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CHECK OUT BBC iPLAYER FOR ‘THE ONE SHOW’ FROM FRIDAY 5th JUNE 2009!
It was great to get a decent feature on windsurfing on prime time TV. We're now waiting to get this on BBC iplayer, but there's something else in the program that has some rights restrictions for iplayer so they're not showing it yet. We'll let you know if and when it gets on!
It’s virtually unheard of that six million people get to see windsurfing on national TV. It’s just as rare to get the chance to sail a replica of the very first windsurfing board ever made! Simon Bornhoft was privileged to be part of an historic windsurfing moment that was captured by the BBC ‘THE ONE SHOW’...Here’s a summary.
Windsurfing is just over 50 years old! Peter Chilvers invented windsurfing in 1958 at Fleet Creek, Hayling Island, Hampshire. In the early ‘80s when Peter Chilvers and BiC Sport challenged Hoyle Schweitzer’s patent on the original design and concept of a ‘windsurfer’. Hoyle Schweitzer’s lawyers had craftily made a replica of Peter Chilvers’ original 1958 windsurfer hoping to prove that it couldn’t possibly have worked.Simon  Bornhoft (in his youth) sailed the board on the River Thames and proved that Peter Chilvers
design did work!Â
The BBC ‘The One Show’ are currently running a series on places in the UK that have a claim to fame. So for a BBC The One Show exclusive, Peter Chilvers, Simon Bornhoft and two of SB’s young coaching prodigies, Ed & Harry De Blaby, replicated how Peter Chilvers first invented windsurfing at Fleet Creek on Hayling Island.
After which we ventured down to Hayling Island seafront to show how far modern windsurfing has come! Half a century on and modern windsurfing kit still works along the same principles as Peter’s original design.  I wonder if we’ll be saying the same in another 50 years? Â
The full story will also be published in the July issue of Boards Magazine.
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