The Tiree Wave Classic windsurfing spectacular is due to take to the waves off one of the sunshine island’s glorious beaches this Saturday (10th October).
The invasion of the island is like the annual arrival at Loch Leven of the migrating pink-footed geese from Iceland. Hordes of fit, black-clad bodies with brightly coloured wings lift, skim and dive over the water before coming to land for the night. Photographers hang about to catch the species in flight and the best shots become classics.
But Tiree has its own resident variation of the species – a small community of windsurfers and kitesurfers including the 2008 British Women’s Kitesurfing Champion, Helen Thompson and the subject of this feature: Wild Diamond.
Is Wild Diamond a business? Is it a man? It’s both. It’s William Angus Maclean, born and bred in the place he loves. And it’s his successful business on the island.
Wild Diamond has grown from William’s own pretty awesome success on the waves; from Tiree’s enviable windsurfing conditions – including a beach for every wind direction; and from his determination to earn the ability to stay on the island.
Wild Diamond is a supply chain service for the sport on the island, through its watersports shop and hiring of surfboards, bodyboards and wetsuits. It is also a wind and wave school, offering Paddleboarding, Windsurfing, Kitesurfing and Sand Yachting. And it has recently opened a small campsite for visiting tourists and watersports enthusiasts.
The extent of its success has taken William Maclean by surprise but he’s not complacent. He describes it as a fringe business, working to gain acceptance in a small crofting community: ‘Anything different is often approached with caution and we still face a lot of challenges due to the nature of the business’.
Then, as he says, this sort of business is untried and untested on Tiree, so you can’t ask a neighbour for advice as you’d normally do in a community like this. There’s no one with similar business experience around to give relevant advice. He says he just has to be spontaneous and think on his feet. (That’s what windsurfers do all the time, of course. isn’t it? Forget MBAs. Take to the waves.)
Wild Diamond is a great litmus test for Tiree’s international tourism appeal. It’s had people from an amazing spectrum of nationalities: American, Australian, Brazilian, British, Canadian, Chinese, Danish, French, German, Indian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Namibian, New Zealand, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, South African, and many more.
William says: ‘These people come for a break or an ‘escape’ or simply because they are enthusiasts who have heard about Tiree’s reputation for watersports and want to experience the conditions here’.
He should know all about that urge. He’s done a fair bit of globetrotting himself, chasing the wave to every appropriate part of the UK and Ireland, of course, but far beyond, to the Canary Islands, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Each venue brings him new challenges and each offers different attractions. He says: ‘Hot climates become more and more attractive as you get older (currently 32). Big waves offer the ultimate thrill for me in windsurfing and the combination of strong winds and large waves in varying venues is what motivates me to travel to different locations.
‘I Windsurf, Kitesurf, Surf, Stand up Paddlesurf and occasionally wakeboard. I was one of the first Scots to kitesurf at what would be perceived as a reasonably ‘high’ level.’ (We forgot to ask him if he’s one of those who fancy riding a tsunami.)
He says of British Champion Helen Thompson: ‘I wouldn’t say that I taught Helen to kitesurf. She did that pretty much by herself. I would say that I might have helped here and there when I could’.
After a false start at the age of 9 or 10, William had a go at windsurfing when he was a stronger 12 year-old and by the time he was 13 he’d passed his advanced windsurfing exam. By 16, he was competing in the adult fleet – one of the great remembered achievements – and he was a finalist in the Tiree Wave Classic amateur division, coming second in the UK overall in the same year (1993).
He moved into the professional fleets at 17 but says that: ‘windsurfing is a serious minority sport and there is no money to be made in it unless you are competing at the very highest world-ranked level.
‘Pursuit of that dream didn’t interest me and so I stopped competing and concentrated on developing my skills outside of competition. As they say, “Those that can, do and those that can’t, teach”. So now I teach.
‘The only event in the UK in the division that I specialized in (wavesailing) was in Tiree. It was hard to decide not to compete but there was little future in it as I saw things.’
On his recent honeymoon, William had the chance to windsurf at a famous Australian venue. He describes the location as ‘very daunting’ but says he: ‘felt really fulfilled after sailing there since I had never thought as a boy that I would have the opportunity to go there and sail one of the best venues in the world’.
When he decided to stop competing and teach, he was eventually drawn to set up Wild Diamond, in 1988 at the age of 21. ‘I was no entrepreneur and the business was started through persuasion from friends and opportunities that presented themselves at the time.
‘I was unemployed and needed to find work. I had already been teaching windsurfing for 7 years at that point and felt that the time was right to attempt something on Tiree. All that I wanted then was to be able to put some food on the table and get some windsurfing in. I never expected the business to develop to the extent that it has and am still blown away by what we have achieved with it’.
William has seen a lot of places in his surf-the-world days but Tiree is the one place he absolutely wants to be. He says: ‘I grew up with my grandparents on the island and my grandfather played a huge part in my introduction to windsurfing and supported my hobby initially. My family are very close and accordingly they are my strongest bond with Tiree.
‘The freedom and security of the natural environment also allow me to thrive here. I never lock doors or worry about things before going out. If you forget your wallet or you need some help with something, everyone knows everyone here and you are never stuck to get on with things. That is rare nowadays and a great way to live life.
‘We are surrounded on Tiree by fantastic natural beauty – birds, wildlife, beaches and green fields. The Hebrides is a beautiful place to live.’
And of course: ‘Every good day on Tiree brings a huge sense of fulfilment since we get some of the best conditions in the world (for windsurfing) here on the West Coast of Scotland’.
What does the island think of its windsurfing status and of the annual invasion? The tourist season now lasts 7-8 months as opposed to 6 weeks. This does make a real difference to the local economy of Argyll’s farthest flung Atlantic island – a scenic three and a half hours by CalMac ferry from Oban but a short hop by air from Glasgow.
An associated benefit of the windsurfing-extended tourist season is that, compared to other islands, Tiree gets an extended Summer Schedule on the lifeline CalMac ferries.
But there are abrasions. Windsurfers are free spirits whose roving lifestyle is alien to the islanders – and they can camp over-freely. The volume of human traffic to the windsurfing beaches during the Tiree Wave Classic does have an environmental impact, which can cause some concern with the landowners/tenant crofters.
But there is a synergy between the two cultures, bound together by the unique natural resources of the place, so they rub along harmoniously enough, with a bit of give-and-take on either side.
Vehicular access to the beaches would develop the island’s attractions for wave-riders and William is in favour of this development. Some would also like to see more facilities – toilets and showers – at the beaches and he’s less positive about that possibility.
‘I prefer the beaches without these facilities since it leaves the landscape much more natural when you get to the beach. I have visited many places in the world and the provision of such facilities can be a good thing in remote circumstances but you are never more than ten miles from your doorstep on Tiree so I don’t think there is any real need’.
As you read this, William will be immersed in the whole carnival of the Tiree Wave Classic. Anything can happen, Last year Paolo Nutini was on the island and did something like three free gigs in the hall in the evenings. William’s life during the coming week is: ‘Hectic…. working with the media, working with the event crew, working with the public. All good’.
So how would he describe his life?
‘A good day’s windsurfing relaxes and pacifies you as a person. The sensation is a completely natural ‘high’ as the old cliché goes…. However….
‘A ‘normal’ life is difficult to achieve. Everything goes ‘on hold’ in favour of a windy forecast. Your life is spent scanning through Internet forecasts and hoping for weather that others generally hate. People think that you are ‘nuts’ or slightly weird at best for pulling on a rubber suit and heading out to do battle with the North Atlantic in February.
‘I think that they’re nuts for not wondering why we do what we do.’
Tiree has clearly bred its own Wild Diamond. Not only the business but the man. In the slang of a very different culture, William Angus Maclean would be called ‘a diamond geezer’. In Argyll he’s ‘a Wild Diamond geezer’.
Watersports photography is the latest addition to Wild Diamond’s services. The photographs accompanying this feature show William Angus Maclean in action across the range of sports Wild Diamond teaches.
- For Argyll will have daily results on the Tiree Wave Classic and on the Coll Challenge.
- For daily news on Tiree, see Gordon Scott’s Isle of Tiree Diary. (Gordon Scott is For Argyll’s Tiree Editor.)