Watersports tech: $19 billion. The ocean is the new Formula 1.

If you think watersports is still plastic boards and gas-guzzling jet skis, you are living in a sepia postcard. The ocean is going full Iron Man.

Meet the new fleet. Lift Foils and Fliteboard sell eFoils that fly silently above the water. Awake and Radinn build electric jetboards that hit highway speeds. Seabob drags you underwater like a dolphin, the Cudajet jetpack turns swimmers into torpedoes.

Candela makes electric hydrofoil boats, Silent-Yachts crosses oceans on solar catamarans, Torqeedo electrifies the outboard, and SailGP's foiling F50s hit 100 km/h: the Formula 1 of the sea already exists.

Add wing foils, electric-assist kites, and AI coaching apps reading your biomechanics, and the weekend warrior gets a pro team in his board bag.

I forecast the next unicorns come from the beach, not the landlocked office. By 2030 the beach club replaces the boardroom, and the water replaces the postcode: the Dutch are already building a floating city in the Maldives for 20,000 people. Surface watersports equipment grows from $13.6 billion in 2023 to $19.58 billion by 2030, surfing alone past $6 billion.

The trend is cleaner watersports: electric foils, solar boats, and silent motors replace 2-stroke noise and fumes, and the playground gets cleaner as the tech gets better. That is the forecast.

My mission is a different thing. I shared the Ocean Action Summit stage on Necker Island with Richard Branson and Dr. Sylvia Earle, and I carry the Cousteau legacy: fighting for the coral reefs, against overfishing and drilling, and to reduce plastic pollution and take the plastic out of the ocean.

The trend I predict. The mission I choose. The suits will discover the trend in 2029 and call it a surprise.