Sandman1221 said..

mr love said..
I am not buying or selling...just observing what is happening. My gut strongly tells me that if it continues the way it is and athletes decide , its inevitable that foils will dominate over fin in PWA racing. Eventually the pro athletes wil go ...f..k the fin, I need to be competitive on the foil or I dont stand a chance of being on the podium. Just look at Defi...a strong wind event and all but 1 race won on a foil, and by the way a distance event with less gybes.
If the powers to be want to save fin racing at an elite level they will need to do something.....

Good point, there was a 9 kilometer run on one leg, maybe the race organizers were trying to give fins a better chance at wining?

The Defi has always been a long distance event. Its been going 20 years. There is no changing the length of it, its always been 10k legs iirc.
It isnt downwind slalom either.
I think foils will eventually take over in all windspeeds in DW slalom. Until then, it looks like it will still be mixed.

Bellerophon said..

Still, it's been a full year since Goyard beat them in the Tiberias event.
In November, he would have won the Superstar edition of the Defi wind if he hadn't made the "check in/out" mistake.
Now, again he wins 4 out of 5 races..

What's keeping the rest of the pack : skill of technical development ?

Goyard and Phantom had the jump in development and experience. Goyard has just been doing foil, so has a lot of experience. The others are catching up. Race 4 at Defi the top 4 were all on foil, 13 to 46 seconds behind.

How long does it take for a fin sailor to go as fast on foil as on a fin?
Its taken Garry Connell, one of our local speedsters, 3 1/2 years to get to a stage where he can go as fast on a foil (PB) as he can with a 8.6m sail. He now has a set of 4 Phantom wings (maybe not the very smallest they now use).
www.gps-foilsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&val=380834&uid=18265&spotid=598
www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&val=348739&uid=18265
I didnt look back too far for a 8.6m speed, he might have gone faster than that.

I've done 24 knots 5*10s average a few times on my 8.5m Ezzy Lion & 2004 125l/80cm board with average Drake 46cm fin. I wonder how long it will take me to match that on a foil? AHD Compact 83 board & AFS W85/F1080 foil. How many wings will I have to buy? TBH, I doubt I will ever go as fast.
Garry is 55, I'm 60, I guess if you are younger then it wont take too long.

What about other people here? How long did it take you?

PhilUK said..




I've done 24 knots 5*10s average a few times on my 8.5m Ezzy Lion & 2004 125l/80cm board with average Drake 46cm fin. I wonder how long it will take me to match that on a foil? AHD Compact 83 board & AFS W85/F1080 foil. How many wings will I have to buy? TBH, I doubt I will ever go as fast.
Garry is 55, I'm 60, I guess if you are younger then it wont take too long.

What about other people here? How long did it take you?

Background: I was a very novice self-taught for <1year, never got planing, stopped for a few years then got back into it mid 2020 first time planing was Oct 2020? First time with stable flights on a slingshot foil a little after.

It wasn't a 5*10 but I hit 26 knots on 8m2 and 43cm fin? I have hit 23-24knots regularly on fins if there's enough wind (not usually the case here) if I don't catch weeds.

After ~8 months or so of race foiling (IQFoil kit) I regularly hit 21-22 knots on the 900 front. That doesn't feel particularly fast when I'm doing it regularly but trying to push it harder requires downwind commitment that I haven't had. I have hit 23knots casually with the 650 but I haven't been pushing for speed recently as I want to just increase my overall sail/board handling and jibes/stance on freeride kit while there's still wind before the summer and I will probably then have to do more IQFoiling to get going without going really big on freeride.

Meanwhile the guys that are 10-20 years younger than me (38) are almost hitting 30knots on IQFoil gear, but they also meet up just about twice a week in a place where it's usually not possible for me to get to in time.

PhilUK said..

Bellerophon said..

Still, it's been a full year since Goyard beat them in the Tiberias event.
In November, he would have won the Superstar edition of the Defi wind if he hadn't made the "check in/out" mistake.
Now, again he wins 4 out of 5 races..

What's keeping the rest of the pack : skill of technical development ?

Goyard and Phantom had the jump in development and experience. Goyard has just been doing foil, so has a lot of experience. The others are catching up. Race 4 at Defi the top 4 were all on foil, 13 to 46 seconds behind.

How long does it take for a fin sailor to go as fast on foil as on a fin?
Its taken Garry Connell, one of our local speedsters, 3 1/2 years to get to a stage where he can go as fast on a foil (PB) as he can with a 8.6m sail. He now has a set of 4 Phantom wings (maybe not the very smallest they now use).
www.gps-foilsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&val=380834&uid=18265&spotid=598
www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&val=348739&uid=18265
I didnt look back too far for a 8.6m speed, he might have gone faster than that.

I've done 24 knots 5*10s average a few times on my 8.5m Ezzy Lion & 2004 125l/80cm board with average Drake 46cm fin. I wonder how long it will take me to match that on a foil? AHD Compact 83 board & AFS W85/F1080 foil. How many wings will I have to buy? TBH, I doubt I will ever go as fast.
Garry is 55, I'm 60, I guess if you are younger then it wont take too long.

What about other people here? How long did it take you?

Max i do on my freeride foil is about 20knots compared to 30knots on fine. Not sure how fast I would go on foil if I went with a 450 cm front wing versus my 1100.

Garry's foil to fin numbers look really similar which is surprizing.

PhilUK said..

Bellerophon said..

Still, it's been a full year since Goyard beat them in the Tiberias event.
In November, he would have won the Superstar edition of the Defi wind if he hadn't made the "check in/out" mistake.
Now, again he wins 4 out of 5 races..

What's keeping the rest of the pack : skill of technical development ?

Goyard and Phantom had the jump in development and experience. Goyard has just been doing foil, so has a lot of experience. The others are catching up. Race 4 at Defi the top 4 were all on foil, 13 to 46 seconds behind.

How long does it take for a fin sailor to go as fast on foil as on a fin?
Its taken Garry Connell, one of our local speedsters, 3 1/2 years to get to a stage where he can go as fast on a foil (PB) as he can with a 8.6m sail. He now has a set of 4 Phantom wings (maybe not the very smallest they now use).
www.gps-foilsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&val=380834&uid=18265&spotid=598
www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&val=348739&uid=18265
I didnt look back too far for a 8.6m speed, he might have gone faster than that.

I've done 24 knots 5*10s average a few times on my 8.5m Ezzy Lion & 2004 125l/80cm board with average Drake 46cm fin. I wonder how long it will take me to match that on a foil? AHD Compact 83 board & AFS W85/F1080 foil. How many wings will I have to buy? TBH, I doubt I will ever go as fast.
Garry is 55, I'm 60, I guess if you are younger then it wont take too long.

What about other people here? How long did it take you?

Took me a year on the foil to hit 18-21 knots regularly on the SS free ride I76-PFI730.
I do get a lot of TOW with water being out my back door.

My fin board is a tabou rocket125. A 7.5 sail on my fin board is equivalent to a 4.5 on the foil.
I've never gotten GPS speed on the fin, but probably similar. No such thing as smooth water and wind where I'm at, and I'm sure the chop slowed me down a bit on the fin.

I'm 60 years old BTW.

Personally I find that there is still an advantage to doing both-a form of cross training if you will. Yes, of course, there is always a brief moment of transition when you go from foil "back" to fin for instance, especially in the jibes (much slower/harder to carry the speed through the turn in chop for instance) but the increased sensitivity to foot pressure/weight distribution and sail positioning from foiling actually helps your awareness to those things on fin too. Otoh, fin is more physical especially in the legs and thus also a good workout for powering up the foil, especially in foil slalom mode. And going fast on either requires being powered up to the (right) edge of control. That said, I'm probably doing at least 90% of my sailing nowadays on foil but that's because I have to make up for 30+ years of finning ?? (and also because we don't have consistent 20kn of breeze every day)

thedoor said..

PhilUK said..

Bellerophon said..

Still, it's been a full year since Goyard beat them in the Tiberias event.
In November, he would have won the Superstar edition of the Defi wind if he hadn't made the "check in/out" mistake.
Now, again he wins 4 out of 5 races..

What's keeping the rest of the pack : skill of technical development ?

Goyard and Phantom had the jump in development and experience. Goyard has just been doing foil, so has a lot of experience. The others are catching up. Race 4 at Defi the top 4 were all on foil, 13 to 46 seconds behind.

How long does it take for a fin sailor to go as fast on foil as on a fin?
Its taken Garry Connell, one of our local speedsters, 3 1/2 years to get to a stage where he can go as fast on a foil (PB) as he can with a 8.6m sail. He now has a set of 4 Phantom wings (maybe not the very smallest they now use).
www.gps-foilsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&val=380834&uid=18265&spotid=598
www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&val=348739&uid=18265
I didnt look back too far for a 8.6m speed, he might have gone faster than that.

I've done 24 knots 5*10s average a few times on my 8.5m Ezzy Lion & 2004 125l/80cm board with average Drake 46cm fin. I wonder how long it will take me to match that on a foil? AHD Compact 83 board & AFS W85/F1080 foil. How many wings will I have to buy? TBH, I doubt I will ever go as fast.
Garry is 55, I'm 60, I guess if you are younger then it wont take too long.

What about other people here? How long did it take you?

Max i do on my freeride foil is about 20knots compared to 30knots on fine. Not sure how fast I would go on foil if I went with a 450 cm front wing versus my 1100.

Garry's foil to fin numbers look really similar which is surprizing.

1100 is a big wing, my AFS F1080 is noticeably slower compared to the F770, have not pushed the S670 yet, but it should be even faster. In light winds 8-10 knots F1080 feels relatively fast, but once there are white caps I get on the F770, since in those conditions the F1080 feels relatively slow for some reason.

And I only foil, even though Goya Bolt is a really good fin board.

mr love said..
Foils vs fins at PWA is the tittle of this thread.....maybe get back to the subject guys...its not about what gear and how fast you are going.

Oh, so only people who are on the PWA?, guess you should just close the thread

PWA Slalom Equipment Update

Dear Friends

We hope you are all safe and well.

Further to the recent calendar updates, we wanted to make you aware of some other changes that will impact future events.

Production equipment rules for slalom are always a major talking point and the sport has been evolving at an incredible rate in recent years. We know that both the brands and the riders need long lead times in order to fully test, develop, tune and train on the equipment they will race on and, as such, all decisions about equipment limits have to be made well in advance.

This requires us to make educated predictions about future evolutions - something that has not been helped by the lack of experience of events due to the pandemic, but the PWA Management Board met recently to discuss the situation in order for us to provide you with good advanced notice of future intentions.

The rules for 2023 have already been published and these will not change. We know how important it is for these rules to remain consistent once announced for the reasons mentioned above, so for 2023, we will stick with the 6 sails and 3 boards rule as previously published.

For 2024 though, we will be making some much more significant changes to the limits, changes designed to reduce costs for brands and riders, to reduce equipment loads required at events and to make racing more accessible to new and upcoming sailors looking to join the tour.

The new rules will see limits reduced to 4 sails, and 2 boards. Sails can be any sails from the PWA registered sails list, and boards may be any 2 boards from the PWA registered slalom boards list.

The maximum sail size will also be reduced to 9m2 for 2024.

Foil registration rules will remain the same with 3 front wings and 2 back wings.

Although this may seem like a fairly major departure from the current limits, we are talking about rules that will not come into effect on the race course for about 2 years, giving plenty of time for development and testing, and we believe that this will be well in line with the predicted evolutionary curve that we are on.

We will have more updates for you in the near future about other changes to PWA event standards, designed to make events far easier to put on, and also the registration process for boards, sails and foils for future years, but we have summarised the rules for you below for simplicity.

2022
6 Sails
4 Boards (only 1 over 85cm wide, up to 91cm for men and 100.5cm for women)
1 Foil Set (3 front, 2 rear wings)

2023
6 Sails
3 Boards (only 1 over 85cm wide, up to 91cm for men and 100.5cm for women)
1 Foil Set (3 front, 2 rear wings)

2024
4 Sails
2 Boards (any registered slalom boards, foil or fin, up to 91cm for men and 100.5cm for women)
1 Foil Set (3 front, 2 rear wings)

We look forward to seeing you on the water soon.

Kind regards

The PWA

So In 2024 it looks like the choice is gunna be 1 foil board and 1 slalom board or 2 foil boards.....

Will be interesting to see how often the slalom board comes out of the back of the van???

FormuIa said..
2 Boards (any registered slalom boards, foil or fin, up to 91cm for men and 100.5cm for women)

Genuinely curious, is this a typo or what's the reason that women are allowed to have wider boards? More control/leverage in light wind or the simple fact that a lot of women use IQ foil board which is 95 cm?

With Goyard, the choice will be pretty easy I guess :) 2 foil boards, 4 foil sails, that's it.

yes--the idea is to be as inclusive as possible and allow women to use whatever (wide) board they have on hand, incl any old fw board

the slalom 42 format will be very interesting I think. when it was first adopted it provided a big push towards increasing the usable range of (fin) slalom boards and sails, something we've all benefited from. it will be interesting to see how much further development can go in relation to foils, not just boards, but also sails (no more fin v foil sails...? or just more overlap between both in the smaller sizes...?) and of course foils themselves (even stiffer construction...? more modular systems...?)

mr love said..
So In 2024 it looks like the choice is gunna be 1 foil board and 1 slalom board or 2 foil boards.....

Will be interesting to see how often the slalom board comes out of the back of the van???

Yeah 2 seems a bit limiting for two disciplines or maybe the goal is to push people to select a small slalom and lighter wind foil board effectively having wind conditions dictate who goes on fin versus foil.

is nico using different size foil boards for different conditions, or is it mostly just the foil he is changing? Certainly I would expect a foil board to cover a much winder wind range than fin boards?

Also what is slalom 42?

I know I came across as a headmaster, and yes I am a grumpy old man. I have been involved in this forum for a long, long time and think it is an awesome platform for discussing our amazing sport, however I have witnessed so many threads dissolve into a bunch of irrelevance.
If posters could keep to the subject I feel the discusion would be so much more constructive.....please chuck a few piss takes and humour in but try to keep the real discussions on subject. If you feel strongly about pushing the conversation in another direction...go for it, awesome, but start another thread on the subject you want to discuss.
Now I will get off my soap box.

btw, some other crucial info seems to be missing (unless I missed it): what will be the minimum wind strength for racing...?

FormuIa said..
2 Boards (any registered slalom boards, foil or fin, up to 91cm for men and 100.5cm for women)

Genuinely curious, is this a typo or what's the reason that women are allowed to have wider boards? More control/leverage in light wind or the simple fact that a lot of women use IQ foil board which is 95 cm?

With Goyard, the choice will be pretty easy I guess :) 2 foil boards, 4 foil sails, that's it.

Oddly enough, I think the foil wing limitation will bite. I could easily see a quiver with a 7**/5**/4**/3** and the additional expense would be modest. It would cover a huge wind range and much easier than additional boards. The 350 is what allowed NG to be competitive in the higher wind races at Le Defi.

The second board is the question for everyone - 75-8 cm wide foil board or slalom? Will depend on the calendar, I'd think.