SeanAUS120 said..

Did anyone figure out how the countback is scored to let Maciek win the tie?
It's not mentioned in the PWA rule book.

www.pwaworldtour.com/index.php?id=1373
I cant copy/paste off that but
Part 1.
1.13.4 Ties
a) number of times 1 sailor has beaten the other. Maciek Rutkowski beat Johan Soe 3 times to 2 in the 5 eliminations.
If still tied,
b) its the highest number of 1st places, if still tied number of 2nd etc.

I didnt realise it was a) which they look at 1st, I assumed it was b), like other sports like bike racing. Maciek would still have won on b) as he had a 2nd place.

Congratulations to Maciek winning the title. Losing it by hitting a plastic bag whilst in a qualifying position in that heat would have been a **** way to lose out. What a way to win your 1st title, foiling providing ups and downs again
Congratulations to Marion Mortefon on her title, only her 2nd, she won the women's foil specific event last year.

duzzi said..
PhilUK, yes, the new rules are below. Fin and foils together. PWA is acting like a local club that does not have enough entries, and so resorts to run an open class.

Money is the issue, or lack local organisers. The PWA dont organise each event, its local organisers going to the PWA to offer a fully paid up prize money fund to attract the professional windsurfers. No doubt the PWA assist the locals to get things done, but as far as I am aware, thats how it works.
If there was more prize money, that would attract higher entries. As it stands, who wants to be a professional windsurfer being paid from events these days? With foiling and winging, the money from the brands themselves must be falling too, do they want to continue sponsoring fin sailing at the same level as in the past?

So where was the tipping point between foil and fin? To me it seemed to be about 25knts. Watching day 4 there was a very clear point where suddenly the fins didn't have that extra gear on the straight and so didn't have enough momentum to plane out of the jibe and the foils took over. Must have been an agonizing gear decision, but putting that aside, from what I've seen of the PWA, most of the time the winds are below that magical line.

There's barely enough money as it is. No way there's enough for a split format.

racerX said..
For sure it's exciting to watch the two sports together for the novelty value. Its interesting to compare them in different conditions.

But as a true competive format IMHO it's doomed.
At a national competive fleet level, it's a disaster running a mixed fleet. Unfortunately we don't have thriving national slalom scene so it's harder to see the damage.
At the same time it's a game changer when there is hardly any wind.

The rumor mil is the industry wont support it if the drop in sales continues and that the equipment restrictions may change again...

Windsurfing needs money as well as wind.

The Japanese put on amazing show.

I think running Foil and Fin together is not only damaging to national/club levels but is sinking the PWA. At this point it has been years in the mixed format, and the idea is only good to generate useless diatribes about what is faster in which conditions. Who else runs two sailing classes together at the top level?

Take the clue from Olympic sailing, drop the fin, and make this into a single manned Superfoiler GP.



Make it simple: one board, two/three sails, avoid very windy venues. Maybe audience and sponsors will come back. And yes, the organizers in Japan did a great job. Great video coverage.

racerX said..
I have heard similar from other sources.

yes, also heard from insiders that several options are being discussed, including the one mentioned here. no decisions yet, and the longer it takes the more more difficult it gets for radical changes to take effect in 2023. we'll see.

racerX said..
This is similar to the French national events which are probably the next biggest.

yes, AFF probably next biggest in terms of numbers (and also next highest in terms of level) but AFF rules in 2022 were not that similar, and provided for:
-separate rankings for fin and foil
-no mixing of fin & foil on the course
-decision which format to run depending on wind and general conditions, with decision taken for each half day of competition circumstances permitting
-priority given to foil in 8-20 knots, and to fin from 18 knots up to "suitable conditions" (and without the wind dropping below 15 knots for sustained periods of time), and crucially
-no gear limitations (neither for foil nor for fin) (!)

see NoR, points 6 & 7 www.aff.net/media/docs/6216777f81b73.pdf

I remember just a year or 2 ago people were saying foils would never beat fins in windy conditions. I think we are still yet to see the full potential of windfoiling. Eventually it will just be foil events in the pwa racing.

berowne said..
Has anyone asked the competitors what they want to race on or are certain manufacturers dictating the rules?

Half of the pwa board are riders, two of which are slalom guys, Maciek and Rytis. So I am sure they asked the competitors. From a straw poll of the 10 or so I have asked its mixed answers especially when you qualify the question to include certain conditions. Some are 100% foil, surprisingly some elite foilers would much rather windsurf when the conditions allow.

But IT IS a professional league, so that's just nice to know, if it doesn't pay its way then it's toast. The PWA Slalom depends on industry support or its gone.

Hopefully they come up with a format that allows the two to complement each other, rather than one destroy the other...

apparently some manufacturers have already threatened to walk away and withdraw their contribution to the PWA if the format doesn't change in the way they see it. so while racers might get a say in the number of starters in the heat, when it comes to the tour (and their own livelihood) $$$ speak louder.

Paducah said..

bel29 said..
apparently some manufacturers have already threatened to walk away and withdraw their contribution to the PWA if the format doesn't change in the way they see it..

For those out of the loop, what's the manufacturers' take?

For the pros' preferences, it will be interesting to see how that evolves over time as more younger windsurfers come through the IQFoil ranks.

only PWA registered boards, sails and foils can be used in PWA sanctioned events, for which the manufacturers pay a fee. not sure what the fee is nowadays, but in a shrinking market it's unlikely to be trivial especially for the smaller brands. and all brands will want to see some return on investment. from the PWA's perspective I suspect these fees are an important (if not the main) source of income. some manufacturers have invested more than others in foiling, and some just see more potential in either fin or foil, so interests aren't aligned. we'll see how it shakes out. I believe there are also different levels of industry partners (gold, silver, etc.) so it's not 'one brand one vote', making it even harder to predict how things will turn out.

AUS4 said..
Foiling has killed the PWA. Numbers are down.
There used to be a cut off of only 64 men could enter a PWA Slalom event.
This year in Germany only 34 entered and if it wasn't for the local Japanese guys making up numbers in Japan there would have been 29.

Do you really think everything on the PWA would be just hunky dory if foiling hadn't come along? PWA has been slowly dying for years. Foiling just came along at the end.

Yeah if it weren't for foiling, the nearest race would be a 13hr drive away(OBX) with only planing conditions for like 4-5 months a year

Covid and winging killed it. Foiling is a bandage on the wound.

BullroarerTook said..

AUS4 said..
Foiling has killed the PWA. Numbers are down.
There used to be a cut off of only 64 men could enter a PWA Slalom event.
This year in Germany only 34 entered and if it wasn't for the local Japanese guys making up numbers in Japan there would have been 29.

Do you really think everything on the PWA would be just hunky dory if foiling hadn't come along? PWA has been slowly dying for years. Foiling just came along at the end.

We have to wait another year for things to go back to normal. We are still living with the aftershocks of the Pandemic. 2023 or 2024 will be more comparable with pre-pandemic years. if numbers are still down well ... it might be the foiling, or the wishy-woshy format. IQ-foil does not seem to have any problem.

there is no doubt that the foil is here to stay. the question is about finding the right balance.

the tour and the windsurf industry as a whole have become too small to sustain two completely separate series with different venues etc, so the discussion will be around finding the right mix that satisfies the interests of all/most.

the organizers/promotors want to maximize the chances of action on the water, while the racers want fair racing. while the current system that leaves the gear choice entirely to the racers has benefits, it also carries great risks for racers: if you make the wrong choice, or get caught in a hole on the fin and the rest of the fleet foils through your race is over -- so that's a massive risk. hence why foil is currently seen as the 'safe' choice, at least up to the point where there is a sufficient mass of fins in the fleet. (that was the case in only a few races on day 4 in Japan.) my guess is therefore that a format with some of the features of the French system will be attractive to most racers: i.e. limit the foil gear to one set that is suitable to race on from 7 knots onwards, so as to return the foil to the "real" low wind option it was originally meant to be; keep foil & fin races separate; and switch to fin when no longer suitable for foil (probably somewhere between 15 and 20 knots depending on conditions).

FormuIa said..

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there has been a single IQ foil heat on the fin, even in Brest with 30+ kt wind. Granted, an upwind-downwind course race is slightly less scary than full-on downwind slalom, but still.

Maybe something to do with the OD fin being 68cm.

windsurf.star-board.com/iqfoil/iqfoil-95/