Ocean friendly windsurfing boards

“You are always right of way on starboard”, Svein Rasmussen once said in September 1995. We were a group of Norwegians sitting on the beach chatting. Testing our skills against the world’s best windsurfers such as Bjørn Dunkerbeck, Robby Naish and Antoine Albeau in Sylt, Germany. A few weight classes above mine, to put it mildly, but I learned a lot about windsurfing during that competition.

While the pros rested in comfy hotels between gail force regattas, strolling relaxed down to the beach every morning for the skipper’s meetings, I slept in the brown Volvo station wagon from the late 70’s. I was sponsored I too, oh yes. Maybe not by Red Bull, Volkswagen or Quiksilver or with tons of cutting edge windsurfing boards, but by Rent-a-Wreck. Best sponsor my sailing buddy Preben and I ever had. Free car is one of the most valuable sponsor a not-so-high-ranked windsurfer can get.

Land of the rich

Sylt is a kingdom of rich Germans. Expensive Mercedes’s, Audis and BMWs whit a small sticker in silver shaped like the island at the back of the car. A marker of prosperity. The island which only had a car train connection from the mainland that has everything but long beaches. Often a lot of wind in the autumn and tens of thousands of spectators at the regattas. A real party. Great restaurants and good beer. For me, the diet mostly consisted of filling the pockets with extra rolls and packs with butter and Nutella from the daily free lunch during the 12 days I was there.

Photos: Pickled with gale 1995. Wave competition Sylt 1995. Unfortunate regatta sailor on Sylt. Another unfortunate regatta sailor. Pickled with gale 1995. Wave competition Sylt 1995. Wave competition Sylt 1995

The windsurfing board engineer

Svein who had toured the windsurfing circuit for more than 20 years and with several titles, including the world championships in 1991 ha had now turned 30 and knew that his windsurfing career was coming to an end. He looked into the crystal ball. He wanted to make good money but didn’t want fame, I remember he said that day on the beach.

10 years later, Starboard was by far the best-selling windsurfing board in the world. It is no coincidence that Svein chose board construction for a living. There were stories about Svein who during regattas in late nights attacked his windsurfing boards with a knife and epoxy to modify the shape in search of board speed. It might not have been a bad idea to bring the inventor of windsurfer Jim Drake on the team. The NASA engineer who also designed the X-15 rocket aircraft, which still holds the 1967 speed record.

And 25 years later, a few days before I write this, Svein Rasmussen and Starboard won an environmental award for the use of recycled plastic in their windsurfing board and the planting of mangrove trees.

Brundtland and windsurfing

In 1987, Gro Harlem Brundtland became world-famous for her work on the UN report “Our common future“. I remember it very well. It was my awakening to environmental and climate issues. Until then, I had thought little about this beyond what was in the nature science classes at primary school and definitely not on the connection between windsurfing and CO2 emissions. So when it was time to take the driver license in 1991, I thought, ‘hm, maybe I should not do this, to limit my emissions. Well, I thought, having the driver’s license doesn’t mean I need to drive all the time. Which, a decade later I had to admit I just did. Thousand of kilometers in ramshackle Volvos, rusty Fords and Australian Holdens that probably did not have a single filter between leaded petrol and the air we roared through on the way to the next beach.

Environmental award winner multiplies with 10

The 2020 World Sailing 11th Hour Racing Sustainability Award went to Rasmussen.

In an interview on the Starboard website, he talks about windsurfing and climate footprints. 80 percent of the materials for a windsurfing board are based on fossil fuels. Production and transport and in fact the whole business is negative for the climate and the oceans. A lot of disposable plastic has been used at the Cobra factory in Thailand over the years. Now Starboard has stopped using disposable plastic. They have a started a program that involves cleaning 50 tons of plastic from beaches every year. And for every board they produce, 1.1 kg of plastic is recycled. In addition, 10 mangrove trees are planted for each board sold.

Mangrove trees are by far the most efficient CO2 capture and much more efficient than rain forests. CO2 is stored deep in the ground underwater for hundreds of years. According to the interview, Svein’s rule of thumb is that each person must make up 10 times their climate footprint for us to get on the right track. If only everyone followed that rule.

The plastic spitting world

There are good reasons why the Starboard team is doing what they do. World plastic production is expected to quadruple by 2050 – in fact, 20 percent of the world’s oil production will go to plastic production at today’s pace. Today, plastic production is more than 20 times what it was in 1964 and in 2016, 335 million tonnes of plastic were produced – that means 1,200 tonnes in 2050. Eight million tonnes of this, probably much more, goes into the sea every year.

Wooden windsurfing board

Starboard revolutionized board sports with its radically short, wide boards and the use of new materials.

A few months after the regatta in Sylt that year we went to Australia to compete in the Australian windsurfing tour following a world cup event in Noumea, New Caledonia, the home of Svein’s longtime partner Jean Louis Colmas. Colmas came up with the idea to use wood and Svein needed some pictures to promote some of the first Starboard wooden boards. So he asked if my sailing buddy Alex and I could join a photo shoot. The boards had a swing, just like downhill skis. Can’t remember if I noticed any particular difference, but it was a nice trip out on a small islet off the coast of Noumea.

Photo: A Swede visiting Noumea while we test the sailing board. World Cup Noumea 1996. Stranda Noumea 1996. Stranda Noumea 1996. The house in Paia, Maui where I worked as a gardener. Svein Rasmussen in the middle invites to kava in Noumea. A strong local drink. A Swede visiting Noumea while we test the sailing board. World Cup Noumea 1996. World Cup Noumea 1996

Air pollution over Maui

I worked as a gardener on Maui the year after in 1996. I especially remember one day I was on the landfill with a lot of twigs and tassels. I drove a blue Ford pickup, definitely not low on emissions, belonging to those who gave me lodging in exchange for me working in the garden, New Zealander Tim and American Christine. They had fulfilled the dream of a house on a Pacific island where they could windsurf, grow basil in the garden, make lilikoi jam and pick papaya for breakfast. The landfill was located just off the runway to Kahului Airport. The planes took off towards the sea. While I was standing there dumping the twig, a plane took off. I saw the exhaust fading behind the plane and descending over the dazzling green Hawaiian vegetation and the irresistibly delicious Pacific Ocean. “This is not good,” I thought.

With a year of corona travel restrictions behind me, there has been a lot of windsurfing in Norway without long overseas flights. Works well there too. And when our 17 years old daughter is picking up on windsurfing, I am at peace to some extent knowing fact that today’s cars emit less CO2 and that the windsurfing manufacturers going in the right direction. She uses a Starboard.

The cover image is of the wooden board made by Jean Louis Colmas which we tested in New Caledonia.