A beginning

I've been looking to get back into sailboarding following a break of more than 10 years. When I left the sport, my sailing club (Elwood Sailing Club near Melbourne Australia) had regular Saturday afternoon longboard racing on sailing courses which we shared with the dinghy's. It was a popular activity, usually with 10-20 sailboaders turning up each week. There were a couple of really good sailors and the result of us were in it for the fun and the challenge of actually finishing.

However, over the intervening years this form of the sport appears to have largely died out, perhaps due to cost, perhaps due to the introduction of the Formula class; perhaps due to the invention of kite-sailing; or maybe because of the popularity of computers and home theatre systems?

However, it would appear that a resurgence in the sport may be underway with some of major sailboard manufacturers now producing racing longboards. Notable amongst these is the Exocet Warp-X by Kona Windsurfing and the Phantom 380 by Starboard Products. The Phantom Race 380 looks like a particularly good board, having won the 2007 RaceBoard World championships fairly convincingly.

I've looked into purchasing either of the Warp-X and Phantom Race, but both, unfortunately lie outside of my current budget, particularly when you factor in the cost of the rig (I'm starting from scratch, having sold all of my old gear off a decade ago to make a house repayment!). Additionally, both boards are difficult to get in Australia at the current time although delivery of the Warp-X does appear less problematic. Apparently only two Phantom Race boards are being made available for the Australian market this year (maybe). In this regard, I'm led to understand that some positive souls put a deposit down on a 380 last year and no deliveries were made.

Because of my limited budget, and because of the apparent delivery difficulties, I have decided to build a raceboard from scratch. This is done with the knowledge that such a board will not be ISAF registered and thus cannot formally race against other modern longboards. To be honest I don't think this is an issue for the next sailing season, because it is basically going to be me against the sailing dingies and perhaps one or two sailboarders who might be convinced to dust off their old raceboards and have a sail. In any event, half of the fun will be designing and building the board.

So that is an introduction to what I'm intending to do. The next stage is to research the best board design and the best (and most practical) construction techniques.

Wish me luck!