Find out how Flag Beach water sports centre started out and how we have grown over the years. It’s a story of hard knocks, flying success and a lot of wind and water.
Ben Thomas secures a license for a watersports centre on a beach close to Corralejo with little support from friends and foe. The location was considered a long way from civilization and it was thought by many that no customers or tourists would travel so far. Ben staked his Flag in the ground anyway, an act which would eventually coin the beach’s name “Flag Beach”.
A deal is struck with ALPHA to supply windsurf boards and the local Neil Pryde dealer for rigs.
Equipment arrives but still working on the hut!!
Finally our 4m x 5m container "hut" is erected, painted and prepared. Flag Beach opens its doors for business for the first time with 9 boards and 15 sails.
The centre changes board and rig suppliers to Tiga and Neil Pryde.
An extension is added to store rigs and a rescue boat as well as our increasing stock. Flag Beach is now at 22 boards and 39 sails.
Tiga and Neil Pryde equipment is replaced with Fanatic and ART. We now have 34 boards and 70 sails.
A further extension is built to store more boards and rigs and to give the boys more room to work.
The centre is demolished and all beaches in the area of Corralejo are "cleared" of all bars, kiosks, and stands. Flag Beach continues to operate from a van on the road, providing a reliable service to our clients.
After a long and arduous 3 month wait, we are granted permission to build a new centre further back from the sea’s edge. Work starts immediately on the 19m x 6m hut. After working late into the night, our new centre opens 5 days later.
Plans are submitted for a second 12m x 6m hut... and... we are still waiting...
Flag Beach Windsurf Centre celebrates 10 years with a beach party for 1200 people that goes on late into the night.
Kitesurfing starts to surface in the sports world and Flag Beach begins offering kite rentals.
Kitesurfing is now an established sport with Flag Beach being one of the best places to learn.
Flag Beach celebrates its 15th anniversary with a massive beach party, barbecue, open air concert and DJs on the beach, all night, for some 2000 people.
We create a new mobile surf school under the commercial name of "Island Boarders".
We now employ over 20 staff. Island Boarders has expanded to 3 classic red Land Rovers and Flag Beach celebrates its 20th anniversary.
Shock! Horror! We are given 2 hours notice to empty our hut and it is raised to the ground by the local authority. We continue offering our services from our makeshift "central" close to the water’s edge; sofa and sun shades included. It is a long, hard and sunny summer and a wet winter but our clients proved to be immensely grateful and supportive.
We are informed we can have a new hut. This time 10 m x 5 m and after 4 gruelling days the hut is up, painted and stocked. We now have an office and Internet connection.
We now offer offer kitesurf, windsurf, surf, bodyboard and SUP courses and rentals for all levels. We are still a Fanatic Boarders centre and have North kites and sails. We also have a fleet of 3 semi rigid 6 m inflatables for use on our kite courses, a fleet of Renault vans and Land Rovers for transporting our clients and in addition we have a town location that we use as a sales point with classroom for theory courses, garden for barbecues and it is just off Rocky Point, so a great location for grabbing a surfboard or SUP and walking down the beach.
Our beach licence which came up for renewal was contested by another interested party and it took 4 months to secure it. We put our heart and soul into fighting for our licence and the business we had built up over the last 28 years. With our new licence secure we continue to offer the best and most reliable water sport courses on Fuerteventura.
We introduce Hobie Cat Sailing and start to offer rentals as well as courses.
Flag Beach celebrates 30 years!!!
