Hey
Been on hols and found a Video store closing down. Talk about a find. Given a freebee of the 1985 PWA Video held in the Canary Islands.
They show cased freestyle, salom and triangular racing
Apart from a few neckeed women the free style was a hoot. The big maneourve was to sail your board on its edge or upside down!
My, haven't we progressed
They where all using Mistral long boards with a dagger board and and triangular sails as well as showcasing the new Mistral Funboard - about 6 inches shorter than the long boards with a concave bottom to the board.
Anyone want to have a look - happy to post it to you for free - as long as you post it onto the next interested person for free also
You ought to convert it to digital or get someone to do it for you. Then make it available via the interweb or something like that.
That way its saved for future generations to view the days when windsurfing ruled the world.
I don't think the PWA was around back then. I think it was the PBA.
The video is around 50 minutes long. If I could convert to digital it may be a little long to put up on youtube etc. Happy to post it free of charge to anyone who has the gear to convert to digital then perhaps excerts of it could be posted
I have all the DVD conversion equipment available. One of the companies I do work for convert films and tapes to DVD so I can slip it in there any time. Just PM me if you want it done and I will give you my postal address. I can then do multiple copies for anyone that wants them.
OB64 you sound a bit sick.... you want to bring you some chicken soup in case your sick tomorrow
Steve, Marcus and I are meeting at the lake at 9am .. could be a tad windy!!!
Bring plenty of coffee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS I'm sure I be sick (more sore) at work on Sat
Me want! Me want! I LOVE vintage windsurfing!!!!!
You could put it on YouTube in segments, as many people do with longer vids.
Really looking forward to seeing it!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me want! Me want! I LOVE vintage windsurfing!!!!!
Hi all,
I'd be happy to do the splittiing and all that if I had DVD (or better, a DVD of the MPEG that result from the capture). For freestyle, we could use the LBWS site (perhaps) to point to proper features, etc.
Ocean guy: I'm in to get a copy and pay for shipment if you do the capture!
Cheers,
P.
PS: BTW, there's so much better than YouTube, this is the last site you wanna use for qual.
Glad this has created some interest. I will post the vid off to Ocean blue Friday. Just keep us posted when you get it up to public space
Me want! Me want! I LOVE vintage windsurfing!!!!!
It doesn't sound like the Pro Tour of 1985; at that time the World Cup was run by the manufacturer's association, the WSMA (????) or something similar; I should still have an '85 rulebook I kept from the Worlds that year.
Your vid is probably a Mistral Competition (one design) worlds. By '85, Robby, Peter Cabrinha etc were going for loops on sinkers in World Cup comps and using cambered sails, not rail riding. However, in '85 the Sony had a fun freestyle comp on Windsurfers in a light wind day, on the spot where the lagoon runs onto Long Reef beach. We saw Matt Schweitzer (who was brilliant and much more graceful than any of today's longboard windsurfers) and many other legends on the Wallies in the comp, but Robby couldn't compete as he was sponsored my Mistral. Then, after the fun comp was over and the crowds had gone away and only a few of us were left, he crept onto the Wally and pulled out his old freestyle routine - great stuff.
We may not have progressed in some ways; assuming the vid is actually a Mistral Worlds one, we have to remember that those boards would actually be quicker than a modern board a lot of the time on the average Oz day. We may be the only sport where on a typical day, the average bit of new gear is slower than the average bit of old gear.
But we'd LOVE to get the video to show it at the Windusrfer One Design/Raceboard nationals this year!
Select to expand quotesnides8 said...
i would like to see how many guys could rail ride today if they where given the equipment to do it on!
Some people still can, even in about 1-2 knots of fluky offshore wind!
Still reminiscing about the 1980’s eh? The good old days when windsurfing and Commodore 64 computers were cool and the dude’s on this sorry forum still had a full head of hair.
> My, haven't we progressed
> i would like to see how many guys could rail ride today if
> they where given the equipment to do it on!
'suppose you was tongue in cheek, but will still try to guess.
Given that in the early 80s many who wanted to rail could learn within the same season, then I would say most that are good today could as well. Given the right equipment. There are still many modern railrides being ridden - Kona site, the Jersey comp this very weekend, the Bonaire guys, in Florida, and here. On Starboards, Mistral and Konas, as well as older boards. So it's not lost.
I don't think that that many modern freestylists could perform the top, more complicated compound rail and longboard tricks. That's a belief, that's all. In thems days, lots of very agile competitors were trying full-time and still couldn't. Would be the same kind of ratio today. In other words, I don't think doing the ballet thing we see in modern flat water freestyle would give the upper hand for fancier moves.
The equipment has progressed indeed. Freestyle has taken different turns. But more athletic? Not sure - just different.
BTW, if you wanted to try:http://www.knowledge.lbwindsurfing.com/longboard-freestyle/longboard-freestyle-on-the-railride-rail-ride/
www.knowledge.lbwindsurfing.com/longboard-freestyle/longboard-freestyle-%e2%80%93-the-basic-forward-railride/
Works on many a modern board too. And a closet door of mine once, with a properly fitted fin.
Hey Wet Boy - doubter of Man from the eighties that is jealous of all the mullets going around in the vid. Wait for the vid and it will be shown the dagger board is pointing skywards[}:)]
the memories of playing on a long board, love it, that guys uni would be hating life.
Some of them had rope unis didn't they.
85 doesn't seem so long ago, but those vids look ancient.
> Board upside down.
Here's a Tube on that move. No biggie.
Note that the wind is not that light, for those who still confuse longboard freestyle with the so-called lightwind freestyle...
The vid I posted was taken at last year's nationals. I agree, the everolls seem hard on the uni and board and I still remember delaming my first ever board, which is one reason I don't do them myself. The other is the fact that I'm crap at them!
Hey Chris
Happy to post a copy of Vid or dvd to you just PM me with your mailing address. As soon as I get it back I will post it to you
Chris, could you please take the offer (would cost me yappies for the shipping here) and digitalize, perhaps through Rob if you don't have the litlle VHS-to-USB capture box. There are soooo few tapes of such freestyle event, all we have is memories...
My financial contribution will be to buy you a schooner or two when we meet and you clean my pants in a freestyle comp (next year??).
I'd love to get a copy. Please please please! I promise you my firstborn child, and furthermore I'll leave you all my old sails when I die!
