Look what I've turned up....and I thought they were lost forever.
A selection, no, a veritable smorgasbord of early 80's "high-tech" fins from MultiFins who were based at Byron Bay at the time.
My favourite was the white "otter-fin" dog-leggy thing. It never spun out when jumping and landing at speed and it drew so little water it was great for beach starts! With hindsight maybe there's an issue with drag...possibly. Just a bit.
The blue "anti-cavitation" one used to go OK as well but I think it used to lose the plot at higher speeds. Remember that the sailboard speed record in 1984 was about 27 knots..so high speeds then were somewhat different from those today.
I still have the MacTavish wave jumper, a tri-fin that has survived 28 years of storage. Even the cockroaches couldn't kill it.
Anyone else remember using these old fin styles?

This first one might have been part of a Viking ship....yikes!





My old favourite "otter-fin" dog-leggy one. Futuristic.

Cleaning out underneath the house the other day and finally came to terms with saying goodbye to my gear from 1986 . In the picture is a Bombora South Pacific (which weighs around 15kgs), a custom fibreglass board made by a local sailor Russel McCamley with 90degree rails the entire length of board, a Gaastra 5.8 Speed Slalom sail, a 4.5 North Slalom Spider (by D Ezzy), a plastic Multi-fin from Byron Bay with the mother of all chord widths and two very narrow tie-on booms.

Brought back many fond memories and made me realise I had lost 20 precious years that I had given the sport away.







Also found this press clipping from Dec 30 1986 of me sailing the custom slalom board and gaastra sail - the most carefree days of my life just after finishing school and before starting uni. Tried to defer uni so I could sail forever but alas my dreams were cut short.



Apologies if I have bored anyone to death with my reminiscing.