Ride Engine wing foil accessories at the AWSI event

Ride Engine‘s Gary Siskar walks Foiling Magazine's Steve Sjuggerud through their current wing foil accessory range…

Products featured:

Vinaka Wing Harness

Ride Engine Wing Foil Harness

Vinaka Pro

Defender HF Vest

The Nug

For the full interview transcript, see below.

Steve:

Hi, I'm Steve from Foiling Magazine. I'm here at AWSI with Gary from Ride Engine. And Gary, I'm really excited about the accessories that you guys have for us wing foilers, and I'm particularly curious about the harness. I haven't actually seen it myself, but can you take us through your line of exciting stuff here? No fear for wingers.

Gary:

Absolutely, Steve.

Steve:

Well, not just wingers actually. I know we can all, prone foilers and everyone. So yup.

Gary:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we are super stoked on foiling. Prone foil surfing, obviously kite foiling with our kite background, and now with the wing foiling thing, we're ultra stoked. So we're really passionate about making high performance, high quality products to make that wing foiling experience way better and have everyone progress a lot faster. So you're right. We do make a harness, which is very interesting.

Steve:

I'm excited because I feel like everybody's been kind of DIYing the harness, and you don't have to, right?

Gary:

Absolutely. And actually DIYings a great way. We actually have a product that supports the DIY movement, which is called the Nug. So this is the hardest thing for when you're doing your DIY project is to figure out how you're going to actually make a harness line hook. So we have this. It hooks onto any piece of webbing, one and a half inch, two inch. It cracks open so you can put it on.

Steve:

So someone can go to Home Depot and get their webbing and get the Nug.

Gary:

Absolutely. Or if they're using them right.

Steve:

But of course it's not that pleasant experience. So that's where this comes in, right?

Gary:

Absolutely. So then we go into our fully built harnesses. We have two of them right now, the Vinaka and the Vinaka Pro. The main differences between the two are definitely the flexibility and the stiffness of the harness. So the Vinaka is a very soft harness. It does give you a lot of back support, relieves the point loading overall, and gives you a nice rest on your arms if you're having to chop up wind a bunch, if you're on a super long session. Definitely.

Steve:

Both of those things by the way because I feel like you can go further up wind on a harness. I don't know the math of why, but I really feel like you're able to point better.

Gary:

Yeah, no. You can point up wind better because obviously when you have now three points of connection between your hands, your wing, you're getting close to being a windsurfer at that point, right?

Steve:

That's right.

Gary:

But you can edge the wing forward in the wind window, which is going to drag you, make you point better. But some of the cool features on this is we have the Nug comes with this. We have a stop block here. The reason why we have a stop block is sails and you're out winging, the wind dies. You have to go on an epically long paddle. You can lock the Nug over to the side, so you're not laying on your harness hook or the harness hook keeps falling back down.

Steve:

How does it come in and out of that?

Gary:

Yeah. So you just little bit of pressure so you just pull it right over it. Also it keeps it in place when you're all done, so you don't lose this component overall. And we have a lot of variation of how far the Nug slides over.

Steve:

Right, right. Like when you're toe side.

Gary:

Exactly. So when you're toe side.

Steve:

We did the both dance there, right?

Gary:

Yeah. Pretty good. And again, this is a softer version. We have a nice neoprene lycra laminated lining on it, so it's really comfortable. If you're in trunks, stays in place. And for sure. You know what I always say to the wing folks? It's not if you're going to use a harness, it's when.

Steve:

It's when. For sure, man. Because it triples your water time.

Gary:

Absolutely.

Steve:

I mean, come on. So let's look at the Pro, if you don't mind.

Gary:

Yeah. So the Pro is the next level of support.

Steve:

Oh, sweet. Yeah.

Gary:

So you know Ride Engine has a history in hard shell harnesses. We are the innovator for the kite and the wind surfing hard shell. So this incorporates a bit of that technology with a pre-curved [inaudible 00:03:48].

Steve:

But the word hard shell is kind of overselling it because it still feels very comfortable.

Gary:

Absolutely. So the hard shell, the way we put this in here with the pre-curve into this thermal formed EVA liner, what this is doing is it's just taking the pressure and dispersing it across your entire back. So it's not point loading. It's not pulling in as much. And again, you just have a nice comfortable experience. You can hang out a lot longer in your harness, hooked into your harness hook. And then when you come down to the features, same as the Vinaka. We have the Nug that has the lock off and the full slide on the webbing, a single closure D-ring to hold the harness in place nicely. And then we also put D-rings on both of them, including on the Vinaka we put it-

Steve:

Right. For leashes and yeah. Awesome.

Gary:

Exactly. And we kind of leave it up to the customer to figure out what they want to do.

Steve:

I don't know what I want. Board leash, wrist leash, waist leash. I'm still changing all the time.

Gary:

Connect to whatever. I think we're going to put a leash attachment on the hats eventually.

Steve:

Yeah. So what else you got for us here?

Gary:

Totally. So the next thing, obviously you have to have harness lines. We build harness lines for every type of interface out there, whether it's boom, pigtails, hard handles. We have three different harness lines that will easily connect to any wing out there on the market. So we're your resource for that if you need that. The next thing I want to show you guys is our protection. So protection in water sports is a growing category for sure, especially with the foiling. Because now you're just not worried about a board, you're worried about your board. You're worried about this foil that's underneath the board that's hidden until you crash, and it pops up out of the water. Plus you got other environmental things going on. Because now you have a foil underneath, you might get in too shallow water. You hit something, go head over heels.

So now where protection in the past I would say was kind of delegated to the beginners, now it's every level of rider out there. So a helmet and an impact vest is now kind of standard operating uniform for that foiler. So one thing we make is the Defender HF Vest. So HF stands for hydrofoils. This is a specific hydrofoil vest for all genres of foiling. So if you're a prone foil surfer or even if you're a wing foiler and you have to go paddle a bunch, we have the placement of the impact protection and the flotation strategic. So it's nice and comfortable if you have one of those epically long paddles. The key feature of this though is we have a little bit of hard shell technology in strategic areas that say you scissor over on your foil. Now, you have… Feel that.

Steve:

Yeah. Oh yeah. Wow.

Gary:

Yeah. So now you have some hard shell protection on there. Not just a piece of foam, but you have something that's going to disperse that energy and actually protect you. It's kind like skateboard kneecaps.

Steve:

That's taco protection.

Gary:

Yeah. So strategically placed overall on the back, torso, side of the torso, so anything that you get hit with, the rail of the board, the nose of the board, the point of your fuselage, the tip of your wing, you're protected. You're protected on it all.

Steve:

And I see the same thing with a harness, which is pretty exciting I think because this is a problem. Existing impact vests, they're made for wakeboarding. They're made for whatever you use them for, but they're this long and you can't strap a harness around that. So you've solved that for us it seems.

Gary:

Yep. So we integrated into what we call lower float impact vest, so it is confidence inspiring. So it gives you a little bit of float with the Nug and a slider. What's really nice is, you're right, you got a impact vest and a harness in one. We do have a nice plate in the back, so it does disperse the pressure from the harness line. So you can ride longer.

Steve:

But it's still pretty darn low profile.

Gary:

Absolutely.

Steve:

Awesome.

Gary:

And if you do get hit by the board, you do scissor over, you do have a little bit of protection there and padding to help you out. The other thing, we just don't make stuff for guys. So we also make the Defender HF for women also. So off a women's silhouette, which is a little bit shorter in profile through the upper torso area and also in the arms and in the gussets, so it fits perfect because you want your impact vest to fit perfect or might not be that good.

Steve:

Awesome.

Gary:

Yeah.

Steve:

Well, thank you.

Gary:

Absolutely.

Steve:

Yeah, absolutely. I'm ready. I'm ready to get all Ride Engined up here.

Gary:

We'll have to kit you out.

Steve:

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much, Gary. Appreciate you.

Gary:

No problem. Have a good one.