The Generic Foiling Podcast — a second brain

S - Ep 147 Casa Del Liam and Freddies trip to Mauritius

6 min read

Graph View

S - Ep 147 Casa Del Liam and Freddies trip to Mauritius

Recorded in Liam’s garden during a UK heatwave, after ~two months of almost no foiling — Liam buried in a house renovation, Freddie away on a media trip to Mauritius and no wind at home. A wide-ranging catch-up: house DIY, a flat-water kite event, the state of parawing sales, the death of downwind paddle foiling “for the masses,” and the season’s first downwind race.

In brief

Two months of “no foiling” explained: Liam’s been rewiring and re-flooring his house (partner Eleanor decorating), Freddie spent a week as media at a marketing-driven flat-water kite event in Mauritius — and, to his own embarrassment, “hasn’t ridden a single wave.” Around the shenanigans, the real industry meat is Freddie’s read on parawing booming while wing sales fall off a cliff, and both hosts geeking out over Edo winning the season’s first downwind race on F4 foils rather than his sponsor Slingshot’s — and the community’s split reaction to Slingshot’s openness about it.

Key topics & claims

  • Liam’s house (Liam): rewiring properly (routing/removing old cables), re-flooring and insulating the kitchen, plumbing with his dad’s help, learning pipe soldering; refuses to hire trades (“can’t afford to”). Partner Eleanor doing the decorating. This, plus no wind, is why the show’s gone quiet.
  • Mauritius (Freddie): went as media — Sarah (Kite Mag editor, wife of “Richie B” Rich Boughton) offered the slot she’d filled previous years; Freddie, Chris Burke and Liam were all in the group but it made sense for Freddie to go. It’s a resort-hosted flat-water lagoon marketing event bringing in athletes, influencers and media; he wrote an article (a pro camera crew shot everything). His verdict: disappointing for a wave-rider — the lagoon is waist-deep flat water walled off from swell by a sharp reef. He kitesurfed briefly (abs wrecked), did a ~30k downwind with ~70–75 kites (organiser Antoine Oriel told everyone not to ride outside the reef), then jumped the reef to ride head-high shore-dump and got cut up (“de-robed”). Saw a turtle; never foiled or rode a proper wave. Bumped into Jean, who runs a wing school in Mauritius (they’d met at Guy & Emma’s wedding).
  • Big-air kite scene at the event: pros there included Clément Huot (French, big kite-jump world-record holder), “Lorenzo” (world champ / top-three), “Heal,” “Zara” (riding Duotone this year) and Hannah Whiteley — all on Flysurfer Sonic kites, the current light-wind big-air hype product. Influencer Lauren Jumps (a skipping-video star, ~3M followers) was flown in and, Freddie concedes, probably did more marketing for the event than the riders. (These are kite big-air names, tangential to the show’s foiling focus — noted, not given entity pages.)
  • Parawing is booming (Freddie, as an Ozone UK sales rep): Ozone’s Pocket Rocket V2 is outselling the V1 and back-ordered; he and the F1 rep “Dom” both reckon they have the best parawings out, and he half-dreads the F1 Frigate V2 launch drawing attention away. There was an Ozone distributor event in Barcelona around the Pocket Rocket release. His headline claim: almost all his turnover this year is parawing, while wing sales have “dropped off a cliff” (Duotone still strong on the beginner/intermediate wing market). Long tangent on whether parawing warrants lessons vs coaching, and how each new discipline “waters down” what a school can teach rather than tripling its customers.
  • Downwind paddle foiling is “dead… for the masses” (both): parawing has killed it off; cheap carbon downwind boards (~€600, near cost) aren’t selling. Steezy Pete (ex-”Portrait Kite” pro, now an ethical hacker in London) is the exception — learned to foil via pump foiling, has bought a Gong downwind board for flat-water paddle-ups, and reportedly cited this podcast in his 5am pump-foil club’s WhatsApp.
  • First downwind race of the season (main gear story): Edo Tanas won, “Kai” second in the Hawaiian race (garbled Molokai/Maui names). Edo — newly signed to Slingshot — rode F4 foils because Slingshot hadn’t developed a downwind foil in time; Slingshot released a candid video explaining it. The hosts read it as innovative and refreshingly open (via a “Progression Project” forum thread), while part of the community called it “sleazy” for not promoting F4. Springboards a discussion of athlete contracts vs equipment loyalty (F1 / a Nadal Netflix doc as analogies).
  • Foil-brand chatter: F4 is “the talk of the town” — three back-to-back hyped models plus a downwind race foil (a “Warhammer”-style name Liam can’t recall); its dominance echoes Axis’s last year. Axis Tempo (a ~90cm race foil — Freddie tweaked his neck doing speed runs on one). Both note Armstrong and F-One “backing away” from the race/downwind niche (“Army,” “Nate”). Liam’s curious about Code’s S-series and F1’s “sushi”[?] foil vs the Eagle/Skate for parawinging; notes Guy prones on an Armstrong 690MA.
  • Liam’s plan for the year: ride strapless more to push himself to try other gear; wants to test different brands/connections to work out whether feel is “the whole package” or just marketing/optimisation (e.g. a 12mm mast making an Eagle “a bit faster”). Notes they now spend far less time at Bantham because parawing changed their habits.
  • AWSI (US show) teased: keen to interview Clinton Filen (moved from AK/Airush to North, effectively replacing Mike Raper), the FoilDrive / Paul Martin crew, and Adrian (Axis) — sticking to their long-form ethos.

Gear / brands mentioned

Ozone (Pocket Rocket V2 parawing), F-One (Frigate V2 parawing, Eagle, Skate, “sushi”[?] foil, 12mm mast), Duotone (wings & kites), Flysurfer (Sonic kite), F4 (downwind race foils), Axis (Tempo ~90cm), Armstrong (690MA), Code (S/X series), Gong (downwind board), Slingshot (Surge foil; Edo’s signing).

Notable quotes or takes

  • Parawing has “officially murdered downwind paddle foiling — at least for the masses” (paraphrased; both hosts).
  • On the F4 controversy: the same facts read as “cool/innovative” or “sleazy” depending on the viewer — Freddie’s “two people on the same bus looking out opposite windows” analogy.
  • Freddie on Mauritius: happily sat on a sunbed at a flat-water spot rather than ride it — “I’m a kite surfer at heart,” but no waves, no interest.

Mentioned

Liam · Freddie · Mauritius · Rich Boughton · Chris Burke · Guy Bridge · Emma Clamp · Edo Tanas · Luke Atkinson · Clinton Filen · Mike Raper · Paul Martin · FoilDrive · Adrian Roper · Caitlyn Francis · Ozone · F-One · Duotone · AXIS Foils · Armstrong · CODE Foils · F4 · Slingshot · Parawing · Downwind · Kite Foiling · Exmouth · Bantham · Hawaii

Ingested from the auto-transcribed episode (faster-whisper, unreviewed; no speaker labels — attributions by context). The final ~5 minutes are missing (SD card filled). Heavily garbled and flagged: race names “Marlutal barley”/“ma-ma-hu-to…” = the Molokai/Maui Hawaiian downwind races; “parrowing”/“powering” = parawing; “sushi” (an F1 foil model), “Clément Huot,” “Antoine Oriel” spellings uncertain; “Clinton Feline” = Clinton Filen. Flysurfer and Gong are mentioned in passing and not given entity pages.