Red Letter Day: HOMEWORK
Rider & Words: Benjamin May
Photos: Dennis Rein
Location: Lake Starnberg, Munich
Date: Sunday October 26th, 2025
Nothing beats a session at your local spot. When Benjamin May was offered a pump and wakefoil photoshoot in his own neighborhood, it was an opportunity to reacquaint himself with the place where everything had begun several years before.
The day began in the early morning hours in my hometown, a small village south of Munich. Knowing a long day of shooting lay ahead, I had already packed all my gear the night before. As dawn slowly approached, I left the house with everything ready, stepping into the quiet morning and setting off for a full day in front of the camera.
This was in fact one of the first shoots I had done at home in Munich. We usually go searching for consistent winds somewhere around the world, but this time we wanted as little wind as possible to capture plenty of pump and wakefoil action in some misty, glassy conditions. And there is probably no better place then South Munich in Europe to find these kinds of conditions.
On my way to the spot I had to put in a quick stop by at my local bakery. Got some tasty Brezeln and some tea and then I was ready to start the day. I met the photographer Dennis at the spot from where we also would launch the boat later. We planned to shoot some pumpfoiling first with Duotone’s new Strider and Amp 2.0, as the boat was planned in for 2pm at the earliest. Within a couple minutes everything was ready, and we started.
We found a nice little dock to start off. And damn, how I’d missed foiling at home. As I usually spend the whole year traveling and competing in saltwater, it was really invigorating jumping into the clean freshwater coming right out of the Alps just a couple kilometers away from the lake. I did some laps, found some new little takeoff spots and Dennis captured it all with the drone and his camera. Later he also unpacked his FPV drone, and the results were nuts. Flying with such precision through the trees next to some villas and following me back out. The crowd was amazed as well. As it was a Sunday, many people came out for a walk by the promenade and saw us filming. I had to deal with a lot of questions by the time we’d finished up. But it’s really a pleasure to answer all of them and explain to them that there is no motor underneath…
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After a quick lunch break with plenty of snacks, Sami the boat driver turned up with the wakeboat. It was quite a mission just getting the boat in the water, as everything was super tight and there were many curious people watching and not getting out of the way. But we made it, loaded all the stuff on the boat and headed out to the middle of the lake. Conditions were perfect. Late afternoon sunshine, mountains in the background and a glassy lake all for ourselves. We’d loaded in as much gear as possible, to increase the weight and thus hopefully get a bigger wave off of the boat. I made my gear ready. I got myself ready, and before we started with the wakefoiing, I had a little more time on the Strider SLS to get the Followcam shots with boat. It was really exhausting, but the new Amp 2.0 just had me pumping forever.
We kept on shooting in the waves behind the boat for the rest of the day. To be honest it was the first time ever for me doing this properly, so it took me a couple tries to figure out everything on the setup. But I got it and managed to do some sick tricks, like backflips, 360s and grabs. The Strider Wake SLS in combination with the Carve 3.0 D/LAB and 76cm Slim 2.0 D/LAB mast worked super well for that. I couldn’t really get enough of this day, but I must admit that after a while it got really exhausting. Doing the same thing over and over for a couple hours made my leg cramp at one point, and I had to stop for a few minutes. This had only happened to me once before when I pumped through the whole city of Hamburg!
While I dealt with that, a friend who was on the boat with me went for a couple turns in the late evening light. After that break I kept on foiling behind the boat till it got dark, and when we finished up we almost couldn’t see anything anymore. So, we decided to stop by at a local restaurant that had a boat dock. We had some tasty dinner there and headed back to the car afterwards. It was pretty stunning to see all the lights from the water on that calm lake.
We made it back to the dock after a quick five-minute ride and unloaded the boat and packed everything away. And it had almost been the perfect day if it wasn’t for one thing that happened at the end: while offloading the gear, my friend jumped from the boat on the dock and we could literally see his phone drop from his pocket, almost in slow motion. It tumbled around for a bit on the dock and then submitted and slid into the water. Luckily it wasn’t so deep but quite muddy. He rushed out of his clothes and dived into the water. Shit. He couldn’t find it in the mud. He went again. Still nothing. And just when we pulled out our flashlights to check, we found it lying on a tiny piece of wood that separated itself from the main part of the dock. He picked it up and it still worked.
With that we finished up a long and intense day. For me it was probably one of the best shoots I’ve had so far. Sometimes all the missions around the world can’t beat a sunny day at one of the lakes where I learned to surf. I can’t wait for the next mission my home has to offer.
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