Philip Köster on his way to the World Championship title
In September 2011, Philip Köster was on the verge of winning his first World Championship title. The then 17-year-old rising star provided exclusive coverage for *surf* of the World Cups in Pozo and Tenerife. Whilst Pozo is, as is well known, Köster’s home spot, he had never been to the neighbouring island of Tenerife before the 2011 event. There he came up against Dany Bruch, who, as a local, naturally had the advantage. The two met in an all-German final in the double elimination. Dany managed to win the first heat thanks to better waves, but Köster came out on top in the second round. And this despite the fact that the Tenerife newcomer was caught out by the seaweed and had to constantly bounce up and down to free his fins from the pesky seaweed. And it was already a talking point back then: the triple loop. “The third rotation is like trying to learn a front loop all over again; it takes a lot of mental strength,” explains Köster. The attempt ended up as a perfectly executed double loop – not bad at all. In Pozo a few weeks earlier, Köster had also attempted a triple in the final, but pulled the emergency brake there. There, too, he finished at the top of the podium and headed to Sylt as the World Championship leader, where, with no wind, there was to be no result. And the rest is history...
Wave Special featuring Polakow and the Young Wild Ones
The style of wave riding changed in the 2000s – driven by young up-and-coming riders and freestyle elements, but also by more compact board shapes and the trend towards multi-fin boards. In 2011, there was therefore another major wave riding technique special featuring none other than Kauli Seadi, Jason Polakow, Ricardo Campello and Robby Swift. Starting with basic jumps, the feature moves on to classics such as the front loop and table top, before tackling radical top moves like the pushloop forward and goiter – and, of course, Taka and co. are a must. To round things off, there’s a cracking crash sequence from Ricardo Campello as a consolation – proof that even the very best can get it wrong sometimes. “We’ll spare you a detailed analysis of the mistakes. The only important thing is to recognise when the time has come to just let go,” was his succinct comment.
The architect of Cold Hawaii
Anyone driving through Thy today will see the ‘Cold Hawaii’ logo everywhere; surfers are welcome guests and many local businesses have embraced the laid-back style of these water sports enthusiasts. But it wasn’t always like that; in the 2000s, windsurfers weren’t at all welcome around Klitmøller. The fact that this has changed is, in part, down to Rasmus Johnsen, who is introduced in the interview as the “architect of Cold Hawaii”. In 2010, a World Cup was held there for the first time as a flagship event, but much more was happening behind the scenes. “We turned a spot that the fishermen considered dangerous – and which had cost quite a few people their lives – into our playground,” Rasmus recalls. What’s more, on good days there was chaos around the spots, with people parking haphazardly and rigging up their boards in people’s front gardens. “All of this really ruffled the feathers of the older fishermen and the locals.” When plans were made in 2005 to expand the harbour in Hanstholm and the Middles spot was threatened, the surfers banded together and sought dialogue with the local council. The local politicians were open and cooperative, but Rasmus’s crew also managed to foster a greater understanding within the surfing community of the locals’ perspective. At the World Cup itself, the Danish organisers used live streaming and live scoring for the first time. And both in this regard and with the “Cold Hawaii” project, a success story was written that continues to this day!
Freestylers vs. slalom skiers
Even today, two species whose habitats are otherwise strictly separate still come together every year on Sotavento beach. The World Cup on Fuerteventura usually features slalom and freestyle events, which leads to some bizarre scenes: “The freestyler is usually about half a metre shorter than the racer, but wears the same trouser size,” explain the two protagonists, Tilo Eber and Chris Pressler. Underneath, they wear clearly visible underpants, often by Björn Borg. “However, as the average freestyler is no more than 17 years old, he is rarely aware that he is wearing the name of a bearded tennis player over his private parts.” The slalom sailor, on the other hand, is on average twice as old as the freestylers and can “recite the font size of his sail number, as prescribed by the rules, and the stiffness of the third-lowest batten in his sleep.” After out-drinking the freestyler that evening, the racer tackles his hangover “with a muesli bar packed with three thousand kilocalories and compressed like chipboard, and a Red Bull”, before sorting and sharpening his twelve fins. Conversation is difficult because their vocabularies have hardly any overlap. To make up for this, the slalom rider kindly helps the “freestyler, whom he considers malnourished and whose chest circumference rivals the thickness of his own biceps”, by providing him with muesli bars and sandpaper.
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What else is going on?
- F2, the former market leader, is celebrating its 30th anniversary under new management. Fittingly, Steven van Broekhoven has just been crowned F2 Freestyle World Champion.
- Fanatic, one of its competitors, is also celebrating its 30th anniversary – “on the quiet”. Ten years later, it was to 40. Then a whole year of retro design follow, before the name appears a short while later Fanatic in favour of Duotone disappeared.
- One of the main topics in this issue is the Finns – and, given the time of year, also the Advantages and disadvantages of seagrass fins, but the steep wave fins – which were almost brand new at the time – are also being put under the microscope
- “There’s more than enough water around Usedom. The challenge lies in finding your way to the spots,” says the comprehensive spot guide to Germany’s third-largest Baltic Sea island. surf helps you track down at least some of them.
- A packed programme at the Windsurf Cup off Sylt: following the Formula and Slalom events, there was also wave riding in Sylt’s shorebreak, featuring a top-class line-up including Voget and Köster. In the end, Köster was crowned German champion, although there was some controversy over some rather strange judging criteria.
- On Fuerte, the finalists were fitted with helmets equipped with GoPros to capture footage for the livestream. It looked good, but not everyone was keen on the idea.
- Not quite Max and Moritz, but close enough: *surf* profiles two blonde Pozo groms with German roots who have little else on their minds apart from windsurfing and are almost impossible to get out of the water. The names of these two best mates: Alessio Stillrich and Moritz Mauch.
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Tobias Frauen
Editor
