DarrylG said..
Combined fin foil is really the only way to go if events are to going to succeed.

It is more complex that that, because the tour follows the money not the wind. When was the last time Australia hosted a PWA slalom event? What if they ran it from port beach Fremantle in the summer, its got the conditions, the hotels, the race crew, but where is the money? I think WA tourism sponsored LOC for a bit but that was it? Point being many are many ideal places but there isn't the money in those locations..

On the flip side foiling opens up loads of real world locations that are still interesting, often a closer match to the conditions than many of us are stuck with. We can't all move to Maui

They need a format that promotes the two sports with out one trying to destroy the other.

IQ, is a success because its meets the need of its real market, its driven by the Olympics, the elite are able to receive funding from their national sailing bodies. It doesn't need or really receive substantial support from the industry. The gear is expensive but there is a healthy secondary market, being a frozen one design, yada yada. Hopefully the Aussie IQ guys getter better support from Australia than the RSX guys did!

BullroarerTook said..

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.

Yes your right, it would not be OK. Foiling should not be the enemy, but IMHO unrestricted change when so many things have been suspended has allowed a disconnect from reality to occur.

FormuIa said..
67-68 cm is a standard high wind fin on FW boards. No issue there, I've ridden it in 35-40 kt gusts with a 7.0 sail (flat water though). Though it was a custom fin, a class or two above the OD ones in terms of performance.

With a wide board and lots of leverage you need a large fin too, otherwise, it spins out.

AFAIK the fin on RSX was also long, 66 cm, and they had regattas in 30+ kt winds in chop. So that's not an issue, the thing is, foil is just faster around the course. Not necessarily easier to ride, but faster in the hands of an experienced surfer.

I would love to hear what the majority of the riders prefer in terms of the PWA future.

IQFoil* & RSX wasnt downwind slalom. PWA is. Nobody uses 68cm fins in PWA slalom, or boards that wide in strong winds, its a non starter for a discussion as far as I can see.

* some is slalom, but Brest wasnt 4 bouy downwind slalom. 2 reaches, 3rd bouy directly downwind of the 2nd, then 2 more reaches.

Valid points. Maybe PWA needs to adapt in general, as IQ did. Their regatta system is optimized primarly for the wind, and given the popularity, it has an edge over "downwind slalom only", as you can do a CR/marathon when it picks up.

It's counter-evolutionary that you have to mandate/force a fin (or foil) on what should be the Formula 1 of windsurfing (= PWA). Understandably, money/sponsors are a huge constrain, but nevertheless, the class should be open in terms of "let the fastest gear/competitor win", no?

Eg. in kitefoil, you don't see anyone on fin race boards anymore ... same as formula windsurfing, it's no match for a foil, so it's a bit of an odd choice to force the fin use in PWA, what should otherwise be a cutting-edge open class racing.

Whilst IQ sailing may be considered a success, the vast majority think its not much of an improvement over watching paint dry.

Watching the video of the high wind sailing from Japan it is clear to me that fins cannot match a foil in anything under 18knots - especially around the marks.

Even in strong conditions say above 23 knots the foil still appears to have a slight advantage - again around the marks.

My advice is just leave it as is. Watching the two together was epic viewing.

Confused Muppet said..
The foils are better in real world conditions period.

This.

Hence the confusion why would an organisation/association such as PWA that should be the cutting-edge of windsurfing, want to limit the use of foils and mandate "well guys, over XX knots, you MUST use fin". One thing would be safety aspect if it actually becomes too dangerous, but Nico Goyard and others have shown this isn't necessarily the case. I get the regulations aspect in terms of materials, sizing, etc., but not outright banning the foil or forcing the fin. It just seems backwards.

Eg. with cycling, they banned the super-tuck descending position because of safety. They wanted to ban disc brakes on Pro Tour, but have since reversed the decision and are now allowed. The top guys are faster on descents with discs... same as on windsurf, the best riders are faster on foil on a course.

duzzi said..

FormuIa said..

Confused Muppet said..
The foils are better in real world conditions period.

This.

Hence the confusion why would an organisation/association such as PWA that should be the cutting-edge of windsurfing, want to limit the use of foils and mandate "well guys, over XX knots, you MUST use fin". One thing would be safety aspect if it actually becomes too dangerous, but Nico Goyard and others have shown this isn't necessarily the case. I get the regulations aspect in terms of materials, sizing, etc., but not outright banning the foil or forcing the fin. It just seems backwards.

Eg. with cycling, they banned the super-tuck descending position because of safety. They wanted to ban disc brakes on Pro Tour, but have since reversed the decision and are now allowed. The top guys are faster on descents with discs... same as on windsurf, the best riders are faster on foil on a course.

I have a suggestion: let's include in PWA slalom the Windsufer LT. Then we will all get all excited not just at the spectacle of foil vs fin, but of foil vs Windsurfer LT in sub 10 knots You can bet the LT will trash the foil once it drops in the water. Open races of course, the racers will love to gamble yet more!

Anyone can chose to run an LT now. Stupid choice, but they can if they register it.

LT race or a IQ race? Tough one

gorgesailor said..

duzzi said..

FormuIa said..

Confused Muppet said..
The foils are better in real world conditions period.

This.

Hence the confusion why would an organisation/association such as PWA that should be the cutting-edge of windsurfing, want to limit the use of foils and mandate "well guys, over XX knots, you MUST use fin". One thing would be safety aspect if it actually becomes too dangerous, but Nico Goyard and others have shown this isn't necessarily the case. I get the regulations aspect in terms of materials, sizing, etc., but not outright banning the foil or forcing the fin. It just seems backwards.

Eg. with cycling, they banned the super-tuck descending position because of safety. They wanted to ban disc brakes on Pro Tour, but have since reversed the decision and are now allowed. The top guys are faster on descents with discs... same as on windsurf, the best riders are faster on foil on a course.

I have a suggestion: let's include in PWA slalom the Windsufer LT. Then we will all get all excited not just at the spectacle of foil vs fin, but of foil vs Windsurfer LT in sub 10 knots You can bet the LT will trash the foil once it drops in the water. Open races of course, the racers will love to gamble yet more!

Anyone can chose to run an LT now. Stupid choice, but they can if they register it.

Eliminate the wind limits and the Windsurfer LT will win hands down against both fin and foil when the wind is, say, sub 6-8 knots. Boom! No more cancelled regattas!!!! I am obviously joking, but the point is that open class, that is fin and foil, is not the way to run top level professional events. Absolutely nobody does it in the pro sailing world and is making the PWA look idiotic.

In the mean time ... IQfoil cruises along. with 100 entries at the European Youth and Junior and the kiddos really showing how it is done!

I was thinking about this mixing of categories and it reminded me of two different competitions: chess mixing female and open prizes in the same competitions, and GP motorcycle racing transitioning from 2-stroke to 4-stroke.

The bike situation is the weirdest, in 2002 4 teams ran 990cc 4-stroke engines alongside the legacy 500cc 2-stoke engines run by smaller teams, mostly satellite teams of the same brands. The next year the top category (called MotoGP since) completely phased-out 2-stroke 500cc engines but the smaller 250cc and 125cc categories would go on for years on 2-stroke engines. Then around 2010 or so Moto2 replaced 250cc with a single 600cc 4-stroke engine (some version of the Honda CBR600RSX's engine IIRC, rest of the bike on the team). And a few years all 2-strokes were phased out.

Now, this was mainly a market and regulatory environment imperative. If you look at 2002's results, 500cc 2-stroke engines were in fact competitive with the much larger 990cc 4-stroke engines, in all but the straightest circuits. Of course the org can pretty much dictate the result by adding circuits favouring peak speeds, and modifying the existing ones. But 4-stroke engines are environmentally friendlier and manufacturers were facing higher taxes and bans in more and more markets for their 2-stroke engines. So obviously it's not like they had a choice, and it still was controversial because purists enjoyed the more skill-based racing of 2-stroke engines that also had no traction control and were louder.

The idea there is that market considerations will ultimately trump other considerations, but imo the market doesn't favour phasing out fins, at all. And I don't think the market is big enough to separate the disciplines, but we'll see. The other idea is that courses can be balanced to favour one category or the other.

The chess situation is that males and females play the exact same game but men are very dominating, there rarely being even 1 woman in the top 100 (Judit Polgar was a top 10 back in the day though). So in order to promote competitive chess among women, separate female-only tournaments are held, but most importantly there are separate prizes for women only in top tournaments, allowing for women to collect prize money even if they don't make the top places.

The idea there is that you can have two different categories in the same competition and have prizes/points for both overall and each/either category. This can be tuned so that competitive racing makes sense for more people, both competitors and fans. Let's face it, some people are not going to fin and some are not going to foil, others will be good at both and others will be good at judging what to pick.

It's important to consider that competitive PWA races are not going to really drive the market, esp. considering that you see more people windsurfing who are over 40 than under 30. At least both in the UK and Spain which is where I spend most of my time. The market will drive the competition, or should if they don't want to fail. I'd be careful about phasing out what most people do, not just what most people are spending money into right now because this is a volatile market.

Pcdefender said..
LT race or a IQ race? Tough one

Yep, it would be a tough decision - do you want to go really fast adn straight to one corner and then come back (which seemed to be what happened almost all the time at the IQ Europeans) when there's wind, or do you want to work all the shifts upwind and down all the time?

I got straight off the foiler the other day and onto the LT and relished the way each of them sailing in their different way. They are two very different forms of sailing and the fact that you may prefer one doesn't mean anything. If speed is what counts for you, get a kitefoiler.

The banning of recumbents by the UCI (in the 1930's) was mostly a commercial decision ; the manufacturers didn't want to alter production of what they where used to.
So, if the fin survives, it will again be driven by manufacturers reluctant to change to the more efficient platform.

It's always a commercial decision. You have different kit with different specs and performance, and this kit sells next to nothing - in the case of recumbents because it's impractical in the streets and dangerous in the road, esp. crowded roads - then having the non-selling kit become the standard would have made no sense.

Also in the case of cycling it hasn't been about making the fastest bikes ever in living memory. It's about the athlete in cycling. In windsurf, tech competition is a factor or brand sponsorship would go away (the alternative is formula/one-design regattas). So PWA is a bit more like F1 IMO, or world rally car where having the fastest car is not quite as decisive.

cheekyrafiki said..
I was thinking about this mixing of categories and it reminded me of two different competitions: chess mixing female and open prizes in the same competitions, and GP motorcycle racing transitioning from 2-stroke to 4-stroke.

The bike situation is the weirdest, in 2002 4 teams ran 990cc 4-stroke engines alongside the legacy 500cc 2-stoke engines run by smaller teams, mostly satellite teams of the same brands. The next year the top category (called MotoGP since) completely phased-out 2-stroke 500cc engines but the smaller 250cc and 125cc categories would go on for years on 2-stroke engines. Then around 2010 or so Moto2 replaced 250cc with a single 600cc 4-stroke engine (some version of the Honda CBR600RSX's engine IIRC, rest of the bike on the team). And a few years all 2-strokes were phased out.

Now, this was mainly a market and regulatory environment imperative. If you look at 2002's results, 500cc 2-stroke engines were in fact competitive with the much larger 990cc 4-stroke engines, in all but the straightest circuits. Of course the org can pretty much dictate the result by adding circuits favouring peak speeds, and modifying the existing ones. But 4-stroke engines are environmentally friendlier and manufacturers were facing higher taxes and bans in more and more markets for their 2-stroke engines. So obviously it's not like they had a choice, and it still was controversial because purists enjoyed the more skill-based racing of 2-stroke engines that also had no traction control and were louder.

The idea there is that market considerations will ultimately trump other considerations, but imo the market doesn't favour phasing out fins, at all. And I don't think the market is big enough to separate the disciplines, but we'll see. The other idea is that courses can be balanced to favour one category or the other.

The chess situation is that males and females play the exact same game but men are very dominating, there rarely being even 1 woman in the top 100 (Judit Polgar was a top 10 back in the day though). So in order to promote competitive chess among women, separate female-only tournaments are held, but most importantly there are separate prizes for women only in top tournaments, allowing for women to collect prize money even if they don't make the top places.

The idea there is that you can have two different categories in the same competition and have prizes/points for both overall and each/either category. This can be tuned so that competitive racing makes sense for more people, both competitors and fans. Let's face it, some people are not going to fin and some are not going to foil, others will be good at both and others will be good at judging what to pick.

It's important to consider that competitive PWA races are not going to really drive the market, esp. considering that you see more people windsurfing who are over 40 than under 30. At least both in the UK and Spain which is where I spend most of my time. The market will drive the competition, or should if they don't want to fail. I'd be careful about phasing out what most people do, not just what most people are spending money into right now because this is a volatile market.

cool idea to at least give out a prize for top alternative craft (likely fin)

Also you could do affirmative action where the a couple of spots in each elimination are saved for the best alternative craft (eg fastest two fins go through)

Bellerophon said..

Chris 249 said..

FormuIa said..

Confused Muppet said..
The foils are better in real world conditions period.

This.

Hence the confusion why would an organisation/association such as PWA that should be the cutting-edge of windsurfing, want to limit the use of foils and mandate "well guys, over XX knots, you MUST use fin". One thing would be safety aspect if it actually becomes too dangerous, but Nico Goyard and others have shown this isn't necessarily the case. I get the regulations aspect in terms of materials, sizing, etc., but not outright banning the foil or forcing the fin. It just seems backwards.

Eg. with cycling, they banned the super-tuck descending position because of safety. They wanted to ban disc brakes on Pro Tour, but have since reversed the decision and are now allowed. The top guys are faster on descents with discs... same as on windsurf, the best riders are faster on foil on a course.

But pro cycling (to use your analogy) uses very slow bikes. By that, I mean that the UCI bikes are about 2/3rds the speed of a streamlined recumbent. And yet cycling is a very big sport and the Tour is one of the world's biggest spectator events.

Foiling has taken over many of the most publicised events in boat sailing, and boat sailing is not doing well at all in terms of popularity. That applies whether one looks at the pro foiling classes, or the non-foiling "mainstream" classes that are now starved of publicity as the media, organisers and industry (but not the average sailor) concentrate on foiling.

So other sports show us that limiting technology can be a good thing, and allowing extreme high performance can be bad. I'm not saying the PWA should restrict foils, but there's pretty good reasons for doing so.

The banning of recumbents by the UCI (in the 1930's) was mostly a commercial decision ; the manufacturers didn't want to alter production of what they where used to.
So, if the fin survives, it will again be driven by manufacturers reluctant to change to the more efficient platform.

What survives on the market is not driven by manufacturers desires or inconveniences, but by consumer demand. Meaning that it is consumers who to a large extent dictate what becomes popular. If we were in a soviet style economy we would have no choice but to buy what the manufacturer want us to buy based on a five years plan. We are not. Recumbent bikes have not become dominant because, well, have you ever tried to ride one? They are fast, but try one in traffic, or gods forbid, on gravel or off road Windfoil have not became dominant because the much easier, if much slower, wings came to maturity. Fins will probably stay, ifor the same reason that it is hard to see how normal dinghies or keel sailboats will disappear.

But I amend my PWA proposal. Still Open class, but not only Windsurfer LT, Fin, Windfoil, also Wingmast the new incarnation of the Wing Weapon (about 1984-1986 CE)!



(that is: get rid of that heavy drag inducing foil!)

Foils vs finn's.?
Let the images speak .

Bellerophon said..
Foils vs finn's.?
Let the images speak .

Agreed, that was a delight.
1- as a windsurfer (fin or foil) absolutely cool to see the speed and skill level
2 - as a foiler, amazed at how well those using a foil in 25+ kept it together and stayed reasonably competitive. I'd be sailing a postage stamp in those conditions wishing I had rigged an even smaller postage stamp.
3 - the race at 10:45 was like watching an aerobatic team seeing the top three come into marks
4 - as the wind lightened up, the foil advantage was pretty obvious. The race at 13:47 was just spanking and the top three, despite more than a couple comments prior saying foil races were a procession, were swapping places the whole race
5 - All I saw was racing. Foil. Fin. Whatever. Choose your "cart" and drive it across the starting line. Run whatcha brung.