My story of the year: How I unexpectedly delved deep into windsurfing history

At the end of the year, the surf editorial team looks back on their favourite stories from 2025. Tobi Frauen remembers how a video interview took unexpected turns.

"Somehow he looks familiar to me..." it popped into my head as I watched an interview part of an older surf video. But where from? Looking back, this thought developed into one of the stories that impressed me the most in 2025. Even though it was "only" a video call interview, i.e. purely office work.

Of course, the year also had a number of other highlights that seem much more spectacular at first glance: Three weeks of freeride testing in dream conditions in the Caribbean clearly have the biggest envy factor, and alongside the surf festival and boot, the World Cup on Sylt is always full of unbelievable moments. If only someone had told Tobi, a young windsurfing fan, that he would one day be travelling among his heroes...

But back to the somehow familiar-looking interview guest. The clip was about the legendary windsurfing race across the Atlantic in 1998, of which I primarily remember Robert Teriitehau's jump from aboard the support ship. A huge event, which was of course reported on at the time, but I hadn't really remembered it. I did a quick google, and lo and behold: Louie Hubbard - the man's name - had just written a book about the race, apparently so far under the radar of the windsurfing scene. An interview seemed like a good idea, and we quickly arranged a digital meeting in response to my email.

When the time came, a nice British gentleman appeared on my screen who was pleased about the interest in his book and happy to talk about the project (a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere that is far from common in every interview). Louie talked well beyond the agreed time - not only about the Trans Atlantic Windsurf Race, but also about his roots as the skipper of a sailing boat and a traumatic accident on the Atlantic, the elaborate planning of the race, the hurdles involved in organising it, the adventurous race on the Russian icebreaker that served as an escort ship and much more.

And when he told me how he became tour manager of the PWA for a few years in the mid-nineties by chance and tried to reorganise the World Cup in the chaos after the end of the PBA, I remembered where I had seen Louie before: In the legendary video for the "Namotu Fiji Wave Classic", which ran up and down as a VHS in my teenage room, he could be seen briefly, dressed in a wrap-around skirt, trying halfway desperately to get permission for the contest on the reef from the tribal elder on the remote island. This brought us full circle, and at some point the interview time was over far too quickly and with it an incredibly exciting excursion into the windsurfing world of the nineties!

Incidentally, the book has now been published and is available here: silentmayday.org