windsurfer bombora dromedary

This one was seen around Monavale, a few times last year.

Windsurfer 'Rocket'... that was the sporty one.

Here is a sample of a photo of a Bombora pig "raceboard" showing lineage with the dromedary from the RipCurl Wave Classic, Torquay in around 1983. The Mark Paul designed and built board (probably home made) is held by Hawaiian stars Suzan Gedayloo and Dana Dawes. I think the board dates from much earlier and was a radical raceboard which worked best in higher winds than the typical race boards used by Naish, Winner and others. I recall Mark Paul's (or possibly Mike Maguire's but can't be sure) board was considered quick on reaching legs compared to the other longer race boards back in the 1979-80-81 Pan Am cups but he was unable to maintain speed around the courses, particularly upwind or in light winds of Kailua where the event was held. There are some articles in Australian Sailing from the early 79-80-81 which contained regular reports on the Pan Am Cup and race breakdown reports of the Bombora Sailboards Australia team of Maguire, Johns, Kelly, O'Connor and Paul. Note the almost formula like width. If anyone has any of those magazines still please post extracts as there are none available anymore.

Have some of the magazine reports from the Pan Am cup at home. One I think may have been out of Modern Boating and the others are in the old Windsurfer class news letter booklets we used to get back then.

No wonder they called us windwankers!