I came across this wooden skinned bottom assymetric board in a shed in Adelaide. the fin box seemed massive.
anybody know the age and history of them , were they any good
assy boards are designed for long drawn out bottom turns and snappy "off the lips".
Trouble is these boards only work on one tack, (OK here, in 20 years I've only ever ridden waves on starboard), and some people like their boards to be snappy in the bottom turn as well.
(I've never ridden one so no idea how well they worked.)
The fin box looks like a standard for wave boards, the "US box". These come in various lengths, enabling fin position to be adjusted, forward makes it looser, back makes it stiffer.
As stated designed for a single tack. The general idea is sound. Let's be honest thrusters and quads are back, I see Assy boards coming back with floro wetsuits and wicked mullets
Age = 1982 the first ones in Wanda.
Used them in 1983, a local shop around Rockdale was shaping them then.
Concept was OK in a place like Wanda where you can only jump off southerlies on a starboard tack (NEs suck there). Then a single-purpose board like that 'makes sense'. Even riding back on port was OK, the pointy tail offering a good grip.
Overall though it was too gimmicky, plus you felt some area was missing at the back when jumping - felt like you were losing air on every single jump.
I don't remember seeing any in town past 1984, ever.
By the way, I've ridden even more radical asymmetrical tail shapes than yours.
Give it a try...
Wind Force were made at Cut Loose in Lonsdale until some time in the 90s when the name changed to Wind Energy. I don't remember seeing wood bottom boards in the 80s so this is probably one of the later boards made under the Wind Force name.
a year ago i took 2 HiTech canopeners to the tip,... i mean Resource Management Centre.
Windforce were shaped by Shane O'Callaghan. His boards were hit and miss... he loved to experiment with peoples orders which really sucked. I had 4 or 5 custom boards made up over the years, 2 were pretty good, 2 were pretty average, 1 sucked big time... weighed about 10 kg, took it into a shop on Maui and they thought it must have been full of water, but it was just a heavy dog!
The board in the pic would of been from the late 80's, I can't recall him making any asymetricals after that. In fact the only asymetricals I remember him making were under the Naish label in a short stint him done shaping in Hawaii.
His boards were really popular in SA, probably 90% of the wave boards were Wind Force before the production boards took over.
Hi Folks,
I used to own a couple of Delta Designs assys in the good old days in the late 80s/early 90s. They certainly were sweet and reliable in the bottom turn, and we used to tell ourselves that the shorter length made off the lips snappier. Martin put a lot of rocker into them, so they weren't the fastest or quickest off the plane, but in those days that wasn't such a big deal, because everyone was slower, so you didn't miss out on waves as a result. Then technology moved along heaps. Boards got lighter, stronger and more responsive, and suddenly those off the lips weren't as snappy as could be done with the new toys, so there was no longer any value in being out-planed and outpointed...
I've still got my old 9'3" light wind Delta assy as an odd looking sculpture in my garden. Can double up as a bench as well by strapping on a couple of milk crates.
Cheers, Jens
Here's an extract from the 1984 Windsurfing Funboard Handbook.
I particularly like the comment ".........assymetrical [boards]..........is still very much in its infancy, but there can be no doubt that they are here to stay, and will feature very strongly in the future" 
50c to you Windy - read an article recently where Mark Angulo was talking up "Assymetrical Fin setups". Whatever will they re-think up next...?
AB...
I am thinking about it for a Sandy Point starboard tack speed board. Sh.t, that was a secret!!!!
annoying thing is its the best condition free board Ive come across yet, Im thinking it would make an awesome coffee table, so I might bring it home on my next trip.
glad to see some of the memory cells get some use there gentlemen
Seriously, has anyone actually seen one of those boards on the water since, say, 1985 ??
I've been following this for a year or so before quads became the 'new thing'. A surf shaper Carl Ekstrom is doing it for years and sparked my interest particularly the quad/twin fin config.
Whist this config allows you the bigger arc + driving bottom turn and the snappy top turn it is really a matter of individual style, this style was once popular. The popular contemporary style is a snappy square bottom turn to a snappy vertical in-the-pocket hack which needs a tight arc both bottom and up. This as the turns are pretty similar the rails and fin setup have been made similar also, hence the symmetry. Plus symmetrical boards are handy for winter NWers in WA!
I haven't sailed an assy yet and would love to try one based on the above.
Ultimately, it is a matter of compromise. Don't buy into a quad/twin/single/assy because its 'better'... its not. Its just different, with each having their own +/- characteristics. The best shape is the one that suits your own style.
Website:http://surfboardsbyhydrodynamica.com/hulls/ekstrom
