Wing Foil Interview: Clifford Coetzer- Unifoil on the Blue Planet Show episode 20

In this conversation Clifford Coetzer, the founder and designer at Unifoil goes over tips for wing foil beginners, his background, how he started making foils and started Unifoil, foil design evolution, construction, stiffness, tradeoffs, testing prototypes, foil characteristics, and more, I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did, thank you for your support and positive feedback. Aloha, Robert Stehlik For more information on Unifoil, please visit: https://www.uni-foil.com

Transcript:

Aloha  friends. It's Robert Stehlik welcome to another episode of the blue planet show in today's interview. I'm speaking with Clifford from uni foil. He's in South Africa, I'm in Hawaii. So there's like a 12 hour time difference. There's a little bit of a delay and so on, but it's a great conversation.

And we get into detail on foil design tips for beginners tips, for more advanced people, all kinds of technical things about the foils. I'm trying to wrap my head around all the different aspects of how everything works together, and Clifford's really good at explaining it and making sense of it.

And obviously he's tried a lot of different things. He's one of the first people to come out with the high aspect foil. And so he's definitely one of the pioneers in foil design. Really good conversation. Hope you enjoy it. Please make sure to give it a thumbs up if you like it, make sure to subscribe to the blue planet surf YouTube channel down below.

I'll put some links down in the description as well. For the uni foil website, you can watch the blue planet show right here on YouTube, or you can also listen to it on your favorite podcast app to search for the blue planet show. And without further ado here is Clifford. Okay, Clifford. Welcome to the show.

How are you doing today? Good Robert. Thanks for having me on man. What a privilege? Awesome. To finally meet you. Yeah. Fi glad to finally get you on the show. So here in Hawaii, it's 8:00 PM in the evening. And for you, it's 8:00 AM in, in Cape, in South Africa and Jeffrey bay. That's where you're at. That's right?

Yeah. Just the start of the day. Yeah. So how long have you been living in Jeffreys bay or is you born and raised there or? Uh, No. I was actually born in Johannesburg. But at a young age I moved over to England and then I've been coming over to Jeffrey bay on holiday. So I've actually got a house year.

I've been coming here for 20 years and then about 10 years ago, I actually moved to Jeffrey bay. Excellent. So trying to start off season with some tips for beginners last year, I kind had it, the, of this, I asked the question, what are some tips for beginners, but I wanted kind turn it around. So for the beginners watching, what are some good tips for people that want to get into wing foiling?

For myself, I only started wing foiling last year and my biggest tip is to use the right equipment. That is critical. So myself being a bit of a heavier rider I'm about hundred and four kilos, about 230 pounds to use the right equipment is essential, especially if you in light wind. My advice is to be overpowered.

Rather a wing that is a little bit too big a board that is too big and a fo that is too big. It just makes the whole learning process so much easier. If you use your equipment, that's too small.  then it becomes a struggle. It becomes, it's just hard work. It's a nightmare. So in the beginning, overpowered for sure.

If possible I would recommend one or two sessions behind a boat just to be pulled behind a boat and just get, just to break down the whole process so that you don't have a ring in your hands and a foil trying to do both at the same time. So if you can get going with just the foil behind a boat toe session, get just the feeding of the foil coming up outta the water.

Great. And then with the ring itself, going on just the normal sub-board walking on dry land, getting a feel for how the ring works and then combining the two together. I find that works really well. And of course, nothing beats having someone who's got experience, if you go off by yourself it's difficult.

But if you've got an instructor or someone who's already wing foing and they watch you, and they can tell you're doing this wrong, you're doing that wrong cry. This cry, this, that, that advice is gold, highly recommended. If you go like a school or something rather go someone who's already competent at wing, foing it, it just makes the whole process, the whole journey so much more pleasant.

Yeah. Those are some great tips, I think. And I think most of us. Everybody's still new to the sport. So we remember what it was like to learn and are happy to help others too. Yeah, just ask for help. And and just keep in mind too, that it can be dangerous in the beginning too.

If if you fall on your foil and, as a surfer, like usually you try to kind catch