Yellow is the trend colour of the season, at least in the Wave test. In addition to the legendary F2 Wave 250 (the one with the kite!), the majority of the other test candidates are also bright yellow. There are no real marks in the test - 14 days of over-hacking do not allow for a balanced assessment, so it remains with type recommendations, as is usual today. The boards cover everything from strong wind expert models to good-natured boards for wave beginners. The sail brands almost universally have two models in the range - one with power, the other more manoeuvre-oriented. In the Gran Canaria hack, the cloths are used with just four square metres, while the ranges of the sail brands are scratching the six-square-metre mark for the first time.
Waveboard weighing less than four kilos
Jürgen Hönscheid has built an ultra-light wave board weighing just 3.85 kilos, surf tester Rainer Troppmann was allowed to test ride it. The handling on land is suboptimal, in strong winds it is hardly possible to put the board down. The rig is significantly heavier than the board, but the tester is delighted with the ride. Opinions differ on the extreme lightweights: "Extreme lightweights are something for super chatterboxes on Lake Garda" say some, while shaper Hönscheid says: "If it were possible to make a board weighing one kilo, then I would build one!"
Windsurfing or sex?
"What's so cool about windsurfing?" surf asked six advertising agencies to design a campaign for the sport in general. S.YN from Austria, who were also responsible for F2's appearance, kicked things off in the November/December issue. The Salzburg-based company provided a provocative motif: vibrator, condom and windsurf board next to each other, with the slogan "Aren't we all a bit addicted to pleasure?" underneath.
You can click through the entire magazine in the gallery above!
And what else?
- Germany's largest surf retailer Baltic Kölln is bankrupt, a hoped-for investor from Russia suddenly jumped ship. Owner Michael Kölln loses 18 branches because "the smart yuppie forgot to do the maths", costing the industry around 3 million marks.
- The second season of "Against the Wind" is coming up, surf asks the producer for more realistic surfing scenes: "The surfers among the viewers will be much happier with the second and third seasons."
- To remove water from sandwich boards, Andy Schmahl and Timo Reinhold from Sylt have converted a VW van into a board centrifuge with the help of the Sylt loading ramps and a home-made rim. The board is strapped onto the rim, the van is jacked up on the ramp and then the whole thing spins in third gear.
- surf has recently gone online and readers are delighted with the site. The only criticism: The many pictures (loading time!) and no live cam from the Sylt World Cup.
- During the wave test on Gran Canaria, Björn Dunkerbeck suddenly turns up at the Vargas test spot and puts on an incredible show for two hours. In an interview, he raves about his favourite spot: "On a good day, it's world class!" Has two-year-old Philipp, who will later grow up to be world-class right on the beach, been watching?
- Today, almost every windsurfer knows the advantages of Bonaire. In 1996, surf editor Josh Welz introduced the spots at Lac Bay. Then as now, it was the ideal flat water spot that would produce many outstanding freestylers in the following years
- At the Soulwave in Klitmøller, Francisco Goya stands a double loop, at the Worldcup Sylt Jason Polakow wins in wave riding, Björn Dunkerbeck in racing - where North and Simmer show two new sail concepts.
More surf reviews:
- These were the highlights in surf 4/1979
- These were the highlights in surf 4/1981
- These were the highlights in surf 9/1984
- These were the highlights in surf 8/1986
- These were the highlights in surf 8/1988
- These were the highlights in surf 4/1990
- These were the highlights in surf 3/1992
- These were the highlights in surf 4/1994
- These were the highlights in surf 7/1997
