Vintage and competition watercraft, on paper
Class legality, tuning and model history
What the rulebooks say, what the documents say, and which of the two a given page is telling you. Nothing here is a manufacturer's claim repeated without its source.
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Is it legal in my class?
Two different things. The rulebook reference is read from the published documents of the three organisations that run races, the sanctioning bodies. The checks on parts the shop sells are fewer, each one part against one class.
- Bodies read
- 3
- Classes read
- 73
- Part types addressed
- 214
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How is the sport run?
Who sanctions a race, what a rider needs to enter, what gets inspected, how a weekend runs and how it is scored, read from the same three rulebooks the legality answers come from and cited to the section. Start here if you have never entered one.
- Documents cited
- 12
- Rules recorded
- 477
- Chapters of history
- 16
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How does it actually work?
Tuning material, written so the reasoning is visible rather than the conclusion alone. A spec table names the document its numbers came from, or says plainly that nobody has filled it in.
- Tuning articles
- 12
- Spec tables
- 6
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What was this model?
Model history by make and year, almost every row carrying the document it came from, and the two that carry none say so. Each make opens on its model lines, and a line page holds every year of it with what changed.
- Model year rows
- 1254
- Makes
- 3
- Dealer magazine issues indexed
- 76
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What have people actually built?
Builds other people ran, recorded from what they published rather than from what we would recommend. A builder’s own figures are printed as the builder’s, never as measured.
- Builds recorded
- 8
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What do the words mean?
The vocabulary of the sport, each word sighted in a named document and graded by what that document is, with the words this site refuses and why. Nobody on a forum is quoted; the definitions are this site's own and say so.
- Terms
- 271
- Refused
- 11
Every page on this archive, A to Z, with a line on what each one holds, for when your question is not one of the doors.
Who did what, on the record: Key Figures, the racers, tuners, builders and organisers the documents name, year by year.
Have a machine and no class yet? Start here: what to check, in the order you meet it, from watching a race to entering one.
Where two bodies disagree, both figures are printed and neither is stored as the answer.
The archive's five eras
These eras are how this archive groups its history chapters, from 1981 to 2026, not where the sport begins; where two bars share a year, both eras cover it, and each row opens that era's panel.
How we know: The start and end years printed on each era's panel, which restates the history chapters it links to.
Where the parts are
Nothing is sold from this site. Parts, machines, gear and setup sheets moved to their own site on 2026-09-20, along with how we ship and return. The legality checks that name a part link straight to it. Nothing is priced there yet either, and the enquiry form is still how a price is asked for.
Motorised surfboard racing sits on a third site, MotoSurf board racing, under a different sanctioning body and its own rulebook. It is kept apart rather than folded in, because an article number from one sport is not an article number in the other, and citing the wrong one at a tech inspection is how a rider loses a day.
73 classes read · 12 tuning articles · 1254 model-year rows