Half a century of windsurfing in Knokke-Heist

Half a century of Windsurfing in Knokke-Heist: the local story.

In 1975, the first windsurf boards surfaced on the Zegemeer lake at Hotel La Réserve. At the time, the renowned five-star hotel was only too happy to make a first appearance. The management had to rely on a neighbour from the north, as nobody in the Netherlands was familiar with this new water sport.

The turnout appeared rather low at first, until the man came up with the idea of giving free training to two budding teenagers who couldn't get out of the water. Tom Vandenbussche and Frank Vanleenhove, at the time 12 and 13 and full-time 'Lac residents', were the very first to be introduced to the sport and were immediately hooked... Their skills on the board were contagious and soon the Zegemeer lake was full of colourful sails and the students poured in.

Frank Vanleenhove:

"I remember everything like it was yesterday... Tom and I couldn't even carry our polythene board alone as it weighed about 25 kg. After a while, our hands were full of blisters because the boom, which you use to control the sail, was made of teak.

Our instructor got so busy afterwards that he was only too happy to use two enthusiastic hands: every morning we laid everything out and every evening we cleaned up. In return, we could sail to our hearts' content. What's more: when someone ran aground or into the reeds, we would paddle there and take over to sail everything back. In this way, we quickly became very skilled and had the summer of our lives.

The following year, the same scenario: only this time, a LO master in Ghent turned up who had learned to windsurf just like us the year before. Now things got really crazy because the guy couldn't be there 7 in 7 from early morning to late at night so we were only too happy to take over those lessons.

In fact, we were given so much freedom that one evening we decided to take our skills out to sea for a while. Was the equipment suitable for this? What about the surf? The temperature of the sea water? Questions no one could answer at the time.

The sea water was also colder and there were no surf suits yet, notwithstanding some customers came off with a diving suit, complete with flap between the legs and so never stood on the board shivering like we did with just our swimsuits."

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North Sea first

"The lure of the sea was too powerful for us, however, and there we were, one evening after classes packed and loaded across Elisabet Avenue, past the Casino onto the beach...a true battle of attrition. However, we persevered because we wanted to be the very first to brave the North Sea. First problem was the wooden sword and plastic fin which meant we had to step into the sea for quite some time. Then we quickly jumped up and pulled the rig out of the water with the rope, after which it turned out that the mast foot, which was simply slid into a recess, couldn't stand up to the surf and shot out of the board every time. On the Zegemeer we had reeds for that that we broke off and stuffed in, at sea we didn't have that, duct tape didn't exist yet so we quickly returned to the Zegemeer to get reeds...

But yes: all our efforts were eventually rewarded and I will never, ever forget that very first session at sea: no turning back after 100 metres, infinity vision, facing the horizon complete with sunset.

Tired and with the swell still in our legs, we then dragged everything back and in the dark we washed everything off in the Zegemeer lake, as we were not sure that anything made of teak would withstand the salty sea water...

In any case, we had a taste for it and getting the North Sea conditions under control was the next challenge: after all, there was only one size of sail and the wind at sea was a lot stronger than on Lake Zegemeer, not to mention the currents, surf and swell. We were also all too keen to continue surfing after the summer , and fortunately my parents had brought a water-ski suit from United Kingdom, and I was allowed to borrow my mother's kitchen gloves to brave the cold water during the winter months.

What we especially note that year is that we were invited to the Spaarbekken in Nieuwpoort to give a windsurfing demonstration to King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of King Baudouin. Quite an experience, of course."

Holiday job

"In the Lentelaan in Duinbergen, Walhalla opened for us in the late 1970s: Wishbone skate and surf shop. For hours we gazed at the shop window until I was able to borrow 12,000 Bef from my sister Annie Vanleenhove to buy a second-hand board with harness. Lighter, faster, better and... I could pay it all off quickly because we became Job students teaching on the Zegemeer, or standing in the shop to serve the constant stream of customers.