guessing its a custom regatta sail made with some sort of scrim mylar.

Like in real estate, notice the more money you pay the closer to the water you can get with more room around you!! Most of the fibros (Wally's) seem to be shoved to the back and packed in like sardines. I was taking piccies at this event and had my first glimpse of the PanAm, it was jaw dropping gorgeous. I sold my Sailboard Free (Fun?) 3 years or so before this event, it looked like the third board down from the top right of the pic (except it was red/blue stripe). Squared off tail, twin fin, footstraps and flat top sail not too dissimilar to todays sails. I dragged (it was heavy) this down into Longy and jumped my first wave on it....and got rescued by the Dee Why rubber ducky coz I didn't know how to waterstart and I was getting perilously close to the rocks at their end. Yes I drifted that far and was buggered. It was too rough to uphaul! The shame. Fark they were good times.

You could be right about classes, Grant or Al might remember...fellas? Dunno if it was this event or the Dash for Cash ones but some of the boards at the front had their sails suspiciously moving when no others were just before the Le Mans style start starting gun went off.

Hey, nice to see a pic of me and my first D2! Stubbies, obviously, because that was the event with the triangular sail sticker, but I can't recall the year. Looking at the sail I had, it could have been '85. That mylar sail on a D2 some have commented about could have been Robert Nagy from France, multiple world champ. He won from Lach Gilbert, then Jess Crisp or Rob Howard and me. Does the bigger version of the pic show any other D2s? Their insignia and number could help ID the year. The Open Class went first, then the One Designs. That was why the Wallies are at the back. "was taking piccies at this event and had my first glimpse of the PanAm, it was jaw dropping gorgeous." That reminds me, I must clean up my Naish custom version of that board; obviously I'm biased but I think it's the most beautiful board ever made! :-)

Chris, probably was a 1984 event, but definitely a Stubbies marathon was held in January 1985. The two photos are from the the 1985 event, pre race. In January 1987 it was called the Mirror Marathon and I won that on the OD.

blokes hairdo's have come full circle

Can small modern sails be used with wallys? Any need to use footstraps, because I've noticed in most photos they are missing?

Great to stumble across this photo - and funny to see Chris249's D2 right in the centre. I was in that race somewhere on his Cobra Race with a soft Gaastra 6.8 - bad choice - should have used my D2 rig with so much upwind work in the light breeze. A fun and funny day, at the first mark logjam you could have walked 20m without getting your feet wet! So many summer Sunday afternoons at Palm Beach looked almost like this - coming back in from a sail and not being able to find any vacant beach - hard to imagine now.

No problems using a moden sail on a wally and you don,t need footstraps Dad and daughter with a 7.5

Nice shot and memory Kato I have plans for pics like that with my kids -now 6 and 9 respectively. I'll have to track down a big old board for those light wind days for some sand flat cruising with the kids.

Testing the memory bank on this one, but here goes. It's a home made dual rig open class 'board' that belonged to the guys at SBS (Snow Business Sports) sailboard shop in Sylvania. Daryl & Paul ran the shop in the 80's but it no longer exists there now. A heavy & cumbersome 'sailboard' that never lived up to its potential. Had a turning circle greater than that of the Manly ferry ! Not entirely sure, but it may have also competed in the various Peter Jackson events that were run in the 80's for what is even in to-days money very large cash prizes. The single sail 'dart' type displacement boards were the ones be on in those events.

Seeing the reference to 'home made' booms - we used to 'Progrip' the 32mm straight tube and lash one end to a Volkswagen front bumper, then just bend it around. I guess it was 6063 to be that soft, but they worked fine - and the ideal curve to fit our Reef ends. Making gear was normal - fun times.

You're right, that's the Porsche sail, can't see the board though. I've never seen a Porsche sailboard in Australia.

Yeah Doug, Mylar all the rest are Dacron 3.8 oz, same weight sail cloth as a Laser sail.... somethings never change.