Daniel Paronetto (00:11)
to the Lab Rat Foiler podcast. My name is Dan and today we have Grant from 270 Boards, a board shaper. We're really into understanding how we can make board shapes for parawinging now, so I want to your brains on that. Welcome to the podcast, Grant.
Grant (00:27)
Thanks, Dan.
Daniel Paronetto (00:28)
Grant, I wanna start a little bit by understanding your sports background, your history in sports. Where did you start even if it wasn't in water sports, just everything that you've been doing in your life, which is a very interesting life and we'll touch that on as well. And what led you onto this foiling business that you have now?
Grant (00:50)
No, absolutely. You know, it started, actually started really young, learned to swim before I could walk. I grew up swimming throughout my life, swam through college. So the water sports has always been a part of my life. Grew up surfing. Grew up in the Northern Coast of California, in the Valley, just inside of Santa Cruz there. So grew up surfing, was tired of the crowds like most of us. A lot of days in the spring and summer, it gets blown out up in
Northern California primarily. And I remember coming back from college and seeing kite surfing and wind surfing. And I would always go try to surf north of Santa Cruz because that's typically where the good surf was, get away from crowds. And that really caught my eye in the wind world. So at the time I had lived in San Diego of all places, which is one of the lightest wind areas around. And I picked up kite surfing.
And I think it took me about a year to figure it out because of how bad the wind is down here. And so after I figured it out, I started traveling more north and going home quite a bit to take advantage of the consistent winds in the spring and the summer. by consistent comparably, know, a consistent day in San Diego is if we're lucky, 12 to 15 miles an hour versus anything north of Point Conception, which is basically the center of California, you get
Daniel Paronetto (01:52)
Mm.
Grant (02:16)
20 to 35 knots on any given spring day for the most part. So your ability to ride smaller equipment, more efficient equipment is drastic. But at the same token, riding in light winds I think makes you a better rider with the wind sports because you're able to be more efficient with your gear and take advantage of that. So started kiting back in 0405. So it's been a little bit about 20, 21 years now in the wind sport world.
And kiting was everything. I was absolutely addicted to chasing wind. We'd go down to Baja quite a bit. Spots like Punta San Carlos, La Ventana. We'd be going to Sherman Island. Everywhere you could imagine where there was wind and just kind of chasing the seasons around, kind of like what a lot of the wingers and parawingers do now. And same with downwinding, right? They look for those windy spots, those good angles to chase swell and to chase bumps.
That world of kiting probably lasted a good 15 years. because of the light wind situation, the hydrofoil came out. We saw the big names riding the big waves, Laird and Kai and everybody with the snowboard boots on the big waves. then Kai kind of started doing it with the surfboards and the stick on tracks that you had on the bottom of the surfboards. But by that time, were kites.
Daniel Paronetto (03:27)
Yeah, perfect.
Grant (03:44)
kite foiling had already come out. It was a light wind option for all of us down in Southern California. And I remember a certain individual at work, he was a kite surfer. He's like, hey, try my foil. it was, it was like, it was a chenard or a canard, sorry. And being an aviation and a pilot as well, didn't, I was like, really? It's actually going to have a smaller front wing and a larger back wing. was, it's reversed. So you have a long,
basically wing in the back in a stabilizer in the front that was a little bit smaller. it was actually really easy to foil. It took me just a little bit to figure it out. And then I finally got a liquid force setup. I remember it was a happy foil. And that was my first two foils I learned at Belmont, which is up in Long Beach. And I just remember just mowing the lawn back and forth. But I could actually get up in light wind and be powered. was so.
That's all we want to do is kite surf. And if that was all we could do to get with a kite, then we were happy. So the foil definitely opened my eyes. And then I remember about a year into that, I had some friends down here in San Diego, like Santa No Frey is a very popular spot for foiling. We have a place called Dogpatch and it's pretty much dedicated to foiling. All the surfers, all the long boarders, all the stand up paddlers.
Daniel Paronetto (05:07)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (05:09)
take that back, let me rewind. The Santa Palas and the foilers get to share it, but the surfers stay in their northern part. So we have this dedicated area just for foiling and it happens to be one of the best foiling waves on the coast. So I watched some of my friends start to foil and I was like, there's no way, this is such a fad, it's gonna go away, it's not gonna be popular. It's just gonna be one of those gimmicks and it's gonna come and go and sure enough, I got into it.
Daniel Paronetto (05:30)
Hmm.
Grant (05:39)
I remember I got my first Naish thruster and I mean, think the thing was probably an inch thick, but that's what I learned to foil on. And then I improved to a Lift 200. I remember that was my second foil and I thought that was the greatest thing, the Lift Surf. And it just, it took off from there. And at that time in foiling, there was a very select few of foils that you could choose from that were actually good. You you had GoFoil, you had Naish.
Daniel Paronetto (05:44)
yeah.
Hmm.
Grant (06:09)
You had Lift, which was probably the top brand at that time. Liquid Force had foils and Cloud9, Cloud9 was from the very beginning as well. But it was very focused. It was very focused on a core group of companies. And most of the kite companies actually had foils as well. But in my opinion, the kite companies
Daniel Paronetto (06:11)
Mm-hmm.
Have none.
Grant (06:37)
kind of held back a little bit. You had all these other companies starting to come up and build foils, do a lot of R &D with efficiency. And the kite companies didn't really think, in my opinion, that prone foiling was going to be a big thing, that maybe winging wasn't going to be a big thing. But the kite companies had the advantage when winging came out that they had the technology with the SLE kites, the single lead and edge kites, that they could actually build a quality wing. So the whole evolution with foiling
Daniel Paronetto (06:41)
I'm new.
Hmm.
Grant (07:07)
and getting into winging, that was a really interesting path that I saw. And in the beginning with boards, this is kind of where I got my ideas. We were designing boards with a local shaper here. He's been designing, building surfboards for over 30 years, Steve Ford here in Carlsbad. And he started popping out some little carbon, little soap box boards that we would prone on. And they worked fine.
And then Freedom Foyle Boards was developing boards at the time. And they were coming out. And it didn't matter which designer, which board that you rode.
in Oceanside, where I live, it's a mecca of surfboard building. You have a lot of major shapers throughout the world that get
boards, glass, and built just down the hill here. So we definitely have, I think, an edge on board building in this location. And with Steve Ford, we started designing some foil boards that worked fairly well. But we always encountered issues, whether it was blowing out boxes, the carbon job, the lamination wasn't that good, delaminations.
Daniel Paronetto (08:19)
Hmm.
Grant (08:23)
There were some other board builders, Freedom Foil boards that were coming out with amazing designs. You have King Paddle Sports in Carlsbad. yeah, so it was the evolution, right? I mean, in the beginning there was a lot of issues. We were using light foam core, but the lamination wasn't holding up. The boxes were popping out. And being a bigger rider, one of my...
Daniel Paronetto (08:31)
Yeah, they were cool.
Grant (08:50)
my biggest issues was I was literally foiling, pumping out the waves and licking waves and I could hear boxes crack under my feet every time I would pump and give it that front forward pressure. And I would flip the board over and the lamination would be protruding and you could see the box actually ripping the carbon fiber out. So Steve Ford and I were scratching our head and we...
Daniel Paronetto (09:08)
Gone. Yeah.
Grant (09:17)
I don't know how many shapers were doing this at the time, but we decided to throw in some stringers. And we threw in some quarter inch plywood stringers. We routed a little hole. We set those boxes, the flanges on the stringers. And at that point, that was the first time I actually didn't break a box. And it was kind of an aha moment. So.
Daniel Paronetto (09:24)
Mm-hmm.
Nice.
Grant (09:44)
You know, was a period of time with the board building where I just wasn't happy with what was coming out because either I was breaking the board or I thought that I could design something better. So I simply got on Shape3D, the free version, started screwing around, getting blanks cut. And Steve Ford was or is a phenomenal
Daniel Paronetto (10:00)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (10:13)
designer when it comes to using Shape3D, understanding the program, because every program has its glitches, right? And it's about control points. It's not having too many control points, understanding the curves, adding the slices in the board, different... There's just so much that goes into Shape3D and computer-aided design. And...
Daniel Paronetto (10:30)
Hmm.
Grant (10:40)
I just kept working on it and improving and I would look at other shapes out there that I really enjoyed and I would try to not necessarily copy but I would mimic them but make them better in my way. I would add volume but I would use a similar outline and I would get rid of things like double concave and put a flat bottom and see if that worked better. Add some more hard edges maybe make a little more displacement in the front.
Daniel Paronetto (10:43)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Grant (11:08)
It was a lot, was a big evolution of board building and it's still going on. I'm still learning a lot. I'm still improving designs and I've had a few comments over the years when I'm doing this is, well, I'm paying for you to learn how to build boards and the evolution. And my response to that is you're paying every company for the evolution of board building or
Daniel Paronetto (11:35)
We,
100%. We all are doing the same thing. Yeah. We're all testing. Yeah.
Grant (11:37)
or product building. So for somebody to tell me that I should,
yeah, for somebody to tell me that I should know how to do this and make it perfect, excuse my French, but you know, that's bull crap. In order to be better, you have to be willing to improve. And that's gonna be through the evolution process of board building, better materials, better design, better lamination schedule. It's constant and you're never gonna stop learning or else
Daniel Paronetto (11:53)
Yep.
Hmm.
Grant (12:06)
you're
going to get passed up pretty quick. you know, so kind of going back to, you know, integrating the boards with now the evolution of foiling and the sports that come in, you know, I took up winging, winging, I still absolutely love, I still kite surf as much as I can. What's great about winging is you're able to, it's all,
Daniel Paronetto (12:10)
percent.
Grant (12:34)
Discipline specific right so some days that are better for kite surfing and there's some days that are better for wing foiling and there's just like there's some days that are better for parawing versus downwind and My my goal with wind sports was to be able to Get out there and do any sport whether it's surf stand-up surf take the ski out go toe Do step offs toe at with the surfboard toe foil? Winging
Daniel Paronetto (12:45)
Yeah, 100%.
Hmm.
Grant (13:03)
prone foiling, getting and downwind now, the parawing, winging, you name it, as long as there's something out there, I have a discipline that I can go have fun on the water and enjoy our ocean or a lake. that's, think to me, that's, I'm not saying I'm the best waterman or a true waterman, but to me, the definition of a true waterman is the ability to do all the sports that you can get your hands on and do it well.
Daniel Paronetto (13:10)
Mm-hmm.
I love that. I love that.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (13:33)
My
goal is to be a good waterman in every aspect.
Daniel Paronetto (13:38)
I love
that because I think there's, we, we have, we experienced very different conditions as well. And just the ability to on the day that it's perfect for winging, go have the best winging session. the, if it's a down-winding day, then go do that and experience or do the best thing that the conditions are giving you for that day. That's, completely resonate with that man.
Grant (14:02)
Absolutely, it's very spot-specific. San Diego, we're going to be focusing on different disciplines versus central coast of California and northern California because the conditions here are completely 180 degrees different from what we got up north. And then just south of the border in Baja, 30 minutes from here is ripping wind just like it is four hours north of here in California.
We have a lot to offer here in California all the way basically to Cabo San Lucas as far as different choices and different disciplines that we can use. And I don't believe a lot of people know that or that they do, but they're not willing to make that effort to go chase those conditions, which make you a better waterman all around. Yeah.
Daniel Paronetto (14:51)
Yeah, it's a type of person as well. Isn't it? It's just
a mentality. There's always the surfer mentality that will be a surfer for the rest of his life. But, and that's good for them and they're happy doing that. And that's great. But what I love about our sport is that it allows us to experience the ocean so many different ways to be out there. And I think that allows us to share this information and Stokes so much better than just sticking to that one thing. So I, I, dude, I am all.
like all over that kind of head space. And I'm glad that you have that head space. You're gonna be a better board shaper for that as well.
Grant (15:28)
Yeah, and I believe, you know, kite surfing was the first community that really surfing surfers in general are very close minded. It's very hard to get a soul surfer that's stuck on a short board, a thruster set up to branch out and enjoy a day on a stand up surfboard or a long board or even a step up or a mid length. And like I said, I mean, to be a true waterman, you got to be able to
Daniel Paronetto (15:39)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (15:58)
adapt to any type of craft out there and do it well and You know even maybe learning switch foot, you know, there's a local legend here Ted Robinson who you know I've learned everything from him on the ski and I continue to learn he continues a gripe at me when I make mistakes, but that's how you That's how you learn. That's how you become better. But he You know for me kite surfing I'm able to
to kite switch stance. And can kite switch stance almost better than I do frontside because of our predominant wind direction. Ted's a good example. He taught me to ride switch stance on a standup surfboard. And he's trying to do that for even foiling. you gotta always be up for change and up for a challenge and to make yourself better. Because that's what makes it fun. That's what it's all about. I guess with
Daniel Paronetto (16:24)
Nice.
Mm-hmm.
God, that's hard.
Grant (16:52)
you know, with foiling and winging and starting this board journey about two years ago, you know, my primary goal was to, one, I'm a bigger rider. I'm 6'5", right now I'm about 2'30", with a wetsuit probably 2'40", and I wanted to make boards, it's easy to make a board for a smaller rider, but it's harder to make a board focus on a larger stature rider.
Daniel Paronetto (17:11)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (17:22)
And I really wanted to focus on designs that we can get our bigger stature riders up, especially in lighter wind. It's everything. If you don't have the right board, you're not going to ride. So the board is your foundation of foiling, just like all these other disciplines that we have. And it's going through prototypes, it's going through different models, seeing what doesn't work, what does work, and adjusting the volume and focusing on board speed.
Daniel Paronetto (17:34)
Hmm.
Grant (17:51)
you know, now we got these high speed foils that are coming out. What's the most efficient board to get that foil going? Or, you know, the evolution of board buildings has been incredible from the stand up foil boards that people used to ride in the surf, even tried a downwind on to what you see now that are 17, 16, 15 inches wide. And that's going to happen with parawinging to some extent, but, you know, parawinging is just another branch, it's another tool.
Daniel Paronetto (18:10)
Oh, 100%. Yeah, it's crazy.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (18:21)
in our tool belt that we can use out there in the ocean.
Daniel Paronetto (18:24)
When did you first see a parawing? What was your introduction to parowinging and what was the first one that you laid your eyes on?
Grant (18:33)
The first one that I saw was, I think like most of the, well, I think the first production one I saw was a BRM. I remember seeing Cynbad on some funny looking trash bags out there and she's always chasing when, and I had met Cynbad years ago at Sherman Island and we've kind of connected over the years. Don't know her very well, but.
Daniel Paronetto (18:42)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Cool.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (19:01)
We know of each other when we see each other. And I remember seeing her, I think in Maui on some very small little pocket wings. And I think also they were trying to use trainer kites at some point, cutting the strings down, putting a bar on it. Yeah, from the kite surfing days, right? And I've even seen guys kite-flying with trainer kites. And now some of the kite companies have developed small ram air foil kites.
Daniel Paronetto (19:17)
Yeah, they did all sorts of stuff up there,
Mm-hmm.
Grant (19:31)
that are basically the size of a trainer kite, but they're more efficient because of way that maybe the bridle system is in the bar system versus just a two line kite. So yeah, the BRM was probably the first true production. then having the glider port here in La Jolla, know, paragliding is a big thing. So I had some friends that do some paragliding and he got ahold of me and said, hey, you
D-Wing's coming out with some Para-Wings that they're probably gonna be really good quality because they've been in the Paragliding business for a long time, as you mentioned in some of your other podcasts. yeah. So then the D-Wing Flow. So my first experience with the Para-Wing was definitely the BRM and now it's been the D-Wing, Flow.
Daniel Paronetto (20:06)
Mm-hmm.
yeah, the flow. Yeah.
And you've written both of them?
Grant (20:26)
Yes, I got to ride the BRM for a little bit down in Baja and recently I've been riding the D-Wing locally in here in a variety of conditions that we've had.
Daniel Paronetto (20:34)
Mm-hmm.
think it's so cool to talk to you about being a heavier rider. And for people, you said like over two, two 40 pounds, that's around like what 105 kilos or something. So it's over a hundred kilos. and it's, it's a different thing to be a big rider in parawinging. Like what are the challenges that you faced when you were first starting out being that tall stature and heavier rider?
Grant (21:06)
Oh gosh, started with, honestly it started with kiting. I remember kiting, we'd have to have 16 meters, 17, 20 meter kites at times. So that translates down to not only winging, but also the para-wing to some extent. I think we're able to be more efficient with a smaller para-wing now because of board design and the innovation in board design. So as far as parawinging goes,
Daniel Paronetto (21:23)
Hmm.
Grant (21:35)
I straight went for the five meter because of, or the five two where we live in San Diego. And we've actually had been able to test it locally here in a variety of conditions from about 13 to 15 miles an hour to well over 20. So it's, I've been able to really feel the power distribution and how that wing reacts and works in there. And I've noticed
Lot compared to the hand wings the the range and it's been spoken about another podcast and videos on YouTube through a lot of riders is The range is actually really small with these parawings. It's not like a hand wing where you have a larger wind range or like a kite And I I think there was and I could be wrong but I think there was a misconception that because they're essentially ram air kites and In the kite-surfing world the ram air kites
Daniel Paronetto (22:16)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (22:33)
really work and are efficient in light winds. You have the racers down in La Ventana all winter long training and they're not necessarily in super high winds. They would usually come out at five o'clock at night in the lighter winds and train because of the efficiency of those ram air kites, which is essentially what we have as far as the D-Wing and the BRM. But
Daniel Paronetto (22:37)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (23:02)
because I believe, and you'd probably have to ask the parawing designer on this, I believe it's mainly because of the short lines, why the range is so small, and they're a small kite basically. So that range is very tight,
Daniel Paronetto (23:14)
Hmm.
Grant (23:18)
And that's been my experience and also starting on a larger leaderboard. I had some friends in the beginning say, I just take out your 40, 50 liter board. But that's to me, that's worse than winging and learning to wing on a sinker versus a big floaty soap box.
Daniel Paronetto (23:19)
Mm-hmm.
god no.
Yeah, no, you can't do that.
Not at the start of these, it, takes a little while for you just to, to get the, like the, the hand handling of the power wing and the lines and launching it in the water and all of that stuff. You know, you need three or four sessions to get your head around it. And, and then once you're comfortable with it in the water, you able to water relaunch and things like that are, you know, are not an issue anymore. and you're getting up then sure. Like start thinking about down.
Grant (23:45)
Yeah.
Daniel Paronetto (24:10)
downsizing your gear, but, um, are you, I started on the biggest thing I had, like the biggest downwind board I had and the biggest foil I had, um, mine was an eight to by 19, 115 liters. Um, and that was the board I paddle on. And the biggest foil I have is the, um, 11 30 S from code. And I just chucked the biggest tail I had, like just the biggest everything. And that got me up, you know, but it.
It also comes from having, like you said, a kiting background, a winging background. I knew what I had to do. I had the board balance and that helped me heaps. So when you started at like what size board did you go out on? What size foil and what was that first impression with that five too? Was it enough like to get you up or what was the wind range that you were able to go out on?
Grant (25:03)
You know, I was on a BRM. It was the four meter, four point whatever it is. And I was on a 90 liter downwind board, which is actually really small for me. My size downwind that I'm going through this process and painful process of learning is start at 145 now down to 130, but 90 liters, 90 to 100 is about by neutral buoyancy in a board.
I knew that I would be for the most part on top of the water once I get just a little bit of board speed. So once I figured that out, put the parawing up, went through the rat's nest mess like everybody's gone through, saying a lot of swear words just like we did with the downwind in, nose of the board going into the lines, the parawing filling up with water. It was just miserable.
Daniel Paronetto (25:48)
Yep. yeah.
horrible.
Grant (26:03)
Until I had a good friend of mine, Chris Goodsight from Cloud9, he's like, dude, where are my harness? It's going to be a lifesaver. this AnchorMan harness is a lifesaver. If you're learning to parawing and it's not, I'm not saying this because I'm sponsored by Cloud9 or promoting the product. I guess I could say I'm promoting the product because I know it works. But when you wear this harness,
Daniel Paronetto (26:13)
Hmm.
Grant (26:33)
and you're able to wear a shirt and tuck your parawing in your shirt, put the bar in the harness and put the leash on there, my gosh, it makes it a heck of a lot easier. And not only that, being able to hook in. And this is important in the parawing process because in the beginning kite days when there was no de-power, you basically had your arms ripped out of your shoulder sockets. So the harness really, in my opinion,
Daniel Paronetto (26:39)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (27:02)
and being able to hook in, you're able to not only feather the power, but if you release that that pair of wing, it's instantly going to flip, flip out onto the water and you pull it in and it's not it's never going to tangle. And that's a big safety issue that I see that is really important when you are parawing and out there. And it made my learning process a million times easier. And I won't even I've had.
Daniel Paronetto (27:20)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (27:29)
a couple sessions of the dealing without the harness and it's been absolutely miserable because I'm just getting yanked as hard as I can. And then once I'm up, can barely edge because I can't hook in and really control all that power with my waist like a kite. So yeah, I've, yeah.
Daniel Paronetto (27:39)
Mmm.
It's tough, man. It's tough because we're
still at the, I think we're still, still at that point where, sorry. And I think we have a little bit of lag here in the audio, but, sorry if I'm speaking over you, Grant. I think we're at that point still where we, the pair wings, the parawing you need to get up is probably not the power when you want, are you riding once you're up?
The gear is gonna get better and the wind range is gonna get better But it is a very small window of what can get you up and what you can ride once you're up When you're down winning, think there's It doesn't matter that much because you're going towards the wind and you can depower the wing that way Creating slack on the lines and you're just you know packing it to do a downwinder But if you're doing up winds and down winds and like riding in the same spot
There is a narrow window there that you just can't edge up wind and the thing is just gonna haul you downwind.
Grant (28:48)
Right, and that's where wearing something like a harness, if you are doing those upwind tacks, that's gonna make your life a heck of a lot easier. It's gonna save your arms, your energy. And I agree with you. It's once you get up, they're very powerful, and that's where, we'll get into it, but that's where board design is very important. And...
Daniel Paronetto (28:56)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (29:15)
Just learning how to use the pair of wing. It's not a wing that you're going to be pumping like a hand wing or even diving really like a kite. The D wing is actually compared to the BRM. You can actually get a little bit of a pump out of that, which I thought was pretty impressive. But the BRM, that thing will just collapse on you. So there's definitely a difference with those designs. Yeah.
Daniel Paronetto (29:25)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It doesn't take the pumping that well.
Grant (29:45)
The BRM and the D-Wing, they're both amazing in their own way, but they both have pros and cons, and that's just the way it is right now, because there's only two products out there until Ozone comes out with theirs here pretty soon.
Daniel Paronetto (29:46)
Yeah.
Yeah, look, are, look, it's, I agree with you. They will both do the job and then we'll both get the job done. I, these parawings right now, I think because it's such an early market, the brand that will probably be seen as the better brand is just a brand that does it all because it's a niche market. So if you do it all great, everybody can have fun.
But you know, if you're a brand coming out with a parawings specifically for wave riding or specifically for down winding, then you're like creating something for a niche in a niche. And, and then I think the market's way too small for that still. but in speaking about board designs and this is what I really want to get into with you because you have really good knowledge of what's working, in this mid length kind of
size range and I think the mid-length size range is absolutely fantastic for power winging. But what do we have today in the market? What's like the standard winging mid-length that we have today and how the power winging mid-length might have to be a little bit different for to support power winging in a better way.
Grant (31:10)
You know, I think the average mid-length for winging it, it depends on where you're at wind speed wise. Here in San Diego, which I don't wing a ton down here because I'm in higher wind so much. But from what I've seen, it's going to be the larger boards. It's going to be anything from six to eight foot, maybe even downwind boards to get up.
It might be some of those smaller soap boxy type of boards that are a little more square. And I feel from what I've seen at Hood and in other windy areas in the Northern Coast, like Avila Beach where we do a lot of the runs and wave riding up north of there, everything's gotten narrower and maybe a little bit longer than a prone board.
Daniel Paronetto (31:41)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (32:08)
That sweet spot that I have found is between like 18 to 20 inches wide and anywhere from five, five to six foot is a really efficient, as long as you have the appropriate volume, a really good size for a board for winging. And I think that's going to translate somewhat to parawinging. I think with parawinging though,
Daniel Paronetto (32:25)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (32:36)
You might need a little more volume, a little more length, but you can keep that narrowness for board speed. it's, like I said, it's an evolution, right? We're trying to figure out. I got a board back here for a guy about my size. And this one's about 7'4". I believe it's 19 wide. And it's gonna be, it's still an incredible.
Wing board as well as a parawing board, but the guy's also 230 235. He's big like me And it's I believe this board right here is
Daniel Paronetto (33:13)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Grant (33:19)
thing's 120 liters so 7.4 19 wide 120 120 liters but that's gonna enable him more than neutral buoyancy get a lot of board speed really fast because with that pair of wing you're basically pointing straight downwind and get on foil and the volume and the swing weight distribution is designed specifically for that
Daniel Paronetto (33:24)
Okay.
Grant (33:47)
And it's almost like a mini downwind board essentially. That's kind of my vision with a lot of the paraling boards. I think a lot of guys smaller in stature can get away with a smaller board just because of comes down to weight, comes down to weight in your foil. And I think from what I've seen with
Daniel Paronetto (34:04)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (34:09)
The foils, there's a couple companies out there that have some absolute amazing foils for low end, whether it be Code or the new KT line, even some of the F1 gear. But there's specific foils out there. I've been really impressed by the KT foils because being a pilot, I understand they're basically putting flaps in their foils.
Daniel Paronetto (34:22)
Yeah.
Yep.
Grant (34:38)
this
gets you an incredible low end and such a low stall speed for a bigger rider, that was an instant draw to me because I want to be coming down to a low stall speed, but I also want to be able to create lift early and I need as much of that that I can get and for right now, at least on the market, that's what's important for me. And I think
Daniel Paronetto (34:51)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (35:05)
some of the larger riders will take advantage of that. But there's lots of other foils out there. Everybody has a different flavor when it comes to riding and some foils may get up earlier and have a better stall speed, but some may surf better if you can get up and you're a lighter rider. So, just depends.
Daniel Paronetto (35:22)
Yeah. Yeah. I, I asked myself a lot about volume distribution on a, on a parawing specific board and I'm not quite sure like where to actually add a little more volume. think about when I'm getting up that I do want a little bit of nose volume on it, but I can't have that tail dragging creating, you know, that drag on the water. Like it's almost an even.
volume distribution, maybe like 55, know, 45 towards the front, but I do feel a little bit of the nose up helps me trying to get a small board out of the water. So at least the nose is up and then I can create a little momentum for the rest of the board to come up. Do you have any thoughts on weight distribution that you're playing around with for that kind of purpose?
Grant (36:20)
Yeah, I think I've seen this. I've seen it a lot in the wing boards, but I've seen it. I've really tried to study the downwind boards. know, when I was in hood at AWSI this last year, I was really eyeing a lot of boards and even the foil fever event and just seeing how some of the top shapers out there, you know, Frank, Marcus from code and
asking them some questions and really just kind of get in their opinion. I've kind of taken, I feel like the best design ideas from everybody and I've tried to put those into my designs for the volume distribution. I've kind of like what you said, I've put more volume in the nose, whether it's pushing that wide point a little bit forward or putting a little
extra nose and you know that bowl that everybody talks about. And I think that helps with forward projection from from my experience. And also I've noticed in the tail. We've we've had a lot of kick in the tail and a lot of boards and a good example of a good design, I think, is that KT Super K and it's been talked about for parawinging and
A couple of my models have a very similar projection out the back. And I like that design because when you are talking about board speed, you're talking about high performance, more wetted area and that sharper rail line out the back, it almost gives you something to push against when you are in those lighter winds, you're trying to get up on foil because ultimately at end of the day, we're just trying to get up on foil.
Daniel Paronetto (37:56)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (38:15)
If we can't get on foil, it's worthless. So if we have that right volume distribution, the right board speed, and that release, which is going to happen at some point when you have enough board speed, that distribution is extremely important. So pushing it a little bit more forward, but also having that projection out the back to give you that release, I think is something that you're going to see in a lot of boards coming out. from what I've...
Daniel Paronetto (38:28)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (38:42)
design and the boards that I've pushed out there from Puerto Rico with the shop out there with Dylan, Randy with some of his customers out there with some of the full drive boards even it translates across the board with a lot of the disciplines and I've just had a lot of success with it and it's a lot of R &D, it's a lot of trial and error some boards we make and I get out there it's like this isn't working.
Daniel Paronetto (38:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, nice.
Grant (39:12)
And I have a wing board that I can show you that works really well and a wing board that I can show you that it works really good once it's on foil. But to get on foil, it's a lot more work than this board because of specifically the tail design or the outline and how, where I put those hard edges on the bottom to get that release. So it's a little swine details.
Daniel Paronetto (39:27)
Mm-hmm.
What about the bottom shape? see so many different bottom shapes out there where like flat bottom shapes that, correct me if I'm wrong, give you a little bit earlier planing, you know, on those wing kind of freestyle boards. Would that be something? And I think Duotone has a board that's kind of like that, it's like a mid-length, I forgot the name now, is it Spitfire? Is it the Spitfire? I have no idea.
that is kind of a mid length size, but very flat bottom. And what does a flat bottom do to that initial planing and planing speed?
Grant (40:15)
You know, it's an interesting question.
I was going back and forth with this quite a bit on board design and bottom design. I, this is just my opinion. I try to throw more of a displacement hole in the front, some more of a rounded hole and translate that right at your front feet to a planing hole that's flat. But
It's going to depend on the type of board as well. So the board you see behind me, it's got more, it's basically like a mini downwind. It's got displacement in the front, which translates into planing out the back with some sharp edges for the release. And I saw a really good video recently with water flowing over. think it was, it was on Instagram. posted something about hard edges.
and water flowing over a hard edge and water flowing over a curve, curvature edge. And you could see how the water sticks over that curvature edge and over that hard edge, that 45 or whatever it was, it launched off and it was very evident that that water wanted to release. So there's, with the board design, the goal obviously is forward projection.
Daniel Paronetto (41:26)
Mmm.
Grant (41:44)
If you look at the old-school paddleboards or the bark boards and you study their designs They got a displacement hole pretty much through the whole thing to the tail because you're on your stomach anyways, but that displacement gives you board speed projection But to get on foil and to release that board off the water you need a planing hole with a sharp edge And there's some designers out there that I I highly respect they think a planing
hole all the way back and flat with hard edges to the very nose is the way to go, I would disagree a bit because now you're talking about touchdowns as well. If you have a hard edge and a touchdown, that hard edge is gonna catch more than a planning hole, or sorry, displacement hole, I'm getting mixed up with my terms, that's gonna bounce off and skip off the water, which is what you see with a lot of downwind boards. They're skipping off the water because that nose is hitting and essentially skipping.
Daniel Paronetto (42:29)
Hmm.
Grant (42:44)
give it forward momentum. that's kind of the design tactic that I've focused on. And it follows through in most of my designs from foil drive to prone, downwind, mid-length, winging, having more of displacement with planing out the back. it just translates. And it'll
Daniel Paronetto (43:00)
Mmm.
Grant (43:10)
That formula will switch around depending on the discipline and the type of rider, the weight of the rider, what they're looking for. And that's the beauty of custom, right? You build a custom board and you tailor it to that rider, to what they're looking for. And, you know, doing it in 3D on CAD really allows you, gives you the ability to do that.
Daniel Paronetto (43:22)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, look, I, I think all my, all my boards, eventually I had maybe one production board to start out with, which was, very like the first, downwind or board from Armstrong, seven, seven something, 121 liters. can't remember. was pretty wide, like 21 wide or something. and then after that, I was always trying to get in touch with the board shaper and talk through what I wanted and.
What is your process like when someone comes to you and they say, hey, Grant, I want to do a board. This is what I have in mind. I love this interaction with the Shaper and doing something custom. If you have the opportunity to do that or have enough need, let's say, to do something custom, what's your experience like with customers when they ask you for one?
Grant (44:30)
No, absolutely. It kind of brings you back to the custom surfboard days, right? You go into the shop, you talk to the shaper, you tell them what you want. They really sit down, they explain everything to you, and they go to town with the design and they show you the design and what they're thinking, and then they give you the green light and kind of go from there. So similar with this process, know, everything
Daniel Paronetto (44:50)
Hmm.
Grant (45:00)
that I've done, believe it or not, has been through Instagram. I don't have a website yet. I'm working on that. But it's been more self promoting. And when somebody contacts me either through Facebook, maybe from a post or a comment versus Instagram, I'm pretty quick to reply. And I simply ask them, you what are you looking for?
What's your abilities? What discipline is this for? And we'll just go through the design. I'll throw out a couple of concepts. This is what I've done in the past. Maybe I'll take a previous design that I have and I'll adjust the volume and the rails and different details of the board to tailor what they're looking for if they give me the dimensions. But it'll be a continuous conversation until they give me a thumbs up.
Daniel Paronetto (45:40)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (45:58)
and they're happy with the product and I get it sent over to Cut and CNC. So I want to make sure that they know exactly what they're getting and that they've seen it already in that 3D model in a plan view and they can kind of envision what they're going to be writing soon in a couple, know, number of months or a couple weeks, depending how busy I am.
Daniel Paronetto (46:00)
Mm-hmm.
That's awesome, man. feel like in my head, still, I don't know what to do with my next board. And that's why I love having these conversations because there's so many opportunities to test and try things. And it's hard sometimes because you have to pull the plug on something that might not be ideal and custom boards aren't cheap, do you feel, there's a board out that came out in the market for foil drive.
a little while back that it, it came out as something that is a little bit longer, like a five, six, whatever, for surf, but at like 30 ish liters, you know? And I felt that idea was so interesting because it kind of brings these boards back to what a surfboard kind of is, you know, in, in the width as well. Have you explored with anything that is long like
five and a half or six foot, but really low volume. And if you did, like, do you think that's something that could work? And me, I'm just spitballing ideas right now.
Grant (47:33)
Are we talking about for parawing primarily?
Daniel Paronetto (47:36)
Yeah, parawinging and that board came out, think for foil driving primarily, it w it came out for prone, surfing and having that concept of having a surf like board in length and in, in width. So very low volume around, you know, five and a half to six foot, but then that was translated to foil drive. And I feel that that could be a way to go as well with parawinging.
Grant (48:06)
No, absolutely. I don't see an issue with that. I think I know what bore you're talking about. And I got a few in here that were actually, you know, this is a prone model that was a popular model back in the day that, you know, I've somewhat mimics a lot of the design characteristics and I've made it into a foil drive board.
And I did that specifically because the customer, this one's for Ted Robinson, he really liked that design. And he's like, I don't want anything changed, but I want to cut out, I want to trench in this thing. yeah, no, that is the beauty of custom. I'm not stuck on a production board coming out of a factory overseas. I'm not stuck on one single design because I don't have
Daniel Paronetto (48:35)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (49:01)
the time to design this outline because somebody, you know, they really like that board. They want something really similar to that. It worked really well for them, but for whatever reason, they don't want to get that maybe because they only offered in certain leaders, certain dimensions from that shaper. So yeah, I mean, I can take a board that's high performance and I've done that already with a number of other shapes that I've had.
and lowered it down to that 40 liter, well under 40 liters. Recently a board for Henry Panuri out in Kauai. We took a board, think it was 36, 37 liters, and he's out there ripping around and absolutely loving it out there on the East side in Kauai. So, just foil drive. So those guys that...
Daniel Paronetto (49:52)
What does he use it for?
of wheel drive.
Grant (49:59)
Yeah, I went out there for the foil fever event. Jason Tanglin and Pono put it on out there and those guys are amazing. And then I went out and I, you know, there's some spots, I'm not going to name them to blow them up, but they are out on the reefs out there. And that opened my eyes up to foil drive even more because they're out there having a blast. There's no one out there. I tried to prone it. could barely prone it because of they don't
They're not cresting enough to get enough energy on your stomach to paddle in. And they're on a little prone board that we would typically prone on a four, three to four, seven. That's 30 something liters, but they're ripping around with a motor, but it's now it's in a trench and they're that much more efficient with their riding. So yeah, it's possible. And that's even possible in the parawing world. think, you know, my goal
Daniel Paronetto (50:38)
cool.
Grant (50:57)
with 270 is simply focusing on designs that develop board speed. I want to be able to have these riders ride high performance foils and ride a smaller board and get up and feel like they're ripping around, snowboarding out there on the ocean. And I think we all feel the same way about foiling, whether you're downwind and winging, parawinging, towing, proning. I mean, I don't know what the next
branch of discipline it's going to be with foiling, it's absolutely, it's never ending. And it's hard to keep up sometimes, but it's, I was, I was really against the trench boards for a while. was like, there's no way it's going to be a pain in the butt, but it's become a very popular thing in that discipline because it truly, it truly does work. And there's different
Daniel Paronetto (51:29)
You
I know.
Mmm.
All right.
Grant (51:55)
you know, designers that will say different things about the trench and how it should be. But at end of the day, if I haven't had any really negative comments, I know the product's working. And, you know, I'm happy with my design. I'm still altering it. I'm still, I've gone through a number of prototypes of different types of trenches in that world. And the parawings, I'm already, like this board behind me, I mean, like I'm parawing in
Daniel Paronetto (52:07)
Yeah.
Grant (52:24)
primarily on a downwind board right now because I'm a bigger guy and I'm just figuring things out and learning how to really tack appropriately. But I'm already thinking, gosh, I have a design in my mind of what I'm gonna do for my next board for pair of wing to do those long 10 mile downwinders from Port Avala to Pismo Beach with the crew up there. That's absolutely just killing it when it comes to downwinding. So yeah, it's.
Daniel Paronetto (52:28)
Mm-hmm.
Sick.
Grant (52:52)
It's a never ending battle in my mind with these designs and trying to get a board that is that much better the next round.
Daniel Paronetto (53:02)
Yeah. And, and parawinging as well, it's going to have so many different, uses. see people now, you know, doing the backflips and stuff. That's a completely different board on its own, you know, and, people who just want to focus on wave riding, having something with, you know, the tip, a tail that's not too wide, it doesn't touch down at all. think, you know, there will be another variation on gear there and
Grant (53:13)
Yeah.
Daniel Paronetto (53:29)
and if you want to go down, winding, maybe it is something that's, you know, a little bit more narrow and I don't know, man. It's, I feel, yeah, to me, think there's so much to explore when it comes to parawing design and that side of things, but I think we can do so much in a board to maximize the power wings we have out there now. and it's awesome, man, that you're, you're, getting into it as well. I I'm surprised at how many shapers now are getting heaps of,
parawing board orders versus downwinding board orders. Have you had a lot of people contact you about parawing yet?
Grant (54:07)
there's been a handful that definitely has, I think.
Daniel Paronetto (54:12)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (54:13)
This is a, I think there's an argument to this and some may, it kind of comes down to your wind conditions where you live. That's a big determination on what discipline you're gonna do. And I think, I don't think parawinging should replace downwinding. I'm still on that downwind journey. And, you know, I wanna be proficient in all the disciplines. That's always been my mindset.
Daniel Paronetto (54:27)
Yeah, true.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (54:42)
when it comes to water sports. I don't want to skip something because it's easier. think parowinging is easier than downwind and paddling up by far because I'm still on my downwind journey. But I think it is a supplement. think there's days that are definitely going to be, it's a parawing day for sure versus
You know what? We're going to go out there and paddle, but we're going to still a pair of wing just to have it in case we need to, or I get tired or you know, the bumps die and I can't paddle up and it's still windy. I think if you, especially in a long downwind runs, if you
Daniel Paronetto (55:13)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (55:27)
you know, just rely on a pearling and the wing dies, you're kind of out of luck. And vice versa, if the wind dies and the bumps really flatten out, I mean, I guess you can paddle in. I mean, I think the paddle, even if it's a collapsible paddle, is a way to, so yeah, there's so many options out there, but I don't think it's a replacement. think it's gonna be a supplement to downwinding as far as
Daniel Paronetto (55:33)
Yeah, you're cooked. Definitely.
Mm-hmm.
Grant (55:57)
board orders, think it's, gotta be careful if you're gonna go out there and just parawing on the long downwinders. If it's a local spot like Maui has where you can bum around and play in the surf, that's one thing. But where we do our runs, especially up in the Central Coast, mean, there's big sharks out there. There's, I mean.
Daniel Paronetto (56:12)
Mm.
Yeah.
Grant (56:23)
legitimate great whites in the water. you got to pick your poison pretty wisely on what discipline you're going to do and make sure that you know, you're eight miles out to sea and there's no one to help you and it's cold. yeah, it's I think with the board design and I mentioned all that didn't really go on a tangent because you have to make sure
Daniel Paronetto (56:39)
Yeah, it's sketchy.
Grant (56:49)
you know, the board design is correct for the conditions for that day.
Daniel Paronetto (56:56)
Yeah, I think
once something that's cool about what you're saying right now, and it just makes me think about it is when I am doing the downwinders, down at the coast, cause I live in a Bay and in the Bay, I, you know, I'm pretty comfortable in the Bay and I, I just feel a lot safer. but if I am doing a downwinder and I'm going into open ocean, I think of my board as part of my safety gear as well.
So it might be a day that I could get up on a small volume board, but I still take my downwind board because if worse comes to worse, I would rather paddle a downwind board back to shore than a 60, 80 liter board. And I don't want to be shark bait out there because we have similar animals in the water here. So when you think about your gear and if you are getting that one board,
I feel like there's a cool little range between a six foot and a mid seven that you could use in the surf as a subboard, which would be a great subboard. Would be a great downwind board if you're in a bay or a lake where the bumps are a little bit closer and shorter period than in the ocean. That could be a great one board quiver for power winging as well.
Grant (58:16)
No, I agree with you. I think that the conditions will dictate. I don't see a problem with a downwind board, honestly, in your journey to parawinging. I know there some issues with the length of the nose catching in. But again, if you wear a harness, you can avoid a lot of these hurdles learning to parawing. Have the proper leash that attaches, that kills the power. It relaunches easy. And you get up and you go.
Daniel Paronetto (58:36)
Mm-hmm.
Grant (58:45)
I don't see an issue with, like I said, riding a downwind board that you have. Using that, you're downwind in any ways. You might as well use the board that you've been doing it with a paddle. And then as you get better with parawinging, absolutely downsize. I think places like La Ventana that we have here, a lot of guys are on mid-links and, you know, in the five foot, six foot range, sometimes even smaller.
They're ripping around it. It looks like they're surfing out there and that's that's insane and I think that's gonna be the future but it will be Spot it'll dictate from the spot that you're at and also the conditions if you can handle it so it's That's the beauty like I said of the custom board work I mean it's what I need to know for my customer is one where you're at. What are your conditions? The type of rider you are
Daniel Paronetto (59:27)
100%.
Grant (59:41)
You your riding level and what are your goals? Because my goal here in San Diego versus when I go up and do my normal nine to five job on the Central Coast is completely different. I'm gonna be on my downwind board and a parawing board here and up there where it blows nonstop like a fan. I'm gonna be on a seven foot parawing board that I make that's much more efficient. It's a little bit lighter. The swing weight's better.
Daniel Paronetto (59:45)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Grant (1:00:11)
and I can rip around, can pump longer, my endurance is there. So there's so much that goes into it and logistics where you're at.
Daniel Paronetto (1:00:13)
Mm-hmm.
Dude, is there anything we haven't touched on that you want to talk about 270 boards, things that you're working on, things that are coming up for you this year that we haven't spoken about?
Grant (1:00:40)
Yeah, you know I I've learned through this board building process and I've talked to a number of really talented board builders and you know I'll shout out to them like Ken adgate that guy's a legend. He is a wealth of information his boards are incredible Amos has helped me with you know, lot of the product the boxes that I use are all Amos
And, you know, lab goat up in the bay. He's, you know, more or less, I guess, a backyard builder, but the guy's an absolute genius when it comes to building boards and lamination and understanding the strength, the weight ratio. mean, there's so many good board builders and designers. Frank out of Maui, met him briefly in Kauai and KT. I mean, I'm not even, I'm such a peon compared to these guys.
but they have a different mission, a different focus. They got their product and I respect all of them. I'm just focused on my little niche, which kind of is everything. If you look at my shop here, I mean, I got everything from wing to stand ups up to parawing, a downwind board, trench boards. I do it all. And I've realized in this board building process, you're only as good as your last board. And I recently got a new
laminator, Corey Richmond, his dad, Craig is an absolute legend in the board building business and lamination business. And the guy is outstanding. mean, it's attention to detail. His Sanders that work for him Andrew and they understand what my mission is, my goal, and to put out a product that doesn't come back to bite me from maybe.
D-lam or something and I've gone through those growing pains and it is an evolution whether you like it or not You're paying for these custom boards. You're paying for the evolution of board building You're paying for a better product and they continue to get better and they will something that I produced today There's gonna be something better next week or the next month and that's just the way it is and I'm gonna continue to do that But yeah, it's just I
The boards, we're building them now up in the central coast. And I think everybody, know, sent a bunch to Dylan out in Puerto Rico and Randy's really helped me out. He's a rider out there and the feedback's been pretty amazing across the board. it's pretty cool to see boards up in Canada, Nova Scotia, Mark and Ross up there, down in Texas, Puerto Rico, Hawaii now, Baja.
Daniel Paronetto (1:03:32)
Yeah.
Grant (1:03:36)
Obviously, California got some boards in Colorado, Montana like it's becoming a worldwide thing and it's pretty cool to see something you really basically started and You know in the shop and on Instagram and it's it's blown up into being a pretty cool project and aside from my nine to five job, I mean it's it's Definitely takes a lot of it's been stressful, but now it's becoming Less stressful because I
It's more of a fluid motion through this process of building a board and getting it to them. And I think what riders need to understand too when they do request a custom board, it takes time. It's a lot of work. From design concept, yeah, design concept, it could be a couple of days. It could be that day. And then it's a good two to three week process just to get a blank. And then I have a...
Daniel Paronetto (1:04:17)
Yeah, yeah, it certainly is.
Mmm.
Grant (1:04:30)
you know, a line of individuals that have been waiting for boards. I, there definitely is an order. So I would just ask if you know, you're a customer, just understand that I'm doing my best. I'm on it. I'm pretty communicative and we'll get you that board as soon as you can. you know, Dane and Kainoa and in Kauai and Oahu. mean, those guys have been ripping around on some of my boards on either downwind or proning and
It's really cool to see top level riders absolutely shredding on a 270.
Daniel Paronetto (1:05:04)
That must be such a cool feeling to see the product out there. And obviously people will be reaching back and saying, Grant, this is awesome. And that's cool.
Grant (1:05:13)
Yeah.
Yeah. Like I said, I mean, I've had growing pains. I've had a few boards from prior laminators that I had some issues and I've tried my best to take care of, but I'm also not dumb. I'm not going to be taken advantage of, that's for sure. And I will take every case that I encounter case by case and kind of deal with it in a smart professional way. But I will tell you the new lamination that we have and
the laminator. Corey is excellent and I haven't, it's a reflection of his work and he cares about it and I haven't had really any issues as far as strength. The weight's been great in all the boards which was a big issue with boards for a long time. People were really concerned about the weight. But to me, the weight's fine. It's all about strength and integrity of a board. I want these boards to last. I don't want them to break down. I want
Daniel Paronetto (1:05:56)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Grant (1:06:11)
riders to be happy and to ride a board for a number of seasons and be absolutely stoked on it.
Daniel Paronetto (1:06:20)
That's awesome, dude. I want to thank you for coming in and really just riffing on ideas for parawing boards and all that stuff. Nobody has the answer yet. And I think the more information we put out there, it's just going to help us get there quicker. So thanks for coming on board. And if you are like a bigger rider trying to find a parawing board, I'm sure that Grant would have so much good.
personal experience in his personal journey. have a chat, reach out and we'll chat soon, man. Maybe in six months time we'll bring you back and there's going to be a whole bunch of stuff to catch up on and where designs have gone.
Grant (1:07:04)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Dan. Appreciate it.
Daniel Paronetto (1:07:07)
All right, Grant, thanks so much.
