A brief longboard history

In 1968 Jim Drake a sailor and aeronautical engineer and Hoyl Schweitzer a surfer and computer executive got together and developed the windsurfer. It is a remarkable achievement that their original design is still in the market place to day ( in slightly modified form,) and is still actively raced and enjoyed worldwide. The Original Windsurfer is the original longboard, the great grandfather (or mother ) of the raceboards we sail to-day.

Grand Father Stew with his Cooper S and Mistral Panam

Whilst others dreamed of sailing boards (even me as a young surfer in the early 60’s) Schweitzer and Drake developed three key things, the universal joint connecting the mast to the board creating a fully articulated rig, the wishbone boom giving the sailor something to hold on to on either side with which to control the sail and the triangular sail, a logical solution to the relationship between mast, boom & universal joint with a clear window so you could see who or what you were about to run into . Of course it didn’t take long before the new breed of windsurfer sailors began to experiment with their boards and introduce them to the surf in places such as Hawaii ( with mountainous seas ) and California. After many broken bones battered bodies and broken rigs the intrepid performers started experimenting with their boards.

The first problem was to stop hydroplaning at high speed a condition brought about by the large standard dagger—solution small swept back dagger board- how to stay attached to the board while planning and jumping waves- along comes Terry Stanley the developer of the humble footstrap. More speed was required ( sound familiar ) the windsurfer had reached top speed it was now affected by drag, solution!! Reduce the wetted area, this was achieved initially by putting some rocker in the boards ( oh for those days of simplicity, a bit of black plastic, sunshine & a handy fence would probably work real good now we have global warming.) Of course this wasn’t enough and soon the windsurfer introduced the ‘rocket’ where on the same windsurfer hull both the mastfoot and dagger board were moved further aft. This board now planned on it’s tail, gradually this progression led to the short wave boards with the introduction of the chopper,– ( SHORT BOARDS !! NO WAY )

Lets go see what’s happening in Europe — hang on you say – yes Europe ! this was where it was all happening for the longboard. Schweitzer was unable to supply enough boards into Europe and he granted the Dutch firm Ten Cate a licence to manufacture the original Windsurfer. Other licences were granted to companies such as windglider, Hi Fly and Mistral ( the Mecca!1) No one could have predicted the speed with which windsurfing took off in Europe ( By 1981 1 million boards had been sold) and as a result of such growth hundreds of rouge manufactures emerged setting up in countries such as France where Schweitzer did not have his patent registered flooding the market with crap ! so buyer beware!. Fortunately out of this mess the best manufactures survived in somewhat limited numbers.

Around 1982 there came a parting of the ways with racing coming under the wing of sailing and wave sailing drifting back to it’s surfing roots . This is the time when the longboard as we know it evolved. On the longboard scene ( still in Europe ) enormous displacement hulls proved to be the answer to dynamic light wind performance but had little relevance in the market place since they were hollow, fragile and horribly unstable downwind. So called recreational boards remained heavy but at least the manufactures involvement in racing forced them to research ways to make them strong & light .

Meanwhile everyone looked at the dream world of Hawaii and started buying those chopper style short boards for use in the lakes of Europe—needless to say there were many good swimmers and sub-planning experts as a result- bloody hopeless. But out of adversity comes opportunity and the all round fun board was invented, brainchild of Peter Brockhaus founder of the F2 company (Fun & Function) and very much the father of European Windsurfing. He developed high speed windsurfing that could be achieved in a wind strength as low as eleven knots on flat water (unheard of at that time) He produced boards that had the essential Hawaii trimmings, was stable at high speed, could foot steer & even jump but which incorporated that all important ingredient of volume.

Perhaps the single greatest influence on design and technique in the 1980’s was the legendary Pan Am Cup. Many people felt that dinghy-style racing displayed the fast, visually exciting windsurfer in a dull light. The Pan Am cup represented a radical departure being – minimum wind strength – several disciplines including ins and outs ( figure 8 course in the surf ), a marathon, and wave performance – all performed on long boards. However there was a problem, many events were plagued by lack of wind even in Hawaii !! Hang on ! what’s Peter Brockhaus up to he’s instigated the European Cup. Manufactures submitted teams and used the regattas as testing grounds bringing about tremendous changes in production equipment. The result is the modern long fun board (race board) It has all the benefits of speed and maneuverability but is still very easy to use and weighs up to 10KG less than it’s predecessors. These boards ( basically exactly the same as our modern boards) are direct replicas of the team riders prototypes. They are typically around 365 -380 CM long with volumes between 200 – 280 liters. It has a fully retractable daggerboard, adjustable mast track and footstraps. In both reaching and beating and is a joy to sail on all points of the wind and amazingly quick downwind.