Our Story
NoLimitz was born out of a need for windsurfers to get radical.
In the 1980s, Windsurfing was at its peak. In the Columbia River Gorge, neon attired riders were pushing the sport quickly past its humble beginnings with huge jumps, loops, and other freestyle moves.
In Hawaii, Robby Naish and Jason Polakow were blasting across the ocean and shredding huge waves.
Windsurfers were getting radical, but their gear, specifically their masts, were not holding up their end of the bargain.
Robby Naish on a beautiful wave at Backyards in 1992
Masts were snapping left and right. If you went down in a wave, you would pray your mast would come out in one piece. It often didn’t. Catapult? Snap. Screwed up loop? Snap. Touched your mast against a rock? Snap. At Ho’okipa on a windy day the beach was littered with carbon shrapnel and the garbage cans were full of them. People were afraid of looking at their masts wrong because they’d snap. The weakness of the masts was making windsurfers afraid to get truly radical, and this was holding back the progression of the sport. Something had to be done.
Enter Steve Maier, NoLimitz, and the Original Skinny.
In 1982, Steve Maier lived and worked in Indianapolis, doing an hour commute to his engineering job at a major auto manufacturer, working 50+ hours a week, making good money, and absolutely hating life.
Steve grew up in Iowa and started windsurfing on the Mississippi River. He grew to love the sport, and in 1982 he made a visit to the Columbia River Gorge for a windsurfing trip. After the trip he did as many Midwesterners have done and continue to do - he returned to Indiana, quit his job, and moved to the Gorge for good.
You might remember the windsurf masts of old - Standard Diameter Masts (SDMs.) These were large diameter masts that had thin walls. They were light, bulky, and as previously stated, snapped like a saltine from the smallest impact. Steve had an idea for a design of a new mast which would change windsurfing forever.
That idea was The Original Skinny. A mast made with prepreg carbon fiber, a reduced inner diameter, and a thick wall. Steve believed that the thicker wall and the reduced diameter would greatly increase the strength of the mast, while keeping the mast light and flexible. An added benefit was a smaller mast would result in the reduced width of the sail’s leading edge, which would reduce drag as the sail moved through the wind.
Steve Maier, the Founder of NoLimitz
Steve’s first prototypes of the Original Skinny performed awesome! They were so strong in comparison to the Standard Diameter Masts available at the time. Steve’s masts were tested in the high wind proving ground of the Columbia River Gorge, where sailors blasted off head high swells in nuclear winds. Duck jibes were hot, the Gorge Animal was a highly sought after board, and the Ultronz blared from windsurf gear laden rigs … “The Hatchery was the Place To Be.”
Steve refined the layup of the layers of the carbon that went into the mast to reach the optimal bend profile for his sails. Steve’s masts caught the eyes of many fellow wind Johnnies at the local spots. His masts were surviving catapults that would normally snap an SDM mast in two, shred your sail, and turn your sailing session into a swim session. Soon, windsurfers on the beach were asking Steve where they could get one of those, and… *lightbulb*
A young NoLimitz team rider - Luke Siver - ripping at the Hatchery on his flying shark.
Tony Logosz was one of NoLimitz’s earliest team riders. Tony would go on to found another Gorge icon - Slingshot.
Steve formed an LLC named Innovative Composite Engineering and the very first product that this new company sold was The Original Skinny. Steve branded the new mast line as NoLimitz, because with the new masts, there were No Limits to what you could do on a Windsurfer. The masts took off! For the first time, you could do a loop, have the mast smack the water and not worry about dragging your broken rig back to shore. That was quite the selling point!
The word was out about Steve’s new Skinny masts and demand demand quickly outstripped supply. Steve grew out of his garage operation and leased some manufacturing space in a building in downtown White Salmon. He purchased rollers, ovens, and hired a production team to manufacture the masts. (Some of those original production staff still work at I.C.E. today!) NoLimitz was on its way to becoming an icon of the Columbia River Gorge and a foundational pillar in the sport of Windsurfing.
However, there was a lot of hesitation from the rest of the windsurf industry in adopting the new masts. After all, Steve and NoLimitz were going up against the reigning brands of the industry, such as Fiberspar, Dynafiber, and Unifiber. Because Skinny masts were new and different, there was a lot of opposition to their adoption. In a piece of windsurf mast history that is now lore, Steve went to the annual USA windsurf trade show with his new NoLimitz masts and a bulky contraption for a demonstration - a bend-test machine.
At the show he issued the other mast manufacturers a simple challenge - let’s see whose masts can bend more. The other mast manufacturers, in business then for 5 years or more, were confident in their products and eager to shut down the unruly upstart. They accepted NoLimitz’s challenge. A crowd gathered around the bend machine at the appointed time of the challenge. Steve showed his masts first and bent his Original Skinny to an impressive degree. One of the SDMs went next. They put their mast in the machine and hit the On button. The mast began to bend, bent a little bit more, and then snapped! Quite spectacularly, at a degree not half of what the Original Skinny did. The next SDM went in the machine and it snapped too. The other SDMs performed the same and…
Not surprisingly, we now all ride Skinny masts!
A NoLimitz Original Skinny in a bend test machine
Since that fateful trade show, Skinny Masts have transformed the Windsurf mast industry and the sport itself. Virtually no one these days rides a SDM mast anymore because the flexibility, weight, and strength of Skinny masts are vastly superior. NoLimitz grew to offer a complete line of RDM masts by the year 2000, with masts tailored to the different disciplines of the sport - Wave sailing, slalom racing, freestyle (The Rage) and there was even a mast made specifically for women (The Genesis.) NoLimitz sponsored a team of riders to put the masts to the test, and to gather their feedback on how to improve the design of the masts.
Our team riders included some veritable windsurf legends, such as Frank Baensch, Tiffany Ward, Mitch Gingritch, Eric Girard, and Mike Delehanty.
Frank Baensch at Diamond Head, ripping with his Original Skinny
Team Riders: Mike Delehanty, Eric Girard, Tiffany Ward
In the mid 1990s, NoLimitz started a new venture - the first production carbon fiber snowboards. The boards were stiff, responsive, and light, and found adoption from Big Mountain snowboarders to park riders alike. NoLimitz sponsored a number of mountain expeditions in the Canadian Rockies, and one to previously unridden peaks in the Russian Causcaus.
NoLimitz’s parent company, Innovative Composite Engineering (ww.innovativecomposite.com) was founded in 1992 by Steve Maier, who remains I.C.E.’S President and CEO.
I.C.E. has since become an industry leader in composite design and manufacturing. I.C.E.’s specialty is thick walled carbon tubing, which has the same underlying characteristics as The Original Skinny - strength and lightness.
I.C.E. prides itself on providing solutions to difficult problems. Currently, I.C.E. builds composite components for the aerospace, automotive, oil & gas, military, and recreational industries. Our parts currently serve critical functions on spaceships, satellites, aircraft, and sailboats raced in the America’s Cup.
Steve started rolling NoLimitz masts in his garage back in the late 80s. Now, NoLimitz masts are rolled in Innovative Composite Engineering’s state of the art 65,000 sq. ft. facility in White Salmon, WA, located on the hill above the mighty Columbia River.
Applications of I.C.E. designed and manufactured CF components
Since NoLimitz was started in 1992, the design of the masts has been updated by our engineers based on the feedback of our team riders to optimize the mast’s strength and performance.
What hasn’t changed is NoLimitz’s dedication to producing a quality product which we stand 100% behind and our belief that NoLimitz masts are the strongest and most durable masts in the world.
NoLimitz Team
Steve Maier - President / CEO
Steve’s our lead designer, tester, and product architect. Steve’s Original Skinny back in the 90s started NoLimitz and led Innovative Composite Engineering to where it is today. Steve is deeply focused on creating better products that deliver on performance, durability, and cost effectiveness.
You can find Steve in the gorge in the summers and on the North Shore of Maui on the winters, hopefully enjoying some overhead ground swell in 18 knots of breeze.
Alex Malinchoc - Brand Manager
Alex is responsible for customer satisfaction and ensuring that NoLimitz delivers on its promise to its customers - rock solid products that generate stoke every session.
On a windy day you can find Alex getting rolled in the waves on the coast. Alex loves NoLimitz masts also because they don’t break because Alex really hates dragging windsurf gear back to shore against the current and thinking about sharks the entire time.
