Words by Leon Jamaer
“In October my partner Mercedes-Benz and I set out on an adventure trip exploring the Scottish Outer Hebrides. While camping for ten days I encountered rough weather, welcoming people und incredible windsurf conditions. I had no fixed schedule or particular plan and was free to follow the low pressure systems and enjoy the islands raw beauty.”
A film team led by BSP Media captured some of these moments and produced an advertisement.
If there were no big brands, stars, ads, huge events and lot of people watching and enjoying windsurfing, we would still be on classic windsurf class boards and no-batten sails. It is the combination of money/passion/craftmanship that rolls the world around. If nobody cared for windsurfing, then nobody would dare to develop kiting, foiling or some other sports. This ad helps! That is the reality of the world we live in. Accept it. Robby Naish is businessman not a rastafarian beach boy. Equation is simple: no people windsurfing = no development, huge prices and so on… This particular ad for… Read more »
a note upfront: the last sentence that marks it as an advertisement was part of my quote. I don´t know why C7 excluded it. the message of the video is not quite go to the next Mercedes-Benz store and buy a V-Class but simply to encourage being more adventurous and face unknown things, explore, learn… (if you feel offended by that, ok…) I meet a lot of people who hardly know what wavesailing is but become fans straight away when they see it. As it appears so rarely in public, though, wavesailing can be hard to comprehend. I don´t think… Read more »
Leon’s riding is superb and that is what matters. As for our sport, no matter what you do and how much ads you add, it is and it will ever be a niche sport which is self sufficient only because of the brotherhood of windsurfing.
Sorry, but the talking is funny,artificial and sucks. Cut it off.
It’s an ad for a car. Fake and kind of depressing. (No disrespect to Leon’s riding, of course)
hey guys….come on! be happy that a brand like Mercedes invests in our sport! I am with you that’s a different video, but hey if they do an advert with windsurfing (and C7 even marked it as a an ad) – it’s overall really good for the sport. So watch it not only once, watch it 20 times 😉 I am just getting so bored of all those negative comments lately. If you all wanna make Windsurfing a big sport again, there should be more those positive surfer vibes around at least. I guess if companies see just negative comments… Read more »
Agree with Max. Why there are so many haters in the windsurf sport?
Hm, why should anybody be happy if MB (or some other big brand) “invests” in the sport? Some pro can fly around the world, ok, great for him (or her). The only “benefit” for the community of windsurfers is a video which is less interesting (being an add) as most of the amateur videos (such as Swiss style). Does anybody who does not make a living from the sport really want windsurfing being popular like surfing and having to fight for a spot in the water at the beach, I doubt… Anyways, they obviously had great fun in the water… Read more »
I agree with you. One (minor) advantage of the sport getting more attention could be more pros, a higher level, more brands. That is, however, less relevant than the whole consumerist notion of making ads (for cars, of all things!), which I really can’t get myself to like. This is part of a much wider discourse, anyway, which far transcends windsurfing (and sport too), so I’ll just end on a happier note: Leon kicks major ass : )