that foil, the Daytona, what's the how many square inches, do you know, like the the surface area? It's around a five. 60 square centimeters. Yeah. And it's not like a super high aspect shape, right?

It's almost more like a little bit. Yeah. Like you can control and really just really locked in at high speeds. Yeah. So what do you think makes that foil so fast? I don't know. What is it that, is it a thinner profile or just like the overall, I think it's just. The mast is really slim and fast and then all the connect.

It's a full one piece lower, so it's super. Sleep like the fuselage really thin and the wing connections and then the wings are really good shape and good profiles. So Just a lot of that makes it just super fast and low drag all right, and then jeffrey you did the maui to mulukai on a standard foil board, right?

So yeah, so talk a little bit about how that went and and the whole experience Yeah, that was good. I same type of thing with Finn. After the start you get going for a bit and then you, it's, the bumps are, even though, it was a good day, there's just so much swell and water in the channel that you don't really see.

Anyone else, like even if they have boats and everything, it's actually hard to tell where you are in relation to to everyone. So I was just coming and I had no idea where I was basically, but the run was really good. I think at the start, I had a pretty good line, but then definitely, Were you able to get up on full right away, right from the start or?

Yeah, I was able to get going right away, which definitely is important in the races. You can lose quite a bit of time If you're off oil, which I figured out at the end, but about halfway, I think I went too close to the island and I would, the bumps just weren't as fast as they would have been further out.

And I was worried about the wind angle being tough to fight against at the end, but it turned out to just get light. It wasn't actually hard to come in. So I think if I was, yeah, to do it again, I would have. Taking a much wider line especially through the finish where near the end, I accidentally, or I actually went too far over the reef and my wingtip came out on just a little accident as I was pumping in.

And it was right before the finish where the wind was the lightest and the bumps were super, super small and I did my best to get back up on foil and got up for a second. But it was, if I had stayed further out, I would have had the energy to keep it going to stay in. But. On the inside, it was not the move.

I lost tons of time there. Did you, and I was shallow. So you hit the reef or did you go around the reef? It wasn't too bad. I wasn't like all the way inside. I think the tide was pretty high when we were coming in. So I. I luckily didn't hit it. I hit it I was paddling on my stomach coming in, but it was just, once you get over that shelf, the, even the little bumps that you would have just outside of it, just aren't even there.

so I just flattened out the bumps basically. Yeah. Yeah. And then you ended up finishing like in 14th place or something like that. Huh? You said 14, but and then what kind of what kind of foil were you on and board and foil? I'm just curious. Yeah, I was on a, just some prototype, a foil board we're working on.

And a same thing with the front wing. It's about an 800 square centimeter size, but all the rest of the stuff is production stuff. I was using the mast and fuselage and all that. Like how long of a mass we're using on a standard flow board. I've been actually liking the shorter stuff. I've been using a 75 centimeter mast.

Maybe when the conditions get really crazy, it can be nice to ride. A bit longer, so you have a bit more forgiveness just in that trimming and that height. But otherwise, yeah, the 75 is really nice. It feels like you have really good control and that's honestly one of my favorite parts about the whole duotone setup is how stiff it is.

So you really feel like you have really good control the entire time when you're riding. Yeah. And then for stand up foiling, it seems like with the shorter mass, it's a little bit easier to pump up on foil too, right? And then you also have less drag from the mass, right? The shorter it is, the less drag is in the water.

Cause when you're getting going, that whole mass is just sitting down in the water. So any length you're adding on is just. Pure drag when you're getting going. So that's probably a big reason. But it just helps with being a little bit more comfortable and having more control and more margin of error when you're, especially on wing foiling, I like to, I have a one or three mass and it just gives you that a little bit of extra time to react to, to like getting too high or whatever yeah, but cause when you're on a shorter mass, you really have to follow the contours of the water.

Like you always have to go up and down. over every little bump versus the longer mass. Sometimes you can fly over the smaller chop without making too many adjustments, yeah, exactly. Interesting though. I like how, I think it is a little bit different in wing foiling than in standup foiling, like the, or downwind foiling, what size mast you're using.

Totally. With the wing, it's nice to have that length. So you can just like, because you don't want to have to worry about going up and down. You just want to cut straight through everything. And then for downwind. Like that control you get from the shorter mass is definitely worth it. So even if you have to change your angle a bit, it's, I think it's nice.

Yeah. So when you, when Jeffrey, when you wingfo, do you use the same size mass or do you use a different, or do you wingfo race at all? Or yeah, absolutely. I would use the same setup and was on, if I was doing. Yeah, interesting. Right on. And then the next day was the Molokai Holokai, and I guess only you stayed stuck around on Molokai Jeffrey.

And then, yeah, so how did that next day go, the race, just on the Molokai coast? Yeah, it was great. Our our friends had a place for me to stay. So it was really easy for me over there. And it was great. There was tons of the people that live over there that were into doing the canoe race and everything.

And the conditions I think were actually, yeah, it was a little lighter. And I think the the whole race was super interesting. Like we paddled way out to the Camelot buoy and which is just offshore near the the start of the run down the coast. And then we, yeah, basically started pumped up the bumps were really slow, which was, it was like kind of work to keep it going, but it was very like, they're just lined up and even it was hard to really gain a bunch of grounds.

And when I started the race, the two other people who were really fast and that was Oscar Johansson and Aiden Nichols. And we all took super different lines like. Me from the day before I was thinking, okay, no matter what, I don't want to be too far in. So I went really wide into the middle of the channel and Oscar went in the middle and then Aiden went really close.

And I think just the style of the bumps kept us all like really close. We were like super spread out the whole race and then we were coming into the finish and it was crazy after the whole, I forget how long it was exactly. But after that whole time, after the 10 miles or whatever it was, we were all basically in a line next to each other, like almost on the same bump.

Basically. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So it became like a super hard pumping race and both goes, both those guys are super, strong and super good at pumping, especially like. Oscars of machine when it comes to that stuff. So it's very much for me. I knew I really have to focus on the technical part of it and really make sure I'm like taking the best line to each bump, making sure I save as much energy as possible.

But I was still pumping as hard as I could some of the times. And just before the end, luckily, I think Oscar said he made a couple. Like bump mistakes. And then I was able to just pull ahead of them by 10 seconds before the finish. And then Oscar and Aiden were, I think it was 0. 4 seconds apart across the finish, which is extremely close for a race, right?

Over 10 miles. Yeah. Yeah. It's unheard of. I think it was just because the conditions out there and the type of bumps were. They were so lined up. It was so hard to actually make distance on anyone, even though like we all took completely different lines. So it really doesn't make sense that we were right next to each other at the finish.

Yeah. Yeah. That's just how it went, which it was pretty fun. It was like, I, it was the hardest I worked. I think in most of the races, just because they were right next to me, I just had something to really push for and really like really focus on to that was the most I focused in, or the most I had to focus in any of the race scenarios.

From the past couple of weeks. Yeah. And then that, that just, that length of that race, it's almost, yeah, it's more like you can really go all out the whole way. It's not like you have to conserve for the last part, like on the mobile or whatever. It's really tough on the longer ones to know how much energy you should use at the start.

Especially for M2O, that's the scariest part, is that basically, flat water pop up at the start and just thinking okay, if I use this much energy here, how much am I going to have for the end? And so for the Molokai Holokai race, it was like much more of a sprint the whole way. So yeah, it was a full grind.

But yeah, it was really fun. Yeah. So yeah, so the Molokai or Maui to Molokai race and the Molokai Holokai, that was like two weeks before the M2O race. And then I think the following weekend there was the gorge challenge in Hood River and also the paddling mua on Maui, right? Finn, which one did you do again?

I went to the gorge and then Jeffrey stayed here for Paddleamua. Okay, so how did the gorge, how was the gorge challenge? It was super fun. It was decently windy, a lot lighter than it usually is in the gorge, and then they ran both the wing downwind race and the sub downwind race on the same day, but they were, luckily this year they spaced it out by three or four hours, so we had time to do that one and then go back up to the second.

So which ones did you compete in? Which races? I did the wing foiling downwind and course race, and then the sub downwind race. Sub foiling, right? Okay. So how, and then, yeah. So tell us a little bit about how those races went. So the first day they did all the downwinders, so at, in around 10 in the morning, they started the wing one and it was pretty light.

We were all, everybody was just on their biggest wings, pretty much. I had a 6'5 and the, everyone started super close. And then these two guys, Johnny Heineken and Joey Pasquale, who are really good kite racers or kite foil racers, and now wing foil racers, they pulled a bit ahead. And then. I was trying, I was keeping with them a lot and then just slowly falling back and then just stayed like that the whole way down and just came in third in that one, maybe 15, 20 seconds behind Johnny and first and then 10 seconds.

Wow. So that was a super close race too. Then how, what distance is that? Like how long is it? I think that one's not eight or nine miles. And what was the time on that one? 24. And you're going against the river current too, right? So that, that makes it a little bit slower then. Yeah. If you, yeah.

Yeah. When it was super light. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess obviously if the wind was stronger, the how it is a lot of times, then you guys would have had faster times, right? And then in terms of the foils, we're using the same one that used in the M2M or? For the wing race, I was using that same Daytona foil. Yeah, so I guess depending on the wind conditions, you just use a bigger hand wing, but not necessarily a bigger foil.

Yeah, usually. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There's also a 6'5 unit D Lab for that one. Do you know what what kind of wing Johnny Heineken was on foil? I think both him and Joey were on the Mike's Lab foils. Do you know what size by any chance? No. I think the, either the 540 or the 600. Yeah, and those are super fast foils as well.

But interesting. Okay. And then how did the Paddle in Mura go? You stayed on Maui, Jeffrey, right? And then how was that? Paddle in Mura was awesome. That event is a fundraiser to support kids with special was. I think 300 people registered to do the race and they had to close registration because it was so full, which was just, yeah, it was so incredible to see the race launches from legal gulch.

So having everyone down in there, like the whole. Canoe paddling community. And then all the oil community as well was like, just so incredible to see, and yeah, the race itself was really fun. The conditions were good. We had all had a nice, good start out in the wind line and went down to Kanawha and it was, yeah, pretty good race.

I was feeling good. The other guys, there's some other really fast guys. I think James. Casey Andrew, I was where they got a bit ahead of me through the middle of the race. And then I was coming in next to Kai. And then I did the same thing that I did in a M2M where my wingtip came out and I fell and I had to grind back up to get up.

And then Oscar came in and passed me just before the finish. And then I was able to like, run past him on the beach to the end. Cause it was like this crazy beach run finish, but it was a super fun race. And also I will mention Edo ended up like just coming out just to be part of it. He wasn't even able to get in just because it was so full, but he was faster than anyone, which was pretty cool to see.

Oh, so Edo actually won the race, but he wasn't officially registered kind of thing. Interesting. That was pretty cool. And then, those guys are the ones who've finished in the front on the M2O race as well. Yeah. So that's interesting. But yeah, so let's talk about that. The big one, the paddle board world championships, the Molokai Toahu race that one you guys both did.

And so how did that go for you guys? That was good. I think it went very well for me. Yeah, it was super fun. Except for one thing. Yeah, we had good wind and then pretty good bumps the whole way, but it was a bummer for me. A couple days before I started getting this weird pain in my heel and was having a hard time walking.

And then the day or two before the race, it just, this weird spot started coming in. And then up until the morning of the race, it just kept growing until a big blister on my heel. And I still just couldn't really put any weight on it. And then did the race. Luckily I had footstraps on my board, so I was able to.

Kind of not put much pressure on it and use my toes on my foot a bit more. And then when I got to the finish, I just had to go to the doctor and they like drained it all out and then had to cut all the skin away. And yeah, I saw you briefly at the finish and you were limping and I was like, what's going on?

And you showed me, and it's it was almost like a tennis ball size blister on your heel. It was huge, ugly looking too. It's yeah, the night before we were looking at it, wondering should we try and drain it and bandage up now or we ended up just yeah, I talked to Scott Trudeau, and who's Kai's, Scott Sanchez, sorry, who's Kai Lenny's trainer and he just said that I should probably wait to drain it because I don't want getting infected, which was good advice because I think if we had tried to pop it, it might not have been able to race.

And then, but luckily made it and then just had to go to the doctor right after. Yeah. And then they basically just cut off all the skin and just cleaned up the infection kind of thing, or did they, do they know what kind of infection or what would happen? No, not really. I think it just, I got like a weird bruise inside and then it was bleeding a little maybe, and then got infected.

So are you still healing up from that? Or is that all done now? Yeah, still healing, I think. Still on crutches right now trying not to put much weight on it. And then I think it's maybe another couple weeks before I can do stuff again. And you're taking like some, you probably had to go through some heavy antibiotics and stuff?

I had to go through a week after. Yeah. And yeah, wow. But yeah, it was the first time they had the wing flow division at the at the Molokai Molokai Tuawa race. So I always get those mixed up, but anyway so it's cool that you were able to win that one. And it was a really good battle with Bobo and then Aiden Nicholas.

Yeah. Most of the whole way, I think. Did you see them? Did you see them going across? Or I know that you guys were all pretty close, but yeah how was that? Yeah, we all started really close and we're pretty much on the same line, all in a pretty tight pack going towards Molokai. And then once the wind got a bit lighter, I think I had a bit more power in my wing and I was able to just drop a bit below them further downwind and pull ahead.

And then. Once we got a lot closer to Oahu and further up the coast and we had to start weaving downwind, then I think I really pulled ahead a lot just because I had more power and was able to ride the bumps a bit more when it got really light. And then I think. But before that we were all super close.

Yeah, and that's something to mention too that I mean I guess at the start the wind was actually pretty decent but then in the middle of the channel it got really light in some spots and then and it didn't really get seemed like it maybe got a little bit windier again towards the end towards Oahu, but And then once you got around the corner, then it was light again, right?

Did you get any lulls coming in towards the finish or? I think I came about as close to coming down as I could have, and then just got another puff of wind, as I was about to come down and kept going, but it was, yeah, it was close coming around the point where there's this big dead zone of wind before you got the wind coming from Hawaii.

And then I guess Bobo is a natural goofy footer, which is helps in the Molokai race because you're going in that stance most of the way. So for you, do you feel like you can go faster in your regular stance than in your in when you switch feet in the goofy foot stance or how do you, it's pretty similar right now.

And then I will, I need to spend more time going goofy though, cause I think it would be faster, but. With my foot to that race I, it was like, he was my back foot. So I didn't have to put as much weight on it. I had to use that as my front foot. It would have felt a lot worse, but yeah, both, both Bobo and Aiden were goofy footed.

So on the. The kind of first reach over to a Wahoo, I think it was a lot more comfortable for them. And then Aiden is from New Zealand, right? And he's on a, he was on the Armstrong foil, right? Yeah. What kind of foil he was on or what size and I think he just had a prototype one. He said it was around 470.

Oh, so even smaller than yours, huh? A fair bit smaller than ours, which I think it helped him when it was windier. And then when the wind got lighter, he was just having a hard time going as downwind. So that's another thing to to mention too, like basically on a really small foil. Yeah. Like sometimes you can't get the same downwind angle because yeah, it starts dropping off foil.

So you need a little bit more pressure in your wing. Yeah. So it's always like a gamble a little bit. If you are too small. It helps going faster, but then you're also taking a risk at when the wind gets lighter. So yeah, for sure. Cause that's what happened was at the start he was super fast and actually pulling ahead a bit when it was windier.

And then once he got lighter, I caught up a lot to him and then was just able to go more downwind and the same speed towards the finish, just put a big gap on him because it was really light. And I was able to go more downwind. And then what handling were you on? It was the duotone. I was on the duotone unit D lab six meter, which I think I would've preferred to have a six five, but it's so hard to tell what the wind is doing.

Apart from, do you mind sharing what your weight, your body weight? I think like one 40 to one 45. Okay. So yeah, so six meters, pretty big for you, for your body weight. And what about your board size? What's, what were the dimensions of the board you were using? Four, four, 35 liter sky free board or sky.

It's a pretty small board, like basically a sink sinker, right? So it's nice for the weighing down one to just use something that. Cause you're using such a big wing. You don't really need a ton of board to get you going. And then you want something that once you're up is just really out of the way, so you're not catching it on other bumps. And there's a lot of moments there. I feel like they make it a lot easier to control the foil at high speeds. And then, yeah, you're not really too worried about it catching. And you didn't fall at all during the whole way across or did you have any, right at the start, maybe a minute or two in, I was.

I think I just hit a weird warble and then the nose started going down and I tried to put weight on my back foot and put it right on my heel where it really hurt and then just. Stuff that knows I've been flying and then luckily God pretty fast, like 10, 15 seconds and was going again. Oh, good.

Yeah. That's I always like to use a little bit longer and board higher volume board for racing, because yeah if you do fall or come off and it's light, then it just makes it so much easier to get back on foil for like course racing and then if the wind's lighter, that's definitely the way to go.

Cause then it's the worst when you're just stuck down in the water and everyone's passing you and. Yeah, I can't get going again now. All right. Jeffrey, talk about your experience at the Mali to Molokaris. I heard from A lot of stand up foilers that the start was tough.

And then all the wing full escort boats went across or, made wakes and chop and world up the water and stuff like that. So yeah, talk a little bit about how the start was and then, yeah, how the whole channel crossing went for you. Totally. Yeah. The start of the race is always difficult since you start just below the island.

Time to. Generate as big as they'll be in the middle of the channel yet. And the wind at your back definitely helps. It's, it makes it like much easier than a completely flat water pop up. But the hardest part is you're able to grind up and get going. And that's something I practice a lot, especially like in flat water stuff, but just staying up for that time until you actually get into the bumps that you're able to relax and regain some energy is definitely the difficult part.

So my focus on the start was just getting up, getting going and then keeping my heart rate as low as possible and trying to ride as efficiently as possible to not. Burn so much energy. So about how long did it take the pumping in the beginning where you just couldn't even rest at all, like until you reach some bumps where you could just take a little breather, you can take like tiny rest.

Cause there was like a little bit of motion, especially like with all the boats going around. Some of it was bad. Some of it, you had to pump through, but then some of it, you could use to, to ride a little bit, I ended up. On the south side of the line at the start. So the boats actually cut across me really quickly, which was bad because it was right at the start and I hadn't gotten on a glide yet.

But then I got to the other side of this boat wake and got a tiny bit of rest, which actually might've helped me a little bit. It didn't last very long. It was probably a few minutes before any good rest and then several more until you were like. You could actually ride a bump for a bit. Yeah.

Yeah. But my friend Eli was saying he had a couple times where boats went like right in front of him and I think that's something that they need to educate the escort captains on that when we just can't go through a boat wake when it's all turned up. It's not, we just, the foil doesn't work in that, yeah, it makes it super difficult to divide when those currents are moving in the water off the prop. Yeah, it's definitely tough. I'm sure next year we'll have it all figured out, because... It's tough starting the wing and the sub at the exact same time as well. Yeah, there's... Yeah. I guess there's talk of doing the foiling on a different day than the paddling.

What do you think of that? Do you think that would be a good way to do it? Yeah, I think that could be awesome. And I'm sure even if they do that, there'll be separate starts for the wing and foil, or maybe the boats will start further out for the wing since they have to like... If they let, if the wingboats let the going to catch up with how fast the wings are going, especially like this year was pretty light winds and which is easier for the boats to drive in and makes the rider slower.

But if it's strong, it's going to be even more difficult. So I think I think a separate day in general could be awesome. It would. I think give them more customizability for the race course and just start further on the wind. And then there's maybe talk of finishing down at like Waikiki area.

So you have bumps all the way to the finish. And then it's still a cool, like finishing the run that all the guys do over there. And I think it could be nice for like their Just managing everyone in the water. It won't be so many people on one day which is always good for safety as well.

Yeah. And then, we were talking about do we really, does every foiler really need an escort boat? Cause it's not like you have to switch out hydration packs or whatever. It's, usually. You don't have that much interaction with your boat. It's for safety, but everyone also had the satellite tracker and whatever.

So if they had enough safety boats, maybe not every foiler needs to have their own escort boat. I feel like that's overkill. What do you think about that? I don't think any of the foilers or especially the ones that were going fast had any interaction at all with their boats unless something went wrong, like you said.

And I heard that a couple of spoilers, the boats didn't even find them, like they basically went across the whole channel without their escort boat. Oh man. Yeah, I think there were a couple of guys that they didn't find them until they were coming in at the finish. That's crazy. It's tough with so many people out there.

Yeah. Yeah. And then you said you... Yeah, pretty good positioning at the end, like you were like around fifth place or something like that coming towards the China walls, Portlock, and then what happened like that. That last part is always so challenging. So how did that go for you? Yeah, I was coming in and I was like, I'd saved enough energy coming into the end that I'm like, okay, I want to save a good amount for the finish here because you always know how tough it is, especially when the swell is small, you're just going to have to pump quite a bit.

And I tried coming in. I ended up just on the back of a swell along the wall where the wave breaks. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to make it over this thing. I should just try and pull off, catch another wave. And then when I tried to pull off on the one behind me, it just wasn't breaking. So I ended up going over to the other boil next to it and did catch a wave.

And then, but it was too big and I fell on it. And just, yeah, just messed around, wasted tons of time doing it. Was it, sorry, this was at China Walls or further down? China Walls, okay. Yeah, right after I finished, me and my mom and dad went back out on our boat and then was just watching him come in. And, oh, it was such a bummer because he was doing so well and like up with, like up ahead of Kai and Mateo, I think.

Mateo was like next to me coming in. Yeah, I think he was running like fourth or fifth. Was just in between two waves coming around, like right at China wall and then came down and then there, there just weren't many ways to catch. So it was, yeah, it was a moment. Yeah. There wasn't that much energy.

There wasn't many waves coming through that day. And then and then where did you just paddle straight towards the finish from there? Or what was your strategy after that? Were you trying to catch another bump or were you prone paddling the whole way? Or what, how did it go after that?

I decided to wait and catch a bump just because I, there was enough swell that I figured something would come and I did get, I got one first one and then just couldn't hold on to it when I first caught it. And that would have been like good. I wouldn't have lost that much time if I got on that one, but then I had to wait for another one, got on that.

And I think it might have actually been faster if I just paddled in, but. I guess I saved a little bit of energy and then I ended up catching another wave at the next reef inside and pumping as far as I could on that. And then, yeah, just paddling all the way in. Yeah. And then just prone paddling or did you paddle on standing up or both?

I prone paddled most of the way. I know a bunch of people were actually like doing the knee paddle thing which might've been faster, but I don't know if it was. For me personally, I felt like I could grind pretty well laying down. And then once I got close to the finish where it wasn't as windy, I stood up and paddled in.

Yeah, because standing up or kneeling also has more you have more surface area and it's a really strong offshore wind there. So yeah, it's but yeah, it's funny how that the last part is a little bit anticlimactic where it turns into a paddle race, right? But yeah, it's definitely challenging.

A lot. Yeah, a lot can change in that last, not even a mile, really, I think even for first place, I think Oscar was actually the first one to the point. And then James was a little behind and even came down, but luckily got back up on a wave just at China wall and then was able to pump like the connection was really good.

And he was he's really good at pumping as well. So he's able to like pump further in. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I think he caught a wave further in. He like, he pumped out to like pillars. Yeah, and then caught a wave there and then was able to connect it all the way over the reef and into the channel. So that's how you want it.

So yeah. Cool. Yeah. So that so that was a bunch of exciting races and in a couple of weeks. Yeah. And what's next? Are did you guys know we're doing a wing full race here on Oahu on August 26th? That's like the, we're calling it the Hawaii wing full state championship. So I don't know if you guys can come to that, but that would be.

Another somewhere else plan, but if not, yeah, we're certainly considering it because that could be super fun. You should come over for that Yeah, that'd be cool to have you guys But any do you have any other races planned or doing other competition stuff currently? I think you were considering going.

Yeah, there's a kind of wing wave event in Morocco that I think I'm gonna go do and then Yeah, after that, not much. Yeah, otherwise we're considering other downwind races if they happen, but yeah, we'll see what comes. Yeah, right on. When is that race in, or the wave event in Morocco, when is that?

I think it's end of September. Okay. So if you could design your own competition what would you include? Would it be like racing and freestyle or wave riding or yeah. What would, or does it, would it combine different? Like standup foiling and wing foiling, or what would you like what would be like your ideal race?

If you could pick and choose. Everything would be pretty fun. Definitely a downwind subfoil section and then maybe downwind wing and then maybe some surf foiling and wing freestyle wing and waves. Just everything would be super cool. So like almost like four different division four different competitions and then have a combined score for every, everything.

That would be cool. Yeah. Thanks. I'd be crazy. Yeah, that'd be super fun. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We're thinking about maybe trying to put something like that together for Oahu. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about, about your equipment. So after you, after your sponsorship with Slingshot Energy you're both writing for Duotone Fanatic now, or yeah.

So how did that come about and how's that going? We were just talking to those guys and it. It ended up working out really well because their design team is based on MAUI, which makes it really easy for us to work with them for testing and designing and everything like that. It's really nice to be able to like, meet with people and actually go and ride together sky Solbeck, who's done a lot of the wing boards, and then Ken Winter, who does all the wings, pretty much. They live super close to us, so it makes it really easy. And yeah, it's been awesome working with them on everything. Yeah. And I interviewed Ken and Alan Cadiz and I guess they, they go together on like upwind and downwind to test the wings and see which wing is faster going upwind, which wing is faster going downwind and things like that.

Do you guys go out with them too, or do you, are you part of that kind of the testing crew for the wings? Absolutely. We do a bit of that with them. And then I think a lot of reason why we came in was to test the wings for kind of freestyle and jumping too. Because I guess they don't do that a lot.

Yeah. Yeah, they don't like I know I don't get this doesn't jump at all that's and I think that's pretty smart because yeah for me too like I like to jump but it seems like I always get hurt when I jump that's how I end up getting hurt so I try to avoid it too lately but Yeah.

So what have you guys had any serious injuries? I would, I guess that the infection doesn't really count as a foiling injury, but like what kind of injuries have you had from foiling or water sports? I've had a couple pretty bad, like knee injuries. One a couple of years ago, we were towing and then.

I like fell with one of my feet in the straps and got a little rolled and just twisted my knee super weird. I think I'm, I think I strained my MCL. So that was, I was out of the water for two or three months. And then another time, I think it was the first time I was trying front flips winging. I just landed one super weird and tweaked my knee again.

And then was out the water for another couple months after that. So actually the front flip the forward loop. If we can't, let's is there like a good video that you can maybe talk about that a little bit? Jeffrey will have a lot more video. I think you posted the one where you hurt yourself.

Oh, yeah, I think yeah, it shouldn't be too far down. Maybe Pass this a little further Did you post it? Yeah. Okay. I think yeah the one in the center at the bottom. No, yeah this one Oh, yeah, that's the one I heard myself on. Okay first time trying. Oh, that was your first attempt Yeah. Oh, yeah. It looks like a kind of a rough landing.

So what happened, your knees got discontinued, got tweaked forward or something like that? My front knee, I think I just jammed it super hard into the board and then just tweaked it weird. Okay. So that's what, that's, yeah, I guess for somebody trying it, they don't want to visualize it where you hurt yourself, right?

So let's I. Okay. So do you have a one that you can, is this a forward loop? I think you should go to Jeffrey's page. He's got a lot. Yeah, tell us which one was a good video that you, where you can talk about the doing. Probably. Yeah. A little up. Oh, wait. Yeah. Back a little. The one at the bottom of the center.

That one's actually, yeah, that one's good. This one? Yep. I think the one before might be the first one I posted. Okay. And it was, I don't think like when I was doing this one, I don't think anyone was doing it this style. Like a lot of guys we're doing very like forward loop style ones which were good, but that's when you get like those super hard landings, which can be really tough on the knees and on it.

Like when I was first trying this, I didn't actually like. The rotation is much harder for landing than the backflip, because when you come around the backflip, the board's moving forward, so it's very easy to plane out and get right back on foil. But with the forward, you really have to like, slow yourself down in the air so you have a soft landing.

So I was pretty happy when this kind of all worked and it all made sense. I actually to learn this one, I wasn't completely blind. Wyatt Miller, who's this really good wind surfer was doing basically forwards on a wing. And I like watched his videos and saw his body movement and saw what like I could adjust a little bit.

And yeah, then it all worked out, which was nice. Did you guys ever windsurf? Or before, before starting wing foiling? I can, but I Not a single Not like a single jump windsurfing Is that like how you tuck in on this one it looks A lot like windsurfing like a forward forward loop and wing foiling Like that tucked in Yeah, totally.

I'd say the biggest difference is I'm looking like under my right shoulder instead of back up and over it. But they're very similar for sure. Yeah. So yeah. So give us some pointers on or is there another video we can play here? Yeah, near the top there should be some good ones. Okay. Let's look further up.

At the very top, I've been posting lots of downward stuff. That one on the right, right there. Yeah. Perfect. Okay. So there's, oh yeah, that's a high one. Oh, over rotated. Yeah. So talk, give us some pointers on how to do this move. Totally. Yeah. So the biggest thing I look for is a decent gust.

And that's like for the day you want to make sure when you're in the air, you're not going to hit a hole in the wind and lose power. Cause that's The sketchiest thing and the sketchiest thing is like committing to that forward rotation, right? So as long as you get up and have the power I find it's very consistent to get around.

And yeah, once you get over, it's not it doesn't feel dangerous anymore. Like you can land on your stomach or back even, but the foil under you or to the side of you and it's fine. So yeah, I go, I focus on finding a decent gust. Try and get a good amount of height.

It's the same as the backflip, where if you give yourself a little more time to come around, you're generally going to have it's generally going to be easier to actually make it. And then the biggest thing is I, so I jumped, get in the air, like a, just a big straighter. But then as I'm coming up, I tuck my legs up under me and keep the board pretty like flat.

And then I wouldn't say flat, but like foil facing down. And then once you're at the apex, it's really all about pointing the nose of the wing, just straight down and holding your whole body, like compact and together and strong and then obviously coming out of it, once you feel like you're halfway through the rotation, then you start to extend your legs, trying to reach out and feel for the water on your landing because with front flips you're blind when you're coming in.

Like you don't have the, when you're doing a back flip, you can. Look up and you actually get to see how far you are from the water when you're coming into touch. But on front flips, it's like mostly all about feel. So the more you can reach your legs out and feel that water, the like easier time you're going to have.

Absorbing the impact of the landing.

So I guess, yeah, like for tricks in general it's always good to use like the smallest wing possible handling possible, right? It seems having a smaller wing but at the, it's obviously you don't want to be overpowered and stuff, but you're saying like, yeah, use it basically use a small wing, wait for a good gust.

And then. But yeah, I guess this is saying it's you don't want to be like probably overpowered with a wing that's going to be too big or whatever. And yeah, yeah, the bigger wings just make it more like you more technical, I'd say, like your technique has to be a little more on point because otherwise it'll pull you or throw you in a weird direction that you weren't expecting.

And with the smaller wings, you just get a bit more of that control which definitely makes it easier to learn. Okay. Cool. Yeah, and then I guess, and also you don't really have that issue where you get back winded, like in the back loop, like if you get the wing in the wrong position, it's not like you're going to get back winded or whatever, but what are some of the potential mistakes or things to avoid when you're doing it?

Yeah. It's a funny thing. Cause a lot of. A lot of people that do front flips are they do end up shutting the power off and going much more like over the front and then you can have points where it can potentially backwing but I like to try and keep the power in it just so I don't have that problem.

But yeah, the definite, what are the things that I'd say people struggle with the most? I think a big thing is just keeping your legs really connected to your upper body because a lot of times, especially when I was learning them, I would go with the wing and then just leave my legs and the board a bit behind and then just get stretched out during the rotation.

Yeah, it's really easy to leave the board and foil behind because there's quite a bit of even though the stuff is super high performance and super lightweight, there still is like volume and weight with everything that's on your feet there. So being like focusing on, you get that jump and you're focusing on the height, really just sucking your feet into your or just your knees up and your knees to your chest basically.

And it's not even that much. It's just enough so that you have a good connection. Finn was saying and accusing it all tucked in a little bit, keeping your legs close to your body. The other thing I do is same with backflips. I make sure to not turn too much up into the wind when I'm doing it.

And I think that very, like that allows me to keep the power in the wing a lot easier. And it really makes it so that when you're up in the air and you go to point the wing down, that it really like. throws you around and gives you that rotation because it's easy to come up and Force yourself over, but it doesn't throw you around the same way that it does when you're able to turn off the wind a little bit and really open up that wing to the wind and have it throw you around.

Yeah, but it seems like also like you always pop up and try to get some height before you throw yourself forward, right? Like you don't want to just instantly throw yourself forward as soon as you come off the water, right? Totally. Especially for front flips, it's a lot easier to get a high jump than for back flips.

Because of the way you're holding the wing and the rotation of it. So I always like focus, I jump and then pause for a second and think okay, I want to keep going up here. And then when I feel that I'm high enough for the rotation, then I'll commit to the point in the window and talking and going for it.

Yeah. So how about some tips for landing? Not just and when you're doing flips, but just in general, what's, what are some tips for make sticking a landing and making the landing. Totally. Yeah. And in general, foiling is actually really nice for landing because you get.

Yeah, the front wing and tail wing extended off that mass. So you get like a nice kind of cushion when you're coming in, as opposed to just straight windsurfing, you land so much harder without the foil. Breaking your fall on the water for basically any foil trick. The most important thing is to reach out as you're coming in and you don't want to reach out to the point where you're overextending your knees because then you could hurt them in another way, but you want to reach out enough just so you get elongated when you're coming in. And then as soon as you feel that water coming up, then you want to start compressing and compress as much as you can coming in, using the wing to support your weight as much as possible. That's especially with the front flips. That's one thing I try and work on is.

Making sure I have power as I'm coming down to because it's really easy to jump and do a trick and then not have the wing like supporting you as you're coming down. So you just, you land really hard. So having like doing the rotation, then catching the wind again, as once you're right side up makes the landing so much softer.

Yeah, that makes sense. And then do you like on this jump, you're coming in usually tail first, right? With the foil. Is that, do you feel like that makes the landing softer if you coming in with your tail first? Absolutely. Touching the tail wing first and then the front wing gives it a nice transition when you're landing.

Yeah. I've seen other, some guys sometimes like pointing the nose down, doing like a nose down landing, but yeah, I don't know, it seems like breaking the surface tension with the tail, it's a little bit easier than with the, you definitely don't want to land flat, cause then that can be hard impact, right? Oh, yeah. Given it a bit of angle really yeah. Breaks the surface tension. Like you said, it makes it much more comfortable. Yeah, cool. So talk a little bit about what you guys do when you're when you're not on the water, like what, what are some, do you do any other things like cross training or what do you do for fun and what are your plans and yeah, talk a little bit.

We do quite a bit of training, especially for the races that were coming up. Like. All of that is, it's so much endurance and strength, for connecting the bumps. So we do a lot of, gym workouts, running, all stuff like that. And spend a lot of time surfing, but that's also in the water. Yeah.

Yeah. Regular surfing without a foil or both? Yeah, mostly regular. Both. Totally, yeah. It's tough it's, we're really lucky, here just, you have so many options of stuff to do in the water that you're pretty much there's always something to do. If you're trying, is it a little surf surfing way of getting barreled?

Yeah, it's funny on Maui. Like it's rare to have conditions like that, but we'll add that spot per se. But yeah, we We had a pretty fun winner. It was nice. Yeah, so cool. And here's, A little bit, Finn won the There was trials to get, qualify for the Pan Am Games for 2023. So the picture's just a little lower of Finn in the red jersey.

That's a subsurfing competition. Oh, yeah. We both made the final in and then he won. Which is pretty crazy. Awesome. Surf surfing as well as one of your disciplines, huh? Oh, and then you started. I hadn't really done it in a couple years and then just decided to go to that event. But I think because we've been surfing a fair bit, it came back pretty quick.

Yeah, the surfing helps a lot. Like even surfing helps foiling technique a lot. I feel like it makes it much easier to, know how to transition your weight for certain turns and certain moves. And everything helps everything. I think the foiling strength helps. You're surfing and the surfing helps your foiling and yeah, it's all good.

Yeah. So do you have a favorite sport that you like to do or is it just depending on the conditions, like you just choose your weapon and depending on the conditions or how does that work? I think that's my favorite thing is just there's so many things to choose from. So whenever, whatever the conditions are, you can do something and have fun.

I think especially being on Maui, you need to like, you need to have those options because it's not like the. You're not going to get glassy surfing conditions all the time, and you're definitely not going to get you get strong wind all the time, but there's so many times where it's not as well.

So being able to have the option and go from surf oiling to to winging or anything like that is, is great. So do you think being like being brothers, does that help you like competitively, like where you egg each other on and like watch. Watch the other, your brother and they're doing something.

So you're going to do this, try to copy them or try to keep up with each other. Is that helped you be more competitive? You think? I think it's definitely an advantage. Like always having someone to go with, it was really nice. And then also, like you were saying, you want to, if you want to practice as much as you can.

So having two people out there figuring stuff out and trying, it makes it like, makes it really easy and nice. Yeah, and then when you both compete in the same competition, is it like on purpose that you're trying to do different divisions so you're not competing against each other or do you like competing against each other or yeah, how does that work?

Yeah, I like competing against each other, but I think for all these races, it was just fun to. Do the separate divisions and try to do well in each of them. And then if we could have done both of both, if I could have winged in to him and also done the stuff, like we, we both would have been in both divisions and would have been like totally fine competing against each other.

Vin also is super fast in the SUP oil. He finished second in the gorge race when he was there with, half the community was there and they're all super fast. Yeah. And so he is like as fast as me and I'm as fast as him winging I'd say so. , it'd be like, yeah, it'd be, honestly, we just wish we could do everything.

It'd be fun. Just work out. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So do you have any kind of coaching? Do you have somebody who coaches you or gives you like some. pointers or tips you were mentioning earlier. Kylenny has his personal coach and looking at your infection and stuff. But do you have any, anything that you do like with more like kind of professional sports coach or something like that?

Yeah, it's tough because for foiling, it's also new, and with everything growing, it's not like there's tons of people out there that have. Tons of experience, like specifically in the foil stuff. So for that we don't really have a coach at all. We just work together to figure stuff out, maybe coaches would be like for wing racing, there's mentors from because they win surf race and everything like that. Like I know Alan and Ken have tons of knowledge and that we definitely talk to him about stuff like that. And surfing we get to when we're doing Canadian surf team stuff.

This guy, Shannon Brown, who's amazing to work with. But yeah, in terms of and then we do some gym stuff. There's a, the place deep relief up here, but that's more it's less coaching and more just like workout coaching. How to do the moves correctly without hurting yourself and stuff like that.

So do you focus more on strength training or cardio or both, or what do you do at the gym? Just everything really a lot of, and then working on a lot of kind of small, the smaller muscle groups that you really use a lot kind of surfing and foiling. Yeah, they're really good up there, like focusing on yeah, just working on all the muscles that you don't think you use that much.

But when it comes to all these water sports, there's so many weird situations that you get in that those supporting muscles actually play a huge role for everything like that. Yeah. Yeah, and then also your shoulder, like things like your shoulder rotator cuff muscles and things like that, where that can prevent injury too, if you strengthen those certain muscles and yeah, I guess your knees too and everything, it's important.

And also it's to stay limber and stretch and all that kind of stuff. What about do you watch your nutrition and try to get enough sleep or are you just like. Teenagers that party all night and then go show up the next morning to do a race. Yeah, we definitely just trying to eat healthy, good food and then sleep and sleep a lot.

Yeah we're not like super specific on, specific foods or stuff like that, but we make sure to, that it's at least just healthy that we're eating. And yeah. Definitely not careless with it. Yeah. We're very much thoughtful about it. Yeah. And then what about like you guys, what are your plans for the future?

Are you just going to be professional athletes or do you have any other interests or are you doing any studies or interested in going to college? Or what's your plans? We just started doing all the board designs for fanatic and now we did. We were working with Sky on the new Downwinder boards, and then now this year we're working on all the new wing boards, and then which are going to come out for the next ones.

Yeah, we're basically just seeing how this goes so far and seeing how far we can how far we can go with it and it's been good so far. And yeah, I'm open to stuff, but yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah, I was really impressed by came to wild. He does a lot of computer, computer work and designing foils and boards and all that kind of stuff.

So do you work with Sky on the design or do you actually work the shaping software yourself? Or have you learned how to work with Sky a bunch? And then now we're doing more of the design stuff on our own. Yeah. And you, what do you use shape 3d or what do you program to use?

It's shape 3d and then a little bit of Rhino, but most people use shape 3d. So that's what we've been mostly. . Yeah. And then have you done any wing designing too? Or just work with Ken on the wings or that seems to be even more complex than designing a board. Yeah. Yeah. The boards are definitely easier compared to the foils and the and the wings.

And we've learned a bit about it, but we're not at the point where we're actually doing any of the design stuff. , yeah. Yeah. Yeah, obviously Ken's pretty pretty into that and making all these different prototypes to test. And yeah, it's it's interesting on a wing.

Like you change one little thing and it makes it work or not work. And you don't even really know until you try it. And so if you change like four things, you don't really know which thing made the difference. So it's you have to be very deliberate and test it. Yeah, it's a super specific process and especially working with the wings is a soft materials when it comes out. So it's sometimes, you try and put one thing in, but it doesn't come out exactly how you thought or how even the file said to how it comes. So it's very, it's a lot of yeah, just working, to like that experience that Ken has means so much when it comes to stuff like that, because he can, you can figure out why exactly stuff's happening, even if, it's not exactly what was.

Supposed to be built or anything like that. So it looks like, I think windsurfing is going to be an Olympic sport, windsurf racing if wing foil racing becomes a sport, would you be interested in trying to be in the Olympics? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be cool to have that in the Olympics. I think that might happen actually soon from what I hear from the the racing stuff be amazing.

I think, yeah, it's such a fun type of racing and it it's pretty accessible winging especially So many people that I know when it comes to getting into learning one of the water sports, for them, winging is actually the easiest out of, windsurfing or kiting or anything like that. Even compared to surf foiling, like a lot of people have their first foil experience with the wing, which is pretty, pretty crazy that it's able to teach people so well.

And it's nice that it's so intuitive, which hopefully, yeah, will make it popular and so we can get into those events. Yeah. It's pretty amazing how fast the wing foiling has grown from not existing to now it seems like it's already made a lot of progress. Is there like a dark side to being addicted to foiling and yeah, like just, is there.

I guess for you guys, that's how you make a living too. But is there like a downside to like, where you miss things because you're out on the water or forget something because you're like, is there any thing that you would say is a downside of being much, much less formatted than a lot of other stuff.

Cause you're very dependent on conditions and stuff like that. Especially if you're like doing a competition or something, it's not all there's so many factors that aren't in your control. I was like with other sports, where it's the same gymnastics set up every time or the same skate ramp every time.

So the ocean always is like that, but I think that's why a lot of people love it too. It's like always unique and interesting. So like every session, yeah, every session is its own and it's fun. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. No, no downsides. Yeah, no downsides. Okay. And then I was gonna ask you like Basically when you they always say if you make your passion into your livelihood, then you never have to work.

But is there is there like an aspect to it that, be working basically as a professional athlete and doing it to make a living too, does that take away from the fun part of it? Does it make it more like work or do you guys just always love it? Sometimes you can take it a bit too seriously, but.

You're always you want to work hard and but also keep it fun and just Have a good balance there. Yeah, I think it totally can if you end up having to work super hard on one point and it maybe it gets a Monotonous, but I think the nice thing about foiling especially is like there's all the different parts of it, which keep it very interesting there's circling and downwind and actually even with for downwind foiling specifically i'd say I was You know, not as motivated, maybe six months ago before all these races came through as I had been before, just because I had done it a lot, but after so many, like more fast people came in, the races were super competitive.

I found myself getting like much, much more passionate about it than I used to be like, it was yeah, reignited and wanted to do really well after that. So it like, it can happen, but I think. Just with how healthy the sport is right now and how many people are into it. It's it's going to take a while for it to get like that.

Okay good. So is there, are there any people that you want to thank for getting you to, to where you are today? Yeah, like who, who supported you over the years? We can think of our parents, first of all. Done everything for us pretty much and yeah, we wouldn't be able to be doing any of this without them So yeah, they've been super supportive.

Especially our dad. He's so into winging out himself, which is pretty funny he absolutely loves it. I think he's gone right now. Yeah to thank all our sponsors that we had before all the people we worked with even from alex aguerra to so like Peter Letter and then Tony , Slingshot and all the people there.

Keith Debo a lot. Keith. He a lot the boards. Keith. Yeah. Yeah. And then now with with Duotone, with Ken and Sky and then, yeah. Yeah. We've been very lucky. Like everyone that we've worked with has, is just amazing, , those are all Yeah. People that are still making stuff and still doing really well and, who do you think would be a good good one to interview next on my show here about foiling and wing foiling? That's a good question. I know some of the new kids coming up in Downwind are really cool. Like we just had Mala'e and Brady Hurley over here. They spent a lot of time on the North Shore on Oahu and they're two super passionate, like super fun kids that yeah, that are into it.

They're, yeah, they're great. They'd be super fun to have on. Yeah. And then I'm not too sure everyone you've had in the past, but maybe Keith or something. And yeah, I think. Oh yeah. Cool. Yeah. And you've had Penn on the show. Yeah, I did. It took me a long time to get him. He's hard to get out of his shell, but yeah, it's finally got him on the show and he was great actually.

It's super fun to talk to. Cool. All right. So any, anything else any message you want to send out there to the foil world, like anything else you want to say or mention or talk about? I think just to keep it fun and always to try new things, whether it's. If you haven't downwinded before to go try downwinding or if you don't, if you think you wouldn't like winging, but just to try everything and keep an open mind.

Yeah, I'll say too especially with the the races going on in Hawaii the past few months, the community that has, even before that, the community that's evolved around even each specific aspect of foiling, like there's a super strong wing community. There's a super strong surf foil community.

I'm sure that over on Oahu. And there's a super strong downwind community here and just seeing everyone's, passion for it is incredible. Everyone's super friendly. If you get into the sport, it's really hard not to make friends, when you're out there doing it. And I'm sure it's the same thing all over the world with every FOIL.

community that's out there. So yeah, maybe another good guy to have on the show would be Andrew Gibbons. If you haven't had him on, he just, he like just came up this year doing all the downwinders and he was so fast and he's been here for a couple of months, like all summer and working really hard too.

It's been cool to see. Cool. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really cool that you you guys are involved in all the different disciplines. Sometimes I think people get too narrow minded about just one doing one discipline and then everything else is crap or whatever.

That's their attitude. And yeah, it's good to keep an open mind and yeah try all the different ways of enjoying it, plus you have more days you can go out, right? You can do something else. So yeah, that's a good point. And yeah, I think just because everyone's having so much fun that it's easy to share that stoke with others.

And just keeping it friendly. And also, I guess foiling is not Yeah, it's not as like sometimes when you're surfing, it gets pretty competitive or it's almost like playing chess to be at the right spot and to catch the wave and get the right, get, be at the point or whatever.

So boiling is a lot more Oh yeah, there's room for another guy. Or, it's not as it's not as people don't get as aggro about it. Yeah. That's the best part downwinding is everyone's just happy to see everyone else out there. Yeah, the more the better really. Yeah, if you pull up the surf and there's 50 people out, you're going to be pretty bummed.

But if you're, if it's that scenario for a downwind or you're stoked. Yeah. You're like, Oh, if there's 300 people at Malico Gulch and it's yeah, let's go. Yeah. No, that's cool. It definitely makes it easier. Thanks so much for your time, guys. I really appreciate you coming on the show and then maybe we can catch up again in a year or two and see what you guys are up to then.

Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. All right. Good luck. I'm definitely going to keep following you guys, but see what you guys are up to. Oh, by the way I guess the best way to follow you guys is on Instagram probably or So just tell us how can people find you? What's your Instagram handle?

I'm at fin underscore spencer and i'm jeffrey underscore spencer. That's not very original. I'm, just kidding Yeah. It's funny how sometimes people are like, Oh, you're so and so the Instagram handle, right? You're full of fever right now. It's like kind of funny. But yeah, you guys are just your names with underscores in between.

Very easy to remember. Okay. Nobody was, it was taken. So what was taken? Sorry. Oh, the username with no underscore. Oh, I see. Okay. All right. Yeah. Thanks again so much. Have a great rest of your day. You're going to get in the water today. You think probably. I think, yeah, with the fires. Oh, not Finn, because you're still healing up, right?

Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I've been trying to get over it. I might have a friend that I might go help with setting up a shelter for for the fire stuff, or people, displaced from the fire. Might do that as well. Oh, good. Yeah, good. Yeah, definitely. I was actually even thinking about heading over there myself, but then I don't know how.

There's probably no, no transportation and all that kind of stuff. How would it help out? But anyway, but so actually, Finn, I was going to ask you since you can't get on the water what do you do to You. Stay occupied or keep your, yeah what do you do to stay happy? But been working on a lot of boards recently to just new prototype ones, so that's been keeping me busy, luckily, and trying to keep, stay sane, and then, yeah.

What kind of these board designers, like your biggest challenge is like downwind foiling standup foiling or wing foiling, or what kind of boards are you working on? Working on all of those pretty much the biggest challenge ones were the downwind boards when we started working on them last year.

And then there's just so much to learn when, cause it was all pretty new with Dave coming out with those longer Barracuda boards. And then he'd come up with those and we still went through the whole process of we thought we. Cause we tried so much stuff and yeah, it just ended up like, yeah, I don't know, learning a lot through all that.

Yeah. So that was definitely a challenge, but also a really cool learning process and just to get to the point where we got to and learn. Yeah. I learned a lot. So what's something that's surprising, like on, on board shape that surprised you or something you learned from making a mistake or something like that?

Is there any, anything you can share like that design wise? Yeah. I think there's a lot just. Just how many aspects of it there are that like just the outline and then the bottom shape and the rails and there, yeah, it's like everything's, yeah, everything's super important you can make, yeah, like you're saying a few changes and it's a completely different board, definitely still not as complicated as the foils or wings.

Yeah, most of it's at this point, it's very subtle stuff, like you change the rocker a little bit and it just completely stalls the nose or it makes it ride super well. So A lot of stuff like that. Things like that. So in terms of volume, like what what kind of, like on a downwind board, what do you ride?

Like how many liters, like compared to your body weight? Like how do you gauge the volume of your boards? We're riding around like 80 or 85 liters. And I think I weigh like 140, 145 and Jeffrey's around 150 maybe. So you're quite a bit, have extra volume basically in the boards more than you need to float, right?

Yeah, we, I could probably float like on a 70 liter. Yeah, I think my subsurf board, which I it's at the top of the water for me is around 63 liters. So it's nice. It's nice to have that bit that a fair bit extra volume. Just for getting going. That's about like maybe 30% more volume than you need to float.

Basically, something like that, maybe. Probably, yeah. Honestly, it comes around the small side for our weight still compared to what everyone else is riding. And then what about length and width? What do you like to use? I think we're like, we have a couple of different boards. We have some we're in like a 6'4 to 6'10 range just for what we're riding.

And the around 19 wide 19 to 20 wide. And what about the Molokai race? What length board were you on? Basically that it was actually I wrote a longer one for that race. I wrote a seven. Six. Six? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I think most guys wear on seven, six or even longer, right? It's because of the start and the finish.

Once you're up, the shorter stuff's nice, but getting going, that length helps so much. And then obviously paddling all the way in, it's a little easier on the longer one. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Good. That's good. Good feedback. Good information. All right. I'll let you go.

Have a great rest of your day guys. And yeah, take care. Talk to you later. Yeah. All right. Thanks so much for watching another episode of the blue planet show. All the way to the end. You're one of the 5% of the people who start the video and finish it all the way to the end. I know some of you also listened to it as a podcast and probably more than 5% listened to the whole thing.

So I do appreciate everyone that listens or watches the show. Hope to see you again soon. Stay stoked. Maybe I'll see you at the, Hawaii wing full championship race on August 26. We're still planning to hold that. So hopefully we'll get some wind and so on. And we'll make it a fun party afterwards as well.

So hopefully we'll get a good turnout and make that into an annual event. So thanks again, everyone for watching. See you on the water. Aloha.