RAOUL JOA – MAKING AN IMPACT

RAOUL JOA – MAKING AN IMPACT

With the exciting launch of the innovative 2026 Duotone range already being triggered, we caught up with Raoul Joa, division manager for the brand for this exclusive, no holds barred interview.

Raoul speaks candidly about tough decisions behind the scenes, the complexities of rebranding and his unwavering passion to make an impact in windsurfing through Duotone’s cutting-edge products.

LIFE-LONG PASSION

WS: Tell us a bit about your background and how you got involved in the windsurfing industry.

RJ: “Like many kids at that time, I got into windsurfing through my parents! I’m still saying that was the best thing my dad ever brought home… a windsurfer! I was not even 10 years old. He just bought it for our holidays and used it three or four times and realized that he was not made for windsurfing. I stepped on it and instantly got hooked…by being moved by the wind, which was the first step. Especially when I had that half-planing feeling. And this is how I started windsurfing.

Windsurfing became my hobby, then my major hobby, then my only hobby and then my sense of life. At that time, there were no computers, no phones, so the distraction wasn’t there. There wasn’t this information overflow killing you every second. You were really spending time with your equipment, with your hobby and with your family. You spent more time with the things you were doing, plus there were fewer alternatives.

You could become a soccer player like everyone else, maybe tennis like the rich people. And then there was this cool sport…windsurfing. And that was about it. That’s why windsurfing is also called the mother of all fun sports. It sounds old-fashioned, but it really was the first fun sport and it completely hooked me.

Nowadays, it’s different. We have so many fun sports and they’re much easier to learn. You get this instant reward and the equipment can be easier to transport. We all know the problems with windsurfing. Plus, the younger generation is constantly distracted…phones, computers, social media, information overload. It’s hard to get new people into the sport. Windsurfing…jokingly…you have to be a bit of a masochist. You have to really dive into it, make it your thing and keep at it with energy, time and effort.

And transportation! If you’re young, you don’t have a driver’s license yet, so you need your parents to get to the beach. It’s a huge effort to become a windsurfer. With all the other wind sports…winging, for example…it’s so much easier.

But still, I do this interview because windsurfing is the greatest water sport on Earth. Winging is effortless; but that’s the problem. It gets boring, to be honest. I tried winging a bit and sure, you can jump, it’s wonderful if you’re young and radical and want to hurt yourself. But one advantage of windsurfing is it’s nearly impossible to seriously hurt yourself.

For someone just going back and forth on a lake, winging gets boring after, say, half a year. But with windsurfing, it’s just complete. I would still say it’s the greatest water sport on earth!”

FROM SHOP CLERK TO DIVISION MANAGER

WS: And how did you get involved in the business?

RJ: “Also, pretty early, when I was still in school. I worked in a windsurfing shop. Windsurfing shops at that time were very different than nowadays. This particular one was in Munich, and it was called something that translates into “air mattress.” Super funny…the guy first wanted to sell air mattresses, then realized windsurfing was becoming huge. That was the mid-80s, and I started working there. At that time, the fairs and shows were still a big deal for retailers.

I worked afternoons after school and was already earning pretty good money by the hour. I really enjoyed it. I finished my school degree…barely and had this conversation with my mum. She said I should go to university, and I said, “No…I want to earn money from day one.” I had a dream…to become a sail designer. Young people should dream!

Since I was earning good money at the shop, I wanted to keep working there. But you can’t just be a sales guy forever. The shop owner had a great idea; he said I should sign up as a student at the university so he could still pay me officially while I worked, and I’d do an apprenticeship-like program. Three weeks working, one week at uni. I finished a sales degree that way.

The shop was actually the biggest North dealer worldwide at the time. Tiny shop…maybe 100 square meters…but it had a huge garage where we stored sails. We were selling over 3,000 sails a year…more than we have in our international warehouse today!

The owner of North, Michi Plank, used to visit us often, he lived nearby. After finishing my studies, I asked if I could work for him. That’s how I got into North Sails, firstly in customer service. My first job was a tiny desk in a small town near Munich, typing in orders and calling German customers.

From the beginning, I told Michi, I was always into products. I said, “You guys have great sails, but your harnesses are a nightmare. This is complete sh**!” And he let me deal with the factory to start improving them. That’s how I got into development. Then I worked on improving the boom front end.

Eventually, two of my rep colleagues who were good friends, told my boss that I was more valuable working on products than in customer service. So, I eventually became the product manager at North.”

WS: What’s your title now?

RJ: “Now, of course, we have official titles like every company. My official title, well it was actually me who pushed for the change. Before, the responsible guys for each sport division were called “line managers.” I said, “What am I, taking a line every morning to go to work?” (laughs) Bad English. I said, “Come on, we’re handling divisions.” So, they finally changed it to “division manager.””

THE DUOTONE REBRAND: A RISK THAT PAID OFF!

WS: How tough was it to change from North to Duotone?

RJ: “That was our first big brand switch. Endless meetings. Our shareholders didn’t want to sell to the new owner of the North brand, who was trying to acquire it below market value.

So, we did the unthinkable…we said, “Let’s change the brand.” I still believe this will be in marketing textbooks one day. I don’t think there has been any market leader in a sports brand who has changed its brand name before. A market leader changing its brand name?…it’s like if Mercedes said, “Let’s become Ypsilon-Automobile.” It was a suicide crazy move. But our shareholders invested in the move, and we pulled it off.

Since we were starting from scratch, we could fix parts of the brand image. I personally never liked the old logo with North Sails. It was so old school. We were trying all sorts of things to make the brand look cooler like the advert with Nik Baker wearing the fur jacket and funky adverts with the Moreno sisters. Pryde were the cool brand at the time and we were the “technical, boring, German engineering” brand. So, we said: “Let’s combine our unbeatable technology with a super sexy, fresh brand and logo.” We became the youngest brand! It was scary but it worked. Sales went up…we reached the next level.”

WS: Did you have a plan for how long it would take for people to accept it?

RJ: “That’s where we spent the most money…marketing. Kiteboarding was already five times bigger than windsurfing. If the kite move would have failed, the company wouldn’t exist anymore. So, we went all in.

I remember driving into Tarifa and seeing a massive Duotone billboard. I thought, “We did it.” It was such an exciting time. The second move; rebranding Fanatic…was similar, though on a much smaller scale.”

COVID BOOM AND BUST!

WS: How tough was it steering the brand through COVID?

RJ: “Oh, that is the good thing about human beings. Human beings tend to push away bad impressions and bad things happening to them… if it’s death, being divorced, and so on, which is good in a way. Looking back COVID is so far away. It’s like reading a science fiction book or watching a science fiction movie. You know, what the fu**! We were in prison. We couldn’t go out, meet people. How is that possible?

But actually, after the first shock … “We’re going to have zero selling, it’s going to stop, it’s going to collapse, we all stay at home” … video meetings were born at that time. Actually, for all the individual sports, it turned out to be a massive boost. Unfortunately, leading into a massive breakdown after the boost, because all the people bought all their stuff during COVID, because individual sports were allowed, team sports were not allowed.

So, it was just a buying in advance, I would call it. And now the customers all have their garages full of toys, and it is really hitting us now still…with the overstock and the same with the stock situation at some dealers.

After COVID we were producing like hell. We opened up three different factories just to get enough SUPs at that time. Shops were just putting in mental orders. And that in a smaller degree happened to windsurfing as well. I was like, “Jesus Christ, windsurfing is booming …what’s happening?” So these were really crazy times… from zero to hero, unfortunately back, not to zero, but yeah, above zero.”

LETTING GO OF STARS…AND FACING THE BACKLASH!

WS: How tough was it to let Mark Paré and Pierre Mortefon go from the team? That must have been a difficult decision to make?

RJ: “I have to be careful because we got kind of a windsurfing sh**storm for doing that…especially because we let them go both together. We had to, to be honest. Since we are an investor-driven company and we do not have a sponsor daddy, sponsor mummy, sponsor wife, sponsor whatever…some of the smaller brands have that…we are only able to spend as much as we are earning, worst case. Actually, we should make kind of a profit.

That is the whole game with investors. They invest into something to get money out of it. Otherwise, they could leave the money at the bank. And so, we were really forced to do that move. We were forced to do it before all the other brands! I mean, especially the smaller brands, because a year later, if you look at Pryde or Starboard just to name two, they had to do exactly the same thing we did, just one year later. We put a social media post out there thanking them in a really friendly way but it exploded back at us. That hit us by surprise and not a positive one. It was not very clever from us in hindsight.

We were really rethinking and restructuring all our cost budgets, because we had to match them with the dramatic sales drop we had at that time after Covid. Our most expensive riders were Marc and Pierre and the decision was made that they had to go! Victor was on a three-year contract so we could not drop him at the time.

It was not like we didn’t like Mark Paré anymore or we didn’t like Pierre anymore. It was just…we had to let people go and save budget.

Mark Paré went back to Simmer. I’m pretty sure it helped them for development, because Mark was heavily (I have to say that, and we’re still thankful) involved in the Super_Hero D/LAB development.

That was mainly done by Mark. I would say like 80%. Obviously, he took that knowledge with him. Not that Kai Hopf made him a sail designer, but he explained a lot. That’s the essential thing…that the tester and the designer find a common solid language that they understand each other. Some guys say “great,” but mean great is not good. Others say “unbelievable,” but everything is unbelievable. You really need to find your language and technical understanding. And Kai always tells me it takes at least 1.5 years to teach that and to learn that from the other side…from the rider…how he explains things, to find a common ground. And they had achieved that, and this is why Kai was super sad that we had to let him go.”

KAI HOPFF: THE UNSUNG GENIUS!

WS: You mentioned Kai Hopf…you’ve obviously got a lot of admiration for him as a designer. Tell us a little bit about why you think he’s a genius?

RJ: “No matter who you’re talking to, no matter what kind of product…boards, fins or sails they’re like, “Yeah, OK, I shouldn’t say, but he’s the best. He’s the best designer.” It’s unbelievable what he’s doing.

Nobody knows him very much outside Maui… but it’s a common knowledge on Maui…but he is a fu**ing genius. He has difficulty sleeping, that why sometimes he’s very grumpy and difficult to socialize with. He doesn’t feel comfortable if there’s more than two people around. Like you and me together, that’s OK, but with a third or fourth person, he starts to feel uncomfortable.

But on the other hand, if he accepts you or calls you a friend, he does everything for you. As I mentioned, when Mark Paré was doing the interview with Ben Proffitt, he literally had 4 or 5 packs of fins. I thought he was ‘Mr. Fin’ …he was discussing fins and this and that…and I was like, what the fu**? These fins…every single one, except for maybe two, were from Kai.

He started as a World Cup rider, so he knows what the guys want and demand, because he demanded the same for himself. Then he’s been in design for such a long time. He’s very good mechanically. He was building his own CNC machines, his own plotters. Ordering parts from China on eBay and putting it all together by himself. He even built the first laser cutter for GSL… for our factory…and sent it there.

He’s somehow a universal genius. Again, he can be  difficult to deal with socially, but he’s a great guy. He’s the best designer all around. There might be someone better in one specific thing… for example, Robert Stroj, great sail designer or Sean Ordonez, great board shaper…but we’re not hand-shaping anymore nowadays.

I don’t think there’s anyone, at least in windsurfing, being a top-notch designer in all aspects, sails, boards and fins. Silently, behind the curtains, everyone admits this.”

AI IN DESIGN: PRECISION OVER GUESSWORK!

WS: How important is AI in windsurfing design these days?

RJ: “Apparently, it’s everywhere, and we won’t get rid of it anymore. That’s a fact. Whether you like it or not…whether it’s good for mankind, I’m not sure. Worst case scenario, it’s like Terminator. But the Genie is out of the bottle and we can’t put it back in.

It has tremendous possibilities for us humans…unfortunately also tremendous threats. But with the right software (and that’s why we had a software written especially for us) the industry standard program doesn’t allow you to do that.

When you create a board it consists of three elements: the rocker line, the outline and the rail radius. Kai is a strong believer….and this is impossible to reach by hand…. that these curves need to be synchronized. The industry-standard software Shape3D couldn’t do it either.

He believes, for example, if you have a rocker line that’s straighter in the middle, then the outline should be straighter there as well, means less curvature. Same for the rail shape. More radius at the nose and tail and the outline and rocker line should match that curvature at the same positions. Long story short the curves should never work against each other.

Our software is mathematically driven. A lot can be done by hand, by typing it in and checking the 3D model…but that only goes so far. That’s why after Kai designs the board, it gets AI-checked and adjusted…we’re talking millimetres…to make the curves match 100% to each other.”

WORK, PASSION…AND FINDING BALANCE!

WS: Do you ever switch off from Duotone?

RJ “That is a very good question, and I think I can speak for others in the industry too. We are all in the same boat. That is the downside, I think, for all of us in the industry: if you make your hobby your job. The positive thing is that you’re driven…you’re simply driven because it is your hobby. You do it with joy every day, and you’re pushing all the time.

I could also design toilet seats. I mean, I’m sitting on one at least once a day…more like three or four times a day. But I wouldn’t do that job with the same motivation, to be honest.

But this can also turn into a negative. When it really becomes the sole part of your entire life. And that used to be the case with me… until I got really, really seriously sick. Not just a cold. In the early 2000s, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. They told me at the time, it was from too much stress, too much alcohol, yes, too much smoking, yes and maybe too much working and never switching off.

Fortunately, I met my wife around that time too. And even though it’s officially an incurable disease, I’ve had no symptoms ever since. And since it wasn’t just a cold that goes away after a week or two, I became much more careful with my energy level.

It’s not that I’m not still thinking 24/7 about my job and how to improve Duotone and windsurfing in general; but I know my limits now. I’m a much healthier person.

I need a minimum of 8 hours of sleep. I instantly stopped smoking. Haven’t touched a cigarette since then. I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol for five years…I couldn’t quite keep that up, but now I’m definitely not a heavy drinker anymore. And I’m not partying all the time like before.”

WHY COMPETITION IS ESSENTIAL?

WS: Do you like having the competition amongst the other brands?

RJ “I love it. I love it! You wouldn’t expect this; but I hate monopolies. I simply hate monopolies. Because if you’re the only one, with no alternatives… you get lazy, you get slow and you get arrogant. That’s the natural result of a monopoly. If there’s no competition, why should I move ahead? Why should I be a nice guy? Everyone has to buy from me anyway. If it were only Duotone, I’d say, “Yeah, if you want to go windsurfing, you have to buy our boards, our masts, our stuff. Tough sh**.” I don’t need to be nice. Real development and progress only come from competition. And so, honestly, I love it when a competitor gives me a challenge.

The last time I really felt that was when I saw the current Goya line. They improved a lot of things… visually, too. Even the boards. I was like, “What the fu**?” And their sails, with all the different materials …I was like, “Wow!”

But it wasn’t, “What the fu**, I hate these guys.” It was, “Wow, great…now I have a challenge. What do they have? What is better than us?”

It was the same back in the days…up until maybe 2010. I was always the first one to grab the new NeilPryde brochure because they are located very close to our offices. They had this amazing boom front end and not to mention all the great riders. I was like, “What the fu**, I would love to have that!” Slowly, over the years, we were like, “OK, now we have something that we think is even better…lighter…with better graphics, better function.” So, we worked our way up.

So yeah, I love competition. Unfortunately, it’s getting less and less, because of the market situation. Fewer and fewer brands can afford to invest in R&D.”

PWA FOIL RACING…WHERE IT ALL WENT WRONG!

WS: What do you think of PWA foil racing…Is that good for the brands or is it a marketing?

RJ: “I guess you know all of my pain points? Foil racing is one of these pain points, not that I hate foil racing, not at all, don’t get me wrong, just how it has developed or how PWA and its riders have taken it on. I think, to be frankly, it’s a complete F**k up.
I think it’s the new version of formula racing and in Formula racing we were stepping out at a point because it was such a madness. And in foil racing, it won’t take much more honestly.
They took it into a completely wrong direction.

When it originally came up, the argument was: we need the events to happen and we need a result! With fin racing that was always a risk. And this is how PWA brought it up.
Hey, we finally have something which will guarantee us a result at whatever venue. And I was like, f*ck it, fantastic. I love it. I was completely forward with foil racing and I am still, I still would be in theory.

But then, since it is a rider organization, which I think nowadays, at least, doesn’t make sense anymore because it’s all so small that nobody should work in his own interests. Everyone in the industry and just rephrasing, my dear friend Francisco Goya, we need to be ‘one family’, but he’s completely right. We are so small. The magazines can’t work against the brands anymore. The industry can’t work against the shops anymore in their own interest. We all must work together. I’m sorry to say, but some of the riders were moving the rules into a direction for their best interests.

I said right from the beginning, let’s have a sail size limit for foil racing. But we’re not talking 12 m or 11 m. We’re talking about 6.5m, maybe that was a bit radical.
I would have also been happy to discuss that. But not much bigger, please, because what does it mean?

Automatically, when you increase the size of the sail and you reduce the foil-wing size. And that’s the opposite of what we need for racing and the opposite of what usual foil windsurfers are doing at their spot. And this is why I also stepped out of formula because it’s the opposite to what usual windsurfers were doing at the lake sailing this direction and the formula guy was sailing in the other direction 90 degrees up and downwind, complete bullshit.
And that’s the same what happened with foil racing. Foiling, most people who are still doing it are doing it on a 5.0/5.3 wave sail, and in PWA they are going 9.5 square meters. Are they completely nuts using tiny toothbrushes for their foil-wing size? I would have instantly set a minimum foil-wing size limitation and a maximum size sail and it would have been a blast.

First of all, we would have created a great alternative to IQ-Foil which is killing us completely in the PWA in this discipline, and I would also have, of course, regulated the amount of equipment which they’ve done, but the size is the crucial part.

And of course we have the riders saying, “Yeah, but we are much faster with bigger sails and smaller foils.” Yes, that’s true. But we’re always talking about the complete field. If the whole fleet is 10% slower, you won’t see a difference because they’re all 10% slower because they have to use bigger foil-wings to get going with their smaller sails. What’s the f**king problem?

And you know what, the best guys will still win because the best always win, no matter if it’s big sails or small sails. I’m getting mad if I think about this. That was a huge mistake.
I hate it. I really hate it.

And I hate it if certain individuals, change the sport or the rules for their own interest and not seeing or not caring what it means for the whole sport. And this is why I’m not a big fan of PWA foil racing at the moment.”

2026…EXCITING INNOVATIONS IN THE PIPELINE!

WS: How excited do you get when you’re about to release a new range?

RJ: “That depends. Of course, I’m super excited for 2026 since we’re having the most innovative range ever and especially in these difficult times. It’s not that we planned it.It’s also by accident and so many things working together: the new factory, new software…it simply all came together, which rarely happens and then of course I get excited.

But yeah, I hope also for our customers it will be a bit like Christmas when you present the new toys, something technically new as well as a new look… you feel a bit like Santa Claus giving the boys new toys! It is going to be an exciting year ahead and I hope the new range goes down well”.

JUSTIFYING THE COST!

WS: How do you justify the cost of a windsurfing board these days?

RJ: “When you see some of these videos of the factories that have been on YouTube, a lot of people realized every step in the process costs money! They were saying in the comments, wow, wow, wow, I have not thought that the boards are handmade and there is hardly any, (in our case zero) machine building involved. One or two guys were even commenting: I think the boards are even too cheap if seeing all this, the handwork involved and all the people in the process and all the effort that goes into making a board. Yeah, of course, Thailand helps. Thailand is a rather cheap labour country still, but the end result is still it’s an expensive sport no matter what we do.

The only thing which really saddens me is if I hear comments…not on the video, but comments in general…where people say, “They must have such a margin” … Unbelievable! “And now they’re also selling their stuff direct for double the margin.”

So, first of all, margin goes along with quantity of products sold. If you sell one product, you have to make a lot of money like luxury boats. If you sell Samsung phones, you make lots of them. Due to the high quantities, of course, you can work with a smaller margins. Also customers rightfully demand to have new things, new development…this costs money. You want to have riders on the team and that needs money. Everything in windsurfing costs money…we don’t have to just pay for the manufacturing; we also pay our riders, our developers. And we want our suppliers to earn money as well. Because also with your suppliers you should have a fair relation since there are not some many left anymore in Windsurfing.

And the most important…I think…no matter which sport, tell me a sport which is really cheap. Winging? For sure not. Kiting? For sure not. The equipment in both sports is much more expensive than one windsurfing sail. So, I think it’s pretty equal what you have to spend. Look at mountain biking! Of course, I need an e-bike. Come on, a high-end Enduro e-bike can cost you like a cheap car nowadays.”

DUOTONE ASPIRATIONS!

WS: So, what are your aspirations with the brand now?

RJ: “Well that’s a hard one. You could say I’m almost in a kind of “pre-retirement” phase…if that’s even the right term in English. And funny enough, that’s exactly what the guys in my team asked me when we formed the new Duotone Windsurf department.

When I say “team,” it sounds like this big dramatic thing, but really, it’s a tight group: Alex, who’s involved in both sales and marketing; Jannik, who’s focused on sales; myself, mainly handling R&D, the brand direction, and marketing strategy; then there’s Dani and Marco for testing, Kai and Dani on the design side.

When we formed this new windsurf team, everyone asked me, “So, are you sticking around? Or is this you stepping back?” And I told them…yes, technically I could retire, but the truth is, I love what I do. I love working in the sport, working for the brand. And honestly, I’m having the best time of my life with this team.

As I explained in an interview when we integrated the Fanatic boards into Duotone, it wasn’t some dramatic restructuring…it was more like a natural shift. When one brand focuses on boards and the other on rigs, you naturally get split attention. But now, it feels like we’re unified, everyone pulling in the same direction, and the relationships are stronger than ever.

That energy is incredibly motivating. And the outcome of that is what we’re seeing in the 2026 range, which I genuinely believe might be the biggest innovation push we’ve ever had. It’s wild to say, but I think it’s true.

I just want to enjoy that journey, to see the feedback, like we had with the Super_Hero D/LAB. At first, people were sceptical…”Just another hype thing,” they said. But then, a bit later, some of our reps came back and said, “You know what? I went windsurfing the other day…you’re right. That sail is unbelievable.”

That’s what I live for: that moment of realization, the spark in someone’s eye when they try something new and it just clicks. That’s what I’m aiming for with the new boards and sail updates. I want to see that same excitement, like a kid unwrapping a new toy!”

 

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