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- [00:01]
Adrian
Welcome to the kitesurf 365 podcast.
- [00:04]
Dave K
Merry Christmas, everybody. And today I have a Christmas call with DK. It's probably the least TechCast ever. We had to use three platforms. My major platform wasn't working. I tried to go somewhere else. I went to zoom. There's a 30 minute limit. I went to teams. I couldn't get that to work and I ended up having to call DK on WhatsApp. It's a pretty funny way to end the year, but I want to thank everyone who's tuned in this year and supported the podcast and I. Again, thanks to DK for always doing a great job. This is a bit of a fun catch up to end the year. Don't forget to follow me at kitesurf365 for all the latest episodes. Ladies and gentlemen, Dave K. I'm having some technical issues, man. My. My online studios decided to pack up. I've got two podcasts to do. You and Alex Pastor to finish the year and I couldn't log in today. Not a good start.
- [01:01]
Adrian
No, it's not a good start at all.
- [01:03]
Dave K
It's not very technical.
- [01:05]
Adrian
No, actually for the. Yeah. For the last Techcast 25. Are we Techcast 25? Are we more than that?
- [01:12]
Dave K
I don't. I don't know, man. It's all. They've all molded together. We didn't do one for the last six weeks. Just a little bit busy. But I don't think this is going to be very technical, this thing. But it's just to be. Thank the listeners and we still have so many messages to get through, by the way.
- [01:26]
Adrian
Oh yeah. Now what's that? It's. Do you know, I've got a playlist. I'm gonna go check my playlist, see actually how many of these we've done. So Spotify. That's what I'm trying to think of.
- [01:39]
Dave K
Dude.
- [01:40]
Adrian
I am so looking forward to a Christmas holiday. I really. Quite, quite worn out.
- [01:45]
Dave K
Yeah. After you. Today I'm officially. Wow. I mean I've got to record with Alex on Sunday, but I'm officially. These are the easy parts. I've got to do two podcasts and two edits. I think I'm going to do Monday or maybe I'll do Monday, Tuesday because it's getting pretty close to Christmas. Maybe Monday and Wednesday. Maybe someone's to listen to something on the day before Christmas.
- [02:05]
Adrian
Oh, I would. Yeah, for sure.
- [02:07]
Dave K
I'll put you out on Wednesday then.
- [02:11]
Adrian
Have a look.
- [02:14]
Dave K
Ah.
- [02:14]
Adrian
As I monitor technical issues.
- [02:20]
Dave K
We've been Let down.
- [02:20]
Adrian
No, actually I have. I haven't. I have not even put up. The last one I put up was actually was August. So. Ah. I need to even. I need to even update cast.
- [02:33]
Dave K
We did, yes, was TechCast 25. So this must be. This would have been 26, this one.
- [02:40]
Adrian
This is TechCast number 26. Yeah. So my note. Yeah, because we're using number 24's notes. So.
- [02:49]
Dave K
How are you, man? You're excited? What's your plans for Christmas? What are you guys going to do? You guys are still planning to head up to JB or are you gonna hang around? Yeah, hang around this end of town.
- [02:58]
Adrian
No, it was. Oh, dude, we are. What is going on here? We have wind starting today all the way through to Sunday, like quite nice wind in Cape Town. So we would have. If the weather report was not much wind around, we probably would have been packing up sort of tomorrow and heading north. But I think with good wind in town and lots of excitement about the. About Lacuna, we need to. We'll hang around until Sunday, probably pack the car probably pack the car Sunday evening and hit the road like. Like 3am on, on Monday morning.
- [03:37]
Dave K
It's been a great season for you guys. I mean, it's been. I mean, it was windy when I was there, which was a change over the last few years. Is it going to be. Is the wind going to hold through the whole season? You know, because normally it's like light wind, then more wind and, you know, you never know with Cape Town. I mean, it's constantly changing.
- [03:53]
Adrian
If I could predict the. If I could predict the wind month, months in advance, I'd be a millionaire. So who knows? We were very, very, very lucky with the season this year. In fact, I think the. The king, like the, the lead in the athletes had the King of the Year. Unprecedented. Like, it was the last time they had that much good training, was the last time it was run in. The last time it was run in January. So do you remember that was unreal.
- [04:24]
Dave K
Lorenzo said it's the best. He's best conditions he's ever been in like 40 knots every day. Crazy conditions, you know?
- [04:30]
Adrian
Yeah.
- [04:30]
Dave K
Yeah. And I mean for Lorenzo. For Lorenzo to say it's crazy conditions is something right? Because those guys are particularly picky about what they like. So, you know, I heard an interesting story the other day. I, I don't. It's probably not confirmed, but you know how you and I were. Everyone was going, well, why haven't they run the King of the Air on the Sunday. What's the point. Why did they wait till the Monday? Why did they wait till the Wednesday? And someone said to me that one of the Thai families or one of the guys from the Thai Red Bull side was en route to I don't know where there's Abu Dhabi going to Abu Dhabi and was going to swing by and watch some. Some of these events. I don't know whether that I mean this could be a great rumor right for all we know. But whether he came or not, I don't know. But I'm sure The Red Bull 51% dudes are turning up. You, you know maybe. Maybe you put on a bit of a show or hold the show, you know, I don't know. What do you think?
- [05:24]
Adrian
Oh maybe good rumor or not.
- [05:25]
Dave K
Yeah, I didn't see any. I didn't see any ties around.
- [05:29]
Adrian
Yeah you wouldn't like that'd be top floor reporter co they'd be in the.
- [05:36]
Dave K
They paid for everyone's rent for the top five claws and said right get out. We'll dribble the rent off. We're here for one night.
- [05:41]
Adrian
Exactly. Yeah that's completely very likely.
- [05:44]
Dave K
Yeah yeah but that would.
- [05:47]
Adrian
There's another oh it be fantastic story. There is another side to it where Red Bull like it's eyeballs on the live feed is the. Is the payback for Red Bull like that's. They want as many people watching as possible and running. Having a. The event live streaming on a weekday compared to a. Compared to a Sunday is 10 times the amount of viewership than what they would have if it ran on a Sunday. So really you can't. Yeah audience. It's easily that. Easily ten times more people. So you can't discount the fact that they're like if they're if between the Sunday like the given a weekday and a Sunday if they're looking about the same there is a very very big motivating factor to say run it on a. Run it on a weekday. So.
- [06:42]
Dave K
Interesting. Yeah I mean I guess we'll never know. And that's the other thing is we never ever ever. We never ever know the actual numbers of the stream. Like that's very very secret because it's run through their channels. You. Yeah that's. That's something I'm always interested to know. But we, we're never privy to that which is totally cool. I mean that's their right. They own it. Right. They can distribute and keep information. I think information is power in those type of situations.
- [07:06]
Adrian
Both you and I get to see a little bit More in the back end of what goes on. King of the Year one year in the year. In the media booth, you've got access in and around the athletes. Sue works in the. For the last two King of the years, Sue's worked in the. The live stream mixing desk. So she is like, she's, she's right on the, she's right on the. The sort of the cutting edge of what's going well, right in the. The hot seat, as it were, for what's going on for that. And so because of that, I'm. I get access in the whole. Into the whole event and it's extremely professional and extremely stressful for that whole team like they are.
- [07:50]
Dave K
It's.
- [07:52]
Adrian
It's probably one of the hardest things to do well, which, you know, you know, as much as anybody, it's really hard to film kite boarding well and to film a live kite boarding event and put out a really effective live stream is just insanely difficult. Like, it's. You compare it to something like the Red Bull Rampage, it's like you, you pretty much know the lines that the, the athletes are going to take every time. And there's one at a time so all the cameras can be on them, but three athletes on the water, low sun, straight into the, straight into the camera, trying to choose, pick who's who and who's going to be the next rider that's going to leave the water.
- [08:33]
Dave K
Difficult and difficult when you come crazy. I mean, I, I was saying this yesterday, you know, like one of the great disappointments, you know, this year was that you know, we, with all the camera outage and all the problems that they're having at Cold Hawaii, you know, and I were looking like this, like a laptop to look, you know, you can't see anything. You know, you're better to actually have eyes on the comp. But I know, you know, the dynamic is they want you to commentate or they want you to talk about what people are seeing, not what's happening off the camera. So it is a, it's like a catch 22, right. I mean, ultimately, look at the best commentators. They've got their eyes live on what's going on. That's, you know, then they can paint the picture. But, yeah, it's a tough one.
- [09:08]
Adrian
Yeah.
- [09:09]
Dave K
And if you've never been to King of the App, it's a seriously big setup. It's not. There's not, there's. There's not just some dude with a. There's not some. There's not some dude with a Few laptops, you know, and a thousand cables running into it. It's. You know, I can think there's probably three or four big media trucks, and that's not including the gear trucks that bring all the gear. That's just the. The operating rooms. It's pretty impressive.
- [09:32]
Adrian
Yeah. Trucks, truckloads and truckloads of scaffolding for all of the. Like, for the judge's tower and the. Then there's the whole VIP area that's all completely built out at the scaffold.
- [09:43]
Dave K
It's.
- [09:44]
Adrian
It's ridiculous. Like, good on, like, Red Bull with the king of the air. Like, it is. It's not. It's not in the same league as anything else that we do in our industry. It's like, it's absolutely over the top ridiculous, the amount of money that gets spent on that event, but it also brings out the absolute best riders, so. And talking about commentating. Two days. I spent two days in the commentary box for the. The beach commentary, which was a. Yeah. Which was a new one for. A new one for me. So, again, like, it's a, like, hats off to you and Ben for what you do for, like, cold y. It's incredibly hard to call that stuff well and be like. And actually just come, like, to be smooth in your presentation. It's just really hard to keep that momentum going when there's so much going on.
- [10:40]
Dave K
Sure. I mean, I'm. I'm more of the thing of just telling the stories about it now, you know, like, you know, I mean, it's. There's a lot of downtime right, between tricks and, you know, you have to, like, fill that space up. That's where, you know, doing a thousand podcasts with Ben sort of helped. You know, we can sort of do that. But, yeah, that's cool. I mean, I think I had Hugo. I think I had Hugo in there. Hugo was with you at one stage or yourself. Was basically like a Kiwi takeover. We might not have any Kiwi riders, but we had them all on the comms. You know, post shows and comms were all Kiwis, which is good to see.
- [11:12]
Adrian
Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. No, well, that's a. An old Australian sailing mate of mine, he once told me that the. The rule with. The rule with sailing is never let a Kiwi on the boat because the bastards will multiply. They always know somebody.
- [11:35]
Dave K
Speaking of Kiwis, what about Hugo's 40 meters a foil?
- [11:38]
Adrian
Oh, dude. Absolutely insane. And so stoked for him.
- [11:43]
Dave K
So the crazy thing, bro, is I reckon from when he got on the water to when he jumped, when he got off was probably like 20 minutes or something. And in that time Jamie came down, tried to get his foil up the foil, the hydrofoil blew out of his hand and cartwheel down the beach. So they landed the foil. By the time they checked all the bolts and, and checked that, I mean actually the, the hydrofoil was cartwheeling down the beach in the wind. That's how windy. But the wind had come up and even Hugo said I think it's too windy for the Sonic 7, the Sonic 5. Now you know, you know launching that number one they had a massive, as they were trying to launch it, you know the bridles were just shaking everywhere and they, you know those bridles they just get into a million knots straight away. I think by the time it took about 45 minutes to get out and by that time was just too much wind. So it was almost like the luck was perfect. I mean that's what it is.
- [12:37]
Adrian
Absolutely buddy. Yeah but interesting I, I think the, the most interesting gear. Well it firstly like it's, we now have on Woo the top, the top three. The top three jumps of all time on Woo are now hydrofoils. Two of them on foil kites and one of them on, on Charles's customade thing. So the back it's called the banger F1 banger. The banger. There we go. So the discussion there of splitting the leaderboards sounds perfectly valid to me. Like it's, like it's different equipment but the most interesting choice that Hugo made to actually get this was to go down to 17 meter lines which now one of the. If you've talked to anyone who's ever used any of the, any foil kites for Woo over, over the last, over the last 10 years of Wu, what they'll tell you is I've jumped the biggest I've ever jumped on a Woo. I've jumped the biggest I've ever jumped on a foil kite. Problem is it took me 20 seconds to come down and, and, and Wu cannot deal with long hang time. Long hang time jumps like those, those. Now going down to the 17 meter lines gave Hugo two things. One, as you said the wind got got up and you can have more control. You have the ability, you get more top end out of any given kite by putting it on shorter lines. So it's, it gave him the ability to probably take that kite beyond what he could have held otherwise.
- [14:19]
Dave K
Well put it this way, he went out on a 6 meter after that.
- [14:23]
Adrian
Yeah.
- [14:23]
Dave K
And I mean that I would. I guess would it be fair to say like a 7 meter Sonic 5 is probably similar to a 9 meter kite? Is that sort of. Would that be sort of similar in. Given the shape of it because of its. Of its sort of high aspect or give it. Let's say give it the same amount of power power zone area as a 9 meter. Maybe that's a better way to say.
- [14:43]
Adrian
Yeah a little bit. It's. You do actually have to fly them back to back to actually get a feel for it and get an understanding. And also there is a. There's rumor has it there's a six meter Sonic. There's a couple of six meter Sonic fives kicking around with sevens on the wingtip and could. There's a poss. Like I don't know whether Hugo's got one of those but is there a possibility that that's. That that was the kite that he was out on. So there's always. There's always that but the. The shorter lines I believe a bit like Aaron Hadlow on the. Aaron Hadlow versus Luke McGilloway a year ago at Macassar. The. The 235.06 meter jumps that the shorter lines gave Hugo a what the ability to hold more power with because it obviously got windy. But I believe it's the second half of the jump. Those. Those shorter lines definitely cut your hang time. So getting up and getting back down quick enough for the like it wasn't a 25 second hang time jump. And which is always the problem when it comes to the large. When it comes to big big jumps on a foil. On a foil kite. I think that made the difference. So it's always like gear. It gets super technical on gear selection and especially when we're getting to now. Now there's. I've seen so many. So many threads online. What's the. What's the hydrofoil the guys are using? What's the board set up? Where's the woos placed? What line lengths were using? Where can I get that Sonic 5. Like it's a. It's. That's the. That's this. Everybody wants to know the full setup that's going on that the. For those. Those super high jumps right now. And I think all three guys are.
- [16:36]
Dave K
Actually using the same F1 setup.
- [16:37]
Adrian
All three of them. Yeah. Using the same hydrofoil.
- [16:40]
Dave K
So yeah It's. It's an F1 hydrofoil. I'll actually. I'll find that detail. I'll find exactly what 4 setup is in our. We can talk about the Next podcast. But that's interesting that all three of them are using that same F1 setup, different boards. Charles and I don't know what board Jamie's using, but they're all got slightly different boards. And actually Hugo rides quite a lot of a bigger board. Have you noticed that? It's a lot bigger of a board than what if you look at, especially in the Hydro 4, big air, it looks a lot of those guys look like they're riding like a. That classic sort of lunch tray, you know, the foot and the back right on the very limit of the board. But Hugo's got quite a lot of bigger board. I think that probably helps him with his landing, but.
- [17:18]
Adrian
Oh, completely. Yeah, yeah. When you're actually on foil, the board is probably the least consequence. Actually, one of the most fun foil boards I've ever had in my own quiver was a converted wake skate, which is perfect. Just drilled four holes through the plywood deck, bolted it on the top of my hydrofoil mast, perfectly happy. But where the board makes all the difference is when you're not on foil. And it's probably a very conscious choice on Hugo's part that if he runs a slightly bigger board, he's got much more likelihood of landing. Like, he's got faster takeoff and better landings.
- [17:57]
Dave K
So interesting you said that because a friend of mine up here named John, he had a ball that he's learning to foil on and, you know, as he got better, this board's too big. So he just got a hacksaw and hacked it off. And he, you know, did a really nice job. He. He glassed it all up, sand it down, repainted it. But he said it took him like another two or three weeks to get used to. The whole balance of the board was changing. And I think he's trimmed it again. But every time he's trimmed it, it's like being a completely different board, you know, it's like taking him a whole lot more sort of time to get used to. So it's interesting with those guys having different sizes. I mean, he's not jumping by any means like these kids, but yeah, the landings. The landings is where those boards. Bigger board, I think sure helps on that landing. But listening to Finn talk about that in the last podcast, he was. He reckons that's why maybe Charles is getting scored less, because he can't. They expect him to land on the foil, which is a huge ask.
- [18:51]
Adrian
Yeah, yeah, I, He. I haven't. I haven't looked into. But you probably have. How was. I think like the. How Charles was scored in the King of the Year was much. Seemed much more comparable to his. To his competitors. And a lot of that I. Well, at least from. Because I. I was. I was commentating for all of Charles's. I was doing the beach commentary for Charles's heat. He seemed to be riding with a lot more power this year than what he was last year. And I think that. Yeah, so I'm not sure whether it was the. Like the landings. Yes. But I think the. Where he was maybe getting scored less in the past was smaller kites, less power. He was using speed rather than raw power. And. And King of the Air is about raw power. So. Yeah, again, just amazing to see a hydrofoil in that. In that competition and going head to head. It was way tighter this year than like, it was. It was much more a comp. Like a comparable contest from what I could see between. Between Charles and the other riders, which was. Yeah, again, it gave us plenty to talk about in the commentary box because that was part of my reason to be up there was to talk about the differences that. With both Charles's equipment and. And Luca's equipment in the. In the comp.
- [20:26]
Dave K
Man, how was that? That might even be the biggest chair of the day when. Mate, they had that. They had that 7. That they had that sonic 5, 7 meter up so fast. And that might have been the biggest chair of the day. I think it was pretty crazy from where we were sitting.
- [20:39]
Adrian
And at least all of the South African riders that were in King of the Air, if it's. If it's less than 9 meter, like, if the wind is less than 9 meter conditions, they're training on foil kites. All of them. Yeah. And they will like, the reason they're training on those is because they get the kite gives them the extra hang time. And so it gives them the time to practice what they would be doing once it actually. Once they're actually getting that amount of air time on. On 9 meter and smaller. So, yeah, they have. They have legs. If it had been like, if that.
- [21:24]
Dave K
Heat.
- [21:27]
Adrian
Had have been. If that heat had have been windier, I don't think. I don't think Luca would have put that kite up.
- [21:35]
Dave K
No, no, for sure. For sure. And it was about the right time. There's a couple minutes to go in the heat and, you know, it's pretty close to that stage. But it's interesting, like, you know, like you were talking to me about from the judges, tower heel and Zara's kite angle versus where I'm Sitting, you know, we're, we're. The way we're looking is like two triangles, right. One I'm up by the riders area looking back across the box. You're looking up towards the mountain and the guy's looping into your peripheral.
- [22:00]
Adrian
Right.
- [22:00]
Dave K
That's your vision. But you were saying to me it's amazing how much lower heel gets his kite. See from out. From my view I thought that heel was being overscored because I didn't think it was that impressive. But I know he'll puts it low, right. I know he can. I know that's his whole thing about getting that quite low. So it's interesting And I always said that as well. People always ask me, oh, you know, you guys talk about one way but on the stream it looks the other and you have to look at from different angles. The camera doesn't do it justice or certain viewpoints don't do it justice. So that was interesting to hear from me as well.
- [22:34]
Adrian
Yeah. The thing, the view that you have from the, the creators or, or the, the media. Yeah. Which is, which is upwind of where the judges tower is. Line length also makes a massive difference into what you can see like what you're seeing in terms of relative height between the rider and the. And the kite where, where the. The beach commentary and the judges boxes in the. Or the beach commentary is one floor down from where the judges are sitting in the tower. And we're looking for the most part or at least for the first half of the heats when the guys are trying to stay upwind as much as possible. We are looking straight upwind towards the mountain. And what we can see from that angle is we're basically looking from the kite straight back at the rider. So it's much easier to judge the.
- [23:29]
Dave K
They're coming up to your height almost.
- [23:32]
Adrian
Yeah. And you can see like especially that. Yeah. There was definitely times where what we could see was like literally in the same square above the horizon was hills, kite and hill. So definitely a different look and a different take on where it's at. And of course you can't discount that when it comes to the judging that what we were seeing from the tower was what the judges were saying. So. And yeah, especially yeah Hill set against. Against Luca wasn't the most spectacular but all of his heats leading up to that. I. Yeah, yeah. From at least from our point of view, Hill was dominating in terms of Kai Tang. In terms of extremity of Kite angle, it's.
- [24:20]
Dave K
He's an interesting position. Old hill Right. Because he's still, you know, he's still. He's a smart guy. You know, he just gets through being smart and riding to what the. What the judges want. And there's always that great debate, you know and arguably Andre's great weaknesses. He just does what he wants to do, you know. But that's just fine. I mean that's worked from well and that's. That's how he. How he rides. Opposed to Lorenzo who's super organized and you know, got a. Got a radio on his helmet and you know, you know, come from a very disciplined team. And then heels probably a little bit like that without the technicality. Like he's very, very, very careful and rides very. He's a smart. He was a smart rider. That's. That's the bottom line. Right. But I just wonder how much. How much longer can these guys compete? Can they keep up?
- [25:08]
Adrian
Okay. We'd go back to. At least we always look I always go Kelly Slater who's a year older than me is actually going back to compete in on the. On the Kelly.
- [25:22]
Dave K
Kelly Slater spending 100 grand a year on his body. I doubt he'll spending on his body. You know, I mean it like how can LeBron James still be playing at 42 or 43, you know, 24 years in the NBA? It's kind of crazy, right? But the medical is so much better.
- [25:39]
Adrian
Yeah, completely.
- [25:40]
Dave K
But dude, put this way, when I was a kid, when I was growing up mate a friend of mine, his brother was 24 and he lived at home and we were like dude, your brother's a loser. He's at home at 24. What a loser. We consider that to be old. You know, if you were 40, you were dad's army. I mean it's amazing what these 50 year olds can do now. And you know, and you know like even Mark and Aaron who just get well Mark still road was riding this year but still. Still would want to compete. They're still doing it.
- [26:12]
Adrian
Yeah, completely. And actually my. That was going to be my next. My next comment as well is marketed Aaron super competitive well into their. Well into their middle 30s. There's all of the current fleet have years have years available to them. As long as they. Yeah. As long as they may remain relevant and fit like it will keep happening. What we. What we had in this is. This is more you and Ben's forte when it comes to looking at our industry. But if we look back that transition of the trap coming in was almost a bit unprecedented. We actually had. We'd had a large number of years of the same riders and we with. With just occasional new. New entrants coming in. And then all of a sudden we had a. A very young, very motivated, very talented set of riders come in and change the landscape. And that, that may happen again. But our sport would like those riders changed how our sport is done. And so yeah, let's see if that. The only reason that would kick. That we would see a big kick out of. Of older riders right now is if we have an equal, equal change. And that'll happen.
- [27:42]
Dave K
You know, also that 2021 year was an interesting year, right? Because it was the era of the. They changed from January through to November or January February through to November, December. That gave Heal a whole lot more work. You know, he'll sit in that podcast. He said, man, I was. I was nowhere near as good enough. You know, people were wondering why I was in. It gave Mark that opportunity. But that 21 year was the start of the trap. But because the fleet had already been picked in the end of 2020 for the 2021 thing, Covid came pushed it back nine to 10 months. So we never. We were almost robbed of the trap for a whole year. They would have been there. Yeah, and it was lucky. I mean, look, Mark deserves it. He was amazing. He rode brilliantly. He completely dominated that that year. The only person who would probably put up a good battle was Yannick. And then obviously Yannick went out early on to. To. To Joshua Manuel. Probably one of the most controversial heats in King of the Air history. But that covert has to be part of it as well. Right? That's. That. That also caused a change because we had a whole. Almost a year, nine months with no King of the Year because we hadn't had it since January or February in 2020 through till the end of 2021. And the sport along in the back with Mike with a big air kite league. Andrea Lorenzo. They've vaporized that living shit out of that thing.
- [29:06]
Adrian
Oh yeah, yeah. Completely completely. So yeah. So that's which brings back to. We can't like, we can't use that unprecedented 18. 18 months to 2 years post Covid as a. And the, the, the, the. The. The big changeover in writer in who the top writers were. It's. It's difficult for us to look forward and see, okay, are we going to see a. Are we going to see a similar, A similar changeover when it comes to riders and our competitive riders in our industry, or it would take some other sort of unprecedented event I think we're just going to see the, a continual, a continual improvement in saying that. Oh my word. There are after. There's been a few, there's been a few years where we haven't really seen any young up and coming writers out of Cape Town and there is a whole new, whole new super motivated, super talented set of young riders coming in the Cape Town scene right now who could really change up the, the, the, the competitive landscape again in a very short, short space of time.
- [30:28]
Dave K
Interestingly, dk, they were riding outside my place in Dolphin beach and I was looking at these two brand new Duotone 2026 rebels D Lab Rebels. And I was thinking, Andrea's riding tomorrow and he's not even riding this how these two young kids got these kites and Andre is not using them in competition. So yeah, they, they, and they were good. I mean I could see they were good. I knew they were good straight away. I said to, I actually was speaking to Josh and he's like, oh yeah, these, these kids are, these kids are the next sort of, you know, the next little bunch of kids coming out of South Africa. Which is great to see because, you know, if we didn't have this 16 rule for drinking Red Bull, I think the ages of the kids would just start getting younger and younger and younger. Not, not crazy young. But there's no reason like Leo could have, Leo and Finn and, and Shah. They could have all written last year. They could have written.
- [31:18]
Adrian
They could. Yeah, I think they, I think they become more polished and more, and have a better mindset with that one year delay. That's so the two, the two kids we're talking about the South African kids, this is Damo and Leo and I can't for the life of me pronounce their last names. So we'll just call them Damo and Leo.
- [31:41]
Dave K
Isn't it Rolf and Rolf Zol or Rolf Soul, something like that.
- [31:44]
Adrian
Yeah. See that's why, that's why I keep you around for a little.
- [31:48]
Dave K
Are they, are they actually, are they brothers?
- [31:51]
Adrian
They're brothers. So we've got a, we've got another younger, younger brother called Leo coming through, which is hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. They, I, I remember riding with them 18. Oh well I remember riding with them beginning of last season at, at Makassar when they were on old second hand wave kites and being really impressed with just their energy on the water. But their writing was nothing to go, nothing to go to write home about. And now we're looking 18 months. Well, yeah, actually it's probably is 18 months. I was probably the end of the 20, the 23, 24 season is probably when I first met them. And now beginning of the 20, 25, 26 season, you're watching them from, watching them from your hotel going, these kids have got some, some talent. And it's that, it's literally that amount of time for them to just, just like their, their skills have just been accelerating and it's just amazing to watch. So there's a whole, that there are new, new kids coming through and they're probably the same in other parts of the world. I just don't, I don't travel to, I don't travel to the likes of Tarifa and stuff as much as, oh.
- [33:16]
Dave K
Bro, they're not stopping. They're just, they're coming, they're coming in force and you can't stop them. And it's also that the gear is just so much safer and better and the parents feel more comfortable and you know, you know, when, you know, if this was still sea kite days, it'd be impossible that it wouldn't have the strength, you know, but now it's like the gear is a lot easier to fly, you know, it's more safe. It's been tested that, you know, the industry's driven. Let's be honest, the industry's done a great job at keeping us safe. You know, a lot of the mistakes and injuries from kiteboarding up pilot error opposed to gear error. Right now that could be a pretty unreferenced comment because I haven't really looked into it. But from what I know, most of the big problems come from people doing dumb shit. Okay, for sure we have gear brakes, but they are more the minority, I think. You know, the gear brakes don't make you try and jump over a pier when it's not windy enough. Stuff like that, you know, Know.
- [34:13]
Adrian
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And, and like I've discussed at nauseam in the past that there is that kind of this dichotomy when it comes to the concept of high performance equipment in kite boarding, that actually what is high performance equipment in kite boarding is the easiest to use equipment for what you're trying to do. So a, when our entire industry was concentrating super hard on double loops and triple loops, kites with very little lift and would spin in their own length very quickly became the four. And like everybody was trying to make a, a kite that would spin very fast with very little pull. Now the, like the, the Red Bull tour, for want of a better word, like this whole flight, the Whole fly to events that are going on, they're. They're pushing that it's for King of the air. It's not a King of the air is about power, height and extremity. And a double. A kite that will double loop at 12 meters and not pull you sideways at all is not going to. Doesn't get you a very good score. And I think we saw one double loop in all of King of the Year this year. I think was Lorenzo in a semi final.
- [35:38]
Dave K
Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, he doubled. I think he is loop. The eight slipped.
- [35:43]
Adrian
Yeah. It's loop to wrapped in the. In the semi final. But that was the only. The only double we saw in the entire comp. It. They don't get rewarded. So if you the. We're gonna see the kites moving back towards more power and more. Yeah. More height and more power and interesting. Both. Both Hill and zara were riding XR8s not. Not paces in the event. They were riding kites with that producer. Exactly. So they were on kites that jumped as high as possible. So yeah. Bring it back to the technical side. They were riding the kites that jumped. Zara and Hill were riding the kites in the core range that jumped the highest.
- [36:34]
Dave K
So. And loop with that and loop with power. You know, those things are going to man.
- [36:39]
Adrian
Oh yeah. They're not fun to loop, but they actually produce the loop that they do produce. It is very spectacular. And scores really well in the comp. So when I'm saying high performance in kite boarding and we're talking specifically there's the XR8 in King of the Year is the easiest kite. Hill and Zara can choose to jump the highest. So they. And then their skills, their skills take over from there, but they're choosing the most high performance is actually the easiest to jump with. So that. Which I always think is the dichotomy like a. A you wouldn't describe like your average Formula one race car is not the easiest car to drive. It's. It's the most powerful, it's the hardest handling. And then the driver has. Has to actually just put up with all of the quirks of this thing. That's incredibly lightweight, incredibly powerful and could kill him if any. If he makes any decision wrong. Where the same kite that our. The same kites that our top top riders use in competition. You can also buy retail because they are the easiest to do that thing on. It's always an interesting one for me. It's like there isn't a there at Least in the. The, our more recreationally side of our sport. So the biggest side of our sport, rather than racing or, or speed, the equipment's actually very, very easy to use.
- [38:10]
Dave K
Dk, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna have to close this one down because it says I've got less than a minute because this is a paid. I'm going to send you another link. Let's do five minutes and so I'll send you another L.
- [38:25]
Adrian
For a techcast.
- [38:25]
DK
We're way too many technical problems.
- [38:28]
Dave K
This is completely hopeless. This is our fourth device we've recorded on. I'm going down to finish off on a, on a WhatsApp call because the last one didn't record anyway. DK, we were just saying that it's been. I was saying thank you so much from not myself, but everyone else for all the work you put into these techcasts. We aren't stopping, we're continuing for next year. We've got a bunch of topics still to cover. I wanted to thank you, bro, because I know you put a lot of work into these and yeah, the people enjoy it, man. So, yeah, roll on 2026.
- [39:00]
DK
Yeah. Thank you, Adrian. Thank you to all the listeners and thank you to everybody who came up to see me in and around King of the Air. It's quite a thing for me to have all of these, like, I've got fans of this little thing that you and I started like two years ago and it was just an idea that we threw out there to see if the universe would appreciate it and have so many people tell us that they really do is amazing. And yeah, lots, lots of things to do next year and actually some really interesting things happening from this side that are going to maybe push into the techcast and more stuff we can talk about as well. So, yeah, it's going to be a great year.
- [39:38]
Dave K
All right, brother. Merry Christmas. Enjoy your Christmas holidays. Enjoy a few weeks off and we talk in January.
- [39:44]
DK
Yeah, thanks, Adrian.
- [39:45]
Adrian
And thanks everyone.
- [39:46]
DK
We'll see you in the new year.
- [39:47]
Dave K
Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed that final episode of the year. Don't forget, the easiest way to support the show is to support us for free. Rate us on Spotify. I'm loving those five star reviews. Share them in your local WhatsApp or kite surfing group or just simply tell your mates if you want to support us more regularly, head over to portraitkite.com we've just dropped episode one of the 12 meter blank kite Test with Sam Lyte. That's available now. We're going to be releasing those once a week over the next sort of month. So if you enjoy those blank kite tests, definitely get involved. What is Portrait? Portrait is an independent media company trying to tell the stories of kiteboarding the way we believe they should. These projects are funded by people just like you, and if you believe in what we do and want to support this, head over to portraitkite.com and check out all the madness there. The podcast guys will always be free. If you want to find more episodes like this, use the search button at kitesurf365 to search your favorite writer or topic and we'll be back in 2020.