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TIMO MULLEN: LIFE OF A WINDSURFER

Timo Mullen has never really separated normal life from windsurfing…the two have always been tangled together. Raised on an Irish loch, fuelled by an instant passion for wave sailing, road trips and an endless appetite for improvement, he has spent decades chasing wind and waves. In this in-depth interview, Timo looks back on some of his highlights, low points and magic memories that shaped one of the most committed windsurfing lives you’ll ever hear about! From learning to windsurf in Ireland, to sailing world-class waves around the world, contest wins, Jaws and a lifelong addiction, this is the story of Timo’s life as a windsurfer!

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WINDSURF: How and why did you first get into windsurfing?

TIMO MULLEN: “I got into windsurfing because my dad was one of the first people to bring a windsurf board into Ireland. He went to a boat show in the USA…I think it was actually in Florida and he brought back one of the very early windsurfing boards. I can’t remember if it was a Windsurfer or a Ten Cate board, but he brought back a board and taught himself how to windsurf.

We lived by a loch near the east coast of Northern Ireland and Dad then tried to teach us. He also bought these boards called Walt Disney windsurf boards. Disney actually licensed these boards…that’s how big windsurfing was back then. Disney were making kids’ windsurfing boards and Dad got us (myself and my brother Finn) one of those.

Myself and Finn learned when we were six and seven and we’d go windsurfing every summer. We loved it. We had wooden dagger boards that you could pull out to go faster. I guess we just did that in the summers with Dad and then when we got a bit older, we did football and stuff and we skied a lot… snow skiing.

Then one day, I remember my brother moved schools and he had to go with my dad every day to work. He’d get dropped at school and after school my dad would pick him up and Finn would just go windsurfing. I was at a different school and I remember one day going to where my dad worked and Finn was just blasting around. I was like, “Oh my God, that looks the coolest thing ever!”

He had done all this progression and that was when we were both like windsurfing is the best thing in the world.”

WINDSURF: When did you start getting into the waves?

TIMO MULLEN: “We grew up on a massive lake….in Ireland known as a loch…Loch Neagh. It’s actually the biggest loch in the British Isles, like…it’s huge. Our parents’ house is right on the shore of the loch. It’s Great Lakes–type size, massive.

So, in a north wind we actually did get waves and we kind of learned to sail waves and jumping on the loch. We also learned how to loop on the loch. Then when we were 14 and 15, we went to our first wave event, actually in Magheroarty. That would have been 1987, I’m guessing. It was one of the first Magheroarty Wave Classics.

Believe it or not, the judge at that event was Duncan Coombs and that’s the first time I met Duncan who I have known now for over thirty years.”

WINDSURF: Were you already hooked by that stage?

TIMO MULLEN: “Oh yeah. That’s all we fu**ing did. We just loved it…we literally loved windsurfing.

Yeah, I’ve got a pretty funny story from my first trip away with my parents on a windsurfing holiday to Lanzarote. We’d gone to Costa Teguise the year before with my mum and dad; I would’ve been about 14. We absolutely loved it. We windsurfed literally every day, had wind every single day and for a 14-year-old kid on a windsurfing trip, it was as good as it gets. It was epic.

The next year we were like, “Dad, can we go back to Lanzarote?” But for some reason we couldn’t go again. I can’t remember why. So instead, I asked my mum if I could go on my own, bearing in mind I was only 15, with my friend Kieran, who I windsurfed with and who lived across the bay from our house. To our surprise, both sets of parents said yes and let us go.

Now that I’m a dad, there’s absolutely no way I’d ever let my kids go away on holiday on their own at 15, but I guess our parents trusted us.

First night we get there, and obviously we’re going straight out on the lash. We get a bottle of vodka, have a few drinks at the apartment, then head out to a bar. What we didn’t realise was that the PWA World Cup Slalom was on in Costa Teguise, but it was the last day. All the pros had packed their gear up ready to leave the next morning.

So, there we are, a little bit drunk, wandering around at about nine or ten at night, and suddenly we’re seeing all this gear just lying around…Eric Tieme’s gear, Björn’s gear and Nik Baker’s gear. Back then, competition vests were the big thing. All the top guys had their name and country flag on them, and they were like gold dust…the ultimate collector’s item. Think Ronaldo’s football shirt just lying on the ground.

Me and my mate were like, “Yeah, they’re not going to mind if we take these.” So, we managed to grab a couple of vests. Then we spotted Eric Tieme’s gear. Eric Tieme was super famous in the ’90s and he wore these shiny silver wetsuits…that was his trademark. His wetsuit was there, and being fairly drunk, we thought it would be a great idea to try and steal it.

I somehow stuffed his wetsuit down the leg of my jeans…no idea how and we’re walking along, trying to look normal. Suddenly this security guard comes up and says, “Right, stop. You’re stealing stuff.” I was like, “No we’re not.” He looks at my leg and goes, “What’s that?” And I’m like, “Oh, it’s fashion, you know …big pants. It’s a fashion thing.”

He just stared at me, clearly seeing the wetsuit hanging out of my trousers, and this big Spanish security guard just punched me straight in the face. He was absolutely raging. At that point, we just legged it. We had this Spanish security guard chasing us and we ran for our lives, but somehow managed to get away.

Yeah, that is just a classic story. Not that I’m a thief, but it was one of those moments you remember forever.

The rest of the trip was epic. It was windy every single day, we were jumping on the reef and we already knew how to loop at that point, which was a big deal back then. I’ve actually got a photo of my first ever loop…at Costa Teguise! That’s when we were really hooked on waves.

Then the Magheroarty Wave Classic was in September, so we came back from our summer trip and went straight to that wave contest. I actually won the wave event at the age of 15. It was the very first Magheroarty Wave Classic and I won it basically because I was the only guy that could land a loop.”

WINDSURF: When did you move to England?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah, so after that we just kept going back and forth to Magheroarty…that was our spot. Our mum would bring us up there; it was about a two-hour drive from our parents’ house, but it was the spot.

Once I finished my A-levels and we’d passed our driving tests, we were at Magheroaty all the time. We were also driving up to the north coast of Northern Ireland, which has really good waves and also sailing the east coast as well.

I remember I had a Gaastra wave sail and I was determined to do a double loop. This was when double loops were just starting. I was maybe 18 or 19 and I got it on video…me doing doubles on starboard tack. On one of them… and it’s actually the reason I’ve never done a double on starboard tack since; I went straight into the boom.

I ripped the whole top of my lip clean off. I didn’t have a lip… it was hanging off…and I had to go to hospital and get it stitched back on.

So yeah, once I finished my A-levels and I then went to university in Plymouth.”

WINDSURF: Did you choose Plymouth because it was close to a wave spot?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah. I was going to go to university in Belfast to stay at home, but then I saw they did this course at Plymouth University. I was only looking at Plymouth because it was near Cornwall, near the beach.

They did a course in maritime law and it wasn’t many hours a week of lectures. So basically, we just went wave sailing pretty much every day it was windy, which seemed like a lot back then.”

WINDSURF: So, university almost helped fuel your windsurfing addiction?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah, yeah. I remember doing the student windsurfing championships …they were in Tenerife… and I won that, so I was the student windsurfing champion.

While I was at UNI, I also did a British Funboard Association event… the BFA. They had a slalom event in Christchurch, Dorset, which is weirdly where I live now. One day it was so wild they couldn’t put the slalom course out, so they decided to have an expression session.

All the best guys were there…Jamie Hawkins, Julian Anderson and Cribby (guy Cribb) guys I thought were absolute legends. But none of them could really wave sail, apart from Jamie. I could do these big forward loops, and I basically won the expression session.

That kind of got me known as a wave sailor, and that’s when I started to get noticed and get sponsorship.”

WINDSURF: Who were your first sponsors?

TIMO MULLEN: “Well, Dad was our first sponsor, obviously. He had a windsurfing shop…the biggest windsurfing shop in Ireland. At one stage we were the biggest F2 dealer in the UK and also the biggest Gaastra sails dealer in the UK, all out of our little shop in Northern Ireland.

When we were at UNI, we got approached by a TV company to do a fully paid trip around the west coast of Australia. We went to Gordon Way, who was the NeilPryde distributor at the time and told him, “We’re doing this TV show, it’s going to be on Channel 4…do you want to sponsor us?”

Gordon was like, “Yeah, no worries.” It was probably the most ridiculous sponsorship deal we’ve ever had. He just said, “Go and tell me what you want.” So, we made this insane list…slalom boards, wave boards, slalom sails, wave sails, booms, masts, extensions. NeilPryde was the biggest brand in the world back then, and we got it all for free.

The university also paid us about £5,000 to go on the trip, paid for flights, everything. That really put myself and my brother on the map. We sailed places like Gnaraloo, Margaret River, Esperance and Lancelin. That’s kind of how our windsurfing journey really kicked off.”

WINDSURF: Who were your windsurfing heroes back then?

TIMO MULLEN: “Oh, Björn Dunkerbeck. We used to joke about it, but we genuinely thought Björn was the best…and he was the best. We loved slalom sailing and wave sailing and he was just the ultimate machine at both.

We were on F2 boards forever growing up, so he was Mr F2 to us. I’d say Björn, the Angulo brothers, Rush Randle…all the Rat Pack guys were the ones we loved.

Then as we got older, it was obviously Polakow. You just wanted to sail like him. He was kind of the first real video guy. Everything you wanted…he had Gaastra Heatwave sails…you wanted them because that’s what Polakow used.

Finn got a Strapper board, which I was insanely jealous of. I can’t remember what piece of shit I had…some old wave board I’d bought off a friend and then it delaminated.

It’s quite a funny story. The board delaminated underneath, so I tried to repair it myself. I got a Kay’s catalogue…for people who don’t know, Kay’s catalogue was this huge catalogue for clothes, watches, all that stuff, but it always had a lingerie section. I cut out all these pictures of girls in lingerie and glassed them into the bottom of the board.

But I used the wrong glass. It was a Polyester board and I used epoxy resin. It was repairing the board and then my dad came running over and went, “Son, the board’s like smoking.” The epoxy resin had burned through the poly, so I completely destroyed my wave board.

But yeah, just the usual guys I loved back then…the Angulo’s and Robby Naish, Rush Randle and Dave Kalama. I loved those guys.”

WINDSURF: What was your first real job after UNI?

TIMO MULLEN: “My first job after UNI was actually working for GUL Wetsuits. They offered me a job selling this cheap line of wetsuits and also kayaks. They gave me a brand new Volkswagen Transporter van, a credit card…which was a massive mistake for them….and a mobile phone, which was pretty unheard of back then. I’m not even sure mobile phones properly existed yet.

I rented a house at Bigbury-on-Sea, right opposite Burgh Island, with a friend from UNI who still windsurfs, Luke Danby. We basically went windsurfing every day, surfing and windsurfing at Bigbury. I would’ve been about 22 at the time.

WINDSURF: You were fully addicted to windsurfing and surfing by now?

TIMO MULLEN: “Oh God, ridiculously addicted. I was going to Tenerife all the time. You’d buy your flights on Ceefax or Teletext, which was kind of like the first version of the internet. Flights were like £40 return.

I’d go to Tenerife and stay with a guy called Johann…Johann Kerhervé, who I think still lives there…or I’d sleep in my board bag on the side of the road to save money. I’d buy bananas and bread every morning and that’s all I’d eat for a week and I’d windsurf every single day.

This was when people were learning double loops, so I’d have been about 22 or 23. Not many people were really trying that stuff back then.”

WINDSURF: Were you quite wild back then?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah, I’d say so…partying and everything, but actually not that much. Where I was living, you couldn’t really party. It was a mission to get from Bigbury to anywhere there was a party.

I was more just obsessed with windsurfing as getting in the water as much as possible. Going to Maui, Tenerife and Australia….I just wanted to travel, and I did. I travelled a lot just to improve.

One big thing back then…and I think a lot of guys from my era would say this; was that if you weren’t good on both tacks, you were a nobody. To be as good on starboard tack as port tack, with no bias, that’s what made a good windsurfer. That’s how you got credibility.

The whole thing was you’d go to Maui from March till October, then go to Western Australia after that. In between you might do summers, maybe a bit in the Canaries, but not that much.

The big focus was Maui and Western Australia…getting good in both places. You had to be good at wave riding. Jumping was kind of whatever, but wave riding was the main thing. It was all about going to places with proper waves.”

WINDSURF: After working for GUL, you landed a job in Wittering, didn’t you?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah. I mean, I didn’t actually do that much work in the job I had with Gull. They were paying me…my actual salary was £6,000 a year, which gives you an idea, it was not much…but I had a van with a fuel card, which was great. Eventually they obviously realised this guy’s not doing much work.

At the same time, Peter Hart was dating the woman who was running Simmer Style in the UK. He said to me in Tiree that she was looking for a sales rep. This was at the Tiree Wave Classic, where I actually came third. Michael Viscovich won, Danny Seales was second, I was third, and Ian “Blacky” Black was fourth.

Jamie Hawkins was there, Nigel Howell, Stuart Holland, Niels Larsson…everyone was at those events back then. That Tiree event was sponsored by Red Bull at the time. I remember driving back and having to phone this woman about a job.

At the same time, Danny Seales and I had just won thousands of pounds in prize money at that event, so we were both like, ‘we’re going to be professional windsurfers!’. But I was also like, ‘f**k, I actually need a job as well!’ So, I went to see the lady for an interview and she was like, “Yep, we’ll give you a job.”

The next week I had a full quiver of the best Simmer Style sails. I was also getting boards from the Isle of Wight from Nigel Howell…Critical Section boards.”

WINDSURF: Were you were sailing at Wittering’s quite a bit back then?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah. The office for Simmer Style was based about two miles from West Wittering. Simon Bassett gave me a membership to West Wittering Windsurfing Club, and I sailed there all the time.

That’s where I got to know Jamie Hawkins really well, Harty, Simon Bornhoft…all that old-school Wittering crew.”

WINDSURF: So, when did the era where you worked for Animal start?

TIMO MULLEN: “I actually really enjoyed my job with Simmer Style and it turned out I was a good salesman. My friend Tim….who’s an amazing windsurfer and the guy who sold me my first wave board, the Kay’s catalogue wave board, was the sales manager for Animal.

He offered me a job as a sales rep, so I left Simmer Style and moved to Poole in Dorset. I didn’t know anyone there. I got a company car and was paid a lot more money than in my previous jobs.

Now I was living by one of the best south coast beaches. My sales area covered the whole south and southwest of England and Wales, so again I could travel and windsurf all the best spots. I was probably at Gwithian more than anywhere, sailing with ‘Blacky’ and Andrew Fawcett.

I started doing more contests as well.”

WINDSURF: Do you think most of your employers knew the deal… that windsurfing was such a big part of your life?

TIMO MULLEN: “To be honest, I was always pretty conscientious about doing my job. I still am…you’ve got to work and earn money. I always made sure I got all the work done first. That was the priority. Then if it was windy, I wasn’t worrying about work. I’d already done everything!”

WINDSURF: By this time you were a bit more sponsored, doing Tiree competitions and a few PWA events?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah. I did my first PWA…or PBA…event in Barbados. It was a mega event. The other young guy doing his first PWA wave event at the time was Antoine Albeau, and I actually shared a room with Antoine in Barbados.

It was a mosquito-infested shithole on the other side of Silver Sands. I’m sure he’d remember it too. I lasted about two days before I moved out because I was getting eaten alive and I splashed out and moved into the Silver Rock Hotel. That was my first PBA wave event.

Sponsorship-wise, there weren’t really any big deals back then. I can’t remember exactly when it became “proper” sponsorship. Dad was still helping us out…buying sails from him at trade price and getting good deals from distributors. There just weren’t that many deals around, but there were loads of contests.

I remember being at an Isle of Wight “White Air” event. Swifty, Skyboy and Hawkins everyone was there, it was a big deal. I think I won the expression session, and there was always a massive party at those events.

Dave White had the F2 distributorship at the time. I remember going up to Whitey and punching him in the face. It was wild back then. He goes, “Why did you punch me?” and I said, “Because you won’t sponsor me. You’re sponsoring all these idiots who can’t even jump. We are shredding and you’re not sponsoring any shredders.”

In our eyes, the guys they were sponsoring were slalom sailors and not great wave sailors. Whitey just goes, “OK then, I’ll sponsor you.” That was probably my first real sponsorship and it was insane.

We drove up to the warehouse in Essex and he just said, “Pick whatever you want.” Five wave boards, as many sails as you wanted, booms, masts, bags, clothes…everything. There was me, Skyboy and Andy Funnell…we all had these mega deals. Whitey literally let us take whatever we wanted out of the warehouse. It was crazy.

After that we got invited on the F2 photo shoots and I got on the Maui Project team. I started going on trips with Levi Siver and did videos with them, including one with the Whiteboarders, which was massive.

We took them to a spot in Ireland that we sailed a lot…kind of a secret spot and we’d been sailing it regularly 30 years ago.

Around then there were loads of IFCA events…the production board world championships. The European and World Championships were held in Guincho and a big crew of us were going there a lot. Skyboy came second at one of those events! Those were insane fun times!”

WINDSURF: Were you into the competitions?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah, I loved them. I competed as much as possible and did Tiree a lot. I was pretty much always making the top three in wave events. If you weren’t making finals, that was kind of bad.

I did quite a few PWA events…Gran Canaria a lot, mostly the wave-riding events at Vargas. I competed in Maui about ten times at events like the Aloha Classic, the O’Neill event and the Japanese event….the Salem World Cup in Maui.

I remember Rush Randall and Mark Angulo shouting as I was going out for my heat, “Hey, there’s the crazy Irish guy!” These were my heroes saying that, so I was absolutely stoked.

I guess my biggest victory was winning the British Freestyle Championships when freestyle had just come in. That was in Poole. And then I won the Tiree Wave Classic as well.”

WINDSURF: Was winning Tiree the highlight of your competition career?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah, I guess so. That particular one probably had the strongest fleet. You had Danny Bruch, Skyboy… all the best British guys were there. Hawkins, everyone. It was starboard-tack down-the-line, mast-high.

I just had an amazing final. Everything went right and it was a complete surprise. It was also the biggest prize money they ever had at Tiree that year…I walked away with £1,700.”

WINDSURF: What keeps you motivated these days to keep windsurfing, after all those years?

TIMO MULLEN: “I just love it. I constantly want to get better. I’ve never really had a vision of something being impossible in wave sailing.

With freestyle, I look at what guys like Yentel, Balz and Lennart are doing and think, that’s impossible. But with wave sailing, I don’t see anything as impossible…even the jumping. I think, I’d love to go to Gran Canaria for three weeks and come back being able to do all the jumps.

With wave riding, it’s about hitting bigger lips, doing all the off-the-lip and aerial manoeuvres. I love trying to keep up with the top guys. That’s what motivates me…not going backwards.”

WINDSURF: How often do you look at forecasts?

TIMO MULLEN: “I actually don’t look that much. I just know when it’s an unsettled period and then I’ll start looking ahead. I tend to look at the forecast more when someone asks me to commit to something a week in advance.

I won’t look at my diary…I’ll look at the wind forecast first before committing to a meeting. You can work pretty much anytime, but you can’t windsurf anytime.

My business partner is also a really keen surfer and very good. We’re both kind of on the same programme….workaholics who love working, but also love windsurfing and surfing. It’s a good balance.”

WINDSURF: What are you like if you unavoidably miss the best day of the year?

TIMO MULLEN: “I’m completely OK with missing a day if it’s because of work, injury, or stuff with my kids. Those three things I have no issue with….that’s just life.

I’m the same with no-wind periods. If the forecast is terrible for three weeks, I just get on with it. There’s nothing you can do about it, so I don’t get stressed. I’m pretty pragmatic like that.

The times I do get stressed are when I know I could have gone and didn’t. That eats me up. My FOMO is unbelievable. If I could be in five places at once, I would!”

WINDSURF: What sort of conditions excite you?

TIMO MULLEN: “Anything with waves excites me. Onshore, cross-shore, side-on, side-off…massive or small…I love it all.

I even love summer wind with no waves. I’ve got a 118L Duotone Grip, which is a mega-fast wave board, almost with a slalom rocker line. In summer I’ll just blast around the harbour doing spin loops or whatever. I love it.

As long as I’m windsurfing, I’m loving it.!”

WINDSURF: You’re 53 now. You’re not showing any signs of slowing down.

TIMO MULLEN: “I’ve had both my hips resurfaced. Björn Dunkerbeck has had exactly the same operation and Scott McKercher had the same thing too. If you’ve been an active sportsman, around 50 is when your hips start to wear out.

I skied a lot when I was younger. I used to ski race and all that stuff isn’t great for your hips. I also did a lot of cross-country running. But honestly, just being 50 is an issue. Over the last three years I’ve had both my hips done…two operations, which meant four months off the water each time.

But it’s actually made me stronger. I’m made of metal now. I feel like I’m 18 again…it’s amazing. So yeah, you’ve just got to pack it all in, make the most of every forecast. Why wouldn’t you go? There’s no doubt that at some point I’ll be trying a back loop off the lip at 60 and it’ll go wrong and I’ll get hurt. It won’t be the will that stops you…it’ll be the injuries and how hard they are to recover from!”

WINDSURF: What are your worst injuries to date?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah, I guess injuries have played a pretty major part in my windsurfing. The big ones really stand out.

One of the first major injuries happened in Maui. I was out surfing at Ho‘okipa one year, and while I was duck diving a wave, a guy surfed over the back of my Achilles tendon and completely severed it. It was pretty painful. I ended up in a boot for quite a while after that.

Another big one was in Tiree. I was free sailing at Crossapol before a contest and it was pretty windy. I went for a big push loop but kind of completed it really early, so I was coming down to land with my legs pretty straight. When I landed, my knee had nowhere to go and it just popped. I’ve never felt pain like it…it was so bad I nearly threw up. I honestly thought I’d completely destroyed my leg.

What I’d actually done was rupture my ACL. Anyone who’s done an ACL will know the pain is excruciating for about five minutes and then suddenly you feel kind of OK again. So, I’m lying on the beach in agony, then five minutes later I’m thinking, “Alright, I’m okay.” Not wanting to get that fear stuck in my head, I went straight back out. First wave I hit, I went for another massive push loop, landed it and of course because I had no ACL my knee just popped out again.

I got diagnosed by what was basically the best knee surgeon in the world at the time. Because I had private medical insurance, I could go to the best. He operated and took a graft from the front of my knee and my patella. That was in May. I remember him saying, “It’s going to be ten months minimum before you’re back on the water.”

That was the year my first daughter was born…she arrived in early September. I remember sailing Boscombe Pier on the morning she was born, doing back loops. That was only three months after my ACL reconstruction. By mid-October, I competed in Tiree and came fifth. It was a pretty swift recovery…probably one of the fastest you could expect for an ACL. Touch wood, I haven’t really had any knee problems since.

Then when I turned 50, I started having issues with my hip. I remember landing a big aerial at Gwithian and feeling this horrendous pain in my hip. At first, I thought I’d just landed it wrong, but it turned out I had arthritis. You only really realise you have arthritis when there’s nothing left between the bones in your hip joint. That pain I felt was literally bone hitting bone.

About six months later, I couldn’t even walk properly. I couldn’t put my shoes or socks on, and sleeping was almost impossible because of the pain. I ended up getting an appointment for a hip resurfacing operation…the same one Andy Murray had. I remember seeing him in tears at Wimbledon and I can totally sympathise with him now, because the pain really is that bad.

I had the operation at the end of March or early April, and by the first week of May I was wave sailing again. Five weeks after surgery, I was back sailing and surfing. After eight weeks, I was hitting aerials and after twelve weeks I was doing everything again…push loops, back loops, goiters. The recovery was amazing.

Two years later, my other hip developed the same problem. Because the first operation had been such a success, I booked myself straight in to have the second hip done. The recovery took maybe a couple of weeks longer, but again, after eight weeks I was windsurfing.

Now, after two successful hip resurfacing operations, I feel stronger than ever. I’m landing all the moves I normally would. The only real downside is that I can’t really surf anymore. Going from a crouched position to standing up quickly is probably the worst thing you can do with a hip resurface. I can still surf if it’s big, because you’ve got more time, but small-wave surfing is pretty much done for me now.”

WINDSURF: Was sailing Jaws one of your windsurfing highlights?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah, definitely. Looking back, I was ridiculously in the right place at the right time. We were in Maui and my brother had sailed Jaws a couple of times. He said it breaks way more often than people think.

There was this forecast where it looked like Ho‘okipa was going to be massive. All the photoshoots were on…I was actually on the Starboard photoshoot. I rang my brother in Ireland and said, “It’s like 2.5 metres at 19 seconds…is that big enough for Jaws?” He was like, “Yeah, for sure.”

Ho‘okipa was just about closing out and all the good guys had to sail there for the photoshoots. Nobody was really watching Jaws apart from Thomas Traversa, myself, Ross, Lecky, and Cedric Bordes… five of us.

It was pumping Jaws. Proper Jaws…double mast high. We had no jet skis and jumped off the rocks. Everything you’re told not to do on your first time at Jaws, we did. We swam out from the rocks and nearly all got destroyed.

Lecky, being Lecky, tried to backdoor the peak even though we told him not to. First wave, he got blown straight into the rocks.

When we finished, the wind had dropped and the only way back in was to sail downwind about ten miles from Jaws to Ho‘okipa. We came in just as it was getting dark and had to get a wave at massive Ho‘okipa with almost no wind. That was probably the scariest part of the whole thing. But yeah…Jaws was fun. And there are so many highlights like that: sailing Mullaghmore in Ireland, and all these new spots around Europe.”

WINDSURF: How is it being on the Duotone team with Nik Baker?

TIMO MULLEN: “It’s amazing. To be fair, all the teams have been amazing. Being on the Severne team was incredible…Scotty, Philip Köster, Jaeger Stone and Ben Severne. That was when Severne was more about wave sailing.

It’s changed a bit now and is more multi-discipline, but moving to Duotone has been incredible. It’s like a European Severne vibe.

Nik Baker is just as motivated as he was back in the day. He’s not as psycho as me, but he just loves it. And trust me…if Nik Baker did a starboard-tack wave sailing event in the UK, he’d kick all our asses.

That’s kind of worrying, because it almost suggests something’s wrong. But Nik won the Aloha Classic. He was landing wave 360s in the pit at massive Ho‘okipa, beating the world’s best. I’d argue the standard across the fleet back then was higher than it is now.

These days, the top five sailors are on a much higher level, but below that, the standard isn’t as good. Back when Nick won the Aloha, there were no easy heats…anyone could win it!”

WINDSURF: Do you think this is a cool time for windsurfing right now?

TIMO MULLEN: “The coolest time was probably when Nik Baker won the Aloha Classic…that era was mega. There was loads of money. But now, I think windsurfing is still the most core of all the wind board sports.

It’s the hardest. It’s the only wind sport where riders are hitting the lip hard, riding the biggest waves, doing forward-to-backward and backward-to-forward rotation moves. There aren’t many sports like that.

I see a lot of people winging now and don’t get me wrong…I love winging. I’ll go wing foiling. But it’s nothing like windsurfing. A lot of windsurfers got obsessed with winging, but they’re nowhere near as good at it as they were at windsurfing.

You plateau really quickly with winging. Now we’re seeing all these ex-windsurfers come back because they realise they looked way better windsurfing. Kiters are coming back too and new kiters are trying windsurfing for the challenge.

Windsurfing definitely had a dip, but I think we’re past it now. We’re on the way back up!”

WINDSURF: What do you think you’d have done if windsurfing wasn’t in your life?

TIMO MULLEN: “Oh my God…I’d probably still be married. No, seriously, I don’t think being obsessed with a sport is a bad thing. You see it in other sports all the time. Golf, football everyone has their thing.

If I didn’t windsurf, I’d have skied or surfed. I’d always have done a sport. Surfing would probably have been the one”

WINDSURF: Tell us about Foam Life, the flip flop company?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah. Animal finished and then COVID came along. I’d had an amazing job with Animal…I was their main sales guy, earning crazy money. But windsurfing is actually a relatively cheap sport. The playground is free…the only costs are fuel and equipment and I got the equipment for free.

I had an amazing 24 years with Animal. I was very good at my job, but I also had loads of free time because I was self-employed. When I was earning well, I went all in…Maui for four weeks, Mauritius, Western Australia, Chile and South Africa. I was flying from Chile to South Africa to Australia in four weeks just chasing forecasts.

I’ve got no regrets, which is a really important thing in life.

Then COVID hit, Animal shut down and I went from earning loads of money to zero overnight. That was scary.

So, myself, and my-co founders, put our heads together and decided to do our own thing. We knew Animal sold loads of flip-flops, and they were super comfortable, but not very eco.

So, we thought, what if we make really comfortable flip-flops, but make them eco? That’s how Foam Life started…comfortable, eco, cool-looking flip-flops, zero plastic packaging. We’ve been running it for four or five years now, and we’re in 14 countries around the world.

Foam Life’s going really well. We’re stocked in John Lewis, Next, five-star resorts in the Maldives…all that stuff. And again, we’re our own bosses, so if it’s windy, we down tools and follow our passion!”

WINDSURF: What about all the crazy road trips you go on these days?

TIMO MULLEN: “I actually windsurf more in Ireland than anywhere else. And honestly, I don’t know anyone else who’d do what I do: leave at 2 a.m., get a 6 a.m. flight, hire a car, drive three hours to the beach, sail for four hours, jump back in the car, drive back, fly home…all for four hours at places like Magheroarty.

People think I’m crazy. I look at it the other way around….I think people are crazy not doing it.

Friends will say, “Ah, it’s shit today,” or “It’s too big at Gwithian,” and I’m thinking, that’s a forecast wasted. I’m looking at the weather map going, ‘It’s going off in Ireland and it’s £100 for a flight’. The fuel in my van to drive to Gwithian is £100, so it would actually be foolish not to go.

And those four hours on the west coast of Ireland? I’m generally on my own. I’ll catch hundreds of waves…literally a 100 waves in four hours. And every single one of them is world-class. So, in a 14-hour round trip, I’ll catch more waves than on a two-week trip to the Canaries. And every one of those waves would be considered the best day of the winter in the Canaries. Yet that’s happening all the time in Ireland. It’s obviously easier for me because my parents still live there, my brothers Finn and Tam live there too, so I’ve always got someone to sail with. But yeah…I spend as much time as possible windsurfing in Ireland.”

WINDSURF: Tell us about the Motley Crew!

TIMO MULLEN: “So how did the Motley Crew come about? Well, the Motley Crew was literally the first proper mission we ever did in the UK…a real road trip. It was myself, JC and his wife Suzanne, Blacky (Ian Black) and Adam Milne from Tiree. We went up to Thurso with absolutely no idea where we were going to sail when we got there. We just rolled the dice and thought, Thurso must have good windsurfing, so let’s head there.

JC’s wife Suzanne came as well. If she could have reversed that trip after five minutes, I’m sure she would have. But yeah, we went up to Thurso, and back then we were all pretty much on the party program…even JC, I’d say. Not half-party either, it was full party. We always went out, and we even brought fancy-dress outfits with us, because that was just kind of what we did.

We sailed Thurso Bay, which was actually pretty sick port tack, cross-off, logo-high conditions. We did a lot of exploring, but the one place we definitely decided to go was the fishing town of Wick, which I think is the most north-eastern point in the British Isles.

We went to a pub there that was very Scottish. Now, that’s fine if you’re me and Adam …I’m Northern Irish, which is basically Scottish and Adam is Scottish. But Blacky and JC are English and they were literally hated in Scotland. This pub was full of the most hardcore, hard-as-nails Scottish fishermen and the first thing they said when we walked in was, “I hope none of you c*nts are English.”

Me and Adam immediately dropped Blackie and JC and went, “No, we’re not…but those two idiots are.” Anyway, great banter. I ended up being this guy’s best mate, which probably wasn’t a good thing. Then we went to a nightclub in fancy dress… Hawaiian shirts and all that…and that was the very first Motley Crew mission.

Since then, we’ve just called ourselves the Motley Crew. Everything we do is completely off the cuff. There’s never a plan…like, genuinely never a plan. It’s total motley chaos and that’s where the name came from.

To get on one of our trips, forget it if you’re clean-cut…you’re not getting in. You need some rogue element to your character. If you’re full of bad luck and everything’s always a disaster, you’re welcome on the Motley Crew. But if you’re a ten-time British champion, you can f** off, you’re not coming. That’s zero points.

But yeah, it’s good crack. We’re always trying to score somewhere new that nobody else has been before, especially around Ireland and the British Isles. That’s the whole essence of why we windsurf…finding new spots. It’s great to have it all documented by JC, and yeah, we’re a tight crew.”

WINDSURF: Do you still love landing new moves?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah, I’m really crap at freestyle style wave sailing. I’ve never been able to do takas or any of the slidy stuff…my brain just doesn’t compute it. I can’t work out what’s going on.

But moves in the air? I find those way easier to understand. I can break them down.

So, the stuff I love doing is all the off-the-lip manoeuvres….gouges and aerial moves obviously. I remember seeing a video of Rush Randall at Ho‘okipa and Josh Stone at Esperance, landing forwards off the lip. And I was like, wow…that is such a cool-looking move. Super technical.

I set that as a goal.

There’s a spot on the Isle of Lewis we sail where it’s like clockwork, the best aerial section for windsurfing ever. Same spot, same place every time. It just launches you into the flats.

One day I was there with my dad and I must’ve done about 50 aerials, landing clean in the flats every time. And I suddenly thought: I’ve got enough time here to do a forward loop mid-air.

Next run, I just went for it…and I landed the very first one clean as a whistle, right in front of the wave. My dad actually got a full sequence of it on camera.

Then I went to South Africa that winter and just perfected it. To the point where I was landing them about 90% of the time. I know there are only four or five guys in the world doing that move, so I kind of like that challenge.

The move I want now is a tabletop forward off the lip….I think that’s possible. I can already do tabletop forwards on starboard tack, so I reckon you can do that off the lip.

And then there’s the back loop off the lip on port tack. I don’t even think anyone’s landed that down-the-line. But I think it is possible on the right wave….there’s a point break on the west coast of Ireland with a really steep, vertical bowl where I think it could happen. That kind of stuff really excites me.”

WINDSURF: Do you still love to travel?

TIMO MULLEN: “I don’t travel that much anymore. Travelling just isn’t what it used to be. We were in the golden age when flights to Maui were £600 return. Flights to Australia…we were getting charter flights for under £200 return. It was insane. Sometimes we were flying first class to Maui using air miles, I had seat 1A from London to LA to Maui…for less than £600.

Now? Economy to Maui is what at least a £1,000, maybe £1,700? Accommodation’s more expensive, harder to find and travelling with gear is just a nightmare.

When I actually work it out, I catch more waves going back and forth to Ireland or Scotland in a year than I would travelling around the world chasing it. And honestly, I think we get better waves here anyway.

The one place I really miss is Gnarloo in Australia. That’s better than Ireland for sure. You can sail six or seven hours a day there and catch 100 waves a day…so in a seven-day trip you’re nearly at 700 waves. If I had the budget, that’s where I’d always spend it!”

WINDSURF: Do you still enjoy doing competitions?

TIMO MULLEN: “I’ve never made it a secret that I don’t overly love competitions recently.

I do like competing…don’t get me wrong…but the organisation nowadays can be really strict. Entry rules are locked down. You’ve got to enter six weeks before an event even starts. At places like Gwithian, the best sailors are the locals. I’d argue they’re better than the guys who win the contests there, not necessarily better competitors, but better sailors at that spot. There are four or five guys like that.

Because the entry rules are so strict, those guys never enter. They’ve got jobs, they’re busy, they don’t live on social media. So, when it’s firing, they’re not allowed to compete. That just feels wrong to me.

In 2025, when Gwithian was pumping, the locals didn’t sail out of respect for the contest, which I thought was brilliant. But that respect should go both ways. Locals should be allowed to enter on the day. It would mix things up massively and probably give better results.

That said, this year I decided to compete as much as possible. I ignored forecasts elsewhere saying it’d be better somewhere else and just committed to events.

I wanted to do the full Irish tour for the first time. I’d only ever done one or two events before and never really challenged for the title. This year I did all of them and I was stoked to win the title for the first time. That was a proper goal ticked off.

There’s also the new World Windsurf Tour system now, with a European ranking. If you do enough three-star events in Europe, you get an overall ranking without having to do the full PWA schedule. I got enough points this year to finish second overall in the European World Windsurf Tour rankings. At 53 years old, I was pretty stoked to still be up there”

WINDSURF: Does all your family windsurf?

TIMO MULLEN: Yeah, my family are all windsurfers. My dad, as I said, was one of the first windsurfers in Ireland, if not the UK.

My brother Finn is a year older than me and lives on the west coast of Ireland. I’ve honestly lost count of how many times he’s been Irish windsurfing champion. He’s also an Irish paddleboard champion in the waves and has won numerous trophies in normal surfing at the Irish Championships. He’s married to his wife Katie, who’s also a multi–award-winning Irish windsurfing champion. She sails Mullaghmore as big as any of us.

Those two are real pioneers of hardcore big-wave spots. Finn especially was doing everything long before it was cool; windsurfing Mullaghmore on his own, going to Aileens, you name it, Finn’s done it.

My younger brother Tam is also a really good windsurfer, but he loves being behind the camera. He produced some hugely successful DVDs including ‘Greeny’. The films were predominantly about windsurfing in Ireland, back when people didn’t even think Ireland had good windsurfing. Tam documented all our sessions and we made 5,000 copies and sold every single one. That actually paid for his journey through university. He still films us to this day.

As for my own family, my kids can all windsurf. They’re not fully into it yet, but I have to remember I didn’t really get fully into it until I was 14, so there’s plenty of time. They mainly wakeboard, ski and surf, so they’re still very much in the action sports world.”

WINDSURF: When you get to the beach windsurfing and you’re just about to step into the water…is that your happy place?

TIMO MULLEN: “Yeah. As soon as I see the trees moving, I’m frothing. When I put the board in the water and plane for the first ten metres, I’ve already had my shot. That’s all it takes…planing in the foot straps and I’m happy!”