“Lisa’s life” (Van Edition, Part 2): From fitting-out chaos to the World Cup podium – how Lisa Klosters’ windsurfing van became her home at 30 knots
Lisa Kloster
· 04.09.2026
A final sprint
It’s 1 July and I’ve just booked my flight to Fuerteventura. In nine days’ time, I’ll be heading to the World Cup. And that means we suddenly have a deadline for getting the van ready. Because whilst I’m competing at the World Cup in Fuerteventura, my friend Konstantinos is supposed to take the finished van on the ferry from Athens to Karpathos. I’ll then fly on from Fuerteventura to join him. So the van doesn’t just need to be finished at some point – it needs to be up and running soon. And to be honest, nobody fancied tinkering with it any longer or carrying on in the autumn. Besides, my dad needs his tools back at some point. But by the time it came to that, we’d already spent nearly six months on the conversion. The last three months in particular were a mixture of building, rethinking our plans and constantly asking ourselves: will we actually get all this finished in time?
If Plan A doesn’t work in Greece
One of the bigger problems was the wood. We wanted to build as much as possible using white-laminated marine plywood. The surface is already waterproof and would have fitted in perfectly with our plan. When we placed our second order, we were told: ‘It’ll be ready for collection in a week.’ After a week: “The press is broken, another week.” After about three weeks, it was clear to us that we couldn’t wait any longer. So, on to Plan B. Standard plywood was much easier to get hold of. We collected it, cut it to size and then treated it with boat varnish. Of course, that meant more work, so we revised our plans to use the white plywood we still had left over from the first order for the living area – where it would actually be visible later on. Things got even trickier with my planned bamboo worktop. The largest piece of bamboo we could find ended up measuring about 30 × 40 centimetres – a chopping board. So we went for oak instead. A four-metre-long, solid oak panel that just about fitted onto the loading area for transport. Afterwards, I sanded the cut panels, rounded off the edges and treated them several times with hard wax oil. Four coats later, they were finished. And indeed, they’re now one of my favourite details in the van.
Then, a week before we set off, there came a moment when we briefly thought that everything was really going to go wrong. We wanted to properly test the electrical system for the first time. Nothing worked. We spent a whole day trying to find the fault. At one point, my friend Konstantinos was so disappointed that he didn’t really want to talk to me anymore. With Dad on the phone and a multimeter in my other hand, I actually found the fault after ten hours of searching: the circuit breaker had simply been labelled incorrectly. As a result, the wrong polarity was being fed to the MPPT and the system wasn’t working. And on the day of our departure, the van was actually ready enough. Not 100 per cent. But 98 per cent. And for the rest, we had Karpathos, after all.
A week before we were due to set off, the moment came when we thought that now everything was really going to go wrong.
Off to Fuerteventura for a start
So what am I doing? First of all, I’m flying to Fuerteventura – and, of course, I won’t be sleeping in it. Actually, I’d been really looking forward to finally spending my first night in my new home after all that hard work. Instead, on 9 July, I caught a flight to Fuerte. The week before the World Cup was almost completely windless. And then the wind came. And it was so strong that I could barely hold onto my 3.6. One of my goals was to land a Culo in the heat. The other was another World Cup podium finish. Both worked out. So, after my first podium finish last year, I was back on the podium. Yay! Meanwhile, Konstantinos had already taken the ferry to Karpathos. So my new van had its first road trip before I’d even slept in it once. For me, the ‘journey home’ then almost became the next adventure: From Fuerteventura, I travelled via Prague to Karpathos. When I finally arrived there, the whole thing felt quite surreal. The airport is right next to the windsurfing spots in the south of the island. And then there was Konstantinos, standing at the airport with our van all set up. Time to really put my new home through its paces for the first time.
Van life at last! When the bus becomes your home
On Karpathos, we had one thing above all else: wind. Loads of wind. During the roughly 45 days I was there, the wind blew from the north every single day at over 30 knots. To a windsurfer, that sounds pretty perfect at first. And it was. At the same time, it did become quite physically demanding at some point. After the World Cup on Fuerteventura and the trip to Karpathos, I needed a day or two just to get my energy levels back to something like normal. Even so, I was straight back out on the water from day one. That feeling of ‘if there’s wind, I’ve got to get out on the water’ is probably still deeply ingrained in me. Even as a child, I used to make the most of every windy day on holiday with my dad, because it just wasn’t possible back home. And now I realise why we’d actually built the van that way. Coming back to the van after a long session with salty hair, stowing the kit away in the garage in one go whilst keeping the living area dry and clean saves at least a bit of energy. In theory, at least. Because, of course, you still manage to walk through the van at some point with a wet wetsuit and sandy feet.
One thing I’d been particularly looking forward to was the shower at the back of the van. I didn’t have anything like that in the T4. Back then, my shower usually consisted of a refilled bottle of water. Now, after windsurfing, I just open the rear doors, hang my wetsuit up somewhere and can have a shower outside. It’s perfect, especially on Karpathos. It’s warm, the sun’s shining, the water’s really salty, and after a session there’s hardly anything better than giving yourself a proper rinse-out with fresh water. The kitchen’s one of my highlights too. Whizzing up a quick bite to eat after a session, grabbing a cold MioMio from the fridge or firing up the air fryer – things that used to be impossible or much more complicated in the T4 are now simply part of everyday life. And yes, you heard right: I’ve finally got an air fryer too. After years in the T4, when my kitchen tended to operate on the principle of ‘How little do I actually need?’, this feels quite luxurious.
But perhaps the biggest difference compared to the old van isn’t the kitchen at all. It’s the space. I work from the van: social media, videos, various windsurfing projects – my laptop is actually just as much a part of my kit as my boards. In the T4, I’d usually lie on the bed somewhere to do this. It works. But at some point your back starts to protest and you find yourself wondering why on earth you’d voluntarily work in a position that no normal person would adopt at a desk. That’s why a proper table and seating system was right at the top of my list this time. The swivelling, ergonomic front seats give me a proper sitting position. The table can also be folded out. There’s even room for a game of Catan with its expansion set on it. When friends pop round, it quickly turns into a games night: two sit on the bench, two on the front seats. Incidentally, the bench seat can be pulled out right up to the kitchen unit. If we need more space, it’s extended in two seconds. That was exactly what I’d wanted. Not as much luxury as possible. But things that I actually use in everyday life.
And then, of course, there’s what’s really the centrepiece for me: the garage. Anyone who’s ever tried to fit several windsurf boards, sails, masts, wetsuits, kitesurfing gear, surfboards and all the bits and bobs into a van knows: It’s actually a rather complicated game of Tetris. And when it comes to a garage, the rule is always the same: it can never really be big enough. Ours is 2.25 metres long, so even the longer waveboards fit in without any trouble. The bed above it, on the other hand, is only two metres long. That’s why we didn’t just build the garage the same way throughout, but made use of every centimetre. On the left-hand side – when looking into the garage from the back – we have the full 2.25 metres at our disposal. On the right-hand side, however, it’s only 2.10 metres. We’ve made the most of precisely those few centimetres in the kitchen too: the sink protrudes a little way into the bed box. This allowed us to extend the kitchen unit without it jutting further into the entrance area. In the new van, the boards are stacked horizontally on top of one another and the height of the mounts can be adjusted. Depending on the conditions, I can therefore decide which boards and sails I want to have to hand more quickly. With wind almost every day, this really does save time. To the left of the wheel arch is the electrical system; to the right, there’s space for sails and the like. And then there’s that one board. A 2.70-metre-long longboard for surfing. To accommodate this, we actually had to come up with a rather specialised solution during the conversion: the board starts at the back of the garage and extends through an opening into the living area, underneath the pull-out bench seat. After a lot of measuring and adjusting, we finally said: ‘It fits.’ That alone made all the effort worthwhile. Being able to adapt everything to your favourite gear is surely the biggest advantage of fitting out the van yourself.
We’ve also learnt from our experiences with the old van when it comes to water. We’ve pulled the PVC flooring up at the sides and additionally sealed the corners with silicone. There’s also a further watertight partition between the garage and the bed. The last few weeks, with wet wetsuits and plenty of water, have put the whole thing through a pretty good real-world test, and so far it’s working exactly as we’d imagined. In the T4, the mattress lay directly on the bed base and had even started to go mouldy at one point due to the damp. In the new van, however, I sleep on a Froli system. This works in a similar way to a slatted frame, allowing air to circulate beneath the mattress and thus ensuring the necessary ventilation. Of course, not everything is perfect just yet. We’ve got the heater – which we actually still wanted to fit – with us in a box, but it’s still waiting for its big moment. With temperatures over 30 degrees on Karpathos, however, our motivation to sort it out was rather limited.
The fact that you can tailor everything to your favourite kit is probably the biggest advantage of doing the fit-out yourself.
And now: Naxos
After about 45 days on Karpathos, we set off for Naxos. It really could have been quite simple. But of course, it wasn’t. The thing is, I hadn’t booked a ferry. When I looked for a connection about a week and a half before our planned departure, I realised everything was fully booked. There aren’t that many crossings from Karpathos to Naxos to begin with. So we started making phone calls. Again and again. On hold, contacting various ferry companies, always getting the same answer: “No, it’s not possible.” In the end, we gave up and decided to simply go to the harbour every day and ask. And sure enough: three days later, we were standing there, asked again, and suddenly it worked out after all. I don’t know why. But somehow we had a ticket. Perhaps that’s just Greece.
So I’ve now arrived on Naxos. The lagoon is perfect, my training is going well and I’ve even landed a double Spock already. Above all, though, I’m looking forward to spending the next few days with my friends and trying out the van some more on the next island. And who knows, maybe van life still has a surprise or two in store for me.