Foil Life Podcast

On this episode of the Foil Life Podcast we sit down with Dane Gillett, the British expat who has spent more than 30 years in Japan and is widely known as the English-language voice of surfing in the country. From his base at Hebara Beach in Katsuura, Chiba, Dane has spent decades documenting breaks, building SurfingInJapan.com as a side project, and turning that knowledge into a full lifestyle around the water.
In this episode we talk about:
- Arriving in Japan on a short trip more than 30 years ago for the snow, then realizing he never wanted to leave
- Falling in love with Japanese powder (and the value), spending years in the mountains, then eventually shifting fully to the coast
- Meeting his Japanese wife, settling in Tokyo, and needing an escape, which became weekends chasing surf with almost zero English-language info available at the time
- Building SurfingInJapan.com from notebooks and word-of-mouth in the only foreigner pub in Tokyo, then driving the country for 25+ years to map breaks, beaches, and places to stay
- Turning a pure hobby into the thing that now supports his lifestyle after three decades of consistent work
- The reality of “living the dream”: staying humble for years, then realizing people benefit when he talks openly about the long road and the possibility
- Lessons from growing up in a family of 13 kids, work is life, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, and chase what you’re deeply passionate about so you never feel like you’re working a day in your life
- Why Japanese snow still stands out globally, and why the ocean life on the Chiba coast ended up being the better long-term fit
SurfingInJapan.com: https://www.surfinginjapan.com/ 
Splash Guest House: https://www.splashguesthouse.com/

On this episode of the Foil Life Podcast, we sit down with Clay Selby, Kai Lenny, and Whitney Johnson - the team behind Venturi, to talk about building the water-sports app they always wanted. What started as a foil-forecasting side project in the Philippines has grown into one place for wind, swell, tides, session tracking, gear, and community across wing, parawing, windsurf, kite, SUP, e-foil, and surf.
In this episode we talk about:
- The origin story: a side project about three years ago off Siargao, then Maui, and Kai pushing it from foil-only to every watersport
- The Today screen in wind or surf mode, and spot pages that read like a forecast article
- Live friend tracking from the Darwin soft launch and Maui downwinders, including Maliko runs
- Sport-specific session metrics: wave counts, parawing stash tracking, crash impact, and gear tagged to each session
- Auto-built downwind runs with instant leaderboards, plus the games and session replays
- Kai AI gear recommendations and the gear garage, what to pack for a trip like Mauritius
- Events and groups as a cleaner alternative to closed WhatsApp chats, including a look at Corzon Foil Festival
- Private pins and friend-only sharing for secret spots
- The safety beacon: Apple Watch, SOS, driver check-ins, and pings to nearby Venturi users
- The name that almost became Coconuts, the parawing giveaway, and the features they will not spoil yet
Venturi website: https://venturisports.com/
Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/venturi-sports/id6450483725

On this episode of the Foil Life Podcast, we sit down with Kieran Sammon, founder of Exit Watersports — Irish kiter, 2006 national amateur freestyle champion, automation engineer by day, and the person who turned a broken kids’ trampoline into a wetsuit hanger.
He talks Rhodes 2002, a January lesson in 4°C Irish water, building the IKSA, bringing the KSP Wave Tour to Achill with Aer Lingus and Hertz, a cancer scare in 2010, and why he still prefers boosting and smacking waves on a kite even as he chips away at winging and foilable swell. Then he walks through the products that grew out of not being able to dry a suit properly: the wide hex-cut XRail, the SUX suction mount, the 70-litre oval BUX change bucket, the XTEND windchill layer Hannah Whiteley called a game changer, plus Mavericks, Dry Bell, and what’s coming next.
Kieran covers the path from a second-hand Whipica LTR to a shed prototype in 2014, finding industrial designer Rudo Enserink, launching in late 2019 just before COVID, and the retailer feedback that one product is not a brand. Luc covers multi-day van trips, Thule boxes that never dry, and why a hanger that actually stands off the wall (or the car window) matters when you’re camping, commuting, or trying to get a suit dry before the next session.
Episode Highlights:
- First kite lesson: instructor sat in the car and said go play
- Consistency beat raw talent for the 2006 Irish amateur title
- Original XRail built from 25 mm trampoline tubing cantilevered off a shower pole
- 75 mm width + hex holes so air reaches every surface, plus bungees for five accessories
- SUX Mark II: pump suction and an adjustable nut so the rail stays level on a sloped van window
- BUX: 70 L, watertight, stand-in oval stance, perforated removable base, XRail slot
- XTEND PU-coated lycra over the wetsuit to kill evaporative cooling
- Mavericks paddle trainer and Dry Bell sand-fill travel kettlebell already in the US
- XOVER change robe (overlap / trench-coat mode) and inflatable CORE bench still in prototype
- Stock from Dublin across Ireland, UK and Europe; limited US warehouse
- Code FOILLIFEEUROPE10 for 10% off at exitwatersports.com
- Open call: anyone flying Europe → Mauritius, Luc needs a BUX in the hold
Visit: https://exitwatersports.com

On this episode of the Foil Life Podcast, we sit down with Camille Delannoy and Fabian Muhmenthaler from North ASG — two former pro riders now inside the Netherlands office. Camille works across AI engineering, software, and business intelligence on internal systems. Fabian is moving from Brand Ambassador Manager into Foil Category Product Manager.
They talk Brazil and Tarifa roots, strapless comps and early wing years, internships that turned into real jobs, and the shift from photo-shoot travel to building the next boards, foils, and tools the team actually rides. Camille covers the path from F1 to North, studies between Madrid and Tarifa, and the data and software work that keeps operations moving. Fabian covers industrial design studies in Cádiz, the foil he designed as his thesis, the ambassador-manager stretch, and taking on foil systems, boards, wings, parawings, and what’s coming next.
Episode Highlights:
- Camille first as athlete; Fabian in via that intro around late 2021 / early 2022
- Brazil → Spain/Tarifa → Netherlands; beach-town studies that still left room to ride
- Favorite tricks: cat-coups and wave riding vs. 720s, backflip-to-360s, old-school forwards
- Favorite spots: home beaches, the Canaries, and Mauritius One Eye
- Office five to ten minutes from the water, prototypes on tap, sessions before and after work
- MIDI Pro board upgrade and all new SF Foils (details to come!)
- High-camber downwind foils staying on part of the range, not every model
- Athlete knowledge plus engineering or data skills in the same person
- Less free riding, more testing — Tarifa for foil R&D, Dutch winter kiting to stay sane
- Keep riding, work hard, and follow the thing that actually pulls you
Visit: https://northactionsports.com

On this episode of the Foil Life Podcast, Luc Moore sits down with Kaden of Sicko Country — the Hood River crew that just hit one million YouTube subscribers — to talk growing up on the Columbia, the jump from 30-second tow-foil runs to parawing addiction, and what it takes to film a full-time action channel around wind.
They recap how a small-town friend group became a six-person YouTube operation, a COVID summer that turned a side project into a job, and idea generation that is anything but a dialed calendar. Kaden covers early kite and windsurf years, why the crew prefers parawing for the hands-free surf-foil feel, Apple Tree / F-One / Ozone setups, Rufus as the dream downwinder, when 40 knots means shuttle-only, YouTube analytics without losing the soul of the channel, close calls on foils and slip-and-slides, and a dream shred trip to Mauritius with zero algorithm talk.
Episode Highlights:
- One million subscribers as a milestone, not a finish line
- How the crew formed in tiny Hood River — river, mountain, school, family friends
- The kid who said he could film, couldn’t, and stayed because he was funny
- Ideas from reels, Marketplace, invitations, and a few sit-downs a year
- Windsurf as a toddler → kite at 13 → kite foil → wing → parawing
- Early downwinding: old foils behind the ski, 30 seconds felt insane
- Why parawing wins: surf-foil feel, nothing in your hands through the turns
- Gear: Apple Tree Skipper 50L, F-One skate foil, Ozone Pocket Rocket
- May–September Hood window; filming days planned around *not* windy
- YouTube was never the childhood dream — COVID + camera skills lined it up
- Jackson as unofficial boss; legally even, practically a glue guy
- Favorite downwinder: Rufus — big waves next to a truck-stop Cinnabon
- Safety they are finally booking: first aid, avalanche, water rescue
- Dream video: Mauritius, forget YouTube, just shred
- Home river still beats most travel spots; foiling pulled parents and grandparents back on the water
Visit: https://www.youtube.com/@Sickos / https://www.thefoilingmagazine.com