what. happened to Mistral ? they used to be the dominant brand in WS back in the 80's and 90's. but nowadays here in the US, no one sell or deals with mistral. I see their wensite, but limiting number of boards.
just curious. 
They made a series of great Slalom / GPS boards designed by Chris Lockwood, but nothing of note since 2015.
From a US perspective, by the turn of the century Naish had left and other brands like Starboard, JP, etc were much more innovative. Mistral was late to the party of wider, easier planing boards for the average windsurfer. Combined with the exodus to kiting and Mistral was on the back foot. The Great Recession then thinned the remaining herd of windsurfing brands and a number of old, familiar names either struggled, abandoned the US market or went away for good. So by 2010, a lot of familiar '90s US market names like Mistral, F2, Tiga, HiFly, Seatrend, etc. were no longer around.
I found an old Mistral Malibu for my girlfriend to learn more on, but otherwise there are only a few Screamers here that show up for sale, all looked pretty aged.
It's not just in the US, it's the same in Europe.
Mistral seem to be run by a skeleton crew these days, they don't make anything competitive for the circuit or sponsor riders and most dealers don't ever sell their stuff, I wonder what happened - maybe some commercial decision? from the old major brands only Fanatic appears to be still going very strong, and to some extent North and Gaastra.
Mistral and Bic appear to have pivoted to a more casual market when the casual market is rather weak, while they were rather dominant in the 90s.
I haven't seen much from them since Anders Bringdal was with them, about ten years ago I guess.
I had a 96liter Mistral Flow that I really liked, sort of free-wave before it became a thing, still regret selling it...
The small crew of people now in charge is planning to launch a new catalog of windsurf boards next year, or so I've heard directly from them this summer. I think the shaper is Italian. I've been told there should be a wave board and a freestyle wave. Now it most likely will be made in much less numbers than say Fanatic or JP, probably made to order, but that's just me presuming things
I sometimes miss my old Tiga 263 bump&jump. indestructible ....maybe not the stiffest or lightest. but not caring about dings or scratches, was nice.
Select to expand quoteAl1 said..
The small crew of people now in charge is planning to launch a new catalog of windsurf boards next year, or so I've heard directly from them this summer. I think the shaper is Italian. I've been told there should be a wave board and a freestyle wave. Now it most likely will be made in much less numbers than say Fanatic or JP, probably made to order, but that's just me presuming things
Will see. A few years ago they announced new Mistral Equipe III. Then.... Nothing happened...
