It all started back in 1983! That was the first year that WindRider featured board reviews. In Febrary/March 1984 issue* offered reviews--a total of three! Compare that to the March 2001 issue of Windsurfing which takes on some 180 boards! In 1984 "board reviews” covered the full kit or package: board, sail, boom, mast, and u-joint. Board and sail carried the same logo and sometimes had similar graphics. Prices ranged from $850 to $1,195 for a complete outfit. (This pretty much describes my first set-up, a Vinta (British) from about 1985. I paid $300, which then seemed like a great deal of money for a mere hobby. If only I had known!)

A kit came with a "standard" sail in the 60 sq. feet range (that's about 5.6 m2). Skegs (fins) similarly were listed in inches, not centimeters, and by today’s standards were quite small, about 9 inches.The masts supplied ranged from 14' 10" to just over 15 feet. The WindRider testers helpfully measured the deflection (amount of bend) in each mast since there was as yet nothing like MCS or IMCS.

How far we have come since 1984! Booms were tie-on. Of the three, only HiFly offered a mast track. The other two boards had a choice of two holes for the mast foot attachment. The whole rig--mast, boom, sail, mast foot, u-joint--weighed between 17 and 19 lbs.

All equipment was ranked on a 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) scale. No piece of equipment received lower than a 1.6 and none ranked higher 4.6. This was before the days of serious grade inflation.

They reviewed the Connelly Winddance, which at 11'10" was an “allround funboard”. The HiFly 300 at 12' 6.5" and 240 ltrs. was also considered a funboard. The Mystere Shuttle (9' 6" long, 28” wide, 160 ltrs.) was also considered a “funboard”, although one of the testers in 1984 did call it a long shortboard.

The Shuttle most closely approximates the dimensions of boards most of us sail today. Its numbers are not too different from the Seatrend All-Star 80 AVS (78.9 cm. wide, 285 cm. long, 170 ltrs.) The Shuttle is 10 cm. narrower than a modern “wide board”. The Shuttle received high marks for its "jumping ability" and "jumping control". The longboards evidently were not considered jumpable.

The test panel consisted of six experienced windsurfers, two women and four men--not bad for a male-dominated sport. Interestingly they were not all young surfer dudes either. Ages were 35, 38, 43, 27, 26, and 31. Their comments covered the whole package, not just board feel and behavior.