Back then - I was maybe ten or eleven - I grabbed a pair of children's sunglasses in a supermarket and roamed the aisles with them. The yellow plastic glasses transformed the shopping world around me into a wonderfully sunny place, a haven of good humour. Now, 20 years later, it was back, the "dream in yellow". The only problem was that this time I wasn't wearing children's sunglasses, but had accidentally hooked into a pushloop three seconds earlier, over-rotated and got a nasty knock on the back. After a few minutes on the beach, the familiar colours of Cape Town's Big Bay slowly returned, but what remained was a mental block and the realisation that protective clothing is sometimes advisable when windsurfing.
If you talk to surfers who speed surf or ride waves a lot, you quickly realise that hard landings and crashes have landed many people in hospital. "I once landed so hard in Pozo that I had to go to hospital afterwards with a bruised crown jewel. Since then, like many worldcuppers, I've only surfed with protection shorts," explains Klaas Voget. And the German speed record holder Christian Bornemann doesn't even think about leaving his impact protection waistcoat off when he's heating up. However, as there are also many hobby surfers who hone their front loop, wild freestyle tricks or personal speed record, we took a look around and present some examples of accessories.
Manuel Vogel
Editor surf
