Skatewing: The Tumbling, Tipsy Tale of an Americaās Cup Legendās Less-Impressive Invention
Everyone has a few mistakes and failed projects theyād rather not talk about. Nobody hits it out of the park every time. And we do mean everyone, no matter how bright or skilled they are.
With Australia IIās historic victory in the 1983 Americaās Cup, its designer Ben Lexcen received tremendous fame and recognition. (How many other nerds can you think of who were in beer and car commercials?) At some point in the mid-1980s, Lexcen was also approached by a surfer named Peter Hawks, who wanted to work with him to design a new type of skateboard.
Like Australia II, the resulting Skatewing board was colorful, unusual-looking, and launched with high aspirationsā it was sold with a membership brochure for the āFlight Commandaās Clubā that promised world championship competitions and an even more unusual follow-up board called The Black Bat.
Unfortunately, this time the wing was NOT the thing. Compared to regular skateboards, the Skatewing was big, heavy, and unwieldy to ride. The wings and back often cracked under the stress of being ridden. (Is this the correct terminology? I donāt really know anything about skateboards.) This video even called it one of the worst skateboard inventions of all time.
The Skatewing understandably didnāt catch on. You can still find some web discussions where Australians who had them as kids in the late 80s and early 90s talk about how difficult they were to ride. And the pictures in this post all come from these two useful posts on the blog Skate And Annoy, where some modern skateboarders offer their assessments. You can see a video of the Skatewing in action here (some bad language).
Ben Lexcen would die of a heart attack in 1988 and be inducted into the Americaās Cup Hall of Fame in 2006, rememberedā in the words of the Skatewing brochureā as a āworld-famous scientist and yacht designerā. As for his collaborator, I canāt seem to find anything about Peter Hawks online. (Searching for for āHawk(s) + [anything related to skateboarding]ā is pretty much a lost cause for obvious reasons.) But Iād like to hope he was also so successful in other endeavors that the Skatewing was just an embarrassing footnote to his life story.
