Either John Giles or Bruce Wiley.

wow, there is windsurfing name I have not heard for a long time...Gun sailor...anyone know if he is still sailing?

JonesySail said..

wow, there is windsurfing name I have not heard for a long time...Gun sailor...anyone know if he is still sailing?

Last I heard he had turned to the dark side.

A very young 'Hedge' competing in the 2NX Wave Competition held at Newcastle Beach in January 1985. Even at this stage he already was one 'gun' wave sailor. Note the Bombora board & Gaastra sail of that period. How the times have changed !

robhow2 said..

A very young 'Hedge' competing in the 2NX Wave Competition held at Newcastle Beach in January 1985. Even at this stage he already was one 'gun' wave sailor. Note the Bombora board & Gaastra sail of that period. How the times have changed !

Was that comp part of Surfest robhow2?

Was that comp part of Surfest robhow2?

The surf event at Dixon Park was part of an Australia Day long weekend windsurfing regatta.
We raced Division 11 boards at Warners Bay on the Saturday, had the wave event on the Sunday and followed up that
with a Div 11 marathon race back at Lake Macquarie on the Monday. A very busy weekend !
The whole event was sponsored by the Newcastle radio station 2NX. Whether the wave event was part of Surfest is
something I'm not sure of, although I can't recall regular surfers being participants on this day.

Darvio said..

Where do I get an old Bombora Proto like that?

Kimbriki tip.

This is a little off topic, but interesting anyway.

Hedgie rode Mike Davis (MD) wave and slalom boards for for several years in the late 1980s. MD was based in Kiama-not far from Gerroa. A few other up and coming sailors rode MD as well. MD boards had the reputation on the South Coast of NSW as being dogs generally, and few of the local sailors used them.

In 88 Bruce Kendall came over to Australia with a very new style of slalom board, relatively gentle lines and softer rails that was a huge departure from the very boxy/square boards many shapers were doing at the time. Kendall left the competition for dead on this board. Kendall's board had been shaped by someone named Green. Another South Coast shaper took a keen interest in Kendall's board, took it back to his workshop to look more closely at rocker lines, rail shape etc and started making his boards along these more gentle lines. He (and his customers) found they performed far better than the old boxy designs. He made one of the boards and gave it to Pederson to take to a big slalom competition in Japan. I was with the shaper as Pederson was discussing how well the board had performed, soon after his return from Japan. As Pederson was locked in to the deal with MD at the time he was unable to switch to the supplier.

This is probably some years before the Pederson racing thing.