STAND UP GUYS
The first time I ever saw a stand up foil ridden like a wakeboard was in 1991 at Mike Mack’s place on the Parker Strip. Mack took a foil assembly from an Air Chair and mounted it to a Rusty surfboard. His first model did not have footstraps or bindings, and it was […]
YOU’RE FIRED
The partnership between Bob Woolley and Mike Murphy at Air Chair was always a strained one. That was unfortunate because each man had a set of skills the other did not have, and together they had what it took to run a successful business.
Mike was the star and front man. He was already a […]
FLIGHT HYDROFOILING NEWSLETTER
I travelled the world as a water skier for well over two decades. Living out of a suitcase meant hundreds of restaurant meals with friends and business associates. Ever since I could remember I was a fan of simple magic tricks, brain teasers, and visual oddities that you could do at a table. […]
INNOVATIONS
In the early days of foiling it was up to the riders to improve performance. Many of the changes came in an attempt overcome the limitations of the stock Air Chair, and some were born to avoid injury.
Modifications to the foil were the most important thing riders could do to upgrade an Air Chair in […]
KNEEBOARD HYDROFOIL > AIR CHAIR (1983-1991)
It was the early summer of 1983, and I found myself in the midst of all the action while working full time for Mike at his “Ski Shop” on the Parker Strip of the Colorado River. Uncle Mike’s collection of rental equipment became the fodder for the next big breakthrough in foiling. […]
FIRST FLIGHT > STAND UP HYDROFOILS (1906-1989)
The first record of using a hydrofoil on a boat belongs to the Italian inventor Enrico Forlanini in 1906. Alexander Graham Bell and Casey Baldwin improved upon Forlanini’s design in 1919, and their hydrofoil boat, the Hydrodrom-4, set a speed record of 60 knots, which lasted into the 1960s. There have […]
A TURNING POINT: MIKE MURPHY’S FIRST ROLL
Our family is at the Marine Stadium in Long Beach, CA on a beautiful spring day in 1991. I usually ride first but today is different. Uncle Mike suits up first because he has a new move to show off. He tries to keep it a secret, but can’t resist […]
18: A NEW DIRECTION
A trio of riders from North Carolina refused to roll over for the wakeboarding juggernaut. Jonathan Macdonald and his brother David were joined by Billy Rossini in an effort to resurrect kneeboarding., The triumvirate of tricksters pushed kneeboarding into a new direction that was based on big air. Not the big air […]
15: SCARED STRAIGHT
One of my scariest moments in skiing came during a ski show in Guayacil, Ecuador. Fabrizio Malnati invited the HO/Hyperlite team south of the equator to help promote his ski shop. The team consisted of Darin Shapiro, Bebe Anderson, and myself.
During one part of the show Darin and I both rode behind one […]
14: DIGITAL DRAMA
In the fall of 1989 I wanted to do one last sick kneeboard move for the record. My longtime photographer Rick Doyle was behind the lens to capture the action frame by frame. I was on home waters; the Parker Strip, so it only seemed right to go back to the move that […]
