what ever happened to the original windsurfer?
As we mentioned above, once upon a time in America, there was only one kind of windsurfer available, the trademarked “Windsurfer”. Hundreds of thousands were sold and by the mid ’80s they began to disappear. Was it global warming? Did a giant meteorite come down and wipe them out as possibly happened to the dinosaurs? Correspondent Scott Carter of the LA Windsurf Club wrote in the windsurfing newsgroup: Back to Windsurf History 201, Windsurfing International went out of business in early ’87. Hoyle Schweitzer refused to modernize his designs, construction and equipment. One Design faded away because the board no longer filled a niche. Once an individual learned how to windsurf- he/she wanted to have more fun in more wind. You could not do that with a One Design – like the ol’ Hobie Cat, it was designed for another era. Jim Drake invented it and Hoyle Schweitzer built and sold it. Europeans made the sport popular world wide. The Hawaiians and Californians and Europeans each had a hand i
