With the revival of windsurfing over the last few years, lets take a look back to where it all began in Guernsey. Windsurfing equipment has been progressing in development throughout the 80′s, 90′s and now within the last 10 years the advancements in windsurfing technology, high tec materials & growing understanding of how to maximise what can be done on a sail board has really pushed the sport forward into the world of extreme sports! Waves that were thought un-ridable are now ridable, a whole new discipline of speed sailing, windsurfing freestyle has been created and learning the sport is much, much more accessible to all.
But it wasn't always so easy to pick up a manufactures brochure or browse the Internet for a choice of boards or sails when I started sailing way back in 1980 at the age of 13.
It was too calm, the ocean was flat. No surf. Even when there is no wind or waves there is always something you can do involving the sea. It was early June and at this time of year it was great for snorkeling. I was just a small whipper-snapper, out snorkeling for spider crabs with my dad at the time. It was one of those classic summer days and in no time we had the net bag full of crabs for tea and heading back to shore when dad spotted something that caught his eye, laying on the seabed covered in seaweed and sand. Diving down to take a closer look it turned out to be an old windsurfer regatta rig complete with mast, boom, sail and universal joint that someone must of ditched whilst getting into difficulties and had sunk to the sea bed. It didn't take us long to retrieve it off the sea bed and to our surprise it was in good condition, looking like it had only been under water for a few days.
This is it. From there we began windsurfing and my love for the sport grew. Dad had bought a second hand Windsurfing International one design board off Eric Powell of the windsurfing association club. After spending countless of hours sitting on the beach looking at dad windsurfing I finally had enough and decided to give it a try myself. I was hooked straight away and from that time I spent all the time I could on the water. We self taught ourselves to sail that summer. Coming from a surfing back ground it didn't take long to get to grips with the sport, by the end of the year we had mastered the basics. I'm still amazed and struck by the simplicity of the concept in those days when wooden booms were still being used, sails looked like a lettuce leaf being washed under a dripping tap and board design was just crude injection moulded plastic in the shape of old Windsurfer one designs, Mistral Super light or Dufour wings. Now that's Old School Windsurfing.......
After the pioneering "Golden" years of the 60's, the 1970's saw a gradual change of attitude to organised surfing and the return of " I just wanna go surfing" movement, which saw a decline in many surf clubs. So it was an ideal time for the spin off sport of windsurfing to come of age
Dad used to shape surf boards back in the day and thought he could make a sail board better than the one he was riding at the time. Blade Surfboards was re branded to Blade Sailboards.......
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The blank
in this case a brightly sprayed waveboard
is brought into the surfboard glassing room
and is ready for glassing/laminating |
Surfboard design is the art of hand shaping a surfboard from a foam blank or piece of wood and making it into a vehicle for riding waves. The finished surfboard design is radically different from the crude materials that windsurf boards were being made of at the time, so dad put his surfboard shaping skills in practice and started shaping sailboards using polyester based urethane sailboard foam blanks from Clark Foam, fibreglass cloth and polyester resin.
Windsurfing is often recognised as an extreme sport that provides limitless thrills and excitement in a range of disciplines. However, windsurfing took on more RYA rules-based environment of sailing and it might be considered a minimalistic version of a sailboat in those days. It was time to establishing a whole new style and direction in windsurfing that redefined the sport by shaping costume boards that could be taken out in the surf at Vazon. Shaping his first few sailboards in 1981 for Richard Fox, Phil Nicolle and one for himself. The dawn of wavesailing had began. The three boards were still 12' long but with the introduction of foot straps and much improved shape meant a vast improvement over the production boards you could buy. By the next year (1982) Clem Brouard had arrived on the scene and asked Blade to build a radical 10'6" wave board which again was way ahead of it's time when all that was available from the pop out market (as we used to call it) was a rocket 103 or Mistral Take off.
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1982
Clem Brouard on his
10'6" Blade wave board |
At about this time the Vazon crew decided to break away from the windsurfing association club with it's RYA rules and triangle racing and form a new club dedicated to the waves.
The G.B.S.A (Guernsey Boardsailing Association)
with Richard Fox as the first President.
The GBSA held the first wave jumping championships on Sunday October 1982 the first of it's kind in the Channel Islands, sponsored by Barclays Bank. Taking place in gale force winds Clem Brouard (Blade) and Mick Middleton (Mistral Take off) were the men to watch. Clem coming out the overall winner on his 10'6" Blade.
1 Clem Brouard (Blade)
2 Mick Middleton (Mistral Take off)
3 Bob Warry (Blade)
4 Richard Fox (Blade)
5 Simon Lovell (Mistral Take off)
My first Blade was a 9'6" tri fin pin tail. Entering my first GBSA Guernsey Championships I placed 5th in January 83, 2nd 84 & 85 with a 3rd place in the European Championships and then winning the Channel Island Champs 86, 87 and 88. The European Championships was supposed to take place at Pembroke for long board triangle races for Mistrals, but due to strong winds on race day they cancelled racing and decided to have a wave comp instead. I can remember Peter Hart running up and down the beach and shouting to the British team that they had to pull their fingers out because they were getting their butts kicked by the local's
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Yours truly... European Championships
This shot made the inside cover of Windsurf magazine
titled the Best of British |
You have an experience like that in your life it rings forever. There have been times where I wanted to shed windsurfing because I couldn’t stand missing swells, waiting for perfect conditions and this and that, I just got fed up with it in 2000. “That’s it, I am stopping this. I can’t deal with this obsession.” The early 80s were one of those times ,t
hen, like many of us, we began reading windsurfing magazines and in reading those pages, it created this fantasy and we wanted to sail in the conditions they were sailing in Hookipa or Diamond Head. It was then that true frustration came into the sport for me. Living in Guernsey all I had was less than perfect conditions. I concluded that I was wasting my time because I would never experience the extent of the fantasy that was fueled in me.
But right when I gave up for a few years, a new work colleague started at my work and we got chatting over a lunch time brew about things we did on the weekend and got on the subject that he went windsurfing. That lead from one thing to another with me heading down the beach one weekend and taking out his slalom kit for a blast. I'd been out the scene for nearly four years and had taken up my other passion scuba diving, I eased myself back into windsurfing in September 04, spending a couple of weeks on flat water and then almost immediately got back into the waves. Feeling a little out of practice after so many years out, I had the bug again thanks to Stu Martel. My water spirit came back again.
It wasn't easy, but I came back to it with more desire, drive and passion than I could ... and never stopped believing I could get back to the top level of the sport. ... It didn't take me long to get some new wave kit on order and get back on the water.
Still mad for the sport three decades later......................................
OLD SCHOOL DAYS
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| Clem Flying high Vazon |
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Me as a young
whippersnapper |
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The Blade man
himself |
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The Blade Boys
Phil, Barry and Bob |
Phil Nicolle started "glassing" surfboards and sailboards for Blade in the late 80's early 90's
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| 8'6" Tri Fin |
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8'6" Double Winger
Squash Tail Tri Fin |
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| 8'4" Single fin pin tail |
Digging my windsurfing gear out
of storage and
easing myself back into windsurfing in
September 04
Let me start by saying – WIND and loads of it!!! GET IN…..
I was dozing comfortably in dream world in bed at seven in the morning when Tuc text to alert me that it was time to go fishing. There is nothing like being up with the sun for some early morning fishing. Maybe it is because the fish are just waking up themselves or maybe it is because it is so peaceful in the wee hours of the morning. Whatever it is, I’ve always been an early riser, so getting up before the sunrise simply comes naturally to me. 
Up early and along to The Fishing Tackle shop for some bits and bobs, via Tucs house to meet up with Gaz for a bacon sarni and coffee. Following some bacon rolls and the odd early morning gallon of pick me-up caffeine, the big kick-off to the fishing spot was on. Cartlines / L'Ancresse
