It has been nearly 25 years since a man named Hoyle Schweitzer stood balanced on a surfboard holding a sail. The result was a sport that goes by the name of windsurfing, or boardsailing, or wavesailing, or simply holy-shit-this-is-fun. It occurs everywhere wind meets water, from mountain lakes to raging rivers to open ocean. Leaf through a copy of Wind Surf magazine and you will see boardsailors cruising beneath the gaze of the stone statues on Easter Island, beneath the steel bridges in the great harbors of San Francisco, Corpus Christi and New York, beneath the massive granite wall of Lake Garda in Italy or the red sandstone arches of Lake Powell in Utah. Ground zero for the sport is the island of Maui. The best sailors in the world--male and female-- go there to play at the beaches of Kanaha, Spreckelsville and the ultimate are na, Ho'okipa State Park. Stroll the rigging areas and you'll hear French, Japanese, Swedish, German and a mangled English that includes the words gnarly, awesome, radical and shred. The subculture is vivid--the streets of Paia and Haiku are lined with shops selling fluorescent boards, sails and swimwear. The locals shape and sell the toys of the trade in tiny lofts, then take them out to play. We asked photographer Sylvain Cazenave to capture some of these superb athletes in their natural habitat. He found Karla Weber and Sophie Laborie. Karla moved to Maui from Clearwater, Florida, to surf professionally. She designs bathing suits on the side. Sophie followed the winds from New Caledonia to be part of the sport at its best. Why do they love boardsailing? Let's talk reckless abandon. The sport combines the beauty of modern dance with the power of surfing: Imagine t'ai chi in a wind tunnel. You stand on an epoxy board that is just over eight feet long and hold a sail that is 40-some-odd square feet of Mylar and Dacron. The sail is a wing, an airfoil that propels you to speeds greater than 40 miles per hour. When you take off from a wave, you can fly--maximum height is somewhere around 50 feet.
Boardsailing is a sport that involves the entire body. Look at these women: Behind every curve is a muscle. Now look at the sail: Behind every curve, the wind. Harness the two, put them into motion--and then catch them if you can.
