Armie Armstrong

Founder of Armstrong Foils (Ep 38). Hard to pin down for a time zone — travelling between New Zealand, China, the States and Maui. A long chat on all things foiling and Armstrong.

• Ep 38 (full transcript): Got into foiling in his early 40s chasing a downwind SUP-racing edge (self-taught by 2017), and hand-built his first foils from wooden templates glued onto an old kite-foil mast. Sailing-family background (born UK, sailing round the world from six months old, settled NZ); spent ~18 years building underwater camera housings for film/TV in New Zealand’s film industry, which he cites as his engineering grounding. Met Rob Whittall surfing in Raglan and co-founded the brand with him; Kevin Trotter (later an AXIS Foils partner) helped the earliest design phase.
• Self-described “gear thrasher” at ~90kg — breaking kite-foil gear (mostly through jumping) is what drove Armstrong’s durability-first engineering (titanium core, continuous carbon wrap, hex fuselage).
• Admits the early Performance mast was flexier than ideal (a side-effect of keeping the bottom cord thin for drag) and that the HA 925 shipped “unrefined” before much of the market had the skill for it — direct feedback that shaped the more stable MA range.
• Just raced M2O (Molokai channel crossing) at the time of recording; also kite foils, downwinds, tow/wake foils, and prone-pump foils, and still travels with a 9m kite as his all-rounder. Full detail in S - Ep 038 Armstrong.