Same place same day but different rider: Dinard's Sandbanks 19 april 2015

This guy is usin a 1997 Noth sail and a 1998 french brand board ! he is performing well and all his gear is still in very good condition.

Do we realy need to change all our gear each year ? Is performance changing so fast in one year time ?

Vintage Windsurf : there you go

Microsoft movie maker only ;)

good points .... I also agree .

Still I love my new KA race 2015 7.1 ;)

That 90's board is exactly as irrelevant to the vast majority of the potential windsurfing public as every other one of the 6,000 models of high-wind-only boards produced since then. That's why it's important that those of us who are hooked have to buy at least one of each of them.

I am not sure your argument is valid. I noticed many people with a van load of gear, also have a good many boards for various sailing conditions. And these are newer boards I am talking about.

Whether you need many boards to match the conditions is entirely up to you really. If you have the cash, then it is entirely your business to own as many as you wished. However, I doubt it will make you a better windsurfer though. It is time on the water.

A story about Robby Naish was related to me a while ago. There was a Mistral board, a board that is considered a bloody long board by today's standards I might add, was meant to be a wave slalom board. Many amigos complained it can't do anything right on waves. So Naish jumped on it, sailed straight out to the waves, gybed and then rode the waves to the cheers of everyone.

Jupiter said..

Whether you need many boards to match the conditions is entirely up to you really. If you have the cash, then it is entirely your business to own as many as you wished. However, I doubt it will make you a better windsurfer though. It is time on the water.

True newer gear doesn't make you a better windsurfer, you could argue riding challenging gear makes you better. But new gear can make you windsurf better perhaps?

I noticed this effect with some of my newer gear and how much more forgiving they are. Bit like the increased sweet spot modern tennis raquets have over the older counterparts. Sure Robby and co could sail their high level on most anything, but for the average Joe, new gear can make up to a degree.
As for having fun, I'd have just as much fun on my older gear as I do now, so no real difference there.

I actually still sail regular on old gear, it's the sails I have upgraded and the some of my boards.

I still get out on this gear regular.


Mistral Equipe - 1989 model

Mistral IMCO 1990 model and sail

Protech 258 wave board 1996

Protech Z-26 slalom board 2001

Protech Sean Ordonez edition 1998

The old F2 sputnik were great looking boards, more top end speed than modern boards.

I think too much has been sacrificed to make boards early planning.

Gfly said..
The old F2 sputnik were great looking boards, more top end speed than modern boards.

I think too much has been sacrificed to make boards early planning.

I am blessed that where I sail, we rarely use any sail smaller than a 5.2 sq M. A Sputnik will give you the ** when wind falls below 15 knots as its tail sinks to ankle deep. As soon as it hits 18 knots and above, it is away.

My F2 Axxis is 2 cm wider, it is 86 cm, while the Sputnik is 84 cm. I noticed the Axxis will bounce around a bit more than the latter. Overall, new generation boards probably are more forgiving, and possibly get on the plane sooner. However, I wonder if the top-end speed is less on the new, wider boards?

I had a decent break away from the sport and the biggest improvement while I was away was definitely the sails. Chalk and cheese in that department. As for boards not as bigger leap there from the late 90's stuff I was using but still a lot better. What I will say about modern boards is that it's possible to get exactly the board you need for your requirements and physical abilities right off the shelf, if you do your homework. I think this gives a more enjoyable experience more often.

slalomfreak said..
New gen wider shorter boards use bigger fins and thus get planing quicker.
Wider tail probably helps too.
But if you want to feel the difference in sails try rigging a 1999 -7m race sail which rigged on a 490 mast (telegraph pole) and compare it to a new 2015- 7m which rigs on a much softer 430 mast.
Often hear people say the new stuff not much better or faster than their 1999 NP Mk4 or whatever but its simply not true.

I'd love to try some new gear. I grew up with the sails being powered up all the time. A lot of serious slalom and race sails. Saying that I used to sail one of the old Neil Pryde race sails when they first went from mylar to monofilm. It was a weird shape with a long boom small leach but great bottom and top end and wind range.

I'm still using my old gear all 1994 wavefoil pros and a natural high custom wave slalom made in Newcastle. Thanks to the guys I sail with I have recently been given some newer sails but I will still use the old gear. l'm still keeping pace with most.

Jupiter said..

The Sputnik had been on my wishlist for a long time. Somehow, its aggressive rails and overall shape sets it apart from the rest. I also remember the Mistral Diamond Head and the Cobra boards. They all have the narrow tails.

Drop me a line if you're ever over near the east coast and want a free Cobra Gun, otherwise it may end up on the tip - I have to rationalise the toys to get a modern-ish allround waveboard.

Or, heaven forbid, they happen to have different tastes - but of course we're not allowed to have different tastes, are we?

The modern gear I've tried has been set up by national champions, who (I would assume) have some idea about how to rig it. It's great stuff in many ways. But for some people there are good reasons why it does not feel better.

For example, some of us don't just sail shortboards, and that means that our sailing style can be quite different to those who just sail shortboards. For example, I don't really mind a sail where your back hand loads up, because you get used to having a highly loaded backhand when you sail some longboards - it's not just because of sail design and size but also because you can't just switch to a smaller sail when the wind picks up if you're on the racecourse, whereas you can come in and switch to a smaller sail if the wind picks up when you're wavesailing or zipping back and forth.

The modern shortboards also open up the gap between gybing techniques you need for a longboard and the techniques you need for a shortboard, IMHO. That means that it's harder to swap back and forth between longboard and shortboard, which some of us like to do. There would probably be other practical reasons that other people find to prefer one sort of gear over another.

Secondly, we all have personal strong points and weak points, and personal likes and dislikes, and they can affect the way gear suits us. For example, I don't like having wave sails that don't have low-down grunt. It's just a personal thing in the way that some people like different dogs, or wine, or music; I really like being able to power up quickly when struggling to get through a light wind zone in the whitewash.

And since, as your vid shows, you CAN do new-style sailing with old gear, surely it gets down to what is "enjoyable". Some of us find enjoyment in doing so many sports and disciplines that we don't want to throw lots of cash at buying new gear for just one of them. And sometimes some of us can get more enjoyment by ignoring the issues with our gear, and just concentrating on enjoying what we have and what we are doing. So just like some people like barefoot running, fixed gear bikes and boogy boards, some people can like using old windsurfing gear.