Duotone Mag 2024

FINN & JEFFREY SPENCER (THE “SPENCER BROTHERS”) – WING BOARD DESIGN Finn and Jeffrey Spencer joined the international Duotone Wing Foil Team mid 2022. They’ve been at the forefront of innovation from the early beginning of Wing Foiling, inventing tricks like the backflip. Also being really early adopters in Prone and Downwind Foling makes them very complete in their foiling skills. Originally from Canada, they are being based on Maui for around 20 years. Finn and Jeffrey took over part of the board designing from Sky Solbach for the 2024 range with the Downwinder, and are currently designing the full 2025 range of foil board shapes. With the start of the year 2024 they are also in a program with Ken Winner to learn about wing design, so they are becoming an integral part of the Duotone family, not only as outstanding athletes, but also as an R&D and design team. “We have lived on Maui pretty much our whole lives. With its wide range of conditions and a lot of brands having their R&D based here, it’s the perfect place for board development. Just like us, there’s a lot of people here passionate about board design, which is very inspiring. The main thing that drives our designs is the search for performance and functionality. Right from when we first joined Duotone, Sky was always very open minded about trying whatever new board shape ideas we had. He also shared all his knowledge about board design with us and showed us how to use the software. Working with Sky and Ken has been amazing and we are very lucky to have them to learn from. Being able to ask questions and work together in person makes it easy to understand the process and work on new designs. Testing the foils, wings, and boards together helps us understand each aspect of the sport and find the best way to bring them all together. All of us being here on Maui makes it super easy to be productive when testing new boards and wings because we are able to go ride together and discuss our findings directly after. It greatly speeds up the prototyping process and helps us make improvements faster.” Sky Solbach about the Spencers: “We tested some of my wing board designs together and I was impressed with their ability to pinpoint certain performance traits that a lot of riders might not recognize right away. It was obvious to me that their relative inexperience in board design would be heavily outweighed by their superior athletic abilities. In other words, they needed no help from me in judging how the equipment was performing. I was confident they would figure out the design part over time. Their passion for the sport and their desire to ride the best possible equipment has spilled over naturally into design and together with my guidance and the technical support of our product management team has led to them designing top notch foil boards.” Ken Winner about the Spencers: “Finn and Jeffrey have a very positive attitude and are very dedicated to their craft. It’s rare to find individuals like them who are very talented athletically, who possess the capacity to think critically about design and also have a solid work ethic.” R & D LEOPOLD FRICKE Foil Development iXent The passionate sailor from Prien am Chiemsee was a sucessful member of the National Team in the Olympic 49er boat class from 2006 to 2011, winning two national titles. In 2010, he completed his studies in industrial engineering, mechanical engineering and patent engineering and joined the engineering office iXent in 2012 – an association of developers specializing in lightweight construction and sports equipment development, e.g. for Americas Cup boats, automotive prototypes, bobsleds for the ice channel, bicycles – and also foils. Since 2016, iXent has been working very closely with Boards & More, with Leopold primarily ensuring that the design of the foils and the connections can withstand all loads. Leopold is working in close cooperation with Duotone Foil Designer Jerome Bonieux. In addition to a classic CFD simulation for analyzing and predicting the profiles of the foils, he also uses a fluid-structure coupling with specially developed software to take into account the mutual influence of structure and flow. As an active wing foiler himself with average sailing skills, he always checks the suitability of the foil development for the customer himself on the water. MAX PAJANK Product Manager Foil Wing and Wing Boards Three days after receiving his Master’s certificate, Max started working in the Boards & More development department of Head of R&D Antonio Destino. In his master’s thesis for his degree in sports equipment technology at the Technikum in Vienna, Max, in cooperation with ION, investigated the forces on a kitesurf harness. In his first position at Boards & More, he was then responsible for the foils. In 2020, with the boom in the new sport of Wing Foiling, Max took over product management there. He is the interface between the shaper, graphics department and production, responsible for ensuring that the shaper knows in which direction development should take place, what specifications a board should have in terms of material structure and in which production steps the board is manufactured and how. In wing design, Max defines which technical properties the wing should have, which materials should be used and which seam construction should be inserted in which areas. In close cooperation with wing designer Ken Winner, he then implements this through to production. MAUI MUNICH ALEXANDER HELD Product Manager Foil Alexander is a proven specialist in materials science andmaterials engineering for metals, polymers and lightweight construction. After completing his studies, he spent five years at his university researching the development of lightweight high-performance ceramics such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) Fiber-Reinforced SiC for use in aeronautics and space technology. Since the development of fiber- reinforced ceramics is not fundamentally different from polymer fiber composites, which foils are made from, he followed the call of his passion for foil development at Boards & More in autumn 2022. This is where the Wing Foiling and Kitesurfing enthusiast can fully contribute his expertise in materials science, drive innovation, put all newly developed products through their paces in the laboratory and test them himself on the water. As an engineer, he checks the foils after testing to see whether structural adjustments are still necessary. As Product Manager, he exchanges creative ideas with all developers, prepares all data for final production, ensures quality and guarantees that the entire product range is available on the market worldwide at the planned time. D U O T O N E D U O T O N E 94 95 W H Y R & D T E A M