If anyone would challenge me to identify an F2 board produced earlier than 2000, I would accept the challenge laughing…Well, things have changed since last weekend.
On the 3rd of September my friend Thanos send me the photo of a board he kindly thought to offer me, having become aware about my interest on vintage F2 boards.
He said it was a 1983-84 F2 model he was sailing back then and was now standing idle in the garage of his country house in Galatas on the coast of Peloponnese. As our summer house is in Poros island – opposite of Galatas, with a narrow channel of just a few hundred meters separating them, I started arranging the pick-up of the board, which I must confess, triggered my curiosity as it looked unidentifiable.
Last weekend having gone to Poros, on my way back to Athens I stopped and loaded the board and took it home in Athens.
The general condition is good, so after a good washing, I started checking the details.
All decals are long gone , while the only marking is the F2 molded emblem on the mastfoot release/secure lever. It was easy for me to reproduce the standard F2 nose decal of that period and I added a personal touch of a small decal on the face of the dagger-board box, something I did right away.
The board is a made out of thermoplastic ASA which makes it durable but relatively heavy.
It measures 3.22 x .63 m and I weighed it bear, at 16.3kgs.
It has a center dagger-board, and 3 rear fins of the thruster arrangement (one 25cm main & two 8cm on the sides) attached with the US box system.
There are 2 rows of footstraps for the front leg and another 2 for the rear, all of them in fixed positions.
The outline of the tail is of the Squash Double Winger type, very unusual for an F2 as far as I know.
The bottom is of a complex design, starting flat under the nose, gradually becoming V-shaped double concave, releasing most of the concavity through the first row of wings and from there on V turns into U which leads to a lightly convex tail-end.
The board is closer to COMET on the basis of size and centerboard, but does not correspond to ANY of the 1982-1984 boards we have in print, while from then onward ASA construction was dropped in favor of more hi-tech , lighter & stiffer solutions. It is hard to believe this can be a non series production board, as the uncle of my friend Thanos had bought it from the Greek market…
Although I tried through Facebook, I failed to get a contact respond from these persons involved with F2 of that era:
Peter Brockhaus, founder of F2
Kai Schnellbacher, F2 evolutive tester and world athlete
Kutte Priessner, the testing force of Surf magazine
Late afternoon update – same day of posting
Jurgen Hönscheid , F2 shaper & world athlete during the ’80’s, has responded to my message through his contact of his NorthShore Fuertaventura company.
Here is our correspondence:
Dear Jurgen,
I would appreciate if you could enlighten me on the identification of a vintage F2 board I have just posted in my blogI will also take the opportunity to thank you for all the great boards you have shaped while in F2
Best Regards
Dimitris Savidis (zaosan) – Greece
Jürgen
Thanks Jurgen for your immediate response.It crossed my mind the possibility of a prototype, but then I would expect to be fabricated with hand laid materials and not ASA. Do I think correctly?RegardsDimitris.
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Hi Dimitris,
True, when its ASA it was a production board.Best regardsJürgen
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Northshore-Fuerteventura-Shop-Boards/466998816698034
I am afraid his reply leaves hardly any chances of identification
Last hope are my Greek friends, windsurfing importers and athletes – Theo Theodoridis & Philip Adamidis, while help by anyone is welcome. Let’s see…
September 29 update
Both Theo & Philip contacted me, letting me know they were unable to recognize the board.
September 30 update
Kai Schnellbacher, kindly responded to my message and this is what we exchanged:
11:58 π.μ. Τρίτη, 30 Σεπτεμβρίου 2014
Re: F2 vintage windsurfing board
dear dimitris,
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Hi Kai and thank you for your response.
October 6 update
Klaus Walter, one of the fastest athletes of the F2 team in the early ’80’s, has also responded to my identification request, but as you will see, the board cannot be identified
Re: F2 vintage windsurfing board
Dear Dimitris,
Camps Bay 8005
South Africa
Covid – August 2020 update
I don’t know if staying home gave us more chances to dig & study, but definitely, our friend Hien, has nailed the outstanding identification of the X board.
He owns a Kerma 322 Sailboard and has gone to the extent of a direct photo comparison, where beyond doubt, the X board & his Kerma look identical and luckily, the Kerma front deck sticker is still in place, to compare with the missing one – but with clear glue markings – on the X. Yes, I admit that the X board, is a Sailboard Kerma 322, on which, someone at some point, substituted the mast track with one of the F2 brand, and that led to the confusion (of course the F2 stickers I overexcited stuck on the board, did not help at all to the identification…)
zaosan
Hitthewave 
