Maciek Rutkowski interviews Robby Naish, the windsurfer, who won his first world champion title at the age of 13, bought his first house at 18, developed freestyle windsurfing on longboards, made the first big jumps on a windsurfer with straps and dominated competitive windsurfing for almost two decades. He then started his own windsurfing brand (Naish sails) in 1995. Nowadays he runs a big water sport brand and offers products for windsurfing, kitesurfing, wing foiling, SUP.
It’s a great interview with a total length of 137 minutes! Robby Naish tells much about his life, his career as a professional windsurfer and the business side of his life. “Sometimes I think we make too much stuff!” Everyone, who is interested in the history part of windsurfing and the character of “king Robby”, should listen to this outstanding interview. And thumbs up to Maciek, who grows beyond himself in his windsurfing podcasts.
Here are some of Robby’s statements from the interview:
“I can ride anything. I can adapt.”
“I hated losing.”
“The future in racing is the Olympic class.”
“Not many people are windsurfing, kitesurfing or stand-up paddling, because they wanna beat anyone else.”
“My ability was probably better than my gear. For me it’s all about the feel!”
“I always did it, because it’s what I do and I enjoyed it.”
“I wanna go windsurfing, I wanna go ride waves. I still enjoy this more than anything else.”
“Even at the big time of windsurfing we were still a pretty small sport.”
“Windsurfing was big on the other side of the world. Now people know who I am here, but more from SUP.”
The Windsurfing Podcast with Robby Naish Episode #15 – Interview by Maciek Rutkowski
What an interesting insight into watersports. You don’t get to hear and see the king for more than 2 hours every day. Despite the trend to rejection of authority these days , this man is and will be THE authority for generations.Maybe he has went astray with his Naish brand for various reasons but I hope that finally he will get back to his true windsurfing roots.As Maciek delicately pointed out with this new stupidity fad- wing “thing” is like reinventing hot water. You start by holding a wing, then why not put some battens for stability, but hey it… Read more »