Hey everybody…Welcome to Tony and Amery’s R&D Blog henceforth known as the
“T & A Blog” (laughs)
First, a little background on me to begin. I grew up with a very limited options for things to do. My father was (and still is) really into huntin’ and fishin’ so that’s what we kids did. I was packing a shotgun by age eight and it was all I wanted to do at the time. This all changed one day when we were fishing. We were making a nice wake from our boat and I was looking at the wave. Then I threw out the spoon that was on my line and it started to plane along on the wave. I could control it up and down the wave and I started pretending that I was really small and I was surfing it. (I didn’t know surfing existed at this time.) That night I went to my tackle box and found a longer spoon, I cut the hooks off. Now it was designed just for surfing the wake, and I was ready! So when the wake was shaping up on the next fishing trip I was in the back of the boat mind surfing! I became a student of surfing, I just didn’t know it yet. I think these early years of my life developed a unique understanding of how things interact with nature. These types of experiments led me into a diverse background in skateboarding, surfing, windsurfing, waterskiing, wakeboarding , snowboarding, skiing, motocross, and for the last ten years kiteboarding. It’s been a fun ride. So I thought we would share some random moments. In this blog
But enough about me! Let’s talk about Amery. Where to start? Amery Bernard is a very dedicated, hard working person that is entrenched in SS R&D. He has a true passion for it and it definitely shows. I think Amery sees R&D the same way that I do, as a science and art form. We thought it would be fun to post stuff on the blog like R&D board porn, music, food and life. Whatever! I hope you enjoy our posts from our travels and work.
Cheers ~T~
Prefect preseason wind march to get the wind gods thinking about warm weather and strong wind for the upcoming 2011 kite season! Amery our R and D guru presents the Wind March.. Muhahahahah…
This is for all that is totally jonezin for some riding time!
Amery Bernard, Slingshot Kiteboarding’s Kite designer, sits down with The Kiteboarder Magazine during the 2011 La Ventana Classic and KiteXpo and breaks it down R&D style.
Special Thank to THE KITEBOARDER @ http://www.thekiteboarder.com/ for this sweet down to earth interview!
So check out this rad artistic impression of the 2010 ARCANE being surfed by Forest Johnson! Tripppppyyyyyyyyy…
Ok, so its been a long time since my first and only post on this thing, but contrary to popular opinion, I do actually work and don’t have time for this kind of kak. So in summary, weather is nice, work is going, wind is blowing, drinks are flowing, laptop jacked, got emergency repacement, knee is busted, healing fast, bionic knee here soon, good monkeys, good times, good people…I’ll let the pictures do the talking…
Buy me a donkey
Check out this snapshot interview with Paul Lang from the Kiteboarder magazine and Chief Designer Tony Logosz on FASTRACK technology, the future of superior rider to board connection!
Slingshot Presents “The Arcane” from Slingshot Sports Wake on Vimeo.
With over 30 years of shaping experience Tony Logosz presents “the Arcane” by Slingshot. Don’t call it a “boatsurfer,” this is a surfboard made for the boat. Get the icy hot ready because this board will have your thighs begging for forgiveness! Made in the USA.
Yo. Taken a while, but finally putting my first post up on this thing. Been feeling pretty lame about the whole thing, but finally found something somewhat worthy. Translation available upon request 🙂 Lay…later
A few years ago, we made a trip down to Florida, to “roll” out our new wakeboards and boots. It was a pretty big time launch. Ha ha! It consisted of going to the Projects to let their crew check the stuff out. It was the first time we met Pat Panakos and Robby Jacques. So we show up unannounced. Robby had already secretly hooked up with Jeff McKee and put the product through the usual test, rails, wake to wake, basically doing everything he could to break it and see where Slingshot was coming in with regards to overall performance. He was freaking on the goods but was riding for another company at the time, so he played it cool on the “DL”. I knew eventually we would get him on the stuff. I could see it in his eyes. No way he could go back to an old construction. It was just a matter of time before he evolved. Cool with us. Anyway, Pat rolls up and introduces himself, and says. “Are you guys from another planet. This stuff (gear) has been in my head, and without ever talking, or meeting before, you show up and here it is right in front of me. In real life!“ We took that as a huge innovation compliment. We thrive on innovating cool stuff. So leap forward, a couple years. I would run into Pat and Matt Hickman at certain industry events, boats shows, etc. Both were always super cool and relaxed. This is when boat sales were diving and gas was over 4 bucks a gallon. I always thought what’s up? These guys are so laid back, yet everyone else is pinning. Unknown to me. They were secretly so far ahead of the curve. Why pin when you have the biggest thing to hit wakeboarding since the boat? Jump forward to Surf Expo 08. They launch the Sesitec 2.0 with the Red Bull Wake lab event. They killed it! But other than a few top pro’s… who had really put this new cable to the test? What was the word on the street? Well when you have a industry changing innovation, word spreads fast. It has and it’s good. The Wake Park Project put one out at the Projects. More pro’s got a chance to check it out. Still good, no I mean great feedback. We instantly thought, “What’s better than a Sesitec 2.0? How about two of them?!” Our team guys were so blown away, we hooked up with The Wake Park Projects and helped set up number 2 over the Slingshot 100’ flat bar. Photographers, video guys, and riders are all going nuts this winter at the Projects. You can start finding shots and video at Wakeboardingmag.com and Alliancewake.com. More important is more of these cables could be going up in your area.
So what’s the prediction? Well we predict this cable will revolutionize wakeboarding. Or should we say, create real “Railparks”. Why? It’s cost effective. Now, I’m no math expert, but It seems like you can get one of these for the price of a cheap wake boat. Two of them for a good boat, and three of them for the price of a boat that is all decked out, like the kind wakeboarders you see that don’t actually wakeboard own (you know the type.) And that’s the good news for boat manufactures. They still have their customer base because those people don’t wakeboard anyway. But if you are into riding you have to recognize the innovation as stellar. Here more why. It’s a smart system. It’s portable, you’re not locked in to a riding location forever. We could see the local neighbors pitching in 5G’s each and family sharing these things. When your kid goes off to college, you just sell your shares to the new family that move in down the street. Or if that’s not in the cards, there will be one somewhere close to where you live. You don’t have to dig a ditch, or you could, but that’s up to you. You can pull it down during hurricane season. You can pop it up in the winter and hit rails on your snowboard. Look for one in the Chicago scene. Camps will teach better and riders will learn faster. You don’t need a jet ski or a driver. Let’s admit it that era was kind of gay anyway. Sesitec 2.0 kills it! In short it offers a lot of options that are all well thought out. It makes the future of Railparks a reality.
So how does it ride? Jeff McKee “It’s like hanging out at the skate park with all your friends. It’s a solid pull without all the noise of an engine; Just the sweet whispering of your wakes. System 2 eliminates almost all of the downtime you deal with using alternate towing devices so you’re riding more and waiting less. It’s by far the # 1 solution for riding small bodies of water, rail parks and no wake zones…(although you may want to check with the authorities first) haha. My name is Jeff McKee and I approve this message because I care about wakeboarders worldwide. Ski ya later!” That’s all we need because, all the other team guys were still frothing at the mouth, so we could not really get decent quotes.
As innovators ourselves, we recognize the effort by The Wake Park Project to bring this innovation to the masses. Good work Matt and Pat! We only have one question. “Are you guys from another planet?”
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