AUS02 said...
Al, that is pretty vintage! Going quick too. Never actually sailed a Dromedary, but have seen a few. If they were made out of carbon and given a good fin they'd give the designs of today a run for their money!!
Its was long long time ago, my memories are a little hazy but the drom was definitely a step up from the windsurfer in windy conditions. Mostly I remember that it was pretty flexy which was good for smoothing out the chop but probably meant that it was quite slow which was a good thing in the 25 to 35 kt westerlies at Stanley. They also had lots of problems with delamination, probably caused by the excessive flex and the lack of reinforcement around the mast base.
While the board almost looks recognizable with the mast base well back from the nose, the sail is from another planet and has more in common with a traditional Arab sailing dhow.
There was so much flex in those rigs that there was a substantial time lag from the point when you sheeted in to the moment when acceleration was created. It was all ultra low tech but still pretty user friendly compared to the early fun board rigs that came later that were heavy, rigid and, unless you were built like Dunkerbeck, almost unusable.
I have just found some photos from a session at Goats in Dec 1982 with Mark Paul and when I work out how to transfer them from slide format I will post them.
A carbon Bombora dromadary just seems wrong but......I remember sailing the waves at Burnie yacht club at an event organized by John Van der Wood and some Dutch dude turned up with a hollow Kevlar board that weighed less than 10 KGs!!! and had a cute windmill emblazoned across the sail...crazy times.
i wont post any thing my oldest pic is from 2006,so not that old
