Sidewake is a wake & surf academy in Portugal built by riders for riders – and it all started with a very simple “no more” in 2015.

That was the year Roberts Linavskis, already an experienced wake athlete, coach and school owner in his home country of Latvia, moved to Portugal to create a completely new standard of wakeboard academy.

 

No more bungalows and old boats. No more half-broken towers and sad sandwiches for lunch. Sidewake was proudly the first school in Europe to re-define what a wake camp could be: a brand-new Super Air Nautique G23, a lakefront house instead of random cabins, a private chef cooking fresh, rider-focused meals, and a deliberately limited number of guests so everyone could actually ride, progress and feel part of something.

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From day one, Roberts built Sidewake around the conditions he wanted for his own training – glassy water, powerful wakes, properly fuelled bodies and a crew that lives the wake life together. We eat together at the big table, with our chef serving real food designed for long days on the water, then review clips, talk tricks and plan the next session. If the choice is between saving fuel or giving riders the biggest, cleanest, most consistent wake in the industry, we’ve always chosen the wake. Our boats are immaculate, our attention to detail is obsessive, and everything is tuned to deliver the best possible pull every single time.

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The same philosophy shaped our coaching team. We’ve always been very careful about who wears a Sidewake coach vest. Over the years we’ve built a tight crew that includes riders like Matiss Purklavs from Latvia and Nico Juritsch from Austria – well-known athletes who have been with us since the early days and are still going strong. Around them, we bring in coaches for a few months at a time, on purpose: when they’re here, they’re fully locked in, hungry for their own progression and passing that same energy on to our guests.

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With a deep understanding of both wakeboarding and wakesurfing, our team has coached many of the world’s best wake surfers and wakeboarders and welcomed some of the biggest names in the sport to our dock. That mix of high-level athletes, focused coaching and a small-group setup is what makes Sidewake feel less like a generic “camp” and more like joining a crew that truly lives the wake life with you.