Made in Bonaire: With customised sails in the Freestyle World Cup - three questions for Youp Schmidt

Youp Schmidt is not only an internationally successful freestyle windsurfer, but also a passionate sailmaker. Since he no longer competes for Tabou and GA-Sails, the 30-year-old has been making his windsurf sails completely by himself on his home island of Bonaire - from the first cut to the endurance test on the water. The combination of his own workshop, years of experience at the sewing machine in the Jibe City surf centre and constant testing conditions make the Caribbean island the ideal development location.

What made you decide to build your own sails?

The reason I wanted to make my own windsurf sails was because I had been sitting at the sewing machine making and repairing other things for many years. Once I had opened my own boat and surf workshop and it was stable and running successfully, the dream of making my own sails started to become a reality as I have the perfect space for it and live on the perfect island to be able to go out on the water at any time for testing.

Surprisingly, the first prototypes were very successful.

Did it work on the first try?

Surprisingly, the first prototypes were very successful, but of course they still needed to be optimised. By being able to make these specific changes directly after a session on the water and test them again and again, I learnt a lot about what does what and how to improve it.

Are you planning to design a complete range of sails and launch them on the market?

At the moment I'm concentrating only on high-performance freestyle sails and I also build beginner and freeride sails, but I'm not currently thinking about a complete range of sails.