Aidan Nicholas- Armstrong Foil interview- M2O Race and wing foiling in the Gorge at AWSI 2024

The Blue Planet Show

Aidan Nicholas was at the Armstrong booth at the 2024 AWSI show in Hood River and I had the opportunity to interview him. We talk about the 2024 M2O race he won by a big margin, the Armstrong equipment he uses for racing and freestyle, wings, boards, foils, and riding in the Gorge the days before the show.

In an interview at the AWSI 2024 show, Aidan Nicholas, fresh off his victory in the Molokai to Oahu race, discussed his race strategy, equipment choices, and lessons learned from competing. He described how tricky the race was due to variable wind conditions, requiring tactical decisions to maintain speed. Aidan highlighted his use of a 580 foil for improved glide and the importance of multiple jibes to gain ground during the race. He also emphasized the role of his 7-meter wing in maintaining power during lighter winds, allowing him to bear off and keep momentum.

Aidan talked about his setup, including using a small 48-liter board during the race, though he mentioned a larger 65-liter board would have been more suitable in light wind sections. He also discussed the critical role of foils, noting his preference for the MA625 foil in everyday conditions and the 580 foil for races. The interview covered various technical aspects of wing design, board volume, and foil dynamics, with Aidan stressing the importance of a balanced setup for maximizing performance in racing and downwind conditions.

He also gave insight into Armstrong's new alloy rig, designed for a more affordable entry into high-performance setups without sacrificing durability, thanks to features like titanium fittings. This new alloy rig is a more budget-friendly option compared to traditional carbon setups, but with slightly lower performance.

Transcript of the interview:

Aloha, it's Robert with Blue Planet. We're here at the AWSI show 2024. I'm here with Aidan Nicholas. You just won the Molokai to Oahu race. And then we got a bunch of footage of you at the hatchery the last few days, like right before the show started. We had some really fun conditions. Yeah, we did.

The gorge turned on and It does what it does best and we're in some fun conditions close to the, close to Hood, which was nice. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the race first. So the Molokai to Oahu race, you were like, I think you finished like miles ahead of everybody else, right? Like a couple miles probably, something like that?

Yeah, I hit it. It was a tricky race, that's for sure. Yeah, it got really light in the middle, right? Very light. It was what do we have in the middle there? It was probably 6 to 10 knots. And it was a tactical, the cloud came through in the middle. The start was nuking. Middle was super light and the end started to pick back up again.

But, it was a few tactical decisions in the middle to decide whether I hit, go to Oahu or just keep playing down the bumps that I was in the middle. Which, a big improvement. So you can make downwind ground faster, but when I couldn't, when I didn't have the wind strength, it was hard to do that. So I was like, okay, I'm going to race out from this cloud cover.

I crossed to closer to Oahu, got out from the clouds and the wind started to pick up a little bit more and then played all the way down and had a pretty good race all the way through. So you actually stayed a little bit northerly of the run line. I definitely did. Yeah. Okay. There was a lot of jibes and I looked at my track this year in comparison to last year and last year.

I could probably count on that. Maybe six or seven jibes. That's when I think was in the vicinity of 80 to 90. So it's like really playing swell lines and in the middle there, when you get your speed, if you can jive on it, jive back again and gain another a hundred meters downwind, it makes a big difference.

So you use the jibes to actually make. When you didn't have those gusts and the swells lined up you could really soak on some fast rollers and just soak down there. And that's why I changed last year I rode the 65 MA, and this year I was on the 580, and it was just for the fact that I could actually glide on the waves when needed.

If it did die off, I could just cruise down and make sure that I could stay on the faces. It says pump over a little bit and connect some, so yeah. I found a lot of times the hardest part where, like if you came off a bump and then you in the trough and there's no wind or whatever, and you're just like, Oh, and then you just don't want to come off well.

Cause you know, you can't get back up on foot. It is super tricky out there. It was a tricky race for sure. I rode a pretty small board which I think going forward again I'd probably ride a little bit more volume. Something in the, I I'm 82kg so 175, 180, 180 pounds. And I ride, I rode a 48 litre but a 75 would have been a much better, safer option in that middle there if you did come down like a little bit.

You could actually get back up again. So you were able to go all the way without coming off foil though, or? I had one fall in the early section. I made a mishap and switching my feet in a jibe. Had a crash, came down there and then I had one other time with a wing clipped a wave top and got ripped down my hands.

But, and by the time I got it back in, I was on the water, but I still managed to get straight back up again. Now they're both pretty quick recoveries. Cool. And so let's talk about these wings. You used that, the seven meter, right? I did, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about that. I think last year you only had the smaller sizes in these wings, right?

We did. 6. 1 was the biggest and there's something I chatted to the guys about that we discussed and we're going, Okay, what wing size do we need for this race? What's the best sort of size? And VMG is the massive ball player in this whole thing. Downwind racing is you can have the fastest gear, but if you can't soak and 10 degrees difference makes a massive Speed difference you've got to be going for that 10 degrees is huge, right?

So The seven meter just allowed me it was a definitely overpowered at the top But I could get a lot of depth off the start line and then as it lightened off in the middle, I got back to my normal angles I run but I just had a bit more power in the hands and Over that course of that race, a lot of people tend to get pretty tired as it gets near the end.

So to have a wing that's got a little bit more power, it just allows you to, instead of going Oh, it's a bit lighter. I'll just come up. It's I've still got power. I can just bear away and actually soak more than coming up on it. And that's always a better option in a downwind race. Definitely.

I was using a seven meter as well, which at the start you were, it was Oh, it's really windy. Maybe I don't need a big wing, but then yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad they did use it. It's cool how you have this is to keep the center straight a little bit shorter. You have that square end here.

It's also to keep the wingtips a little bit shorter proportionally. So we can add a bit more area without going as wide. So if you look at our 6 1, a small difference there between actual wingspan. And allowing that there allows the working section, which is the section closest to the frame to be a little bit wider and actually gain some power through there.

So these have been super efficient and they just get you up in those super light conditions and get you racing. Okay. Yeah, so I guess just more power in the middle by making it exactly. So if you think about it, like that's your, on average, your longest part of a wing. So if you can expand that a little bit wider, and you can get the power through this section, and here you can get more square area.

In that main section of the wings, you don't have to push out the tips and you don't have to add another strut out here to give the extra support because you've got it in the middle there. And then we're using it with these handles, these same handles. I guess that's standard. That's our standard handles.

Yeah, so cool. So and then what would you say, in terms of what's the most important, I, in my opinion, it's For the foil is the most important because that's what determines your top speed you're like What's a comfortable speed you can ride but then obviously the wing provides the power so You need a power good powerful wing, but I would say that's probably come second to the foiler What would you say and then the board is probably third Yeah, it's I think they all play a part together Like it's a combination of things put together if you have the wrong board and you can't get up you're not right yeah there's a whole lot of strategical decisions and things Yeah, different.

Different setup feel feels nicer in the geometry and the difference between the foil and the trap and the deck Angle makes a massive difference. So having those and all combined together Can make a big difference on your riding experience foil and mask I was up to a 103. 5 mast is what I raced across my channel on.

And it was just so that gave me that extra, when you're coming down those cranking swells, you've just got that little bit extra to play. Yeah. Height. Gives you a little bit of reaction time to keep you from breaching it. A hundred percent. Yeah. And then, so would you like, and that's another question I have the closer you are to the surface of the water with the foil, the more efficient it is.

Yeah. But then with a longer mass. Just like a lot of times when I'm out there, even though I have a pretty long mask, I'm still pretty low to the surfaces for the safety, like safety surfing it a lot of times, especially when you're going fast. Is that kind of what you do, or do you always try to be as high as you can on the mask kind of thing?

I try to get as high as I can. I get to a certain point, there's a risk versus reward. It's like anything, any foil you ride, any mast you ride, it's always that risk versus reward of like how high top speed versus how comfortable am I at that speed. If you can ride a faster speed, but you're losing control every couple of minutes, like a crash is a minute of your time.

If you think about it your speed can drop off a few if you can actually have a setup that you can ride and it can make you a cross in that, in a cleaner run. Yeah. We didn't have a nuking one, but if it is nuking out there, you do get faces that are completely vertical. Coming out the back of them, it's like coming through a surf break.

You come through and you can completely breach out the front of them as they're crashing or as they're cresting at the top. Yeah, I find that if you're overtaking a bump, it's like you have to almost push your nose down and stay really low and not cause, yeah.

And that's where good boards are important because as you touch down, if that board touches down and just hits the lip and keeps riding off, you're fine. But if it sticks or if it grabs, when you're just trying to stay low coming through that bump, it makes a big difference. The wing for sure. Especially in downwind races, these bigger wings is you've always got that power.

Like you want that power. It's one of those things any down window, you're going for a down window from Vito down to here, or even doing a down window on Maui. If the wind dies or the wind ladens off, you wanna be able to get home. So going that one size, extra bigger than you would for a regular back and forth session for a down window is.

Yeah, another reason is to that once you bear off the wind you have less effective wind in your wing, right? So you actually need more power to have that angle, so yeah makes sense So yeah, let's talk a little bit about the board like what board we're using in the Molokai race I was using my 48 liter wing board You have one of those here?

Oh wow, so yeah, that's a pretty small board for for racing, eh? Exactly. Would you say, yeah? That was much smaller than I probably should have been using. It was what I had and what I was traveling with. I definitely, looking at it, it's probably now, from what I know, I'd probably be on a 65 Midland.

This guy here. And this is what I probably should have ridden just a little bit extra a few like a few more litres It's gonna get me up a little bit easier middle of the channel. It's got a little bit more length in it So it's gonna glide and get up a little bit quicker. So this would have been my board of choice For the crossing.

Yeah, you just didn't have it on the day of the race. Exactly. Yeah, that's one of those things It's what you travel with and I travel with this and I ride this all the time. So I am quite dialed in Yeah, and then you can use it in anything, like waves racing. And that's what I was doing, I did some wave stuff.

Even if you really have to, you can prone it too, as a board. If you've gone, if you've come there and you're like, Oh sweet, okay, I've got this board, at least I can still get out on the water. Yeah. No matter what. And then, when you were riding at the hatchery last before the show, were you using this board or you had to using that board.

This board, yeah. So that's your go to, huh? Yep. And that one's 48 liters. How many liters is that one? 65. Okay, so we've got about 17 liters difference So yeah, and that makes a big difference if the wind is light and you don't have to get to the surface first Exactly. Especially those sort of wings, like once you get them moving with this sort of board You can go down pretty light and still be able to get up.

Pretty crucial And also just less drag and yeah, and I made that big real, I made that big realization when I was You know I had a GoPro on my board and I came down and it knocked the GoPro and I fix the GoPro and I was just outside the harbour in Maui and what happens is I fix the GoPro, went sweet, went to go back up again but didn't realise I was running fully on apparent and there was no wind to get back up again so I swam from the outside of the harbour.

Oh. All the way into the inside there and it was like a 40 minute paddle and that was when I was like, This is where that mid length would be really nice right now. This is where I could have got up in this light of breeze. Yeah, was that like the day before the Molokai race? The Maui to Molokai race?

Yeah. Yeah, that same thing happened to me. I fell like right outside the harbor and then I couldn't get going again for a while. It was really light right there, huh? Yeah. And that's what makes it a bit light. Yeah, that's where it's nice to have a bigger board. Yeah. Let's talk about the foils, like the foils you were using, and the, Yeah, so I was using a Wanna go up to the, check out the different foils?

Okay, so we're gonna talk a little bit about the foils I guess your, what you're usually using in the, in at the hatchery, what you would use on a race, and so on. Yeah, sounds good. That's my normal mast length, an 8. 65. And I was riding a 103. 5 for the race. Yeah. A big difference in height.

It doesn't look like that much but it makes a huge difference. Exactly. The feel is totally different, yeah. It's amazing that sort of, you from here down, that's your real height because you're almost running at maximum at that height all the time. And especially when you've got some extra waves that just makes a big difference.

It also makes a big difference in recovery. Because you drop, you get enough time to bring it back up again. When it's a real short mast, unless it's super short under 60 centimeters, sort of 50, in the 50s, then you can recover. Because the board, the nose never drops far enough, but anything where the pitch angle can be big enough, like what you get on these 865s and even the 103.

5, it's nice to have that extra height to just, out of it and compensate, yeah. Yeah, that's my truth. It's, a lot of times when you crash, it's not from, like you, sometimes you, it's like when you come back up again, like you hit the water, and then as you come back up, you can't recover back and the longer matches give you that much play.

A hundred percent. So I always ride a TC60 Fuse with this here's our fuses here I run a 60 Fuse, the guys behind the boat run a 50 Fuse, and and there's sometimes for Some of the disciplines or learning you get into a 70 fuse, but it's more 70 fuse Just gives you a little bit more pitch stability and front to back And sometimes you can run smaller tails, which allows you to carve a little quicker But still have that like forward to back pitch control But I rode the 60 fuse and that's pretty much the standard for Everything I do is on this thing.

Yeah. That's that. 60 fuselage, okay. And then, when we come to foils, we come over this to the side. MA625. Is the, Is what I ride on a daily basis. When I was at the hatch the other day, That was what I was on. Yeah. And that's the one that Cash was using at J Bay to ride these huge waves to. Which is So the potential and what it can do in the different days, And, Yeah, it's interesting too because it's Actually a fairly simple design.

There's nothing super fancy about it. Not super high aspect Not yeah, it's just a but it just does everything we want to do It allows us to rip it allows us to go fast. It keeps control You've got you got a nice roll. So there's a lot of potential that it has So yeah, and then this here is so last year I raced m2o on this.

Okay, so I did that and then this year You I did this, so I got a slightly wider span. And this. , which is gonna gimme a bit more, glide a little bit more there. And it's a five 80 and that's a 6 2 5 . So just more high aspect, just a bit more high aspect. These are like, the top end isn't as incredible on these, like you can't push them as fast.

But the glide and the potential for this downwind racing is what I needed and that's why running, I've even down winded this in the gorge, so I sub paddled it up and Oh wow. Had a, on a good day out here where it's real fun to rip the turns on. It's super playful. So you think this one actually has a higher top end speed, but this one is the kind of more comfortable at high speeds?

This one is more comfortable at high speed. This one can be pushed at high speed, but isn't as comfortable at pushed. But it gives me glide when that wind dies. And that's what I was like last year. A big lesson of like how I can glide the angle I can take and I got Rolled pretty hard from behind just down to leward by fin in the second half of the race and I was Like I really need something that I can actually just glide on my swells and actually capitalize on that so this is the kind of style we're in for there.

Cool All right So and then what are the other foils in the range you want to go over? Yes, sweet different foils, I just A speed 180 tail. That's my pretty standard option for any winging discipline in a sense. Unless I'm really cranking in the surf just because of the turning ability.

But, I put this with a red shim and I get my maximum speed potential. And it's super quick to ride. So the red shim is one degree. And that basically, it flattens out the angle. Exactly. You lose a little bit of pump, but you get a little bit more speed. So basically the angle between the front wing and the back wing is a little bit less, so it has less drag.

Yeah, it's even not between that, but even on this, the section flattens out. So then you can get more speed off that 180 tail. It just adds a little bit, it does, you do get a little bit less stability in a sense, on a small degree. And you lose a little bit of pumping when you shim it.

Okay. But, you get that extra speed potential, and that's what I love to ride when I wing and do freestyle and Wave ride. It's this. If I'm purely wave riding, and it's solid swell, or I'm towing or anything like that, it's the 180. Or the 140, sorry. It's still the speed one, yeah? Oh, the dart. The dart. The dart, and I put a blue shim on this one for me.

That's my preference. Just cause I like a little bit more speed potential, but it's already a fast enough tail. I want the control and I don't want to lose all my pump out of the tail. And then sometimes having, a little bit more angle also makes it easier to turn, right? Yeah. Okay.

So we go, the surf is still what the guys are all using behind the boat glides really good for flat water paddle ups. Pump 202 gives you that stability when you're jumping off the dock. So it gives you a little bit extra time to get onto the foil, get over the top of it and get pumping. And it's amazing.

It might only give you a small fraction of a second, but it's enough to make a big difference. Then we've got the 300, which is just super stable getting into it, going to provide that stability through learning new tacks, learning new jibes. Or your progression, and then a flow 2 3 5 as you're transitioning down from the S1 300 into your next other tail options.

Yeah. Yeah, and for those, the kind of beginner guys out there, don't start on one of these. There's more tails, yeah. There's definitely more advanced stuff, yeah. Okay. L. O. Rig. So ARMY came up with this and when I first heard about it I was like, Alloy, we've done carbon all this time, what are we doing?

And it wasn't until I saw the product and had a conversation with ARMY that I was like, Wow, this, he didn't come to corners. Like making alloy rigs with titanium fittings. Corrosion exactly and giving like everything that it comes with when you arrive in a box It's got all the washers that you could need for if you take this apart and replace it You can put a new washer on each time And it just allows you to get into the system into the Armstrong system at a better price point Yeah, much less expensive.

Exactly carbon mass and fuselage exactly and it's gonna have its difficulties because it's not your carbon setup It's not as the section is a Your 17 mil in thickness here in comparison to a performance mask where you are 14. So there's a big difference there. It's lower. But and you have your corrosion there.

I could sit my carbon mask together for years and it's still boom, take it off. This over time Army's done an incredible job with all the fittings, everything like that. How you can take it apart you can keep this whole setup together. It is. Advised to take off the front wing. I wanted to ask you about the wings too, because you were on a three meter wing when a lot of guys were on like two fives or two tiny wings, yeah?

Yes, we can chat about that, so yeah, so at the hatchery I was filming you and I think most of the Armstrong team was on the three meter wing when it was blowing super hard and a lot of the, a lot of the locals were on like two meter or two and a half meter wings, really tiny wings.

So I just was wondering like, what's and you do have a 2. 6. So what's the difference and why were you using the three meters? I like a little bit more power on average. I love the hang time it gives me here and coming down a little bit softer. The smaller wings, I love to switch with those guys when we're out there and actually freestyle becomes a lot easier when we go to smaller wings.

But, I love a little bit extra power. It's gotta be, when I jump, I'm not gonna come down a lot. It's a weight difference, when those guys come down with their weight, it's a lot lighter, so they can just come down softly. Whereas this here, is they've got so much power in their hands that they can just I have to go up and then coming down.

If I come down to smaller wing, I just dropped too fast.

Okay. Thanks, Aiden. Thanks so much. Appreciate your time and your knowledge, sharing the knowledge. So good luck and probably see you again next year at the Molokai race. Yeah, no, it'd be great. I'm looking forward to another year and see what happens. All right. Thanks for watching.