Boardsailing: The Newest Wave That’s Sweeping Hawaii

SUNSET BEACH, Hawaii — If a sport can be described as having arrived when its followers get into trivia arguments, say hello to boardsailing.

Not long ago, at one of the sport’s Meccas, Sunset Beach on Oahu’s North Shore, beach gossip had it that a newcomer to the area was claiming to be the only boardsailor able to execute what is known as a 360, that is, a complete flip in the air over a wave, while remaining in control of the sailboard, and landing without falling off the board.

Some wily boardsailing veterans--two of them were at least 18--were talking about the newcomer at Sunset Beach one afternoon when the subject of his claim came up. One local, Larry Cass, who hadn’t heard about it, burst out laughing.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I personally have seen six guys do it right here at this beach, and I’ve heard of four or five others. I did it myself once, but it was an accident. I just got flipped over by the wind. The only one I know of who’s ever done it in competition is Robbie Naish.”

Cass, Ron Condon and Ron Foulkes were all zipping up wetsuits and rigging up their sailboards so they could join the dozen or so others already riding the surf in the Sunset Beach area known as the backyards. The surf, by Sunset Beach standards--it has some of the highest surf on Earth in winter months--was light, only about six feet high.

It was a sunny, windy morning, and the white spray of the surf and the splash of acrobatic boardsailors crashing back onto water were blowing westward.

Beyond the surf line, or outside, as surfers and boardsailors say, the new surf vehicles presented a stunning sight. Sails in brilliant colors--magenta, scarlet, purple, hot pink, green and orange--glided by, riding the wind.

Those beyond the surf line, where the riders were hidden by a swell, looked like the dorsal fins of giant, psychedelic sharks. Suddenly, riding swiftly up the face of a swell, sail, board and rider would rocket up into the air and sail, for a second or two, seemingly free of gravity.

In another wrinkle, boardsailors rode the face of a wave toward the beach, gripping the sail boom with both hands. Reaching shallow water, the riders turned the booms around quickly and, in surprising bursts of wind-borne speed, were back in seconds to the spot where the big waves broke.

Condon, who is producing a film about boardsailing, pointed to a boardsailor sailing rapidly back to the surf line and said: “That’s why you can learn this sport much faster than you can learn to surf with a board. You ride many more waves with a sailboard. With a surfboard, you spend half your time paddling back out to the surf line.”

On a medium-to-low surf day with at least moderate wind conditions, you’d never know Oahu’s North Shore beaches are home to the world’s greatest surfers. Boardsailors are everywhere, sailing, flipping, gliding and soaring over and on the water. On such days, it’s easy to conclude that boardsailors rule.

“Not really,” said Jim Blears, a Honolulu County lifeguard who works Sunset Beach. “A lot of surfers here also boardsail. So on a day like this, they’re boardsailing. And a lot of guys who came over here to primarily boardsail also surf when surf conditions are better. I’d say 75% of the surfers here also do at least some boardsailing.”

Foulkes sees boardsailing as a logical extension of surfing.

“In surfing, you’re riding the wave and that wave only,” he said. “Boardsailing is an extension of that. A wave plus the wind and your sail give you a sense of power, the power to do creative things.”

Boardsailing isn’t new to Hawaii, but its popularity is. Said Fred Hemmings of Honolulu, a former world champion surfer and now a Hawaii state legislator:

“I’ve got a picture taken in 1934 of a guy at Waikiki with a sail rigged onto his surfboard. My guess is he wasn’t able to maneuver very well, because the old wooden surfboards were so heavy. The technological breakthrough for boardsailing was that little universal joint that joins the sail to these modern, light boards.”

Although sailboards are commonly seen at Diamond Head and Oahu’s North Shore, the prime Hawaii location is Maui, according to Drew Kampion, editorial director of Wind Surf magazine.

“Right now, Maui is the boardsailing capital of the world,” he said. “You’re talking about warm water and lots of wind.”

Another U.S. hot spot is the ponds, the 11 quarter-mile-long percolation ponds near the windmill area of Palm Springs.

Other key California boardsailing areas are the entire San Francisco Bay area, Lake Isabella, Lake Tahoe and Lake Lopez near Pismo Beach. Other prime West Coast areas are the Columbia River Gorge area near Hood River, Ore., Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Boardsailing’s growth in the United States has been rapid over the last 15 years, but it has absolutely boomed in Europe. Manufacturers estimate that about 200,000 sailboards are sold annually in Europe, compared to 50,000 in the United States. The Netherlands has the world’s highest concentration of sailboard owners.

Kampion said: “Europeans had always been fascinated by surfing, from pictures and films from Hawaii. So when the sailboard came along, they perceived this as something very close to surfing. In fact, boardsailing is called surfing in Europe. The two West German magazines devoted to the sport are called Surf and Surfen.”

There are a variety of sailboard disciplines, and competition in each: wave riding, speed sailing, slalom, and course-racing, which is similar to sailboat racing.

In speed races, sailboards have reached 32.5 knots, second in the sailing sports only to a Class A catamaran that reached 36 knots.

The sport’s best competitor, almost by acclamation, is Naish, a Hawaiian who recently won the World Cup of Boardsailing for the third straight year.

Naish goes unrecognized in his own country but is mobbed on the streets of Europe. He has published three books on boardsailing and they have been printed in German, French, Italian, Dutch and Japanese.

Said his wife, Bitsy, of a recent trip to Europe: “In Italy one day, they had to close the snack bar where we were so we could have lunch. Then people pressed their faces to the window, just to look at Robbie.”

Jim Soutar, a former UCLA swimmer who is now a North Shore surfer, has tried all of boardsailing’s variations and talked about the ultimate high:

“The most enjoyable boardsailing experiences I’ve had have been on the huge surf days here on the North Shore, when I’ve gone beyond the surf line, and ridden those giant ocean troughs, between those big swells. Now that is fun.”