Windsurf · One design boom
1977
The first Open World Championship starts an arms race
For the first time any board may race; European designs beat the ten-year-old Windsurfer, and brands begin to compete on technology.
Open
1977 Open World Championship, Jamaica: any board allowed
Until the mid-seventies nearly everyone sailed the same board. According to one estimate, about nine in ten windsurfers in 1975 used the original Windsurfer; the rest used home-made boards or products beyond the reach of the patent. That changed quickly. By 1981 there were a hundred producers around the world.
Open races, in which any board could compete, showed who had the better design. The first Open World Championship was held in Jamaica in 1977, and the Hawaiian group came too, funded by the new brand Mistral. The Dutch sailor Derk Thijs won on a German Windglider, with French and German designs in the other podium places. The European boards clearly outperformed the original Windsurfer, whose plastic construction was by then ten years old.
Winning an open race was proof of better technology and a sales argument. An equipment race between the brands began, pushing the sport towards lighter, faster and more specialised gear.