www.boardsNwheels.gr - How to shape build a custom windsurf board

The Custom Board

The Dream

It was July 2010 when our windsurf crew discovered (rather late) the Prasonisi of Rhodes. This magical beach accommodated us for about a month, under an improvised reed pergola with the legendary Seicento, half-buried in the sand, stoping the wind. The sand was as our bed and the sky our ceiling.
Every morning, waking up at 6, a quick coffee and magical private sessions until the late nighters wake up or the windsurf clubs open. Hanging around all day, laughing, eating and sleeping. In the evening, when the clubs would close, more windsurf until late at night. It was the first real surf-summer and it could be nothing less. Unforgettable!

One of the beach people who embraced us was Renek, manager of Surf Club Prasonisi. Around 40, calm, kind and always busy, he usually appeared exactly when needed, eager to help.
One afternoon, with the relaxing sunset as background we started chatting. He told us that thirty years ago, in ice cold communist Poland, they were struggling to build on their own entire windsurf equipment, from boards and sails, to masts and fins, with a few tools and much passion.

Renek's gaze immersed in the past, his face lightened up. He was talking about the countless hours he and his windsurf "pack" spent in front of a piece of styrofoam: "…we sit and look at the board for hours and try to imagine it planning on the water… I sand a bit off the rails, I grab a beer, I take a sip, I sand a bit off the tail, I sit down… I keep drinking, I keep sanding, I keep thinking of the moment the new board will hit the water for the first time, I am dreaming…".

Renek's description instantly became an image in my head.
In a black and white, timeless moment, the full of life, colours and senses windsurf mode, is fully linked with a lifeless and colourless piece of styrofoam, infusing it once and for all, all the beautiful moments that were and would be.

I didn't pay much attention, the conversation went on, the summer passed…

…but Renek's seed was still there, watered daily by my interest for any kind of construction and sunbathed in my mania for windsurf. After a long time, considerable effort, a few disappointments and many good instances, the moment of which Renek had spoken, came. The moment when the dream will hit the water. The moment when the huge doubts will either form a black reef on which the board will crash and sink in oblivion and the storage room, or melt like sugar touching the sea, and the board will be lost, planning towards the distant sunset of Praso…

Words: Kostas Stamatakos
Pics: boardsNwheels

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