With 18 years in the kiteboarding industry under her belt, we’re excited to get to know one of the most experienced women in kiting! We’ve got the exclusive interview with one of the women behind the scenes at Airush: Su Kay!

With 18 years in the kiteboarding industry under her belt, we’re excited to get to know one of the most experienced women in kiting! You may have seen her soaring through the sky in South Africa, or ridden a kiteboard that she herself has laminated. We’ve got the exclusive interview with one of the women behind the scenes at Airush: Su Kay!

Su, thank you for joining us for this interview! What is your role at Airush, and what does your job involve?

My official title is “Customer Service and Sales Operations Manager”, which is quite all-encompassing of all the processes between the product team and the dealer or distributor.

It’s a common assumption that working in the kiteboarding industry means a lot of time on and in the water, but is this true, or is it a distant dream?

My water time has varied through the years that I have been in the industry. I may have spent more time on and in the water in the past, but it is a lot less fun when it is as an instructor or tester than when you’re riding for yourself.

I am lucky that my working hours are pretty flexible in my current role, and when the wind or swell is up, I can go ride. This year I expect to do over 200 hours on the water across all the sports I do, and most of that will be riding for me, with a bit of assisting the product team on both product tuning and long term testing of equipment.

You started your career in the kite industry from the ground up - literally by sweeping floors! How did you go from that to building kiteboards?

Haha – yes, you are right! I found if you make yourself useful, you will find that people don’t mind having you around, which enables you to learn a lot from them. I literally started by sweeping floors and cleaning up and worked my way up to cutting lamination kits, assisting with laminations, and finally becoming the main laminator and part-owner of a custom kiteboarding business – Decay Kiteboards. At the same time, I was pretty handy with a sewing machine and made kite pants (when that was a thing) and did kite repairs. 

This was in the early ‘naughties’, and there were not many capable kite instructors around, so I quickly found myself doing lessons and introducing new people to kitesurfing.

With Airush, you made a move from a more hands-on role to a more hands-on-the-keyboard role. Do you still find opportunities to get your hands on the products in the development and testing stages?

Product development requires feedback, and product sales communication requires an intimate understanding of the how’s and why’s of the various products, so it is required of me to go and try everything. Of course, I am more enthusiastic about some products than others as we all have our riding preferences. Still, in the end, it is also great to be able to clearly communicate the differences in the products to our distribution network.

What gear are you riding at the moment and why?

I like to do unhooked freestyle, big air and some wave riding, but foiling can be tricky in Cape Town as it’s so windy. To meet these varied requirements, I have the Airush Session kite in all sizes from 4 to 14m available – this is a shared quiver with my husband, so it is not as excessive as it sounds. I also have a Lift in 8m for the big air big jumping days that is not shared! Unfortunately, I could not use this in the ideal conditions last season due to lockdown, so I am looking forward to the coming summer. 

I have the Access Bar and the new Ride bar in my quiver. I like the Ride bar, as I can adjust the amount of throw available to suit my riding style on the day, long-throw for wave riding, foil riding or those over-powered big air days, and short-throw for the unhooked freestyle days. I have updated the leash ring to the freestyle leash ring to unhook with confidence, and I use it with the appropriate leash for the riding style - short, long or pro.

My board quiver consists of Diamond 136 for the choppy days when I need something forgiving and an Apex 139 for general freeriding. In addition, I have a Livewire in drag (Diamond Graphics), which is my cable and wakestyle freestyle board that I use with my AK Boots. My Slayer is my cross-over onshore waves and foil board, and the Amp is my go-to all-around surfboard.

For high wind, big air kiting, I use my Ether seat harness, and for anything that requires something even more minimalist, I love my Ether waist harness.

I am also referred to as “Helmet girl” or “Safety Su” as I have been kiting with a helmet from the start. It keeps my head warm, the sun off, and my eardrums and the rest of my head intact! The AK Riot helmet has a great adjustment that ensures it fits snug and comfortable. I also add to that some other AK accessories, like the Riot vest for cable riding and the AK Flotation vest for Freewinging.

Yes, this means there is also the AK Phazer Board and Freewing Air V2 in my quiver. I combine these with the AK Surf Foil, and this foil crosses over nicely to SUP foiling on my Starboard Hypernut.

The “Toy Box” (aka home) is pretty full, but being on the water is my happy place!

Kiteboarding changed your life! When you first discovered the sport in 2001, did you ever imagine you’d be where you are today?

No chance I could have imagined this, especially considering it was such a young sport. I do know that once I saw kiteboarding, I wanted to immerse myself in it – like an addict, I was chasing the thrill of every learning experience it offered, not thinking about anything beyond that. It is a great way of learning to live in the moment and following opportunities when they present themselves. 

Speaking of where you are, you’ve been all over the world! Where are you originally from, and how did you end up living in South Africa?

I am a South African, but sometimes, I identify more with being a Transkeian, as I grew up in this independent homeland, quite removed from South Africa of pre-1994. This presented a challenge for me when I first entered the workforce and had to deal with a very conservative male-dominated environment in the conservation/farming industry – a woman driving a tractor was not that common back then. This prompted the start of my world travels that enabled me to discover kiteboarding. 

Kiteboarding has taken me to Christchurch, New Zealand, at the time one of the bustling development hubs in the sport. I became completely involved in kiteboarding once I was there and met my husband, who is also in the kite industry. We ended up with an opportunity in Asia, which prompted a move for us to Hong Kong. I do love Asia, but the lack of wind in Hong Kong meant that after nearly five years there, we packed it in with the aim to see if we could find a way to live in South Africa – and we did, thanks to Airush! 

Your partner Dave (aka DK) is on the design team at Airush. Do you get the opportunity to work together often? Is there any conflict at work or home over you being able to jump higher than him?

DK and I have worked together for as long as we have been together in some way or another – it works best this way for us. We have, however, had a friend comment when on a Cable Park Building Project: “It’s not like you are fighting, just that you are trying to one-up each other.

This, I believe, has been good as we can always expect an honest opinion or at least a good challenge to keep us improving our skills and knowledge. One such case is the WOO Leaderboards that often have me higher than DK, so he has written some kite design software to design his own kites to improve his jumping.

Tell us a bit about the furriest member of your family! What’s her name, and how did the adoption come about? Does she love watching you kite?

Chloe is the sweetest street-wise dog, having learnt to be sociable while growing up with a couple of car guards (people who look after your car here in South Africa when you are not parked at home). Her first parents had the opportunity to improve their lives, and we were lucky enough to be asked to foster her. She is now a permanent part of our family, but definitely not a kite dog yet, as she worries that the big kite birds will take us away and has to try to hold on to us whenever we fly them!

When you’re not making the wheels turn behind the scenes at Airush, what are you doing for fun?

Fun is being able to go and use all the gear that I am lucky enough to have access to. However, if there is no wind, I am happy to grab a bike or surf or SUP board. I still enjoy making stuff and will join in on any projects in the Airush Lab. I’m often fiddling around the home, building furniture, gardening, knitting, sewing, cooking, and being sociable. 

If you didn’t follow a career path in kiteboarding, what do you think you would be doing instead?

I’d be farming – it is also a seasonal type of business that keeps you on your toes and requires problem-solving, and has a very wide scope of activities under one umbrella.

What does the next year look like in the life of Su Kay?

This all depends on how much travel opens up again! For now, I expect to mostly be exploring the South African coast in my free time. As long as the beaches remain open in the windy season, I will be targeting that 20m height on my WOO, which I know is achievable on the Lift kite.

Work-wise if travel does open, I will spend some time at the Starboard head office in Thailand, which is not a chore at all, considering it is on Taco Lake Cable Park!

 

By Crystal Veness
Editor at IKSURFMAG, Crystal Veness hails from Canada but is based in South Africa. When she isn't busy kitesurfing or reporting on the latest industry news for the mag, she is kicking back somewhere at a windy kite beach or working on creative media projects.

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