Me and a mate bought a bic dufour wing and a hifli wallytype thing both fully rigged with big crap triangular sails, tie on booms, the lot , eighty buck. would have been alot easier to learn on decent gear, but, what the hey ....
First board was a wally in '85 then also got a bombora tri-fin and then also bombora new toy. Then sold the wally and tri-fin and got 9'6"windaction slalom, then sold the new toy and got 8'6" windaction wave pro and the sold the slalom and bought 9'1" white light slalom...
Stopped winddurfing in '91
......Restarted in 97 with starboard and carbonart 
and still got the old winaction wave
My first board was like a Wally but it was made by Bombora. I think it was called a Fun Freestyle or something like that. It was pink and pretty compared to the boring white windsurfers.
I then bought a TC Fun Fan which was sort of like a mini TC Runner but with a pin tail. Not a bad board. It came with a TC rig which was a bit crap.
I lusted after the Mistrals and HiFlys I read in catalogues and magazines. Boards like the Mistral Diamond Head slalom and HiFly Gun.
Mine was a Tyronsea 330. It was prebuggered so it didn't matter what I did to it. I could ride it onto rocks, drop it on the road, throw it at the dog. It didn't matter. It wouldn't make any difference.
It was polyethylene or similar over closed cell foam and very heavy. It had a bendy plastic wave fin and a centreboard like a formula fin in proportion but like a railway sleeper in composition. The bottom shape was as convoluted as a Pierre Nervi ceiling with I think 2 concaves merging into 3. When it climbed up onto the plane it was an event worth remembering, and I do remember it fondly.
I bought it for a song and traded it for the chorus. I don't know what became of it, nor do I care. But I'll say this for it. It wasn't a bad learner board - not a good one but not bad.
The rig (I almost forgot) was a Wild Winds 6.0 RAF. I just realised you don't hear the term "RAF" any more. Now it's "camless". It disappeared and I didn't notice. Lots of things do that...
force 8 windrush with 4.4 wave sail
had it until i ripped the sail and fin on the same session. went to windsurf shop after and saw another force 8 for 10 bucks thats when i realised the gear i was using was ****
i was holding and looking at a bombora catalog(is this board still around
) and was salivating if i could afford one during the late 80's..but after my first lesson i was told to get a fanatic 340 funboard with a round skeg and long dagger with then cool camo graphics and stock boom and 5.7sail..this board gave me my first taste of planing and wow what a feeling
!
Well I did it the hard way, decided I wanted to jump waves so at 14 (mid 80's) I sold my computer and went out a bought a board that looked like it could do that. My first kit was a Windtoys wave board (about 9ft or so I think) and a gasstra powerhead sail, very average tie on boom and super heavy mast. I can't even remember how much it cost me, but I am pretty sure I got well ripped off at the time.
I learnt to beach start and water start before I could uphaul, and gybe before I could tack, cause on this thing it was just easier.
I know it all got a bit easier once I bought a second hand 4 batten NP sail (can't remember the type) and a boom that didn't flop all over the place. That board got up graded to a 9'2" "Wind and Waves" slalom board and some JV sails. Not long after I got a 8'6" Wind and Waves wave board and went from there, all before I was 17.
Back in the late 80's. I was only a kid, so my folks got me a Sea Skip. Little yellow board and a 2m sail. Was great for learning on. My whole family was into it back then. My dad and my two older brothers. Am so glad we got into windsurfing.
Dufour Wing was my first board too. I had a 4m storm sail and a 5.7m "big" sail. I reckon that although it might be easier to learn on newer gear, there is still a lot to be gained from learning on an oldstyle longboard.
Good on you for getting on the water, dont think that because the gear is old that it is crap. Reading the boards mag this month I saw that a a Wally was on the podium for all races at the fatface festival (or something similar). Yep, the winds were light, so what, they were on the water.
JB
Huge, heavy but very stable Ten Cate Beacher with TC kids rig (around 2-2.5m). Then moves to Gaastra 4.5 and so on. Both were triangle sails with tie on booms and what not. My dad was still sailing it really really well until 18 months ago when i virtually made him get some new gear.
And yeah my dad had a dufour wing aswell. Said was good board but just very slippery.
Bubs
storm 8, np 5.2 and 6.3 raf, never learned to uphaul but quickly learned to waterstart, necessity is the mother of invention. Think I went about it bass akwards.
2 'pink' bombora wave (plastic) boards s/hand......5 sails with PJ (smokes) sponsors stickers, 2 alum masts and half a doz tie on booms.....
Bought for $150, from a jockey (60kgs tops), I was about 90-95kgs at the time.
Tried - sunk......2 yrs later....Tried - sunk. Put them in the loft of my garage!
14 years later, mate brings a 'floater (GO) and I loved it, obviously never made the connection between weight-skill-volume ratio!
My 'official' first board/rig;
JP Xcite 165lt
NP X3 mast/boom/extension blah, blah.
Gaastra GTX 7.5 sail.
Sorry for being the boring newbie!
the board that took me from wally to contemporary, the windrush fun 11. big pink heavy, touted as the smallest board with a centre board.(only used centre board in light upwind conditions, otherwise it would fold up flush.)
there must be someyhing wrong with me started on a 155 go learnt the basics then went to a 133 carve thats when my wind surfing world took off but at 105 kilos dry the carve jars the hell out of me so i went and bought a old fanatic gecko 105litres it a solum board and i absolutey love this old board it flys through chop and have done a p b with the gps at 33 knots 
