Made by Roger French racing yacht's .
Is this a good thing ?, volume ?, I cant find anything on it .Any info anyone ?
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Windsurfing-package/264196269197?hash=item3d8353248d:g:hwEAAOSwmxVcZT2u:rk:1:pf:0

Not Jim French?

Like this one?

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Sparky said..
Not Jim French?

Could well be . .???
Are they a good thing ? Are they better for a heavy me than a Mistral One Design ?

That'd be a Jim French circa mid eighties. Was a weapon in its day, but that was a long time ago. The Mistral One Design is a better option.

Here is the same custom manufacturer's board (French flag on stern/tail, but not necessarily the same board) as being used in Freesail January 1986 by Eva Stub of the Tyronsea pro team in the Peter Jackson series in the mid 80s........I would think these boards may still be of interest particularly if light and volume was more than 230 litres. How heavy is it ? I query if the Speed SR250, a later (?) board of more volume, was faster than the Jim French ? Jim French boards were very popular in Perth as this "Bridge to Bridge race results" newsflash from Sailboard Extra 1987 posted below at the foot of this post shows. I did actually speak to Eva Stub on facebook just now and she told me: "...Long time since then ...85/86 but it was great for me to have the opportunity to be part of the team as preparation for the World Cup 86. Not the strongest memory of the board... mostly that it was a bit heavy and not so great when it got choppy - flat water was better for it..."




Sailboards Extra 1987..

Imax1, ive got a spare SPEED 250 for when you relocate.

As i recall the Jim French was very early onto the plane but lacked top-end reaching speed and was not too good on the breeze compared with later race boards. It was pretty much the first of the thick boxy-railed race boards, and it was a big jump up from whatever else was around at the time. You either had one or you weren't competitive.

Ahhh, seeing the mention of the Peter Jackson Classic in that article brings back memories. The Division II boards were normally the fastest class racing board of the time, because the Raceboards needed about 12-15 knots of breeze to be competitive. So the Peter Jackson committee decided that Div 2 boards were banned, although they were cheaper than a competitive Raceboard.

So - how do you define a "Division II board"? Well, it's a board that fits the rules of Division II - but I think a Windsurfer, Dufour WIng or Windruch Clubman fitted into the rules, theoretically. But while the rules were loose in some ways, they were tight in others - so if you stuck a paddlepop stick to your board with duct tape, it was theoretically too long to be a Div II board and was therefore legal to race in the Peter Jackson. Div 2 boards also had to carry little leashes to stop the rig blowing away if the uni came out and had to have their sail number written on the back, if I recall correctly, so by the letter of the law all you had to do was tape over the sail number on the board or take off the VB cord leash and it was no longer a legal Div II board.

Eventually, if I recall correctly, the committee decided that if they thought it looked like a Div 2 board, it was a Div 2 board and was therefore banned. Fair enough - but something like my old and comparatively slow D2 without its leash was therefore banned (I think - it was a long whole ago) but the huge "Dart" boards, which were like giant Div 2 boards but about 14ft long and therefore much faster, were so far outside Div 2 rules that they were allowed to race, and won. So the rules designed to stop comparatively cheap production Div 2 boards from winning, to allow expensive Jim French type custom Raceboards to win, ended up ensuring that the even more expensive giant Div 2 "Darts" won instead. Oh well.

I was one of the four guys who wrote the first "Construction class" rules for AUSA, I think. We had three rules - it had to be a windsurfer, it had to have one person (to keep the tandems out because they were faster in light winds) and it couldn't have anything that was considered too dangerous to other sailors - this was when Fred Haywood was using a trapeze and there was concern about the danger of the wires. It was fun while it lasted, but it was never going to last too long.