I started windsurfing summer of 1981 right behind my house on the island I grew up on in Florida. Windsurfing was something totally innovative and was just starting to be cool and become popular. Back then the only boards around were the Original plastic ‘Windsurfer’ brand boards with teak booms and metal universal joints. When the wind came up, you had to pull out the daggerboard and carry it on your arm as we blasted around. Wave jumping involved jumping a wave and then jumping off the board, because no one had invented foot straps yet.

One day in the early 1980’s someone brought a Windsurfer Newsletter to the beach and we perused it in wonderment as inside were pictures of Mike Waltze riding waves at Hookipa on a 7’6” surfboard with a small custom built sail on it. The magazine said he had to start sailing it by doing a “waterstart”. We scratched our heads as little did we know windsurfing as a sport was about to come into its glory days.

In those days windsurfing was about hanging out on the beach doing freestyle (old school rail rides and such) drinking beer and jammin’ out to Bob Marley. One-Design windsurf Racing became huge worldwide as the one design Windsurfer Board Class concept got everyone on the water at the same time regardless of the wind. To give you an idea, when I competed in the 1983 Windsurfer Worlds, we had over 1000 people racing at the same time in 4 different weight classes. An “Overall World Champion” title would be awarded to the windsurfer with the best combined results in Slalom, Freestyle, Course racing and a Long Distance race. Icons like Matt Schweitzer, Robby Naish, Ken Winner, Mike Waltze, Alex Aguera, Nevin Sayre, Scott Steele, Bruce Wyle, Phil Mcgain, Rhonda Smith, Kelby Anno and Lisa Neuberger all cut their competitive teeth on the Windsurfer One design board class.

Then windsurfing became an Olympic sport in the Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympics and the sport became legit worldwide. I watched from the sidelines as Stephen van den Berg, Scott Steele and Bruce Kendall fought it out (without harnesses) to become the first ever Olympic Windsurfing Medalists. After that amazing experience I got fired up to go win a medal myself and spent the next 16 years competing in the next 4 Olympics for the USA.

Just after the1988 Olympics where I won a Bronze, I signed my first professional contract and sealed the deal by shaking hands with ‘da man’ Mr. Neil Pryde himself. (Yes he is a real person) I went on to race in the PWA Tour and used my professional career to pay for my Olympic habit.

During my windsurfing career, an incredible amount of evolution has changed the sport dramatically. We started racing shortboards upwind, against long boards and beating them. We developed (One season I broke over 20 carbon booms and 20 carbon masts- all prototypes) the use carbon fiber masts, booms, started to develop pre-twisted monofilm sails and vacuum bagged custom boards with computer CNC’d fins. Back then a big fin was 13inches deep, now they are almost 3 times that length on a Formula board. On our first ever course slalom boards we could not use sails bigger than a 6.5 meter sail. Now some formula sailors like Anton Albeau will race his 10.7 in 35 knots. But the biggest development came from the innovative Svein Rasmussen who pioneered the wide boards that now make our sport so easy to learn.

We learned how to sail Hookipa with asymmetrical wave boards and tried to survive the mast high swells, until Jason Polakow showed up and showed us how a real symmetrical wave board (surfboard styled wave board) was supposed to be ridden. Now kids aere going for double forward loops at beaches worldwide. At the end of every year the equipment evolved so much that it was sometimes hard to believe that it was still the same sport.

The sport has come along way in the last 25 years. It became an Olympic Sport, a professional sport, and for the lucky addicts who seek the epic conditions, an extreme sport. Windsurfers have sailed 60-foot high waves and hold the outright speed record for any sailing craft. 48.7 knots! Windsurfing even allowed a kid to windsurf to freedom from Cuba to Florida and now he lives in the United States! We have wandered far from shore and there is no looking back.

At our 2001 Mistral Worlds a handful of the top Olympic Coaches put our collective minds together and dreamed up what we could do to stimulate ISAF to select a new Olympic Board Design for the 2012 Olympics. We knew at the November ISAF meeting in 2004, we would have the opportunity to vote on changing the Olympic windsurfing equipment. The end result, ISAF allowed us to hold two Olympic Windsurfing Evaluation Trials with manufacturers bringing prototypes to be tested and ultimately selected for use in the 2008 Olympics.

We tested all of the board/rig designs head to head in everything from 5 knots and flat water to standing waves and 30 knot gusts. In Lake Garda, Longboards, Formula and Hybrids all showed their strengths and weaknesses and it quickly became apparent that at the second and last ISAF Evaluation Trials the new Olympic board would have to be a Hybrid design. The new Hybrid boards had the perfect mix of Longboard light air daggerboard performance and Formula planning performance, ensuring quality racing no matter what the wind does.

The end result, ISAF selected the Neil Pryde RS:X to be the Olympic One-design Board for the 2008 Olympics. The RS:X offered the best all round performance and won the selection hands down. At the end of the day the RS:X One–Design Class will be the stimuli needed to help build up the racing side of the sport again. This is a board than can be raced in non-planning conditions and can hold its own in up to 35 knots when sailed well, all the time using one sail size. Men use the 9.5 and the women 8.5 meter sails.

It’s also a high volume board that is less weight sensitive than the last Olympic board so many of the heavier pro sailors like Wojtec and Gonzalo will be fighting for medals against the reigning 2004 Medalists Gal Fridman, Nikolaos Kaklamanakis, if he doesn’t retire and Nick Dempsey in Beijing in 2008.

Now that the new RS:X Hybrid Olympic board has been chosen, more windsurfers than ever are starting up Olympic Campaigns. This is a big step forward for the sport of windsurfing and will do nothing but help to build the grass roots base back. But probably the coolest thing is that Neil Pryde Ltd. is supporting many RS:X Regattas by ensuring Charter Boards are available for rent at the major events worldwide. In the past, the Charter Board concept allowed windsurfing to grow steadily as weekend warriors could fly to regattas with just their harness and wetsuit, rent a board and go race.

I look forward to meeting all of you at one of the RS:X regattas worldwide. I look forward to congratulating the new Olympic Windsurfing champion in Beijing, China in 2008. And I look forward to the challenge of building up a new Olympic Windsurfing Class and to seeing more people than ever windsurfing. Change is never easy to make but I am sure the new RS:X will bring more people into the sport of windsurfing worldwide.

Neil Pryde has been on the forefront of windsurfing development since its inception. The RS:X will be a valuable tool to allow windsurfers around the world to get on the water and push their limits against each other. Whether you have Olympic aspirations or just want to get wet, I look forward to answering your questions on this forum as we all learn how to ride the new RS:X well and sail it fast.

See you on the water,

Michael ‘Gebi’ Gebhardt

Gebi currently Coaches 2004 Olympic Windsurfing Gold Medalist, Gal Fridman and Current World Speed Sailing Record holder- Finian Maynard. Gebi’s professional windsurfing career has spanned the last 25 years. He has competed in over 270 regattas (4 Olympics) winning an Olympic Bronze and Silver Medal, 6 World Championships and 22 National championships in One-design, Olympic, Open Class and Professional Windsurfing events. His windsurfing accomplishment have given him a vast range of experiences worldwide; from doing the ‘Late Night with David Letterman Show” to having lunch with 3 different US Presidents.

We look forward to working with Gebi and letting the www.neilpryde.com Forum become a ‘cyber beach’ to allow the flow and dissemination of RS:X information within the windsurfing community.

Quelle: Neil Pryde