Let's move on to the time on the water. You've put together your test groups, you've got the equipment from the manufacturers, the wind is right. What do you do when you get to the beach? Is there a procedure that you always go through?
MV: You could say that there is a certain procedure for each test group. Firstly, we try to visualise with the testers what the important criteria are for the respective group. In the case of wave boards, we don't do comparative rides, but instead ride for 20 to 30 minutes and pay attention to the most important points. When does the board start planing, then you really accelerate, drop off and heat through the chop to see how good the control is? Then you do two or three tight jibes, take the speed out and turn really tight, then you do a wide jibe, see how it planes, then you do a jibe completely without body tension to see how smoothly the board runs, how well it planes. Then you do one or two jumps.
Another case would be these more performance-orientated boards, where it's primarily about comparison rides. This requires teams of people of the same weight to ride side by side. Always in such a way that they don't overlap. So the person surfing upwind moves a little further back so that both have free wind, but are not too far apart. And then you just get going, accelerate on command and then try to find out which board gets going first? What are the speed differences on the straight and on the different courses?
Does that mean you also have a kind of pool of material so that you have roughly the same sails for the comparison trips?
SG: Exactly, when we do a pure board test, there are usually at least two pairs of sails in two different sizes, so for freeride boards, for example, you would take two 7.0 and two 8.0, with the same mast, the same boom, vario ropes on them, which everyone can then adjust individually, but otherwise everything is identical, so that you really have identical sails for these comparison rides.
When testing, we sometimes do things that you wouldn't normally do. Not everyone tries to surf as well and as beautifully as they can, but you also try to push a board into the jibe until it really flies out, i.e. until you crash. The aim is to find out where the tightest radius is, when the board jumps out of the turn. Or you can stand on it without body tension.
How often do you change trim settings, e.g. more luff tension when sailing or the fin a little forwards or backwards, mast foot forwards or backwards? Do you somehow have a certain routine?
SG: With sails for the comparison races, the "worse, slower" sail is always re-trimmed until it is no longer better. With the boards, we usually have the foot straps in the second hole from the back for the comparison races, that's a standard, that's a good sporting position. You can ride quickly with it. Otherwise, this is usually limited to the mast foot position, which doesn't require that much room for manoeuvre on modern boards. It usually fits in the centre area
MV: With wave and freestyle wave boards, we usually start with a centre position. So fins in the centre, straps in the centre, because experience has shown that this is the position that everyone who buys a board initially chooses. If we realise that something isn't working properly, we adjust it. It's not the case that we try out all the footstrap positions on every board, that would go completely beyond the scope.
SG: When we ride freestyle wave boards on flat water, we take the more outward position on one side and the more inward position on the other in a four-strap setup. Then you can find out straight away whether you are comfortable in both positions. There have also been times when manufacturers have teased us for not being able to attach the straps correctly.
Manuel had just said that everyone makes notes and voice files and you talk about them afterwards. How does that work? Are there sometimes controversial opinions?
MV: After three, four or five boards, everyone tries to record their impressions for themselves, usually using sound files. After the test session, we then sit down promptly and summarise all our impressions. So the testing doesn't end when the Neo is taken off. Especially in South Africa, it's exhausting when we've been on the water for a long time, sitting down again in the evening when everyone is actually flat and then discussing it for another hour. Essentially, we mostly agree
SG: These discussions sometimes lead to us going out again with the product. If we don't agree on how it is in the tight jibe, then we take it back to the next round. We don't test all ten boards in a group in one day. If we discuss the first round of five or six boards, then we can also decide that we don't really need three of them because we are very, very sure about the characteristics and we are not sure about two others, then we take them back into the next round.
A cake must be donated to the test team for embarrassing actions
Is it ever the case that you are no longer sure which board was which?
MV: There are also testers who don't even know what size sail they're going out on the water with, that's happened before (laughs). To my shame, I have to admit that was me. I think it was also in one of my first years, when I actually came off the water with a wave sail and got upset. The thing has zero control and so on....
SG: On the day we were thinking about whether to go for 4.2 or 4.7. Manuel was swearing afterwards, but came off the water with a 5.3. If you do something like that, you have to buy a cake for the team. So there are cakes, for example, if someone puts on the test partner's wetsuit and goes surfing in it, or if equipment breaks, or if the rubber side of the furling lines is attached to the boom. Just the sort of things that happen to a normal surfer, but with us someone else always notices straight away because we always swap.
MV: Or glue masts together, but glue them at the wrong point on the sleeve!
And after the test, everyone will weigh five kilos more?
SG: They may all weigh more, but the pairs remain the same!
MV: I forgot the actual question...
The question was whether you would still be able to assign the characteristics to the individual boards later?
MV: Yes, you simply can't drive so many products in a row without writing things down, that's the crucial thing.
SG: So for me the maximum is three products in a row, I can memorise them well, and I think the same applies to the others. We then try to write them down as quickly as possible. It's easier now if you can dictate it quickly into your mobile phone. We used to all sit on the beach in the wind with chequered notepads and wet fingers and scribble down our impressions. Now it's a bit more detailed when you speak it, you say three words more than you would write down.
There are lots of pictures for each test, how do you take them? How does it work?
MV: We generally take all the action and product images ourselves. Firstly, because it looks more uniform in the layout afterwards. Secondly, because we naturally want to try everything out ourselves and not rely on marketing information. In practice, this also takes up a lot of time. For example, for a small sailing photo in the magazine, a tester rigs up the sail and stands on the dune until the photo is taken. It's like an assembly line. That's also one reason why there's actually no idle time during the tests, even on calm days. We then use such days for product photos, the accompanying videos for the test on our YouTube channel or for writing the test reports and notes.
We've now talked about the big comparison tests, there are also the individual tests under "Already dangers", how do you approach this? Is there a certain system to it or is it really just about the initial feeling?
MV: For the individual tests, we also select things according to interest. It's often the case that you stumble across something that you find interesting. Sometimes the manufacturers come up to us and say "We've got something new, wouldn't that be interesting to present?". With "Already ridden", however, it's not the case that four people always ride along, as is usual with a test group, but it can also be the case that only Stephan or I try something out. Of course, that doesn't have the same value as a full test in a group. Nonetheless, I think we now have enough experience that we still have a pretty good idea of a product like this. This means that "already driven" is still much more meaningful for people than just a product report that only contains marketing text. There isn't a real test group for every product, and it would be a shame not to present them at all.
How do you choose the spots? Do you ever say I'm going to a spot that might not be ideal so that I can test it there too?
SG: Normally, of course, we choose the advert to match the products. But of course you sometimes go to strange spots to test the products there, which is a bit absurd sometimes. We had the best south wind week in years on Lake Garda this summer, but we had to test light wind foils. We wanted to have around 12 knots, so we drove an extra 15 kilometres south to have less wind. You can't tell other windsurfers that. But you can see that we really try to test the product in the conditions in which it will be used. For wave boards and wave sails, that is certainly the North and Baltic Seas. With freeride boards, in our experience it doesn't really matter whether we test them on Lake Garda, in South Africa or on Lake Selent, they just have to have a similar water surface. Then you can really achieve the same results everywhere. This is absolutely transferable.
What is the best and worst spot for you to test?
MV: I still think Langebaan is the best spot, it's such a universal spot, that's why we've been there so often, because you can do everything there, from flat water, light wind to waves, it's just such a great multi-spot. And shredding all day in Hanstholm during the wave test isn't a punishing job either.
SG: Yes, definitely, you can actually do something every day. If you ride a bit, you can always find wind or waves or both. Because we also do SUP, we've always had paddles with us over the last few years, so we've never really run dry, and that's over five weeks. So for me it's the most efficient, best spot that offers all the conditions we actually want.
MV: A bad spot for testing can be a great spot privately. We once tested in Agger, it's a great spot, has some of the best waves in the North Sea, but you have to walk 700 metres to the spot. Then in autumn on a cold day in the drizzle with bag and baggage and camera, bag and five sails and ten boards. You're dragging yourself through the soft sand, you're actually finished before you set off. But of course it's a great spot. You simply have different requirements for testing than for private surfing. We often decide where we can take the best photos and have the best test conditions for the products.
SG: If you look at it from this comfort aspect, then of course there are spots that are particularly great. Like in Hurghada, where you surf with the wind up to the beach, walk one metre, put your board down and 20 metres further on is the surf school, where all the other boards are. At Lake Walchensee you can test great foil equipment, but if you park at the gallery, you have to drag everything down the stairs down the embankment, you don't want to change equipment four or five times and drag the foil board with foil up a very narrow staircase. There's also no room to put it down. If you only go in once to surf and then go out again after three hours, that's great, but you can't actually swap equipment there, it's impossible.
If you buy new equipment every few years as a normal surfer, you can always feel a direct difference. Do you still notice a difference from year to year compared to the previous year?
MV: Of course, the differences are no longer as big as they were in the early days of windsurfing. As Stephan said earlier, we try to get round this by adapting the sizes of the test groups, so that we don't test freestyle wave 95s three years in a row, but then we take the 90s, or the 105s or the 115s. And then when you come back to the 95s, there's a noticeable difference again. We also have years where we have the impression that individual products have gone in the wrong direction. Of course, that's also part of testing, that you address such things, especially when it comes to new trends.
SG: I don't actually see the main task of the surf test as documenting this general improvement in material, because that's really difficult. I see our task more as highlighting the big differences between the boards in a group, because some of them are huge. There are eight good boards among the ten boards in the test, but eight very different products. There is no board that is the best for everyone, which is exactly why we don't have any test winners. Because then we would have to have five test winners: The test winner for power jibe, for speed, for early planing and so on.
Out of ten boards in the test, I wouldn't want to have seven of them for free on average" (Manuel Vogel)
MV: That's a typical question from people who look at the test from the outside and say that there's no such thing as bad material any more. I always see that with the wave boards; of the ten boards in the test, I wouldn't want to have seven of them for free. But that doesn't mean that the seven are bad, they might just be the boards that someone else would choose. And that's exactly our job, to show that.
Do you ever go out on the water and think "What kind of cucumber is that?"
MV: Yes! There are still some boards that suddenly weigh two kilos more than others, or where you realise the mast track is in the wrong place. I remember when the first multifin boards came onto the market, there were boards that had the fins set up like wave riders, where you thought you had a plastic bag on the fin. Most of the products are good and have a specific target group, but there are also products that, objectively speaking, are simply worse than the others. Of course, this has to come out in the test.
SG: We have these three points where we list plus, average and minus, and normally it's really easy to find something positive on each board. With the negatives, you always have to be careful whether it's really negative or whether it's just a small restriction.
We have talked a lot about boards and sails, but there are also regular tests of small parts such as mast feet or harness ropes, how do you go about it?
SG: This is also subject to a certain cycle. In the case of mast extensions, new products are not brought onto the market as often, they simply have a longer service life than sails or boards. After three or four years, you can also test harness ropes again. There are always new people coming into the sport
MV: There are certain things like harness ropes or a mast base or an extension that every surfer needs. And there are also differences in how they are made, or identical models from the same factory, but one costs 50% more. A third of our readers have only been surfing for five years or less, so this is very valuable information for them!
If you only have three hours of wind and then something doesn't fit, that can make you really nervous. (Stephan Gölnitz)
Have you ever been driven to despair by a part?
SG: Yes! It used to be the ratchet extension from North Sails. Today it's a really great piece that makes trimming super easy, but in the beginning there was always the case that you stood on the beach with it and it didn't work, which drove me to despair at times. And then of course things that don't fit. That's sometimes very bad when foiling if you have a lot of foils and a whole bucket full of screws. If you get things mixed up, it really is a great puzzle...
MV: Or when you haven't tightened the screws yet, Stephan, and you just take it out onto Lake Garda and sink the foil after ten metres and things like that! Or when you sink into the depths of Lake Garda with inflatable SUPs...
SG: The most annoying thing is when things don't fit together. You are not prepared for the fact that one fork can only do RDM and the other only SDM, or that one needs an adapter and the other has no adapter at all. Or with foils, the screw holes don't fit together, which can really turn you into a Rumpelstiltskin. Sometimes you have to grab a file and make the holes in the board bigger because the holes in the foil and board simply don't fit together. If you only have three hours of wind and then something like that doesn't fit, it can make you really nervous.
MV: You always have to bear in mind that it's usually not just about testing. We often make sure that we get the photos first. You have great light, people are standing there, you want to go out and then something doesn't fit, you see the next cloud front coming up behind you and want to get on the water. Of course, that drives you crazy. You need a lot of time to prepare so that everything runs smoothly when it starts.
What were the most extreme test conditions you can remember?
MV: We often did forced marches, or we came home in the evening, reloaded and travelled on again in the morning, that's part of it. During the coronavirus period, when we couldn't fly to South Africa, we also did a lot of things here. We often had to grit our teeth. Stephan was paddling around on the SUP with icicles on his nose and at the same time we were trying to take photos here on the Baltic Sea at three degrees that looked halfway to fun surfing without a bonnet. Those are the kind of days where you're through in the evening.
SG: Well, I have to be honest, I don't envy the North team when they test freewave boards in February. I'm glad that I can paddle a SUP down here in comfort. I think it's really tough when you go windsurfing up there at two degrees and not just for as long as you want, but keep standing on land to change your equipment.
Last question: In the WindsurfingTV podcast with Maciek Rutkowski there is always the "Worst Check-In Story". What funny things have you experienced while travelling?
SG: Such stories are only ever funny when you're on the plane and have your first drink and the material is actually on the plane!
MV: It's only funny when you've got the lumbago behind you that you got while lugging it around. The worst check-in is always on the return flight from Cape Town, where you have to load 25 board bags individually into this stupid lift to get to the bulky baggage counter. Otherwise, we are always happy when everything is inside and, above all, when it all arrives.
SG: The handling is really borderline at times, to be honest. I've also landed in Frankfurt with 15 or 16 triple boardbags on my own. It's a bit desperate, but so far everything has always gone well. And what else we do at check-in, we have a few tricks up our sleeves, but you shouldn't pass them on here (laughs).
