Ok that part where you just pass the competition in a straight line with a board that’s a least 20 years older that was just epic!

I had this very board in my garage for decads and could not sell it. Nobody wanted to buy it. With the help and reference of this video I could finally sell it...hahaha. Thanks for that Maciek!

"Not that far off for a 20 year board", so wait, you were close to the speed of a state of the art modern board after you rode the mistral board for like what, one hour? That sounds pretty good actually.

Great content Maciek! I quit windsurfing in the late 90's. Last board was a 9ft 105l, 54cm wide, super hard rails, straps way out on the rails combined with a 6 cam deep luff sleeve Hot sails. The board when powered was fast as hell and incredible downwind until you caught a rail. Never bailed that hard in my life. Broke 2 booms in one season and almost drowned trying to waterstart that sail. Been starting back into the sport and really appreciate content like this to help understand what the improvements are or how much the gap is. Your 90 sail video was especially helpful.

This exactly what I was asking for on Nico's and Ben's channels few days ago and you post this video. Absolute legend mate!

Great video, I’m just getting back into windsurfing after a 25 yr break. Interesting to listen to the comments about the differences.

Just the past couple of days, it was really windy (25-30+) out here on the south shore of Oahu, so I decided to take out the old, old-school board that I'd last used at the Gorge 14 years ago. It's about 10 litres less volume and much narrower than anything I'd been sailing out here in Hawaii, so I wasn't sure what would happen. It was indeed a struggle to get it out to the windline, but once I was out there, it sailed really nice. I was able to keep control of it much easier in those high-wind bumpy conditions than any other board I have, (and I have five, two of which are sitting in the garage collecting dust.) I blew some jibes, but at my age (63) I don't really care and don't fight it any more if things go wonky. i had tons of fun, which at this point is all that really matters. This shaper, Brian Hinde, hasn't changed his design much in 35 years of shaping boards, and always had a reputation for building fast, tough but easy to sail boards. Still true. It will go with me when I go to Maui sometime once we're past these covid travel restrictions. I don't care how old it makes me look.

Yassss. Brilliant video Maciek. We all love our modern kit whether wave, slalom or freestyle but for those of us who used to sail in the olden days 🤣 it’s cool to compare the old kit to new. Great video showing real sailing and real comparison - nice edit too. All my kit is wave gear but I recently bought an F2 Sputnik 275 World Cup Edition paired with an old 6.5 F2 Arrows race sail. Plan is to take them for a blast somewhere flat and see how fast we can get the Sputnik to go. More videos like this please dude. 🤙🤙

Brilliantly made video! Thanks

Awesome video man! Really shows how talented of a sailor you are that you can still race and win with an older board like that.

Great Video, well done ! The intro pictures are epic. I had a SLE myself and i prayed before every Jibe ;-)

"I have no idea where to put the base plate" hahha this video is entertaining for sure.

Thanks for the video. was fun to watch testing new vs old school

Great video. A lot of fun to see stuff like. Was racing when that board came out, just before the Drops FL10 flapper. Remember Mistral had a course edition and it complety failed against the Drops FL10. Still have a dream of trying Dunkis equipment from fx 96

Love your work, this was a great idea and you did a fair test with gps numbers, etc. Camera man was great with those zoomed in shots too. Good to see more tests/footage like this.

Awesome video and test. I still have fun on my old plastic Tiga 157 when it is really windy!

Sometimes I ride my 1992 Fanatic Mega Jag 270 and yeah it is still pretty fast for a old-timer.

Super video! It would be a great idea indeed to get a full rig from the nineties and try it, maybe not in competition, but as a comparison test. The fins, wishbones masts and most importantly the sails will be sooo different. That would be extremely interesting. I am under the impression that, unlike many autosport fans, young windsurfers are not so much in touch with the past. A test with a full oldskool rig without anything modern on it would open many youngster’s eyes an even have some educational value. Great job! Go for it man!

Great video mate! I almost forgot how technical were old slalom boards, still missing my old Copello red line slalom board.... Keep rocking, great Channel!

Awesome video and comparison, restarted surfing a couple of years ago on modern gear, a new world it is.

Amazing to See this! Old stuff can Go fast🤣🤟 Made my day Bro😄🤙

So much fun watching this video!!

It's a good thing to think about the jibe while competing ! I think the show was much better back in the 90's ! Surely I prefer a modern board, but it's a really nice job to get out on an old narrow board from then to remember how good these guys were on them ! Remember Dunckerbeck jibing those in the chop... who can do it with the same level of control ? Well done mate !

Great job. The SLE basically was a Mistral Scremer. I had a Mistral Screamer and I was totally in awe

Wonderful video. Really nice. I'd love to have your impressions about the full 90's equipment. For my part, I windsurfed in the 90's, then stopped and picked it up 2 years ago. Everything seems so incredibly easier. Before, the boards would hit the chop so much harder. And the wave sails were so unstable. Sailing now feels like sitting on the sofa compared to the time. Anyway. Brilliant video.

Hi Maciek, very good idea! I remember the board... I had a SLE 290... a real rocket... very light, ultra fast, monster hard feeling on choppy conditions, very sharp grip on the deck... hard but good work to sail fast:-)

Nice video Maciek, thumbs up!!

Great video mate! Very funny! Thank you!

What interests me most about this is that boards have clearly got easier to sail as well as faster. I've still got all my old 90s gear but haven't used it for about a decade. Maybe I ought to invest in some newer gear. When I saw where windsurfing was going in the early noughties (freeride, softer rails etc) I thought it was a backlash against the 90s dedicated slalom boards that so few could gybe without swimming and boards had been detuned speed wise for ease of use. Some of us invested a great deal of effort learning how to lay down gybe those old boards, so wanted to keep sailing the old gear we knew. I also wonder if there was a period in the early noughties when a new slalom board would be slower than your last one due to the marketing influence- manufacturers realising they must make the sport easier and broaden the appeal? But interesting to see that the kit has now overtaken completely in both pleasure of use and speed.

Cool stuff Maciek, your experiment replies a big question I still had about "evolution" in windsurfing, with a little old school training and ideal conditions it looks like you would beat a modern field with a 1999 quiver !

So happy to find your YT channel. I love your comparision of these new and old School boards. Please keep the content coming . P.S. Love your WIndsurfing TV podcast but Epsidoe 20 was by far and away the best one :-)

Like to see Maciek blasting other guys with the old board😂😂

Maciek, you should have a look at a funboard from the mid 80s, from the french manufacturer BIC. It's design is quite similar to your modern gear. It was quite popular under very young surfers back then, but the large board manufacturers did not notice the advantages in agility and good nature of that design, so far ahead of it's time. So they needed at least 25 years to achieve a board design, which mainly already existed in the mid 80s in the BIC funboard.

Good for windsurfing that guys like you and Nico rock the oldies. It might help some people into the sport without having to spend a lot of money from day 1. In the long run, this will help the sport and the industry move forward.. keep it going Maciek!! 🤙

Great video Maciek!

nice ..I love it..the best reality check on old chool stuff.

not a PWA level - hahaha, local boys will not like it.. excellent job as always, fun to watch. see you around one day, btw. carpenter has one carbon slalom beauty from 90-ties to give it a go..

I have the exact same board and still ride it on flat days. Jibing is really tricky , you have to push the rail gently at start till it bites and then apply pressure. Also planning needs to be powered up due to the thin tail. It is also a bit dangerous on the ankles you can easily twist then if not careful.

Maciek you are as crazy for windsurfing as me! Great show!

f2 Peter Thommen!!!! Good old days...

A good balanced overview I think you’ve achieved here...but one thing I’d like to say... cost of gear today is beyond too many young people’s reach, whereas, they can pick up for peanuts old stuff that they should be able to learn on plenty well enough as stepping stones to more expensive equipment later! I’m 73 and started on cheap kit at the age of 40, and by 45 I was sailing top spots around the world on the sort of gear you show in your video, with, I may add , sails,masts,etc, that worked in perfect harmony with the boards of that era too! So come on good man...encourage people to buy good old kit to start up on and have fun, just like we did back then!? ATB..Nigel

cool vlog! The jibe from Bjorn though... omg!! 0:30

I love this video :-) So fun!

Great video . Really liked the idea

Nice video. I was going to try out an old 275cm freeride and 4 cam sail from 1996 but couldn't even get the cams to stay on the mast whilst rigging up. I gave up. I then remembered why I didnt use that sail much. Now the 275cm board wont even fit in my current van. I guess the bottom shape of the Mistral is a lot flatter. Did you look at the speed for the alpha? 500m with a gybe. I bet that showed up a large difference than top speed.

Lol I’ve still got a similar board 1998 mint condition. Really struggled with the jibes. Glad it wasn’t just me.

Thats what we raced ( i’m in my fifty`s now ) 🤙

Pads actually started showing up in the late 80s, first as an add-on, later as standard equipment. I believe the slalom boards were the last ones to get them, I don't really remember if my RRD proto from -95 had them but I think so. My guess is that the SLE came without pads just to save a few grams, weight was a big selling point back then.

Hey and Yeah, it is a cool board, I was surfing the SLE as limited edition in white color. Hard to turn, but speed is great and even if you loof into the wind, other boards cannot follow you.

Cool, interesting to see how the boards stacked up against each other. The Mistral was definitely bogging down out of the gybe but still held its own. Comparing them in a race was cool. Loved it...

the age of sigar racing. The age that seperated the boys from real man :D :D :D :D Nice seeing you also try it in a heat!

You're always at the front edge. You always know what kind of stuff excite windsurfing people. You easily win at this game. Very hard to find in good shape, some of most performant 90's boards were Mistral Energy, Drops 272, Copello 275, F2 Thommen 270, RRD 281....

This shows that if you just want some flat water lake blasting and pure fun you could easily get that on a very cheap secondhand board from eBay. In the UK they sell for under £100 quite often.

Now I don´t feel so bad about my old equipment in the Garage (but my wife...). Of course those modern boards are better overall, but you can be competitive, especially, when really used to it after a couple of days of adapting. I think it may be as much fun if not more when mastering the challenges in jibing it, what we did well back in the days.

My mistrial eruption from 93 is still scary fast

Very interesting experiment. The last time I bought a true slalom board was an RRD in 1997, I remember it was an absolute bitch to gybe, but the extra length meant it "ironed" chop pretty well. However, I have not ridden a modern one, so in no position to compare. Sails of today are also really different to back then

To be able to beat all the other guys on a 20yo board says a lot more about the rider than the board. He's just that good.

Started "Sailboarding" in 1983. Drove to Key West Florida to buy a Mistral "Tarifa" from the dealer. 10' 10" that could do it all. I would like to see that in epoxy and carbon fiber. It was a great start into the short boards of that era. That is Old School in my mind because you didn't call them Windsurfers unless the were the brand of such. Nice video. Your accent is just like the Amish down my road here in Northern New York.

The biggest difference between them is how the board/fin combos work. As you say older combos make up speed narrowing the board and new ones works with more momentum on the tail because they use softer/bigger fins that gives you much more lift to fly over the water. Older boards are quite fin sensible too, it's obvious if you try a very tuned up board/fin combo it'll has better performance and feeling . It'll be interesting to test both with their respective age rigs in different conditions like flat water, mid chop and voodoo chop as well !!! BTW, if you take a look of the 90' sails you'll note how different they worked, having more powerful, light y flattish sails

Awesome 💪💪💪

Footpads were not always standard on new boards, you bought them separate and glued them on yourself.

Where does the clips at the beginning come from? Awesome!

Thanks for video, can you try same board with best fin and sail from that same era, the modern fin and modern sail you Used made that old board work much better. 😀

Nice video, cheers.

Great honest video , Maciek showed the old board as it is. Not as good as a modern one but not as total crap. Boards have not changed that much but they have. Also you can compare old boards to new ones since they can keep theirform and performance over long time. That can not be said for sails as they loose their shape with time. So it was fair to test it with a modern sail. Have change to a new wave board after 15 years without windsurfing in the waves and it is so much more easier to windsurf, that i can keep the level i had 15 years ago.

Great video ! Compare more oldschool new school

One downvote by the guy who refuses to upgrade his Mistral. Great video - you at that first jibe mark was everybody in the 90s. I had a mid 90s slalom board and it set back my jibes 5 years.

Fantastic!!!!!

0:05 Robert Teriitehau and Roby Naish at Palais Omnisport de Paris Bercy, France.

Cool video! This Mistral SLE 105 L model was my first board to get feet in the footstraps first time on year 1999. Was quite tricky but when I was able to "stay in the saddle", I was the fastest guy on the stright line then. Still have this board and ride it time-to-time when the modern gear starts to feel too easy and boring. With speed fin it's usable also for some amateur speed action. Works best with the sail from the same era (like NP VX2 i.e.).

Świetny materiał.

The Sle came without pads. I had bic carbon 299 and 279 in -98 Still got the 279 and the 6.6 north iq sail...

Minute 3 pads were meant to protect the board from heel dents!

You should have tried the Kinetic 276 from mit 90ies,, the best medium slalom board of the 90ies!

Dobry film!

great!!

I have a Tiga slalom board from that Era carbon epoxy they only made 25

great clip

"No pads on this board. ... Not sure if they were not around." hahahah

Maciek - In video fin and straps look to be same distance from backs of boards, but hard to tell, did you measure?

at 6:50 is this the forgiveness of a modern sail in overpowered conditions (looking at the top)? I really need to try out a modern board. These guys seem to have it way easy!

Try the Chapter fibreglass boards from the early 80’s 315 pintail winger and 270 swallow tail, with Gaastra non foiled sails! Then you’ll walk in our shoes 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻🤓

btw you should test the mistral stinger1991 , easy gibe don't worry !. myself used bic electric rock that time and won haha

Interesting! More of this.

Great test. Interesting that you can achieve such a high speed. Thank god for easier gear these days. When teaching windsurfing I want pupils to: 1) quickly move on to a size smaller 2) feel the speed 3) not use dad's old gear.

Good Mr.

Good old fast Mistral board

So my Epoxy Seatrend 8’8” with carbon Fin Works Larry Tuttle fin isn’t a POS. It even has pads.

A Mistral!? Not a bad board but an F2 Sputnik 270 II would have been so much better

Fajny ten żagielek 7.0 :D

Może jakiś film porównujący zawodników PWA do zawodników olimpijskich? Ciekawi mnie to strasznie jakie są różnice

What are the weight differences?

Its all about familiarity with the board. The two boards gybe a bit differently. Get used to them and they are not much different. The wider boards carry a bit more speed in/out the gybe. They DON'T plane better just faster.

Krennnnnnnn Mantapppp 😁😁😁

Jiiiiihaaaaaaa🥳🤙

Now you have to get your hand on winning custom from the nineties and compare it to both production boards. In all interviews, they said there was a huge gap in performance between custom and production. Let's see how much ? What if you could find one the board from KP's Czech/Californian shaper that contributate to defeat the terminator ???

Nice video, however by 1996 there were much better board than that Mistral SLE with soft pads and other features, like the F2 Axxis or the Ride. I think that was one of the last mistral built before Robbie Naish step into the door to make better quality stuff.

na początku myślałem, że trochę spóźniłeś się gdyż Nico wypuścił dziś rano podobny content ale jednak zmiażdżyłeś go :)

perfect comparison!! I pissed off many users with brand new board because of your video. Especially when I overtake them with my 24year old Mistral Flow 103l :-) What is speed difference between Invictus and SLE?Did you say 0,5 or 1,5knt? What about mast comparison?I tried 30% and 100% carbon mast in slalom sail with same speed..have you ever tried it?thx

It was great if you could test the same generation of sails, the ones without the "flat head" we are seeing today