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Yup, they're still around: https://us.vuarnet.com/ About the same $$$ as Maui Jim, but not as nice (JMHO)

Yup.  I used to tie a length of whipping thread to my sunglasses in the hope that they'd stay on my head - or at least on the boat - a little longer. When Croakies came along it got a lot easier to keep good sunglasses from going swimming.  So there's another good brand from the 70s.

OK.  How 'bout Dolphin running shorts?   <lol>

dunno.  I remember Graves made skis (for a short while) of fiberglass over a foam core.  Never tried a pair, but I'm told they were ridiculously springy.

Speaking of beloved 70s brands... let's bring back Hexcel skis!  Had several pairs, and  they were always great, right up until the core failed....

Nah.  OP corduroy shorts, a long-sleeve t-shirt from Hannafin's surf shop, and a pair of Vuarnet sunglasses.  It was the 70s...

<lol> Back In The Day (88? 89?), there was a funny little boat in a slip near Evo at Marina del Rey.  about the size of a Soling, wide-open cockpit but a very IOR shape.  Turned out it was one of the 1/3rd-scale tank-test models for (what became) Kialoa V, and someone (John Jr?) had...

Were those the big tall ones?  Yeah, definitely a 70s fashion statement. 

<lol> I just looked at the results of the '83 Transpac.  Russian Wood finished DFL.  16th in Class, 61st overall.  Even the Tradewinds beat them - both boat-for-boat and corrected - by over a day. (oh, the shame!)

Same designer (obviously) and same basic shape, but the Tradewinds were a LOT heavier.  Built like bomb shelters.  I spent a bunch of time on "Free Run" (don't remember which hull it was, I think it was just after Rawhide).  Newbie owner, did the (83?) Transpac with Wheels and Wilkes, it didn't...

Nah, those braincells are long gone.  Probably helped by the vapors coming off all the open drums of WEST epoxy.  The interesting (?) bit was that it was subbed out to a (supposedly) professional shipwright, but not done in a yard... Nick had it built in the deliveries bay of his warehouse to...

<lol>  and pre-AIDS racer-chasers....

Ditto.  35-year-old 27STs, still going strong.

Heh.  Prindle was in the same bean-field (literally) as P-Squared.  While working on Scalawag (ex-Jenny H), could look up and see them pulling Prindle hulls from the molds just across the road.

Speaking as a once-upon-a-time bow-monkey, those Twin Stays were a cast-iron pain in the ass.  While - theoretically - allowing you to do either an outside-in or inside-out headsail change, what it really required was that your bow-monkey sit in the pulpit to hand-feed the luff-tape into the...

It's a good bit of history.  An excerpt (on Ranger) "Jack Jensen, founder of Jensen Marine and builder of Cal boats, was enjoying considerable success with boats like the Cal 40, but his boats sold better on the West Coast.  To appeal to Easterners, Jensen formed Ranger Yachts and commissioned...

The book "Heart of Glass" has tidbits on a lot of them, mixed in among the story of how fiberglass changed the boat-building industry.  But. yeah, it would be good to keep the history alive.

Jeez, there's a brand that doesn't need to come back.  Spent a long couple of weeks fairing Russian Wood (Turner 40) while it was still upside down in the shed.  Learned a lot about Nick Alexander.  When he asked me to help work up the boat for the 79 (?) Transpac, I declined.  Didn't turn down...

Land's End (when they were a wish-book for sailing gear instead of a mediocre clothes label), and Spyglass Patagonia (when they were awesome offshore-suitable layers instead of expensive yuppie status-statement) Oh, and lest we forget... the ubiquitous WP ("wet pleasure") pullover windbreakers!

It really was.  Not to mention a thriving ecosystem. Case in point - my job in high-school was driving a delivery truck for a fastener company.  The company founder had identified a cool little niche - the boat builders had to use "US-sourced" fasteners in order to meet some esoteric corner of...