S - Ep 024 Mike Raper North Foiling

Mike Raper — brand director of North Kiteboarding / North Foils, based in Auckland, ex-Pryde Group and Cabrinha — joins Freddie and Liam over Zoom, Mike on an early-morning coffee, the hosts on an evening beer after a “survival session” at Bantham. The hosts steer deliberately away from Mike’s personal/career story (already covered on the Progression Project podcast with Eric) and instead dig into North as a brand: its corporate structure, its kiteboarding-to-foiling pivot, its materials strategy and its foil/mast engineering.

In brief

North Kiteboarding/North Foils sits inside the much larger North Sales Group (Dutch HQ, merged with Mystic ~4–5 years before this recording), whose biggest arm by far is North Sails’ performance sailing materials business. Mike was brought in around 2018 to rebuild North Kiteboarding from zero after North Sails’ long-running windsurfing/kiteboarding brand licence with Boards & More ended (Boards & More went on to create Duotone). Foiling was not in North’s original five-year plan — it only entered the roadmap from 2019/2020 — but foiling revenue has more than doubled every year since and Mike expects it to reach parity with kiteboarding revenue within a year or two. Most of the technical discussion centres on North’s Sonar foil range: the “GeoLock” wedge-fit mast-to-fuselage connection, mast/fuse stiffness claims, and North’s in-house “N-Wave” wing material developed as a cheaper alternative to a premium competitor material (transcribed “Alula”/“Anlula” — uncertain, likely a branded high-end laminate).

Key topics & claims

• North’s corporate structure (Mike): North Kiteboarding and North Foils are one brand (“North”) covering two sports/customer groups, sitting under North Sales Group alongside North Sales (sailing — Mike claims ~60–70% global market share in performance sailing materials, covering America’s Cup and SailGP boats through to superyachts), North Sales Apparel (Italian-market heritage, recently signed Tom Bridge as an ambassador, undergoing a brand relaunch with designers ex-Converse/North Face/Dickies), North Paddle and North Windsurfing. HQ and back-office (distribution, logistics, financing, sales ops) is in Holland, where North Sales Group merged with Mystic roughly 4–5 years before this recording; brand marketing (website, social, tone of voice) is run out of New Zealand.
• Brand history (Mike): North Sails dates to 1957 (founder “Lowell North”), built its reputation on advanced sail laminates (2Di/3Di). Boards & More licensed the North Sails brand for windsurfing in the 1980s/90s, then for kiteboarding around 2001, creating North Kiteboarding. That licence ended around 2018, at which point Boards & More launched Duotone as its own brand. Mike, finishing up at his prior brand (Cabrinha) and with prior Hong Kong manufacturing experience, was approached to design North Kiteboarding “from zero” — no IP, no team, no product, starting with just the logo — and wrote the five-year business plan that got him hired. North Kiteboarding launched to market in August 2019 and Mike says the brand is now comfortably number two in the kiteboarding market, chasing Duotone (still number one).
• Foiling wasn’t the plan (Mike): the original 2018 five-year forecast was built entirely around kiteboarding, not foiling — “not at all” a factor at the time. North built its first wing boards at the end of 2019 and pushed hard into foiling development from around 2020, on the same team/resources as kiteboarding, which Mike describes as an unplanned “next mountain to climb” on top of an already brutal 14–16-hour, six/seven-day-a-week kiteboarding launch push.
• COVID as an advantage (Mike): New Zealand’s lockdown still allowed on-water testing; while competitors cut purchase orders during the pandemic, North increased theirs (drawing an analogy to 2008/09 recession spending — “drugies don’t stop buying drugs in a recession”), which Mike credits as a real driver of the brand’s growth, alongside a broader surge in people taking up solo, socially-distanced water sports.
• Late-mover advantage in foiling (Mike): North was roughly a year or two behind the first wave of foiling brands, which let it benchmark what was and wasn’t working before committing — a strategy Mike says has shifted from “benchmark everyone” in the early days to increasingly proprietary R&D now (his example: the 2023 Nova v3 wing).
• Revenue split (Mike): declines to give exact numbers, but says foiling revenue has “more than doubled” every year for four years running and is on track to reach approximate parity with kiteboarding revenue within a year or two. He argues foiling has a lower barrier to entry than kiteboarding (less instruction needed, no big beach required, can launch in deep water, easier bail-out by lying on the board), which underpins his optimism.
• Product cadence: North runs two seasonal launches a year (August = “X.1”, March = “X.2”); at the time of recording the team is finishing the August 2023 (“24.1”) range and Mike won’t discuss unreleased products. He argues that as an innovation curve flattens for a given product (his example: North’s kiteboarding control system, unchanged for ~2 years with near-zero warranty issues), it’s fine to leave it alone rather than change for the sake of a new model year — but wings and kites are still moving fast enough to need frequent redesign.
• Nova v3 wing (2023) (Mike): a ground-up redesign from V2, driven by wing designer “Dano” (North, based in the Philippines) working with Steve Kelder — Mike describes him as one of North Sails’ top designers, based in Florida, cross-pollinating sailing know-how into wing/kite design. Mike claims independent third-party retailer benchmarking puts Nova ahead of, or level with, its closest competitors. He also details a handle-design lesson: moving from soft to rigid grip-lock handles lets the rider “hang off the tips” like a rock climber rather than gripping like a tennis racket, reducing forearm fatigue.
• Wing range and light-wind foiling (Mike): alongside Nova (freeride) sits the SF Surf range (aimed at prone pumping-surfing and “surf style” wing-surfing/downwinding), HA high-aspect-ratio wings including Swivel sizes (top-end speed, big waves), and the MA range (easy-to-use, mid-aspect). The dedicated Nova Light Wind (no windows, lighter cloth) paired with a large hydrofoil is pitched by Mike as capable of riding “sub-white-capping” conditions — a claim the hosts push back on lightheartedly, being kite-foiling-first riders who are skeptical wing foiling works below about 15 knots.
• N-Wave material vs “Alula” (Mike): North developed its own in-house canopy/airframe material, N-Wave — a laminate-inside, woven-outside hybrid — as a more affordable alternative to a premium competitor material (transcribed “Alula”/“Anlula”/“a lula,” uncertain spelling). Mike says North found that material harder to manufacture (leading-edge seam issues, since apparently resolved by its maker) and “crazy expensive,” so built N-Wave to deliver comparable stiffness/durability at a lower retail price. North currently keeps N-Wave exclusive to itself but says licensing it to other brands is “definitely an option” longer-term.
• Sonar foil system / GeoLock connection (Mike): North’s mast-to-fuselage joint, “GeoLock,” is a patented wedge-fit design (credited to a naval-architect team member, “Tab,” North’s foils product manager) rather than the more common parallel mast-into-fuselage-with-screws design used by most competitors. Mike’s claim: in a conventional design the mounting screws carry all the structural load; in GeoLock, load transfers through the wedge fit itself and the screws only hold position, giving a stiffer feel. Mike publicly challenges listeners to bend-test and torsion-test North’s carbon mast/fuse against competitors’ — including newer high-modulus masts — and says he’s confident it will hold up. Current North carbon mast tapers from ~13.5mm to ~12mm in sections. He recommends buying a carbon fuse before a carbon mast if budget-limited, and pushes back on high-modulus hype: aluminium masts, he says, are underrated — more durable, cheaper, surprisingly stiff, with the aluminium-vs-carbon fuse weight gap only around 500g.
• Global team structure (Mike): kite and wing designers based in the Philippines; material specialist “Dave” in San Francisco; Steve Kelder in Florida; kite designer “Pip[pa] Smith” in Holland; board shapers and Hugh Pinfold (plastic-moulded parts, control systems, bindings) based in Raglan, New Zealand; product management centralised in New Zealand. Development timelines run 6–9 months for simpler projects up to 2–2.5 years for complex ones like bindings/control systems.
• Manufacturing philosophy (Mike): warranty rate is under 1% (he estimates ~0.5%), which he attributes to strong, long-term supplier relationships (helped by his ~17 years living in Hong Kong) and rigorous first-off/zero-line batch testing. He pushes back on the idea that Asian manufacturing is anonymous mass production — describes highly skilled specialists (e.g. leading-edge seam sewers on kite/wing canopies, veteran board laminators) as the difference between a good and bad product, some of whom also ride the sport themselves.
• Downwind program: confirmed in active development, combining new boards and foils, expected within roughly 6–9 months of the recording.
• On Naish/Cabrinha (Mike, cautious aside): references ongoing restructuring at “Nash” (transcription uncertain — likely NAISH) around a reported foil-box quality issue on some wing foil products (transcribed “cubis,” uncertain), and speaks warmly about Robby Naish (“Robbs”) as one of the few remaining genuinely rider-founded brand owners, hoping the restructuring lets him refocus on product innovation.
• Riders and culture: North’s kiteboarding roster includes Nick Jacobson and “Jesse” (signed as a junior at Mike’s prior brand and re-signed at North); foiling riders named include “Chucho,” “Fabi” and “Boine” (spelling uncertain). Mike frames North’s rider-selection philosophy around an “All Blacks” no-dickheads rule.
• Jamie Scott: North’s New Zealand-based board designer, living in what’s transcribed as “Funanaki” (likely Whananaki, Northland NZ). The hosts tease Mike about an awkward-looking appearance by Jamie in a “shapers’ notes” style promo video; Mike defends him warmly as very charismatic in person and points to earlier (2020) North YouTube videos as a better representation.
• Brand tone (“It Calls”): Freddie reads an original poem in the style of North’s marketing copy; Mike explains the “It Calls” tagline and the brand’s more emotive copywriting came out of extensive team workshopping about what the brand stands for, and that the tagline is meant to capture the pull people feel toward chasing that on-water feeling. He notes the brand voiceover work was done by an Irish-accented colleague.
• Mike’s own riding: self-deprecating about his time on the water at 49 (“not very good, I wish I was better”); says tow-foiling into big swell is his personal favourite — likening it to being dropped at the top of a mountain on a “powder day.”

Gear / brands mentioned

North (Sonar foil system, GeoLock mast/fuse connection, N-Wave material, Nova v3, SF Surf range, HA/Swivel wings, MA wing range, Nova Light Wind), Duotone (as Boards & More’s post-licence brand, referenced as market leader), NAISH (referenced via “Nash”/Robby Naish, uncertain transcription), Cabrinha (Mike’s prior employer). Also referenced without an entity page in this vault: Mystic (North’s sister brand), Boards & More, “Alula”/“Anlula” material (name uncertain).

Notable quotes or takes

• Mike, on product quality control: a brand’s reputation for a single bad product outlasts its reputation for consistently good ones (paraphrased — “the reputation of a flop lasts a hell of a lot longer than the reputation of an above-average product”).
• Mike, on GeoLock: the mast-to-fuselage screws in North’s system “have no load on them whatsoever,” with structural load instead carried through the wedge fit itself (his claim, unverified independently).
• Mike, self-deprecating about the brand’s more poetic marketing copy: acknowledges the team “took the piss out of ourselves” over lines like “It calls,” while noting listener feedback was strongly positive.

Mentioned

Mike Raper · North · Cabrinha · Duotone · NAISH · Steve Kelder · Hugh Pinfold · Freddie · Liam · Bantham · Kite Foiling · Wing Foiling · Prone Foiling · Downwind · Downwind Boards · Masts · Fuselages and Rear Wings · Front Wings · Pumping

Auto-transcribed (faster-whisper, unreviewed) — flagged uncertainties: Boards & More’s brand “Duotone” is transcribed throughout as “geotone”/“jay-o-tane”; North’s founder “Lowell North” is transcribed simply as “low north,” reading uncertain; the competitor wing material referred to repeatedly is transcribed “a lula”/“Anlula”/“allula” and its actual brand name could not be confirmed from context; the Naish/Cabrinha aside is transcribed as “Nash” and “the whole cubis thing,” both uncertain; rider names “Chucho,” “Fabi” and “Boine” are phonetic best guesses, spellings unconfirmed; the board designer’s home village is transcribed “Funanaki” (likely Whananaki); the location of the North test session is transcribed “Mungify” (likely Mangawhai). No speaker labels exist in the source — attribution above is inferred from context (Mike answering brand/product questions; Freddie and Liam asking) and should be treated as best-effort, not verified.