Down the Wind - 1980 - by Jean-Luc Breitenstein

This is one of JLBs earlier films before "Take Off" and "Blowing Out"

It begins by covering the Windsurfer Worlds in 1979 in Porto Hydra Greece, one of the most Windless Events you'll see!

Watch out for a very young Robby Naish during the Windsurfer Blues song doing some freestyle with a Black and White sail and again in No wind conditions with a Blue and red sail.

In Greece Other Sailors of the era include Fraser Black (Red Hat), Mike Todd (Glasses), Dee Caldwell (Sail Number 412) from the UK and Cort Larned (Sail Number 425) from the US.

After the Windsurfer worlds there is some early footage of the Wavejump boards called the Windsurfer Rocket. It was based on the Windsurfer Regatta but with a small daggerboard and slotted further back, double fins (hey Twinzers!!) and footstraps. The Sailors here i believe are Colin Perry (Orange Sail yellow stripe) and Alex Aguera (Blue Sail).

The Next Race is a Division 1 and 2 style racing from France i believe. A lot of Dufour Sails with French sail numbers are the clue. Anyone know where it is?
A very pretty Rhonda Smith with Sail Vest 314 (Sail US-1) is prominent here.She was one the lead women Race Sailors at the time.
Watch out for the early Trapeze Booms like we have today. The boards are mostly Wingliders, Alphas and Dufours.

The next section is freestyle with Karl (Charlie) Messmer, Randy Naish (Mistral Sail) and Cort Larned in action with railrides, back to sail railrides and duck tacks. The sailor with the "Meriden" and Air France written on the Sail was one of the top french freestylers. Anyone know who it is?

The final Footage is off Hawaii some of the PanAm Cup in Kailua and some of Robby Naish, Randy Naish and Ken Winner wave jumping. Just watching Robby uphaul in these Waves was amazing!!

Again Many thanks to Jean-Luc Breitenstein for capturing the moments!

You can see "Blowing Out" here and "Take off" by JLB on my Favourite videos - Both Well worth watching!