Chris 249 said..

Jduzzi said..

(1) The organizers of the PWA have the responsibility to make public the reasons for their decisions. Individual Athletes or manufacturers do not have such responsibility: they are not deciding anything. (2) The PWA should check sails, boards and foils before the start of every single event. It is instead checking some equipment, somewhere, sometimes.

(1) is mostly a failure in public relationships. The press release they finally produced is somewhat better than their silence for two days, but it still leaves a lot of points very vague. (2) is the most troublesome. I cannot think of any other serious international event with equipment class rules that does not check that the rules are satisfied at every single race.

Soe was targeted, and we have no idea who else was checked during the season: where, when and how often? And frankly it is difficult not to wonder about what other athletes have been doing with their equipment. If a 1.5 cm change (somewhere in the sail) is enough to be disqualified, the number of people that might be using disqualifying equipment might be very large indeed.

But apparently that is ok with the PWA: some loose a world cup because their sail was somewhat off in a race that was not even completed, while others, for all we know, might run a whole season without ever being checked.

How do you know Soe was "targeted" in an unfair way? That's a hell of an accusation to make. The fact that others may have become aware of something suspicious is not "targeting" someone in a bad sense.

The Tour de France, for example, doesn't check every bike from what I understand. The predecessor to the PWA didn't check equipment at world titles. Classes as big as the Laser do NOT check your sail seams at every world title. The America's Cup lead-up series didn't check gear before every race. If you don't know of such things you may not be in a position to sling **** at the PWA. It seems that your allegations of incompetence or bad faith are unfair.

It seems that the allegations of bad faith you are making are worse than anything the PWA did to Soe, and you have no proof at all to back them.

Hei, cool down a little bit, I never said that Soe was targeted unfairly. I said that he was targeted (i.e. singled out, i.e. his sail was checked) and that "we have no idea who else was checked during the season".

It is just a statement of fact: somebody modified his sail by a minute amount, was "caught" because apparently it showed, and lost a world title over it. Others might be smarter, and modify their sails doing a better finish job. We'll never know, because there is apparently no system in place to check equipment.

If you think that is is ok, fine. I think it makes the way the PWA is run look very unprofessional. I feel sorry for the athletes.

duzzi said..
I said that he was targeted (i.e. singled out, i.e. his sail was checked) and that "we have no idea who else was checked during the season".

You must not have read the PWA release, which states: "As part of equipment checks at the PWA slalom finals in Japan, sails from top riders were inspected to check for rule compliance. Examples of sails from NeilPryde, Challenger, Severne and Point 7 were collected from the riders."

Amado and Matteo (#1 and 2 at the event) were on Severne, Benedetti and Rutkowski (#3 and 4) were on Challenger, Martini (#5) was on NeilPryde. The first sailor on a brand not listed by the PWA was Michele Becker on Patrick on #6 (or #7 before the DQ).

Looks like they checked sails from the top-6 riders, which is reasonable.

The type of gear that top PWA guys used has occasionally played a part in my decision on what gear to buy. Perhaps not always, and perhaps it was not the most important factor, but it has played a role. I am sure I'm not the only one. That, of course, assumes that they actually used production gear, not something fine-tuned for individual sailors. The PWA guys I have talked to in the past, which include a couple of world champions and other PWA guys who placed high in some PWA events, certainly gave me the impression that they used production gear (except for wave boards). If a brand not only tries to cheat, but is stupid enough to do it in a very obvious way, I hope that their riders will receive "targeted" inspections, and the penalties outlined in the rules.

In other sports the equipment is checked before the competitions starts and the registered equipment is also marked with paint.
I think something similar is desired here, it leaves such a sour taste to do it after all the competition has ended...

duzzi said..

sheddweller said..

duzzi said..

Chris 249 said..

Jduzzi said..

(1) The organizers of the PWA have the responsibility to make public the reasons for their decisions. Individual Athletes or manufacturers do not have such responsibility: they are not deciding anything. (2) The PWA should check sails, boards and foils before the start of every single event. It is instead checking some equipment, somewhere, sometimes.

(1) is mostly a failure in public relationships. The press release they finally produced is somewhat better than their silence for two days, but it still leaves a lot of points very vague. (2) is the most troublesome. I cannot think of any other serious international event with equipment class rules that does not check that the rules are satisfied at every single race.

Soe was targeted, and we have no idea who else was checked during the season: where, when and how often? And frankly it is difficult not to wonder about what other athletes have been doing with their equipment. If a 1.5 cm change (somewhere in the sail) is enough to be disqualified, the number of people that might be using disqualifying equipment might be very large indeed.

But apparently that is ok with the PWA: some loose a world cup because their sail was somewhat off in a race that was not even completed, while others, for all we know, might run a whole season without ever being checked.

How do you know Soe was "targeted" in an unfair way? That's a hell of an accusation to make. The fact that others may have become aware of something suspicious is not "targeting" someone in a bad sense.

The Tour de France, for example, doesn't check every bike from what I understand. The predecessor to the PWA didn't check equipment at world titles. Classes as big as the Laser do NOT check your sail seams at every world title. The America's Cup lead-up series didn't check gear before every race. If you don't know of such things you may not be in a position to sling **** at the PWA. It seems that your allegations of incompetence or bad faith are unfair.

It seems that the allegations of bad faith you are making are worse than anything the PWA did to Soe, and you have no proof at all to back them.

Hei, cool down a little bit, I never said that Soe was targeted unfairly. I said that he was targeted (i.e. singled out, i.e. his sail was checked) and that "we have no idea who else was checked during the season".

It is just a statement of fact: somebody modified his sail by a minute amount, was "caught" because apparently it showed, and lost a world title over it. Others might be smarter, and modify their sails doing a better finish job. We'll never know, because there is apparently no system in place to check equipment.

If you think that is is ok, fine. I think it makes the way the PWA is run look very unprofessional. I feel sorry for the athletes.

Modified by a "minute"amount?
irrelevant.
It is forbidden to modify them from the registered designs. Period.
The sanction for doing so is written into the rules.


What you are saying is also untrue. There obviously is a system in place to measure sails, it was done and described in the pwa press release.

Read the post, before replying out of context. The point was exactly that: BECAUSE it is forbidden to modify sails (outside of certain allowed tolerances) the PWA SHOULD check them. This episode has brought to the foreground that there is no system in place to check equipment. Some sails are picked up (the "representative sample"), most are not, and apparently only at the last race of the season? And what about the foils? and the boards? This does not seem to be the way to run a WORLD cup ...

It's actually fine as a way to run a world cup.
Someone cheated, got caught, got disqualified.
You on the other hand are throwing mud, questioning the reputation of other sailors on tour and the pwa, inferring that other sailors are also cheating. If you have evidence of this bring it forwards.
If not, be quiet.

sheddweller said..

duzzi said..

sheddweller said..

duzzi said..

Chris 249 said..

Jduzzi said..

(1) The organizers of the PWA have the responsibility to make public the reasons for their decisions. Individual Athletes or manufacturers do not have such responsibility: they are not deciding anything. (2) The PWA should check sails, boards and foils before the start of every single event. It is instead checking some equipment, somewhere, sometimes.

(1) is mostly a failure in public relationships. The press release they finally produced is somewhat better than their silence for two days, but it still leaves a lot of points very vague. (2) is the most troublesome. I cannot think of any other serious international event with equipment class rules that does not check that the rules are satisfied at every single race.

Soe was targeted, and we have no idea who else was checked during the season: where, when and how often? And frankly it is difficult not to wonder about what other athletes have been doing with their equipment. If a 1.5 cm change (somewhere in the sail) is enough to be disqualified, the number of people that might be using disqualifying equipment might be very large indeed.

But apparently that is ok with the PWA: some loose a world cup because their sail was somewhat off in a race that was not even completed, while others, for all we know, might run a whole season without ever being checked.

How do you know Soe was "targeted" in an unfair way? That's a hell of an accusation to make. The fact that others may have become aware of something suspicious is not "targeting" someone in a bad sense.

The Tour de France, for example, doesn't check every bike from what I understand. The predecessor to the PWA didn't check equipment at world titles. Classes as big as the Laser do NOT check your sail seams at every world title. The America's Cup lead-up series didn't check gear before every race. If you don't know of such things you may not be in a position to sling **** at the PWA. It seems that your allegations of incompetence or bad faith are unfair.

It seems that the allegations of bad faith you are making are worse than anything the PWA did to Soe, and you have no proof at all to back them.

Hei, cool down a little bit, I never said that Soe was targeted unfairly. I said that he was targeted (i.e. singled out, i.e. his sail was checked) and that "we have no idea who else was checked during the season".

It is just a statement of fact: somebody modified his sail by a minute amount, was "caught" because apparently it showed, and lost a world title over it. Others might be smarter, and modify their sails doing a better finish job. We'll never know, because there is apparently no system in place to check equipment.

If you think that is is ok, fine. I think it makes the way the PWA is run look very unprofessional. I feel sorry for the athletes.

Modified by a "minute"amount?
irrelevant.
It is forbidden to modify them from the registered designs. Period.
The sanction for doing so is written into the rules.


What you are saying is also untrue. There obviously is a system in place to measure sails, it was done and described in the pwa press release.

Read the post, before replying out of context. The point was exactly that: BECAUSE it is forbidden to modify sails (outside of certain allowed tolerances) the PWA SHOULD check them. This episode has brought to the foreground that there is no system in place to check equipment. Some sails are picked up (the "representative sample"), most are not, and apparently only at the last race of the season? And what about the foils? and the boards? This does not seem to be the way to run a WORLD cup ...

It's actually fine as a way to run a world cup.
Someone cheated, got caught, got disqualified.
You on the other hand are throwing mud, questioning the reputation of other sailors on tour and the pwa, inferring that other sailors are also cheating. If you have evidence of this bring it forwards.
If not, be quiet.

Well said

For those who think that the norm is to measure sails at events, that is way off my experience. In many, many years of competitive sailing, I have only had sails measured in major one-design regattas such as national or world championships. Regattas such as Laser world's, continentals, or nationals measured sails, as did lame boats like lido14s, but larger boats with many sails like Melges or J boats never measured in unless there was a protest ( j boats occasionally have hull measurements checked, but only because there is a long history of cheating). Also have never had sails measured in offshore racing, even at the highest level. I have never had a windsurf sail measured or even checked, even at the nationals ( I never sailed windsurf one design)

Checking every sail from every competitor would be a major undertaking, several days worth if work.

For those that say Soe was singled out, not true. Competitors from all brands represented had sails checked at the Japan PWA event. Even if he was singled our and the result of a protest, good on em for doing it right to uphold the integrity of the event.

duzzi said..

Chris 249 said..

Jduzzi said..

(1) The organizers of the PWA have the responsibility to make public the reasons for their decisions. Individual Athletes or manufacturers do not have such responsibility: they are not deciding anything. (2) The PWA should check sails, boards and foils before the start of every single event. It is instead checking some equipment, somewhere, sometimes.

(1) is mostly a failure in public relationships. The press release they finally produced is somewhat better than their silence for two days, but it still leaves a lot of points very vague. (2) is the most troublesome. I cannot think of any other serious international event with equipment class rules that does not check that the rules are satisfied at every single race.

Soe was targeted, and we have no idea who else was checked during the season: where, when and how often? And frankly it is difficult not to wonder about what other athletes have been doing with their equipment. If a 1.5 cm change (somewhere in the sail) is enough to be disqualified, the number of people that might be using disqualifying equipment might be very large indeed.

But apparently that is ok with the PWA: some loose a world cup because their sail was somewhat off in a race that was not even completed, while others, for all we know, might run a whole season without ever being checked.

How do you know Soe was "targeted" in an unfair way? That's a hell of an accusation to make. The fact that others may have become aware of something suspicious is not "targeting" someone in a bad sense.

The Tour de France, for example, doesn't check every bike from what I understand. The predecessor to the PWA didn't check equipment at world titles. Classes as big as the Laser do NOT check your sail seams at every world title. The America's Cup lead-up series didn't check gear before every race. If you don't know of such things you may not be in a position to sling **** at the PWA. It seems that your allegations of incompetence or bad faith are unfair.

It seems that the allegations of bad faith you are making are worse than anything the PWA did to Soe, and you have no proof at all to back them.

Hei, cool down a little bit, I never said that Soe was targeted unfairly. I said that he was targeted (i.e. singled out, i.e. his sail was checked) and that "we have no idea who else was checked during the season".

It is just a statement of fact: somebody modified his sail by a minute amount, was "caught" because apparently it showed, and lost a world title over it. Others might be smarter, and modify their sails doing a better finish job. We'll never know, because there is apparently no system in place to check equipment.

If you think that is is ok, fine. I think it makes the way the PWA is run look very unprofessional. I feel sorry for the athletes.

If you don't like being criticised then don't criticise others like the PWA officials. If you are going to criticise them then you have to accepit criticism yourself.

It's not really "targeting" someone if it was a check based on reasonable evidence. It's perfectly reasonable to act on a reasonable allegation. World Sailing even has a Hotline to allow sailors to make anonymous allegations about "equipment manipulation". The ethical implications of this sort of investigation have been carefully considered at length by a lot of people and it's NOT considered to be unethical; in fact allowing anonymous complaints is now seen to be simply responsible behaviour.

You're simply incorrect about your claims that other world class events check every bit of gear beforehand so why do you think you're such an expert that you can complain about the PWA?

There's no way any sailmaker would call an illegal 20+mm alteration in the leach of a sail a "minute amount". A 25mm seam curve change in a windsurfer sail could easily be 25 times as much curve as in the stock sail or .05 of the chord. For comparison;

1- a double Olympic medallist was chucked out of a world title after his catamaran's centreboard controller was 4.5mm out of tolerance.

2- the manual for measuring ocean racing boats (which weigh about 750 kg to 60 tonnes) requires even toilet rolls and fire extinguishers to be taken off the boats before weighing, and for each bunk cushion to be noted. In a typical yacht those items would be about 20kg out of 5000 or .004 of the weight. If a typical 5000 kg boat has a difference of 10kg between weighing sessions (.002) then the measurer is supposed to check and find out why.

Multiple big boat owners have been thrown out of the sport for years when their boats have been found to be about 0.7% out of measurement trim.

3- when members of the Oracle America's Cup team added 2.375kg to a 1400kg AC45 catamaran (.0017 of the boat's weight) their team was thrown out of multiple events and the crew responsible were suspended from sailing.

Based on those precedents, Soe is lucky to be allowed to keep on sailing. It appears that you're criticising the PWA without realising how large this breach was compared to others that saw the sailors cop far harsher penalties.

Subsonic said..

jdfoils said..
For those who think that the norm is to measure sails at events, that is way off my experience. In many, many years of competitive sailing, I have only had sails measured in major one-design regattas such as national or world championships. Regattas such as Laser world's, continentals, or nationals measured sails, as did lame boats like lido14s, but larger boats with many sails like Melges or J boats never measured in unless there was a protest ( j boats occasionally have hull measurements checked, but only because there is a long history of cheating). Also have never had sails measured in offshore racing, even at the highest level. I have never had a windsurf sail measured or even checked, even at the nationals ( I never sailed windsurf one design)

Checking every sail from every competitor would be a major undertaking, several days worth if work.

For those that say Soe was singled out, not true. Competitors from all brands represented had sails checked at the Japan PWA event. Even if he was singled our and the result of a protest, good on em for doing it right to uphold the integrity of the event.

I couldn't care either way. PWA have a system in place and Johan got caught out. Thats all there is to it in this case. It could've gone another way too though, a competitor could've had a modified sail and slipped through the system. That's the catch with just doing spot checks.


But It's not an outlandish idea for the PWA to have a measuring day or two at the start of a world title series where they measure and sign all equipment a competitor may use over the course of the series. It creates clarity for both competitors, and the race committee/event organisers. These occur at literally every national titles I've attended (and this a monetised world title we're discussing.) They generally take a day to a day and a half to get through a 30-40 boat fleet by a small team of volunteers. Competitors are responsible for presenting their equipment ready for inspection, so if battens need removing, they do the removing and replacing, not the measuring team.

there's more equipment to measure all in all, but it's smaller equipment. Measuring a boat and it's sails requires a team of at least two owing to size. One person could measure a board or sail by themselves. Having been on measuring team before, I can tell you that it all gets quite refined, it wouldn't take the 4 hrs per competitor that someone mentioned earlier in the thread, nowhere near that.


of course, spot checks should always occur as well, but if equipment has been previously measured, there are no excuses if modified equipment is discovered at a later date.

There's not normally checks of the sort that would catch a seam taper alteration in Lasers (the most popular class in the world), Windsurfer LT (third fastest selling class in the world), Tasars (most popular two handed boat in Australia) even at world championships, or at the worlds for the predecessor to the PWA.

I agree that normal measurements don't take two hours each, but to do a really good job of measuring the sails well enough to spot seam taper alterations or similar modifications to a whole bunch of sails, boards, fins and spars of different sizes from different makers is different to getting the normal measurements of one-manufacturer classes. At an estimate you'd want an extra 20 measurements for each sail, over and above the normal height and width measurements. I haven't checked to see how many sails they're allowed but it could easily be an extra 200 measurements for each sailor's kit and each of them would have to be checked against the standard production sail.

It's much harder than in, for example, Lasers where measurers only have to learn how to spot alterations in one design gear.The only other time I've heard of illegal "production" sails being presented for measurement at a world title, it was only picked up because a guy who worked at the sailmaker who built the production sails was racing and he noticed the different stitching. The normal measurers hadn't noticed. So the level of scrutiny would seem to be far higher in the PWA's case than in most classes where they're just looking at area measurements.

In my experience measuring normally involves two or three people from the class being present at every stage (often one or two with a tape and one with a pad to record the figures) so that means 200 sail measurements + board measuring + fin+ spars, so say 250 measurements would be requred for each PWA sailor. In comparison I think at a Laser Masters worlds there's nine measurements (spar bend and length, rudder angle and batten length) and visual checks to the rest, but the measurers only need one about three jigs. The PWA would need several jigs for every different registered board, fin and mast to achieve similar efficiences.

A pre-event measuring day isn't a bad idea but my point was that the fact that the PWA doesn't require it doesn't mean that the PWA has any responsibility for the fact that Soe was only thrown out after the event.

P7 made a statement on FB Nov 14th. Copied in earlier in this thread iirc.

They updated it this morning, updating this paragraph.

Unfortunately, we have been disqualified due to one sail size which was not perfectly into specs and practically not even being used in Japan, and Johan had no idea it was out of specs, as the mistake came from our side from 1. typing mistake during registration, and measurement mistake to bring it back the sail into specs as it was from the first small production made fast for riders who needed sail earlier for racing. Our total fault happening on one sail out of 20 registered. Johan could have been the second youngest sailor to be World Champion, but this will be postponed for one year.

From the PWA's statement, the other 2 P7 sails the PWA were checked, and found to be within tolerances of the given spec. Johan Soe's sail was still out of spec, after modification, hence the DSQ.
I can believe they have an early production run for team sailor's kit. But was Soe's sail the only 1 to make it to the PWA team riders?
If they found a mistake in registration, why not inform the PWA that all their sails would be out of the given spec due to that mistake, and why would all later sails have a different spec.

At least they are saying it was their fault and Johan Soe didnt know about this.

If you weren't aware, you can view the edit history in FB.

PhilUK said..
P7 made a statement on FB Nov 14th. Copied in earlier in this thread iirc.

They updated it this morning, updating this paragraph.

Unfortunately, we have been disqualified due to one sail size which was not perfectly into specs and practically not even being used in Japan, and Johan had no idea it was out of specs, as the mistake came from our side from 1. typing mistake during registration, and measurement mistake to bring it back the sail into specs as it was from the first small production made fast for riders who needed sail earlier for racing. Our total fault happening on one sail out of 20 registered. Johan could have been the second youngest sailor to be World Champion, but this will be postponed for one year.

From the PWA's statement, the other 2 P7 sails the PWA were checked, and found to be within tolerances of the given spec. Johan Soe's sail was still out of spec, after modification, hence the DSQ.
I can believe they have an early production run for team sailor's kit. But was Soe's sail the only 1 to make it to the PWA team riders?
If they found a mistake in registration, why not inform the PWA that all their sails would be out of the given spec due to that mistake, and why would all later sails have a different spec.

At least they are saying it was their fault and Johan Soe didnt know about this.

If you weren't aware, you can view the edit history in FB.

Point 7 sound like Keystone Cops.

is Nicolas fastest on foil because of gear or becaause of him?

PhilUK said..
P7 made a statement on FB Nov 14th. Copied in earlier in this thread iirc.

They updated it this morning, updating this paragraph.

Unfortunately, we have been disqualified due to one sail size which was not perfectly into specs and practically not even being used in Japan, and Johan had no idea it was out of specs, as the mistake came from our side from 1. typing mistake during registration, and measurement mistake to bring it back the sail into specs as it was from the first small production made fast for riders who needed sail earlier for racing. Our total fault happening on one sail out of 20 registered. Johan could have been the second youngest sailor to be World Champion, but this will be postponed for one year.

From the PWA's statement, the other 2 P7 sails the PWA were checked, and found to be within tolerances of the given spec. Johan Soe's sail was still out of spec, after modification, hence the DSQ.
I can believe they have an early production run for team sailor's kit. But was Soe's sail the only 1 to make it to the PWA team riders?
If they found a mistake in registration, why not inform the PWA that all their sails would be out of the given spec due to that mistake, and why would all later sails have a different spec.

At least they are saying it was their fault and Johan Soe didnt know about this.

If you weren't aware, you can view the edit history in FB.

duzzi said..

PhilUK said..

windsurftom said..
Could it be the front end of the foot panel here? It's definately repaired. Doesn't look fast

That could be the 8.8. If you look at the Torbole pictures on the PWA site, 3rd page, captioned "Soe close to the line" there is a patch on the foot panel which looks similar.
Look at Japan photos, page 5, captioned "Soe all out 1034", thats a 7.8 with no patch.

Honestly, I just wish the PWA would say exactly what was wrong. Save all this mucking around

Yep, it would have been nice if they said exactly what happened from day one! They still have not. It would have saved a loooooong conversation. But it also shows that how to check class rule adherence is another thing that needs to change in the PWA. They just messed up the whole 2023 season ...

Who messed it up?
The one who cheated I presume?

Chris 249 said..

SurferKris said..
In other sports the equipment is checked before the competitions starts and the registered equipment is also marked with paint.
I think something similar is desired here, it leaves such a sour taste to do it after all the competition has ended...

That's just not true. There's many other sports, including sailing, where that is NOT done.

You're alleging that PWA people, probably volunteers, were utterly incompetent. That's a very harsh criticism, especially when your basis for the claim is wrong.

Reallly? I guess all those national sailing championships and world titles ive been part of that had measuring days prior to the regatta must have been a figment of my imagination then eh? I wonder if the other 60 plus competitors i saw getting sails measured and marked off on measuring day were also aware that it wasnt real.

Chris 249 said..

Maddlad said..

Chris 249 said..

SurferKris said..
In other sports the equipment is checked before the competitions starts and the registered equipment is also marked with paint.
I think something similar is desired here, it leaves such a sour taste to do it after all the competition has ended...

That's just not true. There's many other sports, including sailing, where that is NOT done.

You're alleging that PWA people, probably volunteers, were utterly incompetent. That's a very harsh criticism, especially when your basis for the claim is wrong.

Reallly? I guess all those national sailing championships and world titles ive been part of that had measuring days prior to the regatta must have been a figment of my imagination then eh? I wonder if the other 60 plus competitors i saw getting sails measured and marked off on measuring day were also aware that it wasnt real.

...

The point is that people are claiming that the PWA should have done something that I don't think any other sailing class ever does and that other popular sports don't do. The PWA seems to do what many other classes do - you get your sail checked and stamped before the title starts. It's not the PWA's responsibility to check that no one messes with the sail in a way that clearly breaches the rules after the sail is registered.

You know, at the end of the story this really makes no sense at all. The tolerances that are allowed are so small, and the checks so non existent that all it would take to get away with breaking the rules is a good finish job. Apparently Soe was singled out only because the one-panel-2-cm-change showed, and attracted somebody's attention. "Cheat" with care and you would be off the hook, because apparently the PWA does not have the resources to check sails; or boards; or foils.

It is hard to see how this situation makes for fair racing, and it did succeed in messing up a ground braking event.