i was looking at an old starboard catalogue from 2007 regarding design, this phrase stuck out:
Can you remember the shapes and technologies that were available 11 years ago?
Then imagine the quality and innovation of windsurfing equipment 11 years from now.
the last several years have seen some funky designs, I'm interested to see the progression in the future.
I think sails have evolved better in the last decade then boards. I think some revolutionary board designs will be coming through in the next two or three years.
I guess the 11 years was reference to starboard first releasing boards, these first boards were pretty same same for the time except for two things- timber construction which was originally painted except for some promo/team boards & straight rail outline on the slalom board. The straight rails meant to help gybing but tests were inconclusive, the timber construction (i think originally fijian kauri then aus pine) as it holds rocker longer than carbon or glass.
Since 2007 what innovation? The closest ive seen to anything interesting since then is the airinside patrik but then there were many hollow boards in the early 90's, all of which leaked except maybe Stringer which there have to be some floating round, havnt heard anything since bout 96 on that guy- had potential though kinda divinycell boat like construction.
Innovation in 90's kinda stopped after no nose's, eggs, gimmiky constructions (honeycomb, alloy stringers etc) & asy boards then settled into low nose classic shapes & constrction closer to what custom guys had been doing.
2000-2007 lots of innovation shape wise again, starboard with hypersonic, exocet with hyperbolic cutouts & kona, f2 with airpipes, mistral with funny nose wings & naish with the super short boards. Industry wide formula development, moves to shorter wider shapes, replacement for olympic class & a big evolution in freestyle boards.
In 2013 I tested quite a few boards against my 2006 & 2007 boards to find replacement, no real improvements to speed or gybing (actually the earlier boards were faster). 2014 saw the narrow tails after starboard did some copying & those boards were definitely quick, if i had to have only one board defintely the 14/15/16 Isonic 107 would be it.
Since 2007 with the exception of multifin waveboards everything else pretty much refining of shapes & starboard havnt been leaders in innovation. That said I do love my 2017 Isonics 
but after getting them & trying to describe the feel to vando to help him decide to change it came up many times in the description that the boards feel more like the 2008-ish era boards.
