S - Ep 047 Julien Salles F-One and Manera

Julien Salles — son of F-One founder Raphaël Salles, newly appointed General Manager as of summer 2023, and head of sister brand Manera — sits down for a wide-ranging, unusually candid family-and-business episode: how F-One was bootstrapped, how Julien’s role evolved from reluctant teenager to GM, and a long technical run through masts, foils and wings. Recorded remotely (Julien at home in Montpellier, “the office is too noisy”); Liam and Freddie recorded it before a Portugal trip.

In brief

F-One was founded from nothing by Julien’s parents — his dad Raphaël Salles (ex-windsurf world tour) doing R&D/marketing, his mum running finance, HR and admin, both self-described as “50% of the company.” Julien avoided the family business on principle as a teenager (mountain biking instead), joined F-One at 23 as a marketing assistant, ended up building Manera into an accessories brand, and became F-One’s GM this past summer, with his dad still testing product but stepping back from day-to-day office responsibilities. The episode ranges across F-One’s foil line-up (Skate, Seven Seas, Phantom and a confirmed Phantom V2), a mast recall story, the mechanics of a rare pattern-sharing deal with Duotone, hard-vs-soft wing handles, wing durability R&D, and Julien’s own downwind obsession — plus the long-running “Manera Socks” joke, which turns out to be a real product in development.

Key topics & claims

• Origin story (Julien): F-One started “from pretty much nothing out of their bedroom” when Julien was six; early on his parents “had to steal some carton box from the local markets” to pack boards because they couldn’t afford packaging — what his mum calls “the potato years.” F-One remains 100% family-owned with no outside investors, which his parents are “really proud” of.
• Julien’s path: kited from age 10–11 but wasn’t passionate about water sports until 20 — mountain bike downhill/slopestyle was his escape from being “the entrepreneur’s/windsurfing star’s son.” Studied a business bachelor’s (SME management), deliberately avoided joining F-One, then took a 6-month marketing-assistant contract at 23 and never left. Took over the then-neglected Manera, becoming its product developer, then brand manager, then F-One GM “since this summer” (2023) — a promotion he says he never formally asked for.
• Manera’s positioning (Julien): deliberately staying a “small challenger” brand rather than chasing scale like Rip Curl/Boardriders-style names; product-first, not marketing-first. ~70% of Manera’s turnover is neoprene, ~50% of that in surfing; Manera is roughly 10% of F-One’s total business, strong in California/US. The famous “socks” bit is real: Manera is designing socks (his in-house designer reportedly unimpressed at being pulled off F-One work for it) because Julien “needed socks and didn’t want to buy them” — 10,000 pairs, prototypes due “next week,” launch pending feedback (the hosts are offered first UK testing rights).
• Deflator/downwind accessories (Julien): Manera is developing two bags for the deflator (parawing-style) downwind method — a hydration-style bag doubling as general wing security kit (~2 weeks from release) and a dedicated deflator bag with drain holes and a pocket for pump/flashlight/safety gear, still in development. Small hand pumps (à la early two-line kite pumps) are already available (e.g. Decathlon); Julien says this product line won’t make money but “we have to develop the sport.”
• Kiting still matters (Julien): despite marketing focus shifting to wing/foil, F-One’s turnover is roughly split into thirds across wing foil, kiting and other categories — “we are a water sports company, we’re not a kite surfing company.” R&D is done in-house in Montpellier by ~6–7 dedicated testers per category, supplemented by daily rider feedback (Julien mentions a tester referred to as “kiahi” — name uncertain, possibly garbled — who emails feedback every morning).
• Foil range (Julien): Skate is F-One’s best-selling foil ever, only ~6 months old at time of recording, high-performance and fast but harder to control in stormy chop. Seven Seas (Julien’s own go-to for small bumps) is a downwind-oriented foil with far more glide than the Phantom, which he calls a “beginner to intermediate” foil that “makes you look good” and is easier to control in messy conditions. A Phantom V2 is confirmed as coming, roughly a year to eighteen months out, aimed at a slower, more controllable foil for stormy conditions — Julien argues there’s room in the range for both “fast foil and slower foil.”
• Mast recall (Julien): F-One’s HM mast (14mm, €1,500) and standard carbon mast (16mm, €1,000) are both still made — Julien says the HM outsells the standard despite the price, “people understand how important a good mast is.” A production run (Julien is vague on numbers) of the newer slim/HM mast had to be recalled after F-One’s long-term factory partner deviated from the specified carbon layup and the masts broke in testing; F-One redid the production run with the correct layup at the same factory rather than switching suppliers, calling it “a trustful partner” relationship. QC process: in-water testing with riders who “break everything,” plus lab testing of first-off-the-line production pieces.
• Rider feedback anecdote (Julien): when F-One sent a set to Australian rider Adam Bennett (name as best transcribed; not otherwise verified in the vault), his first reaction was praise for the mast, not the foil — “your mast is incredible, I’m going to ride your foil” — which Julien cites as proof a mast can matter as much as the foil itself.
• Hard vs soft wing handles (Julien): F-One has stuck with soft handles since day one (“we sell what we ride”) but is adding a third wing model alongside the Strike and Swing — a comfort/cruising-oriented wing — that will ship with soft handles standard but offer optional hard handles as a spare part across all three models, driven by distributor pressure (UK distributor Dom is namechecked) rather than F-One’s own preference.
• Wing durability (Julien): durability is one of F-One’s top three purchase considerations for customers. Contrary to a popular belief that canopy material is the main durability issue, Julien says it’s actually the leading edge — as it wears/bends, the trailing edge becomes floppy — so R&D (including the “High-Tex” leading-edge/strut material) has focused there rather than on canopy fabric.
• The Duotone pattern-sharing story (Julien): in what Julien frames as a rare move, F-One shared a wing pattern with Duotone for their Ventus/CWC-style product, for a modest commission — done “to protect ourselves” (so factories can’t copy the design freely) rather than to make money, and framed as “healthy competition” between respected rivals.
• Downwinding as personal passion (Julien): says downwinding is, for him, better than pure surfing — “for the first time in my life I felt something that is better than pure surfing,” a rare claim given how he describes surfing as historically “the king of water sports.” He calls the deflator method the most accessible on-ramp for beginners (short, controlled sessions of a known distance rather than committing to a full downwind run) and describes F-One’s new Jam wing series — a 1900 for dock-starts (releasing the week of recording) and a 1600 coming later that winter, aspect ratio ~9–10 — as purpose-built for learning to downwind.
• Comparing brands (Julien): asked what he’d ride if not F-One, he singles out Lift Foils (respects their early lead on extreme aspect ratio and monoblock fuselage design, even if not his personal riding style) and AFS Foils (surprised and impressed by their Silk and Pure foils). On Armstrong and AXIS Foils, he notes both have gone toward high-camber downwind foils, a design direction F-One tried and stepped away from — “not really our design philosophy.”
• Facebook community aside: Julien follows the F-One Wingfoil Club Facebook group (~4,000 members) and says customers there often know more about the product range than F-One’s own staff. Both hosts and Julien separately bring up Adrian Roper as active and generous (if occasionally teasing) on a foil-building Facebook group.
• Cabrinha rider question: asked (via a listener question) whether Cabrinha paid F-One to take on a departing rider (name transcribed as “T2 Knobbid” — garbled, unverified), Julien says there was no payment; the rider wanted to focus on racing rather than freestyle/competition and the two parties “were looking for something else.”
• Hood River/AWSI (Julien): calls the Hood River AWSI trade event his favourite of the year and a highlight of “the best industry ever” for its collegial vibe between competing brands; mentions hearing the local shop sold 200 downwind foil boards in a single year.

Gear / brands mentioned

F-One (Skate, Seven Seas, Phantom/Phantom V2, Strike, Swing, Jam 1600/1900, HM mast, standard carbon mast), Manera (socks, deflator bags), Duotone (Ventus/CWC), Cabrinha, Lift Foils, AFS Foils (Silk, Pure), Armstrong, AXIS Foils, Ozone (soft-handle comparison), Hood River (AWSI).

Notable quotes or takes

• Julien on the company’s bootstrap years: his parents stole cardboard boxes from local markets to pack boards because they couldn’t afford packaging — what his mum called “the potato years.”
• Julien, paraphrased, on downwinding: for the first time he felt something better than pure surfing, which he calls surprising given how surfing has always been “the king of water sports.”
• Julien on wing durability myths: people focus on canopy material, but it’s actually the leading edge wearing down that makes a wing feel floppy over time.
• Freddie and Liam relay a listener-submitted question (attributed to “No Way Frank”) asking, in jest, how much Cabrinha paid F-One to take on a departing rider — Julien denies any payment changed hands.

Mentioned

Julien Salles · Raphaël Salles · F-One · Manera · Duotone · Cabrinha · Lift Foils · AFS Foils · Armstrong · AXIS Foils · Adrian Roper · Charles Bertrand · Ozone · Hood River · Liam · Freddie · Masts · Downwind · Parawing · Front Wings

Auto-transcribed (faster-whisper, unreviewed) with no speaker labels — attribution above is inferred from context and phrasing, and should be treated as reasonably but not perfectly reliable. Several proper names are garbled and flagged inline as uncertain: the departing rider referenced in the “Cabrinha” question (“T2 Knobbid”), the Australian rider “Adam Benet”/Bennett, and the F-One tester referred to as “kiahi.” The F-One composite engineer referred to only as “Doc” and a kite/wing designer “Robert” are mentioned but not otherwise identified in this vault.