Dunkerbeck on Starboard ??

Just noticed Bjorn Dunkerbeck's registered and riding Starboard Isonic's in the latest PWA event in Alacati !
What's going on ? Can't he get hold of any Carbon Art's ?

Dunky's on Thommens isn't he?

kinda off topic here..a friend of mine read an article somewhere and explained that winning 35championships and a dozen world titles was because he was the only sailor that was fully sponsored from fin to boom during his time and if Albeau was on the same era the latter would have beaten him easily..i don't really believe this and was only someone's opinion

I think your mate's well off beam, 747.

In those days, lots of guys were heavily sponsored. In Dunkie's first year, Robby was one of the few good guys not driving around in a new Audi - because he was racing his own Porsche back home. Still, he hired (well, maybe it was bought) a nice black 911 for the Euro season.

Pretty sure the car in Naish's garage in TWSM is some old school american muscle car, like an old Vette. It's certainly not a Porsche, imo.

Hey AUS003 get your own picture!!!!!!!

Bjorn's boards probably didn't arrive in Turkey in time to register?????

Albeau was a pryde team sailor from around 1994 onward. He was getting better every year towards the end of the nineties.
While he is an unbelievable sailor and the dominant sailor now, he was competing against Dunkerbeck when dunky was untouchable.
It has been ten years since Dunkerbeck retired from serious racing, so he is no where near as hungry or as well supported as in the nineties and probably not as motivated compared to then. But he is still hugely talented so anyone has to work hard to beat him but it is now very possible.

Dunkerbeck was also untouchable as he had the best gear with full support financially and gear-wise far in excess of the other sailors. (He would get first choice of the sails while the rest of the team got the leftover custom sails.) Towards the end of the nineties the gap was smaller as other sailors started getting more support - ie Kevin P and the team.
I believe the ability of other sailors to beat Bjorn now is also due to the gear limitations of having to register set gear and ride production stuff. This has made racing a bit more even so that talent starts to really show more than finance.
I believe that dunky in his prime on stock kit vs Albeau on stock kit would be great exciting racing as it is now but Dunky would be more dominant in his "machine" phase of the mid nineties.

In a time line Albeau is now where Bjorn was around '97 at a very high level after around 10 years of serious racing on the tour. It was a shame racing died for 4 or so years cause Prichard could of had a few years of winning before Albeau really took off.
Micah is today to Albeau what Anders was to Bjorn - very good but not quite good enough to win overall.

All my opinion of course and open for debate.

there both all-around sailors but i'd go for the 'machine' for his build was made for windsurfingnonetheless both don't really have freeriding abilities

Yeah upon reflection you're right. From there side view of the car i'd say 99% no way but when you see it from the top it'd definitely a Porsche.

/way off topic again :P

Bjorn has always ridden different brands for the bigger boards, as I believe the Thommens are struggling for speed in the bigger sizes (>125l etc). Not really anywhere to test lightwind slalom gear in Pozo!!

Last year in Turkey he registered an F2 XXL slalom board and its not suprising to see him on some Starboards this year, as they are the fastest boards this season I believe. I havent seen the gear list but I think you'll find he's on his Thommen small boards when (if) it gets windy in Alacati.

Looks like most of the races have been done on 10m's!

A bit of background to all of this..

crew laughed when the Starboard Go board first came out around 99 - they said - you'll never sell those - in fact some distributors refused to stock them.

result: The best selling board in the world today. And alot of stoked windsurfers!

And Start boards were also created out of this to make learning windsurfing easier than ever before - other manufacturers openly panned Starboard's policy of taking Low margins on Start boards to create a bigger windsurfing base - even if this was to their gain with some long run thinking.

The Go concept also ended up making designers think about width and drag

Result: A whole new school of wave boards that plane up super early, are loose as and rotate awesomely in the air - something i once thought would be impossible to achieve in a board over 70 litres. Every manufacturer now makes one of these - just about all of them panned these designs when they first arrived

The fish 95 is still a classic to this day!

Not to mention development of boards that plane in 5 knots - as a grom growing up in Singapore where madly pumping a board onto the plane in 8-12 knots was considered a windy day- i never imagined that planing would come to such a low windspeed - result - With lots of 6 - 10 knot days- those guys get sooo much planing water time these days.

And yet mags were running articles like - has windsurfing gone too wide?

At the same time as this was being developed the HYPERSONIC came along and redefined wind range. And created a cult of their own.
And from here flowed Isonics - which were panned for looking "funny" when they first came out - and look whats happening now... high profile Sailors paying for their own boards (this has been happening for some time with the Starboard Formulas) - because winning can be more important than a sponsors salary.

starboard were thinking about the next generation - they were the first company to develop range for kids - The Pro Kids range! Aggressively marketing the sport to the next generation. They have run Kids on their brochure cover for 2 years.

Result: Young groms throwing unimaginable moves - limited only by their imagination - meanwhile the older generation continues to "try and perfect their gybes" season after season..

Starboard have certainly had their fair share of critics over the years - but have in many many ways dragged a resistant sport and industry forwards

-Morale: Conservative me too thinking ,Adjusting widths and vees by millimeters yielded very limited results - while big bold experiments have redefined the sport.

To throw some more wood on the fire...

Antoine's been with Starboard 3 seasons now. That's generally the term of a pro windsurfing contract... I know JP is looking for a guy to put the JP Slalom boards on the podium which Micah so far hasn't really delivered, and they have the cash to buy anyone...

I wonder if we'll see Antoine on JP in 2009 and Bjorn on Starboard ??!!

Ps. Word is that Bjorn's Starboard boards are all 2009 protos (You are allowed to sail them in the PWA as next year's boards are registered by the beginning of the current PWA season). I doubt they'd give away proto's to someone like Bjorn who could take them back to Thommen and copy the shapes ... I imagine he has them because they're waving a few dollar bills in front of his nose.

and resistance is futile

Whats the big deal? Doesn't JP ride a Quattro?