035_Carlos Saez: First-Ever SFT Downwind Parawing World Cup

Season #1 March 29, 2026

This episode of the LabRat Foiler Podcast dives deep into one of the most exciting moments yet for the sport of parawinging: the first SFT / SFD Downwind Parawing World Cup. I sit down with Carlos Saez to unpack the event, the race format, the vision behind it, and why this competition could play a huge role in shaping the future of parawing racing, downwind foiling, and competitive foil sports.

We talk about what makes a true parawing race and why this event is about much more than simply blasting downwind. The big challenge is designing a format that tests real rider skill across the full discipline of parawinging — including upwind ability, downwind speed, stashing, redeploying, pumping, foil control, and tactical decisions under pressure. Instead of rewarding only the fastest gear, the goal is to build an event that rewards the most complete rider.

That opens up some of the biggest conversations in parawinging right now. How important is stashing technique in racing? How much will pump zones influence the results? What kind of parawing board design, foil setup, and gear strategy will work best when racers need to blend powered riding with efficient unpowered foiling? We get into how course design can highlight these skills and why racing could accelerate innovation across the whole sport.

This episode also explores the bigger picture of where parawinging is heading. Carlos explains why parawinging is not just about swell riding, but a discipline that can evolve into multiple directions including racing, freeride, and performance foiling. The race becomes a lens for understanding the sport itself: what skills matter most, what equipment trends are emerging, and how events like this can help define the next phase of parawing progression.

We also cover the broader event context, including how the SFT fits into the growing world of foil competition and why this World Cup format matters for the credibility and growth of the sport. If you’re interested in parawing racing, foil racing, downwind parawing, pump foiling, stow and redeploy technique, parawing gear development, and the future of high-performance parawinging, this episode is for you.

Episode Transcript

Daniel Paronetto (00:01)
Get excited people, we are less than one month away from the first ever SFD Downwind Parawing World Cup in Lucassi in France. Today we have Carlos Saez to answer all our questions about this event. So welcome Carlos.

When I heard about this race, I saw race, I pairwing, and then I saw the word downwind. And then I started to get excited. I want people to battle because of their ability. We have to have upwind. I want to see people stash and redeploy as not only one.

Like after what you said now, I have like a thousand questions. Who's coming? Like what are the big names? The stash zone. Are you stashing the thing away in an accessory or are you just holding it on your hand?

are crazy they want to win. What happens if you fall in the pump zone? Good question. Let's look at the course because this is where things get interesting.

So if you have to put your money on someone now, who will win this thing? I'd say... I'd say...

Daniel Paronetto (01:31)
Welcome to the lab rat foiler podcast. My name is Dan. Get excited people. are less than one month away from the first ever SFD downwind pair wing world cup in Lucati in France. And today we have one of the event organizers with us, Carlos Saez to answer all our questions about everything that we want to know about this event. So welcome to the podcast, Carlos.

Carlos Saez SFT (01:59)
Hello, pleased to meet you and all your listeners. I'm also a listener and a watcher of your podcast. I love it. Yeah, I mean, of course I try to follow everyone, right? But you post really interesting thing. was actually, yesterday I was watching that video you post with the 5'3 by 25 board, you know, because I'm super into designing boards and stuff. And always these kind of videos that are experiments are super interesting to see what people is trying.

Daniel Paronetto (02:04)
Yeah, that's good to know. Good stuff,

I am.

Yeah.

Well, I put out that video

because in my spot here, people were like, oh, sure, but I don't want to have to buy new gear to do this and blah, blah, blah. And they, they wing. I think everybody, when there's something new, like I've guilty myself, you know, you put all these blockers in, in your way of why it's not going to work. And I did that video to say, look, you just get your wing board, get a pair of wing and get out there. You know, there's, there's the gears good, man. The gear is ready.

Carlos Saez SFT (02:51)
We

can talk a lot about that because this is my passion. Actually, designing boards specifically is my passion. So I've been designing boards since 2018 for many pro riders in every category. And so it's fun because I see the market. Yesterday or two days ago, was reading in the ParaWin forum in Facebook, which is really active, super active, and people comment.

Daniel Paronetto (03:04)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ It's super active.

Carlos Saez SFT (03:20)
A lot of times I totally disagree. I don't want to write and create polemic, but what I see is, imagine we design a board, it goes to market, then people buy, then the influencer buys it and then makes a video and loves it, but we are already into something different. And people is like pushing, like for now they were pushing narrow and longer. And actually we're totally the opposite. We're going for shorter and wider actually.

Daniel Paronetto (03:49)
Hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (03:50)
We can talk about that. And I explain you why, but the difference in the design we need to get in a board to achieve early planning and using smaller foils is a bit different than winging. But it's super interesting because writers want short boards. Why? Because part of winging in the end is used to surf the ocean, right? So as short as you can go,

Daniel Paronetto (04:14)
Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (04:18)
the better, but the problem is if you go short, you need to go thicker and wider, and then you have less ability to get up. But of course, this is if you compare to a 4.8 freestyle board, but if you go, and this is the question. Okay, so when we started para-winging, we had downwind sups, so mid-lengths are shortened versions of mid-lengths. And now the direction I'm seeing,

Daniel Paronetto (04:37)
Mm-hmm.

Of the down, mid-lengths

are shorter versions of the downwind boards. Yes. Yep.

Carlos Saez SFT (04:47)
Yes. And

another direction I think it's going and what I'm exploring too is bigger versions of the race boards. So they're more like study. They are more parallel rails, fluttered wider tails. They look a bit ugly actually, but they work. They're ugly. They're not so sexy, but in the end, know what I see is when you pump your para wings, you have two ways of starting, right? One is like,

Daniel Paronetto (04:57)
I'm

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I kind of think so too,

Carlos Saez SFT (05:16)
pure penetration and speed and go up. But riders are pumping. And if you want to pump, you can have a round board because the front, when the front, the nose is round, the water kind of wraps. So there are two ways of starting. One is like pure speed and fly. And the second is try to create your bumps and to push. And this is why I think this new direction of more parallel, a bit wider boards, like a bit wider.

Daniel Paronetto (05:18)
Mm-hmm.

interesting.

Carlos Saez SFT (05:46)
Because imagine the board uses 25, which I think is too wide, of course. But the boards people have been using for mid-lengths are like 1920s. And I think there's a sweet middle ground in 21, 22, something like that. So 22, 22 is not too wide to penalize. And it's not too narrow to, so you can make it shorter. And it's super cool, man. mean, this is some.

Daniel Paronetto (05:51)
Yeah.

Hmm, interesting.

I need to ride one, man.

Carlos Saez SFT (06:14)
This is something I'm building some prototypes and bring into Leucard and I'm going to give them to the guys and test. I know that Bas Mueller, he sent me a video the other day. He's writing a 411 by 22, 72 liters. And he says he starts with almost no wind, doing this technique of pumping it. Yeah, so of course, of course, I want to specify, need to separate pros.

Daniel Paronetto (06:23)
Mm-hmm.

Man, that's interesting.

Carlos Saez SFT (06:44)
to real users because they are masters. But my point is if Buzz, I'm building 5.2, 5.4, 5.6, and 5.8 to see what is the sweet spot with similar volumes and same width. So we just check that. so maybe the pros are going to write, I think the pros are going to end up writing something like a lot like 5.4, 5.6. It's a sweet, because if you go from a 6.2 to a 5.6,

Daniel Paronetto (06:44)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Carlos Saez SFT (07:14)
it, you notice it a lot. So yeah, while pros might be in five twos, five fours, maybe regular customers would be five, six, five, eight,

Daniel Paronetto (07:16)
Yeah.

Yeah.

that's going to be super relevant now for, for this race, because when I heard about this race, I think the first time I saw it, I think it was a promo, this promo that we played at the start. ⁓ I saw it either on Instagram or I can't remember where I saw it, but I saw race, I saw parowing and then I saw the word downwind. And then I started to get excited because.

I mean, we've discussed the concept of parowing racing in this podcast a few times with a couple of different guests. And we all have a view of what that event could look like, should look like. ⁓ you know, what we need to include in parowing racing to make it parowing racing rather just, just having, you know, people fang down winged and, and, and I got really excited when I saw this, because I think it will incorporate a lot of these things and test, you know, the rider skills.

Carlos Saez SFT (07:52)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, let's go for it.

Yeah, well,

let's watch it. This is super interesting. I really love this topic and this is really important. First, para-winging. What is para-winging? mean, when you get a wing, you can use it in the surf, you can do race, and you can do freestyle. And para-winging is the same. It's a device that will be used in many ways. Okay, so first thing is we need to understand that each person has a different goal in mind. But para-winging is not only swell riding.

Daniel Paronetto (08:22)
Mm.

Carlos Saez SFT (08:45)
because actually there's a lot of lakes in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, everywhere. they are flat and people still love to use the para-wing and race. So we need to try to put everyone together and having fun. But the special thing that para-wing has that not other sport of winging has is the stashing side. So when you stash, it disappears. So we need to pay attention to that. Okay. So.

First time we started thinking about the racing format, the organizer, I just said I'm the organizer and the director of the sports side of SEPT. Organizers are individuals in each country, you so if you want to do an event, you can do in Australia. Actually, we're talking to people all around the world because we have so many different disciplines, Foiling is board, a board sport of foiling is huge. Surfing, parawinging, downwing, foil assist now is growing super, super huge.

Daniel Paronetto (09:41)
Yeah, huge.

Carlos Saez SFT (09:43)
Okay, so regarding the para-win, the organizers said, okay, let's do what people like to do in France is to go so far out ⁓ upwind and do a very long downwind. And then the first thing that came to my mind is, okay, this is a problem because if you want to people from every country and all the brands, not all the brands go upwind the same. You know this, not the models go upwind the same. So you are already putting an inconvenient like,

Let's say you write brand A and it goes a less angle than the other one. And you can be a better parawinger, but you can not go up because you don't have this device. We're doing the competition of our equipment about what's the most performance upwind angle wing. And I don't like this. I want people to battle because of their abilities. I thought, okay, we have to have upwinds, but the angles...

Daniel Paronetto (10:23)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (10:42)
should be light, not steep, but light. So they can raise upwind. And we need the upwind, of course, to later do the downwind side. And I want to see people stash and redeploy and the technique. And not only once. You do a lap, you stash, you go downwind. Imagine this is also very important. you have flat water, has to be shorter than swell, right? And this is where.

Daniel Paronetto (10:52)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (11:11)
the size of the foil comes to play. Because if you're going to go fast, you want a small foil. But if I'm going to put a stash zone of 400 meters on a 600, it's not going to happen. You know, you're going to... No. No, it's impossible. mean, 500 meters is too much. And I know this because I'm doing the pump competition. see the guys. I like, Eden, who is the winner, is the fastest. He's using a...

Daniel Paronetto (11:21)
On a flat, yeah, offshore wind, it'll be tough.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (11:40)
I lift 120, I think it's something around 750. And he can pump maybe for, let's say, 100 meters. Otherwise, your head rate goes too high, and you can't keep up, you get dizzy. So it's not even safe. Yeah, yeah. So the thing is you need to see what equipment you need for your purpose. Okay, so imagine, let's imagine, because this is something we need to see. I don't know, I don't have the answer.

Daniel Paronetto (11:54)
Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (12:10)
If I want to do a 400 meter flat pump with the stash, maybe I'll need a 1000 wing, let's say, no? Because otherwise you won't make it. But then the 1000 will slow you when you're in the other tack. And this is, think, I think is cool because it will resemble way more what people do in real world.

Daniel Paronetto (12:24)
Mm.

It's gonna be really interesting choosing your gear.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (12:39)
people is not using 700 and 600 in para winging. Like I have a lot of friends in Fuerteventura. Fuerteventura is a super cool place. They are crazy for para winging. And actually one of my best friends, Andoni, say hi from here, he use code like you. He is using the code X810 and now the 740. And he likes a lot the 810. This is also something really interesting. When he tried the first time the 810, he said, it's really lifted.

Daniel Paronetto (12:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah?

Carlos Saez SFT (13:08)
pushes a lot for a 810. And I always want to tell people, don't judge a foil by its area. Like wingspan, profile, thickness, so difficult. So maybe an 810 code will be something similar to a 1,000 centimeter fireball axis. see. I'm just inventing it. I'm just saying stuff that you need to test. So yeah, this is going to be key.

Daniel Paronetto (13:10)
Mm-hmm.

you just have to write it. Yeah.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (13:35)
to use the right size faults, so you go fast, you can go upwind, and you can do the start zone. Imagine we have ⁓ onshore, so we have some swell, then the game totally changes. So it's gonna be key to really fit your equipment, like the size of your board and your volume. Imagine also in Leucas, sometimes we have 40 knots. So we might see people riding 2.5 para wings, you know, in super.

Daniel Paronetto (13:47)
That'll be cool.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (14:04)
and you can also have 15 nodes.

Daniel Paronetto (14:07)
And going up wind in 40 knots will be interesting as well, because yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (14:11)
But these guys are crazy. I

I just watched a clip from Sinclair using the Chuvanga and he was going, and you remember Alex from North Zone, was winning that race, famous race, the Defi Wing. Defi Wing, no, in France they say Defi Wing. And Leucati is Leucat. So yeah.

Daniel Paronetto (14:27)
MTO? The what? the DeFi. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

the fee.

Little cat.

Carlos Saez SFT (14:37)
The Fee Wing, they were doing this with the wingers and he with the para wing. I don't remember if it was a para wing or a kite. I think it was a para wing. It was in front of everybody. Because these guys are racers, are pro racers. you have, that's the question. Are we gonna have the pro racers like, for example, Bastian Scafet, which is a great racer, or this guy. You said we wanna talk about the names. We have top names in the competition like.

Daniel Paronetto (14:40)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

⁓

man, look, there's so many, there's like after what you said now, I have like a thousand questions, but I'm curious to know like where did the interest start for this event? Was it the brands coming to you and asking for it? Was it the competitors or you guys just said we need to include para winging because it's so new.

Carlos Saez SFT (15:25)
Exactly. The thing was we need to para-winging. mean, para-winging was coming and exploding and we were seeing it. And normally the organizer, which is Valérie, Valérie Sales is the sister of Rafael Sales, the owner of F1. She's the organizer and she's been doing this event for 26 years. So she did windsurfing, kiting, and they have a very open mind to new disciplines. Last year they were introducing pump foiling.

first time in the ocean. It was difficult because the problem we have is know the ladders, like the docks, it's difficult when the water is choppy and this year she was, I want to do the poro wing and I think it's coming in a great moment because the sport is just exploding, everybody's showing so much interest, the brands just came up with really cool stuff and new wings right now this month.

Daniel Paronetto (15:54)
Yeah, amazing.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (16:20)
So I think it came all together naturally, naturally, like the contest, the brands, as I said, B1s were quite not where B2s and B3s are. And now it's way, way easier, way, way easier. I mean, it's way easier. You have wings that go up wind better, that have a widest wind range. Because as you know, the problem of para-winging is the wind range is quite short. I mean, people go like with a four.

Daniel Paronetto (16:24)
amazing.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (16:50)
I have a friend, friend from Furtenatura, he uses a four when it's 12 knots and he uses it until 30. So imagine the wind range of a wing. Yeah, and for that you need three para wings. But now some brands are bringing models that seats, like you can push them in the window and get the ground and then later they sit up wind. And I think this is great.

Daniel Paronetto (16:57)
Yeah, depending on the four you can hold it, yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (17:17)
This is also the very interesting thing about the sport. It's super new and so much room for progression, as we said, in boards, in wings, in foils. Also regarding foils.

Daniel Paronetto (17:20)
it's a new.

Carlos Saez SFT (17:30)
There are specific foils for each thing, but some brands are bringing foils that are pretty good at everything, right? And I'm loving this because in the end, what I like about foiling as a user is to put it in my car, you know, and you bring a couple of bags, a little board if you can, you know, like imagine if you can short the para-wing boards a bit, keeping the early planning ability and balance. Imagine how cool, you you can travel everywhere and you can have a couple of wings.

Daniel Paronetto (17:36)
Mm-hmm.

Forget about it.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (18:00)
and a board, because this is also something really interesting. This friend of mine always go like, ⁓ the other day I was with the code 1300 and a guy was in a different board. He was in a KT, think something like a six or something like that, five eight. And this guy was going super early. Yes, what board? It was in a seven six. I mean, people want to do all and you can't. mean, if you want to go in 12 knots or 10 knots and you have a downwind

Daniel Paronetto (18:21)
Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (18:30)
good board and a big foil, you can maybe make it. But the thing is, this is the point, sometimes also with para wings. Imagine let's just talk, as I said, let's try to put numbers and win other numbers. Imagine you have a five meter para wing that goes from 14 to 20 or to 22. And then you buy the six and the six is gonna make you go from 13. So you're buying a bigger wing for one knot.

Daniel Paronetto (18:33)
Mmm.

you

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (19:00)
So maybe you can change the foil, you can get a bigger board, but what does people want? People wants to have the less equipment, so boards. can go, normally pros, pro riders are going five liters below their weight. Okay, this is the kind of sweet spot because imagine you are 80 on a 75, you are a bit below the water, but once the gust push you, you're on the water. And of course you can go lower, but if you go lower, you will need more wind.

Daniel Paronetto (19:15)
Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (19:30)
So in this five liter less of your weight, you still have early light wind abilities and you can still keep this one until the wind is, until you go out with power. So you, yeah, but that's it. Some people want to go in a 65. You need to know you will need 20 knots. Okay. Or 18 knots. Then if you go on your same weight, you will lessen. And then if you go over and longer, less, but you cannot have it all. You need to,

Daniel Paronetto (19:40)
Yeah, it has a bit of performance in it, yeah.

Mm. Yep.

Carlos Saez SFT (20:00)
to narrow the window of 80%, 80 % of the time what you want to do. Of course, some people want to have three boards and six para wings, but not me.

Daniel Paronetto (20:11)
I always tell people you have like these levers. You have your foil, go up and down, big and small, board and paring. Like you pull one down, the other one has to go up. You you pulled the foil down, your paring has to go up or the board has to go up. You need to mix, you know, that ⁓ whatever ingredients you have there.

Carlos Saez SFT (20:18)
Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah, but let's

talk about that. Three variables, right? Foil, board, and para-wing. And of course, each para-wing design different, each board design different, and each foil design is different. So let's see, let's find a middle ground. If you go for the bigger foil, it will help you go out, but it would penalize later when you want to go fast and you have a big wing. It's not cool. Then if you put a bigger para-wing, same thing.

Daniel Paronetto (20:32)
Mm.

Carlos Saez SFT (20:57)
you get earlier, but because part of when it's going to get up, but once you're up, you need way less. So you have too much clothes, too much sales and the board is exactly the same. If you go really long, you go early, but then it's penalizing on the inertia and swing weight. So in my mind, what's the right, let's see the right range of each of the parts. think a foil, this doesn't go for when you're starting.

Daniel Paronetto (21:03)
Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (21:26)
you're learning. if you know how to do it, I think a good size of foil do it all would be something like 900. Again, it's 900 is different. 900 1000, then aboard, I'd say your same weight, volume ratio. And then a porowin, I'd say also, don't go over five, if you want to have fun. Five to three, five, the most fun probably is a four, right? Four is a nice size.

Daniel Paronetto (21:32)
Mm.

Yeah

Mm.

Carlos Saez SFT (21:55)
that you can do it all. So you need to find your middle ground. But if you go for a thousand foil, same volume of your weight, and this para wind, you need to know that you will not go until you have 18 knots.

Daniel Paronetto (22:10)
Yeah.

I, I, when I go out for a session, I, when I think about those three factors, I start with the foil and what I try to do is I get the foil that I want to ride for the conditions in the day. So if the bumps are slow, I'll get a big foil. If the bumps are fast, I'll get a faster foil and I start there and then I work my way back. I know, ⁓ let's say I, I, I the eight 10.

X, which I've been on a lot right now. Then I go, all right, what do I, what am I going to do? Am I going to do a downwind run? Cool. If I'm going to do a downwind run, I can go small board and super big powering because I'm going to use the powering for a second. If I'm going to do laps, I need the ability to go upwind. So I'm not going to choose the biggest powering. I'm going to go for my mid-length board, which is an 80 liter. And I love what you said. Five liters.

Carlos Saez SFT (22:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

Daniel Paronetto (23:09)
below your weight is a pro, so I'm gonna consider myself a pro now. Because I'm 85 kilos and I got the 80 liter board from Frank and it's amazing.

Carlos Saez SFT (23:19)
This information is

actually super really interesting for our listeners, right? Because everybody's asking, I mean, when I see Instagram posts and people talking about this, they don't talk much about the setup. setup and people are asking what board, what size, what volume do I need? What power wing? And this is the info that is needed. So as you said, if you go five below, you can go lower, you can go 15. But what's the point? I mean, what's the point? You will need

Daniel Paronetto (23:22)
Mmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (23:49)
more wind and you need to use a bigger maybe a foil or a bigger wing. So in this range of less than five, it's a perfect I think it's a perfect balance. But of course, it's different five liter less in an 5.6 than in a 6.0 because you need to account that the yeah, the planing surface you know, like, because as you know, you need to penetrate right? But some boards, let's put the extremes if you go 15.

Daniel Paronetto (24:06)
Yeah, then there's the shape.

Carlos Saez SFT (24:19)
it will be like a bullet, but you don't have the push from the ocean. You have this forward speed. And here we need the push because when you start moving and you start doing this, you start engaging the foil and it start working. So that's what I say there, like kind of two approach. One approach is to take off with speed. And the other one is by creating your own speed. And now that people is learning more to do the pumping with the

Daniel Paronetto (24:22)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (24:49)
the technique with the the para wing and to use your legs, you can do that. Of course, maybe not just to begin with. I mean, if you want to start para winging, I would say grab a big foil, grab a 1300 and grab ⁓ a 65 board and start. But once you manage it and you start progressing, you can totally do it. You can totally make it just with using improving your technique. And then your session will be

Daniel Paronetto (24:50)
Mm.

yeah, 100%.

Carlos Saez SFT (25:19)
way more fun and doable. mean doable by anybody, not by the pro.

Daniel Paronetto (25:24)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I like now when, when I talk to people about the concept of engaging the four, it's, it's almost like dogstarting. It feels like the last stages of the dogstart and you just need to, to get through like understanding your angles, going down wind with the power you have light wind versus, you know, 30 knots is super different. Your angles change.

I want to, I want to just

Go back to the event a little bit, because man, if we start talking about foiling here, it's going to go somewhere else. Tell me a little bit about, like, this is a Parawing only event on this date, or there's going to be other stuff. Is just Parawing?

Carlos Saez SFT (26:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓

Thank

No, it's wing, foil, freestyle, World Cup too. But yeah, but they are, the thing is also, I want to explain how the World Cup works. We have three different World Cups. Like you remember in the past, Professional Kite Riders Association, PKRA, is now called GKA, Global Kite Boarding Association. And it's kind of the same riders, like the evolution of that. It changes management.

Daniel Paronetto (27:05)
OK, so yeah, nice. So there's going to be more stuff there.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (27:32)
Pique Ray was owned by a person from Hawaii, Mauricio Toscano, a really cool guy. And now when he stopped at that, now it's owned by the brands. So the brands are the owner of the tour. Then you have the GWA, that means Global Wing Association, only wing, and it's kind of same. And now we have this SFD, it's run by the same persons, like the CEO is the same CEO.

Tour manager is Tom Hartman, he's the same tour manager. But each circuit has a different kind logistics, right? Like, yeah. So I think this is also very interesting. You know, when you're a windsurfer, I was a windsurfer and I want to go kiting and my friends are pissed with me because I'm like leaving the pack. I'm a prostitute, I'm going to something else. Yeah.

Daniel Paronetto (28:08)
flavor. ⁓ okay.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (28:30)
So that's why they separate tours. now wing, they separate, they separate it from the kite. Also the same thing is like, kiters, you know that they look to the wingers, at least where I live here, look, I'm by the sea. And we have a jetty there that is so cool because the water gets really flat. So kiters love to come and jump there. And we of course also like to exactly. So they're jumping over us and it's all the time it's like kind of.

Daniel Paronetto (28:42)
Mmm.

Classic Kaib Boarding thing.

Carlos Saez SFT (28:59)
Clashing a bit, you know, like, hey, but why are you jumping over me? but go there. I don't want to go there. I want to be here, you know, because the waves are cleaner, whatever. So yeah, this is why sports are separated. So the SFT is born trying to put together all the categories of falling that are non-wing-powered. So that's why we have all this. What about para-winging? Para-winging is a mix, right? It's a mix. You have it powered and unpowered.

Daniel Paronetto (29:06)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

both.

Carlos Saez SFT (29:26)
But as I said, because the cool thing of para-winging is the stash part, I really think para-winging, I'm sure that this is why every brand is stepping into para-winging. Because this market is gonna grow a lot. Because the problem, for example, with downwind SUP is dangerous. And it's difficult, it's technical, it's very technical. You need to be super fit and you're in the middle of the ocean. So I have big, huge respect for downwind.

for guys, but for the masses, for the market, that is why it's taking very long to take off. But, paraguining is bringing this gap. Because paraguining is making, you don't need to know how to paddle or to have these kind of boards. You can just shoot down to the wave line and enjoy. So this is one side is super nice. Then the packaging of the equipment in your car, which people also look a lot. And...

Daniel Paronetto (30:06)
yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (30:23)
And because we're wind junkies, we do everything. mean, we do windsurf and kiting and winging. Now this is a new toy. So I don't see it as a clash. I see it as a quiver of tools. You have this quiver of tools and now you're into para-winging. And as you said, you want to para-wing every day. Who knows, in two years, maybe you are into surf foiling or you decide to do the downwinders with an assist because they're lighter and they are powerful, whatever. So in the end, I think we are all a bunch of...

Daniel Paronetto (30:34)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (30:52)
of hype guys that want to have fun. Kids.

Daniel Paronetto (30:55)
Yeah, it's true though, because like,

think the power wing wouldn't have existed, you know, four years ago when down-winding was just beginning and like you needed the sequence of events, the way they happened. ⁓ you know, prone was super huge, you know, maybe four or five years ago. And then after prone, everybody started doing the down-winding thing. ⁓ and I think now the power wing kind of just encapsulates it all. Like you can wing.

You could just sail around. could do the downwinds. You can do laps. You can jump. You could do freestyle. You can race. You know, it's, it's, you can do every discipline in foiling with the pair of wings.

Carlos Saez SFT (31:34)
And the ultimate goal of foiling, I think, is to ride the ocean. What separates us from surfers is that they're stuck in a spot. And look how big the ocean is. So you go with your friends, three or four friends, and you do when para winds, like now that they're really way better, you can do an upwind, downwind of 10kms with three or four guys to help each other.

Daniel Paronetto (31:41)
the best.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (32:00)
And logistics are amazing. You don't need a shuttle. You don't need a big board to carry in your car. So all these elements are really important. And this is why I think SUP with the paddle would be super niche and super hardcore and cool. But para-winging is going to be embraced way easier by the public because of this. have your, imagine also, I remember when I was skiding here in the summer, this is full of

Daniel Paronetto (32:22)
Yeah, I agree.

Carlos Saez SFT (32:29)
of people and it's dangerous. You have to catch the kite and leave the kite and now with the wing you can go easily in between or the para when you can stash you, you go in between the people, you paddle some meters and you're out. So all these kinds of things market wise are super interesting. when people realize that para wing is accessible and it's cheaper and also something really cool now because brands are pushing the sport, you have a lot of secondhand market.

Daniel Paronetto (32:32)
Yeah, it's a lot.

Yeah, it's making a lot of stuff accessible. 100%.

Yeah, really good pair of wings going cheap now.

Carlos Saez SFT (33:00)
And so, yeah,

some shops have B1, B2 and B3 at the same time. So you can still buy a very nice and cheap para wing. And as you said, you can use even wing boards to start. To start, you can use a wing board, but a big one. And once you get the hang of it and you like it, then you go and you buy your dedicated equipment. So yeah, I'm totally sold on para winging and my friends that are doing.

Daniel Paronetto (33:06)
Mm.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (33:29)
hardcore, like they are super hook. They only want to this now.

Daniel Paronetto (33:31)
Yeah, it's the best. It's the best. It's the best.

I'm with you, man. The first session I was sold, I got rid of my wings. I'm like, this is it. I don't want to do anything else. now, like, I want to know with from we, I always, we always digress a little bit. I'll always pull us back to the event, but how, how can we follow this? Like, are we going to have some live streaming? we, what, how do we follow this thing?

Carlos Saez SFT (33:56)
I don't think so. You need to wait for the daily videos that they're going to post because the live streaming is super expensive. It's super expensive. So in the end, you have a full crew with cameras and drones and logistics is difficult. And in the end, live is going to be 500 people watching. So I think what we want to do is to

Daniel Paronetto (34:05)
Yeah.

Amazing.

Carlos Saez SFT (34:23)
Like Formula One, know Formula One they the race and then quick they put together the edit with everything so you see the daily action. But having it live is going to be difficult. But I'm going to ask because they have this in Dubai for the e-foil. But also if it's strong wind in Leocat, doing a live is difficult.

Daniel Paronetto (34:32)
Hmm?

Yeah.

will follow SFT and I'll put the link in the description for the Instagram profile ⁓ where people can check those daily videos. Cause I'm going to be checking out those daily videos. I want to see who will win this thing and who's coming. Like what are the big names that we know are coming?

Carlos Saez SFT (34:51)
Okay.

Yeah, I need to

bring out my work computer.

Daniel Paronetto (35:08)
So you said Bastien, Bastien will come. I'm trying to get Bastien ⁓ on the podcast after he tried doing the double backflip in Brazil. I was like, man, you need to come here and talk about it. it's, ⁓ we had a little window and it didn't work. So Bastien is coming. ⁓ Baaz is coming. Alex, said is coming. Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (35:11)
Thank

So it's.

Great guys.

mean, Bastien for me is one of the best foilers in the world. The guy does everything. He does everything. He's one of the best racers. He was one of the best freestylers. He's still kicking ass. But know, the kids are in another level now. Like, these kids, 15, 16 years old, it's crazy.

Daniel Paronetto (35:33)
He's crazy,

Freestyle is an

age, there's an age limitation to it. think once you reach a certain age, the next generation starts where you are at, you know, but it took you your whole career to get there and that's where they're starting. That's the reference. Exactly. Exactly.

Carlos Saez SFT (35:55)
like

Yeah, totally.

Like Kyle Boring was the same.

In the end, you have the kids.

But I will tell you some names and it's really cool because if you follow them in Instagram, because you can follow the names and you have the top guys. Some of the guys I didn't even knew them because there's so many new people. And when you follow the Instagram, it's great because in their feed, they are always updating what they're using and writing and you see.

Daniel Paronetto (36:19)
Yeah, nice.

Carlos Saez SFT (36:29)
the actual evolution. As you know, well, Dimitri is coming. Dimitri. Yeah. Yeah. I saw it.

Daniel Paronetto (36:34)
Demi is coming in. I just posted the podcast with him and he said he's going. It's going to be sick to see him there, man. Like

it was so good to be able to chat with him because ⁓ he was one that I wanted to get on the podcast for a long time. And he's like, nah, man, my English is not good. Let's and I always chat to him about stuff and I'm like, all right, let's go. Let's do it. He's like, okay, let's go. And he was fine, man. He is English is totally fine. He's awesome.

Carlos Saez SFT (36:49)
He's awesome.

He's really cool.

Okay, so one thing really cool is we have eight girls already. Last time I checked because the inscriptions still open until 25th of this month. So we will have maybe some more people. And we have like 25 guys, which is a lot. 25 is a lot of para wingers ⁓ for the first ever event. So girls, have Elaine Simonet, Sophia Marchetti, Viola Lipish, Oran Cerise,

Daniel Paronetto (37:04)
Wait.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (37:26)
Manon Dupé, ⁓ Kyle Veloé-Houvre, I don't know her. And then I think my husband, Ania Suardia, who is the champion of racing. And with the men, have Tom Pansard, Tom, he's really good also in downwinding. Antoine Gardaes, Michael Naff, Michael Naff is from Austria, of Vals, he's very good.

Daniel Paronetto (37:43)
yes.

dice.

They're like, they

live together, think. I always see them together. There's like inseparable.

Carlos Saez SFT (37:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Super cool, those two guys. Super cool, super fun, super healthy. And they are super stock. They want to write all the time, like kids. Then you have Hugo Babylon from France. Alexander, Alexander Rokas. Benjamin May, you know, you know Benjamin, Benjamin is also a top writer from Duotone. He's also a super complete.

Daniel Paronetto (38:01)
Yeah, yeah.

Benjamin May.

Carlos Saez SFT (38:26)
rider. He does everything super high level. He was on

Daniel Paronetto (38:29)
Mind you, I'm

not into the racing scene that much. So I know the guys that do a little bit something away from the racing scene. then I like, I love it. Bastien or something like that. Like balls always.

Carlos Saez SFT (38:38)
Well, well, but Benjamin

is Benjamin was winning pump events and winning freestyle wing events. So he's a super, super amazing foil. Yes. Then Alan Fedit for sure. Alan is a, is a legend. Luca Vullermet from the U.S. He is a kid that writes Luca Vullermet. He, he, he writes for F1.

Daniel Paronetto (38:43)
Mm-hmm.

Does it all.

Nice.

Carlos Saez SFT (39:07)
I saw many videos of him. He's from the US.

Daniel Paronetto (39:09)
Lucas doing all

those like mobs on the plume, wasn't he? Yeah, I saw those. Yeah, crazy.

Carlos Saez SFT (39:13)
Yes, yes, yes, that guy. So he's

coming. Then Basting Escoffé, Vals Mühle, Aljas Valid, the 777 is coming. Aljas is coming. Valid. And Sigar Horvats, also from Slovenia. So those two friends. Super cool to have guys there that are actually developing the sport and designing the wings and that you can talk to them. And I think the coolest thing is we're going to see a lot of equipment.

Daniel Paronetto (39:23)
alias valich nice

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (39:42)
We're going to see a lot of brands and prototypes. Yeah.

Daniel Paronetto (39:42)
Dude, what? 100%. I think, I don't

know, like, there's going to be some pair wings dropping soon, so I'm sure they'll take it to the event. But like, if you have something now like ⁓ a a hybrid, like, that could be a good one to race with.

Carlos Saez SFT (39:53)
Sure.

Amen.

I tell you, competitors are crazy. They want to win. So they don't care. If you knew what I know, I've seen, not with para wings, even maybe with para wings, because it's so new, but I've seen people getting wings and boards painted and putting stickers from different manufacturers and different shapers. Because if they...

Daniel Paronetto (40:24)
It'll happen, man. It'll happen.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (40:30)
If a shape works and they want it, they use it. Because they are in it for winning. They are like horse races. They want to win.

Daniel Paronetto (40:33)
Hmm.

Well,

I want to get to the course bit of this conversation because depending on the course, there will be gear choice that will make or break sorry. I thought you had finished.

Carlos Saez SFT (40:48)
Exactly.

first let me finish the list so people can maybe look for people.

So you have Thomas Goyard, of course, know Thomas, right? Thomas, then Noe Kuyala, Marius Lafargue, he's also from F1 in France, Christian Dupe, Marlo Maisonneuve, a lot of French people, Sacha Palier, Stephen Himp, Lutuan, Lutuan, also a super cool guy. He writes for Gong. He's a super good pumper. His videos are great in Instagram. ⁓

Daniel Paronetto (40:54)
Thomas Galead, yeah.

Yeah?

Carlos Saez SFT (41:18)
Kyo and Jan Kuifen. This is the list we have. A lot of tough guys.

Daniel Paronetto (41:21)
Beautiful.

So if you have to put your money on someone now, who will win this thing?

Carlos Saez SFT (41:26)
I'd say,

I'd say, Vasthi and his cofette is gonna be his because he knows how to race. He knows how to race. and, but he, he's probably his downside is gonna be the pumping. I know he can pump, but I don't know what is he, his level in pumping because I have never seen him pumping in an event. So also, ⁓ Radículo.

Daniel Paronetto (41:31)
Bastia, that's a good pick.

He's a racer, yeah, he'll kill that.

Mmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (41:55)
Vals Mule. He's a great pumper. So I think he will have maybe advantage in the pump stash side. So who knows? And also it depends a lot on the choice they do with the super good upwind like for example, Vastien who is a racer, he goes...

Daniel Paronetto (42:10)
going to be interesting to see what they ran. Do you think they're going to share like what they ran?

Carlos Saez SFT (42:21)
I don't know, maybe there are also some guys, they come, Alex is also amazing. If Alex comes that he said he was wanting to try to come, then maybe he is also a top contender. But we have some guys that are super fast. And the key is going to be to choose the foil. And if we have the swell of onshore winds or the offshore. If we have the offshore, I will have to do the stash zones shorter so they are manageable to pump.

Daniel Paronetto (42:25)
Alex will kill it, yeah.

But then it's cool because

the pump guys the guys that do dog starts and pump like, you know animals they will catch up to people in that pump section because they would

Carlos Saez SFT (42:57)
Let's see exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe one is is ahead like 50 meters and then in the pumping another one is overtaking. I don't know. So this.

Daniel Paronetto (43:00)
That'd be cool.

Yeah. Or falls. What if you

fall? What happens if you fall in the pump zone?

Carlos Saez SFT (43:09)
If you fall, good question. No, no, of course you're allowed to take off. And once you take off, have to stash again. Otherwise, you're stuck there.

Daniel Paronetto (43:13)
Are you gonna have to parry all the way or can you pop the parrying up?

Yeah.

And

another question. So the stash zone where you can't use the power of the pair of wing, are you stashing the thing away in an accessory or are just holding it on your hand?

Carlos Saez SFT (43:34)
Really good question Daniel because a lot of people were saying to me, I think you should make a discussion and have you in the back. But not everybody is used to bags and not all the bags are the same. So I think we need to wait a bit more until kind of the equipment is standardized.

Daniel Paronetto (43:42)
Mm.

I Carlos, I don't know because that's when I think about racing and I see your point because you know, everybody's gonna be using one belt out there at the moment. That's kind of good. But I see your point like but when we Put these guardrails you have to put the pair away You know, what's gonna get better? Not only the accessories but the way we stow the pair wing these guys are gonna be doing it a hundred times to see what's the quickest way that they can get it in their belt

Carlos Saez SFT (43:53)
You know.

Daniel Paronetto (44:19)
and redeploy successfully. So there's something there that is nice to keep.

Carlos Saez SFT (44:22)
I agree. I agree. I agree. agree. That's a

good point. Yes. In this case, what I like to do is instead of me deciding, I like to put it in a meeting and get them deciding. But there's ups and downs on this way of doing things. That if you are not used to use it, you're going to both know. So in the end, that is the way I say, now this being the first, I don't want to put too many limits.

Daniel Paronetto (44:32)
Mm-hmm. Your writer's meeting. Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (44:51)
I want to make it easy. Then I think we're going to learn a lot. You're to learn a lot of how they stash and deploy, and

Daniel Paronetto (44:52)
Mm-hmm.

heaps, yeah.

Daniel Paronetto (45:00)
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Carlos Saez SFT (47:05)
if one is capable to stash it in the bag and can use the hands to palm, maybe that's an advantage, but that's up to them.

Daniel Paronetto (47:10)
Exactly.

⁓ it's

100 % an advantage for all the riders that are going. If you can stow your pair of wing and actually flip it to your back and, you know, pump like crazy, you actually swinging your hands up and down and you're going for it, you will go quicker. You will go quicker.

Carlos Saez SFT (47:31)
Also, if you are doing downwind in the swell and you use your hand to follow the lines you want way better than, I mean, if you have the thing here, you're kind of, you're holding a baby, right? You're like, it can fly away. You can get tangled.

Daniel Paronetto (47:42)
Yeah.

You can get tangled yet. So that this, this to me is where I like would love to watch what are people doing because that's where the sport moves forward. You know, I mean, racing always, ⁓ progresses the equipment a lot. know, you get the one percenters and racing scene and people are fighting for that, but now it's everything is so new. We're still fighting for like a 20 % of technique, you know, that we still don't have completely dialed in. ⁓ so it'd be interesting. I put it to the writer, see what they say. I think.

Carlos Saez SFT (47:48)
Yeah, so.

Daniel Paronetto (48:16)
putting it away and not seeing the power wing, even for the viewers is a better experience. They'll be like, my God, they put it away, you know, like.

Carlos Saez SFT (48:20)
This is

the best, actually, I think. The best side for me of the competition is to gather people. It's like a gathering. Some people are not there just even to win. They want to take, like Dimitri said, I want to take part. I want to see what other people are doing. So you see what people are doing in the US, like top guys in the US, top guys in France, top guys in whatever country.

Daniel Paronetto (48:34)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (48:49)
And I think also talking between this and see what the other guy is doing and, I like this. I'm going to implement this tool into my, or this like, like when you brought the meeting and he was showing his technique of stashing, which is amazing. My friends were like, yeah, learned a lot. want to try this technique. So maybe some other guy, some other guy has another technique that is even better. Imagine they go, no, I use this and this and I fold it this way and that way because it's faster. And then you're going to see the guy.

Daniel Paronetto (48:55)
Yeah, 100%.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well, mean, so... for sure.

Carlos Saez SFT (49:18)
So you're going to go, ⁓ I want to learn that. So you need people like Dimitri and people that is pushing to see how they use them. Because the sport is new, this is the fun part. So how they are conceiving to make it work. And I think we are going to.

Daniel Paronetto (49:31)
And then I think about

a brand, you know, the brands are there and all of a sudden, you know, the athletes will be like, you know what, we need something different, a different stowing thing. This is how want to stow. I want to put it here. Let's do that. And then the sport starts to go, you know, and I mean, I love that. I love that side of things. And that's why, ⁓ I got super excited about this race. So, man, it's going to be, it's going to be so cool.

Carlos Saez SFT (49:44)
exactly.

Be sure,

be sure all the brands are watching your podcast. Be sure. mean, they are listening to us. That's their job. They need to, like when I talk about the new kind of boards, you will see, they will be looking on because the fastest that go to the market, know, foiling is crazy. You bring the new hybrid design that works and everybody's selling their para wings and buying the new brand. So in the end, I see there are like brands that have a cult following.

And you're not gonna, this is like politics, right? You're like right or left and you're gonna change. And then you have these other people that are so open and want to have what works and they move. It's the same with foil, know? Like this brand brings this new foil that works and you better go and buy it. next, so not one year is hamstring and the next year is saxes and the next year is gold and the next year is what? And this is actually really bad for the brands because imagine you're selling really good at foil.

and you're growing your brand and then some other brand brings something that is better and people fly away from you. Like your market is like growing. It's super difficult, super difficult. I give a lot of props to brands because especially small brands, because I love this topic. I love this because I've been around kind of all the brands and I know how they work from the inside. And something I don't like sometimes of the big brands is that they are imposing their view.

Daniel Paronetto (50:57)
It's not an easy industry to be part of, It's not easy.

yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (51:21)
to the customers. So I'm going to tell you a little story that happened to me with a very famous owner of a very famous big brand. the past, was, but this is very interesting. I was in Torifa coaching the best kiters like Gisela Pulido, Alvornieva, they were like top kiters. And we were, know, every time someone brings a kite and you are, I saw this in Booth Dusseldorf, right there were switching the equipment, like trying different foils.

Daniel Paronetto (51:30)
Okay.

Carlos Saez SFT (51:51)
And it's great to be there because you hear them and you know which one they like, not like behind the scenes, like, this, this pumps and turns great. But then you, you listen to influencers and even these writers saying something else in the media, because of course you, have a very employee. So this is why I like people that is not connected to brands like working for them. And they are like pure and honest on the reviews. Okay. So we were trying this para wings.

Daniel Paronetto (52:06)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (52:20)
and they brought this new, sorry, this kite, this new kite, and they were super stoked on this new kite and blah, blah, And they have another kind of learning kite, and we use both, and we like most the learning one. And...

Daniel Paronetto (52:36)
I used

to kite foil with a learning kite and I still love it.

Carlos Saez SFT (52:40)
for wave riding, they were the best. And so I remember we went to Barcelona, we have this big kind of fear of boats and we met there in Barcelona because I was going with the person that was wanting to get the brand to distribute in Spain. So I met the owner and he said, okay, Carlos, what do you think about this? And I said, you want me to be honest? I think this one that you think is the greatest, I think it doesn't work.

Daniel Paronetto (52:42)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mm.

Carlos Saez SFT (53:10)
Okay, so the thing was, imagine, I measure like, I was standing up like this in a nine meter, and if the strut reached me the chin, most of the brand that we like, this is the aspect ratio, and this was here, right? Okay, so the thing was so efficient, and it was going really good to the edge of the wind window, but when you, in cutting, when you jump and hook, you want the wind to go a bit back,

Daniel Paronetto (53:23)
Yeah. yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (53:40)
to pull and then it creates some slack. And this thing was always in the front and it needed a lot of wind. And he was already in production. So he already had it. And I said, I think you're not going to sell this model. You're going to sell this other model. And he got pissed. And a few months later, they took it out of the market because they were not selling it. So the takeoff is sometimes brand one to push. Look, designers.

Daniel Paronetto (53:40)
Mmm.

Hmm.

Well, there you go.

Carlos Saez SFT (54:10)
are very...

How you say that? They think because they are designers that they know about dynamics and this and that, they know everything. So if you talk to the designer of a brand and you talk to the designer of another brand, they will totally have maybe opposite views and each one thinks he's in the right directions. And what I like to say, in my experience, is the best thing to acknowledge is we know nothing.

Daniel Paronetto (54:15)
stuck up.

Mmm.

Yep. Yep. Yep.

Mm.

Carlos Saez SFT (54:43)
because

there are too many variables. Like imagine a foil. Let's take your foil. If you change same foil, you change two millimeters thickness, it change. If you keep the same thickness and change the shape of, you know, like the mustache, it change. If you change the cord, it change. If you move the comber, if you move the concave, so many variables. I mean, it's not like a board. A board is kind of more straightforward. A foil is crazy. But then you put this into wings.

Daniel Paronetto (54:53)
yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (55:13)
And also sometimes always put this example that I like is ⁓ Formula One. I love Formula One. And I have actually two friends that work for Williams F1 team. Yeah, they're aerodynamicists, super, super smart guys. And they, when they tell me these kinds of stories, I love them. It's like, look, they put hundred thousand millions of euros into development, CFD and the wing of the car. And we have a team of 15 guys working on

Daniel Paronetto (55:18)
Same.

No way! Really? my god. my god.

Yeah, yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (55:42)
on the composite and the shapes and the tunnel. And then they put the wing into Carlos' science. And he do two laps. And he goes, no, doesn't work. OK. OK. So imagine 15 engineers, 10 SLD, and they don't make it. So this is foiling. this is, you have some persons trying. I mean, it's so you need to make prototypes.

Daniel Paronetto (55:48)
He's like, I hate it.

Yeah.

And look, ⁓

it goes beyond the think also the science, because the science is, I think is really relevant. It's important, but it's a feeling. know, some people like to ride with a certain feeling. I like to ride feeling super in control, but my foil maybe is not as efficient, you know, as someone who is comfortable riding with a little bit of more of that, you it's a very personal thing.

Carlos Saez SFT (56:17)
Exactly.

But

yeah, but for engineers, filling is a problem because filling is something they cannot evaluate in a scale. Well, they can do, they have their methods. And this is also very important for writers. Some writers are great sensors and some writers are really bad. I mean, you can be the best in the world and you don't know how you do it, but you make it work, yeah, yeah. Like you as a tester and...

Daniel Paronetto (56:41)
Mm.

Carlos Saez SFT (56:50)
Like you and Matthias and Nico and Hydrogab, all you are using real stuff and in real world and your feedback is really valuable because when you have access to try many boards, many foils, many wings, kind of start seeing the matrix, right? How can it...

Daniel Paronetto (56:56)
Mmm.

You start, start,

yeah, it's so true. It took me a while to feel confident in giving feedback as well, because I'm like, who am I? You know, like these guys have access to all the writers in the world and like, why do they want to hear from me? You know, I'm not a professional writer, but it.

Carlos Saez SFT (57:27)
Yes,

but I mean you are super important actually you are super important like I I have worked all my life with top riders and I tell you a Lot of them when they test boards and stuff. They are really bad really bad testers You have really good ones and really bad ones So sometimes the feedback goes from one side and then the market goes another side and then after some time you you know because it's easy to know afterwards, know, it's

Daniel Paronetto (57:46)
Hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (57:56)
which direction was good. Like now we were talking about boards, no? You have some people wanting to go longer and narrower, and now some people wanting to go shorter and stupier. Which one is the right? I don't claim to know the answer. This is why I'm building four boards. They are the same, same width, same thickness, and just changing the length. So five two, five four, five six, five eight. I'm going to put them there to the riders. I want to listen to the feedback. And then

Daniel Paronetto (58:13)
You have to try, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (58:26)
I will know if I need to put the tails narrower or the bevels more flat or more decent with that or more rocker or less rocker. You can only learn by trying. This is trial and error and this costs money. ⁓ Something really annoying, annoying about foiling, this happened also in kiting and in windsurfing is that brands copy each other all the time. And this is normal because

Daniel Paronetto (58:33)
Mm-hmm.

yep.

Carlos Saez SFT (58:55)
ID, I plus D, like research and development and building is so expensive. So because we have many, many brands, there's always a brand that comes with a nice foil. so all the people look at this foil. So they watch it, measure it, and they look, they do kind of their versions or revisions or upgrades. And this is how the sport grows. But in the end, someone is putting the Ford and some people is copying. This happened to me in the past and it's so frustrating.

Daniel Paronetto (59:14)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (59:25)
because I remember I did eight prototypes for race, kite race boards. And once I get the good board that was winning, I had eight guys, 10 guys making pictures, measuring it. And in two months, you have the same. And then I was thinking, I'm not doing this anymore. I mean, I'm gonna do the same. I'm gonna see what works and try to improve it. And that's not bad. I mean, it's good for the sport in the end. you got the, like with paddle wings.

Daniel Paronetto (59:51)
Mmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (59:54)
If you see a para wind that is going really good outwind, you need to ask yourself why. Why? What's the angle? What's the thickness? What's the profile? So you look at it and they know because if you're a designer, you know how to do it. You know how to measure and see.

Daniel Paronetto (1:00:00)
Yeah, for sure.

Look,

for sure, and I think the brands, you know, ultimately the brands, they show who they are, you know, like there's always the brand that will come up with the new stuff and, you know, sure they will be copied, but they have that DNA. They will be trying always to come up with the new stuff because that's who they are. You know, the designer ⁓ is who he is and he will always be pushing. And I think those brands in the end, even though it's hard,

And they surface up to the, to the top, you know, because people, people notice where those ideas come from. People notice, like how the brands are paying attention to normal riders, not just pros and making things accessible. And now with a little bit more of a view behind the scenes of working with a couple of the powering brands at the start, man, they are pouring their hearts into this thing. Like it's in.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:01:05)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Paronetto (1:01:06)
incredible and look from everyone that I've been involved with they are all trying to push so hard and Like you said if you if something comes up to the market that's new they will look at it and they will Make a decision where they go. It's it's another prototype for them that they look at long as

Carlos Saez SFT (1:01:25)
The key

is being humble. You need to be humble. Humble and you have your direction. Another example that people will understand, know, oh, this foil, game changer. And then this brand changed the foil next year to totally different design. With boards, it happened the same. Especially top brands, oh, game changer. Now we have this trend of high inside boards, that hollow boards.

Daniel Paronetto (1:01:29)
yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:01:54)
I think, I'm sorry, I think it's a market gimmick. You know, how you do it. I mean, you have this big factory, in this case it's Cobra. I've seen people doing custom boards, hollow, in Hawaii for quite, in my Instagram account, FallenCounters, you have, if you scroll down, you have this, I don't know his name, but he's doing a huge downwind board that was hollow, just carving.

Daniel Paronetto (1:02:01)
They're gonna charge an arm and a leg for it as well.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:02:25)
I'm making like the structure and I'm sure because people is spying on everyone So you have this factory Cobra is one of the biggest factories that these most of the boards and they came up with this technology So they they're putting the brands saying look we develop this you want to try I think Nash Nash said change hands now the new company that owns night is Kubus from ⁓ Holland and they put this hollow board and now sorry about it like

Daniel Paronetto (1:02:26)
Nice. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:02:54)
Duotone is doing it, KT is doing it, everybody's into it. It has ups and downs. Yes, it's super light. But in my experience, in my experience, a board needs to have the right weight, okay? I go back to kiting or when I was doing boards for kiteboarding, I remember we did prototypes in honeycomb, carbon, Paulownian fiber, we have like six different and I put numbers, so the riders don't know which one is one.

And you know which one they were liking? The Simplier. The Paulownia white fiberglass because of the rebound and characteristics. And in windsurfing, I remember when boards were super light, it kind of fly. When it's windy, it kind of becomes nervous, right? So yeah, you don't need to achieve the lightest. Like the lightest more expensive is not going to be the best sometimes. And let's put numbers. Imagine you can do a board in 3.5 kilos.

Daniel Paronetto (1:03:32)
Yeah, right.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:03:54)
Imagine you can do a board in 4.5, which is still light. And when you feel the inertia and the behaving of the board, maybe the 4.5 is better. So yeah, I wouldn't chase that last trend, hollow this and that. No. The most important thing is that the dimensions are right. If you have the right rocker, the right width, the right length, the right volume, and the shape works, then you get into construction. And then you can try it.

Daniel Paronetto (1:03:57)
Super light, yeah.

I know what you mean man, I know what you mean and I feel...

Carlos Saez SFT (1:04:24)
of course, to push the thing. But I still see boards doing, a brand doing boards that are super high tech because follow boards is high tech. But still, I don't see the shape is great sometimes, you know.

Daniel Paronetto (1:04:32)
Mm.

I've written the

hollows. I've written a mid-length hollow in an event here in Australia. I'm not going to name the brand because it doesn't matter. I liked it, but I didn't get enough of a feel to justify the price that it's going to come at and all that.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:04:48)
3000

they're charging and You can get a really good board made in a custom shop a good board for

Daniel Paronetto (1:04:57)
Yeah. I would rather

do that. I would rather go to a shaper and have a board in the perfect dimensions, not like a six, so that you see anywhere or like it's a S you want a six one white because I want a six one, like do that specific board, ⁓ to your conditions, you know, your local area where you're to be writing 80 % of the time and get that right.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:05:10)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, well, custom

for me is like the testing ground, right? But once you have the shape validated, then you go into production and then you do it. But this is what I see brands doing that I don't like because they have a schedule, right? have 26 season, 27 season. And I see this many times. They go through iteration of prototypes. And the factor is you put the product in production now or you're not going to market. And they're still not super happy and they're not going to tell you.

Daniel Paronetto (1:05:36)
Yeah, yep, yep, yep.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:05:47)
they're gonna put into production. So this is the downside of, and this industry moving super fast, also with Parawings. You know, some of the brands like V1, V2.

Daniel Paronetto (1:05:48)
Mmm.

Yeah.

we saw a lot of, I'm going

to be very honest, we saw a lot of shit coming out from a lot of big brands with their first Sparrowings.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:06:02)
I mean, I mean, look,

look in, in, in, Austria, I had the opportunity to fly almost every Parawin brand because everyone was there like riders. So I was just holding them flying and you see some flight really bad. And ⁓ I will not name one brand that is huge, huge brand again. And I remember I tried the Parawin. was in the, on the shore. I tested and it was doing and the guy said, yeah,

Daniel Paronetto (1:06:30)
Yeah, I know which one it is.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:06:33)
Yes, because it was the worst. the guy was saying, it's so funny, said, yeah, it's because it's wet. I was like, it's wet. And so it flies. No, doesn't fly good. So what do you expect if you fall? know, right? So how can you put that into the market?

Daniel Paronetto (1:06:46)
Yeah, you're done.

Yeah.

They, a lot of them rushed and they rushed a lot. I think, I think they, I think looking back now, they might've regretted it because it like six months would have made a world of difference for them, you know, to wait six months. But look, ⁓ let's, let's, want to, before we continue on another half hour, ⁓ on a tangent, let's, ⁓ let's look at the course. I want to show the course of the race. Cause this is where things get interesting. So we.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:07:04)
Thank

Yes, yes, yes, let's do it. Let's do it.

Daniel Paronetto (1:07:19)
This is the PDF that you sent through to me with a few options for courses and going, ⁓ wind going offshore winds and onshore winds. So maybe let's with start wherever you want.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:07:21)
Yes.

So up in the

the upside you have offshore wind you have that line of the beach showing the arrow you go This is the reaction of Luke actually, this is an saturation this offshore and in below you have the onshore and So offshore up in the upside it will be flat. So if you see the left the left one is shorter so Exactly You start doing like ⁓ totally no. No, that's

Daniel Paronetto (1:07:36)
⁓ yeah.

So you will start on the green.

just a crosswind

Carlos Saez SFT (1:07:59)
because it's like a reach.

Daniel Paronetto (1:08:00)
yeah yeah

Carlos Saez SFT (1:08:02)
It could be a super fast start. I'll try to make the line long enough so people don't crash. Then the first bull is going to be crazy because they will arrive exactly. The red lines are stash zone. But this, remember, these are only examples because this will need to be trimmed depending on how strong the wind is. I mean, if it's lighter, it will be shorter.

Daniel Paronetto (1:08:08)
Mm. So this is the stash zone. They're going to arrive cooking over here.

Yeah, yep.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:08:28)
You know, if it's have to make it longer.

Daniel Paronetto (1:08:30)
So give us an idea

of how far this stash zone here would be, for example.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:08:35)
Let's say this is only coming from my mind, I need to, this is why we have one day of testing. So I will see how fast and how easy is for them to pump in flat water or whatever. So in my mind, if it's offshore and light, I will make it something like a hundred meters, 150, not more. Otherwise.

Daniel Paronetto (1:08:41)
Mm-hmm.

okay, short. So it's going to be interesting because

even that is interesting. Like a quick stow, even if it's not a full stow in the belt, you guys will decide that, but like putting it away and bringing it back out quick. That's cool.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:09:07)
in pumping, when we do the circuits, normally they are like, let's say they do a hundred meters in like 19 seconds, 19, 20 seconds in pumping, like the pros. So you need to take in account how much time does your heart needs to reach a top rate. If you look at ⁓ athletics, which I, this is where I started.

the super most anaerobic test is the 400 meters flat that it takes 48 seconds, something like that. So more than 48 seconds is too long. You you get your lactic acid goes up, you get dizzy because imagine you go with the pumped up with adrenaline, are like holding your para wing and then you go into it and you push, push, push. And you can even get dizzy, you get dizzy, you know, because

Daniel Paronetto (1:09:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:10:04)
your acid lactic goes up. So I can do it something that is more than 40 seconds of pumping in flat water. OK? Yeah. Exactly.

Daniel Paronetto (1:10:11)
in flat water on this offshore. Yeah, makes sense.

this example here, you would have this dash zone and then you have an upwind leg, which is,

Carlos Saez SFT (1:10:21)
Yes, exactly. So

they go down, first we again, same direction. And you don't need to follow the line. You just need to go around the circuit as they can do it. And then you have this another.

Daniel Paronetto (1:10:32)
Yeah, and then here will be

more of a kind of like an upwind. I don't know how long, they'll probably do you think there's going to be a couple of tax here or not?

Carlos Saez SFT (1:10:37)
This is,

It depends on the length. mean, it depends if this distance is 100 meters or it's 200. And I will decide that depending on the strength of the wind.

Daniel Paronetto (1:10:44)
Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:10:47)
yeah, but maybe they need it because these lines are not right. Maybe the angle they need is not that steep. So they need three tacks. I mean, this is just marking the way they have to do like, you have to go to first, second, third, fourth buoy, right? That's the direction, but that's not the real direction. They will use any direction they want to make it short. This is part of ⁓ the competition of the, when you sail, need to,

Daniel Paronetto (1:10:47)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mmm... Yeah.

the course.

That's cool.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:11:11)
Like when you see America's calf, you need to decide the line and when to tack. This is part of it. This is why I think racers have some advantage here. And then the stash zone, last one, and then straight again into the finish line. Then

Daniel Paronetto (1:11:17)
beauty.

Mm-hmm.

lap, not multiple laps.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:11:30)
In this case, yes, one lap because it is also very interesting. If you do many laps and they start overtaking each other, you're going to lose with first, with second, because imagine 20 guys or 10 guys going around. So in my mind, decide I would prefer to have many hits and shorter laps in case the wind is lighter. In the second ⁓ drawing, if the wind is stronger,

Daniel Paronetto (1:11:37)
Yeah.

Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:11:59)
then we can do a longer one. But I think when you see the racing and it ⁓ can take from five minutes to 12, 15 minutes, but not more. So this is the range.

Daniel Paronetto (1:12:11)
Nice. Yeah. And I think for the

viewers, it's kind of nice as well to have more heats, you know, you, kind of follow, there's more excitement rather than one big race. Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:12:18)
Exactly.

And then exactly,

exactly, you have more chances. You have chances to make a mistake choosing your para wing and you can switch for another. And also something really important in this competition is that they don't have with the upwind downwind or with the downwind soup is that if it's close to the shore, the spectators are going to understand it and watch it closer. And we want, of course, to make foiling something that people will want to come and see. If you make it

Daniel Paronetto (1:12:27)
Hmm.

100 %

Carlos Saez SFT (1:12:48)
going super far, people don't know what's happening. So you have this part of a spectacle. So this is all taking into consideration. So yes, the other.

Daniel Paronetto (1:12:51)
I love this, yeah.

So as a

competitor in my head, I would be like, I will get a five meter para wing. I will get up the first dash zone. I will put it away and I'll pop up of 3.6. Can I do that? Whoa.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:13:09)
Yes, you can do that.

And actually, until you said, I have not thought about that. But it's written in the rest notice. You have the rules written with priorities because it needs to some loss. And I have not written about that. If it's not written, it's not forbidden. You know what I mean? So normally what we do is we

Daniel Paronetto (1:13:17)
yeah, 100%.

Yeah, the racing principles.

So if you watch the

LabRed for the podcast, you have an advantage right now, people.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:13:35)
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, you came with a super cool idea. Actually, I

would do that because maybe if it's light, the bigger one would make you go out. But then the smaller one will make you go faster because it has maybe some more better penetration. But these are things we need to test. We don't know what is better to penetrate better or to have more power. I don't know what is better to have a smaller foil or a bigger foil. Maybe you put smaller foil and then you're not making the station because.

Daniel Paronetto (1:13:50)
Interesting.

you

Mmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:14:05)
your heart rate is too high and you're getting out of breath.

Daniel Paronetto (1:14:08)
Well,

let's move down to this onshore wind where we will have bumps. And this becomes a little bit more doable, the two pair wings.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:14:11)
Hmm?

Exactly. Exactly. This is more interesting. think this is

Yeah, this

becomes more real world what people is actually doing. But we can have both options. And of course, as I said, a lot of people is using the para-wing in flat conditions. So it's good to have everybody thinking about every condition we can have. The other one is easy. Just you have the boat upwind. And then you have three stashed areas. the difference here is that we are ending stashed, which is cool. So the finish line will be pumping.

Daniel Paronetto (1:14:36)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

at com.

That's so cool.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:14:49)
And

yeah, so these are basically different circuits, very, very similar, just longer, shorter. But this can be modified. mean, depending on the conditions, I will decide the length, how far they go. This is just to people, so people can understand. But the important thing here is also, like, if you want to go upwind, you don't need to have the best upwind wing, because the upwind legs are not going to be that.

that huge. So you maybe go less upwind but you have advantage in the the grease because you go faster or in the or in the pumping zone. We never did this. This is first time. So as I said.

Daniel Paronetto (1:15:20)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Man, I can see

like someone like Bosz Muller who's super creative. know, he always, he has that creative energy in him. I can see him like in a stash zone, just whipping out a ⁓ paddle and start the paddle and go down with the paddle and just do something crazy like that.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:15:45)
⁓ No, that's not that you cannot use that father you need

to use that yes, just a para win But yes, but buzz is a great bumper. So I mean they need to test I mean, I think they will learn from race to race, know first race they're gonna I went for us to be wing. I go smaller and then this is too small This is the thing. So one will be winning another and then in the end they will have it figure out and this is when

Daniel Paronetto (1:16:00)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:16:14)
we all will learn. You're like, OK, this is the right volume because imagine if you want to go fast up or if you want to go fast up and you've got a really low volume board or small, maybe it takes you so much time that people is overtaking you. Who knows?

Daniel Paronetto (1:16:30)
That'd be so cool, Look,

I hope that ⁓ whoever is doing the broadcast and these videos that they really make sure that they touch on what gear the athletes are using because that's huge. know there's, you know, some restrictions with what size of foil they might use because they're racing and they're all competing. But the size of parowing is something that you can see, like, you know, if they're using production stuff, you can, you can basically see if they're going to paint the size of their parowings. So people don't know.

How competitive is this thing gonna get?

Carlos Saez SFT (1:17:02)
Yeah, but I will tell you last year we did with the pumping. One of the days we have the onshore wind really strong so we couldn't launch the pump and we thought to do a show. So people were going in a jet ski, the pumpers, going to the upwind boat and we did a race, a downwind race like 400 meters, but it wasn't a pump board. So we did like time trials. So we measured start and finish.

Daniel Paronetto (1:17:24)
Yeah, nice.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:17:30)
to end up running into a flag in the beach. And you know, some people put too small foils and were out of breath. Some people were using too big and were slow. So in the end, was key. Fantastic.

Daniel Paronetto (1:17:38)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

man, it's going

to be super interesting. I hope we get a little bit of insight of what they're riding because it's, it's, think it would be cool for us normal riders to see the advantages and disadvantages of certain things, but it's a race, it's competitive. So I don't know how much these guys will be sharing and girls.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:18:03)
I would

like to add, I'm thinking now that regarding para-winging as a sport, I see many directions. Okay, let's take out the freestyle para-wing because I think that's too niche, but the main market of para-wing, I see two ways. One way is gonna be pure down-winding, like a device to get to the wind line, do your down-wing, like regular down-wing and maybe get pick up in 30 kilometers.

And then the other direction is going to be upwind downwinds for people that don't want to struggle with the logistics. And I think this is why, for example, Ozone has these two models, right? Like the power pack that is more like first one, like downwind one, and then the pocket rocket and soon the pocket rocket two that will go upwind downwind. And probably the guys, the hardcore guys that paddle downwind, like Kite Onsum and Casey, all these guys,

We like to go with this kind kind of smaller, green tea, put you out and do that. then, so this is totally different directions. Totally different directions. And what will happen? Will it, in my opinion, the up win, down win one will be the one prevailing and growing more. Because when I talk to people, they're interested in simplicity, right? Like getting out.

Daniel Paronetto (1:19:10)
Yeah, 100%.

a bit restrictive

to have a pair of wing today that you can't go upwind because they are going upwind pretty well. So if you want to go downwind and you want to start in a low volume board, you just get a big ass pair of wing and you'll be fine.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:19:36)
you

Yeah, but

I heard from my friend that they have these two models of ParaWin. One is going ParaWin. Let's talk with Neng. Awesome. Powerpack. It goes upwind, yes, but it doesn't go as upwind as the Pocket Rocket. So if you're here, here where I live, have, you can see that far there, we have a really nice, really, really nice wave spot. And maybe with the Pocket Rocket,

Daniel Paronetto (1:19:49)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It goes upwind, too.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:20:09)
It will take 10 minutes, and you do like four tacks. And with the other one, it would take 20 minutes. So what do you want? You want to be more time downwinding or more time going upwind? This is the question, right? So I think people really want power winds that go upwind well to take advantage of. Because in the end, in my case, what I want is to surf. So I want to go upwind, 20 minutes, and then,

Daniel Paronetto (1:20:16)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:20:39)
Come down the way and then do that.

Daniel Paronetto (1:20:41)
So before we go, Carlos, ⁓ first of all, I want to thank you for putting this event on. I think it's going to be fantastic, man. ⁓ Not only you, but the entire team from SFT. It's huge ⁓ to have something like it.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:20:58)
Thanks to you. Thanks to you, Daniel. Thanks to you. You're doing a

great job. You seem like a super down to air humble, really nice guy. Just you come across like that in videos and I see you're totally like that. Hope to meet you soon someday. I'm sure we're going to meet because we're going to go to Australia for sure. We're to go. We're in talks. Yes. And also, also I want to thank I want to thank SFT team because

Daniel Paronetto (1:21:12)
Yeah.

man, if you need anything when you guys come over, let me know. I obviously know most of the spots here and I'd be happy to let you know where to do.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:21:27)
I think they created a super cool team. have Karen in the U S taking care of marketing. We have Susana. She is taking care of media. She's also really good. Tom and Jordan and I'm super happy. I'm really comfortable with this team of people. They are really professionals. They, the sport is growing a lot. We are actually impressed. Like in one year, like yesterday, Susana sent a PDF that just in three months we reached the same than last year.

like 1.5 million people, like with the media. But I don't know. I'm not the guy of media. I don't know that. But the thing is growing. And we're going to Tahiti. We're going to Morocco. We're going. We're in talks with Australia. We're going to China. mean, last year, this this is a thing started as a show because in the boot of Dusseldorf, they have the pool and they wanted to put something together. So they test and then people started.

Daniel Paronetto (1:22:05)
Mm-hmm.

Amazing

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:22:26)
taking interest and the thing is growing, which I'm super happy because I love foiling and I really think foiling is here to stay. we will have a lot of new toys and a lot of new ways of enjoying the ocean. That's what we like. Right. So, man, this is, I mean, if I'm here, I'm not here in the SFD. I don't know what you're going to happen in the future, but I'm loving it. I'm loving the journey and doing what I love. So thanks to you.

Daniel Paronetto (1:22:56)
I'm doing the same and I'm just doing what I would do regardless. I've been just talking about foiling and pair weaning. ⁓ but yeah, thanks for those kind words, man. I think it's awesome to have something so professional put together. Thanks for like this info pack was amazing. I learned a lot about what you guys are doing also behind the scenes and it's a, it's a ton of work, you know, to put something like this on and get people from all over the world to be interested and invest in them going to the, to the event as well. So.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:22:56)
But sorry.

It is.

Exactly. Yeah. Big,

Daniel Paronetto (1:23:25)
You guys are doing something amazing.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:23:26)
big, big thanks and big props to the riders because in the end they are stuck at people that are sailing. And as you said, this is a very niche sport and brands actually don't have that much money to pay, you know, hotel flights and that and that. they are there. A lot of them are are financing it from their pockets, you know, with not much help. That's commitment. And I really want to thank them because without the riders, we would

Daniel Paronetto (1:23:47)
That's a commitment,

Carlos Saez SFT (1:23:54)
not have this and because also because of the riders we all learn and this is translated into market and product that we enjoy later. yes, riders I really feel are the key, are key. Of course, customers, right? mean, people, real people riding. But we always look somewhere, we need to look somewhere because if you have nowhere to look, it takes you way longer of time to improve and learn. So they are doing the hard work, right?

Daniel Paronetto (1:24:03)
Mm-hmm.

That's it, man.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:24:24)
They're doing the hard work. But you had another question, right? The last question you said? I don't want to.

Daniel Paronetto (1:24:24)
100%.

The

last question, man, that I like to ask everyone, and this is just to motivate people to get into para-winging in general, is why should people give para-winging a chance and try it out?

Carlos Saez SFT (1:24:43)
I can just tell you what I heard from all my friends is that they start and they don't want to put it down. mean, they want to go there. I know people of 60 years old that are feeling like kids wanting to go to the ocean every day again. ⁓ I don't know. It's a new sport. Maybe it's just because it's new, but I don't think so. I think it's just, as I said, it's a tool that lets you. OK, let's talk about foil assist one second.

Foil assist, the good part of it is that you're jumping over all the hard part, right? When I was starting surf foiling, so much struggle. I was hitting the rocks and waiting for the right tide and the right wave. And now with the foil assist, you go there and you come back and you have fun. And this is the same for para-winging. Just maybe better because it's wind powered, which is cool. You use nature.

So in danger using a device and you're using the wind, is make you feel so in connection with outdoors nature, the sea, the wind, and then you can pack it and you can take advantage of something that will have take you two years. If you want, if you want to use the paddle, can do, you can do it maybe with para wing. It depends on your ability, but I think you can do it in a month. If you, if you put the work, so imagine one month versus two years and you're out there.

Surfing the ocean and and you're in the men city and you can have it do it with friends And all these things that we said is easy to pack. He has so so many cool things also some down things Wind range is still not as good. I think it can be dangerous too because Sometimes you go out with the para wind the wind suddenly lulz or drops and you're out there Some of the people also think it's really dangerous when you When you're surfing with it

in big waves and you fall and you can get tangled. That's scary. ⁓ That's also what I think. Now every brand is bringing in like this harness with knife, right? With a cutter or something. It's important. Safety is important. I mean, if you're out in the ocean, you need to be safe and you need to be, I think, try to be with people if you can. If you're with people, you can go and do some more adventurous stuff. If you're by yourself, just maybe stay closer.

Daniel Paronetto (1:26:40)
yeah.

Okay, no, here.

100%.

Mm.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:27:10)
This is common sense with any water sport. But yeah, just because of that, the packaging, the lightness, the possibilities is unlocking. I think I told my friend the other day, it feels like when you're snowboarding, you take the chairlift, right? And you go downhill. So yeah, so you take the chairlift, which is the para-wind, and then you go downwind, which is cool. If you're in a spot like Dimitri, when you can surf

Daniel Paronetto (1:27:29)
Yeah, that's it.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:27:39)
I think it's super amazing. If you're in Chopin and Cher place, you can go upwind and do your little downwind and have so much fun and also learn because in the end foiling as many as more hours you put into it, the better you get at that. get like Kai Thompson said, I cannot explain. have this inside sensor that that I know how to explain, but I'm getting it like in sync. So the most time you put on the foil, the better you're going to flow. Right.

Daniel Paronetto (1:27:41)
Yes.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:28:10)
And Parawing is helping you achieve all this in a great way.

Daniel Paronetto (1:28:14)
100 % man.

And it's an infinite and like forever learning experience. Nobody will ever reach the end, you know? It's the best part. It's forever growing. There's always ways to get better. You you see these guys downwinding and they will learn until the last day they're in the water. And it's amazing.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:28:24)
For me, that's the best part. That's the best part. The best part.

It's like a video game. know,

when you play video games and you make it, you've done it. sometimes, just imagine, for example, windsurfing, I remember I had good level and I reached a point that I knew I couldn't go higher if I don't get sponsored money to go to the good spot because otherwise you're stuck when you are. So this is the same. Now, when you reach an age that you know you're not going to do flips or jump or whatever, you just want to enjoy.

Daniel Paronetto (1:28:39)
Mmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:29:03)
So once you know how to fly and go fast and surf, it's just improving your flow state, right? Flow state and flying. I think we're in a great moment. Bals always say, what a great time to be alive and be a foiler.

Daniel Paronetto (1:29:10)
Mmm, it's the best.

true, man.

It's so true. Carlos, thank you very much again for your time. I cannot wait to see this race and see what people are going to come up with to root to win this event. ⁓ it's going to be a show, man. So cannot wait to get this going. Put as many videos as you guys can out. Cause I'm, know a lot of people will be following online. ⁓ and best of luck to you, man. And the team, it'll be awesome. Have fun with it, man. Have fun.

Carlos Saez SFT (1:29:45)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

you. It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Daniel. Anytime you need.

Daniel Paronetto (1:29:51)
Cheers Carlos, bye bye.

035_Carlos Saez: First-Ever SFT Downwind Parawing World Cup

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