When you purchase gear through links on our site, we may earn a small commission. Here’s why you can trust our tests and our affiliate partner.
We’re so used to slick, polished video clips nowadays that this footage of Reider Decker, shot on an old-school camera by Michael Davis and released as a longer-than-average edit, makes for a refreshing change. Reider talks us through how the film came about.
How does it start, again? Straight joy. Excitement, entertaining.
How does it end? Burnout from doing it too much. Frustration from lack of progression. Boredom from doing the same thing. Tiredness from dealing with repetitive injuries.
You keep going, until you can’t go anymore. Where was it?
I grew up at our Sail Shop in Hatteras NC, surrounded by kiters and windsurfers. I was the youngest of our grom squad. Morgan Skiperdene and Evan Netsch were crushing it, progressing to be sponsored kiters competing at a high level.
This was just past the era of two-line death buckets – inflatable kites with no depower or safety releases – which had an affinity for lengthy unintentional body drags to the shore or into hard objects. When four-line kites came, the kitemares slightly decreased. Looking back, we romanticized the dangers as proving grounds and focused on the good things: the community, local comps, bigger comps, a track to becoming “pro”, magazines, short edits, and full movies. There was a lot of excitement for the growth of the sport. There was a resounding feeling that kiting was going to hit the masses one day.
At that time, I couldn’t do a front-to-blind to save my life on my 2004 Cabrinha Blacktip, and I am not sure if I could now either. I was a chubby teen with kiting as my only outlet. I wasn’t catching many social cues and was awkward outside the shop setting. This is pretty standard for that age, but it made kiting feel really important. It was the only thing I enjoyed. Once I took it too seriously, however, the fun went away and my drive to kite left with it.
The fun came back with kiting strapless. We got a Nobile skimboard, just to fill a board order, and I found myself on it all the time. At first, nothing felt right or wrong when strapless kiting, just weird and different. Doing random things and constantly falling was so entertaining it made me kite all the time again. This left a lasting impression on me for the future.
Coming to a life lesson at the age of 14 was a bit overconfident, looking back. The conclusion I reached was: “Never lose a passion by taking it too seriously and losing what made it a passion.” Athletes all over the world are able to take their sports seriously and still love them simultaneously. It is hard, but, as shown by many, it’s possible.
The skimboard I rode switched to a surfboard (thanks, Evan Netsch) and something that was a niche in kiting was suddenly something people wanted. I got sponsored by Airush and felt eager to please. The first Airush photo shoot I was invited to was in Maui. I miscommunicated and confirmed the wrong dates. I got a call from the Airush US distributor asking me if I had landed yet while I was in my college dorm. That would have been my first time to Maui.
I made it to the next Maui photo shoot, and I competed in some European kite events. I did decently in a few comps and went to more photo shoots. It was a cool way to travel around and see a lot of different places. After traveling a bit, I was surprised with how good Hatteras was compared to a lot of spots. Short of world class wave spots, Hatteras has most everywhere else beat, and you never have to fight for waves. Competing was fun and the community was great, but traveling a long way to end a comp running up the beach on a 12m underpowered felt a bit anticlimactic (how the last two of the three GKA events I did ended). And even if you get some money it mostly just covers travels. And that is just how a lot of comps go – it’s the truth.
As time went on, my eagerness to please started to fade. I didn’t promote myself on social media as much as I was requested to. Some of it was out of laziness, some out of not having enough content, and some out of a disdain for social media in general.
My dislike of social media is shared with Michael Davis and Benny Crum. Michael started working for us before he knew how to kite. He studied videography in school and worked at a cable park filming wakeboarding before coming to Hatteras Island Sail Shop. He loves old- school skate and wakeboard movies. We still have the VHS tapes in the Shop of old kite and wakeboard movies like Unhooked and 12 Honkeys, which he frothed on.
After Michael was at the shop for only a month, we got some really good wave riding footage. It was his first time ever filming kiting and he got the shots. He made a short edit with the footage but he suggested keeping it for a longer edit instead and I agreed.
Benny and I grew up together in Hatteras. He surfed and skated his whole life, but he didn’t kite. He was down to shoot water photos the same day Michael was filming, and he pulled some shots right out of the gate. These are a lot of the shots in this article. We organized downwinders where I would kite and Benny would swim and shoot to work with the constant Hatteras current. After shooting more he started kiting and quickly went to wave riding.
Over the course of the years Michael went from not kiting to kiting on everything and primarily strapless and in the waves. We kept filming on an old-school camera that was popular for skate edits in the early 2000s. It gave the film that old-school aesthetic, nice colors, and capped the recording at one hour per session which we both liked. My father, Barton, would hassle us about when we were going to finish the edit so we put a deadline on it.
In the fall, we released it and premiered it at the Shop, while the road was still closed to visitors due to hurricane overwash on the roads. That is the most Hatteras thing to have happened. The video is called F*ck the Noise or FTN.
Barton rolled his eyes at the name. Despite me coming up with the name a while back, it does seem pretty intense and not something I would pick. It felt more poignant when we responded to people asking what we were filming it for. We just made it for ourselves and whoever wants to watch it. FTN
You can get the latest goodness from the world of kiteboarding by subscribing to our print edition. You'll get 5 packed issues, plus a free tee and free digital access. And you'll be directly helping with our sustainability efforts too!
Check it out now
