S - Ep 123 Ewan Jaspan NAISH Parawing

Recorded at Ewan Jaspan’s Hood River home during the hosts’ 2025 US trip (they slept in a U-Haul outside for part of the stay and used his house/office as a base). Ewan is NAISH’s kite designer and, since this past summer, also lead designer of NAISH’s Parawing — plus a long-time pro kiteboarder and freestyle-park pioneer who still occasionally rides for the team. Just under two hours, wide-ranging: his path into design, the NAISH power wing programme, kite-foil vs downwind-foil design, NAISH’s team/ownership restructure, and an extended riff on rider pay and self-worth in the industry.

In brief

Ewan explains how he became NAISH’s head kite designer over ~3 years (starting as a team-rider “sidekick” to the previous designer, “Brian,” then taking over fully once Brian got pulled into wing design), and how this past summer he inherited the Parawing programme after original designer “Matt” (a paraglider engineer) left the company. He walks through the new wing’s development — five-ish rounds of prototypes, sizing from 1.9m to 5.1m, a scary front-collapsing early prototype, and detuning small sizes after a beginner nearly lost control on the 1.9m — plus canopy material trade-offs (nylon/paragliding-style Skytex vs more water-resistant polyester) and NAISH’s push to keep bridle lines short enough to stow one-armed. Elsewhere he contrasts kite-foil and downwind-foil design philosophy, describes NAISH’s now-global, multi-timezone team (a shift from the old all-Maui structure) following the sale of the company by its former owner to its long-time European distributor (“Kubus,” transcription-uncertain), and joins the hosts in a long, digressive discussion of rider pay and how to assess your own commercial value.

Key topics & claims

• Path to head kite designer (Ewan): Moved to the US (Hood River) ~3.5 years ago; had been a NAISH team rider and product tester before that. Went from “sidekick” feeding feedback to designer “Brian” to doing all the kite files himself once Brian got busy with the wing-foiling boom (one-wing-per-brand quickly becoming several wing models each). The turning point was being asked to sign off a production kite run while still officially a team rider — he balked at putting his name on a product about to ship worldwide, which forced NAISH to formalise him as a full employee rather than a rider “doing this on the side.”
• Why leave full-time riding (Ewan): Financially, pro kiteboarding “salaries are way less than they were,” flights and costs are up, and he estimates fewer than five people worldwide currently make a living purely from park/freestyle kiting. He’d saved prize money rather than spend it, and says the move let him and partner Katie buy their Hood River house — something he doubts he could have done purely as a rider.
• NAISH power wing programme (Ewan): The first-generation wing (“the Morph,” launched early in the year the hosts describe as “this year”) was designed by “Matt,” an engineer and avid paraglider who NAISH felt was the natural fit since power wings borrow heavily from paragliding rather than kite/wing design. Ewan believes it was roughly the third power wing to market, after “BRM Flow” and (uncertain name, see note) “the Roger.” After Matt left, Ewan took the project on himself over “Noa” (NAISH’s foil/wing designer, who didn’t want it) this summer, working to a self-set timeline he says NAISH actually hit — “kind of rare in R&D.”
• Design process and failures (Ewan): Roughly five rounds of prototypes. His first genuinely good version penetrated upwind exceptionally well in light-to-medium wind on a deep, efficient profile — but became dangerously unpredictable once powered up, with regular front-canopy collapses; he calls it borderline unsellable for the general market even though a light-wind-only niche version had appeal. On sizing, the first 1.9m and 2.7m were tuned too twitchy — a beginner given the 1.9m couldn’t control it — so he detuned both for more stability at the cost of some agility. He tests across a wide range of team-rider weights at the Hatchery (from a rider “over 100 kilos” to one around “50 kilos, max”) to make sure sizing works across the board.
• Kite design philosophy (Ewan): He deliberately designs from a rider’s desired characteristics first rather than starting from a “most efficient” profile and working backwards, because a wing’s performance is an emergent property of the whole package (profile, bridle, angle of attack together) — you can’t lift one good feature (e.g. a strut profile) from a competitor’s kite and expect it to work in isolation. Testing and copying competitor products directly informs his own designs. He also floats a hypothesis about experienced (“older”) kite designers who no longer ride themselves, suggesting long practical memory of what bridle/profile changes “felt like” eventually substitutes for real-time riding feedback — something he’s aiming to build up himself.
• Stowability vs bridle length (Ewan): A recurring parawing design tension — NAISH targets bridle lines no longer than one arm’s length (for an average wingspan) specifically so stowing mid-session is manageable, even though longer bridles are mechanically easier to design well (gentler line angles, less prone to collapse) and, in his view, may help a wing sit higher/more powered rather than genuinely improve upwind performance (which he thinks is more about wing design than line length). He contrasts this with Ozone’s parawing, which the hosts note has drawn criticism for longer lines in its bigger sizes, with Ozone’s stated trade-off being better upwind performance.
• Materials (Ewan): Power-wing canopies are nylon paragliding materials (e.g. Skytex-type fabric from French supplier Porcher, referenced as “Skytex 32” — transcription uncertain, see note); pros: good tear resistance (safety-critical for paragliders), packability; cons: coating wears and the fabric absorbs water over time, giving a shorter lifespan than a kite or wing canopy. He notes some competitors use more water-resistant polyester (kite/wing-style) canopies instead, less tear-resistant but longer-lived, and says NAISH has been in early talks with materials suppliers about future options. He argues wing/parawing canopies generally have “a long way to go” on durability compared with kites, partly because they’re stored wet/under tension far more often than kites.
• Kite foil vs downwind foil profiles (Ewan): Explains that a downwind foil profile is built to glide, carry and extract energy from the water, so it will never match a kite foil’s top speed; a kite foil (he cites hitting 30+ knots on a 700cm² kite foil, and 50kph/~27-28 knots on the parawing itself) is built purely to resist becoming “lifty” at high speed and keep accelerating, sacrificing low-speed carry. Square-tipped foils (vs pointy tips) breach far more predictably and progressively, and — per Guy Bridge, relayed by Ewan/the hosts — spray dramatically, which the hosts link to a widely shared Guy Bridge spray photo/clip on Instagram, attributed to a thick, “lifty” Armstrong foil section with thick, square tips.
• NAISH team & ownership restructure (Ewan): The company sold roughly two and a half years ago by its former owner (referred to only as “Robbie” in-episode — likely NAISH co-founder Robby Naish, but not confirmed; see candidate-page note below) to “Kubus,” NAISH’s long-standing European distributor (name transcription-uncertain). Where NAISH was previously almost entirely based in one Maui building, the team is now spread globally: Ewan (kite + parawing) in Hood River; “Noa” (foil/wing design) and “Andrew Gibbons” (a downwind-foil specialist, engineer by training, recently joined from a long stint riding/testing for Lift Foils) in Maui; “Dez” (kite R&D) also Maui; a windsurfing specialist splitting time between Maui and Spain; and R&D/management leadership now based in Holland. Ewan sees this as bringing more “worldly” design input versus the old Maui-only mindset, where gear could be optimised for Maui’s near-perfect conditions without translating elsewhere.
• Custom kite for a hard-riding tester (Ewan): NAISH built a 2.2m single-strut kite specifically for a Maui-based tester (name transcribed “JD Follow”/“JD Fallow,” uncertain) who reportedly kites roughly six hours a day and is used for harsh-condition materials testing; demand from onlookers led NAISH to sell small limited runs, which moved fast in Maui but more slowly elsewhere.
• Kite durability vs wing/parawing durability (Ewan and hosts, disputed): Ewan argues well-built kites (good seam/canopy construction — he cites NAISH’s ripstop “Quad Tex” canopy) last far longer than wings or parawings, partly because kites dry quickly and are only under tension while flying, whereas wings are pumped rigid and often packed away wet. One host pushes back, saying wing durability has improved a lot generation-on-generation; they don’t fully resolve the disagreement on air.
• Industry pay/value discussion (hosts and Ewan): A long closing segment referencing a YouTube series (host-described, “Colin’s video,” on how kite riders get paid, modelled on a similar surf-industry format) that the hosts felt used misleadingly large brand-revenue figures and unfairly blamed distributors/brands for rider pay. Ewan notes kite contracts have roughly doubled over ~20 years (from ~$100–200kto$500–600k at the top) but that pay has fragmented across many more tours/disciplines, thinning what any one rider can expect. One host relays admiration for a comment attributed to kiteboarder Kevin Langeree about calculating one’s commercial value from first principles (following/engagement, plausible conversion) rather than benchmarking against other riders’ pay.

Gear / brands mentioned

NAISH (Morph parawing and the unnamed follow-up wing in development, kites incl. the long-serving “Torch,” Quad Tex kite canopy, Skytex-type parawing canopy material) · Ozone (parawing, longer-bridle design choice) · a competing parawing referred to as “BRM Flow” and one referred to as “the Roger” (both names transcription-uncertain, no existing entity pages) · Armstrong (Guy Bridge’s spray-heavy foil, described as thick-section and “lifty”) · F-One (the “F1 fence”/trim tabs referenced as a joking parallel to spray-inducing tip design) · Lift Foils (Andrew Gibbons’s prior team/testing background) · paragliding brands generally cited as the design lineage for power wings.

Notable quotes or takes

• Ewan on the moment he stopped being a team rider “on the side”: realising what it meant to put his name on a production sign-off — a shipment going out worldwide — is what forced the move to a full NAISH contract (paraphrased).
• On his scariest prototype: an early parawing that “penetrated” upwind beautifully in light wind but turned into what he calls a genuinely dangerous, repeatedly front-collapsing wing once powered up in 20+ knots (paraphrased).
• On copying competitors: you often can’t lift one good feature from a rival’s kite or wing, because performance is “the whole package” designed together, not one profile or bridle detail in isolation (paraphrased).
• On kite vs downwind foil tips: square, thicker tips “breach so well” and progressively, versus pointy tips that can snap out of the water more abruptly (paraphrased).

Mentioned

Ewan Jaspan · NAISH · Parawing · Kite Foiling · Hood River · Liam · Freddie · Armstrong · Guy Bridge · F-One · Ozone · Lift Foils · Wing Foiling · Pumping · Downwind Boards · Front Wings

Upgraded from the earlier description-only stub. Auto-transcribed (faster-whisper, unreviewed) and speaker labels are absent throughout — attribution above is inferred from context and is generally reliable for Ewan’s first-person answers, but host banter (marked “the hosts” or “one host”) could not be reliably split between Liam and Freddie and is flagged accordingly. Several proper names are transcription-uncertain and have NOT been turned into wikilinks or treated as confirmed: the former NAISH owner referred to only as “Robbie” (very likely NAISH founder Robby Naish, but unconfirmed in-episode); “Kubus” (the distributor who bought the company); “Brian” (the kite designer Ewan assisted); “Matt” (the departed parawing/kite-file designer); “Noa”/“Noah” (NAISH foil & wing designer); “Andrew Gibbons” (new downwind-foil designer, ex-Lift); “Dez,” “Zenek,” “Ashland,” “Lauren,” “Mike,” and “Katie” (NAISH staff/personal names); “JD Follow”/“JD Fallow” (Maui test rider); the competing wings “BRM Flow” and “the Roger”; the power-wing “pioneers” named “Sam from 5.0” and “Greg” (not confirmed to be Greg Falck of Omen Foils — different context, treated as a separate, unidentified person); the kiteboarders referred to only as “army” and “Mr Bennett”; the materials brand/fabric “Skytex 32” and its supplier (heard as “Porcher”/“Porsche”); and the YouTube pay-transparency series attributed only to “Colin.”