MIKE RAPER - PROFILE
MIKE RAPER – PROFILE
It must be a pretty daunting task heading up the ‘nuts and bolts’ side of one of the biggest brands in our sport. There are a lot of pieces in the puzzle – planning the range, developing and then getting rider input on hundreds of prototypes, a production process of biblical proportions, and then overseeing a distribution network covering most of the planet – and all of these pieces have to be put together precisely every year. If you had been doing that for a while then you can imagine that a little bit of ‘here we go again’ fatigue might set in as the new range of kit comes rolling around each year… But meeting Mike Raper you could be forgiven for thinking that he has only been in the job for a few months: he is passionate about kiting and is passionate about kit. Involved in kitesurfing since the early days on Maui, he has seen the sport progress from seat-of-your-pants downwinders through to the safe, relatively mainstream success it now enjoys. We caught hold of him at Cabrinha UK HQ in Poole to find out what makes him – and consequently Cabrinha – tick…
Interview & Photos Alex Hapgood
Hey Mike, thanks for taking the time out. Let’s start with putting things in context for our readers: what’s your job title, and can you describe what you do in 100 words or less!
My job title is “Division Manager” at Cabrinha kitesurfing, so I’m responsible for the profitability of the Cabrinha business. I work alongside Pete Cabrinha who is the Brand Manager and we are effectively partners in the business, so I manage the commercial side, and Pete manages the marketing. I handed over the position of Brand Manager to Pete at the end of January 2014, so Pete is responsible for 100% of the Product Development and I’m responsible for everything else. There are three fundamental areas of my job, number one is making sure we have the right product, number two is making sure it’s at the right price, and number three is making sure it’s delivered on time. In a nutshell: I make sure we’ve got the right people in the right places hitting targets at the right time! I spend a lot of time working with key markets and suppliers, trying to coordinate the development with the suppliers and with the ever changing market requirements.
So you’re key in determining which projects get pursued and the general direction of the brand?
Yes, Pete Cabrinha and I sign off together on a range plan with the product managers. We look at the market segments, at what are the growth areas, and what are the potential opportunities for the brand. Then we create design briefs with the Kite Product Manager, Dave Hastilow, and the Board Product Manager, Dave Kay (aka DK). These guys then work on the detailed timelines and critical paths – costing engineering with their designers and engineers – before finally bringing the products into production.
How did you end up where you are now?
As a former waveriding windsurfer I lived on Maui for a year when the first downwinders with kites started from Ho’okipa, so I started kiteboarding in 1997. When I returned back to New Zealand in ’97 I hooked up with Kane Hartel and Cindy Mosey and, without knowing it at the time, we all were pushing the sport hard in this little epicentre in Christchurch. We all started with Underground boards – which was Aaron Smith, Adrian Roper and Steve Palmer – and my office was attached to the old Underground factory. In New Zealand circa ‘98 we were in a little development bubble full of innovation, Christchurch was at the end of the world and it had perfect flat water slicks and waves, it was windy 95% of the year, and it had epic conditions. We had Peter Lynn kites just down the road, we were using C-Quads and McDonalds lunch trays, anything that would take us upwind! I guess that is where I found my love for product development. Kane and Cindy travelled internationally and brought back a lot of good ideas and I started to travel as well, and ended up working for the original Cabrinha Brand Manager in Italy in 2001. I decided to stop competing at the end of 2002 after I won the Mambo (the Merimbula Classic) in Australia – I was really proud to win, then I was offered a position as sales manager working full time in Hong Kong at the end of 2002, and I wanted to explore Asia so it made sense for me. From there I grew into the position of Brand Manager and now Division Manager. It’s been a very rewarding journey.
So you’ve been working for Cabrinha for almost 15 years, could you pin down a couple of the most exciting developments over that time?
Ah man! I could… I’d say that first of all the first few years in the late 90s, the first 2 or 3 years were crazy with innovation. In the beginning, we didn’t even use harnesses, we held on to the kites with two separate handles – we were using the Peter Lynn C-Quad kites. Then came the big change from 2 lines to 4 line kites – that was a pretty big jump. But the biggest one for me was probably the bow kite revolution. When we first started riding the first samples in early 2005 before we introduced the first bow kites into market, it kind of blew everybody’s mind, and Pete – who obviously had most experience – said that for him “this was the future”. Remember, before then, you could only depower 30-40% of the kite’s power, if you were lucky! So moving to depower of 90 or 95% depower – that was huge. It just made the sport so much safer, it opened up the doors for the sport to grow. Just having the ability to allow more people into the sport. I mean, my dad’s 70 this year and he took up kiting at the age of 64, and he loves it, and I’ve got two young daughters who I’m hoping to get into kiteboarding in the next couple of years, so it’s just opened up the sport to a really wide spectrum of people.
And you see growth being on a fairly steady path now?
Yeah, really consistent. I think in the last two or three years it’s been growing anywhere in the region of 7 to 10 percent per year and I can’t see it slowing down – there’s no obvious signs now that the sport’s going to slow down. As for Cabrinha the brand, we’ve really invested heavily in engineering, I managed to convince the shareholders to allow us to hire a few more designers and allow us the opportunity to bring more innovative products to the market. I’m super excited about the 2015 range of kites and boards as our customers will really start to see this hard work coming through.
So moving on to the 2015 kit, what would be the three main headlines for you?
First up would have to be the Switchblade. Now in its tenth year, we are so proud of it this season. It’s been further refined and it really kicks ass this year. It’s so well balanced, especially in the light wind and it’s just performing really well, the feedback has been amazing. Pat Goodman, the chief kite designer, has done another amazing job. Then we have an all new kite this year, the Radar, it’s designed for the intermediate rider – someone who wants to be able to progress really quickly in the shortest possible time and it’s extremely efficient at improving a rider’s skill level quickly. It’s the fastest launching kite you’ve ever seen on the market – it will not stay down in the water. One of the biggest troubles that we had when we were testing it was getting it actually to go down and to stay down! It’s really easy to use and just has a massive sweet spot in the depower, it’s fast turning, it’s got light bar pressure and it’s a great crossover kite – you can use it for waveriding, freeride and freestyle. The final headline would have to be our twin tip range this year, DK has really stepped it up. The board weights have been reduced substantially, but we’ve kept the durability. The main change is that we are using a new material called basalt and, mark my words, the whole industry is going to shift in the direction of basalt in the next few seasons. If you compare it to fibreglass – which is a heavy but durable material – and carbon – which is very lightweight but brittle – then basalt sits in the middle. It’s as durable as fibreglass but almost as light and responsive as carbon. It sounds a bit crazy but basalt is made from volcanic rock which is basically ground down and melted into fibres, consequently it’s super strong. DK has put this into the layup of most of our core 2015 twin tip boards this year. So we actually reduce the weight and still keep that explosive and responsive pop. You can really feel the difference – it’s not just a marketing hype. It genuinely increases the performance and the feedback has been very positive.
And what can you tell us about the surfboard range this year?
Well, we’ve got a whole new range of surfboards. We decided to move to a new supplier and we’ve got a completely new layup which has now been tested for 18 months and we are very confident in the new supplier. Pete Cabrinha designed three new board shapes – it’s a really complete range, great for everything from choppy onshore days, to freestyle surf sessions, all the way to down-the-line charging big wave days. When we were looking at the layup for the 2015 boards, we took 20 boards from our competitors – from right across the spectrum of brands, constructions and shapes – we measured their weights, we put them in a machine and measured how flexible the boards were, top and bottom. Then we had some fun, we snapped them all! From this data, we worked out boundaries of the tolerances. DK worked on about 8 different layup versions and finally locked down on two of these and – even with the improved performance and flexibility – I can say, hand on heart, that these are the strongest kitesurf boards on the market.
How much do the comments of your team riders play into the development of products?
At the start of the process, the team riders explain what characteristics they need, we incorporate this into the design brief, then we get to work designing the product. From start to finish it takes approximately 18-24 months. For example, the opening loop this year (which is the only loop on the market with a reset that can actually be done with one hand), this engineering project took almost two years, so a lot of these projects are quite drawn out. But one of the benefits of working this far ahead is that we have a lot of time for testing – once we get a project through to a level where we’re comfortable with the design and have run it through an initial round of testers then we send it out to our team riders for their feedback. With the surfboards, we had a lot of input from Reo and Keahi before we designed those boards. With the performance twin tips like the Xcaliber, Alberto Rondina is hugely influential; he had a lot of input into the entire process, from outline, the rocker, all the way down to the materials that we’re using. I lost count of the number of prototypes DK made for him. But it’s great, the team riders are the ones pushing the sport, it’s our job to provide them with the products that are going to help them take the next step up in performance – especially when they’re competing at such high levels.
So coming back to you – where do you see yourself a few years down the line? Will you still be developing products?
Ah man, there’s just sooo many ideas! There’s just never enough time to get all the products started or finished. Ever year it’s like this, “ah, we were almost ready but not quite!” We have some fantastic concepts moving forward and some really good ideas that I can’t talk about… We’re trying to make sure – from a commercial perspective – that we have products that everyone can relate to, not just the top 2% of the pro market, but a product that can really give every rider a higher performance upgrade, a design that changes the way you ride for ever. So, yeah it’s a challenge – it’s always a challenge, but a hell of a lot of fun as well.
And that’s what keeps you coming back for more?
Absolutely. I mean we’re all a little bit crazy, we’re all geeky tech heads. But at the same time we all love the lifestyle and it’s the lifestyle that drives me personally, and most of the team – we love kiting, we love the water, that is what keeps me coming back for more punishment each season. We love introducing the sport to people, we love meeting new people, we love riding in new different locations. It’s just exciting times and I can’t see it slowing down at all!
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