These are scanned from the Article in Penthouse Australia. (Maybe the only time I had a good excuse to buy a copy! )
These SpeedWatch were notorious for reading LOW!
Mike English? Strapper Speed needle and 3m wave sail!!
"I'm sure I left my rig here somewhere.."
Chop jump sailing upwind (after the wind eased a bit!)
A young Jason P on one of the other days.
Yes, I am shocked to see how low Mal's boom was on that sail! He still has that sail. We actually tried it again in about 2005/6 and I was blown away by how far ahead of it's time it was. It was set on a soft, short carbon mast which was also unusual at the time. He modified the sail himself by cutting out a section of the head above the top batten to induce more twist, and it worked beautifully. It was originally a 4m or 3.9m Proto. sail so it ended up being a 3.8m.
When he got back into speed sailing in the mid 2000's, he was rigging his booms at about the same height as I was, but he is 8" taller than me!!
Here we were sailing on an easterly at Sandy in 2006. Me on 5m, Mal on 5.8m. Boom height virtually the same. When I used his rig the boom height was fine but the harness lines were so long I could only reach the boom with my fingertips!
Thats a flat sail on a wide boom in the foreground and a wide board on the water. One extreme to the other in 15years
There is some big gaps in my photographic record between 1988-1990 and 2004 when the GPS thing started.
Here is some stuff (posted previously) from 1988 OR'89. Channel 9 sent a chopper down to film but it was on one of the other days, not the big SW. Windsurfing had a bit of mainstream media 'cred' in those days! This was all filmed in a 25 knot Easterly.
No thats a very young jason Polakow. Byron used to do the Sandy Pt thing.
He is still around surfing etc.
The guy in the video, black and orange wetsuit/board. I thought he looked too old to be JP(back then). I could be wrong though.
Cool to hear Byron still hits the water.