With the recent Olympic committee rejection of the RS:X for the 2024 Olympics, the boys at Gosford decided to review the past and present Olympic WIndsurfer boards to find a clear winner. See below for our findings, which surprised all of us.

So the forecast for yesterday didn't really come true, but we had a fantastic and very interesting day out on the water.

Peter, Lyndon and I arrived at Gosford Sailing Club to a very light breeze, we had decided yesterday that we were going to put the past and present Olympic boards to a test. We would rig one board each with as close to its original rig as we had available. We would then conduct 3 races, swapping boards after each race. We would rank the boards on placings, and then each of us would write a short review of our verdict on each board. So here is our 1st attempt at this, keep in mind it was extremely light wind 0-5 knots.

Race 1
1. Lechner A390 with 6.8m BIC Techno rig - Sailor JD
2. RS:X with RS:X 9.5m rig - Sailor PS
3. Windglider with Mistral 6.2m dacron powerhead rig - Sailor LB

Race 2
1. RS:X with RS:X 9.5m rig - Sailor JD
2. Windglider with Mistral 6.2m dacron powerhead rig - Sailor PS
3. Lechner A390 with 6.8m BIC Techno rig - Sailor LB

Race 3
1. Windglider with Mistral 6.2m dacron powerhead rig -Sailor JD
2. RS:X with RS:X 9.5m rig - Sailor LB
3. Lechner A390 with 6.8m BIC Techno rig - Sailor PS

Individual verdicts

Lyndon Bauer
Windglider - 5/10 comfort. But quite surprising in performance.

Lechner A390 - Slippery and tippy with too small a sail. 6/10 for comfort but would be entirely different with more wind or bigger sail
RS:X 9/10. Encouraged hard work dur to security . Grunty sail. Only draw back is lack of feel and direction when wind really fades.

John Doolan
Windglider - 7/10 comfort. Astonishing performance for a board from the early 1980's with a small floppy dacron rig. This board really glides well through the water and tacks and gybes very quickly.

Lechner A390 - 9/10 comfort and speed. This board effortlessly glides through the water, upwind and downwind. The small rig was the only downside, in really light air it needed more pressure.

RS:X - 5/1-0. The 9.5m rig being the only saving grace. Unresponsive, and feels like a bathtub would with a sail on it. This is possibly my least favourite board of all time to ride.
Overall I was surprised how close each board was in speed, it'll be interesting to see how each boards performance changes with wind strength.

Peter Smits
OK here's my report on the test event at GSC on 15/6/19. Conditions very light, 0 to 5 knots, flat water, minimal chop. High cloud, 90%sunshine,minimal traffic on the Water.

Windglider - The Windglider really susprised me. The soft sail was easy to pump. The board itself had room on on the front for a picnic table and the scoop at the rear would be handy for catching water in a down pour if you found yourself stranded. The mast foot connector needs some attention, have a nice bruise on my forearm when it separated from the board during my freestyle routine. 6/10 for comfort, non skid let it down. 9/10 for performance super easy to tack and quite nice performance up and down wind.

RS:X - Second board is the RSX, visually it looks great but unfortunately it seems mediocre in everything it does. The 9.5 helped in the light but in those conditions you should be on something way longer. Comfort 5/10 and performance 5/10.

Lechner A390 - Finally the Lechner felt very underpowered with the 6.8 twin cam sail. Either a bigger sail or more breeze would boost its rating. Comfort 5/10 and performance 6/10.

My recommendation for world sailing is that we need to go back to the future and put forward the Windglider for 2024. Winglider One design with a 7.5 m soft sail, unlimited pumping and no harness. Let's make it a man's sport again, especially now that they have thrown out the Finn. Ladies could use a 6m sail.

As we only had 3 sailors available to sail, we had to exclude the Mistral One Design from the review, we will however be completing more reviews in varying wind conditions throughout the year, and will be forwarding World Sailing our review, as we feel they have neglected some valid options for the future of our sport.

We will also be including the original Windsurfer One Design as well as a foiling option in future testing as we want to be completely thorough and independent. But so far, the Windglider is the clear leader for our proposal for 2024.

Great work. Will you be including the Windsurfer LT as well as the original One Design? I was informed by a reliable source in NSW that during testing there the RSX had difficulties in beating the Mistral One Design around a course so the results do not surprise me.

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RichardG said..
Great work. Will you be including the Windsurfer LT as well as the original One Design? I was informed by a reliable source in NSW that during testing there the RSX had difficulties in beating the Mistral One Design around a course so the results do not surprise me.

Quite likely to include the LT, however recent testing at Toronto has indicated the LT is not as quick as the Original Windsurfer. Another surprise to be honest.

Stay tuned for more results.

I haven't heard about the testing at Toronto, but in actual racing good sailors have proven that the One Design is about as fast in light winds, but no faster. It's certainly nowhere near as fast downwind in a breeze.

The Lechner would be a different beast entirely with a pinhead 6.8 or the cambered 7.3, but I can't get my 7.3 down for the test. Lars reckoned the Lechner was faster than the IMCO to 12-15 knots.

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Chris249 said..
I haven't heard about the testing at Toronto, but in actual racing good sailors have proven that the One Design is about as fast in light winds, but no faster. It's certainly nowhere near as fast downwind in a breeze.

The Lechner would be a different beast entirely with a pinhead 6.8 or the cambered 7.3, but I can't get my 7.3 down for the test. Lars reckoned the Lechner was faster than the IMCO to 12-15 knots.

How about original windsurfer 1984 v one design 1985-6 onward ?

Also there should be a Glide in the testing too.

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RichardG said..

Chris249 said..
I haven't heard about the testing at Toronto, but in actual racing good sailors have proven that the One Design is about as fast in light winds, but no faster. It's certainly nowhere near as fast downwind in a breeze.

The Lechner would be a different beast entirely with a pinhead 6.8 or the cambered 7.3, but I can't get my 7.3 down for the test. Lars reckoned the Lechner was faster than the IMCO to 12-15 knots.

How about original windsurfer 1984 v one design 1985-6 onward ?

Over last summer the Toronto guys and girls were racing all variants of the Windsurfer, the original Wally I'm told was very difficult to beat on almost every occasion. The guys at Gosford do plan to test this ourselves when we have enough sailors with the right boards to test all the boards together.

Chris, I tend to think Lars would be correct, the Lechner in the hands of someone with Lars's ability would be very hard to beat in a wide variety of conditions. I was honestly surprised it didn't perform better last weekend.

I think there's going to to be certain wind strengths where each board & Rig combination comes into its own, so it'll be interesting to see how our testing progresses.

Anyone wishing to join us for the testing is welcome, we still from Gosford Sailing Club most Saturdays year round from 12:30 onwards. If you've ever wanted to sail a past or present Olympic class board, here's the perfect opportunity.

Sure, the fact that the One Design is hard to beat most of the time is one of the good things about the switch; most people would still be competitive most of the time on a One Design because it's got lower drag at low to medium speeds. I would not have been surprised at all if the Womens, Light, Medium and Heavy champs at the last nationals had turned up and won on a One Design - but it was a light wind regatta and in a big breeze there could have been some re-shuffling of positions at the front end of the field.

However, saying the LT is slower seems to be a different thing. We had two good sailors on ODs at the Gosford regatta and in ideal conditions for the ODs, they did not do better than they would normally have done if everyone had been on ODs. Walshy in particular is hard to beat in light stuff but I didn't seem to lose anything to him when I switched to the LT and he stuck to the OD for that regatta. I turned up to that regatta worried that the LT may have been slower in the light stuff but to my surprise, I didn't feel it to be true.

The LT is much easier to sail overall, but judging from the nationals it seems that a few people have found it difficult to get their LTs going as well as they could get the ODs going, which is no surprise when some of them have sailed ODs for 20 years or more.

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RichardG said..
Great work. Will you be including the Windsurfer LT as well as the original One Design? I was informed by a reliable source in NSW that during testing there the RSX had difficulties in beating the Mistral One Design around a course so the results do not surprise me.

I think it very much depended on the winds and conditions. I think it was the first or second RSX nats that were sailed together with the Raceboard and IMCO nationals at Dobroyd, a light and narrow venue. The Olympians had all moved out of the IMCOs but we were still significantly quicker than the RSXs, with the possible exception of the last race when it breezed up.

In open waters and a breeze, the RSX seemed to have an edge - no surprise given that it had a bigger rig and better sailors.

The evolution of the Olympic windsurfing gear:

Just want to invite anyone who is interested to visit us in Gosford. We have a very large range of Boards Rigs and SUPs that we can loan to anyone who wants to visit us. The more the merrier.

Mostly mixed raceboard but if its very windy we do speed at budgie. (sup surf box head umina or sup sail Toowoon bay also possible)

If you are in sydney with no gear, travelling etc , just let us know and ride the train up to Gosford. We can most likely pick you up and organise what ever gear you are interested in.
Send me (lyndon aka heavy 1) or John (aus817) a sea breeze email with a day or two notice so we dont miss it.
Have a look at our forum/

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/New-South-Wales/Gosford-Saturday-afternoon-longboard-racing?page=16#21

I like the look of that flat bottom Windglider a lot more than the D2 Lechner.

I recon I could revive a few old skills and flop some moulds off that no problem.

We could knock up a whoe fleet of them for some real fun!

Or maybe someone has already done that?

Can we seriously not come up with something better than that?

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gorgesailor said..
Can we seriously not come up with something better than that?

Have you even ridden one?

I sailed a Windglider for a few weeks Back In The Day, or it may have been the very similar but later Bahia model they made. Better upwind and in light winds than the contemporary original Windsurfer, but IMHO not as good as the original Mistral in that stuff. And downwind in a breeze that narrow tail made it a bit of a beast, and I don't mean that in a good way. It wasn't surprising that it sold well in Europe, where they do a lot of light-wind lake sailing, but was disliked in Australia where we loved our sea breeze blasting.

The round bottomed D2s were also hard to sail downwind, especially the earlier ones with centreboards that did not retract far, but they were (and still are) absolute bliss upwind IMHO. And downwind, it's not that they have bad manners because of bad design - it's just that they are uncompromised triangle racing machines.

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AUS817 said..

gorgesailor said..
Can we seriously not come up with something better than that?

Have you even ridden one?

No I never have but, I have sailed W.O.D, Mistral Onedesigns, Equipes, Even Dufour Wings & have a hard time believing this board is all around better than any of those. Let alone something that could be purpose designed & built using modern knowledge & technology. I mean REALLY building new molds for this old beast can't be worth it? If investing in the tooling why not start fresh?

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gorgesailor said..

AUS817 said..

gorgesailor said..
Can we seriously not come up with something better than that?

Have you even ridden one?

No I never have but, I have sailed W.O.D, Mistral Onedesigns, Equipes, Even Dufour Wings & have a hard time believing this board is all around better than any of those. Let alone something that could be purpose designed & built using modern knowledge & technology. I mean REALLY building new molds for this old beast can't be worth it? If investing in the tooling why not start fresh?

I think you may have missed the hint of sarcasm in our original post, I don't think anyone would ever rebuild the original Windglider, even less chance it would ever make Olympic selection again. Even to modernize it with footstraps and a retracting daggerboard would not work as the unique transom does not lend itself to footstraps or foot placement to begin with.

That said, we were honestly surprised in it's light wind performance. It really did perform very well.

As for a purpose built Olympic board being better, yes one would have thought so. However that is exactly what the RS:X is. However my limited experience on an RS:X has been bitterly disappointing. I feel it does almost nothing well and is at most times an unenjoyable experience.

The Mistral One Design I believe was the most versatile and overall most enjoyable Olympic board this far. I got whatever 2024 delivers is better than what we currently have to represent our sport.

For the record, as much as I enjoy foiling, I don't believe this is a suitable Olympic option for our sport given the Olympic requirement of being able to race in 3-30 knots. 3 knots on a foil is simply not viable in a One Design format with one rig and one foil.

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AUS817 said..
The Windglider really susprised me. The soft sail was easy to pump. The board itself had room on on the front for a picnic table and the scoop at the rear would be handy for catching water in a down pour if you found yourself stranded. The mast foot connector needs some attention, have a nice bruise on my forearm when it separated from the board during my freestyle routine.

The South Shore of Long Island in New York does not get much wind in the summer, but I am nonetheless often windsurfing - with a Mistral Superlight, and a Hot Sails Maui SummerFreak in 7.5M. This is not far off from the Windglider setup you tested, but with the advantage of a considerably larger soft sail, a custom fitting for a euro-pin mast base, a nearly full EVA deck pad, and a modification to a Powerbox fin. This is an amazing setup in the very light stuff. If the wind picks up to 8knots or more, I switch boards, not sails - to a Fanatic Ultra Cat, also with EVA deck pad and no straps, and custom mast foot adapter for a euro-pin base. This setup is fast and fun, and a real technical challenge (part of what makes it fun, of course). Good up to 15knots or so - then the sail is topped out. Maybe I need one in 5.5m too...

The soft sails are great with long boards. They go upwind very, very well, and benefit from the range of mast and foot placement that a longboard provides. Still, few people seem to recognize their advantages. All tongue-and-cheek aside for a moment, there would be no more fun choice for a course racing setup than a good longboard and soft sail.. which sounds a lot like the Windsurfer class (though the mylar sail is a bummer, and the new LT board seems a bit of a compromise).

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AUS817 said..

gorgesailor said..

AUS817 said..

gorgesailor said..
Can we seriously not come up with something better than that?

Have you even ridden one?

No I never have but, I have sailed W.O.D, Mistral Onedesigns, Equipes, Even Dufour Wings & have a hard time believing this board is all around better than any of those. Let alone something that could be purpose designed & built using modern knowledge & technology. I mean REALLY building new molds for this old beast can't be worth it? If investing in the tooling why not start fresh?

I think you may have missed the hint of sarcasm in our original post, I don't think anyone would ever rebuild the original Windglider, even less chance it would ever make Olympic selection again. Even to modernize it with footstraps and a retracting daggerboard would not work as the unique transom does not lend itself to footstraps or foot placement to begin with.

That said, we were honestly surprised in it's light wind performance. It really did perform very well.

As for a purpose built Olympic board being better, yes one would have thought so. However that is exactly what the RS:X is. However my limited experience on an RS:X has been bitterly disappointing. I feel it does almost nothing well and is at most times an unenjoyable experience.

The Mistral One Design I believe was the most versatile and overall most enjoyable Olympic board this far. I got whatever 2024 delivers is better than what we currently have to represent our sport.

For the record, as much as I enjoy foiling, I don't believe this is a suitable Olympic option for our sport given the Olympic requirement of being able to race in 3-30 knots. 3 knots on a foil is simply not viable in a One Design format with one rig and one foil.

I did miss the hint of sarcasm - it makes much more sense that way. The Dufour wing was actually quite a bit faster than the Windsurfer one design in about 3-10 knot winds so perhaps similar to the Lechner or other D2 in that regard. In fact though a modern version of the Lechner with a large high performance soft sail would probably be unbeatable in those conditions. It really comes down to where you want the compromise. The design brief for RS-X makes it sailable in subplaning conditions but it really wouldn't come into its own until solid planing conditions exist. I think for 2004 when it was designed, it fit the bill pretty well. I often wonder how a high performance Raceboard like the Phantom would fair? Or something entirely new which would suite the low end better...

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jswinnyc said..

AUS817 said..
The Windglider really susprised me. The soft sail was easy to pump. The board itself had room on on the front for a picnic table and the scoop at the rear would be handy for catching water in a down pour if you found yourself stranded. The mast foot connector needs some attention, have a nice bruise on my forearm when it separated from the board during my freestyle routine.

The South Shore of Long Island in New York does not get much wind in the summer, but I am nonetheless often windsurfing - with a Mistral Superlight, and a Hot Sails Maui SummerFreak in 7.5M. This is not far off from the Windglider setup you tested, but with the advantage of a considerably larger soft sail, a custom fitting for a euro-pin mast base, a nearly full EVA deck pad, and a modification to a Powerbox fin. This is an amazing setup in the very light stuff. If the wind picks up to 8knots or more, I switch boards, not sails - to a Fanatic Ultra Cat, also with EVA deck pad and no straps, and custom mast foot adapter for a euro-pin base. This setup is fast and fun, and a real technical challenge (part of what makes it fun, of course). Good up to 15knots or so - then the sail is topped out. Maybe I need one in 5.5m too...

The soft sails are great with long boards. They go upwind very, very well, and benefit from the range of mast and foot placement that a longboard provides. Still, few people seem to recognize their advantages. All tongue-and-cheek aside for a moment, there would be no more fun choice for a course racing setup than a good longboard and soft sail.. which sounds a lot like the Windsurfer class (though the mylar sail is a bummer, and the new LT board seems a bit of a compromise).

I couldn't agree more that so many miss the advantages of a long board #versatility. I'd much rather be sailing, even competing in 3-5 knots than at home doing household chores, and longboards make that possible. It sounds like you've got a nice combination of gear going there, although your Fanatic ibuprofen 15+ knots might work better with a smaller cambered sail.

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gorgesailor said..

AUS817 said..

gorgesailor said..

AUS817 said..

gorgesailor said..
Can we seriously not come up with something better than that?

Have you even ridden one?

No I never have but, I have sailed W.O.D, Mistral Onedesigns, Equipes, Even Dufour Wings & have a hard time believing this board is all around better than any of those. Let alone something that could be purpose designed & built using modern knowledge & technology. I mean REALLY building new molds for this old beast can't be worth it? If investing in the tooling why not start fresh?

I think you may have missed the hint of sarcasm in our original post, I don't think anyone would ever rebuild the original Windglider, even less chance it would ever make Olympic selection again. Even to modernize it with footstraps and a retracting daggerboard would not work as the unique transom does not lend itself to footstraps or foot placement to begin with.

That said, we were honestly surprised in it's light wind performance. It really did perform very well.

As for a purpose built Olympic board being better, yes one would have thought so. However that is exactly what the RS:X is. However my limited experience on an RS:X has been bitterly disappointing. I feel it does almost nothing well and is at most times an unenjoyable experience.

The Mistral One Design I believe was the most versatile and overall most enjoyable Olympic board this far. I got whatever 2024 delivers is better than what we currently have to represent our sport.

For the record, as much as I enjoy foiling, I don't believe this is a suitable Olympic option for our sport given the Olympic requirement of being able to race in 3-30 knots. 3 knots on a foil is simply not viable in a One Design format with one rig and one foil.

I did miss the hint of sarcasm - it makes much more sense that way. The Dufour wing was actually quite a bit faster than the Windsurfer one design in about 3-10 knot winds so perhaps similar to the Lechner or other D2 in that regard. In fact though a modern version of the Lechner with a large high performance soft sail would probably be unbeatable in those conditions. It really comes down to where you want the compromise. The design brief for RS-X makes it sailable in subplaning conditions but it really wouldn't come into its own until solid planing conditions exist. I think for 2004 when it was designed, it fit the bill pretty well. I often wonder how a high performance Raceboard like the Phantom would fair? Or something entirely new which would suite the low end better...

I only rode a Dufour a couple of times back in the 1980's, but you are correct they were a little faster than the original Windsurfer in the lighter breeze.

I am lucky enough to have both a Lechner A390 and a Phantom 377, as do my companions at my local club. We choose the Lechner/D2's for lighter days and the Phantoms when it's stronger. Although we have raced them against each other. The Lechner is definitely superior in the lighter breeze and the Phantom better (and easier to ride) when it's stronger.

The Windsurfer LT is a great board to ride in almost any conditions, although certainly not the fastest (due to the extra width which I believe was to make it more SUP compatible) , it's certainly a test of all your skills, and I think would make an excellent Olympic board. Like every class, the heavier guys struggle to keep up with the lighter guys, and a slightly larger and upgraded rig wouldn't harm evening this out and making it even better.

And yes I agree the RS:X will definitely improve as the wind strength increases, at least to a point, 20+ knots with a 9.5 is just scary.