Blast from the past

Chris Thompson, one of the founders of LBWS, has a proud windsurfing history having been around in the beginning of a great sport and competing against the likes of legends such as Robby Naish and Phil McGain. Over the years Chris has sailed a plethora of boards and competed at a high level in both windsurfing and many dingy classes including the very competitive Laser Class. As well as being a talented sailor Chris is a great commentator on windsurfing and sailing in general. He has been writing on sailing and windsurfing in particular for more than 25 years. No doubt you would have seen some of his material on LBWS as well as his contributions on other forum under the name of CT249.

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The Mistral Equipe & Pan-Am

Latest Mistral Pan Am

The original Pan-Am boards were developed in 1983 and were course raced through the surf, they were of similar design to the modern mistral raceboards i.e equipped with retractable dagger boards, sliding mast tracks and footstraps and were the precursors that all modern raceboards were founded upon.
In 1989 Mistral Windsurfing produced their first Mistral Equipe which was designed by Rick Naish father of the legend Robbie Naish. This board was approx 3720mm in length max width 635mm and a volume of 235 liters.
Originally supplied in a CHS (carbon hybrid system) basically a fiberglass, kevlar carbon epoxy system over styrofoam core.

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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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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.

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