it would be fantastic if some one could get a price comparison on dfferent classes,because not all of us live in Sydney . and when its done no Bull**** eg prices of fins etc, etc . Remember i want to win.
AWA show some balls

Bit off topic I know - but I couldnt resist seeing to get it lighthearted after the trolls rantings..

JayBee said...
[The sailors may well be members of YA and AWA - who cares? Do you have a point to make? I am a member of a club, AWA and YA. I am also a member of a local travelling dance troupe but I try to keep that quiet. Membership of an association does not preclude membership of any other!

hey JB - could you let me have the itinerary for that dance troupe of yours this weekend - I have acrow props for rent...hold up any stage for you and the rest of the ex Munster forward pack to do your award winning jigs

aus301 said...

windsufering said...

thumbs up to any one design racing . one design racing = one price

as long as we are all racing the same design.

Yep should all be racing the same design and racing the same weight as the heaviest sailor so light weights have to carry weight.

A bit off the topic, but the BIC Techno class association is in the early stages of being set up as we speak.... Anyone interested in getting involved is welcome to put their hand up...

Yachting australia has races for them in youth a pitty it cant go on the calender just maybe a yacht club in vic will start a class up

windsufering said...

it would be fantastic if some one could get a price comparison on dfferent classes,because not all of us live in Sydney . and when its done no Bull**** eg prices of fins etc, etc . Remember i want to win.
AWA show some balls

Ok, here's a pretty 'rough' comparison, but bare in mind this is a comparison if you want to "win" a World Championship in your class. I will base these comparisons on what I know that World/Olympic champions in various classes spent on equipment in one calendar year to be at the top of their sport.

Slalom:
Antoine Albeau - $16,000. (based on 4x boards at $1,750*, 8x sails at $1,000*, $3,000 for fins + other gear)

Formula:
Steve Allen - $12,500. (based on 2x boards at $1,750*, 5x sails at $1,000*, $4,000 for fins + other gear).

RSX:
Tom Ashley - $60,800 (based on 8x boards at $3,225**, 10x full rigs at $3,500**).

* - While I realise Antoine wouldn't be paying a cent for his equipment, this is 'generally' accepted as the 'standard national teamrider price' for most brand's equipment, if somebody racing internationally wanted to purchase it.

** - I quickly based this price on the 'standard rsx pricelist' available on neilpryde.com. I realise the landed prices of the gear in Australia would differ.

Sorry if that sounds damning, but the cost of one design racing (RSX) at the "elite" level (only) is drastically more expensive than open development classes because you require much more equipment. The beauty of one-design racing is that at a "national" level, it is not, and one set of gear will probably last you many, many years which is why there is probably more one-design racing going on in Australia than other formats of racing!

Now back to the original topic at the beginning. It would be great to have relatively inexpensive one design racing being revived all through Australia. It's already 'kind of' there in some places, it just needs action and revival, motivation and some effort from some people to get everyone to get the dust off their old boards in their garages. We're trying to get this started in NSW by incorporating some other classes in to the Formula/Slalom events; if this happened in other states also, suddenly you could have a tour ... it takes time to build up, but its already in the works in my opinion.

Gestalt said...

and add to that one design racing on the wally....

$1200

A couple of years ago it was $1590 for a brand new WOD (complete and fully rigged)

sites.google.com/site/cthom249/contacts

i the wallys are now 1800 having problems finding how much the kona is i heard around $2000

windsufering said...

i the wallys are now 1800 having problems finding how much the kona is i heard around $2000

depends what you are buying it for

not cheap something has to be done .
$60000 bucks for a gold medal be cheaper to buy one
compared to other classes not to bad

windsufering said...

not cheap something has to be done .
$60000 bucks for a gold medal be cheaper to buy one
compared to other classes not to bad

Considering your comments on page one of this thread, can I please be the first to spit on you and shoot you?

great we are getting some where
now why are More youth not windsurfing
i will try and get prices for the laser and 29er
i find it hard to find price for the race board

windsufering said...

we are great about paying out on different windsurfing classes but that gets us no where. i think where we went wrong is we forgot about the youth.
Parents buy they buy lasers 29er etc etc etc

with respect windsufering, you're the one who was dishing the dirt.

Chris 249 said...
Since the first, second and third points are related to the intensity of use rather than the equipment in use, don't they arise regardless of whether or not the class is OD? In other words, isn't that a question of Olympic class v pro class, rather than OD v development?

As you say, at national level just about all of us (not including you, Sean!) will finish so far behind the Olympians that we can just use their old gear, confident that 99% of the gap is caused by skill! :-)

On the second point, do people think the Olympic classes are more susceptible to rocker differences than the 'development' classes and if so, why?

While the RSX budget seems big, arguably an Olympic campaign on development gear could be much more exxy. In the Olympic dinghy classes, the stricter OD classes seem to be the cheapest ones, because the cashed-up Olympic funding bodies can always throw more money around. In 2000, the Brits bought a solid tonne of aluminium, milled away all but 6kg (IIRC) and used that to make the mandrel (mould) for the mast on Shirley Robertson's gold-medal winning Europe. I've forgotten the cost - something in the tens of thousands, I think.

You'd have to assume that the companies sponsoring the pro scene aren't that likely to throw such large chunks of cash around, since they know it will hurt the sport (just like it did eons ago, when they did have big budgets).

As someone who sails both development and OD classes, I'm not having a go at either. The great thing about them is that they are so different in many ways that we can find a class that suits us.

Sorry I seem to be going off in tangents to answer various questions ... but just to answer yours Chris:

In my opinion Olympic classes (or any OD classes in reality) are more susceptible to rocker line differences because you don't have the ability to change a fin or sail to combat performance differences. ie, the RSX board has a lot of flat in the rocker and sails very 'flat' on the water. If I could put a 70cm fin built with a lot of power in the tip to get the nose out of the water it would go faster; but you can't. In formula, we make different fins to suit different boards, so in reality you can always customise your gear if there are specific characteristics of the gear you don't like to begin with. No option to do that in OD, so if you want to win at the elite level you just buy some more boards and find the best ones ...

Noted that is completely irrelevant to 90% of the people who normally sail/race OD who have no need to buy more than one set of gear to be competitive and enjoy windsurfing. Just making some comments about the reality of elite windsurfing on the international scene :-/

Granted, there is a tonne more money being thrown around in Olympic classes compared to the amounts spent by companies in the development classes. Winning gold medals = more funding for the sport which actually helps develop sports in my grassroot levels, so $10,000 on a sailboat mast is nothing when you may get an extra $2M in funding as a result of the gold medal. $10,000 spent on a windsurfing mast would just mean our sails cost 40% more next year ... ouch.

The wear and tear is definitely different too. RSX sailors train 10x more than the top formula/slalom guys as there is more emphasis put on drilling certain skills and fitness whereas development class guys are usually just testing fins and sails etc.

WS,

A 29er is Au $13,769.59 (inc GST)

I believe there is a perception where windsurfing is seen as a past-time, and sailing is seen as a sport. Lets face it, kits are not paying $13k themselves, their parents are.
Perhaps we should be targeting parents to get their kids too.

JB