THE DREAM
I spent a lot of time just hanging in my local windsurfing shop I was so into it. I begged them to give me a job and eventually the owner let me work there. I worked for a guy called Ilan Eliyahoo who supported me and taught me how to go upwind. Once I had the job I had access to all the gear since we were doing demos at the local beaches. At that time there were a lot of competitions in Israel and I quickly realized that I was very competitive. Very early on I won the Israeli championships and went on to try my luck in Maui.
Every windsurfer back then wanted to go to Maui and that was my dream as well. I was around twenty when I finally made it to Hawaii since it took me a good few years to save the money. I had to work for that money, washing dishes, whatever I could. When I arrived it was summer and there were no waves. The only thing to do was the Maui race series. My friend Jamie Lever and I knocked on the doors of every company and finally managed to borrow some equipment. That is when I became really hooked on racing.
Back in Israel, aside from wave sailing in the winter, my favourite thing to do was to take out my race gear and do huge jumps and loops with it. There was not really freestyle then and it was boring to just blast around. I wanted to go fast and just jump and loop. I was on these plastic unbreakable Tiga boards, so we just did forward loops for fun.
I started my race career with slalom because Israel and the Maui race series lead me down that path. I did a few world cups but had no chance because all the other guys were on custom gear. Then suddenly slalom died, there were no more events but I did at least get a glimpse of how it worked. After a whole year in Maui I returned to Israel with an amazing custom slalom board and knowledge about all the best fins and how to tune my gear.
After slalom faded out, Formula started and it seemed like I had the natural build for it. I was fast straight away and felt comfortable racing the equipment. Fanatic picked me up as a team rider and I started full time on the Formula circuit. When slalom came back I had a bit of an advantage. During the first year I was ranked fifth in the world straight away.
LIFE LESSONS
Even after twenty five years of racing I am still excited about sailing almost every day. I feel progress all the time and don’t feel like I am stuck in a rut. A few years ago, I won’t lie, I felt like I was going nowhere and had a mental block that I couldn’t do well. I seem to have found my love for racing again and in the last few years I have never had any thoughts of quitting. There are new things to learn all the time and I feel I am reaching my peak again so that is the answer I guess. The only thing I kind of regret during my career so far is not writing a book about it. I really think somebody should because the things that myself Ross, Gonzalo, Benny Van Der Steen, Finian Maynard, Kurosh Kiani and many others have done is like a lifetime of unique experiences. Competitions help you evolve as a human being. They help you be more organized and eventually make racers better people I think. There are so many life lessons that you learn on tour with all the travel and the people you deal with. It has been so interesting and why I think we need to write something about this.
I am afraid to count how many competitions I have been to over the years. Hundreds of events; many times with the same people. Ross Williams is my best friend; he is the guy I like the most on tour. At the end of the day there are only a few friends you feel really connected with from the tour and Ross is definitely a lifelong friend. Also Gonzalo, Benny and Finian; all of these guys, we have all been together for over twenty years on tour.