3 questions to Robby Naish

25/01/2023

Announced at the very beginning of the year (see our article of January 10, 2023), the information surprised many with the purchase of the Naish brand by the Dutch company Kubus Sports. For Windsurfjournal.com, Robby Naish, the iconic boss of the Hawaiian entity, looks back on this major professional and personal change...

Windsurfjournal.com: First of all, can you remind us how Naish Hawaii was born in 1979?
Robby Naish: Naish Hawaii was born in my parent's Kailua, Oahu garage. My father began making custom windsurfing boards for he and my brother Randy and I in the late seventies when we realized that there was a lot more performance that could be improved upon the original polyethylene windsurfer. He began making more and more boards for friends etc and in ’79 he moved to a small shop in Kailua town. It was a pure custom board warehouse. In 1980 he began designing for Mistral, first with the Mistral Naish board and Kailua. He quit his teaching job and began making boards full time under the Naish Hawaii label. My mom Carol ran the business side of the shop, and my father Rick ran the design and production side. It was a really cool “mom and pop business.” I then formed Naish Sails Hawaii in 1995 which started making windsurfing sails on Maui together with Don Montague and Pete Cabrinha. That grew over the years, absorbing the original Naish custom board business, then moved into kiteboarding, stand up paddling, foiling, winging etc, gradually turning into what Naish has become today.

WJ: What will be this new direction and this new energy that will be able to bring Kubus Sports and that you were not able to bring?
RN: This change does two things. Most importantly, it frees me up from the stress and pressure that I was putting myself under. I love windsurfing and the other board sports that I have been lucky enough to make a career out of. I have been incredibly lucky to have been able to create a business out of what I love. But I have never really loved being a businessman. But I have always taken it seriously, never brought in outside capital, never borrowed money and tried to do things honorably. But over the years, as the business has grown, and I have gotten older, I began to feel the pressures of what I call “the business side of the business”. It was time for me to find a way to unplug. The second thing that this change at Naish provides is renewed energy, direction and a unified USA/Europe distribution system. I really brought the business about as far as my knowledge, time and management style would allow. Kubus Sports is really well organized, passionate about boardsports and the Naish brand and is based in Europe where so much of the market lives. With R&D continuing to drive product development forward into the future from Maui, together with fresh talent and organization on the European and domestic US side of things, I am confident that this change will quickly increase the presence of Naish on the water globally. I can now go back to doing what I love, which is riding. More innovating, more water time, and way less email.

WJ: What general vision do you have today of all watersports and how do you see these practices evolving?
RN: I have honestly never been a great predictor of the future. All I know is that water sports are sure fucking awesome. Whatever gets people out on the water, whether it is sailing, surfing, stand up paddling, wingfoiling, kiting or windsurfing, to me, it is all good. Connecting people with nature the way these sports do is incredibly healthy, for mind, body and spirit. The only thing that is guaranteed is that things will continue to evolve and to change. I can not tell you if foiling is really the big key to the future, or if kiting is going to grow or shrink, or if windsurfing will ever be the huge sport that it once was. But in all honesty, I am happy to be back in the position where it doesn’t really matter. I don’t have to worry about which sport I am spending too much or too little time on, or that I absolutely have to test something tomorrow no matter what the conditions are like because there is a deadline looming. I love to ride. I will continue to test, I will continue to follow trends and to work on graphics… But I will now do it when I want to and not because I feel like I have to. This will give me the open mind to re=connect with the sports, try new things and go to new places again. And I will continue to windsurf. Because it is where I came from, and because it is a huge part of who I am. And because I love it. Yesterday, a guy asked me if I felt bad that windsurfing had “gone out of style”. I replied to him with all honesty that windsurfing was still the coolest sport ever invented. When I won my first world windsurfing championship in 1976 most people did not even know what the sport was called. I loved the fact that I was doing something that was unique and different, something that no other kids did where I lived. The sport grew huge, then backed off a bit over the years. But I look at it that windsurfing has simply gotten more exclusive again, less crowded… not less popular. Over the last twenty years, Maui has gotten really crowded. But Hookipa is less crowded today on the water than it was twenty years ago! Windsurfing might just be the only thing on Maui that has gotten less crowded. And that is not a bad thing. I actually think it is pretty cool. My general vision for watersports? I think I will stick to my old slogan that “every day on the water is a good day” and see where that takes me.