|
|
BLOWIN' IN THE KONA WINDS
Words & Photos by; John Carter (Windsurf June 2008)
When ex-world champion Patrice Belbeoc'h quit the PWA tour back in the year 2000 to start his own
board business, many critics doubted he would last in the industry for long. Seven years down the line
and his brand Exocet are the biggest selling board brand in France, while sister brand Kona, are shaking
the markets all over the world with their innovative longboard designs. Prepared to go his own direction
and break the conventional timetables, trends and designs the rest of the brands follow, Patrice has
brought out some unique concepts that are turning heads and hitting new markets. The 1996 PWA wave
champion is a character not scared to speak his mind: here Patrice spells out just why he thinks his way
is the right way, and why the other companies better start looking over their shoulders
JC: So why did you decide to hang up your harness and quit the world tour right when you were still pretty much at the top of your game?
PE: I didn't want to carry so much equipment around. For me, the tour wasn't attractive anymore: rules were changing every year and there was too much waiting on the beach. Money wasn't really the issue, although I could see it becoming harder to maintain sponsorship at such a high level after being at the top for ten years.
I wanted to stay with windsurfing and had a lot of ideas about how to do this. I officially started Exocet in the year 2000; I created a small workshop in France togehter with Jean-Marie Guiriec (former shaper) back in 1991 and was always interested in designing my own boards. I designed for AHD for few seasons and towards the end of this time I was doing their full line. When I left the tour I started my own company with some associates, that's how I launched Exocet, followed by the Kona brand few years later. I'm not influenced by the rest of the market, or other brands - I prefer to go in the direction that I want. The name came from my former shaper who used it when I took over the workshop; Exocet means flying fish in French.
JC : How does it work with you living in France and the company headquarters based in Thailand
PB: The company team is split almost evenly between France and Thailand so I have to go there about once a month: I visit different suppliers in Asia and take care of the designing program. I enjoy this side of the job so I don't have a problem with the travelling. Having said this, I hardly go into the shape rooms any more - we've improved our design by using a shaping computer program and CNC machines. Nowadays we send a file and are sent the boards for testing or production: It's very simple process. I am the designer and Jean Marie Guiriec is the one behind the computer, we've worked together since 1993, so it's a long standing partnership, Designing with computers is a much more accurate and healthy way to design. I prefer to change an existing board gradually rather than making a radical move in a different direction every year. It's a slow process, but means we evolve our boards rather than making huge changes.
JC: What were your original goals with the company?
PB: My first goal was to make some decent boards and stay in the windsurfing scene. It has taken a while, but in the last two years the business has really started coming together. Now I have more time to concentrate on the second brand, Kona and our one-design projects while I let Exocet grow. Part of my ambition is to bring a new concept to windsurfing, in order to get people back on the water. We have a background of technical boards, which is maintained by Exocet, similar to the other companies, but the Kona is entirely different. We are trying to find the type of people who windsurfed twenty years ago and get them back on the water. While I would like the company to be as big as possible, my ambition is not to be number one, instead I just want to be big enough to make a decent living and be able to set up projects that I want to do. To be number one is not the point.
JC: How did you come across the idea for Kona?
PE: When I went to Thailand I met up with Tor Bakke who was very reactive towards longboarding. Tor was a former One Design sailor from the 70s and 80s and was very keen to work on the concept with me; he had some amazing ideas about one design and his input was vital for the project. Our main focus was to understand why people stopped windsurfing, surfing was smaller than windsurfing back in those days, and then suddenly, surfing became much bigger. From our discussions, the board Kona Style was born in the Exocet range, this was then eventually moved to become Kona ONE and have it's own full range, under a separate brand.
JC: So what is the concept behind the Kona?
PB: Kona just covers longboards. We want to try to make people understand that longboarding is a different sport to shortboarding, one that most people like to sail in light winds. It is like the difference between snowboarding and skiing. You go on the same snow in the same park, but it is a different sport, with different people. Skiing is less radical, but you have to be quite radical and fit to snowboard. This is the philosophy behind Kona, I don't want to change the concept every year: It has to be the same collection, but with a community built around it.
The Kona itself is very simple: I simply took the
outline from a normal surfing longboard. The first
time I saw a step tail was in 1983 at the speed week
in Brest, France: there was a guy riding a long pintail
with a step in the back. He was going very fast, had
a lot of flotation and was planing in light winds; I
always wanted to make a board like that. Then I saw
Starboard produce something a little bit similar a
few years ago. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind, I
wanted to use it with a narrow longboard like the race
boards I’d used in the past, and it needed to be for
light wind performance. Implementing a step tail has
helped to shorten the water line when powered up
and boosted the board onto the plane far more than
conventional longboards.
JC: You’ve said the Kona windsurfing longboards make wave sailing easier for everyone?
PB: It’s true, it is way easier to wave ride with longboards. They perform similarly to surfing longboards,
there is a faster displacement when traveling over the
white water, and they are easier to take off because
you can catch waves really far out and get power in
the sail quicker. This makes the board very appealing, because it can be sailed in light wind conditions,
conditions that ordinarily you wouldn’t even consider
going sailing in. Now those light wind days are the
ones you look forwards to, because the waves are far
cleaner and not choppy! In my opinion these boards
represent the same kind of revolution that came 20
years ago when short boards arrived, the whole circle
has been completed.
JC: Don’t you think that longboarding’s success
in the 1970s and 80s was largely because the
sport of windsurfing was new? Why should
people go out and buy a Kona when there are
so many alternative extreme sports they can
take part in these days?
PB: I have a very different opinion on that; I believe
that back then windsurfing brands and magazines
destroyed the sport and industry by promoting only
the extreme side of windsurfing and insisting that
windsurfing is only about sailing on short boards.
Longboards back then were sub-planing boards, while
short boards were full on planing boards. The feeling
between the two is totally different and I believe a lot
of people were not ready at all to get on the plane:
the emphasis on planing meant windsurfing stopped
being a cool sport for these people and turned into a
radical one. It ended up that there were so many
different brands and board ranges, which changed
every year, that windsurfers didn’t know what to buy.
Today Kona stands alone as a longboard brand, we’ve
managed to do with those boards what was missing
then: allow a longboard to get on the plane with the
feeling of riding a short board.
JC: Tell us about the Kona worlds and all the
events you have been putting together around
France and Europe?
PB: The idea behind the Kona worlds is simple:
everybody rides the same boards. There are three
rigs for adults. Over 85 kilos you race with a 9m,
between 85 and 65 kilos a 7.4m and under 65 kilos a
5.8m. Surveys show that at the Kona worlds, a body
weight over 100 kg would come in the top 3 in 3-4
knots of wind; it is very tactical and pumping is not
allowed, it all comes down to skill. The main thing is
that it brings back people on the water who are not
fit: people who aren’t bothered about being the fastest because they have the best fin or whatever. The
level of racing has actually been very high, we had
eight ex world champions and five ex Olympic medallists at the last Kona worlds in Marseille, France.
The first Kona worlds were in Thailand, at both events
the wind was very light so it was all about tactics. What
made the difference at our events was that you could
call the TV or a magazine and make an appointment
at 2pm for a race and at 2pm the race would definitely
start; that's not been the case at windsurfing events for
twenty years.
JC: So how long are the events?
PB: At Kona events we know we're going to have com-
petition so they can be over a shorter period of time. We
limit the entry to fifty because it's a very exclusive class;
it might not seem that way, but the clientel who come
to the Kona worlds are actually very wealthy. The way the
class act is that the racers rent the equipment and just
show up and go racing. I turn up a few days beforehand
and rig the kit in advance, our team prepare every board
for them, so they don't have to rig a thing. They arrive,
register and go racing, it's not a holiday because we
have a tough fleet and the level is very high on the start
line. The sailors want to go sailing with other people on
the water, they like the family factor and all being on the
same gear, the racing is fun there are no pretences. I
think three or four days is plenty long enough for any
event, we have ten races and it's all done. I don't know
how the PWA manage having ten day grand slams, no
wonder it is so expensive for organizers to hold an event.
We are launching the Kona kids next, the idea is that
kids can progress to the adult class at thirteen. If they
are pretty talented they will be able to compete against
the adults on 9m sails, eventually it would be good to
have a world champion who is thirteen or fourteen years
old: much better than a guy who is forty five.
JC: What do you think of Starboard? Are they the
closest brand to you in the way they think outside
of the box?
PB: Starboard is an innovative brand, no question. They
always come up with different ideas: some are strange,
and some are very good. That is what happens when
you are very innovative, you can’t win every time, but at
the end of the day Starboard are good because they
are always trying to push the windsurf industry. I admire
what they do: it’s not easy. I like to do a lot of development, but then keep it in production for a long time,
that’s the difference between us and them, Starboard
want a revolution every year. I think it’s too much, you
should bring in one revolutionary idea every year, but
keep the main stream of the boards in production.
Other brands have been watching us a lot. It seems
like they are answering our ideas with stand up paddle
boards: I think that is quite sad! They want to bring
something different to the market, but this is surfing. I
think it’s not so wise for a windsurfing brand to go fight
against the surfing brands, there are so many brands on
the market when you combine the two. I think it’s possible to produce a lot and lose a lot.
JC: So what do you think of the PWA race tour
these days?
PB: Half the problem with PWA events is that they wait
all the time for wind and half the time if it is windy they
don't go because the conditions aren't perfect
enough. The PWA should stay technical, but they
should also make it very simple for everybody to
understand, the sailors at the top are over 35 years
old: the discipline is getting older and older. The
guys are heavy and racing slalom on 9.8m sails,
for slalom I think we should have 7m maximum sail
size so that the younger, lighter guys can have a
chance to be world champion. They should have
one sail, maybe two maximum, never bigger than
10m. We should keep the same boards for three
or four years to secure the sport: technical and pro
should not mean you have to change equipment all
the time. They shouldn't necessarily have identical
boards, but have some sort of size restrictions, they
should then keep the boards and sails for three or
four years. Keep all the equipment in production: in
the long run it will be more profitable for all parties.
JC: Has the level gone up since the old days
when you were competing?
PB: The level has definitely gone up in waves for
sure. The main difference is the equipment, back
when I was competing the things they do now
weren't possible. The kit has changed a lot. There
are younger people competing in waves now, it went
through a stage where we were quite good, but the
discipline got older and older. Then it faded away a
little bit, but now the new generation is coming up
and it’s getting more exciting again. The guys are
really pushing the limit, in the contests I have seen
the new guys providing spectators with a really good
show on the water, I am very impressed.
JC: You keep your ranges on the market for
longer than any of the other companies. Do
you think this is a trend the other companies
should follow?
PB: The windsurfing industry functions like the
fashion industry. They make new collections every
six months, with hardware this is very hard to follow
up, it’s not like that in most businesses. It makes it
tough to grow and survive, hardware is expensive
and I think the people who buy gear are kind of
making an investment. They don’t want to see it
immediately worth half the price the next season.
I think all the brands should at least release their
new boards all at the same time, preferably every
three or four years, it would create more of a
momentum. Then it would work, that is what we do
at Exocet!
|
|
|
 |
|
