The Kiteboarder Magazine Vol. 11, No. 2 by The Kiteboarder Magazine

VOL. 11 NO.2 ULTIMATE FIELD TRIP GENTLEMAN FARMER

THE GREEN ROOM LIVING THE DREAM

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TO M

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T RUE

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Marina Chang, Publisher marina@thekiteboarder.com Brendan Richards, Editor brendan@thekiteboarder.com

ALL NEW BOARD RANGE

Shana Gorondy Art Director Alexis Rovira Editor At Large Gary Martin Technical Editor Amy Robb Online Media Manager amy@thekiteboarder.com Paul Lang Senior Contributor/Photographer EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS Neil Hutchinson, Stefan Ruether, Rick Iossi, Toby Brauer, Matt Sexton, Kevin “Irie Dog” Murray, Kinsley ThomasWong, James Brown, Ginette Buffone, Maui Mike, Members of the Central Coast/Santa Barbara CKA, Evan Mavridoglou

CONTRIBUTORS Capo Rettig, Jason Wolcott, Kari Schibevaag, Eric Rienstra

PHOTOGRAPHY Jason Wolcott/Liquid Eye/LEWHS.com, Lukas Prudky, World Class Kiteboard Academy, Toby Bromwich/PKRA, FunTrips-DR.com, Agile LeVin, Mike Hitelman, Rick Iossi, Colleen Carroll, Helen Trotman, Peggy Barnett, Monika Kramlik, Kallie Walker, Maui Maka Photography, Bob Lima, Ydwer van der Heide, Ian Alldredge, Patrick Rebstock, Christian Black, Vincent Bergeron, Scott Semon, Greg Hinsdale, Garth Freeman, Andrew Miller, Lisa Jefferson, Erik Skjelmose, Lina Gvazdauskaite, Laurent Klein, Matthew Arsenault, Tom Leeman, Steve McCormick, AXIS Kiteboarding, Omar Nazif Thanks to all editorial and photography contributors for supporting this magazine!

VISIT US ON: www.thekiteboarder.com www.thekiteboarderschool.com www.twitter.com/the_kiteboarder www.facebook.com/thekiteboardermagazine

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Have you got an idea for an article you would like to see in The Kiteboarder Magazine? Send your submission to editor@thekiteboarder.com

ADMINISTRATIVE/ADVERTISING OFFICE

SUBSCRIPTIONS

CONTENTS FEATURES:

12 THE ULTIMATE FIELD TRIP

48 SAO VICENTE

22 THE GENTLEMAN FARMER

58 LIVING THE TDZ DREAM

32 THE GREEN ROOM

Julien Fillion scores a long day of kiting in the winter winds of Maui. The day got much longer for Julien’s favorite Austrian photographer after kicking a sea urchin so hard it penetrated his swim fins. After being dragged to shore and a quick trip to a pharmacy, Lukas spent the next day tweezing endless spines out of his swollen ankle. Photo Lukas Prudky

A last minute decision is often the best kind. Patri McLaughlin was set to board a plane back to Maui when he convinced photographer Jason Wolcott to chase one last swell in the Indian Ocean. Flip to page 32 to check out Wolcott’s photo essay on kiting in the green room. Photo Jason Wolcott / Liquideye

VOL. 11 NO.2 ULTIMATE FIELD TRIP GENTLEMAN FARMER

THE GREEN ROOM LIVING THE DREAM

$9.99US

DEPARTMENTS: 10 FROM THE EDITOR

66 EXPOSED

74 VIEWPOINT

18 THE SCENE

70 WISH LIST

76 ROOTS

44 PROFILED

72 15 MINUTES

78 PARTING SHOT 9

FROM THE EDITOR These are exciting times in the sport of kiteboarding. If this is news to you, don’t sweat it. Had I not signed on as editor of this magazine, I would have thought it was ho-hum business as usual too. Prior to the last issue, I had lived in a small Californian kitesurfing town with my head buried in the daily grind of working and kiting. The balancing act between the two is a burden we all know and one I’ve personally managed more or less for 13 years. During this time kiting has been the major focus in my life, yet it’s my new responsibilities here at the mag that have encouraged me to explore the broader context of kiting and embrace all aspects of our sport; even those things that I have never done and might be less inclined to try, like racing foilboards, grinding rails or hitting kickers.

Liquid Force’s Gary Siskar is throwing shakas while navigating a precarious balancing act of his own. Photo Gregg Gnecco

If anything, I’ve learned that kiteboarding is changing at an unprecedented rate, not with large bow kite style innovations, but in many small yet meaningful ways. We are seeing new kiteboard shapes and construction, production foilboards, and improvements in kite design, most recently in lightweight kites with single to no strut configurations. We live in a world where the digital news cycle is now instantaneous. Athletes have freed themselves of the media-middleman by directly posting on-the-spot snippets from travel and contests like the Triple-S, while evermore frequently releasing action videos that continually raise the bar both in visual storytelling and progressive riding.

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When I signed up for this job it had occurred to me that the future of print was something worthy of approaching with apprehension, but with two issues under my belt, I just don’t think that is the case. If you’re reading this, I’m likely preaching to the choir, but I believe strongly in the future of long form print for its insightful and artistic exploration of the fascinating people and important events that shape our everyday kiting lives. The large format of this magazine allows us the space to pursue our topics in depth and publish content that weaves together well thought out narrative and generously sized photos. Contrasted against social media’s barrage of short attention span content, our goal in these pages is to examine the broader context of the people, places and events that make our sport so unique. These are very exciting times to be the editor of this magazine. While kiteboarding continues to grow in all respects there’s no shortage of great stories that are waiting to be told and I look forward to exploring them with you.

E T A M I The ULT

p i r T d Fiel ig By Capo Rett

We are on the border of Costa Rica looking into Panama, and the immigration officer tells us we won’t be passing today.

to anger. “There must be a solution,” I begin, looking to test this man’s integrity. “Sir!” he yells with a firm and irate arm pointing towards the door. I have pushed too far.

It’s February and windy in Central America and the student body and teachers of World Class Kite Academy must cross this border in order to participate in the first PKRA event of 2014. We have driven the entire length of Costa Rica through the night and we still have half of Panama to go, that is, if we can get across. As principal, I begin to doubt my planning. Have I finally arrived at the last wall? Has ambition and reality finally reached an impasse here in the hot air of the Canoas border, where crumbling buildings and the stench of rotting sugar cane accompanies our disintegrating hopes of a successful border crossing?

Leaving our base in Lake Arenal, we had known we did not have the proper paperwork to cross the border. Waiting the weekend for the documents on our rental vehicle would mean missing the PKRA Nitro City event and I had sworn to myself that the students and faculty of World Class would be pulling on their jerseys come competition day. As we loaded the van for Panama, I had decided it was time to further their education in the flexibility of Central American borders. My confidence soared as we rushed through the dark tropical night.

As the principal at World Class Academy, a private traveling high school for the world’s top junior kiteboarders and whitewater kayakers, finding solutions – and dictating the answers has been my specialty. “I have never been completely shut down trying to cross a border,” I had announced to our students during the long drive somewhere in the darkness near the Nicoya Peninsula. These words echo in my head as I push the border officer

For 13 years World Class has existed not by ignoring the rules, but deciding which ones apply to us. Weaving patterns across the globe with high school students who train, travel, and grow together, all while completing rigorous courses of study that surpass state curriculum, has taught me that bureaucratic rules and red tape cannot be allowed to deter our mission. In addition to navigating the subtleties of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, your literature teacher will also help you

COURTESY WORLD CLASS KITEBOARD ACADEMY

World Class Academy is a private college preparatory high school for grades 9-12. Based in the Columbia River Gorge, World Class combines academics and athletics with international travel. The school started in 2002 as a small whitewater kayaking program that has now traveled 18 different countries around the world and has recently expanded into kiteboarding. This spring semester the school ventured to Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic before returning to South Padre Island, Texas to commence its first graduating class of seniors. In February 2014, Principal and former student, Capo Rettig, joined up with World Class Kite Academy on the Central American portion of their semester.

Katie Bowcutt throws an unhooked raley, taking advantage of the Academy’s oxymoronic combo of school and endless summer. Photo Toby Bromwich/PKRA

launch and land your kite; your algebra teacher turned handle pass coach will probably serve you chicken at some point in the cooking rotation and your Spanish teacher will have the van waiting at the end of an adventurous downwinder. As principle, my responsibility is to ensure a semester free from logistical problems. The friction at the Panamanian border – this one was on me. The school had been training at Bahia Salinas and Lake Arenal in northern Costa Rica for the past few weeks. Riding overpowered with a healthy dose of Central American chop, our team had earned the right for a more controlled setting to show off their recently acquired unhooked freestyle moves. Punta Chame, Panama provided not only this, but the chance to rub shoulders with the heavy hitters of the freestyle world: The men and women of the PKRA Tour. “Time to go big,” social studies teacher and coach Blaine Baker announced as we loaded up the vehicle and plugged in the Nitro City coordinates into the GPS device. Blaine possessed the most important skills necessary to be a World Class instructor: A love for the sport, a passion for improvement, the ability to teach and learn at the same time, and above all, a gluttonous level of patience.

The formula at World Class has never been complex; good education happens when you are doing what you love; good education happens when you can see, feel, smell, and interact with your subject; good education happens not only between first and third period, but rather at a series of moments that meet, collide, separate, and transform themselves into experiences. Real life experiences.

Our Dominican student Katie Bowcutt looks up from a deck of cards she has sprawled out on the uncomfortable concrete border bench. Across from her sits senior Tom Barrs, the quintessential opposite of a Dominican, a red-headed tough northeasterner who only months before was flying kites not on white Caribbean beaches, but the frozen lakes and fields of his native New Hampshire home. In one life these two would never meet, but here at the Academy they are brothers, sisters, and teammates. “Well Capo…” says Katie, her smile curling upwards into a questioning grimace. For most of the semester I was a distant figurehead, Principal Capo, pulling levers from the safety of the school office. Only recently had I joined the traveling classroom, and I begin to shake my head as their eyes searched the emptiness of my dark sunglasses, grateful to have something to hide behind, the lenses protecting me from displaying my frustrations. Lindsay McClure, our wonderful and capable literature teacher, throws me the lifeline I was searching for, “Why don’t we look for a bus?” The sun is at its full height destroying all shadows. Two Guatemalan truck drivers with t-shirts peering over exposed bellies pick carnitas from their teeth. A prostitute is huddled in the shade cast by a semi-truck and a dark skinned boy with green eyes is selling fresh coconut juice to cars entering Panama. Exactly five hours to the south Aaron Hadlow has thrown a raley to blind, Gisela Pulido has warmed up her shoulders making small tight air circles, and Robinson Hilario just pumped up his F-One Bandit and tested the pressure with a flick of his finger. No, there would be no buses for the Academy today.

Students cast long shadows across a windy Costa Rican beach. The Academy becomes a tightknit family earning an education far beyond the pages of textbooks. Courtesy of World Class Kiteboard Academy

“

HAS AMBITION AND REALITY FINALLY REACHED AN IMPASSE HERE IN THE HOT AIR OF THE CANOAS BORDER, WHERE

CRUMBLING BUILDINGS AND THE STENCH OF ROTTING

SUGAR CANE ACCOMPANIES OUR DISINTEGRATING HOPES OF A SUCCESSFUL BORDER CROSSING?

”

COURTESY WORLD CLASS KITEBOARD ACADEMY

The Panamanian official we bribe looks over our group with a skeptical eye and I know we are about to get the gringo price. For once, I don’t care. “Practice your sad faces,” I say to the students, prepping them as we drink coffee in the no-mans land between the two borders. There is a moment where I think perhaps I have made a serious miscalculation as the official hesitates. The students lower their eyes to enhance their frowns, and Blaine nervously begins to check the tie-down job on our roof. The Panamanian puts a fat hand on my shoulder and half turns me from the group and I know that we have him. “We will let you in without the Costa Rica exit stamp, but when you return . . . well, that is your problem.” I pause for a half a second, considering the possible repercussions of smuggling a vehicle out of the country. What would I say to the officials if I returned and they saw I had no exit stamp, no justification for having this car on Panamanian soil? The students and staff would be on a plane climbing out of Panama City and I’d be running the border solo. It would be my problem. I hesitated. Nerves stretched to breaking points begin to relax as the border disappears in our rearview mirror. We revel in the hot sun of a glorious northern Panamanian evening, energized by the adrenaline of the moment. Students take turns playing DJ and Tom confirmed that this had been the longest continual road trip of his itinerant life. After 17 hours of anticipating Panama’s famed chicharones we stopped at a local stand to get a plate of those fried pork skins that are so popular in Central America. We somehow, against many odds, made it across the border and as a team we navigated a seemingly insurmountable challenge. “World Class Academy is a

lifestyle,” I say out loud as I wipe my hands of grease from the dayold chicharones. Twenty-four hours later I am shooting photos of the team in action at Nitro City in Panama. The students finish up the morning’s project in Environmental Science and grab their gear for an afternoon session. The PKRA scene is in full effect and the whole school is wide-eyed at the level of riding and the talent that surrounds us. Looking at our students and staff I think about the experiences and the change I have seen in each one of us over the past quarter. Our lessons emerged well beyond the written pages of our textbooks as academics and experience have reached a collision course here in the warm waters of Panama. For more information about the Kiteboarding Academy visit their website www.worldclasskiteboardacademy.com

6’0’’

182 x 51

5’10’’ 177 x 49.5 cm 5’8’’

172 x 48

182 x 46

5’10’’ 177 x 46

6’0’’

THE SCENE

7 8

3 4

5 6

10 11

17 12

20 21

13 14

1. Tkb’s Alexis Rovira, aka the Sal Masekela of kiteboarding, interviews Aaron Hadlow minutes before dominating the slicks portion of the Triple-S. PHOTO MIKE HITELMAN 2. Erika Heineken and Cynthia Brown celebrating the survival of a 5m day at the Live2Kite Foilboard Nationals at the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. PHOTO TKB STAFF 3. Sam Light has a laugh after winning the men’s overall 2014 Venyu Triple-S Invitational and takes home just under $10K in cash. PHOTO MIKE HITELMAN 4. Tucker & Thatcher, Nor-Cal kite maggots making rounds at Pismo. PHOTO TKB STAFF 5. Gabe Loyd hands over one of his custom boards to Pismo raffle winner Kirk Talon. PHOTO TKB STAFF 6. Chris Moore wins a keg of Paul Menta’s Chef Distilled rum from Key West. PHOTO RICK IOSSI 7. Davey Blair grinding a ghetto rail Chucktown style. PHOTO COLLEEN CARROLL 8. Brian Schwarz from Calikites and Tom Kabbash from Pleasure Ground Eyewear waiting for the wind at Pismo. PHOTO TKB STAFF 9. Bryan Lake exploring the potential of the modern kite foil in Hawaiian surf. PHOTO GOPRO SELFIE 10. Johnny Heineken on a victory lap at the US Foilboard Nationals after winning every single race. PHOTO TKB STAFF 11. Dimitri takes Epic customer service to whole new level with this sketchy Rube Goldberg contraption. PHOTO HELEN TROTMAN 12. Claire Lutz and Colleen Carroll celebrating at the Real Watermen’s Bar and Grill. PHOTO MIKE HITELMAN 13. Christophe Tack and Karolina Winkowska take the top of the winners podium at the the Red Sea World Cup in Egypt. PHOTO TOBY BROMWICH/ PKRA 14. Foilboarding is so much fun, you’re going to get hop-ons! (Left to right: Jacob Olivier, Damien Leroy, James McGrath) PHOTO GOPRO SELFIE 15. BEST Kiteboarding’s Rich Sabo enjoys one of the perks of Pismo: In-N-Out Burger. PHOTO TKB STAFF 16. Ghost riding gone wrong! Evan Netsch runs like a rabbit and totally pulls it off. PHOTO TKB STAFF 17. Après kite art. PHOTO PEGGY BARNETT 18. Rob Buell and Patti Webster at tow up party they hosted at Three Rooker Island, Florida. PHOTO MONIKA KRAMLIK 19. Kallie Walker (left) wanted to thank her Michigan crew (Andrew, Mary, Bruce, and Matt) for for introducing her to the sport of kiteboarding four years ago. PHOTO KALLIE WALKER 20. It’s about time Kristin and Sky tie the knot and ride off into the sunset on a . . . lawnmower? PHOTO MAUI MAKA PHOTOGRAPHY 21. Dimitri keeps old school stunt kiting alive with through the legs board offs over dry land. PHOTO GOPRO SELFIE

If you have a photo you would like to see in The Kiteboarder Magazine, send it to editor@thekiteboarder.com.

Interview by Brendan Richards Tkb Staff | Photos Steve McCormick & Axis

The Gentleman Farmer Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a new day for Adrian Roper of Axis Kiteboarding. From the pastoral green hills of his New Zealand farm you can see the wind shadowed Lyttelton Harbor, a lesser known testing ground for this longtime Kiwi kiteboard builder. The thermal winds that grace this spot and others more popular on the south island serve as a backdrop to Adrianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relentless pursuit to reinvent and improve the modern kiteboard since the earliest of kiteboarding days.

hen speaking with Adrian it’s difficult to tell whether his fascination with materials and inventive design trumps his love of kiteboarding. He speaks with boyish enthusiasm for all things technical and gushes about the functional properties of even his boards’ smallest details. Adrian’s discontent with the status quo can be seen in his small farm outside of Christchurch, complete with horses, chickens, fruit trees and edible gardens. The house Adrian built with his own hands uses commonsense principles to cool itself in the summer and heat itself

in the winter, a shrine to Adrian’s quest to reexamine the mechanics of everything that surrounds him. Adrian is no stranger to comebacks. His resilience was tested early on with a devastating factory fire and more recently with complications after the sale of Underground, his first kiteboard brand. Despite these turbulent business adventures, this Kiwi shows no signs of slowing down. Adrian is back in the driver seat at Axis Kiteboarding, calling all the shots and sewing the seeds of innovation into the art of board building for years to come.

Your generation grew up before kiteboarding existed. How did watersports become integral to your life? I grew up in Rothesay Bay in Auckland, New Zealand and from there it wasn’t far to the beach. We all used to hangout there after school, that’s what we did. We learned to surf and I had a little boat so I learned to sail and fish by myself when I was quite young, around 12 years. I’d go out sailing for the whole day and catch a pot of fish. It was just how we grew up. It was an easier life and people didn’t get so fussy about looking after kids, you just did your thing. The windsports part of my life started when I was 17. A friend of mine came back from Long Beach, California with one of the first windsurfers in 1981. It was the Windsurfer International, one of the original ones. My mates and I learned on that board.

ABOVE: Adrian as a grom

with his tattered wetsuit and homemade surfboard. LEFT: A slight miscalculation on Adrian’s parent’s part: Encouraging him to build this polystyrene and plywood clad board from directions he found in a French windsurfing mag. BELOW: Adrian at early Ho’okipa. According to him, “the car park was empty because there was no one there in those days.”

Every career path starts somewhere. When did the board building seed become planted? I had shaped a surfboard as a kid, but it really started with the very beginning of windsurfing. At that time the first New Zealand made boards being built were the Superstar and Comet lines. I asked my parents to get me one, but they wanted me to be an academic and go study at university. I just wanted to windsurf and although they wouldn’t buy me one, they came up with what they thought was a safer plan and offered to help me build one. I began by translating the instructions for building a windsurfer out of a French windsurfing mag. I shaped it in polystyrene and clad the whole thing in plywood and then sanded and painted it. I made the sail, and both the boom and the mast out of aluminium. I did the whole thing and really enjoyed the process of it. The board actually went pretty good for the time but the whole plan sort of backfired on my parents, because I ended up entering board building as a profession rather than going their academic route. That looks like a big board. In those days where did a kid get the foam for that kind of volume? At that time I couldn’t get a foam block the size of the board, so I just glued a whole pile of blocks. I just made it up; everything I did from the start I made up because I didn’t know any better way of doing it and I have carried on going like that since. I think I have an engineering brain. Whatever I’m looking at, wherever I’m going, my mind is continuously looking at everything that I see and thinking, now how would I go about manufacturing that and how would you build it better — that’s just how my brain works. When I look back on that first board, I did a lot of things that are quite sensible in retrospect, but I didn’t know any better. I think that’s why I’ve been successful at what I’ve been doing. How did you make the leap from a Kiwi kid shaping in his backyard to a professional board builder cashing a paycheck? I moved to Oahu when I was 20 years old and got a job working for Windsurfing Hawaii making booms and teaching windsurfing. It was 1984 and everyone was coming back from Maui saying how fantastic the wind was over there. Mike Walsh had only discovered windsurfing on Maui a year earlier and he was the first to sail Ho’okipa; it was the very early days. I rang around on Maui looking for a job and managed to get a hold of some guy named Jimmy Lewis. I told him I did laminating and it turned out his laminator had left the day before. I caught the next flight over, and Jimmy picked me up at the airport and gave me a place to live in the old post office side of his factory. I worked for Jimmy and he gave me the basics of shaping but I also worked for a bunch of people over the years; Dave Daily at Hitech, and Ed Angulo, but the highlight was working for the windsurfing brand F2.

Peter Thommen was the shaper for F2 and they sponsored Bjorn Dunkerbeck and pretty much built all the boards for most of the top World Cup sailors at the time. I got the job when my truck broke down on Maui in the middle of the night. I stopped the next car that came along. Turned out it was Peter Thommen. He gave me a ride up the road and we started talking. He mentioned he built World Cup boards, and I said, “Oh yeah, I do that too.” Peter said, “No no . . . we build World Cup race boards.” I said, “Yeah, me too.” I then asked him if he was using divinycell and carbon as materials and

he went quiet. F2 was also trying to work out how to do vacuum bagging at the time and since I’d been doing heaps of that I offered my help. The next day I went down to Peter’s and they gave me a job building boards. I worked for him for many years and that was probably the best job I ever had. What was so great about working for F2? F2 had a huge budget. Any new idea we could come up with they’d freight in new materials, and we’d be doing a bunch of experiments with different ways of building boards. If it worked, great, and if it didn’t we weren’t in a place where we had to sell it to make money. We’d just walk away from bad ideas and try the next thing. In those years I learned a lot about materials and the way things ought to be built.

these days is so refined and the people involved are different. The people that got into kiteboarding early were the same kind; the crazies, the dreamers, the kind that thought outside the box. That was what made it interesting. You were so deeply ingrained in windsurfing, how did you transition to kiteboarding? After years of living on Maui, my partner Melanie and I had enough of island life and moved back to New Zealand to open a windsurfing factory and shop. It was going quite nicely, building windsurfers and selling them in Christchurch. I missed the conditions in Maui and made a trip back every year, and it was there that I saw Laird Hamilton and others doing downcoasters. At first we laughed at it as a quirky

Adrian busy shaping a F2 board for Bjorn Dunkerbeck. “We’d be doing a bunch of experiments with different ways of building boards. If it worked, great, and if it didn’t we weren’t in a place where we had to sell it to make money.”

You were at the heart of the windsurfing industry and then you relived the same coming-of-age in kiteboarding. What was that like? The most fun part of windsurfing was when it was evolving and changing so fast. Sometimes you couldn’t improve the board anymore and then all of a sudden the rigs would change. The evolution in modern rigs would open the door as to how you could shape the board and the designs would leap ahead but then you’d be stuck until the rigs moved again, or the fins, or whatever – it was all connected. Windsurfing became boring when the development slowed because everything was so refined. When kiteboarding was invented it was the most exciting times, because we had no idea what a kiteboard looked like. To have to think, should it be a directional, should it be a twin tip – going through that stage was so exciting. When I think back to the early days of my windsurfing career, the people I formed friendships and interacted with were amazing. Those early adopters took on new ideas; it’s different from when the sport matured. Windsurfing

and crazy idea, but when I saw a video of Lou Wainman holding his own and jumping, I was totally drawn into it. I didn’t think of it as a business decision; for me it was the intrigue of figuring out kiteboarding. The first year of it, I pretty much neglected my windsurfing store because I was so focused on how to make a kiteboard work. Where did you get your first kite and was it inevitable that you would start making kiteboards, given your history? My first real exposure was when Peter Lynn, who was located an hour south of us, showed up trying to kite in the estuary in front of my windsurfing shop. At that time I was thinking, how am I going to learn to kiteboard, then I look out on the water and there’s Peter and Kane Hartill trying to figure out how to do it. I ran down there to pick his brain and ended up doing some board design for Peter. He sponsored Kane to do the early European kite tour on his kites. This was the first tour with Flash Austin and

Franz Olry in the very early days. Kane had taken my boards on the tour, and because some people knew me from windsurfing I started getting inquiries to build boards here in New Zealand and export them all over the world. I used Underground as a brand name for windsurfing since I was 20 years old, so it made sense to build kiteboards under the same name and it absolutely took off from there. We started exporting boards in 1999 and it went from me and a couple guys in the factory to 15 employees working full-time at one stage. It was out of control; we were building a ton of boards and shipping everywhere. I remember seeing Martin Vari show up at the Waddell Kite Clash on one of your twin tip boards with the flip tips in the early 2000s and that seemed like the beginning of Underground’s presence in the States. That was the Wavetray. It was an amazing board for the time. When Kane Hartill had come back from the European tour, he was raving about Franz Olry’s twin tip and how it was the future of the sport. We made some production gelcoat boards with twin tip flips and ended up exporting a lot of those to Germany. That board didn’t have flex, and so we started building boards that were more like wakeboards. Models like the Dinnertray, Lunchtray, Fridgdoor – they had flex and they were lighter and thinner. Then we came out with the Wavetray which combined the flex construction with a small step and flip tip on the end. The construction was something we invented ourselves; we built a gelcoat bottom, but before it completely hardened we vacuum bagged and laminated the top onto the bottom. We sold a lot of those around the world and I occasionally bump into someone whose still got one and they’re totally resistant to trying something new. I obviously think things have improved a hell of a lot since then, but some swear it’s the best board they’ve ever ridden. Of all your contributions to board building during the Underground years, what’s one of the most significant? As people started jumping higher and someone invented the kite loop, riders were dropping harder on their boards and no matter how we laminated foamcore boards, they just couldn’t handle the sheer factor. I looked to snowboard technology which used poplar wood cores, but that was too heavy for kiteboards. I searched the Internet and worked with my local timber merchant to discover paulownia wood. It’s a sustainable timber, light as balsa but structurally much stronger. The best paulownia was grown in China where they trim the limbs off the first year of growth to get the best millable wood. We first used paulownia wood cores somewhere around 2001-2002 on some pickleforks we built for Extreme Sports Maui. We were the first to use paulownia then and now that material is an industry standard. You are no longer associated with Underground. How did that come about? During the early days at Underground we had been growing very rapidly but in 2003 a fire swept through the factory and the retail store burned to the ground. We lost the whole lot. We still had orders and some insurance so we rebuilt the factory from the ground up but it was an incredibly tiring mission. In the following years we made a comeback but the increasing strength of the New Zealand dollar made it uneconomical to export our boards from NZ to the world. We had no choice but to move manufacturing to Asia, but at that stage I hadn’t much experience with manufacturing abroad. Around that period I received an offer from a new factory in China that wanted to buy Underground, employ me to run the company and consult at the factory. It was a great opportunity, so I took it on, but it became apparent that the quality wasn’t there and nobody listened. For me, detail is the most important thing. You can do all the marketing in the world, but if you don’t have your quality right it’s all going to fall over. There are a lot of other reasons, but they ended up going bankrupt. I walked away and once my noncompetition clause was up I was allowed to start another company, so we started Axis, which is now two years old and doing very well.

After his noncompetition clause expired, Adrian started Axis and now heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back in the driverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seat, fine-tuning every aspect of manufacturing.

The Wavetray showcased Adrian’s unique bottom gelcoat and top laminated innovations as well as the more obvious step and Adrian’s spin on the Olry flip tip. Launched at the pinnacle of twin tips, used both for freestyle and wave riding, these boards were a hot item in the US, trickling in from Adrian’s Christchurch factory.

It must have been hard to watch something you created fall apart just within reach? It took five years for them to kill it. I’d seen it coming and the process of watching it die was the worst. They didn’t pay attention to small details and they just thought I was a whiner and I had absolutely no control; being unable to do anything about it was pretty depressing. That was one of the great things about starting Axis. Why is it built that way — because I want it built that way. Every part is manufactured the way I want it. Every aspect of our boards is designed by thinking out of the box instead of the same-old same-old, just like everyone else. Little things such as the design of the handle, the construction of our footpads or the new material we use in our straps is thought out and redesigned, not because it was how we did it in the past but because it’s the best way we can possibly do it now. Design is a balancing act, have you ever made a big mistake? Last year we tried a revolutionary footstrap and pad design. It almost worked, but not quite. The two-part design allowed an unprecedented amount of adjustment to the footstrap angle. At demos I would show people how to set it up for their foot and they came back and said they really liked it, but users on their own could not get it right. It was a good lesson on strap design, so this year I handed the pad/strap prototype to my non-kiting daughter and she set it up perfectly, no questions. We learned an important lesson on designing for simplicity.

It seems fair to say that you are borderline obsessed with materials and construction processes, but how do you approach designing for feel and performance? I do a lot of my R&D myself because I can trust myself 100%. I’m very picky on how things feel and I’m quick to pick up the finer differences in boards because I ride a different board almost every session. A lot of riders use the same board for a whole season, so they get on a new board and they can’t even work out what they are doing because it is so different. To be good as a tester you have to be very good at riding a lot of different things and picking out the differences. I’ve got a couple of key guys I work with, for instance Olly Brunton; he’s a team rider in New Zealand that comes with 10 years experience in pro-snowboarding. Sometimes I test with an old friend I grew up surfing with in Auckland. He’s an intermediate

kiter at best, but has an analytical mind that’s clever at working things out. I always draw my own conclusions first, working my way forward from there while backing it up with people I respect as team riders and testers. I like to test boards in the estuary at Christchurch. It’s very easy to test there because it’s a thermal wind, very even and smooth. The wind is the same everyday. The water is very flat and I can lay a bunch of boards out on the beach and test them all back to back. I take two or three passes, doing the same trick, come in and change the board, do the same again and the same again, then go back to the original one and confirm my thoughts about the first board. I also use the feedback from our US team; they’re riding different conditions, different styles, and usually it confirms my thoughts. If everyone is in then I was onto it, it’s right and then we move forward. You’ve always drawn a sharp line and kept your hands off the kite side of the business. What kites do you ride and why? I ride the Ozone C4 because it feels just like the kite I learned on many years ago. It’s obviously a modified version, but it feels like something I understand. I tried to ride bow style kites but they didn’t agree with me. I like a kite that has some bar pressure, and when you pull, it actually does something. The C4 jumps high, feels comfortable to ride and it’s a great kite. I know and respect the guys from Ozone. I feel like head designer Rob Whittall is quite similar to me; he’s fanatical and a perfectionist, he looks at everything with a questioning mind. They only do kites, and we only do boards, so it makes sense, but we’re not married. There’s no business connection. For some years you held the New Zealand windsurfing speed record, yet your role in kiteboarding has been a cross between a brand figurehead and tinkerer/mad scientist rather than an athlete. Do you get out much? The job requires I do a lot of the things. I work with key team riders around the world to get ideas about the future of the sport because I’m not the most cutting edge rider anymore. I’m in contact with a lot of people, and travel to shows in Germany, US, and Australia. If a new idea comes out of that, I work out the shape, the construction, and do it up on computer to make sure the design is perfect. Nowadays I spend a

Slawek Krauze puts one of Adrianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new boards to the test in the Sacramento River Delta. Photo Omar Nazif

“ Everything I had done before surfing, windsurfing, snowboarding — everything was all just a dead fiberglass thing you lean up against the wall when you’re finished. Cooperating with a live animal that has a mind of its own took me a long time to wrap my head around.”

lot of time in Asia working with factories. The factory where our Axis twin tips are being built is a reasonably new factory and I’ve been involved in correcting some of the ways our boards are built. The job requires a lot of time in factories, fixing things, and making processes work better. There’s a lot involved with designing, manufacturing, working with team riders and doing tradeshows. I don’t have a particular schedule; it’s a matter of working on all the bits and pieces all the time. You’ve been described as a gentleman farmer. Why so and how has that played a role in your life? We try to live as sustainably as possible, although complete sustainability is impossible in today’s world. I spend half my time flying around the globe in an airplane, so honestly I’m absolutely failing when it comes to that. We’ve got two girls, they’re 15 and 17 now and we wanted them to have a life of understanding where food comes from. We try to grow a lot of our own food with 60 fruit trees, chickens that lay eggs and veggies growing from the farm’s compost. We try to work on a permaculture type principle with the land and we planted 3000 native trees, and some poulownia as well. We built a house that is sustainably oriented with a passive solar design that heats itself up in the winter and cools itself in the summer. We use a wood burner for cooking and heating water

panels throughout the house for warmth. We have wood lots we’ve planted for firewood as well. The walls are insulated with sheep’s wool and the floors are a recycled and refinished basketball court from the local girl’s high school. We did as much as we could ourselves, to show the kids the process and give them an idea of how to do things. We have horses and can ride out the back door for five hours with amazing views and never see anyone. I ride horses because my girls do it; my elder rides competitively. The horses have been a crazy experience. Everything I had done before; surfing, windsurfing, snowboarding — everything was all just a dead fiberglass thing you lean up against the wall when you’re finished. Cooperating with a live animal that has a mind of its own took me a long time to wrap my head around. To get to the stage where I could ride a horse without a saddle and not fall off was a huge learning curve. I enjoyed that process, and I basically did it because my girls were into it. They weren’t into the watersports side of things and it was either wave goodbye to them or be a part of what they were learning and doing. I had a great time with that. You’ve been around the windsports block twice now, and kiting is at the early stages of embracing foilboarding technology. As a “traditional” kiteboard manufacturer, what are your thoughts on foiling? It fascinates me because there’s so much potential. I watched how the America’s Cup racing embraced foils and how quickly the San Francisco foilboard racing scene is evolving. I’m not designing foils at the moment, because all the companies building foils right now are specialists. We know how to build boards, so we have foilboards coming out with various mountings to work with the foil mounting systems that are out there. Mounting the foil is a key thing; there are so many mounting systems out there but it’d be nice if we all came up with a sensible system across the board — a completely open source system. I’d like to see something like a slider system with a 10-inch box to spread the load. The current flat mounts with four bones create point loads and the Tuttle box, although clever for it’s paralleled sides that keep the fin from racking back and forwards so it won’t pull itself out of the box, was initially designed for a 300mm fin for windsurfing. With bigger windsurfing fins we had to make deeper boxes and bigger heads, and now they’re sticking foils on there. It doesn’t seem to be the right thing to me, but time will tell.

EXPLORE YOUR COASTLINE

HALEIWA

BOWERY

CARDIFF

The South Seas trades offer up an uninhabited islet. Society Islands, French Polynesia. photo: Jody MacDonald

ÂŠ2014 Patagonia, Inc.

In the fading wind, the photographer pulls back to capture a candid moment of Keahi in a true solo session.

THE GREEN

ROOM Words and Photos by Jason Wolcott/LEWHS.com

Tunnel vision, the green room, the pit, the tube, the barrel – whatever you call it, finding yourself pitted in a swirling vortex of oceanic energy is the most sacred of all experiences in surfing. The visionary surfers who first embraced early kiteboarding technology naturally, if not instinctively, began searching for waves that would let them pull inside the elusive green room they had been chasing their entire surf-driven lives, but this time with kites. The perfect image of a kite surfer slotted in the pit makes it look deceptively easy, but for each photo that lands a cover or graces the spreads of glossy magazines, there are a dozen brutal beatings leading up to that moment. Placing oneself in a barrel with a kite is a learning experience, a trial by error in finding just the right spot in a very fluid formula. Without risk there is certainly no reward, but victories in hunting down heaving slabs are hard fought and losses are calculated in damage to material and person. Torn kites, snapped lines, broken bars, surfboards blasted into pieces, skin ripped, torn, punctured, battered and bruised – this is often the price, the pound of flesh, frequently demanded as admission to the green room. There is nothing more terrifying than getting lipped in the head, spun in all directions and pounded to the bottom by the power of the ocean, except taking this very same beating while casting a wide net of razor-thin kite lines with the potential of entangling appendages and shredding them to the bone. Yet for some, it’s more than worth the risk. For those kite surfers undeterred by danger, there’s the challenge of lining up a multitude of variables that need to coincide before the shacking begins. Each tube starts with distant storm energy colliding with the perfect bathymetry of just the right reef, point, or sandbar. Add the right wind direction at sufficient strength with a complying tide and finally pray for uncrowded water, free of prone surfers. The lure of the barrel is intoxicating, yet no matter how strong the desire, the elusive cover up is based on these factors lining up like a well-rehearsed symphony. As on any frontier, you will find pioneers, people with exceptional skill and ability who also possess the curiosity and audacity to push beyond that which is thought to be possible. In my 10 years of writing and shooting kite surfing,

I have seen the evolution of tube riding first hand. In my early days on the West Coast of California I watched as Santa Barbara’s finest did their best to find their way into the barrel. Wes Matweyew and Chris Gutzeit were the first surfers I witnessed working out the mechanics of the cover up, placing themselves in positions that until then, kiters would avoid at all costs. At the same time somewhere on the other side of the planet, Ben Wilson and Jeff Tobias were on the same mission to stuff themselves into the liquid pocket. These were the kite surfers I knew of, but around the globe there was undoubtedly others in search of the right set up for the fleeting kite surfing barrel, some documented, but most not. In my experience the dangers of kite barrels is equally treacherous for those who choose to photograph it. The initial tube rides that found their way to print were captured by hardy veterans of the surf photography game. Names like John Bilderback, Stephen Whitesell, and myself were all pushing to get closer and deeper, trying to perfect the art of shooting wide angle photography from within the confines of the barrel. It’s a precarious game of proximity, easily compared to the likes of bull fighting or medieval jousting; dodging lines, bars, fins, and bodies all the while trying not to be defeated by the ocean. The complexity of capturing the kite in the tube far exceeds the same image of the simple surfer and as a result I have had more than a few close calls and a broken rib to show for my efforts. In the photos that follow, each one represents not only the daring athleticism and skill of a rare breed of kite surfers, but also the precarious balance of danger and serendipity that I experienced as the photographer in order to capture these fleeting moments. Step into my green room.

Ben Wilson “Tube rides on the kite are different compared to surfing. They’re typically shorter and more intense as you have lots going on. My first time was actually on a twin tip and I wasn’t even thinking about getting tubed at the time. The search instinct automatically kicked in. In 2005 I went to Indo with Jeff Tobias; it was our first legitimate trip riding surfboards. Tobias is a mad man so he was just charging everything. I was more calculated, but we were both getting eaten and maybe getting a little head dip. It was fun.”

“The ocean at anytime can show you how small you really are. Tube riding is as critical as you can get — it can be the greatest moment of your life or the biggest scariest beating, but it’s always a fine line. When we were shooting the “Dirty South” I pulled into a set wave and the thing just closed on me; it was one of the most violent beatings I’ve had. I hurt my ribs on impact, lost my kite and needed to be rescued.”

I had not shot much with Ben when we jumped in the RV for the Dirty South trip but I knew he was a pioneer of kite surfing as well as a damn good surfer. On this day Ben not only proved you could get big barrels kite surfing, he also demonstrated you could pay for them with your life. Ben was clipped in the head by a massive wave and knocked unconscious. I am certain that if it was not for Ian Alldredge being in the water and getting to Ben in time to flip him over and help him regain consciousness, I would have watched Ben drown from the land with his father standing next to me.

Patri McLaughlin “The first time I saw guys really going for barrels was in the Tronolone movie Space Monkeys 2. Back then the guys were unhooking and pulling in without the greatest hopes of coming out. A lot of times they would throw the kite and have to get it back with a boat. Nowadays, there are more guys going for tubes, and lots of guys making some pretty remarkable barrels. I failed my first couple of tries, and then it all came together for me. The first successful barrel for me happened on a solid six-foot Mauritius wave and when I came out of the barrel I had the biggest smile across my face. I wish I could’ve stayed in there forever.”

“My worst tube riding wipeout with a kite was also on Mauritius. I pulled into a pretty solid tube and my kite crashed out the back of the wave. The kite acted like an anchor and instead of going over the falls backwards onto the shallow reef, the kite pulled me up into the lip of the wave and ripped me out through the back. It was like a scorpion around my harness and tweaked my back. It was probably better than going over the falls onto the reef, but I was hurting for a few weeks after that.”

Patri won a KSP contest in heavy left barrels. I watched it on the webcast and was blown away by his approach to the tube. He surfs just as well as he kites which probably helps him judge sections and pull into kegs no matter where his travels take him. On this surf trip he destroyed a few kites and got slammed super hard off the bottom but whenever he got slotted, it was always with a smile and no ego.

Bear Karry “The adrenalin rush you experience while flying down the line, engulfed in a wave, while still breathing as you watch water move all around you is the best feeling you will ever have. The fist person I saw pull in was Peter Trow riding upwind at a beach break. After that I went on a trip to Indo when I was 18 and saw Ben Wilson, Reo Stevens and Ian Alldredge going off, pulling into huge barrels. Each year I see new riders pulling in deeper and deeper, yet we’re still at a stage where the level of tube riding will continue to progress.”

“My worst wipeout was pulling in going right at a small beach break. As soon as my lines hit the lip it threw me upside down and both of my legs went in between my bars’ outside lines. Hitting the bottom under water, I was stuck being pulled upside down, and I couldn’t release. It was claustrophobic, but after five seconds of feeling helpless I managed to reverse my situation. I got out of my lines and back to the surface. I don’t think that was my worst wipeout but it was the most scary for sure.” Tube riding is all about exiting your comfort zone. Growing up in Southern California Bear Karry had never traveled for kite surfing, and why would he want to? Riding backside and pig dogging was something Bear had done a lot as a surfer, but the first time he dropped in on Bali’s lefts he had to wrap his head around more than just exotic menus because successfully pulling in on your backhand takes commitment, courage, and practice.

Rob Kidnie “Anyone coming from a surfing background knows scoring a tube is the ultimate. It is like a drug. Especially when you get a good, long and deep one. Nothing beats being inside the wave looking out of the morphing liquid exit, while at the same time making eye contact with a friend or fellow surfer/kiter on the shoulder as they make it back through the line-up. It took me a long time to get what I would call a real tube, not just a cover-up. I still remember my first kite tube like it was yesterday because it has been burnt into my brain.”

“If the wind is good the risks are not too bad as long as you keep the kite flying. I have been pretty lucky, but my worst experience was being in the barrel when the wave closed out. I got pushed down deep and had no idea where the kite was. The kite fell in the wave I was riding and I was pulled underwater for what seemed like an eternity, but maybe only 10 seconds. Then I got dragged by two more waves. I was so scared I was going to be hauled across the reef - the pull was so great I had no way of getting to the release. Scary experience!”

Rob Kidnie is one of the best kite surfers you’ve never heard about. A few years back Reo, Keahi, and myself were checking the wind at our favorite Indo break. There was this long-haired blond guy pulling in back-handed and getting obliterated. We watched the unknown charger as we geared up and it was clear this guy meant business. That was four years ago and today he could be considered one of the best backhand tube riders in the sport.

Keahi de Aboitiz “Getting barreled while surfing is one thing but with a kite it can be a lot more difficult because everything needs to come together and just finding a wave that still barrels properly in the wind can be a real challenge. My first few attempts were definitely a little scary but nothing beats the feeling so I kept trying. I remember my first one, not knowing exactly what would happen. Watching the lines cut though the lip for the first time then coming out unscathed was a pretty amazing feeling! It definitely kept me coming back for more.”

“Like anything there are definitely a few risks. When pulling in, especially in more onshore conditions, the lines tend to go slack and start to do all sorts of weird things. I’ve seen some crazy pictures of myself and others where the lines start doing laps in the lip, sometimes around the person. I guess my worst experience would be falling on a wave in Indo where I initially thought my kite was going to land in the channel but unfortunately right when the wave’s beating started to subside, my kite which had landed in the same wave, had me skull dragged through the water. Luckily after a little bit my kite leash broke and I as well as my gear survived.”

Keahi is an animal. I remember one day last season, this two-time World Wave Champion spent 10 hours in the water getting barreled out of his mind. He started on his SUP, downshifted to his 5’10” short board and then pumped up his kite. Keahi is fearless, and has the skill set to lock into the deepest, heaviest barrels around. When he has had enough on his regular stance, Keahi will pull in switch, try to do laybacks in the barrel, or even lay down coffin style. His years surfing the heavy sandbanks near his home in Noosa Heads, Australia have trained him to be one of the best tube riders in our sport.

Kevin Langeree “I have watched surf movies pretty much my whole life and although tube riding was a huge part of those movies, Holland doesn’t have spots with perfect barrels. Competing on the freestyle tour only brings you to flat water spots so not much in the way of barrels there either. It wasn’t until my trip to Indo last year where I got barrels back to back. The feeling that it gave me was so addicting!” “I was in Cape Town, South Africa at a beach break with hidden barrels here and there, but you had to be in the right place at the right time. Everything was perfect and as the lip was throwing and just about to cover me, I hit a nasty piece of chop and lost my balance. I went over the falls, somersaulted into my lines and got drilled against the bottom. Not the best feeling in the world, I can tell you that, but it’s these moments that make me feel alive.”

I had never met Kevin Langeree, but as a magazine reader I knew him as a PKRA world champ. What I didn’t know, as well as most people, is that somewhere between tour stops, Kevin became addicted to wave kiting. I was surprised at just how hard he charged in heavy barrels. It just goes to show that if you really want to figure out getting pitted on your kite, you can make it happen.

Reo Stevens “In the early days it was a bit of the ‘holy grail’ of kitesurfing. We weren’t sure if it was possible with the bar and lines, but we were all trying it. There were tons of head dips happening but the first real barrels didn’t start to happen until guys starting venturing to Indonesia. My first barrel on a kite was in Indo on a shoulder high day. It wasn’t the biggest or best barrel I’ve ever got, but it was hollow and clean enough that I was able to tuck up and get a proper vision and come out clean.”

“My worst experience was at Teahupo’o. Everything was lined up and after a few successful barrels, my confidence level started to rise and I began to push myself deeper on the bigger waves. I dropped in on a set that swung west, causing the wave to bend in on itself at about a 45 degree angle. The wave’s abnormally thick lip and new angle caught my lines and the drag pulled me up and into the top of the wave. The lip knocked the bar out of my hands and I went over the falls. It was a brutal beating, but luckily I was able to release my kite before the force of the wave ripped me in half. That day I learned a heavy lesson about the sneaky west bowl at Teahupo’o.” Reo Stevens has always been at the forefront of surf kiting. He is by far one of the top tube riders in the sport. Whether it is a shallow ledge in Indo, a long scary wall at Backyards on the North Shore, or committing to giant Teahupoʻ’o caverns, Reo will charge and usually make it out of any barrel he can find. I have been shooting with Reo for years and I am looking forward to more of his fearless charging in front of my lens.

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IDANI CAPELLAN Cabarete, Dominican Republic

Born and raised in Cabarete near Kite Beach, Idani Capellan shared a small, simple home with his two brothers, two sisters and parents where resources were scarce. During the day, he and his siblings were responsible for their own food and education while at night the family would gather together to share meals and catch up. Soft-spoken and humble, life hasn’t been easy for Idani but with a new sponsorship from Wainman Hawaii and Maraja Kite Center, Idani’s dreams of representing his country and becoming a pro kiteboarder are becoming a reality. Like many of his peers, Idani helped put food on his family’s table by working at the beach. After school, he would help visiting kiters, doing anything from launching and landing their kites to rescuing boards. Days with no wind were tough, but this resourceful youth sought out kite repairs, tangled lines, or any type of work to help ease the load for him and his family. Eventually, Idani landed a steady job with a kite school.

Idani first got into kiteboarding in 2006 when he was just 10-years-old. After years of watching local and visiting kiters ripping at his local beach, Idani dreamed of one day owning his own kite. He started out by asking friendly tourists to let him use their kites. According to Idani, his first sessions were monumental. “I was very stoked from the beginning, you can only imagine – I was riding a kite, just like everyone else. I couldn’t believe it. My family couldn’t believe it, and neither did my friends. I was instantly happy and hooked!”

Sponsor Enriquillo Fernandez, owner of Maraja Kite Center in Cabarete and distributor for Wainman Hawaii in the Dominican Republic, first met Idani at a local event made for kids back in 2008 where he placed fourth. Fernandez reminisced, “Idani was a very tiny and small kid. But he was really stoked to be riding in that event, with a seat harness that almost pulled the kite all the way up to his chin and his always smiling face. I liked him instantly.” Fernandez added, “I think he’s very aggressive and graceful in the water and knows how to mix his tricks. He learns complicated pro tricks by watching them once and going out on a session and performing them to perfection. He’s very smart and has a very athletic physical frame.” Surrounded by local pros, early on Idani watched them closely to imitate their tricks and absorb their tips. Pro riders taught him to train, respect his gear, be aggressive on the water, love the ocean and to work hard to get better not only as a kiter, but as a person all around. “All my work and dreams are being fulfilled with my Wainman Hawaii sponsorship. My family is very proud of me. Just recently they all had to move to the capital of Santo Domingo but I stayed in Cabarete with my brother Joel to continue on with my dream of someday being a Kiteboarding Champion for Cabarete and the DR. I feel I’ve come a long way and am excited to see how far I can get in the sport.” Idani Capellan is an 18-year-old Dominican that has come a long way to represent Wainman Hawaii and Maraja Kite Center as a sponsored athlete.

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HOPE LEVIN Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands

If she hadn’t discovered kiteboarding or grown up on a remote island, Hope LeVin might never have known how good celery is with peanut butter, how to mix cement or why beer, particularly Red Stripe, is good for bloated goats.

is immensely impressive. She was and still is very positive and charismatic.” He added, “Hope has character in spades, great self-motivation and is passionate about kiteboarding. So few get to follow their passions - Hope is and she is living the dream.”

Raised in the Turks and Caicos (TCI), Hope had a very unorthodox childhood. Home-schooled with no TV in sight, she and her four siblings seemed to always be preparing for a hurricane, building things or waging some make-believe war to pass time. In her early years, produce only came fresh once a week and mail took six months to arrive, if it got there at all. Hope says she learned to be creative to solve problems and fix broken stuff at an early age and because of her upbringing, feels that she’s less materialistic than the average person. “Of course I love to shop, but the huge superstores of America still overwhelm me! Traveling reminds me of what’s essential and to lose the excess. I’ve come to learn simple quality is always best.”

While many riders are out partying, Hope can often be found with her nose buried in a textbook. She is studying for a business degree through the London School of Economics distance learning program. Hope points out, “Business is a subject that I enjoy, but more importantly I think learning about money and accounting is pretty essential for life in general.” Despite the fun distractions that accompany her kiteboarding sponsorships, Hope seems more than willing to sacrifice her free time now for a far greater potential in her future.

Hope first saw kiteboarding at the young age of nine when TCI local Randy Hall was kiting on the beach below her house. At just 10, she ordered her first 1m kite but because mail service was so slow, she didn’t get it until she turned 11. Stoked on kiteboarding, in 2007 Hope started Windvibes, now one of the bigger TCI beach festivals when she was only 13 years old. This is how Philip Shearer of Big Blue Unlimited, one of her main sponsors, first met her. “From my own experience, organizing any event in the islands is supremely challenging, much less for a 13-year-old girl! The fact that Hope has pulled off this annual event year to year

As for what’s next, Hope says she has a few big goals but is leaving the route to achieve them open. Her advice is, “Don’t hesitate for the perfect moment. For me, the most important thing has been to just start doing something to get the ball rolling. It might not be the right choice, but you’ll keep learning from the experience and it could open new opportunities that you wouldn’t have known about had you never tried.“ Hope LeVin is 21 years old and is sponsored by Naish, Blue Kite and Surf Shop, www.visitTCI.com and Big Blue Unlimited. Her latest achievement? She finally convinced her brother Agile to learn to kite after 10 years of spectating from the beach.

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SAO VICENTE A Different Shade of Cabo Verde By Kari Schibevaag | Photos by Bob Lima

The term Viking does not refer to the Scandinavian people. More accurately, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an old Norse word for those who set out on expeditions over water. So, when an invite to explore one of the lesser traveled islands of the Cabo Verdean Archipelago came my way, my Norwegian blood spiked with anticipation for the adventure.

ince I needed a partner in crime I recruited Marc Ramseier, a Swiss expat who’s been running surf camps out of his wave front house in central Indonesia, when he’s not entrenched with the snowkiting scene in Europe. Marc has absolutely no Viking lineage, however his early explorations have taken him to some of the finest kitesurfing waves around the world. Getting Marc to sign on would have been difficult, except that he was looking for a break from the cold, and the trip’s mission to the unknown pearl of Sao Vicente would be a welcomed escape. The early days of kitesurfing exploration had already brought pros like Marc to the island of Sal, the main Cabo Verdean island, 300 miles off the western coast of Africa. Sal first gained prominence in windsurfing mags in the late 80’s for the antics of Hawaiian transplant Josh Angulo tearing apart its postcard reeling point, Ponta Preta, in endless print centerfolds. The popularity of Sal for European tourism, both wind-driven and otherwise, has shaped the arid landscape of Sal, while our destination on the lesser known island of Sao Vicente was influenced by the historical currents of early colonial trade. Sao Vicente is a bigger island compared to Sal, with far more spectacular nature, mountains and most notably a respectable city by European standards. As you drive its winding cobblestone roads through small villages surrounded by pockets of lush greenery, it’s clear this island is the bustling cultural hub of Cabo Verdean life. The capital of Mindelo evolved from early Atlantic sea trading and exhibits a true urban fabric, rather than endless hotels and timeshares. Mindelo got its start as a storage port for coal to assist steam ships across the Trans-Atlantic passage and its people are of Portuguese descent, mixed with the cultures of sister ports along the coasts of Africa and Southern Europe. Their livelihood, unlike nearby islands that subsist solely on tourism, is rooted in

ABOVE: Marc carves off the top at Fisherman’s Bay, a short trip from the kite center at Salamansa Beach. BELOW: Fresh fish and small

wooden boats powered by the wind are a big part of island life.

“ As you drive its winding cobblestone roads through small villages surrounded by pockets of lush greenery, it’s clear this island is the bustling cultural hub of Cabo Verdean life.”

ABOVE: The goose barnacle lovers of the world might not approve, but Marc and Kari insisted on playing with their food before frying these delicious bottom suckers up for dinner. LEFT: Marc attacks the section at Fisherman’s Bay,

while Kari is free to select whichever set she wanted in this two person line up.

fishing, maritime services and manufacturing. As a result, we were welcomed as outsiders, exploring the true Cabo Verdean culture as modern day Vikings, rather than just cogs in a hectic tourism machine. To get Marc to commit I had teased him with the words of the local kite school owner, which promised empty sets of reeling waves. Marc was sceptical about traveling halfway around the world based on an unsubstantiated claim, but satellite imagery of Sao Vicente showed potential for surf and this was enough to get him to jump on board. We started our first day on Sao Vicente with a signifigant swell and solid northeast trade winds. We headed directly to the kite beach outside of Salamansa, a small fishing village just east of Mindelo. This turned out to be the main spot with the most consistent waves and wind conditions as well as home to our host, Kitesurfnow, a small kite school where you can get some drinks and eat a meal between sessions. We launched at the beach break and kited a couple minutes upwind to a break called Fisherman’s Bay. With a decent swell, Salamansa’s northeast point becomes a real jewel of a kitesurfing wave. It’s like a small Ponta Preta in some ways, with a powerful righthander breaking along the dry rocky point. The wave at Fisherman’s Bay peels uniformly for most parts until the middle of the wave, where a rocky point juts out to create a section you can hit, but you’ve got to come off the lip clean because you’re only a few feet from the rocky shore. The northeast wind blows over the low land, starting from side shore and ending up slightly offshore as the wave wraps into the bay. Marc was pleasantly

surprised to find a wave like that with no one else around. As promised, we had it to ourselves, taking our choice of set waves while trying to pull deeper each time. I focused on positioning myself in the pocket, all the way down the line. The setup could be a bit intimidating at times because the wave breaks right up against the rocks, but thankfully our kites were always pulling us through the whitewater and away from the rocky shore. After two days of empty head high sets at Fisherman’s Bay, the swell began to drop and we began our exploration of the island. Unlike the flat elevation of Sal, Sao Vicente is a much larger island with impressive geography. We mountain biked into the hills above an old English settlement called Matos Ingles. The Cabo Verde Islands were first inhabited by the Portuguese during their time of colonial dominance, but the port of Mindelo was built by the English and as we pedaled the small rocky roads, we wound our way up into the mountains to take in stunning views of the ocean and sandy beaches below. We were told of a kite spot where the water was slick for freestyle on the eastern side called Baia das Gatas. This is a natural swimming pool protected from the waves by lines of rocks. The water is perfect for freestyle when the tide is high, just so long as you stay clear of the rocks downwind. On the beach we bumped into a local man selling wild-foraged goose barnacles out of a bucket. Apparently these are a rare delicacy in the western world, and he sold us some for cheap. Marc cooked them that evening and they tasted like mussels yet much better. Beyond surf, there’s a lot to experience on the island, and through every aspect of our exploration, just like the empty line-ups, we felt like we were the only ones there.

As we toured the Sao Vicente landscape, we were greeted with friendly locals at every turn, who were eager to approach and engage us in conversation. Some attempted simple sign language and others tried their local language - Creole. With so few visiting tourists, they wanted to know where we came from and what we were doing on their island. It was like the early days of kiting; when locals saw our kites in the air, they’d watch us ride the waves and exuberantly break out clapping when we boosted big freestyle jumps. We were told that we had to go visit the westernmost island of the Cabo Verde chain, the stunning island of Santo Antao. Its massive mountains can be seen from most parts of Sao Vicente despite being separated by a channel, which takes 45 minutes to cross by ferry. Santo Antao is the second largest and greenest island of the archipelago although few people live there. Until recently, the island had been pretty much ignored, only to take convicts and exiles such as North African Jews who were escaping the religious persecution of the Inquisition. We quickly learned Santo Antao is not an island for kitesurfing. Its steep volcanic geography greets the water with treacherous cliffs and offers few beaches with kitefriendly wind. We ditched our kites and climbed into a 4x4 to access stunning mountain vistas via narrow handmade roads lined with small stone houses perched on rocky ledges. For those accustomed to the flat arid landscape of Sal, the lush complicated geography of Santo Antao is refreshing. We passed locals working on a plot of sugar cane, then waded through a lake and basked under the power of a nearby waterfall. We walked over barren mountains and saw domestic chickens, pigs, and goats roaming. An old lady invited us to stay for a simple lunch of corn and beans and although she could not afford more than this humble meal, it was an act of generosity that touched us deeply. We walked through jungles of banana, papaya and mango trees. We met a farmer working in the forest that gave us sugar cane and served us grog, a form of local rum, from a kernel of a banana tree. Leaving the mountains, we descended into the small fishing village of Ponta del Sol. At a local beach we watched kids surf on body boards and delighted in the opportunity to share their end-of-surfing snack at the shore. They prepared a local speciality from the ocean, part of which included frying sea urchins, breaking them up and sucking out the sap. They welcomed us to eat with them, and since we were offered the last available plate, one of the boys graciously chose to serve his meal on his swim fin. On our final evening we were invited to dine with a local man who opened up his town house to us. He served us fried fish bought straight from the fishermen at the dock. At each turn, Marc and I never expected the richness of our experience and the hospitality we found in the people of the windward islands. We spent the remainder of our trip exploring the numerous waves of the northeast corner of Sao Vicente. We tacked upwind past Fisherman’s Bay to an area called Fisherman’s Huts, which is known to pick up more surf. Although it was hard to beat the waves of our first days, the lack of crowds and the richness of the Cabo Verdean culture we found on our side trips made the entire trip feel like a Viking adventure. Not all kite trips to new destinations turn out as good as our explorations on Sao Vicente but the draw of experiencing a new culture and a much greener shade of the Cabo Verde Islands along with the thrill of riding new spots will always keep me searching for the next kite adventure.

ABOVE: Marc and Kari exploring the stepped hillsides and unexpected forests of Santo Antao. BELOW: Kari sets her rail into the face at the Fishermanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Huts. TOP LEFT: Mountain biking in the mountains of Sao Vicente. MIDDLE LEFT: A farmer takes time out to share a drink with Marc and Kari. BELOW LEFT: Santo Antao offers a view of a much simpler life.

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By Brendan Richards

IAN ALLDREDGE

FAR FROM THE FRIGID BEACHES OF CENTRAL CALIFORNIA, PATRICK REBSTOCK STEPS OFF A PLANE ONTO A WARM ITALIAN TARMAC HEADED FOR A RED BULL INVITATIONAL CONTEST ON THE SOUTHERN TIP OF SARDINIA. From the small resort town of Chia, Patrick looks out on the crystal clear Mediterranean beach break known as the Italian’s version of Pipeline. Alarmingly, there isn’t a surfable wave in sight, yet an unknown competitor standing nearby, Francesco Maffei, doesn’t care. A last minute no-show pulled Francesco into the Red Bull entourage of other legendary kiters like Keahi Aboitiz, Patri McLaughlin, and Reo Stevens. Shoulder to shoulder with Rebstock, Francesco confesses that although the two have never met, the Italian has learned much of what he knows from this dreadlocked Californian.

One look at the expansive collection of online kite surf videos that Patrick and childhood friend, Ian Alldredge have masterminded on Vimeo, and you will start to understand how a couple of twenty-something’s from Central California are influencing the transformation of kite surfing the world over. The dynamic combination of hard-hitting music, high-quality camera work and jaw dropping surfing sets the visual tone for the progressive style that both Ian and Patrick have pioneered.

Long before they began kitesurfing, Patrick and Ian were snottynosed elementary school kids, kickflipping and grinding the sidewalks and schoolyards of Santa Barbara. Surfing was ingrained in their home lives from an early age, each learning to paddle into the Central California waves in the wake of their waterman

fathers. At an early age, Patrick parlayed his personal interest in skateboarding into a side business of building skate ramps in neighbor’s backyards for cash. Meanwhile, Ian dedicated his younger years to the competitive pursuit of ice hockey. Little did they know these formative experiences would become the foundation of a future collaboration, both creative and competitive. The two were introduced to kiteboarding as malleable middle schoolers when twin tips were the rage, both learning on handme-down Liquid Force Pickleforks. Hungry to kite, but hampered by the lack of drivers licenses, Ian would hitch rides down to Ventura to kite with his dad, while Patrick’s access to a kite beach often required taking his mother “kite hostage,” a term she lovingly coined for the hours she spent reading books or walking along

TOP LEFT: Ian is fully at home in the Dredge Zone. Photo Patrick Rebstock BOTTOM LEFT: Patrick sets up shop

in a cold windy place; the time the boys spend behind the camera is either a short break from a long day of kiting, or recovery from a sidelining injury. Photo Ian Alldredge RIGHT: Patrick says of Ian’s kite surfing. ”Whatever Ian’s doing, he’s always had a certain style, a smoothness about him. Ian is a talented surfer we’ve always looked up to.” Photo Patrick Rebstock

wind blown shorelines. The crucial years of development happened in high school when Ian, one year ahead of Patrick, passed his driver’s test. Armed with wheels and the ability to bail out of school when conditions were right, they were free to pour their adolescent energy with single-minded abandon into kiting. Influenced by the professional surfers of Santa Barbara, particularly the likes of Bobby Martinez, Tom Curren and Dane Reynolds, the boys set out to apply the style of their surfing heroes to kitesurfing. Patrick recalls watching surf videos, “These guys are crazy, but we knew we could do the same things with kites and maybe even go bigger.” It’s debatable as to whether it was a conscious decision at that stage, but Ian and Patrick were set on bridging the performance gap between the kitesurfing they inherited and the progressive surf scene they admired.

At that time, the Central Coast kite scene had been shaped by pioneering wave-rider Peter Trow and the early strapless experimentations of Chris Gutzeit and Wes Matweyew. It wasn’t until the invention of high-depower kites that Ian and Patrick began refining their fluid yet powerful surfing in the strong gusty winds of Central California. The boys began to attack wave faces with control, aggressively setting their rails to draw more traditional surfing lines, free of the kite’s relentless pull. In that same vein, under-bar tuning inspired Ian and Patrick to explore the outer limits of long-throw bars that according to Patrick “freed your hands from being handcuffed in front of you.” Patrick recalls removing the stock stopper balls, “it allowed us to take full advantage of the kite’s expanded angle of attack while allowing your arms full range of motion to load up your body for maneuvers, which becomes

super critical to that kind of surfing.” Innovations like sawing off their spreader bars to make way for rope travelers and the use of wax on their boards made a big difference in the fluid wave riding and technical aerials they ported to kitesurfing. In 2008, Ian put his newly minted Naish sponsorship to the test and packed up his boards and kites to travel around the world with Reo Stevens. In hindsight, Patrick reflects, “growing up on the Central Coast, none of us thought that the next step was possible until Ian traveled around the world and progressed a ton during that time.” Ian’s return with newfound skills and perspectives made it obvious to Patrick, “Ian learned a lot riding different spots, with different people, and when he came back that exposed us to a whole different world.” This was a world that they were now eager to dive into. The boys began making rudimentary videos of their early trips with a cheapo digital Flip camcorder, a gift from Patrick’s aunt. They didn’t care about the poor quality or crappy zoom, they were just stoked on the ability to record videos of their riding and capture the fun they had traveling the beaches of California with their posse of likeminded friends. Patrick had already acquired a professional quality 800mm telephoto lens which had been useful for taking still photos, but it was the recent advancements

in digital SLR cameras that allowed him to begin using this same lens to capture high-definition kite video. In those early days they learned a lot by picking the brains of the still photographers they worked with. Patrick created the internet video channel called Living the Dream (LTD) and Ian established The Dredge Zone (TDZ). One of the first videos on Ian’s TDZ channel was shot by friend and photographer, Toby Bromwich, in the spring of 2010. According to Ian, “Toby came out to shoot photos but we decided to test out the video on his new camera.” Patrick looks back at that first video, “It was super sick, it’s still one of my favorite videos for its classic riding with super smooth, drawn out turns.” Seeing the potential to create visually stunning kite surfing videos, Ian recalls long conversations in the car with Patrick, the two obsessing about camera equipment and different shooting techniques, as they drove back and forth to the beach. The availability of the new cameras and high quality internet streaming were undoubtedly crucial to the building of the TDZ/ LTD video outlets, but perhaps more importantly Ian and Patrick had the help of close friends, fellow Central California kiters Bear Karry and James Ropner. Bear grew up with Patrick and was instrumental in the progression on the water, while James came to the group without a background in surf, but a passion to learn.

BOTTOM: Ian and Bear airing it out. According to Patrick, “We really pushed ourselves by screwing around and having a good time. We’d do a flip right over

each other or maybe hit the lip so close you’d spray your buddy.” Ian put it best, “we’ve always been competitive in a mellow way.” Photo Patrick Rebstock RIGHT: Once questioning if professional kitesurfing was really a ‘thing’, Patrick Rebstock is now at the top of his game representing Slingshot around the world. Photo Christian Black

James Ropner is relatively new to the surfing part of kiting, but he’s put a fair amount of time behind the camera as well as in the water, and it shows. According to Patrick, “James is an animal; we’ll spend full days at the beach and although it’s hard to physically ride the whole time, James will find a way to charge all day.” Photo Ian Alldredge

United by the common goal of filming, the boys kited together as much as possible, trading places behind the camera to capture footage when the conditions were the best. The making of kite surfing films had a very practical effect on their progression in the water. Patrick reflects on filming’s role. “You learn a lot when you are filming; you’re watching your buddy up close and you get to analyze his moves and replay exactly what he’s doing. Then when you switch, and you are the one in the water, you can try to take it one step further and now he’s learning from you.” While Patrick brought a strong visual eye to the projects, Ian had the newer computer and cranked out faster edits to bring their ideas to life.

Disappointed in the way traditional kiteboarding media portrayed their side of the sport, Patrick recalled, “magazines would put pictures of kitesurfing with straps and riders sitting in the backseat - just blowing it - and then follow that with something that reflects the ‘new’ direction of the sport, but it didn’t matter because they already ruined all their credibility.” It was this shared feeling of disillusionment that inspired them to literally create their own media channels to push their vision of what kite surfing “ought to be.”

They chose gnarly music to make the clips edgier and they didn’t care if older kiters were forced to turn off their sound. The videos released on TDZ/LTD were aimed at the next generation of kitesurfers with the intent to motivate the kids and change the future of the sport. Patrick recalled, “We wanted to make something that we could show our surfer friends and get them stoked on kiting. If we sent them the normal kiting stuff, they’d say: ‘Oh that’s lame, that sucks’.” Although that viewpoint runs the risk of alienating many of our sport, it’s precisely that hyperfocused obsession with the progressive side of kitesurfing that helps top athletes like Ian and Patrick push the envelope beyond what’s thought to be possible. While it’s obvious that not everyone will be the next Francesco Maffei learning to punt air reverses by watching TDZ videos, it’s clear that many kiters are ditching their straps for a more progressive style of riding waves. As to the future of kite surfing, it’s hard to know what is next, but one thing’s for sure. Keeping an eye on the videos coming out of the Central Coast of California will not disappoint.

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Photos: Graeme Murray Photos: Pascal Boulgakow

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EXPOSED

ON TOP ONCE AGAIN Colleen Carroll grinds her sponsor’s rooftop rail on her way to take the overall women’s division win at the 2014 Venyu Triple-S Invitational. Photo Mike Hitelman

EXPOSED 68

ON THE ROCKS Best team rider Sam Medysky catches the last bit of wind for this sunset tail stall in front of Table Mountain, South Africa. Photo Ydwer van der Heide â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Ydwer.com

WISH LIST

1. AXIS KITEBOARDING

4. SAKOS APPARREL

2. POLAR PRO

5. STONE WEAR BIKINIS

1. AXIS KITEBOARDING TANDEM — Based on the popular Axis Vanguard model, the 148cm Tandem is the world’s first production tandem kiteboard featuring two sets of bindings. Reinforced in key areas to address the additional weight/flex requirements of two riders, the Tandem opens up new possibilities for instructors and everyday riders alike. MSRP: $899.95 www.axiskiteboarding.com

2.* POLAR PRO VENTURE 3+ PACK – Combines Polar Pro’s most popular filters into one economical package, including the Polarizer for sunny days, Neutral Density for high speed action shots, and the Macro Lens for creative close ups. All of these filters fit securely onto the GoPro Hero3+ only. MSRP: $59.95 www.polarprofilters.com

3. RIDE LIT CREATIONS SUMMER DAZE 5 PANEL HAT – Wear it to the beach, music festivals, or as a pop of color at special events. The neon glow-in-the-dark “Ride Lit” stitching is super steezy and fun for any night out. MSRP: $24 www.ridelit.com

3. RIDE LIT CREATIONS

6. SWISS BAREFOOT COMPANY

4.* SAKOS APPARREL COMPRESSION XGUARD – Utilizes recycled CoffeeBeans™ and BioCeramic™ fabrics which help retain core body temperature and counteract fatigue. The patent pending XForm™ made of NeoSkin™ reinforces posture, increases endurance, and promotes focus to muscle groups for peak performance. MSRP: $79.95 www.sakosapparel.com

5. STONE WEAR BIKINIS RASTA – Produced in the Columbia River Gorge to fit great and be comfy on the beach or under a wetsuit. Designer Jeanice Stone also specializes in custom and made to order bikinis. MSRP: $80 www.stonewearbikinis.com

6.* SWISS BAREFOOT COMPANY PROTECTION SOCK — Made of knitted material with a welded polyester bobble, the Protection Sock is designed for people who like to walk barefoot but want some protection from the elements. Works great when kiting as well! MSRP: Sock $80; Sockette $75 www.barefootcompany.ch

*Online reviews for this issue’s accessories available at www.thekiteboarder.com/wishlistreviews

15 MINUTES

Sunset on the skids. We love everything about this sick shot of Matthew Sexton — soulful, well-exposed, and perfectly timed. Photo Greg Hinsdale

This issue’s winning photo (above) takes home a Lined Beanie from Patagonia. Send your photos to editor@thekiteboarder.com to get your 15 minutes of fame and a chance to win something from Patagonia.

Patrick Israel goes nuclear on a rare south wind day in Honolulu. Photo Garth (The Dirty Ozzy) Freeman

James Chaplin drawing lines on a mystery body of water that this editor guesses to be Alaska’s Turnagain Arm. Photo GoPro Selfie Ced Vandenschrik scores fickle sideoff wind in Sardinia Bay, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Photo Andrew Miller

Scott Peterson lays into a cutback on the green waves of Jupiter, Florida. Photo Lisa Jefferson

Cayo Guillermo, Cuba delivers 12 straight days of kiting for Shawn Bougie. Photo Erik Skjelmose

Hatem Walid practices megaloops over Egyptian waters. Photo Lina Gvazdauskaite

Leonardo Solitro is a son of a Brazilian kite instructor, which helps explain how this young gun learned to kite when he was five. Photo Laurent Klein

Lucas Arsenault leaves Canadian winter behind in the beautiful waters of the Turks & Caicos. Photo Matthew Arsenault

Kyle Gladney is all smiles for the camera off Delray Beach, Florida. Photo Tom Leeman

VIEWPOINT

Blasting off waves as kickers is in a category of it’s own, sandwiched between freestyle and park riding. Photo Vincent Bergeron

Since the beginning of the wakestyle movement its riders have represented the most core, radical, and technical aspects of freestyle kiteboarding. Although the label wakestyle was based on the choice of wakeboarding boots over windsurf style foot straps, the distinction is far greater than mere choices in equipment. Riding powered and fast, going big while keeping the kite low, unhooking, and hitting features are all trademarks at the core of the movement. The most obvious distinction of this progression has been that its riders embrace the wakeboarding boot for crucial support when riding and landing with greater speed and impact. The earliest wakestyle riders knew their vision was the future, but more often than not boots have been considered a misguided fringe element of our sport. That picture was perfected when mainstream kiters watched early wakestyle riders drill holes in a brand new $700 board to mount up a set of boots. For the masses, it’s sheer lunacy to destroy shiny graphics for the sake of grinding a ghetto rail or log. Fast forward to the present and much has changed. Now that the riders on the Freestyle World Tour have fully transitioned to boots it seems that wakestyle has completed its prophesized overthrow of strapped riding as the pinnacle of freestyle kiteboarding. Assuming this makes freestyle and wakestyle one and the same, do we still need the term wakestyle? A lot of riders in the movement have always grated against the term. It either makes no sense because there is no wake in kiteboarding, or wakestyle classifies the movement as a subcategory when we now know it’s the truest form of freestyle. In other board sports, like snowboarding, freestyle is broken up into categories like big air, halfpipe, and urban. There may be slight differences in the gear for each, like sharper edges for halfpipe and dulled edges for urban, but riding dulled edges in a halfpipe

does not make it urban and vice versa. None of these categories depend on what gear you are riding but rather how you are riding, so it makes sense to distinguish kiteboarding styles without regard to the gear. Whether you ride with straps, boots, big fins, small fins, no fins, rocker, no rocker, waist harness, seat harness, chicken loop, pulley bar, c-kite, bow kite, snowboard, landboard, kiteboard, or wakeboard, it doesn’t matter. You can ride every style with any type of gear. And if wakestyle is freestyle, how will we recognize the aspects of each style that do not cross over, like hitting features or riding hooked-in and using the kite to get lift? Well the way I see it, these styles are now the subcategories of freestyle kiteboarding. Hitting features is “park riding” or “parkstyle” and riding hooked-in and using the kite to jump is “airstyle.” Of course these are just basic categorizations; some tricks will always seem to fit more than one or none of the categories. Sent and kiteloop handlepasses would borrow from both airstyle and freestyle. Using waves as kickers would combine freestyle and park riding. Trying to name and re-categorize everything every time the sport evolves may be a huge headache, but at the end of the day categories help us distinguish and appreciate the finer aspects of our sport. Word games aside, the dedication and obsession for evolution in freestyle kiteboarding deserves a little respect and what better way to show respect than by recognizing what makes each style truly unique.

Eric Rienstra

ROOTS

LMG sets up to hit The Stoker at Sherman Island.

PHOTO SCOTT SEMON

“Dude, let’s build a ramp!” Dubbed The Stoker, it was meant to be the biggest and baddest kicker old-school freestylers could imagine. Crazy ideas and heated debates about materials and scope abounded. After countless hours of labor, The Stoker turned out so large it had to be cut down to fit through the roll up door of the Alameda workshop it was created in. At 8 feet tall, 12 feet wide and 20 feet long, it was impressive indeed – and a bit intimidating.

LMG’s unvarnished glee for life was reflected in everything he did. He was a gifted athlete and in addition to kiteboarding he loved surfing, skateboarding and skiing. Owner of Clean Cut Painting, he was also an extraordinarily talented craftsman in the art of restoring Victorian homes. His precise and caring work touched the homes and lives of numerous Bay Area residents.

This is just one example of how Gregory Boyington III approached life. Large, with a no holds barred, take no prisoner’s attitude and with pure passion in everything he did. If you ever visited California’s Sherman Island or Alameda, you may not have known him but chances are you heard him. Affectionately nicknamed Loud Mouth Greg, LMG was known among the early Bay Area kiteboarders for his strong and frequently vocalized opinions but most remarkably, his inability to talk at auditory levels anything short of shouting.

A longtime friend described Greg as the epitome of the Hindu word “seva-dal,” meaning: One who serves others, helping others in anonymity with no expectation of reward, thanks, or recognition. To those who were closest to him, this was the heart and soul of how Greg led his life. He built heated cat-condos for the feral cats around his shop in Oakland because in his words, “it gets hella cold in the winter by the water.” He also made sugar-syrup for the row of feeders for the hummingbirds of the world. The First Law of Greg was once you knew about a misfortune, you were soulfully required to act on it for the better. Greg’s heart was huge and he wore it on his sleeve.

Greg’s contributions to the Bay Area kiteboarding community are numerous. In the early days when twin tip production boards were scarce, LMG custom boards were enjoyed by many, including the Smith’s, a local family of kiters who still possess the extra small kiteboard he made for their two young sons when they first started. Greg was also the guy with the jet ski, always helping out at events, running safety, chasing runaway buoys and helping kiters in need. When the rising popularity of Sherman Island led to congestion in the launch area, Greg and his good friend Yuri Reiter constructed “in” and “out” signs to safely direct the traffic flow to and from the water. Every local scene has a self-appointed ‘big brother’, a good Samaritan that’s often the first to lay hands on a kite spiraling out of control or always there to help a fellow kiter in need. For the Bay Area, this was largely Gregory Boyington III.

By Marina Chang, Tkb Staff

Greg was known and loved for his boisterous laugh, loud voice, hysterical stories and exuberant spirit. In celebrating Greg’s life, his brother-in-law Jeffrey Lippa said it best by asking, “How can we be alive, in the moment, the way Gregory was? How can we regain the youthful curiosity, that sense of wonder, the spirit and enthusiasm that Gregory shared with us throughout his life? The roots of our sport are found in people like LMG whose adventurous spirit helped shape our communities into what they have become today. Greg was a very large character in the early Bay Area kiteboarding scene. His legacy to those who knew him will stand as a reminder that we should all live life loudly by spreading the stoke in every aspect of our lives. Rest in peace LMG.

PARTING SHOT The long summer days that lay ahead will be some of the finest moments of the season. Fuller sessions, warmer water and stronger more dependable wind is upon us, serving as an undeniable reminder that there are few things in life better than this. Photo Courtesy F-One

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