Interview with the legend: Robby Naish about his company, his health, his cars and more

When it comes to timing and the right wave selection in Ho'okipa, hardly anyone can beat the master today. Robby Naish turned 61 on 23 April this year. If you see current action pictures of him like the ones on these pages, you might not believe this figure. Grandpa Naish is still rocking the waves of Ho'okipa on Maui, and who would believe that he won his first world title back in 1976 as a 13-year-old blond. Many more titles followed and only a certain Bjørn Dunkerbeck put an end to Robby's winning streak. This was followed by the founding of his company, with which he continued to set new trends in windsurfing, kitesurfing, stand-up paddling, foiling and wingsurfing and became an extremely successful businessman. At the beginning of 2023, Robby sold the company to the European importer Kubus Sports in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, the master has not retired.

Robby Naish on the sale of his company

I sold the Naish operating companies, i.e. those responsible for distribution and production. I still own the worldwide Naish brands and am the licensor. The guys who bought it - Kubus Sports in the Netherlands - are the licence holder and they were my biggest European distributor. It made a lot of sense to do it that way. They had an investment company that basically bought it shortly after. It's a bit complicated to get everyone up to speed, but I've tried to work with my team here to get a handle on the co-operation with the guys in Europe and get them to understand the nature of the business. The mood in our industry and in the outdoor sports industry is probably as bad as it's ever been, so these are difficult times. The post-Covid market is pretty much in the toilet. It was booming because everyone was sitting at home and had free time and money to spend. So people were buying toys. It was a kind of boom. But of course that boom is over now and a lot of brands are sitting on their stock. Unfortunately, it's a good time to not be in the industry. For me it's great because I'm still involved in the development, so I'm riding with Michi [Schweiger] and testing with the kite guys. I'm also involved in the foil tests. I enjoy it because I don't have the stress of the business side of things anymore. I'm on the beach pretty much every day.

Too much stress, too little fun

The stress in the shop just became too much for me. The reason I always did everything was because I enjoyed it. The financial aspect was never really important - the main thing was that we made enough money to keep the business going. In the end, Naish still made money, but it wasn't fun anymore.

I was overwhelmed with the business side of things. As much as I love my team and my employees, the responsibility involved and the threat of liability risks became too much for me. As you get older, you see life through different eyes. I'm over 60, so in my mind I may not be the average 60-year-old man, but you can't just ignore things like risks and the effects of stress. I've worked an awful long time to get to where I am now and I don't want to lose it all because of one bad business decision.

I don't want to lose everything I have achieved because of a wrong business decision."

More about Robby Naish:

• King Robby turns 60: Career, successes, setbacks - Robby Naish answers honestly like never before
• RIP, Diamond Head, La Perouse: Three windsurfing videos with Robby Naish worth watching
• Robby Naish and Björn Dunkerbeck about their rivalry

Robby Naish on his new life as a privateer

There came a point when I needed to take the plunge. But it wasn't just about collecting as big a cheque as possible, then I could have turned to a venture capital firm, there were lots of different options. But this was the option that seemed the most seamless to me. The brand could continue as it was, but with potential upside as it is now based in Europe, where most of the market is. It took a big weight off my shoulders, and that was the most important thing, because the stress was not healthy. I'm still the owner of Naish and it's still important to me that the company is doing well. I've worked long hours and had a lot of fun doing it. It's not like I've jumped ship and gone golfing! I'm on the water a lot more now than I used to be because I'm not trapped in email hell every day. The business side of things has taken the fun out of why I started in the first place. If I want to go windsurfing now, I will. It doesn't matter that there might be a foil that needs testing. I test the foil when I feel like it. There used to be so many things that there was always some kind of emergency. Now I'm enjoying the sport again, which was my main goal.

"I surf better than I did a year ago!"

The goal is now life! Actually, there is no goal at all anymore. I just enjoy living every day and trying to be a good father, a good grandfather, a good friend and a good surfer. I think I surf much better now than I did a year ago! Part of that is simply down to my approach and being able to spend more time on the water. A healthier mind really goes a long way to making everything else better. I just didn't handle that stress well. I've always been very conservative financially, and just the burden of these different businesses wasn't healthy for me. Now I can do what I want, which fortunately includes a lot of time on the water, which is exactly what I still want. When the conditions are good, I'm on the water. I'm going windsurfing a lot and kitesurfing more again. I'm no longer worried about injuring myself. I'm also playing with my cars more again, working around the house and garden and trying to live a balanced life and enjoy being unattached.

Robby Naish on a new way of travelling

I have always loved Japan. I didn't take any equipment with me and I didn't visit any shops, but I met my importer there, who I've worked with for 40 years. We just drove around Tokyo, visited temples, ate wonderful Japanese food, stayed in a nice hotel, and it was literally the first time in my life that I was just a tourist. I said I was only going to Japan to eat good food - I let my girlfriend plan everything else. That was cool because I'd never done anything like that before. I used to want to be a tourist, but I was always too busy windsurfing. I travelled to a country, concentrated on the event, packed my things and then left straight away. Another time I travelled to Europe for a PR campaign, but I was only there for 24 hours and then left. I did that all the time.

Robby Naish on spontaneous sessions with locals

I'm constantly travelling for Red Bull doing presentations, speaking engagements and other things. Of course I've enjoyed all the places I've been and I have friends all over the world, but I've never just been shopping or just hanging out. I would love to take my VW bus to Europe and drive around with my gear and just show up at random places unannounced and surf with other people.

We drove to a small lake in Austria and turned up in the car park. It was so cool to just ride with the people at their local spot."

Last year I was in Austria with Red Bull and took my wing-foils with me, we drove to a small lake and didn't tell anyone we were going to be there. We turned up in the car park on a Saturday and set up. It was so cool to see the reaction and just ride with the people at their local spot. We also did that once in California, near the Bay Area. No cameras, no adverts, just hanging out with local surfers and people loved it. I'd like to do more of the sports I love, but in a different way than I used to.

Robby Naish about his health

Something told me it was time to get out of the business. I'm feeling really good at the moment. I still have a few heart problems that I need to keep an eye on, but otherwise I'm fine. I just have to be careful because I occasionally have atrial fibrillation. I'm firmly convinced it's from the Covid vaccine they gave us. It's not bad for me and it only happens when I have extremely high adrenaline levels, usually when I'm stand-up paddling in big waves or surfing. My heart gets out of rhythm and my blood pressure plummets. It can make you really dizzy and I just have to make sure that doesn't happen to me when I'm surfing so I don't pass out and drown! I can stand on a treadmill and try to stop it, but it doesn't work. I love doing a slalom run from Ho'okipa to Kanaha in about 40 knots, and I do that a lot now. But when I get to Kanaha, I get dizzy because I'm not harness surfing the whole time. It's happened to me four times in the last year. It's not a big deal and I feel like I can manage it somehow. Apart from that, I'm fine. I also have a smartwatch, just in case, but it hasn't happened yet since I got that, so who knows. I think stress was also a big factor because stress obviously affects everything, your mind, your body, your spirit, and when you have less stress you feel better too.

There's always something to repair on the older cars. That's part of the fun of classic cars."

Robby Naish about his equipment

I just ride what we have at Naish at the moment. I don't make any more custom moulds. I take what we produce. I let them do what they want with the boards. I can surf with anything! Over the years, some boards have proven to be better for my riding style than others, but I'm fine with that. I think I'm riding better than I have in a long time. I use the Ho'okipa Quad in the 88 size. I only have a slalom board and a wave board. It's so damn cool because I always have the right equipment. It doesn't matter what the conditions are like. I really enjoy the way my boards ride. I feel like I can do what I want, when I want and how I want.

I used to ride an 8'3" x 23" (252 cm x 58.4 cm), over and over again. That was my competition board for years. I could do just about anything with it. Especially in the conditions we normally rode in. Nowadays there are people who run around with six boards and change all the time. I wanted to train on one board most of the time and have one board that I could use in all conditions because I would have it set up perfectly. For me, that was a better approach than taking tonnes of equipment with me.

Robby Naish about shape trends

I was never like the other guys who are always testing new shapes instead of focussing on surfing. Those guys sometimes don't feel comfortable because they always have to deal with a different board, a different set of fins and all that. I've always said to myself: "I'll get it right and I'm only competing against myself anyway. If I'm in a good mood, catch the right waves, then I could win." A big part of the game is being mobile out there. I watch the guys in Ho'okipa and think, "Is this really the biggest gear you've got?" They're travelling with a 4.8 and a tiny board at six knots. Usually everyone follows the current trend. I think a lot of the guys today could do all that with their new gear on a board from twenty years ago. And maybe even better, because they would have more "pressure on the chain". The fact that everything is so short, squat and compact doesn't help them in certain situations. Some guys look kind of stuck. You can watch videos shot a long time ago in similar conditions in Ho'okipa, there was a lot more spray, a lot more speed and the aerials were bigger. The guys were actually gliding on the way out. Today it's different. Material development is going round in big circles. Who knows, maybe in a few years the guys will be riding with single fins again.

Robby Naish as commentator of the Aloha Classic

Last year was my first time commentating at the Aloha Classic. I don't really like watching other people windsurfing or commentating on a sport that I do myself. I'll watch a Formula 1 race, but I'm not a good spectator at a windsurfing competition, to put it that way. I want to be out there riding. I watched some of the heats online, checked the live stream and listened to commentator Kai (Katchadourian) so I knew who was doing what. Then I decided to drive down to Ho'okipa and watched all the quarter-final races from a corner on the hill. I didn't want to be the centre of attention. I went down and spoke to Ricardo (Campello) and motivated him. This time I actually enjoyed watching. It was quite nerve-wracking. I analysed who did what. They were all in a good mood. Personally, I would have surfed differently in these conditions. I was tempted to go out in lanes with the wing foil, but I thought to myself that I can't do that during the World Cup final, it wouldn't be politically correct. So I commentated the final with Kai, and that was fun. I've been listening to Kai for days - he's so good and just tireless, I don't know how he does it. He also has decades of knowledge and facts in his head. He knows the sport inside out, which makes his comments interesting. When he let me speak, people said they enjoyed it.

Robby Naish about his car collection

Normally they're all still broken, but I'm working on taking more time to play with them. When you have old cars, there's always something you need to work on. When I have time and I'm not busy with other things, there's always a little something I can tinker with. There are now so many that I can't keep up with them. I wouldn't say I'm a mechanic - I'm just an enthusiast. There is a limit to what I can do. At the moment, the various cars are in a nice little stable. There's also still my huge monster truck, which I hardly ever drive. I have a 1949 Studebaker pick-up truck, a classic American hot rod. I also own two Volkswagens, a '57 Beetle and a '67 Bus, both of which are now pretty pimped out! I still have my old Porsche 911, the blue one, which I've had for forty years. It's on its fourth engine. There's also the racing car - the Evans prototype from 1991 - which is bright yellow.

Most of my cars are only driven around the block. I systematically drive each car down the street and then put it back in the garage. Every now and then we take one of them to the Maui Classic Cruisers meetings. The 911 doesn't get driven that often and the Evans almost never. I'm not that kind of guy. I wish there were good roads here with no people, but that's not the case. I'm not a show-off who wants to drive around town with the windows down. With older cars, there's always something that needs fixing. That's part of the beauty and fun of older cars.

Robby Naish about flat water heating

I love racing down the coast all by myself and slaloming. At full speed, with all my strength, just hurtling downwind and seeing if I can beat my pick-up, which is driven along the coast from Ho'okipa to Kanaha. I just love windsurfing. The social side of windsurfing is not so much for me. It's not like I'm going to hang out in Ho'okipa all day. I go down there, rig up and ride until I start riding badly because I get tired. I don't usually manage more than an hour. The 20 -year-olds can easily ride for three hours, but at my age you can't do much after the first hour. Look at Liam Dunkerbeck, he's on the road all day! I don't ride any further when I get weaker.

Robby Naish about wingfoiling

I'm no longer a big windsurfing foiler. But I love foiling. When I go windsurfing, it's on the fin, but I love wing foiling. If the conditions are such that you can hardly make any progress with the windsurfer, then you fly and jump with the foil. Especially in bad conditions, wing foiling significantly extends your time on the water. It's fun. But I don't do any freestyle tricks out there, I just ride fast through the area, ride waves and make big jumps - just boosters or good old-school rocket airs! In the waves I just carve, you could say longboarding style, with all the big bottom turns and powerful cutbacks.

We are lucky enough to be able to utilise everything the wind and waves have to offer. Between SUP, wing, kite and windsurfing, hardly a day goes by without us being out on the water. There's hardly any time left to mow the lawn!

Robby Naish about foil racing

Whatever is the fastest to ride is what you need in racing, and these days that's a foil. It is what it is. You can't force people to surf something slower just for the sake of the market. The people who are out there riding fins don't follow the PWA anyway. They don't care. It makes foil racing more elitist, but I think it makes racing itself smaller. Foils are more powerful than fins, which is amazing, but it's hard to say how many people it appeals to. Where will foiling go in the future? I don't know. Hopefully some of the iQFOiLers will switch to the PWA after the Olympics, because there are a lot of them. But the difficulty and cost of the PWA tour will put a lot of people off - you have to be rich to do it! As a young surfer, I wouldn't be able to afford it. Things grow when they are accessible and relatively cheap.

I hope it grows. It would be nice to see these guys making a lot of money and travelling around the world to a lot of great events. I don't know how it's going to work, but I hope so. Windsurfing is still the greatest sport in the world, but it's very hard to make a living these days. A lot of people pay to be on the tour for a while. I'm not a great visionary when it comes to how things will develop in the future. The riders will probably look back and say they didn't make much money, but it was still the best years of their lives. At least they have that!

The drivers will say that they didn't earn much money, but they were still the best years of their lives."