From living in a van to Olympics contender: GB
windsurfer Sam Sills
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Half a decade since he quit the UK for forward-
thinking Scandinavia on a mission to reduce the
nautical world's carbon footprint, and 18 months
after dwindling money reserves prompted him to
move the entire contents of his life into the
back of his van, Sam Sills found himself
shivering by a lake in rural Switzerland.

At an altitude close to 2,000m above sea level,
Silvaplana is a popular tourist destination for
skiers throughout much of the winter. Even
during the peak summer months, temperatures
barely trouble the mercury with nights ranging
on a scale from chilly to glacial. For
participants at the 2021 iQFoil World
Championships - the headline event for a new
windsurfing discipline that had been confirmed
for inclusion at the Paris 2024 Olympics - not
even the picturesque backdrop could generate
much desire to hang around any longer than
competition demanded.

Those fortunate enough to be part of national
teams - as Sills had been once upon a time -
found solace in the warmth of nearby hotels to
rest and recuperate between races, somewhere to
eat, sleep, shower, go to the toilet: the type
of basic necessities required to compete in
elite sport or go about a conventionally
functional life. Sills had no such luxuries.
Having failed to qualify for the Tokyo Games in
the previous RS:X windsurfing class, the
Cornwall native had been determined to try again
using the new iQFoil equipment that had always
better suited him. The only trouble was he
"didn't have many options and was out of cash".

Ever resourceful, he seized the only,
unappetising, course of action available to keep
his dream alive: he converted his van into his
home. For 18 months he based himself mainly in a
Dorset car park, driving to competitions across
Europe in the vague hope that, one day, he might
make it to the top of windsurfing.

So, to August 2021 and that cold Swiss lake.
While his rivals revelled in the opulence of
their hotel rooms, wardrobes and plumbed
appliances, Sills took on the best in the world
from the back of a panel van replete with
makeshift bed and wooden shelves housing a
kettle, saucepans and portable stove.

"Don't do it. It's horrific," says the 31-year-
old a few years on. "I really wouldn't recommend
it. It was freezing cold and awful, but I knew
there was an opportunity and I didn't have any
other way. So I just did it. I was not well
after the event.

"I didn't want to quit. If I didn't manage to
get a result there then I wouldn't have
continued. It was the end point. But I did and
that put me here."

Against the odds, and 156 other competitors,
Sills finished seventh. A couple of months later
he was the leading British surfer at the
European championships in Marseille. British
Sailing had seen enough to offer him support and
funding. The van era was over and the outsider
was back on the team.

A decade before preparing for Paris - or, more
accurately, Marseille, where the sailing events
will be held - as a medal contender, Sills had
been part of the national setup. A double world
junior champion at under-15 and under-17 levels,
Sills spent one year as a full-time athlete
after graduating from university, but things did
not go to plan.

Although hesitant to criticise a setup that has
offered him so much in recent years, he admits
he ended up "hating what I was doing" and
suggests the problem was personal with some of
the senior management figures who have since
left.

So he made the first in a series of enterprising
moves. "I left and decided to go off maverick-,
renegade-style and do my own campaign without
any support.

"I did it with mates, basically. I went to
Norway and Sweden with a bunch of Norwegian and
Swedish athletes who weren't particularly high
level but were amazing friends. We had great
camaraderie and trained really hard. We had no
money or support but it didn't really matter
because we were all doing the same thing
together."

Shorn of funding, Sills combined his sporting
aspirations with putting his qualifications in
naval architecture to use, working for a
Norwegian company whose remit was to take diesel
engine boats and replace them with zero-emission
versions. At the time, he was one of four
employees for a company that has subsequently
grown to about 25, implementing its sustainable
electric-power solutions in everything from
small ferries to shipping boats and lifeboats.

"It really does make sense in a marine setting,"
says Sills from his training base in the south
of France, where he has been stationed for much
of this year. "You have far fewer components,
you don't create any emissions and the batteries
have much higher torque so you can have a more
efficient system.

"One example is a tourist catamaran that takes
people around the fjords of Norway. Once it
reaches a fjord it switches to electric
propulsion to not pollute the environment. Then
when it's out of the fjord and into the ocean it
switches to the diesel engine to get home.

"Another is freefall lifeboats, which can't not
work but in reality never get used. They are
always in a salty environment so they corrode,
which means the oil industry has to fly
engineers out every couple of months just to
check the engines. You can imagine the cost,
disruption and pollution from that process. If
it's electric you can just test it from your
sofa if you want.

"It was really special to be there at the
beginning because there wasn't much of that at
the time and we were right at the forefront of
it. I was part of some pioneering projects. Now
it's just exploding."

His next task, in Sweden, involved helping to
develop eco-friendly paddleboard prototypes with
a 3D printer that uses a byproduct resin from
the wood industry. More recently, he has
designed hydrofoils and performance windsurfing
equipment for major brands, providing the added
benefit of aiding knowledge of his competitive
sporting tools.

He puts his passion for maritime sustainability
down to his upbringing in England's south-west.
"Think about the bigger picture and the logical
thing to do is make the world as efficient and
sustainable as possible," he says. "It doesn't
make any other sense to keep using resources
that are going to run out. I grew up in Cornwall
surrounded by nature and spent a lot of my time
on the lakes there and grew up with an
appreciation of that, which I'm sure had
an influence."

Since early last year, that occupational side of
his life has been on hold as he devotes his full
attention to the upcoming Olympics. A brilliant
start to competition in 2023 raised
expectations, but things have rarely been
trouble-free.

While training in the Canary Islands in the
buildup to the Olympic trials, he found out his
uncle's death was imminent due to cancer. "I had
to make a choice," he says. "Do I go back and
say goodbye to my uncle or do I stay and try to
complete this life goal? I managed to speak to
him and he told me not to come home, to give
them hell and have no regrets. I was filled with
emotion. It sounds cold, but I had to block it
out and use the emotion to do it for my family."

After qualification was secure he was hit by a
car two weeks before the Olympic test event in
Marseille, but still finished seventh despite
halting training and wearing a splint on his
wrist. He followed that by placing fifth at last
year's world championships.

A downturn in results this year has not dimmed
the level of ambition for his Olympic debut and
he insists the goal remains a gold medal. But he
is pragmatic enough to see the bigger picture.

"The goal is to win," he says. "But I'm happy
just to be going because it was such a struggle
to get there. I'm already grateful to have made
it this far. It's been so tough. I'm not sure
I'd do it again, put it that way. It was really
difficult but it was worth it and I managed to
do it. It's been an amazing life journey that
has taught me a lot."



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