Matt Nuzzo: What's up everybody? Matt Nuzzo hanging out here with Adam Bennetts, and we have polled the public, our staff, and a bunch of people about questions for Mr. Bennett. What's up, Mr. Bennett? How you doing, man?
Adam Bennetts: I'm doing great. Loving hanging out with you. It's been good. I'm ready.
Matt Nuzzo: Good. Awesome. Let's do this. How do you set up your stance, and where is your back foot in relation to the top plate?
Adam Bennetts: So, I have a pretty narrow stance that's kind of evolved over time. My back foot when I'm surfing is usually right over the leading edge of the mast. When I'm pumping, I usually move that forward like about an inch and narrow the stance up.
Matt Nuzzo: Nice. Okay, cool. Next question. Any tips for pumping?
Adam Bennetts: Yeah. So like I just mentioned, narrowing your stance up for pumping helps a lot. Obviously, the offset stance helps a lot, and even twisting your front foot even more. I like to run mine at about a 45, but even twisting it more so your shoulders are even more square lets you project forward a lot easier because you're doing this movement. So that would be my tips for that.
Matt Nuzzo: Nice. How much do you speed up your videos?
Adam Bennetts: None.
Matt Nuzzo: Okay. You just ride fast.
Adam Bennetts: Yeah. I just ride fast gear.
Matt Nuzzo: Sure. That's awesome. Why don't foilers get barreled?
Adam Bennetts: A couple of guys have, but in my opinion, I feel like that's not what foiling's about. If it's barreling, you should be surfing. I think the risk is not worth the reward because you can't really stall on a foil; you just kind of have to shoot it. But there's definitely guys like Alex Hayes, Caleb Pont, and the Tahitian guys getting pretty gnarly barrels. That has crazy consequences too over at Teahupo'o. So people are, but it's not really a foil surf foiling thing.
Matt Nuzzo: Yeah, totally got it. What's your favorite place to foil?
Adam Bennetts: My favorite place to foil would probably be at home at Wategos in Byron Bay. It's arguably the best foil wave in the world.
Matt Nuzzo: Are there surfers there, or is that where you're kind of alone?
Adam Bennetts: There's The Pass, which is the main Byron Bay surfing wave, and the next bay around is Wategos. There's a couple of longboarders there, and they're all cool. We have a good group of locals there, and we all give way to the surfers. There's only a couple of sandbanks where the surfers or longboarders will sit, and we generally go out. It's a giant bay with just sand bombies everywhere, so you can just pump out 200 yards and you're nowhere near them.
Matt Nuzzo: I've seen your footage there. It's amazing and looks incredible. What do you think about foiling in Cape Hatteras?
Adam Bennetts: Foiling in Cape Hatteras is amazing. I actually got it so good here last year when I was here in May. We had some crazy beach break kind of almost barrels, like you could have almost been surfing it. Then we went up to Nags Head and got some really cool Outer Banks dreamy rights and lefts. It was great. Water was nice, a lot of access, and a lot of empty terrain.
Matt Nuzzo: Up at Nags Head there was no one because I think all the beach access is blocked, right?
Adam Bennetts: Yeah, so we were lucky enough that we were hanging out with James and he had his parents' house there, so we could go through his house, which was pretty cool.
Matt Nuzzo: Awesome. Why would someone choose the Amp Board over a Foil Drive?
Adam Bennetts: I think if you want the pure surf foil experience, you would choose the Amp board because it doesn't have any pods or batteries anywhere to get drag from. If you want pure surf foil, a stealthy experience, and a hands-free experience, that's it.
Matt Nuzzo: Cool. Are you downwind foiling?
Adam Bennetts: I am, and I love it. It's so fun. I've actually been pairing a lot with downwinding now within the parawing phase.
Matt Nuzzo: Nice.
Adam Bennetts: It just lets you ride a small board, like riding the Amp board. I never really got into the longboards or the paddle up, so I kind of skipped that one.
Matt Nuzzo: Yeah.
Adam Bennetts: I skipped it because I was developing the Amp board, and then the parawing came in. So now I've got the parawing and Amp board downwind. I'm on a nice 4'6". It's crazy in the ocean. You're just out in the middle of the ocean on a tiny board. So good.
Matt Nuzzo: It's going to be wild. So, how did you score such a hot wife?
Adam Bennetts: Oh, I don't know. So lucky, that's it. We actually matched on Tinder. She's my Tinderella.
Matt Nuzzo: That is an ad for Tinder.
Adam Bennetts: I swear to God, I matched her on Tinder in Bali and fell in love.
Matt Nuzzo: Amazing.
Adam Bennetts: Love can happen on the internet. There's hope to all you single men out there.
Matt Nuzzo: What's your personal foil setup?
Adam Bennetts: My personal foil setup is usually just the 707 Flux, the short fuse, the 125 stab, an 82 mast, and a 4'0" Raw board from Flite Lab.
Matt Nuzzo: How do you decide what foil to ride? Is that changing, or is that your stock setup and you ride it in everything?
Adam Bennetts: Pretty much ride it in everything unless it's under knee height, and then I'll go up to like an 808. Or if I'm parawing, I really love the 808 for parawing. But otherwise, that foil has a great range, so you can ride it in real small to real big. It's a really good all-rounder.
Matt Nuzzo: Nice. Why do surfers hate foilers?
Adam Bennetts: I think people who don't have surf etiquette and ocean knowledge go into a surfing lineup, and that really annoys everyone when they don't know the rules of surfing. They just take whatever wave they want and come through a lineup on a foil. I think that's why a few people are mad. It's just people who don't know anything about the ocean or surfing, end up in a lineup, and don't belong there.
Matt Nuzzo: I even saw Nathan Florence posted something about foiling recently, and a bunch of comments were hazing him. He's the most core surfer, surfing the most crazy stuff ever, and he's downwind foiling and surf foiling all the time, yet surfers are still hazing that dude. I was like, that's interesting.
Adam Bennetts: Yeah, I think it's because they've had a bad experience with someone who either scared them by coming too close or took waves from them because they can pump around, or foil drive, assist, or e-foil. It's just no surf etiquette, and it's not their fault because they just don't know. I think an educational message should be out to all you foil surfers out there: go where there aren't surfers, pay your respect to surfers, and give them the right of way.
Matt Nuzzo: How do you rip such hard turns on a foil?
Adam Bennetts: Honestly, I think it's the gear. The Flux foils from Flite Lab have so much stiffness and give-back that you can push it so hard and it's going to give back. I can trust that foil so much. That's honestly why; it's been locked-in life-changing.
Matt Nuzzo: Good for you. What do you see as the future of foil surfing?
Adam Bennetts: I see some sort of tour, kind of following the surf tour to some degree. It's going to get even more technical, blurring the lines between surfing and foiling. It's almost getting there now with what we're able to do with the gear, but the gear is going to keep evolving and it's going to look almost exactly like surfing, just amplified—faster surfing on steroids in all conditions and a little less condition-specific.
Matt Nuzzo: Awesome. Well, thanks for the info, man. Appreciate the Q&A.
Adam Bennetts: Sick.
Matt Nuzzo: You too can find your Tinderella if you work like him and foil like him. If you want to find out more about foiling, reach out online at realhtml.com, give us a call at the shop at 252-987-6000, and see you guys on the water for the next session.
