Alex Laudon

Name: Alex Laudon

Hometown: Hood River, Oregon

Home beach: The Hatchery

Discipline: 1978-2018: 100% Wave / Jump. 2018- today: 100% WindFoil

What’s in your quiver?: Flyer FR: 3.4, 3.9, 4.5, 5.2, 6.0, 7.0

Favorite Sail: The Flyers are amazing across the board.

Board Set up: North Pacific, Roberts GT 30.5”, Exocet RF71/81.

Foil Set up:

F4: 97cm mast, course racing (115cm) and slalom (100cm) fuselages, 945 & 850 course racing, 560 & 400 slalom wings

SAB: 107cm mast, course racing (115cm) and slalom (105cm) fuselages, 1000, 800, 671, 607 front wings

What influenced you to start windsurfing? 

I got into windsurfing in June 1978, when my dad spotted a couple of Windsurfer “one design” boards on the beach of our home town on the Mediterranean coast of France. They were the first windsurfing boards we had ever seen, came with 6.3 sails and heavy teak booms. This day changed my life. I windsurfed on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of France, before moving to the PNW in 1996 where I discovered the Gorge and Oregon coast.

Accomplishments:

A solo long distance (87 miles) non-stop WindFoil trip, from Hood River to Stevenson to Mosier and back to Hood River in August of 2020. A team long distance non-stop trip, from the Hatchery to Stevenson and back to the Hatchery with Teresa in August of 2021. She used a Flyer FR 3.9 and I used a 4.5. Sailing at over 30kts using F4’s 400 wing and Flyer 4.5 FR sail.

Appreciation:

Shortly after getting into WindFoiling in 2018, I met Bruce, Dale, Jim and Colson. Our techniques evolved with time. We were all able to ride with progressively more power. This impacted board, foil and sail designs. North Pacific (Art Colyer) and Roberts Composites (Rob Mulder) evolved their designs to help us reach new limits. SAB and F4 foils provided us with progressively stiffer masts, fuselages and wings, thereby improving control. And Bruce Peterson evolved the now iconic Flyer series, from the “Original” version to the FR and now FR2 (an absolutely amazing sail) without which none of what we accomplished would have been possible. Thank you Bruce and Dale. Thank you Sailworks.

Oh, you know Alex from the Hatchery?
- which one?
The pilot.
- Well, they are both pilots.
oh, I dunno.
- The Swede or the Frenchman?
The one in the fin.
- That’s Edholm, the Swede! Laudon launches on his foil and disappears.