A little later, he put his Opel Manta on wide tyres, lowered it, hung a foxtail on the aerial and squeezed 100 hp out of the poor original engine. What you won't do for a bit more steam. And because people always want more, they also want more when windsurfing. More speed, more speed. But how do you get faster? With tuning, of course. And of course there are highly paid specialists who are just as hard to get hold of as a telephone consultant at Deutsche Telekom.
An appointment with the surf tuner is like an audience with the mafia godfather.
You receive a call, a driver picks you up and you're blindfolded as you criss-cross the city. After an hour, you arrive in a darkened room, pictures of all the surfing greats with thank-you notes on the walls.
- Tuning your windsurfing equipment: how to get 5 km/h faster
Two hard-sell salesmen stand grimly next to an ice-cold looking Asian man called Tu-Ning. "More speed ...", the mysterious man squeezes through the bite bar, "... first board: sharkskin on the gliding surface and ultra-light footstraps. Then fin: 40 cm hyperlight carbon, diamond cut. Now rig: cut up the sail, make three more panels with extra-thin space maylar, glue with Tiger Glue. Make the mast harder with carbon strips, fork doesn't matter. Then 5 km/h faster."
"What, only 5 km/h? Is 10 also possible?"
"Yes, another option," nods the Godfather of Speed and points to the two salesmen with his head, "you go with the boys, get: board one size smaller, best design, thin carbon fibre mast, extremely carbon fork, freerace sail, three camber, two square metres more, extra speed fin, long harness ropes and lightweight wetsuit with no drag."
"What? All new, that costs a fortune!"
"Round about 5500 E-uro!"
"Wow, that's far too much, no, no, isn't there another way?"
"There are other ways," repeats the Omniscient One.
"Yes? Really, there's another way I can speed up? Tell me!"
The tuning ace leans forwards and hisses: "Take an advanced course at last!"
