About us
Airzone Kitesurf School is run by Berny and Zoe Maginn. We teach in the NZ on the Karikari Peninsula, between the Bay of Islands and 90 Mile Beach. We started kitesurfing over 20 years ago - see the picture above taken in 1999 with one of the first ever inflatable kitesurfing kites, the Wipika Classic - things have moved on a bit since then! We opened Airzone Kitesurf School in the UK in 2002 when Berny qualified as an instructor on the first ever IKO/BKSA instructor course. Zoe qualified a year later and left her proper job as director of a design agency in 2006 and we opened the school in New Zealand to live the dream full time. Berny qualified as an IKO Examiner in 2004, and we run IKO kitesurf instructor courses throughout the seasons in the UK and NZ, helping others to change their lifestyles and live their dreams too.
We still love teaching beginners to learn to kitesurf and seeing how much fun people have. Progression is very fast with this sport and the fantastic equipment we have nowadays, so it's always exciting for us to watch people turn into true kite surfers as a result of our teaching and coaching.
Focussed on providing the best instruction
Airzone is not a huge school. We could have chosen to go that way. But we are kitesurf instructors for a reason. We love teaching and we love the lifestyle. So instead of becoming managers of a great big school with staff who come and go and masses of students whose names we never remember, we choose to focus better on fewer students. And kitesurfing is all we do. We don't have other jobs that we fit it around, kitesurfing really is our passion in life.
In this way, we know all our students benefit from the experience and expertise that over 10 years of teaching at the forefront of kitesurf instruction has given us. We will take you forward at your own pace, not hold you back or push you too quickly. Each lesson is focused on you achieving the best you can and enjoying the experience. You are here to have fun, as well as become a kitesurfer.
Our credentials
We are an official British Kitesurfing Association (BKSA) and International Kiteboarding Organisation (IKO) school. This means we undergo regular inspections, have procedures and documentation in place that is checked and monitored, and we achieve best practice in our training and safety standards. Our instructors are all IKO and BKSA qualified, and our qualifications and affiliations are kept up to date. Zoe is a BKSA Senior Instructor and IKO Level 2 instructor. Berny is a BKSA Senior instructor and IKO Examiner, at the top level of training in kitesurfing and one of only 20 in the world.
We have been fully audited and accredited by Worksafe New Zealand under the Adventure Activities Certification Scheme, and were identified as the most qualified and experienced school in New Zealand during this process.
