BROAD HORIZONS
JC: How do you feel when people label you a purely Ho’okipa sailor?
LS: I don’t like that branding of just being a Ho’okipa sailor because my real passion is to travel. I like going places where no one has ever windsurfed and have ‘the search’. I like to be able to challenge myself in all kinds of conditions.
I also sail Ho’okipa as it’s my home break and a lot of my sailing boils down to developing good product for my sponsors. It’s also important to be out there on the great days and be an ambassador for the brands. I like to push hard on the water for the companies that I ride for.
JC: So you quit the tour a few years back, what did your sponsors require from you now that you were a free agent?
LS: The tour was never really my thing to begin with. I never really had a passion for those very specific kinds of conditions, like Gran Canaria and Sylt. That was never really something I was interested in.
If it’d been a more rounded tour and I really dedicated myself to it, then maybe my sponsors would be interested, but the last few years it’s been a very one dimensional tour.
[My sponsors] really don’t care about that. They want me to travel and work on movie projects, score amazing photos and work on my gear. That, for me, is the freedom part of windsurfing.
I still like to compete but I really like to do that when it’s the wave riding side of windsurfing. Unless you’re prepared to move to Gran Canaria and train for months and months, you’re not going to come close to beating someone like Koester. I don’t think I can justify that.