2017 Levitaz Hydrofoil lineup PreView with Adrian Geislinger.

Yeah, thank you Laszlo for having me and giving me this opportunity to present it to our US customers. For 2017 I'm really super happy how all our products turned out. Holding board, we have our range, and we have actually two completely new setups, which is the Cruiser and Violet, which are completely new—new masts, new weights—and I'm really happy how they are working. So basically, I'm super, super excited about the summer in Europe. I guess the season in Miami, there's always season, but for us now it's getting warmer and we're getting more days in the water and we can ride more. The new stuff is fantastic.

I think it's best if I show you here in the background my Bionic setup. This is the fuselage with the race wing. What we changed on the pyramid on the 96 centimeter mast—basically here the lower part where you connect your wings and your fuselage. We went a little bit wider, we changed the dimensions, and just made the whole system feel different. It gives the rider more control, especially in choppy or really gusty conditions, because all your movements transfer more directly into the data. Also, when we changed from the 96 to the 110 centimeter mast, we actually had three different profiles. As you can see, it goes wider as it goes up. Basically here on the top we tried to go out as much as possible to get more volume here and make the whole mast stiffer. Then on the middle part we went with a profile that reduces the chance of cavitation, and that's actually working out really well so far. We're getting more lift with less drag, and also fewer drops. Then we went down further, and we went together with a profile left-right because we said when you're working through the water, you need to have the right shape. We went out again to get extra stiffness in the system. On the 110 mast we have what I call a pocket—this is basically on the top part of the mold where we have skis and grooves. This helps us keep the carbon layers straight. You always want to have straight layers; otherwise they can bend on the inside, the performance is not as good, it could lead to delamination or breaking the mast. That's why we have the pocket here—to straighten the distance layers and to get more carbon in here because you can sit on the outside, which is also better.

Basically, the longer the better. When you're an experienced rider, it just makes more fun to use the whole length of your mast. On the race course, I think you can be competitive on the shorter mast, but with the 110 you have a lot of advantages that will make it all pop around the course. It's easier over the top, you have a better upward angle because you can lean more into the support, and the wing doesn't breach the surface as early as on a shorter mast. So I wouldn't say you can't win a race on a 96 centimeter mast, but racing on a longer mast makes the whole race a little bit easier. Therefore you don't have to focus as much on your foil and you can focus more on your surroundings, and in the end your performance will probably be better.

As I was just showing the Bionics, what we can see here—this is new. Hopefully you can see—we have two Race-to-Race finishes on here now, which is new for 2017. We offered this now actually because of an IPA rule which says the rider is not allowed to change the foil if riding in Formula events like World Championships or European Championships. So we offered this Race-to-Race finish where everything is hand-sanded and painted by hand in the factory. It takes about four hours—there's quite a bit of work in it—but then you have a perfect finish for racing.

So if you want to race, I would definitely recommend sanding your foil because it raises your performance—not too much, but you will definitely feel a little bit of a difference. I would use wet sandpaper. I would start with around 800 grit sandpaper and then just go over it. Always—never go against the water flow, but always go like this, with the flow. I also like it this way because through the whole setup it actually feels the best. When I get a new wing, I just sand the trailing edge—it just feels better. The choppier the water, the more you'll feel the difference in the old versus sanded finish. So yeah, for racing you should definitely sand it. If you're not interested, leave it like this. Like I said, start with 800 and then go up to 2000. I do 800 over the whole setup, then go to 1200, and then to 2000.

The squeaking—so like this, the whistling—I would say count it from the trailing edge. This happens because we're underwater; when you hit the water with your front wing, it goes like this and then hits the fuselage at the same point, and that creates whistling noise. Also, each time you hit the trailing edge, like there's a mold mark—nothing to worry about, just go over it. Those mold marking whistles will be gone. It's mostly on the front wing, so if you go over the trailing edge of your front and rear wing it should be no problem. But like I said, you probably won't have it. If you have a whistling, it could be the mold marks. I know from a lot of customers on the market—they ask me, 'Okay, my foil is whistling, what do I do?'—and it's always the trailing edge, and you need to sand them.

I wouldn't say it really affects the performance a lot, but I like it more when my foil is silent. Just the feeling—it's nicer and quieter when you ride on the water. But it's totally a personal thing—if you like to ride with a noisy foil, some guys like it, they keep it, and if it doesn't bother you, then it's good.

Yeah, let's go to the product guide, and maybe also show like the cover shot and say a little bit about that. That was actually shot with the Cruiser, and I was using the Cruiser with the new mast. So the Cruiser is a super, super stable foil, and the idea behind it was that we wanted to make a super stable foil for beginners and people who just want to get into foiling, for the experience of flying or levitating on the water. That's why we created the Cruiser wing. The Cruiser wing is the biggest thing we have in our range, and it's compatible with all the other setups, so you can easily upgrade to Element or Aspect. What I like about the Cruiser is that you can go really, really slow, and that's so fun. I remember when we first tested it in Egypt—I was riding with a friend on a typical light wind day, and we were going next to each other really slowly, and we could have a chat on the water like it was nothing because we were going so slowly. It was so fun. But also what's so nice about the Cruiser is that with only one hand you can go really slow, and with just one pump you're up on the foil. Also in light wind, that makes it really easy. If you want to get into wing foiling, otherwise you need to be really good with your maneuvers in light wind—I guess we all know you can go on the light wind foil, but to nail your maneuvers you'll end up swimming most of the time. But with the Cruiser, everything is a little bit slower, so you can really get into foiling maneuvers. Also, Florian Gruber, one of our team riders, actually tested it and he did like 50 km/h downwind on the Cruiser wing, which is amazing. For such a big wing, it's performing really well. I can pull up a picture on the wall so let's show it to you and compare it with the Element. We have the TWIX 3 here, the little Cruiser. This is a really big wing, but the shape and how we designed it—it has really low water resistance. You can see it doesn't look really thick, but it has really good lift, and with three wide stabilizers, when you ride on your foil, you will have really, really good low-end stability. We made it so you can see from here—it has better pitch stability due to the low water resistance. Still, you can ride with a lot of stability. It's super, super fun. I like it a lot. I ride with it because when I want more stability to do some nice, small tricks, it's so stable but you can still go quite fast. Compared to our Bionic, there's actually almost no difference in performance, which is amazing.

Okay, coming back to the product guide. You start with the Cruiser, which I would say is entry level and actually level five, and then most riders probably already know our Element setup, which is like the next step up. So the idea is that we can try to cover every style and every skill level. You can start with the Cruiser and then go to the Element just by changing the front wing—you'll have the feeling of a completely new foil. The Element, compared to the Cruiser, has a shorter wingspan, so you can make more aggressive moves—you can pop, you can turn tighter, and you can go narrower. It's like a course with more stack. You can see Florian on the XO—the XO is a really small, short board—so you can go into more aggressive moves. Pro riders are using the Elements with the XO board. For suboptimal conditions, you can really feel the waves and use them to bounce from one piece of chop to another, and I love the Element for that. It's still very forgiving because it has more performance than the Cruiser. Then the next one is the Aspect, which is more like a freerace setup. I would say it's for more experienced riders. With this one we actually raced three years ago. The Epic is our basic model—we started with the Epic two years ago. We just changed the layout of the mast and the wing, but the shape of the front wing is still the same. I would say it was ahead of its time when we released it, and it's still a really, really nice foil if you're going into racing. The Aspect is for freeracers and also for people who want a performing foil. For example, Duke Mukesh Chhabra has a school in Egypt where they do all this crazy freestyle foiling with the Aspects, and a lot of my friends are using it because compared to the Bionic—which is the next high-performance foil—it's more stable.

Yeah, I think it's amazing. I mean, the Nollie—I know you started like almost a year ago, and like I said, I think it was ahead of its time and it's still a really, really interesting foil. It especially covers a lot of fun. I would pay to thank you because it's a great training partner. I think the moves that racers are using can be learned on the shorter mast. When someone is ready for the Bionic, for the next step—if you want to get into racing but you're not really sure about it, and you just want to learn more maneuvers—you can start with the Aspect or Epic, and then you can actually just change your fuselage and rear wing to the Bionic setup, and then you can also exchange the front wing. It's all modular, and that's what I really like about this. Once your skill gets better or you're looking for something new, you don't have to get a completely new foil—you just get the next part. So you can progress with your foil without getting a new setup.

Yes, we have the Homer, which is already on the market this year. This year we decided to go pack—you can see the test board and you can take the handles off at any time, so you can choose to put on the pads they include in the package, or just ride it like a race board. And for the size, we went with interesting dimensions just to have a better downwind performance. I can show you the race board—this is the race. It's not on the market yet, but we have already presented it. This was shaped by Shaping Room in Australia together with a great shaper who shapes for a lot of top riders. It's definitely a market-leading shape for the race. The uniform shape is more of an elongated outline—it's narrow, so you can really get a lot going downwind, and the tail width attracts me because I know in foiling there's a lot of variation on the bottom. Depending on how you like it, you can adjust the pressure and get it how you want. Yeah, it's a beautiful piece. It's a bit specialized, so if you want performance and you always need to race as well, then this is the board for you. We expect it to be ready in June.

We get a lot of questions about what we do next and what will be the next thing. I will say a little bit—we have a couple of projects running. So I guess in the future we cannot call it just kite foil boards anymore; we have to call it hydrofoil. We're going into other sports, and you'll see that in the near future.

Thank you, thank you, that's not okay.