S - Ep 142 Dave Kalama

A marquee booking: legendary waterman Dave Kalama, who turned out to be a semi-regular listener and asked to come on, introduced via Gabriella Bella. The hosts had spent “four or five hours” bingeing Kalama’s other podcast appearances (name-checking Eric Bridge’s episodes and one with Kyan Ridge) to prepare, and open by joking it’s a “feedback session” — Dave says he loves that the show pays out on the industry, “a little softer than you used to be, but when you bring it, I love it.” Just over two hours, wide-ranging: film/stunt work, the philosophy of design and risk, board-shape war stories (Barracuda → Gator), the ethics of weight in board design, and a closing swipe at Tuttle boxes.

In brief

Dave Kalama talks through his James Bond (Die Another Day) stunt-surfing work and a Molson beer commercial, then goes deep on design philosophy: he sees himself as a problem-solver rather than an artist, prizes efficiency-to-foil above all else in a board, and treats “belief” as something to be tested rather than trusted — illustrated by two long, counterintuitive stories about the Gator’s blunt nose (30+ trials of scale models proved a pointy nose gave no advantage) and a secret magnetic on-body/on-board weight system he’s still trialling. He’s blunt that hollow/ultralight downwind boards are oversold for open-ocean Maui conditions, and closes Room 101 by nominating the Tuttle box — a swipe that lands directly against Fred Hope’s pro-Tuttle Project Drag pitch on Ep 144.

Key topics & claims

• James Bond stunt work (Dave): he, Laird and Derek Dorner (uncertain spelling) toe-surfed for Die Another Day; the crew wore identical suits so nobody but the three of them knew who was “James.” The producers were pitched hydrofoiling for the North Korea infiltration scene but rejected it as “too far-fetched” for a Bond film. Baby sharks (1.5–2ft) repeatedly surfaced under them, forcing them to “jump the shark” to protect their fins — the YouTube-comment joke about “sharks with lasers” prompted the story. Dave also recalls a deliberate on-camera wipeout after already surfing 8–9 hours, getting the wind knocked out of him, and says the production crew “doesn’t give a shit what you do… just get the shot” — health and safety was the surfers’ own responsibility. He walked the red carpet and got told to stop blocking Halle Berry.
• Other film work: a self-described “one of the worst surf movies ever,” In God’s Hands — he pulled out two weeks before filming over the script and was written out. A Molson beer commercial included a much-discussed Laird Hamilton moment: sitting in the Jaws lineup on the radio, Laird told production “if you want us to surf, it’s going to cost more,” and got ~20% more pay because the swell had come up bigger than contracted.
• Fame, social media and motivation (Dave, prompted by the hosts): he thinks today’s generation is partly motivated by views/rewards in a way his generation wasn’t — in his era self-promotion made you “a kook,” now riders have to “trumpet” themselves for sponsorship. He still finds self-promotion “awkward and uncomfortable” but accepts riders who “can’t walk the walk” go nowhere either. He and the hosts agree the “true elite” (his Jordan/Tiger Woods analogy) are too busy training to be great at social media, and needling that some riders are better at content than the sport itself.
• Peer motivation across disciplines (Dave): contrasts his old freestyle kiteboarding scene (driven by one-upmanship, competitive) with foiling, which he says he’d keep doing solo even if everyone else quit — “self-fulfilling,” exploratory, not about being seen. He traces his lifelong pull to the sensation of gliding/moving through water (canoe surfing a windswell counts) and says foiling “magnifies” that sensation more than any other water sport because it’s harder-earned; it reinvigorated his love of standup and longboarding too.
• Design philosophy — boards, not foils (Dave): he’s never designed foils and says he’d rather be excellent at one thing than dilute himself; he thinks board design has a larger margin of error than foil design (foils demand tighter tolerances). His number-one goal in any board is efficiency to get up on foil; pumping/turning characteristics are secondary and often come along for free. He frames himself as an “engineer” (identifying and solving a specific problem) rather than an artist, with no formal design/engineering training — just decades of practical reference points from surfboards, windsurfers and canoes.
• On big brands (Dave): he’s candid that big companies are constrained by needing to “feed a lot of mouths,” so they take fewer design risks and can’t afford visible failure, even though their designers are doing their best work; ultimately “shot-callers” and marketing, not designers, decide what ships. He estimates realistic single-generation performance gains at 2–5% (“a grand slam” at 5–10%) — everything now is “an adaptation of something that existed somewhere else.” He’s open that his own small operation can survive failure in a way big brands can’t, but competes against companies that outsell him “in a good Monday morning” what he sells in a year.
• Barracuda → Gator origin story (Dave): the Gator came from staring at a Barracuda v2’s tail and asking what made it more efficient than the v1, then exaggerating that concept into a symmetrical shape inspired by asymmetric foil outlines. His first reaction to the drawn shape was “what the hell is wrong with you” — but he recalled his own “come to Jesus” moment early in shaping (ugly first “shoebox” boards) and decided not to be afraid to fail. He tested it in total secrecy — dawn sessions at “Malico” (uncertain place name), avoiding the harbour, telling only Jeremy Riggs and Tomo (his Japanese friend/distributor, first name only, spelling uncertain) — and didn’t reveal the board to anyone, including Gabby, until the shipping containers had already left the factory. He Googled “alligator” for the logo and chose Gator over Croc because he wears Crocs. He admits he’s still not sure keeping it secret that long was the right call commercially. It’s now his sole board — “solely Gator,” strictly better than the Barracuda in efficiency, turning and pumping, though he says the Barracuda still holds up against anyone’s current board.
• Business reality (Dave): the Gator has “kept me in business” in a US market he says is brutal for everyone right now, big and small; he runs no marketing department and relies entirely on word-of-mouth (“the best marketing… is when your friend tells you, this works”). He explicitly designs for himself first (“I’m an older bloke… chances are it’s going to help everybody get up off the water”), citing Rick Rubin’s philosophy that creativity has to come from an internal, almost selfish place — riffing on Rubin producing Johnny Cash’s late-career Nine Inch Nails cover as an example of trusting instinct over convention.
• Testing and belief vs fact (Dave): his headline story is proving himself wrong on nose shape — he’d “have put money” a piercing nose was faster, but 30, then another 30–40, races of scale models at a small protected North Shore Maui lagoon (“baby beach”) showed no measurable difference between pointy and blunt noses. He put a blunt nose on the Gator as a result. He generalises: most of what we treat as design fact is really untested belief, and the biggest breakthroughs came from failures, not successes. Liam draws an aero-bike-helmet analogy (sharpest edge at the back, not the front) that Dave says supports the same conclusion — the release point matters more than the entry point.
• Beginner equipment and crossover boards (Dave, firm view): short “crossover” boards marketed off the pump-winging boom actively hurt beginners — get up easily on a longer board first, build fundamentals, then go short once genuinely progressing; “for 80% of the market, they’re not trying to get the tips of their foil out.” Uses a Steph Curry analogy (people want to shoot threes before they can dribble). He does think the sport overall is easier and safer to learn now than when he started (better instruction, better gear, clearer risk cues) — but draws a direct line to windsurfing’s decline from over-focusing on high-end performance and neglecting entry level.
• Weight in board design — his most caveated claim (Dave): industry orthodoxy says lighter is always better; Dave argues this is true at low speed (getting up on foil) but the opposite at speed (~15–20mph+), where a heavier board holds a more consistent foil angle of attack through chop and is easier to control, while an ultralight board “overreacts.” He’s built a magnetic system that lets him carry ~500g on his body (invisible to getting up) and transfer it to the board’s nose once foiling, and says it took him ~2 weeks of on/off testing before concluding it genuinely helps in some conditions — not absolute, but real. Freddie riffs that Dave should sell “Kalama weight pads.” Liam pushes back with his own experience (his mistakes are usually turning/positioning errors, not high-speed control loss) and Dave agrees that’s a different failure mode from the one he’s describing; he explicitly disclaims hollow-board structural stiffness benefits as real but “so micro small” they’re not worth the cost or complexity, framing the trend as chasing weight reduction rather than a genuine performance need for open-ocean Maui riders.
• Tuttle vs plate — his Room 101 pick (Dave): he rode Tuttle-style boxes (“total”) from day one of Go Foil but has come around against them, mainly over lack of fine adjustability (forward/middle/rear only, vs a plate’s continuous slide) — he says modern plate/base systems are efficient enough now that the drag advantage of Tuttle no longer justifies supplying both systems (“it was horrible”). He’s currently installing a Tuttle box in a board that morning regardless, for a specific application. He flags Apple Tree’s Radix single-track system (unfamiliar to him by name, but matches what he wants) as closer to solving the adjustability gap. Liam notes his own first back-to-back Tuttle-vs-plate test found touchdown recovery at speed “I would have crashed 100%” on the plate — a direct echo of Fred Hope’s pro-Tuttle pitch on Project Drag (Ep 144).
• Gear check — foils and Maui crossings (Dave): he credits “Alex” (Go Foil’s founder, surname not stated on air) with making foiling accessible in the first place, crediting himself only with helping create the “original version.” He now rides F4 (the Orca, 685cm² — he tried the 600 but found the 685’s low end easier and more sociable for group crossings), after a lifetime on Go Foil. On his regular Maui downwind crossings, most of his crew rides F4; his Japanese friend/distributor “Tomo” rides the Go Foil Nalu; some use Kane’s KT foils. He’s been downwinding “almost 10 years” and still loves it.
• Discipline mix (Dave): tried winging early, found it felt like windsurfing (“mowing the lawn”), lost interest; sees more of a functional fit for the Parawing in downwinding. On Maui, parawing pulled a lot of paddlers away last summer but he now sees a migration back toward paddle downwind alongside parawing, riders mixing both. He’s planning to get into parawing partly because it could bring his smaller 530 foil (too small to paddle up on, “insane” for towing) back into rotation for downwind.
• Apple Tree Factory (Dave, on the hosts’ 2025 visit): production there has stopped (per Dave, as of the recording); his experience was good but their 8-foot foam blank limited him to shorter boards than he wanted, right around the time the Barracuda was emerging, so he moved his production elsewhere. He’d consider going back if circumstances required.
• Hollow boards (Dave, “not a fan,” heavily caveated): no objection to hollow construction itself, and concedes possible small structural stiffness gains, but doesn’t think they’re worth the cost, and reiterates the broader point that most hollow/ultralight marketing is really chasing weight reduction, which he argues can hurt high-speed control on Maui-scale open ocean conditions.
• Foiling at Pe’ahi/“Piahi” (uncertain spelling in transcript, likely Jaws): Dave says his generation foiled the wave more than they ever surfed it (it rarely broke enough to justify cameras). He’s full of respect — and fear — for the current generation riding it on foils at a much higher level of commitment/risk than his era, name-checking Kai and a rider transcribed as “Noah Flago” (name uncertain) whose freestyle-on-wave foiling impressed him. He was at Pe’ahi this winter driving ski support for Kai rather than riding himself, and says he has no wish to be out there again — grateful for what he got, glad it’s “these guys’ turn.”
• Who’s riding well (Dave, self-described as “not an educated” take): doesn’t follow the cutting-edge scene closely; names Kai Lenny (worked with for decades) and a rider Dave calls “Chris McDonald” for wing-foil trick riding, though Dave says he personally isn’t drawn to that style (“I don’t like the strike”) even while respecting the skill.
• Sunfish tease: as a sign-off, the hosts say they’re “really looking forward to the release of the Sunfish” — presumably a forthcoming Dave Kalama board shape, but this isn’t explained on air and is not confidently attributable; flagged as uncertain.

Gear / brands mentioned

F4 (Orca 685/600), Go Foil (Nalu; brand has no dedicated page yet — see report), KT foils, Slingshot (referenced via the Discord/Project Drag comparison), Apple Tree (Radix single-track system, 8ft foam-blank limitation), Duotone (weight-off-the-board foil-assist system, discussed by the hosts, not Dave), FoilDrive (Fusion vs Max Assist weight comparison, hosts’ own experience), Dave’s own Barracuda and Gator board shapes (standard and the smaller Gator Compact, aimed at winging/pump-winging/prone), an 810 Gator custom build for Jeff Chang of the Wet Feet Shop (Oahu).

Notable quotes or takes

• On testing vs belief: Dave says so much of what riders treat as fact is “just a belief that we’ve held for so long it feels factual” — his headline example being the Gator’s nose shape, disproven only after dozens of repeated scale-model races.
• On marketing: “the best marketing you can have is when your friend tells you… this works” — his stated (if largely involuntary) whole strategy, contrasted with big brands’ paid content and slogans.
• On weight at speed: paraphrased — light is good for getting going, but past ~15–20mph a heavier board (or weight added once foiling) holds a steadier angle of attack and is easier to manage; he still frames this as situational, not absolute.
• On Room 101: asked what he’d banish, Dave picks the Tuttle box, on adjustability grounds — landing pointedly against Fred Hope’s pro-Tuttle Project Drag pitch from the earlier-recorded Ep 144.
• The hosts, reflecting on the geographic gap: they note they know Europe and each other’s local scenes well but “don’t know anything about the Americas” — framing this episode (and the earlier Fred Hope one) as a rare direct line into the Hawaii/Pacific Northwest side of the sport.

Mentioned

Dave Kalama · Gabriella Bella · Liam · Freddie · Fred Hope · Slingshot · Appletree · Ken Adgate (referenced via Hood River banter) · Kane De Wilde · F4 · KT Foiling · Kai Lenny · Laird Hamilton · Hood River · Hawaii · Downwind · Parawing · SUP Foiling · Wing Foiling · Boards · Masts · Foil Assist

Auto-transcribed (faster-whisper, unreviewed) with no speaker labels; attribution reconstructed from context and direct address cues (“Dave,” “Liam,” “Freddie” appear mid-sentence when addressed) and should be treated as best-effort, not certain. Flagged uncertainties: the toe-surfing colleague’s name (“Derek Dorner”); the launch-spot name transcribed as “Malico”; Dave’s Japanese friend/distributor given only as “Tomo”; the surfer named “Noah Flago”; the wing-foil rider named “Chris McDonald”; the wave spot transcribed “Piahi” (almost certainly Pe’ahi/Jaws given the big-wave context); and the closing “Sunfish” reference, whose subject and relevance were not explained on air. Go Foil’s founder is referred to only as “Alex” (no surname given in the audio; identified here as likely Alex Aguera based on general industry knowledge, not stated in the transcript — treat with caution).