9 minute read
Robby Naish
Ride of the ancient mariner
The greatest windsurfer who ever lived isn’t ready to look back on his life. At 58, he’s still riding the wave
Words JÜRGEN SCHMIEDER
Robby Naish was born in La Jolla, California, in 1963 – five years before the first patent for a windsurf was filed. In 1976, he won the Windsurfer World Championships. Naish was just 13 years old. It would be the first of 24 windsurfing world titles he’d claim over the next two decades.
“There wasn’t the slightest thought it might lead somewhere,” says Naish today. “There was no career path, no thought of what would happen next year or 10 years after. I was just along for the adventure and trying as best I could, in case it lasted a little bit longer.
More than four decades later, it’s fair to say it has. At 58, Naish is still flipping his sailboard, and the sport, on its head. He’s a living legend, but even more – he’s the embodiment of the evolution of global watersports.
In 1968, Naish’s father, an avid surfer, moved the family to Hawaii. Robby was five. He still lives there today, but the scene around him has changed. Alongside surfing and windsurfing, there’s kiteboarding, stand-up paddleboarding (SUP), foil surfing, and more. Naish hasn’t just mastered these sports, he helped pioneer them. In the mid’90s he launched his own business, Naish Sails, innovating gear for these emerging sports.
“It was never a goal to do something new – it just happened,” he says. “Whether I’m windsurfing on a waveboard, a slalom board or a kite board, or on a foil with an inflatable wing, or on a longboard or SUP, they’re all surfing. I’ve stretch, do half an hour of yoga each day. I hate yoga. I think stiffer is stronger, so I barely stretch. That hasn’t changed since I was 20. If a trainer spent a month with me, they’d think I was doing everything wrong. Falling into water is pretty forgiving; my joints are slowly wearing out, but nothing like if I had repetitive injuries in my knees, elbows and shoulders. I try to get on the water every day – taking a break isn’t good for you when you get older. Injury is the enemy, but I worked hard to come back after my recent injuries [alongside his 2016 fracture, Naish broke his right foot a year later]. Living in Hawaii, where there’s no off-season, helps.
Let’s talk about that injury…
The moment I did it, I thought I’d broken my back. I didn’t crash hard, I just came down from a landing. Everything was perfectly wrong –if I tried 100 times to do it again, I couldn’t. My back foot came out of the strap and went into the water behind me, but my front foot stayed in and went with the board. The kite was going fast and I couldn’t get my weight off my front leg. Then I felt a pop in my back. I was in the water trying to see if I could move my legs, and I could, so I thought I’d torn a ligament. I dragged downwind back to the beach and I guess I looked bad. The next thing I know, I’m on a stretcher to hospital, then on a medivac plane to Honolulu. I’d never really had a bad injury my entire career, so it was educational. Certainly unpleasant.
Your first major injury at 53 – did it change your perspective?
I used to think I was invincible, and not just when I was young. I’ve been lucky to have a body that can recover quickly, and I’d never even thought about age or what would happen if I got really injured. I’ve spent my entire career avoiding injury. My friends rode dirt bikes, I didn’t. I wouldn’t skateboard other than cruising on the street. I’ve only got one plate and four screws in my entire body.
adapted from one to the other; I had all those tools and the know-how.”
In 2016, Naish was approached by Joe Berlinger, director of 2004 rockumentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, to make a film where he tackled the world’s longest waves. Then, weeks before the first stop, Naish landed an aerial move badly, resulting in a life-threatening pelvic fracture. The film, released this year, became a candid insight into an athlete facing a different kind of long wave – his own mortality.
Now fully recovered, Naish is older and wiser, but just as optimistic as he was that first time. “My last world title was decades ago, but I don’t look at it that way. I don’t sit around talking about the good old days. I’m as active as I was 30 years ago, enjoying where I’m at right now as an old athlete waking up and taking ibuprofen, polishing my old tricks or developing new sports for younger people to get out and enjoy.”
the red bulletin: It can’t only be ibuprofen. What’s the fountain of youth you’re drinking from?
robby naish: Red Bull. I’m not joking – I drink it every morning with my vitamins. I’m in good shape for my age, but it’s just luck, good genetics and a healthy lifestyle. I eat pizza and hot dogs, hamburgers and French fries, but I exercise enough to balance it out. I don’t do drugs, smoke or drink alcohol, and that helps as you get older. I couldn’t do what I do if I drank alcohol every day.
Do you have a fitness routine other than being in the water? No, which is totally not normal. Other people [in my profession]
Teenage dream: a 16-year-old Naish at Diamond Head on Oahu, Hawaii, in 1979
then the next time for real. You seem to have cheated that first death…
I completely understand what they mean by that. Most athletes last a few years then move on to something else, and even that is tough. But if you’ve been focused on one thing and it suddenly ends, that’s super-difficult. I slowly transitioned out of competition, but never retired from sports. In all the things I do, competition is honestly a sideshow to the main activity, so not much changed; there were six or seven events a year that I wasn’t chasing points for, but everything else intensified. Development, promotional trips, videos – there’s not one day where I feel empty or lost. I’m also lucky that my arsenal of sports grew; kiting came along, SUP, now foiling and wing surfing. I still have more to do than time to do it.
When did you first think, “I could make a living from this”?
I was graduating high school in 1981 when we had our first professional windsurfing events. It was a big decision: would I stay amateur and maybe go to the Olympics [windsurfing was included for the first time in 1984] or turn pro? At that point, if you took one dollar as an athlete you were a professional and couldn’t go to the Olympics, so to retain amateur status I donated the prize money from my first two pro windsurfing events to my school. That’s when I realised maybe there was something there. I’d been accepted to the University of California at Santa Cruz, and sponsors wanted to pay me to windsurf. I said, “I’m going to defer admission for a year and see what this becomes.” I never looked back.
Many athletes who’ve had success at a young age have burned themselves out. How have you stayed the course?
Luck, and being there from the start. My personality helped: I was a loner, antisocial, self-driven. I don’t hang out with other people and I almost never go to dinner with friends; I’m kind of a weird person. It helped me avoid some of the distractions that drag athletes down and steal focus from their sport. Others just get tired of it. I’m not goal-driven – I’ve never set a goal in my life. If you’re going for a target rather than for enjoyment, eventually you lose that drive to achieve. I just love what I do.
You talk of being anti-social, but today everything is about social media…
The positive [aspect] is it gives every kid an opportunity to showcase themselves.
You don’t have to be seen by an agent or a magazine photographer – you get famous by doing your own thing. But it’s also not about getting good; it’s about getting more likes, or doing whatever it takes to earn a million views. Clothing sponsors wants to know how many followers you have on Instagram, how many times a week you’ll post, and what the content will be. The self-promotion aspect of being an athlete isn’t new, but it’s not a great personality trait – the loudest guy in the room is usually an asshole. So I hate it, but I do it. Part of my job is trying not to be embarrassed that I’m taking pictures of myself and posting them online. And it creates false expectations. A lot of young sports people are going to be disillusioned, because they’ve been told they’ll make millions as a YouTube star. I have a 13-year-old daughter, and [young people] are under so much pressure. She gets it, but she also doesn’t want to be that weird kid who doesn’t participate. I’m trying to instil in her that life isn’t a popularity contest, humility is an asset, and to create value in what you do, not what you show.
How damaging is all this to a sport like surfing?
The sport will be fine – it’s just different. The purity of going out into nature is gone. We used to get on a plane and have no idea what conditions we were going to get. Now, you can see there’s going to be a swell in Fiji in two days. I know a lot of kids who are doing really well at surfing and they seem to be enjoying it just as much [as we did]. It’s just strange knowing that your goal is to get home and post your moves, not to just enjoy them and be stoked for the next good session.
Looking back on your life, do you have any regrets?
No, that’s what tears people apart. I’m happy with my life. It’s not perfect, but damn, I’m lucky to be who I am, how I am, when I am. Being able to wake up and do whatever I want, never taking for granted the fact that people pay me to do what I love to do. That could end any day – there’s no less guaranteed future than that of a professional sportsman. I relish being able to live the way I do. The Longest Wave starring Robby Naish is available to watch on Red Bull TV from August 10; redbull.com
