History...

Jimmy shaped his first few sailboards in 1978 for Mike Waltze and Mark Robinson. He'd previously been shaping surfboards since 1968. In 1981 he started work for Fred Haywood and Mike Waltze at Sailboards Maui where he was involved with them in shaping some of the very first " sinker " short boards. They focused on wave boards but world renowned, Arnaud de Rosnay had him shape a few boards especially for straight line speed to take to Weymouth, England for the only speed sailing event in existence at the time.

In 1982, Pascal Maka took a stock Sailboards Maui wave board that he shaped to Weymouth and smashed the existing windsurfing speed record by 4 Knots with the incredible speed of 27.82 Knots. Pascal's success got Fred Haywood interested so he shaped him 2 "speed boards" to take to Weymouth in 1983. Fred smashed Pascal's previous record by 2 Knots by going 30.82.

At the event that year, Fred sold one of the 2 boards to Robert Teritehau who increased his personal best time at the same contest by 2 Knots when he switched to his shape. Fred was the first sailboard over 30 Knots, second only to a catamaran called Crossbow which held the absolute world speed sailing record of 36 Knots.

Three years later, in the Canary Islands, 4 Sailors using his Boards became to be the first to beat Crossbow. Pascal Maka clocked an incredible 38.86, while Eric Beale, Fred Haywood and myself did 36.73 , 36.13 and 36.31 respectively.

Eight out of the top 10 at that event used Jimmy Lewis boards. This would remain the status quo for several years to come.

A few years later Eric Beale became the first one to sail over 40 Knots by setting a new absolute world speed record of 40.48 Knots, on one of his boards of course. During all of those "speed years" he continued shaping wave boards as well as slalom boards.

In the 90's most of his focus was on slalom boards but recently, Roddy Lewis set what some people call the "open ocean" record (meaning not "the canal" in France) by going 44.51 Knots.

On Maui, since the beginning of the Kanaha Race Series every summer, more racers using Jimmy Lewis boards have placed in the top 3 or have won each division in the series than any other boards.

Then About 5 years ago he made Laird Hamilton a few boards for him to use with a kite that he had. The boards he made were more like oversized waterski's. Then a few years later, this windsurfer turned kiteboarder came up to his shop, partly because he volunteered to make him a board and partly because he knew from his reputation as a board builder that he was the most qualified to do it.

He began to make him a few twintips for kiting and then others started to take notice of the boards he was making and suddenly, it seemed, most of the top riders in the rapidly growing sport were coming to Jimmy to get his twintips.

He was also making directional kiteboards too but not in the numbers that he was making twintips.

Over the years Jimmy's designed boards & fins for many of the major manufacturers inclduing Liquid Force, Airush, Starboard, Bic, Cabrinha and Wipika.

Now Jimmy produces his own range of production boards, which means as well as his name and design, you now also get his board.