Longboard windsurfing at the Olympics

This article first appeared in “On the Wind” Sep 2000. “On the Wind” is a newsletter put out by the Stormriders Sailboard Club and the NSW Boardsailing Association. While It was obviously written some time ago It still provides an interesting history into longboards at the Olympics.

Boardsailing - An Olympic Class History

by Bruce Kendall of New Zealand:
(dual Olympian Medal winner)

Our sport is still called Boardsailing in Olympic jargon and was a demonstration sport at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and an Olympic event at each Games since.

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Windsurfer OD Specifications

Most windsurfers are only designed for planing, so they either need strong winds or big sails so they can generate enough power to get onto the plane. The Wally is different.

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Tips & Techniques

One of the problems with the Windsurfer class in the past has been the lack of information on how to sail and own the old plank. Please submit any information you have to help to build up our version of Wallypedia.

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The Olympic circus

The move to dump the Mistral One Design from the Olympic games can be seen as a straight hatchet job on longboards. Many of the sailors, coaches and countries in the sport were happy with the MOD. The push came from others within the industry and sport, and from ISAF head Paul Henderson. He hadn’t seen many MODs being sailed just for fun, and he had a major issue with pumping (and Mistral as a company, according to some). He demanded a new “state of the art” board that fulfilled criteria like representing “current windsurfing” and which needed less pumping. He ignored the fact that not a single one of the other Olympic sailing classes fulfilled had all the same attributes; the boards were held to stricter criteria than other types.

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