Ken Adgate

A man with “fingers in many pies” — shredder, board builder, un/official test rider for Ozone and Mikes Lab, and a US car-dealership owner. One of the show’s most-quoted friends after he became a listener and joined in.

• Ep 60, “King of the Tacks” — his solo debut, and background: based in Rio Vista, Northern California (the Sacramento Delta), riding evenings at Sherman Island; day job running family car dealerships. Came to kiteboarding once his kids outgrew the family boat, hooked instantly after watching Johnny Heineken and “Ruben” videos. Became Mikes Lab founder Mike (Zajcik)‘s regular on-water test partner and best friend, describing himself as “Robin and Johnny’s Batman” — Johnny Heineken’s sidekick tester; also an un/official Ozone test rider, feeding back on prototypes as “part of the program.” A hobbyist board builder (~120 boards for friends by this point) with a detailed, foil-first design philosophy: shape the board to the foil’s angle of attack rather than the reverse, favouring narrow (~18.75–19in) rockered boards, half-inch concave decks, chines, and V-tail/V-nose shaping for cleaner touchdown deflection. His signature “tack” — throwing the wing across the shoulder to pivot into a fast, banked turn, learned from strapless pocket-board kite freeriding — gives the episode its title.
• Solo feature: “King of the Tacks” (Ep 60); voice-note contributions on flat-water wing tricks (Ep 67) and board-building thoughts (Ep 64).
• In the US: with Luke Atkinson in Kenny’s garage (Ep 81) and introducing the hosts to Johnny Heineken (Ep 85).
• His board shape underpins Liam’s DIY builds, reviewed with Kyle Touhey (Ep 138).
• Ep 144: the driving force behind Slingshot’s Project Drag — he builds ~50 boards a year for friends “not for the money,” and offered his Maui board/Tuttle learnings to Slingshot to get more people on the product. His board sharing on Instagram (progression from a race-kite board with a foil bolted on) is credited for the demand; asked only that a board be donated to a cancer raffle in return.

Ripple additions (batch 2, 2026-07-20)

• Ep 135 (Jorrit Buurma): described as the ‘ultimate fan’ of the Tuttle mast system, known for chopping the tops off carbon masts from multiple brands to convert them to Tuttle for his own testing.
• Ep 88 (Daniela Moroz): built her three custom Formula Kite Olympic race boards in 2024 after her prior board brand wouldn’t accommodate her requested tweaks; used an undisclosed internal system, refined across three iterations.
• Ep 84 (Fred Hope, Slingshot): ‘hates plates’, makes a new board almost every week, shares shaping learnings generously but gets upset when brands copy shapes outright; preaches boards need tail flex to enable pumping.