Episode #57 - Joe Knapton

Joe, the founder of Flymount, joins us from his office to talk about:

- How they got started in 2006
- Initial designs, production & testing
- What materials are used
- What is coming next
- And more.

Visit: www.flymount.com

• (00:00) - - Introduction and Background
• (02:59) - - The Early Days of Flymount
• (09:14) - - The Importance of Video Footage in Action Sports
• (15:52) - - The Supportive Action Sports Community
• (28:45) - - Designing Secure Camera Mounts
• (30:38) - - The Challenges of Mounting GoPro Cameras
• (32:49) - - The Importance of Safety Lines
• (43:19) - - The Future of Action Cameras
• (45:52) - - Starting a Business in the Wind Sports Industry
• (51:14) - - Innovative Designs: Carbon Extension System

This episode is brought to you by La Saladita Kite School in La Ventana, Mexico. Book your lessons today at https://saladitalaventana.com/

★ Support this podcast ★

Creators & Guests

Host

Luc Moore

I started windsurfing in 2012, a year after my brother and I visited Kauai, Hawaii. In 2009 I was involved in a fatal motorcycle accident that required two intensive surgeries to stabilize my pelvis. Three years later, I was still heavily engaged in rehab, but I had been cleared to walk by my orthopedic surgeon, so we finally decided to visit the islands. My brother had just started windsurfing, so we started looking online for gear for him, and we came across a woman selling late her husband's equipment. She recounted to us that his life had been spent on the ocean. As a pro windsurfer, his love and passion for the sport were undeniable. At that point, I thought I could try this sport and carry on his legacy of love for the water and wind if I worked hard enough. Initially, I couldn't ride with my harness on without experiencing terrible low back pain. I was terrified of the water, knew nothing about wind, and if I got moving at any speed, scenes of my accidents would replay in my mind, which lasted for years. It took a lot of work to differentiate fact from fiction. To add to this mess of emotions, numerous specialists and acquaintances had repeatedly told me that I was now broken. I could never jog pain-free again, let alone enjoy pain-free sports. They told me to accept that as my truth and to move on. My mom and brother helped me keep going as our shared passions, and family support helped me overcome obstacles. The pure joy I felt with my continued progress on the water helped those wounds begin to heal. In time, windsurfing felt so good physically and psychologically that it would bring me to tears on the water. I would spend hours practicing the basics and quickly improve. This sport was one of the catalysts that helped accelerate my healing process. When my skills had reached the great lake level, I started sailing with my neighbour Danny. He is one of the best windsurfers in eastern Ontario and travels worldwide, pursuing his passion in his spare time. In 2018 when Wing Foiling first came out, I quickly felt like this sport would take my love for wind and water to the next level. Our Co-Host Tom helped me find gear and gave me my first intro lesson! I quickly picked up the sport and learnt the basics. I then contacted some kite schools on Vancouver Island (Elevation Kiteboarding & Windrider Kiteboarding) and started teaching for them! Shortly after, Tom and I created the Wing Life podcast to help share our stoke and knowledge of wind sports with others.

What is The Wing Life Podcast?

Our podcast is dedicated to the sport of Wing Foiling. Tune in as we interview top athletes, equipment designers, brand managers and every day enthusiasts from around the globe. Hosted by Luc Moore

Luc Moore (00:03.054)
you

Welcome to the Wing Life podcast, where we talk about wing foiling and the lifestyles of those who enjoy this great sport. Well, cool, brother. Hey, thanks for joining me in the show today. We've been trying to line this up for a while and yeah, thanks for your patience. No, thanks for having me on. It's an honor. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. You got a pretty cool origin story. Like you've been in this game since what, 2006? Yeah, we...

The whole thing started in 2006 and we brought it out as a sort of proper product in 2008. So, yeah, so it was kind of two years of realizing that we had something and turning that into a mass market product as opposed to just kind of making these mounts for people, which is how it kind of started. Yeah, and it slowly or actually very rapidly went from

When we first put it into production, that first period, that first year, it was quite a sort of jump. So the market was taking off and we started it. YouTube wasn't really going and the worst of GoPros. Yeah, so it kind of went, it went slowly over those two years and then it bang went quickly. Then it slowed down again.

How did you even come into thinking about starting something like this? Like what were you in before that would have seen that this was required in the industry? Because it revolutionized big time. Like I was reading a little bit on your website and just looking at what people were doing before to get those kind of water -based shots. And then here comes this affordable tool that is not only just built for one camera, like you could use it for a whole bunch, right? Yeah, that's right. What happened?

Luc Moore (01:59.534)
I was really obsessed as a windsurfer and as a young windsurfer, I was really obsessed with seeing what I looked like on the water. You could actually buy in the 90s, these kind of little disposable cameras and somebody figured out that you could actually trigger the shutter on it. So you could get these actually quite nice images off a disposable waterproof camera that was kind of 10, 15 pounds, you know, at $20.

And I was really into that at the time. And then I moved to Spain and I bought a little waterproof. The one of the first waterproof digital cameras is made by Pentax. And I realized it had a video mode on it. And I realized like, yeah, I could probably get this attached to my rig. So I taped it. I taped it to my rig, put it on record, went out with a bunch of mates. And I looked back, the footage is pretty basic, but it...

For us, it was so impressive. We were so like, this is mad. You know, it's a little tiny camera. I saw one lying around. Did you see them? Are you familiar with the camera I'm talking about? They were like a waterproof digital point and shoot camera. Just a normal kind of thing you take your holiday photos on. Do you remember those? Yeah. My brother and I went on a trip probably around that same kind of time period. And it's what we would take underwater. Yeah. You had this little case and everything. Yeah. Exactly. Like this big or something.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, for that big little thing. So we're taping, we're putting on everything, we're strapping it to helmets, but it's strapping it to the beam. And then we'd sit and watch this and everyone would gather around and it was just cool. It was fun. And that was kind of all I did at that time. I used to just windsurf work, windsurf, windsurf work like that. So it's just, we had loads of time to really think about and think about what would...

You know, could we turn this into a product? I mean, it might be a product and we started making mounts and we sold them to a few people. but they, you know, they were kind of homemade mounts and I, I had no way at the time of buying things and being able to actually make them into the thing I wanted to make. So we, around the time we got married, my wife and I got married, we decided to ask my parents if they want to put a bit of money in and turn it into, so we needed about 30 ,000 pounds, which is.

Luc Moore (04:25.838)
40 ,000 US dollars about that amount. And that's what we needed to take it to buy all the tooling, get that first production run done. And we did that and sold it. Very hard year of really pushing selling and we, we sold, we, so we borrowed 30 ,000 and we made about 50 ,000. okay. And it carried on going. What were you doing for work before that? I trained originally as a boat builder. and I then drifted to carpentry work and

I was down there. I drove down. I drove down to Terefa in 2003. in a, like an old, do you have Ford Capri? Are you Canadian? Yeah. Do you have Ford Capris in Canada? I don't know if that's a car that was over in that side of the world. I have either seen them on like movies or yeah, I've heard of them, but I don't, I can't remember cause it's an older, yeah. It's an older car. I can't remember if we have them or not.

It's from the 80s and it looked amazing. I've got a big long bonnet on it underneath as a tiny little engine, but it's under this massive bonnet. I drove down in this car, this old car, and I had some windsurf kit and some tools and I got down there and I had just windsurfed and went out in the town and stuff, spent my little bit of money that I had and then that was it. I had no money, nothing to eat, no way of getting home.

No work, I hadn't bothered looking for work, even though I brought all my tools down and just had a kind of two days with no food and it was all starting to get a bit. I said, gosh, shit, what am I going to do in the car? I thought, so there's an enclave called Gibraltar, which I'm sure you've heard about, which is part of, it's in Spain, but it's part of Britain. And I thought I could go into that and the car has an MOT, so you have to have an MOT chip for the insurance to be valid.

drove the car to Gibraltar, running out of MOT, and it turned out I couldn't get an MOT for it. So I was down there in a car that wasn't really legal, had no money, nothing. It just, but it just rolled into that. So I ran out of money on Friday and on Sunday night, a friend took me out to a bar for a strip of coffee and one something to eat. And by chance, a guy walked by who I chatted to about two weeks before, and he said, hi, do you, would you be free on Monday? And we,

Luc Moore (06:52.526)
Turned out I was and we went and he took me to this woman who he was doing work for in the middle of nowhere and they had a massive argument. And she told him to fuck off basically. And I, we were going and she just pulled me aside and said, would you come tomorrow by yourself? And I did. And I worked for her for years actually. so yeah, I was doing building work, doing carpentry work and, I, yeah, lots of work. It was good.

I just say it's a bit difficult at first, but after I found a bit of work, it carried on. And we, so I was down there for a bit. Then I met my wife in, I went to South Africa for a bit and New Zealand for a little bit. And I came back and went back to Tarifa. Went down to Morocco for a little bit. I had a bit of a mess down there where I smashed up most of my kit and then came back to Spain and met my wife and she was living in London and we,

Yeah, we hit it off. I knew it was right from the beginning. And we, without much persuasion, she moved, she moved down to Spain and we, and that's how we started flying at it. Yeah, it was cool. Just, just chance meeting in a bar. yeah, I came back to London for about a month and we just said, that's just shit. We just sold everything and yeah, I mean, she had more stuff to sell than I did, but yeah, it was great. So she just agreed to it.

went and had an amazing few years living down in Spain and then moved up to France. But in that time, we could see there was a bit of a business there with Flymount and we evolved it. We looked at loads of other ideas as you do when you're that age and you've got lots of time in your hands. But that seemed to be the one we kept coming back to. So whenever we would go out and film stuff, everyone would be like, can you put on my sail?

And it was the looking at it afterwards. It's that bit afterwards, you know, where you all meet up afterwards. And I think that's one of the things that if you, I don't know what it is, maybe it is another sports, but it's only really do sports. I know that it's after it's that bit after that you've done it and you talk about it and you have a beer and you kind of debrief and being able to look at what you've been doing, just added this incredible element to it. And we, we'd put these videos up and some people I can call this and we're just taking turns filming themselves. And now I just, I just loved that. Yeah. It's huge for everybody. Absolutely.

Luc Moore (09:14.894)
Like all the different lakes that I've been to, if you happen to have somebody or if you have that, like my brother and I were always doing GoPro stuff when we go out to our new lakes and we'd review footage and like that's such a fun aspect of what we do. I absolutely agree. And I think it's, it's sometimes hard to explain to people. So I've got a Canadian couple I know very well in Tarifa. Lovely people, really helped me a lot, older couple. And when I told him about this idea, he's someone who's really been successful in business, but he, he.

I told him the idea, it's like, what kind of asshole would want to film themselves with something like that? You know, we do like, you know, it's... But even if, even if you are an asshole who wants you to film yourself, it's still a business, you know, it's still people that want to do it and I want to do it. Fair turn. And I knew that, yeah, so that, that sort of made it into something. cool. Yeah, because sometimes in the wintertime back in, like when I was in Canada,

you got snow on the ground and I was just missing windsurfing, I would pull up some of my old clips from the summer. And then it's such an, like you bring your laptop closer, whatever, and it's such an immersive kind of experience for you. And you're like, all right, this place, I'll be able to go back there in three months. Like, don't worry about it. We'll get through winter. We'll do our thing. So that kind of thing is you're tapping into, it definitely makes sense. And it's required, absolutely required.

Totally. Yeah, you get it exactly. It's that thing of reliving it and you can kind of feel a bit of what you felt when you were doing it. Nice. So what did the earliest mounts look like? Like how did you come up with a concept that could then get multi -cameraed approach in that sense? Like how did that whole process go? We got together with somebody called Kevin McDonald, who did a lot of windsurfing, did a lot of design work for windsurf products for Neil Pride and ART.

And also had connections with Monty Spindler, he was down in Tarifa at the time. So there's this kind of, he was a really good designer and we managed to get him on board and he designed the first. It's just one of the time I couldn't do, you know, I've always made things, but I didn't have that ability to turn those ideas into CAD designs, which I can do now. But at the time, you know, I mean, all the CAD work he's doing is really turning what's in your head into something that is tangible and you can pass on to somebody else.

Luc Moore (11:37.454)
At the time I didn't have a computer and I didn't know how to use it. So anyway, we got Kevin and he had loads of really great ideas. And actually, I've got funny enough, I've got this for, I was leaving it on my desk. yeah, do you have like an original? That was the first design he came up with, which was just massive. And it's a thing of beauty, but it's just way too big.

It's lovely. You can see there are some elements of the original design, it's sort of three pointed handle, which we've kept in all of the mounts. But it hardly had any range on it. And it's just big and cumbersome. And so we went back to the drawing board with that. And then he, between us, we came up with what became the FlyMount original. And that was designed to initially hold just normal cameras. So again, GoPro, it wasn't really...

taking off, it was just starting to come to market. But I got into my head that there's no way this company is going to succeed as well as Pentax or Olympus or any of these other companies. So I just thought, you know, there's so much bigger, they're going to just completely, as soon as they're interested in making more of an action type camera, that's going to be it for GoPro. It's really stupid of me, but that's what I thought at the time. And of course, GoPro being smaller had the ability to

move with the market and make their cameras do exactly what the customers wanted instead of probably sitting around for, you know, every loads of meetings at Pentax and those are the people deciding, you know, four years later, bringing way out. But, so our first ones didn't fit GoPro cameras because, you know, nobody did. GoPro were making one that's, I think it had batteries in it, normal batteries at first. Can you remember that? No, it was, the first one was pretty basic.

And then they brought out a second one, I think it was second one. And it was actually more interesting. And I realized loads of people buying these cameras and fixing them onto our mount. So I actually called them up. That's the weird thing. I was actually able to speak to somebody on the phone, a GoPro. no way. Yeah. So those early days you could actually approach them. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Things were different. Yeah. It was, it was, yeah. So I called them from here in the UK. They had to the phone. We spoke. I said, look, we make these mounts.

Luc Moore (13:57.102)
Most of our customers are now using them with your carrier. So can we make an adapter that just fits into your... So this is the weird thing. Nobody at that point knew what was making an auxiliary mount for GoPros as far as I know. There was no... And they said, well, you know, you can't really endorse somebody else's mount. I say, well, we don't want you to endorse it. We just want to make sure that people aren't clumsily putting the two together to make sure that your carrier doesn't fall off our product. So they kind of said, well, you know, I guess...

You can. So we did. And that was a massive, yeah, it's weird. so we made an adapter was it was for rather than the, you know, rather than the problem, but it actually had the quick release. That's what we made. We made a bit of the quick release went into and, and that was really successful. Yeah. And that kind of changed the direction of things a bit. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Holy shit. That's like, it's like industry changing stuff.

It was because no one at the time was making GoPro mounts other than GoPro made their camera with a small range of mounts. So, yeah, so we were, I guess, the first people to do that. But then, yes, they kind of didn't say yes and they didn't say no. So I just thought, do it and see what happens. And now, you know, I think they've realized it's not a bad thing to have other people making kind of auxiliary mounts for their products. Well, yeah, once you have a secondary community that's making products,

that complement the sale of your product, I can't see that being necessary because they have to look at to see what's our best moneymaker? Are we going to spend all our money on this or auxiliary stuff or are we just going to focus on the product and let everybody else complement those sales? It makes complete sense. And it's funny sometimes, they can't give you a yes, they can't give you a no, but they're giving you the whole highway to just run on. And you're like, yeah.

Does that mean? All right, let's go. So I even the packaging, I remember thinking I wrote GoPro and I, I think I took their logo originally, and I haven't got it printed up. And I think my uncle paid us and said, you can't do that. You can't put a logo on your product. And he was right. I just, I just didn't really know what we would, you know, didn't. That's true. We were just doing things that could have probably ended. I don't know. We were too small. I don't think that they'd have probably sensed the latrines. So, you know, stop doing that. But

Luc Moore (16:20.974)
Anyway, I stopped doing it. I didn't do that. We just had GoPro written. Yeah, the original packaging was compatible. Yeah, that's what I did. GoPro compatible. The original one, I'd actually put their logo on it, which kind of made it, I could have made it look a bit like a GoPro product, which should, you know, just me being stupid at the time, not thinking it through. So with renditions of that first initial mount, your next goals are what? To make it lighter, compatible with more devices, compatible across more sports.

Like what was the, like you started it for windsurfing? Yeah, just for windsurfing. But I know, I know we wanted it to work on all sorts of other things. But the thing that was important, the thing that makes it difficult for windsurfing is that you've got to go around a tube that has something stopping you getting all the way around it. Cause if you can go all the way around it, then it's suddenly very easy. You know, there are lots of easy ways of doing that. So we had to think of something and that's why Kevin came up with a very smart system that actually

that you could easily go around it and you know the whole, got one here, this tightening here and the, as you tighten it, the rod here is moving inside the handle here so it's all nice and neat and yeah, we, but it was different. We started off with a different system and with, over the years changed bits, changed the molding slightly, bits and bobs like that but it's getting quite old now. We've done

I don't know how many of these we've made now. So those molds, but the molds are getting to the point where there isn't probably reaching the end of the lifespan for that, those original tools now. Cause a lot goes into that. Even from my perspective of a windsurfer, right? Those wipeouts are like intense. Like when you're getting catapulted or it's falling, like it's not just like, you have to make sure that, that it's going to hold on there. It's really hard to make it do that. And it's,

At the same time, you've got to make it light. You've got to make it so it's not going to snap. There's always, whenever you're tightening something, there's a tension point. So you're applying tension to the mask, but at the same time, that's being reflected in something else. So usually it's around where the hinges, but you're forcing something to stay in place. So there's a load of pressure on that. So you've got to think about that. You've got to make sure it doesn't rust. So it can't be made out to an all stainless steel. It needs to be marine grade, any metal parts.

Luc Moore (18:47.022)
Yeah, lots to think about. Yeah. Yeah, but...

You don't need it to do all these things if you're just going to stick it on a bite. So we still are quite niche in that respect. I think we do get loads of people use them on bikes and things, but equally, I could probably buy something a little bit cheaper. But it makes sense for water -based. Cause yeah, I think it's the impact and you want it to be as light as possible. You also don't want to over tighten to potentially cause damage. Like it would have been harder, I guess, to over tighten something on a windsurfing mass, but.

I don't know if that would make a difference on a kite or a wing, if you could potentially, I guess you could theoretically, change the flying dynamics or something. We've changed the parts of the flying direction for that reason, but actually the original one, you could really crank on some pressure and eventually it would tend to break around the hinge, but there was that risk. So we swapped this part in here that you can see my fingers for a nylon part, which

just meant that if you really oversight it, that would give instead of trashing your kit. So you still put way more pressure than you need on, but that was how we got around that bit. But it's a funny thing though, this first batch we made, in that first batch we gave one of them to, he's an English photographer, I've forgotten his name, an English Windsor photographer. I've to apologize to him, we've been talking to him for years, I've forgotten his name.

He took one out to Maui and he gave it to Mark Angulo. And, you know, this point we were, yeah, so he sent photographs back of Mark Angulo using one in nearly mass and half high waves. And then he had, he landed the first, do you remember he was doing a move called the mutant? It's a bit like, like a goiter, but it was slightly different. It was too slight to different. Anyway, he landed the first one with a fly man's attach and we got it on camera. It was weird. Again, with like a

Luc Moore (20:45.614)
point -and -shoot camera. So he was out in Massanio Ways with a holiday camera attached to one of our mounts. It's just epic. And he's such a nice guy. He wrote to us and we built us communication. And he's this person that I would see on videos when I was a kid. And he's just flipping mad. He's such a small, nice community. I think you do find that. You speak to these people and they're all generally really nice.

Well, before I found wind, I was into like motorcycle and I had done, I was just starting into some track racing and then I got into a really, really serious motorcycle accident and I lost that community. And then my brother was just getting into windsurfing at that point in time. And I think he had gone to some festival in Toronto and Woody Harrelson was there and he wanted to go out and I guess it just kind of fueled him to keep going on windsurfing. And, and then I was still in recovery. So it was like, I couldn't do it, but I would watch him.

And I would learn everything. And he said, Hey, like, maybe you'll be able to do this as something else, like after you're getting better. So that's how I fell into wind and fell in love with it. And then what I thought of losing one community, which was a lot more isolated because you just wave at people on the road. I never interacted, but then I found this brand new community and we've talked about a couple of times on the show, but still like you find this and they're just living more of the way that I was naturally inclined to live anyways.

So I was like, boom. So yeah, super friendly. but then it's about being more in unison with, I guess a little bit. Sometimes it's like trying to live a bit more, a natural way in essence, like we're, we're harnessing the power of nature and wind to bring us fun. And, and then everybody is just such a friendly community. So yeah, that's what I found with everybody. What happened to the motorbike?

I crested a hill on my way to work and there was somebody that was just in the way. So it's like there was a truck blocking my entire roadway and you crest a hill and you're like, okay, I guess this is it. Like, so from there it was 10 years of rehab and like I mentioned a couple of times. Yeah. So broken pelvis, broken everything, severe brain injuries, multiple brain injuries. So then you're like, what can I do? Cause all the doctors wrote me off.

Luc Moore (23:07.47)
So it was like, okay, well, I found this sport and then I would spend six to eight hours on the day by myself training on the water and then just getting better and slowly training and training. And then like, I fell in love with it so much that I was like, this has to be good for me. And then not realizing where it would take me in the places around the world and the people I would need kind of very similar to you making that mount, right? You're like, do I ever think like Angulo and Maui would ride and take pictures? Like, like we're such.

it with people like that. That for us is like, what did you make any money? I said, wait, no, but like, man, this is huge. Like that comes after. Same kind of story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah. And I'm finally doing my first like weight training rebuild now. Like I hadn't done steady training back in the gym for like two years since two years ago.

and just slowly get myself stronger. Cause I realized when I was going out in 35, 40 knots, I don't like to go out and crazy stuff too crazy, but I found that my body needed a bit more strength. So it just needed a bit more rigidity and resilience. And so starting back on weights and stuff now. And so it's starting to get all of that better. But, but yeah, like you never know where, where passion's going to take you. And I think this is a prime example with fly mount and how many

people have been able to enjoy this and just enhance their entire experience on the water. Show the girlfriends, show their friends. Yeah, it's amazing. And it's such an incredible thing to see people doing it and using the product. But yeah, it's exactly that. Yeah. So what is coming up? Like you've started with windsurfing, like what other sports were you able to get into that adapted so well?

Well, the obvious one at the moment is winging. So Frank has a bit of a connection there because he's friends with Andrea Pagan from Italy, from Lake Garda. He's someone I've known over the years and he's always been very supportive. He contacted us in 2020, I think it was.

Luc Moore (25:25.486)
You know, and I've been, I've been watching Wing in coming, but of course everyone was still locked down and stuff. And it's very difficult to get out into the water. But I was thinking, I really want to give that a go. It looked good. And he contacted said, you know, you really ought to make him out for this. And that's kind of all the persuasion I needed really. And we had loads of time in my hands with everything had kind of shut down. We were hardly selling any stock at the time. So I just, yeah, it just worked out. We came up with, I came up with the

bit that's patented and the design that's designed it's tons of time my hands and I said the samples off to him and he tested them and give us a bit of feedback. It worked quite well. Can we walk through some of those initial design concepts? Cause obviously now you're looking at a much bigger area that you have to clamp onto. It's not a hard, it's not a hard surface anymore, like a boom or carbon and stuff like that. So like what was the testing period like?

I went board to wing straight away and I, you know, that was the easy bit. Then I could start working on what we had to attach to and what we're trying to figure out the die. That was the difficult bit was trying to figure out what diameter we needed to choose. Because of course you create something that is effectively a circular. That's what the internal part of the jaw is, it's circular. That will have, it'll attach well to a certain range and

I had to decide what that range was. So I bought an F1 swing, one of the first swings. Yeah, the original. Yeah. So I couldn't, at that point, I hadn't had a chance to go out and use it. So I was just making a few prototypes, making it work, making it attach, but I wasn't outwinging myself. So I couldn't go out and test it. But Andrea could in Italy, so I'd send a sample. And they look quite, I've got...

Yeah, started making these kind of jaw shapes. yeah. Okay. Okay. So for those just listening in on audio, he's just giving me, we're just looking at that mount process. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For people who can't see it, we, we obviously went through the net. I had to come up with something that kind of worked and then you prototype it was quite easy, quite easy these days, test it out. And the first designs were full of

Luc Moore (27:52.078)
Also cavities to make it as light as possible. But it was very, way too flexible like that. It would have probably been stiffer in production. Well, it would have been stiffer in production. But what became clear is that you needed lots of surface contact. So we got rid of these holes. This was a mistake. And then what I really wanted it to do was not have too much. I didn't want to...

you to have to tighten the jaws and then have a separate thing to lock off the camera position. So that was where the bulk of the kind of thought process went into trying to make you do both. And that's the bit that we have the patent on. So you, when you're tightening the jaws on one of these mounts, you're also locking off the camera position. Okay. So as the jaws, as the jaws close, they push

you're tightening down onto a part that's internally pushes up against the inside of the mounting point and that locks it. So yeah, but you know, as you said, attaching to an inflatable object was quite difficult to do. But you know, it's got one of the reasons and again, people who aren't watching this won't be able to see but one of the reasons that the jaws of these sort of funny shape was so that it could cope with the kind of different shapes that

Yeah, good point, actually. Yeah. So that was when you pick one of these things up. It's not just closing on like one axis, for example, you have multiple axes going on. So when you tighten something, it has to almost tighten and bend into the left, both jaws, for example, rather than being straight as horizontal. Yeah. So almost all of the sections that you're attaching on a wing have the tapering, you're all the time tapering out the wings.

to a greater or lesser extent, the jaws are going to have to adapt to that to a bit. So that's why we have that slightly odd shape on there is to allow them to adapt. And they can cope with quite a lot of tapering. So you always have to tie it off because even if it's on really securely, the wing can deflate or anything can happen. I've gone through two wings, I've deflated by catching it on the...

Luc Moore (30:10.478)
I'm sure you've done the same thing or maybe not, but maybe it's just me. Cactuses. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That has been my painful, well, I guess I blew both. So I was thinking, whatever, walk down to the beach, fully inflated, not realizing everything here has a spike on it. Yeah. Yeah. But it does. So yeah. But anyways, it's the same process, right? Like thinking about all those different things regarding mounts and the same thing.

just making it stay in place. And it's always a basic, it's still a problem because I anticipated the wings becoming, the leading edges of the wings becoming thinner and they kind of are doing, but we still get customers now saying it's not big enough, you know, and I think.

If we made it massive, it'd be dead expensive, but also, I really don't think the footage close to your, the closer you bring a normal camera in a 360 cameras, fine, but the closer you bring a GoPro camera in the cat, the footage just becomes less and less interesting. on a wing. So yeah, that was the, well, that makes sense. You're not going to want to really put it on the leading edge right beside the handles, for example, like right at the center.

Like right now you're mounting more on the wing tips, winglets like way out, also on the center strut further out. Yeah. That makes sense because you want some perspective. Because even like the older GoPros on your head, like we would go out and swell on the Great Lakes and it wasn't massive, but it was like four or five feet sometimes, six feet. But then looking on the GoPro footage, it looked like it was one foot.

The cameras came along, they've come a long way, but I think the reason you would want to showcase your footage is so that it gives you some perspective at home. And you're right. I don't know if it being too close would be good. It just wouldn't work. But I think this is where maybe I found a little bit, not making it clear when you buy the product, that it really does need to go out and it's something I keep thinking we need to address a little bit because I think people get it and they think, I want the camera really close to me.

Luc Moore (32:21.518)
And then they, it doesn't fit. And they think, you know, well, why have you made this product that doesn't fit? But as long as you put it in the womb to most wings now it fits, no problem at all. But yeah, it's, it's, it's a challenge. It's been a challenge making something from an inflatable object. There's so much variety still, and it can deflate. So those are the challenges really with that. Now, what kind of, for those who are maybe getting to know your product for the first time, like how would you make it so that it doesn't slip?

What's the inside of that clamp like? So it's got an EVA foam on the inside of it and when that's wet it grips even more. So I think this is most of the time, as long as you're within the mounting range and your wing doesn't deflate, it's virtually impossible to get this off. But the wing can deflate and if you put it beyond its mounting range, it can definitely come off. And that's where if you're attaching it and it's

really wide and it just can't and it's not gripping all the way around, then of course there's a chance to come off. So, big, big thing. And I think it's a great opportunity to say it is to just please put the safety line that comes with it. Just please attach it. Because every now and again, we, I get somebody hasn't touched it and it just is a horrible short somebody leaving these in the camera and it really doesn't need to happen. Keep it in the mounting range and tie it on. You're never going to lose it.

Luckily it doesn't happen very often, but yeah, it does not again. That makes sense. Yeah. I watched a couple of videos on your website just last night and showing how to, it's just safety. It makes complete sense to me that you would want that thing just as a little bit of a, cause yeah, I've had, luckily I haven't had any blowups on the water yet, but yeah, like that wing deflates extremely fast if you get an explosion and it's gone. Yeah. Yeah. So until that happens.

Yeah. And then you would not only lose like that, sure, that's a pretty easy fix, new bladder, but if you lose your camera and your mount, that's an expensive day. It's horrible. Yeah. Yeah. And quite often you've recorded footage as well that you want to look at. Yeah, that too. You can't brag. You can't even showcase your wonderful white folks. Yeah, no, you just got to tell people that happened. Yeah, it's terrible. I quite early on with, quite early on in wing it, I managed to burst a wing.

Luc Moore (34:49.87)
just jiving, it's not for jiving, the foil went straight through it. The weird thing is, on a lake and not far from the edge of the lake, it's a bloody age is getting back, it's just horrible. It's like, man, I'm so out of shape. If you are to have it on the sea, it'd be in a bad way. Have those thoughts. I started wearing an impact vest here because I'll go out maybe a kilometer or so offshore to do the downwinders.

And like oftentimes you're surrounded by people, but I'm riding by myself. So it's like, all the safe, just in case something like all float, like the wind's on, it's going to take me to shore, but I'm just going to have to develop a sense of patience and slowly rolling with it. But it's definitely a point to talk about safety with attaching your cameras and safety when you're out there for anybody getting into the sport. Like it's a, not everybody wears it because normally you're with people, but if you ever riding by yourself, it just kind of a faux pas anyways, but still.

I started where I started off wearing, I fell onto the foil feet. I never do it now, but I still wear the it's funny because I never used to windsurfing. I wouldn't, you know, just go in shorts and nothing like a whole list. And that was it. I didn't never wore a helmet. Now I'm all helmet and it's funny. I don't need it now, but it's just like on a lake covered in safety equipment, which I probably don't need.

It definitely makes us, yeah, yeah, it's pretty funny, but we got to do what you got to do, I guess. It's just best as being a dad as well. You know, I don't, I don't take the risks. Have you got kids? No, no, no. Yeah. No, I got family that, that family that want to see me and friends that want to, yeah. But I think fan children would be the next level of wanting to come home for sure. Yeah. Does it, it changes your kind of, like, see, take less risks.

But we used to do this thing in Tarifa where a bunch of us would go out from where we used to sail from. And we'd just go out and out and out and out, out for ages. To the point where you look back and you couldn't see the beach. And when you're right out there in the middle of the straits, you get this massive windblown swell. And it was, yeah, it's just, I used to think it was great. But then there's this Spanish guy, he's come out with us and he would...

Luc Moore (37:13.582)
He would try all these moves and he couldn't, he never landed them. But he'd be going for like massive back loops, massive push loops, all these things he couldn't do, but he would go into them, landing in a mess. I was thinking, Christ, we're like, you know, sort of eight miles off the beach probably is just a... Do you have that footage with your mouth? No, that was just before then, we didn't know. But I have somewhere got some footage of him. He was hilarious. He had a... Because when I first got down, you know, I...

and stuff and I was at pretty sort of basic level really, you know, just kind of UK, I go out to the beach and things, but you're getting down there and you're on the water all the time, like all these places. I used to go out with this guy, Gabby, he was great, he'd try all these things and he couldn't ever do them. It hadn't really crossed my mind before that you could kind of just randomly try things.

didn't really matter. It's water, you know, you're landing in water, but I love going out with them. It's so funny. And we're telling me how to do push -leaps, but again, we didn't know it was a push -leap. So, you know, you just have to jump, find a really steep way of jumping and then try and look at your ass. And that was that. And of course it would take you into a push -leap, which again was, you know, you're landing on your kit and stuff and breaking a rib trying to do that. And it was,

But again, you know, it's just that fun of trying stuff and most of the time you're absolutely fine. You know, not like your motorbike thing. You cut it. Very true. One slip up on hard ground and like we're, we, I do entry level mountain biking, but every time I'm in the woods, if I talk to anybody above 50, they'll be like, yeah, three shoulder injuries, this injury, that injury. So far, so far in 10 years of wind, it's been fairly safe. Like I've had a few close calls, which I think we all have, but overall.

It's only made our bodies and minds a bit stronger. so w which is super fun. And then, yeah, compared to a lot of things that you could severely hurt yourself, but how'd you find wind in the first place to kind of stem into this passion project? So I, I grew up, my mom got into windsurfing in the early eighties and, and then my dad did. And then I was always a bit too small. I couldn't, I wanted to do it. I was, they got somebody got me into canoeing.

Luc Moore (39:32.59)
So we'd always go on these holidays and we were always by water. And I'd watch them go out windsurfing. I was like, God, it's amazing. I couldn't, you know, these massive boards and everything, but I was too small. I couldn't do it. And then I got to nine, it's 1984 and I just, just reached the boom and that was it. I sort of mucked around the water there and then we came back to, came back home and begged them to get me some lessons and things. So I went and had a couple of lessons. Yeah, that was it. Just, just.

loved it, even though it was sailing on a kind of lake in England, in the middle of England. It just, I just loved it. I was pretty drawn to it the whole time. And it was evolving in such a nice way back then. You know, like with winging is now, but with winging, you've got all the technology that we've taken from kiting, from windsurfing and everything else. And back then, no one knew what they were doing. It was wonderful. I loved that whole period of kind of all the weird stuff people were bringing out, if it worked and things would go into production that

of shouldn't have done, but they, you know, we had, the kid was so crap at the time. I remember the balls, two of us trying to lift them down to the beach and things, so it was fun. Just, yeah, just love those holidays and just any opportunity. Yeah. So that's where it started. That's where my interest in wind sports came from. became obsessed with windsurfing, in my sort of...

mid to like 20s, that's kind of all I can think about. That's kind of all I did really for a lot of the time, sort of built everything around that. And yeah, that's where it went. beautiful. Yeah, that's kind of cool. Like how does it feel to be able to work within the industry where you found so much passion? Like did you find, compared to doing other jobs, which are just equally as important and they help people, but how does it feel to be able to work within that passion bringing?

Because in essence, what you're doing is you're helping others within the wind sports enjoy those experiences a bit. Yeah, I absolutely love it. And I've done loads of jobs that have worked in loads of different, you know, I actually left school early and worked on a farm for a year and I've just worked at a carpenter, worked in restaurants, just done loads of stuff. And this I absolutely love. I never, I never really don't feel like coming into work.

Luc Moore (41:53.87)
And it's, I love my wife does all the social media stuff now, which again, it's just amazing seeing people all around the world using these, seeing what they're getting up to. So even when we're sat here, there's been a terrible winter here in the UK. It's just been virtually every day has been horrendous, but we, you know, see these pictures coming through and it's just a massive boost. Yeah. I can understand that. Do you know, do you know what's coming next in mounting?

for cameras, accessories, like, are you guys thinking a couple of years into the future as to, as to what designs might change or that kind of thing? No, I don't think too much about it. I think there are only really two ways of attaching a camera that I think, and I can't see why anyone else would change. We'll change that. So you've got the GoPro system, which most actually cameras use. And I mean, there's only really the markets now.

completely dominated by GoPro and Insta360 and Insta360 are using the traditional quarter inch thread. And as long as we accommodate both of those, I think 360 cameras are probably the future of action cameras. I think we've got more processing ability with our computer at home and everything else. And I'm sure using yourself, it just is so much more immersive and you can do so much more with it. And you can really see what you want to see and you can edit it to show.

what you wanted to show people and what you wanted to look at yourself and everything else. That to me is the, probably the...

I imagine the future of action cameras, I think slowly bit by bit, they will just become 360s. I think. Well, I haven't like, I have a GoPro like one from maybe seven years ago and I'm up, I'm due for an upgrade and there's potentially a whole group of people now that are getting into winging that are going to want this opportunity to kind of just showcase that footage. Cause we're just launching a mini series with, like Gwen and Damien. So they're.

Luc Moore (43:57.326)
content producers out in Florida. And we're going to be reviewing. So I guess this is a bit of a shout out for that show coming up, but we're going to be showcasing video footage and then reviewing it. So we're going to review it and provide some free online coaching. We're all three instructors and those guys have a breadth of knowledge so that we can share and build the community. But in order to do that, you either have a buddy on shore with like a cell phone, or you have your own footage filmed directly in your rig.

so that we can really see what's going on. Like, are you having trouble in the early phases, jivings, tax, getting up? Like, what's preventing you? So I think this is a great time to kind of showcase that we can, Frank was asking for us to do a little something on Instagram for collaboration, but that could be a fun little project that we do. Like, if you guys get any footage, yeah, if you guys get any footage, send it over our way and then we can build a repertoire and we might even invite some special guests on. So if we're reviewing your footage.

We may be an invite you want to talk about it. So this project, this is going to evolve, but just a little shout out for those listening. Yeah, that could be pretty fun. That's great. Yeah, let's have a look at that. We completely forgot what I was going to say. Did you ever tell you that? I do that a lot. How often?

But even thinking so, like, because you had said you had to get some initial capital funding for this to make it instead of making the product just for one person, like how did you find coming from your background, how did you find to learn how to productize it, how to bring it to market, how to bring it to a mass audience? Like, did you find that you were able to tap into some writers like you were saying, like as soon as you get a couple of writers on this stuff, then it slowly starts to spread through the network? Yeah, the well, the making

So ignore all the sort of bit prior to turning it into a mass produced product.

Luc Moore (45:59.982)
We had no idea really whether it'd work or not. So it was a massive gamble. I remember just at the time getting all these like panic attacks thinking, shit, this is, we kind of borrowed all this money off my parents and we won't be able to pay it back. And you know, I, it, so we got it and we went through this process of cold calling. I used to, so at the time we were living outside of France and we used to, we, we'd just, my son had been born and the house was,

virtually derelict. So we would spend the morning on the business and the afternoon working on the house. And we got to do something like that, you know, in the evening, but that was that's how we lived at that time. And those mornings, I'd call, I mean, this big list of people, so my wife would research and find people I should call who owned camera shops or sports shops, anything that might be related to it. And I would get on the phone from France and call them and nine times probably

like 19 times out of 20, they would not be interested. And there was no action camera market at that point. No one knew. And people just say, well, how would anyone want that? Why would anybody want to attach? Okay, you know, it's the same thing. And if you think about it, footage looks great. And then just say, no, no, I can't see it. I can't see it. And so that's how we kept doing that. Every now and again, somebody would see it and understand it, and we would sell a load to them.

And we kept going, kept going. And then eventually by the end of that year, we'd sold that first production run. And that's, so we agreed to take all the money. But it was, it was really a lot of work, a lot of very uncomfortable work. Cause I'm not, I'm not a salesman and I, I'm crap at it. I don't, I openly admit it. I'm no good at, I'm not a salesman. I was having to call people and try and sort of convince them to buy a thing that they had no prior understanding of. There's no real sort of reason to buy it, but we did, we sold it.

And then it got, it just got easier and easier. But yeah, you asked me about people and that was again, I hadn't ever really approached anybody in the windsurfing industry up to that. I met people and things, but we just, I just contacted them and they were always the same as say, yeah, send it over. I'll give it a go. so we never got, no one ever said no, not interested. So from the windsurf industry, everybody we approached was into it and up for it. And if they could help, they would do.

Luc Moore (48:18.766)
They could see that we were kind of a struggling, kind of fledgling brand and they, we were so overwhelmed by how generous everybody was with their time. Yeah, that was just a really wonderful thing. Well, I think you're coming in with something pretty valuable, like deaf. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. But it was, it was because I think if it was a different sport, a bigger sport.

they might feel that putting their name to something looks like, you know, well, there's some value to that. You know, I think that was the thing that, that we got that they were happy to get for free. People were happy to like Mark Angu they just to say, yeah, I think it's great. And here's me using it. And he didn't care. He didn't want anything in return. He was just happy to go out and do it. Whereas if you're playing football or something like that, you know, I don't, I don't follow football, but I, you know, I can imagine if you approached on these people who are household names and said, Hey, would you try this out then?

Yeah, they just wouldn't do it because they would, I don't know. It's a, it's a totally different industry. And we're very lucky in that sense that people were happy to give up their time and they were generous and yeah, it was very cool. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. Cause that could have made or broke your, your whole product. Yeah. Yeah. Idea and growth. Yeah. Okay. Is there anything thinking in the future? I think I mentioned it before, but is there anything that you're thinking design wise that might change or,

material use? Like, is there any new materials that you think might come out to facilitate the either stiffness of it or the weight or the flexibility or any of that kind of thing? Yeah, we've tried loads of different plastics over the years. And we've settled on one called Actulon, which is a glass filled nylon PA6, which is just great. It's great for it doesn't break very rarely. You know, if it breaks, it's because it's a molded fault. It's

brilliant in lots of UV sunshine. It's got UV inhibitors in it. It's brilliant salt water. It doesn't deteriorate. It's got a bit of flex to it. They use it in the automotive industry for where they want to use plastic instead of metal. So it's a kind of substitute in some sense for that. Good for the corks then. Yeah, for most of our products we use the same. So we've tried all sorts of different plastics, but this is the one that

Luc Moore (50:45.582)
we're sticking with. We've used that for years now. But we're doing a bit of work with some carbons of company up the road who make carbon tubing. And we're making some extension and extension system using carbon. So that's gonna be nice. Yeah. It's a really interesting, simple product, but it means that you might have seen people using long extensions on our maps. I don't know if you've seen any of these footage where it looks like the cameras or the camera is quite a distance away from the mast. And that

That is just, there's a guy, there's a guy in the Canaries who does these just epic, epic bits of footage using an extension system, but they're, they're very vulnerable. So we've come up with something that stops it being vulnerable. And that's, that's what we're working on at the moment. So nice, simple little product. Just, it just triangulates. It's a long carbon extension. Well, they come in lots of lengths, but it means what we're going to be doing is selling two of the smaller.

Aero mounts, Aero Fortes, and it'll allow you to triangulate. So I have two fixing points triangulating the point where you put your camera on. I don't know if that will make any sense to you people the way I've described it. But just in simple terms, it's a safe way of putting your camera, extending your camera away from your rig. It'll be attached to your kit like a normal mass mount, but it'll be sticking out.

So for people who want to get those shots where the camera is further away from the kit, if that makes any sense. So I'll just, I can show you, I've got bits on the desk. Can you see this? Yes. Length of carbon. So that would fit into one of the mounts.

That's what people are doing. They're fixing an arrow 40 onto a mast with a big extension on it. Of course it can flop all over the place. Now they really tighten it up and sometimes it doesn't, but all we're going to be doing is you can still do that, but also we'll have a system that will triangulate it. So you have two mounds. Does that make any sense? Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it's supporting. You'd have another.

Luc Moore (53:03.214)
You'd have another mount on there. Yeah. So you buy two. Yeah. Okay. And it just means it becomes then suddenly really strong. So it's still really light. In essence for folks at home, it's almost like a tripod, except it's a two legged tripod. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So it's a two legged tripod, two attachment points with those coming into, and then you have the rod extending and hooking up to your camera. So therefore it's going to be stiffer and then safer. Okay. That's it. Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, all right. I think I can try that. Yeah, it should be good. Yeah, we have some samples quite soon, actually. Good to know. I'll get some out of here. Is there anything else that you wanted to chat about, let people know about?

I think we probably covered most of it.

I think it's nice to just talk a little bit about, like we have done about how just getting an idea out to market, how the process of that. And it's kind of the service on here and let me talk about it a bit. Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, like Frank and Matthias both love your mounts. They're using it all the time and now he's using Surfer app as well. And they'll just send me.

the video of them using your product and then surfer surfer surfer pro of them say, look, like I flew this far and did this. So it's definitely what this allows is for a more like comprehensive kind of experience or a deeper experience and allowing that to share. So definitely wanted to talk to you about to find out the passion of why this started and how it started and what your early designs were like, because

Luc Moore (54:49.678)
I know for anybody entrepreneur, like getting out something into the market, coming from passion base is very difficult. Like not only do you have to overcome your own fears of, of borrowing stuff, but then you're like, well, this taint my love with my sport. Like what happens if it doesn't get accepted by those within the industry that I look up to, I'm going to see like, how is this going to do? Right? Yeah. It's a risk.

I never thought about that. God, that's the point. Definitely. It is. Like if you meet your biggest fan and you're like, bro, I'm not using your product, man. I got this. And it's like, damn it. Shit. Yeah. Never thought about that. Glad I didn't talk to you before we started it. Yeah. No, we were lucky. It was good. But like I said, we did go through that very difficult time and we did lose our house through it, which has taken years to get back.

to where we were. It's very, very close call that was. We needed to bust the whole business, everything. So yeah, it's not always easy. But yeah, worth doing. All right, Joe. Well, hey, thanks for coming on, sharing, talking. And we're going to have to talk to Frank because we're going to work with you on some IG stuff, Instagram stuff. So I think that's going to be super fun. Yeah, thanks for taking the time. Same to you, Luke. That's brilliant. Thanks so much for having me on. All there.

I'll hang out, we'll chat afterwards. Yeah, for sure. Say goodbye. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us today and we'll see you next time.