For a few weeks this summer, Maui felt like the center of the foil world.

Riders arrived from across Hawaiʻi and around the globe. Boards filled garages. Foils leaned against rental cars. Forecasts were checked, ignored, and checked again. Training runs became equipment tests, and every conversation eventually came back to the same questions:

What will the channel do?

What do we really need to carry?

In the middle of it all, we were building FAED setups.

Not one standard team kit repeated across every athlete. Individual systems—assembled rider by rider and race by race.

The Koa Kai Triple Crown would become the ultimate challenge for FAED gear: three races, two channels, and some of the best riders in the world trusting the system in their most demanding moments.

One platform. A lot of different riders.

FAED gear found its way all across the field.

It was worn by athletes chasing the overall lead, women who have defined channel racing, young riders coming up fast, international competitors, first-time crossers, and veterans with years of experience between the islands.

Our race-season crew included Malaʻe McElheny, Kane “KD” de Wilde, Guido Ferrer, Andrea Moller, Shep Nelson, Brady Hurley, Liam Wood, Lyon Farrell, Logan Bediamol, Tomoyasu “Tomo” Murabayashi, Payce Duryea, Otis Buckingham, Francisco “Frankie P.” Pugliese, Francesco Maffei, Ryan Arzy, Henry McNamara, and more.

Just as important were the core FAED riders who trained with us, tested setups, shared feedback, and helped everyone prepare even though they did not compete this year. Race day is only the visible part. The work that happens before the start belongs to the whole crew.

That range was the point.

The fastest rider in the field does not carry the same way as someone preparing for a longer day. A compact racer has different fit and access requirements from a larger athlete. A veteran may know exactly what needs to be within reach, while a first-time crosser has to leave more room for uncertainty.

We worked directly with the riders to build around those differences.

Hydration. Nutrition. Communication. Safety equipment. Pouch placement. Access while moving. Some wanted specific storage options for speakers and camera equipment (we made that happen too).

Some athletes wanted the lightest possible configuration. Others prioritized more water, more fuel, or additional safety capacity.

The foundation stayed the same.

The setup changed.

That is modular offshore gear in practice.

The Koa Kai Triple Crown

The Koa Kai Triple Crown—Paddle Imua, M2M, and M2O—carried the foil community from Maui’s north shore, across the Pailolo Channel, and ultimately through Kaʻiwi to Oʻahu.

Different coastlines. Different distances. Different kinds of water. Very little time between major efforts.

For FAED, the Triple Crown became a rolling field test.

Gear moved through training runs, race starts, support vehicles, airports, escort boats, and island transfers. Every day exposed the system to another rider, another configuration, and another set of conditions.

By the time the channel crossings arrived, FAED was not represented by one athlete wearing one product. The gear was distributed from the sharp end of the field through the full depth of the fleet.

We did not build FAED for one kind of rider.

We built a platform that different riders could make their own.

Paddle Imua: Where it came together

Paddle Imua was where the energy of the summer began to collect in one place.

The race brought the community down Maui’s north shore while supporting Camp Imua and its work with children across the island. It was competitive, but it carried a different feeling from the crossings ahead.

For visiting athletes, it was a first look at Maui water. For local riders, it was a chance to race at home before the summer moved between islands. For us, it was an opportunity to see the equipment in motion and make final adjustments before the longer objectives.

Fits were refined. Pouches moved. Straps were adjusted. Riders learned what they reached for and what they could leave behind.

KD gave the crew a strong start with the overall win, but the larger result was seeing so many different FAED configurations moving through the same piece of water.

The process was working:

Build the setup.

Put it in the water.

Listen to the rider.

Refine it.

Then came Pailolo.

M2M: The channel delivered

Maui-to-Molokaʻi brought the kind of conditions people travel to Hawaiʻi hoping to find.

The Pailolo Channel lined up. The swell moved. Riders found long connections and fast water on the way to Kaunakakai.

The FAED crew held it down at the front, with KD, Guido, and Malaʻe all finishing inside the men’s top 10 and Andrea among the leading women. Behind them, more FAED riders were putting their individual setups through a full channel crossing at race pace.

Logan Bediamol joined the FAED crew for M2M, putting his setup through Pailolo even though M2O was not part of his race plan this year. Every rider had a different objective. Every crossing gave us something useful to bring home.

The leaderboard only tells part of the story.

What mattered to us was seeing the product spread across so many different athletes—and watching it disappear into the act of racing.

Nobody should be thinking about a pouch moving, a strap working loose, or hydration being difficult to reach while halfway across Pailolo.

The best equipment becomes quiet.

It stays where it belongs and lets the rider keep looking forward.

From Olympic big air to a first channel crossing

Lyon Farrell brought a completely different story to the M2M start.

Only months earlier, Lyon had represented New Zealand in the snowboard big-air final at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, finishing eighth in the world. Then he came to Maui and pointed himself toward a different kind of arena: his first crossing of the Pailolo Channel.

He trusted a FAED rig for that first M2M.

The sports could hardly look more different. One is built around a jump, a few seconds in the air, and the commitment to put everything into a landing. The other unfolds over miles of moving ocean, where success comes through patience, reading energy, and continuing to connect what is in front of you.

But the mentality travels.

Commit fully. Trust the preparation. Keep moving.

Seeing an Olympic finalist take on his first M2M in FAED gear showed how far the platform could reach. It was not only being trusted by established channel specialists. It was supporting an elite athlete stepping into an entirely new kind of challenge.

Andrea Moller: The queen of the channels

Then there was Andrea Moller.

Andrea is the queen of the channels—not because of one result, but because of the life she has built in this water.

She has raced between the islands for decades, crossing from Molokaʻi to Oʻahu more than 40 times across SUP and outrigger canoe disciplines. She understands what these channels demand physically, mentally, and technically in a way very few people ever will.

Andrea brought FAED onto the women’s podium at both M2M and M2O, but her trust carried more weight than the placements.

When someone with that depth of experience chooses a piece of equipment for a channel crossing, it means the product has earned its place. Andrea knows exactly what matters offshore, what becomes a distraction, and what has to work when fatigue sets in and the islands still look far away.

Having her race the Triple Crown in a FAED setup was one of the strongest validations we could receive.

*[PHOTO: Andrea Moller in her FAED setup]*

Kamalo: A Saturday powder run

The day after M2M, the community showed up again for the Kamalo run on Molokaʻi.

The Saturday turnout was incredible. After the scale and exposure of the channel crossing, Kamalo brought everyone back together for a different kind of race—shorter, tighter, and centered on one of the most special pieces of downwind water anywhere.

When Kamalo is working, the ocean rolls beneath you in long, clean lines. The energy keeps standing up. One connection opens into another until it feels less like chasing bumps and more like dropping into an endless powder run.

It is the kind of water only some riders will ever get to experience.

That made the day feel like more than another stop on the schedule. It was a reward between two major channel crossings: a chance to race, reconnect, and share a world-class run on Molokaʻi before attention turned toward Kaʻiwi.

For FAED, it was another layer of the test. Different pace. Different water. Same question: could each setup stay out of the way and let the rider move?

M2M gave us speed, organized swell, and a hard race at the front.

Kamalo gave us a powder day.

Then Kaʻiwi gave us something completely different.

M2O: When the trades didn’t show

The 2026 Molokaʻi-to-Oʻahu crossing was historically light.

Athletes prepared for one of the world’s great downwind races and found a Kaʻiwi Channel that refused to settle into its expected rhythm.

The wind was inconsistent. Connections were hard-earned. Time on the water stretched out. What should have been a downwind race became a long test of patience, efficiency, and adaptation.

That is the reality of offshore movement.

The equipment and preparation may be dialed, but the ocean never agrees to follow the plan.

A front-running athlete trying to preserve every bit of speed has one set of needs. A rider preparing for a longer crossing has another. Both need essentials to remain secure and accessible, but the balance of hydration, nutrition, weight, and contingency changes with the person and the day.

FAED was present across that entire experience.

Malaʻe and KD again carried FAED into the top group, with both winning their divisions. Andrea finished on the women’s podium. Payce, Otis, Frankie P., Francesco Maffei, Ryan, Henry, Tomo, and others put their individual configurations through their own versions of a difficult Kaʻiwi crossing.

By the end of the Triple Crown, FAED had three men inside the top 10 overall and Andrea third among the women. Nine FAED-equipped athletes appeared in the final standings.

It was an incredible showing, but more important was where the gear showed up: on top talent, across the age groups, deep into the field, and on riders facing very different versions of the same channel.

Thirty minutes without a paddle

Guido was one of many riders who chose to take on Kaʻiwi unassisted.

Even in the historically light conditions, he remained in the hunt. Entering the final stretch of the channel, Guido was still chasing Edo Tanas and the top spot.

Then he dropped his paddle.

There was no easy reset. No spare sitting beside him. No way to turn around and recover it without giving up the race unfolding ahead.

So Guido stayed on foil and kept moving.

For nearly 30 minutes, he continued without a paddle in his hands. He used the energy he could find, protected every connection, and refused to let the lost paddle end the chase.

Eventually, he fell.

Only then did he flag down support and borrow a paddle so he could finish what he had started.

That was the spirit of the day.

All or nothing.

Keep moving until the channel makes the decision for you.

Guido’s crossing was also a reminder that results never tell the entire story. A time on a page cannot show 30 minutes spent flying without a paddle. It cannot show the decisions made miles offshore or the commitment required to keep chasing after the original plan disappears into the ocean.

Those are the stories that define channel racing.

Fourteen times across Kaʻiwi

At another point in the field, Tomo was completing his 14th M2O—and winning his division.

Fourteen crossings of Kaʻiwi represent a depth of experience that cannot be manufactured. Every year brings a different channel. Every crossing adds another layer of knowledge.

Having Tomo trust FAED gear for number 14 meant a lot. Completing Kaʻiwi once is a major achievement. Returning year after year, continuing to learn the channel, and still racing well enough to take a division win is something else entirely.

His experience represented the full range of people wearing our equipment—from young athletes racing near the front to veterans who have spent years learning how Kaʻiwi moves.

They were not carrying identical setups.

They should not have been.

Each configuration reflected the rider, the expected time on the water, and the way that person chose to approach the crossing.

One platform.

Many different missions.

Trusted when it mattered most

FAED does not approach racing as a logo-placement exercise.

The athletes are part of the development process.

They push the equipment into environments that are difficult to reproduce anywhere else. Their feedback shapes how we think about pouch placement, hydration, attachment, accessibility, load distribution, and the balance between carrying enough and carrying too much.

Paddle Imua let us refine.

M2M tested the system in fast Pailolo conditions.

M2O tested it during a long, historically light Kaʻiwi.

The Koa Kai Triple Crown was the ultimate challenge for FAED gear. The system was trusted by some of the best athletes in the sport for their most demanding moments—and it was tested just as hard by every rider facing a long day deeper in the field.

That trust is what matters.

Back to building

The summer gave us more than exposure or race results.

It gave us information.

We saw what riders reached for. We learned what they carried but did not use. We saw how configurations changed across body types, race strategies, and levels of experience.

We found details that worked immediately and others that will change.

That feedback is already shaping the next generation of FAED accessories.

M2M was fast.

Kamalo rolled like a powder run.

M2O was historically light.

FAED gear crossed both channels on riders spread throughout the field—from the front of the race to long-time veterans and athletes managing their own hardest days.

That was the real result of the summer.

Thank you to every athlete who trusted us with a setup, everyone who gave honest feedback, and every friend and crew member who helped move people and equipment between Maui, Molokaʻi, and Oʻahu.

We came home with salt in the gear, a long list of notes, and a much clearer view of what we are building next.

Watch the behind-the-scenes film by Foil And Enjoy Productions: [INSERT YOUTUBE LINK]

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