Citroën Windsurf World Cup Sylt 2025: What's behind Balz Müller's special material

Balz, your material is a real eye-catcher here, you have completely redesigned the board and sail. What is the idea behind it?

Let's put it this way, it's all about funboarding. And for me, funboarding is much more than just on the water, it's a way of life. And I think it's too rigid, not creative enough, simply not colourful enough. If you compare it with other sports, skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, the athlete can be much more involved in the design. Sails and boards offer the ideal platform to express your attitude to life. For me, it's funboarding, that's my life. In terms of style, my decor is inspired by Dale Cook, who had a board and sail with flames. I always thought that was cool and different. And as a freestyler, you want to be different.

Did you think about it in advance or did you just start painting?

This is a project together with the artist Hugu from Lanzarote, and I was allowed to adopt his style for it. We also integrated elements in this style into the Severne bike, the flames and the Severne logo. I am of course extremely proud that I can bring my own signature to Severne. Hugo is an artist who has the ability to realise this digitally. I showed him my logo and my ideas as scripts and he then digitised them.

• Severne R4D - Balz Müller's signature sail put to the test

In other words, you made the rough draft and he then realised it in his style?

That's right, it was created at the Defi, where we had a completely white sail and a completely white board. When we had to wait for the wind, Hugu and I got going. I think that's so cool, so the whole thing became a project that is much more than just sporty. It goes in the direction of art. And freestyling is actually nothing more than presenting your tricks on the water. And I think that together with a sail, which is not so boring, is much more fun. The original bike comes in a pretty plain red colour, but that also fits in well with nature, which is a nice contrast. I'd like to have a lot more flames in there. And who knows, maybe it will go in that direction in the future. I'm just happy that I get to sail a special, unusual sail.

Does that mean your sponsor Severne is behind your redesign?

Ben Severne is convinced that, as with surfing, we should simply offer a plain white board where the athlete can then add their own style with stickers or airbrushes. And when I asked him if we could do a bit more creative graphics, he said: "I'll send you the next board in white and you do what you want!" For me, this is also a project that is always evolving. Depending on your mood, you paint the stuff again. And I hope that I can inspire other people to develop their material a little more uniquely.

What colours do you use so that it holds on the water and doesn't break immediately?

That's a bit of a catch. It's probably a work of art that you have to handle with kid gloves. It's not for eternity. We did it with Bosca pens, which are water-based acrylic paints. You would actually have to put a varnish over it, but we haven't done that yet, and the non-skid paint is still missing.

Thank you very much!

More about the artist Hugu at hugushop.com