Does a sailboard have to be brand new (and highly expensive) and modern or can the old sailboards of the 90s and early 00s keep up in terms of speed and functionality?
I have no doubt there are some old models that could keep pace with modern day gear. 90's-2000's was a bit before my time windsurfing, but im told the difference is how hard it is to sail.
Functionally, new gear is easier. Thats the difference.
The biggest thing I noticed returning after 20 years is that the mast track is way further back. I look at some of my old
boards and wonder if I re-positioned the mast track, they might work well with modern sails.
Longboards from the late 80s and 90s are a thing of beauty. In less than 15 knots, they are hard to beat. Not even freeride foils can keep up. But they can be beaten by current race boards, and don't stand a chance against race foilers. When the wind picks up, their "back and forth" speeds can easily be beaten by most current equipment.
But some of the changes of the years come with significant tradeoffs. The trend to shorter boards is one example, where you need higher skills to get planing and keep the nose from turning upwind.
At some of the spots I'm sailing, there are still lots of people sailing ancient gear and having fun. Nothing wrong with that. But I've also seen big improvements in some windsurfers who upgraded to the best modern shapes, in particular Fanatics Blasts. That includes more speed, better jibes, and (most importantly) broader grins when coming off the water.
Best thing about them is they are cheap and also fully depreciated just needing some maintenance. Best old ones are longboards and usually Mistral Equipes 1.5 and 2. Short boards Stinger, Screamer, Energy and Shredder. Bic Electric Rock, Presto, Astro Rock and Rock with Eskimo livery. My F2 Sputnik 285 World Cup for example I got for $15 a few repairs and its fine. Straps cost more than the board unfortunately. The only modern gear you need are waveboards, sails, a new LT and foiling gear and boards. You can collect glass boards too which look cool especially Delta Designs, Strapper and HiTech. Use to have Bombora protos but sold them, now just have a range of plastic Bombies.
Select to expand quotegollyone said..
Does a sailboard have to be brand new (and highly expensive) and modern or can the old sailboards of the 90s and early 00s keep up in terms of speed and functionality?
Early 2000 sort of yes (if you stay away from slalom gear), early 1990 ... not really ... The huge change for the better sort of coincides with Starboard push for shorter boards onward 2007 or so. As a rule of thumb: for a 80-140L avoid anything longer than 250 cm. An old longboard (280-300plus, with 150-220L) would be fine.
Select to expand quoteMark _australia said..
Some are very nearly as fast, but the gybe lets you down for sure.
In a straight line my older vitamin sea Salomon boards I think would beat most of the modern stuff but like you say the gybes would kill you
I still run a couple of old caveman's that I've owned since new. One is a "slalom" board that measures 275cm long by 50 cm wide. It's nice and easy to ride. Straps are easy to get into and it gybes nicely due to quite soft rails. It just feels a bit weird with all that nose sticking out.
I also have a caveman raceboard from the mid to late 90's. It's still a moderately competitive board . It has a lot of width and volume around the beating straps but cuts into a narrow tail. I modified it slightly to move the mast track back another 2 inches. This really helps to get the board up onto the tail and reduce wetted surface downwind. This is really only useful in fresh conditions but that's ok. Downwind longboard blasting in strong winds is why I keep this board. Pure straight line speed wise it's a match and more than a match for a phantom but the phantom with destroy it in the light and medium conditions. The phantom will also point lower downwind in all conditions. It's a good example of how far ahead of his time Andrew Reagan was.
Select to expand quoteCluffy said..
I still run a couple of old caveman's that I've owned since new. One is a "slalom" board that measures 275cm long by 50 cm wide. It's nice and easy to ride. Straps are easy to get into and it gybes nicely due to quite soft rails. It just feels a bit weird with all that nose sticking out.
I also have a caveman raceboard from the mid to late 90's. It's still a moderately competitive board . It has a lot of width and volume around the beating straps but cuts into a narrow tail. I modified it slightly to move the mast track back another 2 inches. This really helps to get the board up onto the tail and reduce wetted surface downwind. This is really only useful in fresh conditions but that's ok. Downwind longboard blasting in strong winds is why I keep this board. Pure straight line speed wise it's a match and more than a match for a phantom but the phantom with destroy it in the light and medium conditions. The phantom will also point lower downwind in all conditions. It's a good example of how far ahead of his time Andrew Reagan was.
Hi Cluffy, If you are willing and able to do so, please take a few shots of the Caveman raceboard as it would be extremely cool and much appreciated and even as you are sometimes known to do, a video sailing this fine craft, even more so appreciated. The late Andrew Reagan must have been a great designer, may his memory be a blessing. Thanks and Cheers R
Hi Richard, thanks for the kind words about Andrew Reagan. I dug up this old footage from about 5 or 6 years ago. This was before I did the mast track mod so the gap between the mast base and the centre board is gone now. You can see how the board is thickest between the beating straps. The Board also carries it's width all the way back to the rear beating strap and then cuts in to a narrow tail. These features made the caveman superior sailing upwind to the F2's and mistrals of the period.
I'm in fun mode in this video. The dagger board is raked quite a bit and I am sailing low and fast upwind. I find this more enjoyable when I'm just cruising around as it's a speed difference of 10 or 11 knots close hauled compared to 12 to 14 knots sailing low and fast. When I take the old beast racing I use a Severne 9.5 raceboard sail and this sail doesn't work in low and fast mode. It wants to point high all the time no matter how I try and pull away. As for which method gives the best vmg upwind, in light to medium wind it's definitely the severne 9.5 but when the wind picks up it's a lot closer.
Trying to gybe the beast is an exercise in expletives. That narrow tail and those blocky rails make gybing not so much fun. The video was taken with a hero 4 so no GPS data. I'm running a 7 black these days so I might take the beast out in tomorrow's westerly and do a vid with some dashware gauges. It should be interesting to see what the old girl can do.
Cluffy, Excellent stuff, maybe time to start a Caveman thread about these great boards and their legendary heritage. Keep up the video coverage. What year was this raceboard from ? Which Mistrals and F2s was it contemporary with ? Thanks again Cheers Richard
Three Electric Rocks by Iggy Mon of NY USA with mast tracks moved back 8 inches. He says the old sails feel better with track back and the original positioning is more to do with the way people used to sail.
Select to expand quoteremery said..
The biggest thing I noticed returning after 20 years is that the mast track is way further back. I look at some of my old
boards and wonder if I re-positioned the mast track, they might work well with modern sails.
Seconded.
I have this little gorge board and the track is absurdly far forward. It rides pretty strangely on modern sails. I've been thinking about installing a track centered at/around 135 cm like modern boards.
The other thing I'll add is that the displacement is distributed around the board differently. It's crazy narrow in width for its volume. It seems a lot thicker in draft around the track, and very thin at the tail + nose, whereas a modern board squashes that central volume out in all directions to make the board wider, as well as thicker at the tail + nose).
It's absolutely bombproof glass construction, but weighs a fair bit more than one would prefer. It goes stupid fast in the winds appropriate for its intended use, turns well on it's little pintail, and cuts chop, but doesn't lock in comfortably like modern gear does once you're hooked, strapped, and planing - you have to bend your front knee and lean forward somewhat. It also has a quad concave + vee bottom, which is really weird.
I did get pretty far in intermediate sailing on the thing, and even did my first planing gybe on it, but I kind of hate it now that I'm using modern gear - the useful range on these new designs is so nice. Took it lake sailing in 15-30kts the other day for the first time in about 15 years and it left a little bit of a nasty taste in my mouth :/
The old WindTech 920 (1992 vintage) was 277cm x 56cm and I picked it up from a guy for a bargain price last year. It had been sitting in his garage for around 20 years and he decided to offload it. I took if for a spin down at Safety Bay (in video) and it was holding its own against a Fanatic Falcon (towards end of video). The ride wasn't as dry as some of the more recent WindTech boards but it still felt pretty slippery and was heaps of fun to ride. Results speak for themselves.
Designed and made by Stewart Martin at Lake Macquarie.
Worked well for very light wind kite surfing as well.
Now added to the old gear collection at Kite and SUP Warners Bay.
Select to expand quoteRichardG said..
Three Electric Rocks by Iggy Mon of NY USA with mast tracks moved back 8 inches. He says the old sails feel better with track back and the original positioning is more to do with the way people used to sail.
Wow, those are seriously retro. Way awesome
Following on from the original post by Gollyone, here's a bit of story that has some relevance to the question about brand new, expensive, modern vs old boards from the 90's and 00's...
Back in 2017, the legendary Roy Bell "Screamin Leeman" was held in WA. Out of the 53 registrations, only 29 sailors finished what was a very hectic race (25 - 35kts). 11 DNS and 13 DNF. Much of the fleet were on "new, expensive and modern" gear (Starboard, Fanatic, Simmer, Severne, Carbon Art, Patrik etc.) and yet the race winner was Jesper Orth on an old 266cm Extreme board that was picked up from a verge collection by Steve Stratfold. Jesper won convincingly with a 2m 28s lead on the 2nd placegetter.
The board is said to have been shaped by Swiss shaper Gunter Lorch and at the time (93 era) was called On Board 266 Freeride and mould at Cobra was later used by Extreme Sailboards (97 era). As demonstrated by Jesper, the board could be controlled at speed in a very hectic sea state off the coast at Leeman. Jesper is also a highly skilled and experienced sailor so that probably had a little bit to do with it!! 
While racing and winning is not the most important thing in windsurfing, Jesper had a choice of board selection from any number of new, modern and expensive boards however he chose the verge collection pickup. Not sure if he was trying to prove a point but was certainly a good lesson in old vs new. Results of the 2017 Screamin Leeman provided for those interested.
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Western-Australia/Screamin-Leeman-RESULTS?page=1
