The advertising in this magazine deserves special attention: right on the second cover page, readers are confronted with an imposing "Give way" sign, together with the line "With a safe sail on Lake Garda". Well, are there any material restrictions there? In fact, the municipality, together with a number of regional partners, is asking people to wear life jackets and show consideration. It is at least remarkable that a marketing budget was spent on this. A few pages later, Terminator Björn Dunkerbeck lolls around in Boss clothing, shortly followed by a little diss among competing brands: "How do you win the North One Hour? - Quite simply with the faster material," say Fanatic and ART. GunSails, on the other hand, advertises both its brief foray into the board business (in the sunset look of the 80s) and the sails with a somewhat strange muscle man in pantomime make-up, the exact meaning of which remains in the dark.
The windsurfing dropouts on Fuerteventura
surf author Christian Tillmanns was a guest of the windsurfing dropouts on Fuerteventura. Klaus Baumann swapped his black banker's wetsuit for a wetsuit and spent a few years commuting between Fuerteventura and Lake Garda, where he was able to earn money in a shop. He thinks it's silly to talk about "bad surfing days": "We're already doing well if we can surf at all," he says. Gunnar from Sweden also lives for the wind and waves, earns some money in between with "shitty jobs", and "even the enforced regular phone calls with his parents are annoying". His way of getting by on as little money as possible: "He feeds on an indefinable, foul-smelling, brown cereal powder called gofio", which is also fed to "dogs and babies". Markus, on the other hand, does not live on Fuerte permanently, but returns to the island from time to time between his A-levels, military service, studies and apprenticeship - often for several months at a time. However, he would also like to move to the Canary Islands permanently instead of doing "strange things" such as getting married, building houses or having children.
Spot Guide Fischland/Darß/Zingst
"For decades, the Baltic Sea was taboo, now we can finally hit the waves too," says the East German surf scene, surf shows the best spots on the Fischland-Darß peninsula. "The Wessis are probably just poor at it," is the verdict of a local from Neuhaus after a trip to Fehmarn. The scene is lively and anyone who is recognised as a windsurfer is quickly integrated. They get the best pitches on the campsite, normal tourists have to take second place, and "arrogant Wessis" are sometimes turned away straight away. After the hardships of the GDR era, modern equipment is very popular, but people still tinker around themselves: Booms are built in-house ("Aluminium wrapped, it's lighter and more stable than the one from North!"), and homemade carbon fins are offered at the campsite for 80 marks. The sewage treatment plants are also being modernised as part of the reconstruction of the East, the water quality of the Bodden waters in the hinterland has improved noticeably and makes the region a top destination, not only for guests from the "Moloch Berlin": "The look of Sylt, the standard of Lake Garda, and you don't have to worry about your equipment being knocked to pieces!"
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And what else?
- All surf subscribers receive the new sticker: After the classic motif with the surfer on the wave of the "s" has been stuck on more than three million times since 1978 (with a material update in 1987), the sail is now only depicted in a stylised way, but more dynamically and in colour.
- Surf masts in the service of science: A space camera had to be mounted above a telescope on La Palma. The Max Planck Institute used three North bases for this.
- surf was the subject of Christian Penning's dissertation because the magazine was "trend-setting" for many specialised magazines, according to the justification. The result: surf has become more colourful, features a particularly large number of test and travel topics and stimulates readers and the industry alike.
- Tennis queen Steffi Graf, at the peak of her career in 1992, dreams of windsurfing: "I want to be able to windsurf, but I don't have the time," she said in an interview
- Jürgen Klinsmann, on the other hand, Germany's star striker, could have gone surfing during the 1992 European Championship if it had been up to national coach Berti Vogts.
- Neil Pryde himself wrote to surf from Hong Kong in 1992 to make it clear that the change of importer from Jarstorf to Shiro was a "business decision" and not an expression of dissatisfaction. You can read a big portrait of Mr Neil Pryde in the upcoming surf issue 5/2025.
- surf shows how you can get the glide you desire with modern equipment from as little as three wind forces and reveals in a table what you need depending on your weight.
- "High lips should be kissed" is the motto of aerial riding technique. Robby Naish shows in Hookipa how to do it in sideshore conditions, Ian Boyd then demonstrates how high you can jump backside in St. Peter-Ording. Cesare Cantagalli then demonstrates the 360.
- "The benefits of stretching can be observed not only on cats", and that's why there are nine warm-up exercises for windsurfers
- Nobody was thinking about GoPro, Insta360 and the like in 1992, but for a mere 2699 marks there was a supposedly waterproof camcorder from Hitachi.
- Naish shows a heavy metal-look T-shirt with a skeleton shaka: "Hand loose from Nirvana" comments the surf author, who is clearly not particularly enthusiastic about the "macabre shirt".
- At last, the industry is also discovering beginners: F2 has a new lightweight learning board and rig in its programme, and a surf student with the apt name Graziella gets to try it out for the surf camera on Lake Garda
- With "Board & Bellg" to Harderwijk, and "Kevin doesn't stay at home" on a surfing holiday - headline gold for the trips.
More surf reviews:
- surf 4/1977
- surf 6/1977
- surf 6/1978
- surf 4/1979
- surf 9/1980
- surf 11/1980
- surf 4/1981
- surf 5/1982
- surf 6/1982
- surf 4/1983
- surf 10/1983
- surf 9/1984
- surf 12/1984
- surf 8/1985
- surf 8/1986
- surf 9/1986
- surf 2/1987
- surf 5/1987
- surf 8/1988
- surf 5/1989
- surf 7/1989
- surf 4/1990
- surf 3/1991
- surf 6/1991
- surf 3/1992
- surf 10/1992
- surf 9/1993
- surf 10/1993
- surf 4/1994
- surf 7/1995
- surf 6/1996
- surf 11-12/1996
- surf 7/1997
- surf 8/1998
- surf 9/1998
- surf 4/1999
- surf 7/2001
- surf 5/2005
- surf 3/2006
