Early Windsurfing Movie "High Wind" - 1976

Movie shot on San Francisco Bay to show the capabilities of the Windsurfer sailboard in 1976.

Shot on 16mm film by photographer Bob Williams. Bob was on call for the Environmental Protection Agency. His day job was to fly to big chemical spills and document the damage. A rather unsafe job.

While waiting for the next hazmat disaster he noticed Bay Windsurfing's classes being taught a few dozen feet from his apartment and he decided he wanted to trade photographic skills for a Windsurfer®.

Bob did the aerial shots from a rented Fisherman's Wharf tourist helicopter by leaning out of the cabin and placing one foot on a skid. The guy was brave as heck. For the water level shots he used the 16mm camera and plexi case that was used in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0H7KLDoIKM

The windsurfing harness was not invented until two years later and anyway, real men don't need no stinkin' sailing harness. And to really harden your biceps you can't beat teak booms and really full Dacron sails in 20kt. winds.

The original Windsurfer had a daggerboard which gave the board good upwind ability but gave trouble when going fast off the wind as the side pressure on the DB would tend to roll it up until it planed on the surface of the water. At speed it was wise to pull the DB out and hang it on your arm. When the current was ebbing we would often leave our daggerboards ashore as the current would take us upwind on a summer day with normal wind direction. This technique has been the major factor that has raised Hood River, OR, real estate values.

We practiced sailing together to keep multiple boards in each shot to make the action more interesting.

Yes, the helicopter flew under the bridge and it hovered there too. We often sailed outside the Gate and this is shown as well.

The last shots were taken with an extremely long lens Bob owned to frame us against the SF skyline. Note the strong flood tide current sweeping our wakes away to the left (East). The current cycles one week in, one week out, and though we started the sequence of filming days on an ebb, at the end of the 5 days the current was flooding and that is why our last shots were done on the Marin side where the current was a bit less than on the SF side.

Fog was another problem. One day when the fog closed in on us early (2PM or so) Bob went for the water shots (close ups) near the degaussing station at the N. end of Fillmore Street. Yes, he was swimming and yes Dick Bush ran over the camera.

See if you can find the frame where Dick Lamb, passing behind Glenn, put the nose of his board ahead of Glenn's rear foot and kept on going. While being filmed we tried not to "blanket" each other since we were doing nearly the opposite of racing (formation sailing) but Glenn intentionally blankets Dick in retaliation a bit later.

The 16mm film had sprocket hole damage from long use at boat shows. The transfer to video format copied that too.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• San Francisco
• Windsurfing
• Windsurfer
• teak booms
• Golden Gate Bridge
• sailing
• water photography
• helicopter photography
• daggerboard
• sailboard
• wind
• formation sailing

[uglybustards]

back in the days of teak booms low aspect sails and no harness, when men were men and the sheep were scared

[7146533]

I stumbled on to this and LOVED IT. OMG they were rippin with there daggarboard on their arm and no f in harness. What a gem of a video thanks so much for posting, truely made my week.