duzzi said..

bel29 said..

duzzi said..

I love it when people cling on semantics and end up unable (or unwilling) to see the forest from the tree.

The point is that the PWA Slalom World Champion was a title that was awarded after a number of races held around the world. To call it the same, and award it, after all but one of those races have been scrapped, is at worst deceiving and at best a bit delusional.

no, it's realism. yes, we'd all want to see a championship run across 5 continents, multiple spots, conditions, etc. -- but those days are long gone (and probably never existed). at the current juncture, this is what we have, and it was epic with a worthy winner. as I said, the men will race again in Tenerife, but I guess that's too close to Fuerte to count?

I completely agree. Be realistic: call it the "Fuerteventura Cup" or the "Canary Islands Cup". Fun to watch, if completely unrelated to what any windsurfer but maybe 100 on the planet do, but there is nothing "wordly" in this race.

.semantics?!

duzzi said..

bel29 said..

duzzi said..

I love it when people cling on semantics and end up unable (or unwilling) to see the forest from the tree.

The point is that the PWA Slalom World Champion was a title that was awarded after a number of races held around the world. To call it the same, and award it, after all but one of those races have been scrapped, is at worst deceiving and at best a bit delusional.

no, it's realism. yes, we'd all want to see a championship run across 5 continents, multiple spots, conditions, etc. -- but those days are long gone (and probably never existed). at the current juncture, this is what we have, and it was epic with a worthy winner. as I said, the men will race again in Tenerife, but I guess that's too close to Fuerte to count?

I completely agree. Be realistic: call it the "Fuerteventura Cup" or the "Canary Islands Cup". Fun to watch, if completely unrelated to what any windsurfer but maybe 100 on the planet do, but there is nothing "wordly" in this race.

Really, having recently spent some time in Europe and met alot of these riders and sailed with some. These sailors are more humble and approachable than most riders at your local spot. Yes their skills maybe out of reach for most, but surely you have to respect the support they offer to our sport. I am offended on the riders behalf!!

Gestalt said..
That's not what Sean is getting at. The camless sails can't go as deep and keep pressure in the sail. When you go to deep they lose drive

Have experienced this many times myself with freewave/camless sails. At tighter angles sure they can be as fast

We could cut 'camless' sails to sail whatever course you want, but the main issue would be they would be less stable in dealing with wind range and gusts than cam'd sails.
Adding cam to sails allows the sails to take up a more twisted shape to deal with downwind sailing, but, more importantly, the twin luff and cam arrangement allows for greater structural stability in gusty conditions.

On tropic, this Fuerteventura event has been terrific to follow, whether you're a slalom follower or a freestyle fan, and our thanks to the PWA and their media crew.

Yeah the straight line speed of these guys is insane but it's the corners where they leave anyone not at that level for dead.

On that note the whole fleet races where Nico was blitzing the fleet while pulling massive jumps on the way out was the most impressive thing i've seen in a very long time.

watching the freestyle guys i was struck buy how slow they were travelling in comparison. never really noticed that before and i watch all the events including the FPT stuff. Faith was restored when Lennart had his heat and looked to be travelling a lot faster than the other guys.

Obelix said..

....
Freeride board could be good though! Something with heaps of V would be very nice here. But needs to be registerd for PWA which probably none are.

I am actually wondering why recreational sailors (myself included) keep using current slalom boards. How much would we loose with respect to a fast freeride in normal, 12 to 20-25 knots, conditions? One knot of speed? Two? And how much would be gain at the comfort and gybing...

Bruno Martini clocked 38.5knts in that chop.
I doubt that a freeride board could get anywhere near that speed.

More likely is that the designers will design chop friendly slalom boards.

Freeride would theoretically be easier to control = faster

duzzi said..

bel29 said..

duzzi said..

I love it when people cling on semantics and end up unable (or unwilling) to see the forest from the tree.

The point is that the PWA Slalom World Champion was a title that was awarded after a number of races held around the world. To call it the same, and award it, after all but one of those races have been scrapped, is at worst deceiving and at best a bit delusional.

no, it's realism. yes, we'd all want to see a championship run across 5 continents, multiple spots, conditions, etc. -- but those days are long gone (and probably never existed). at the current juncture, this is what we have, and it was epic with a worthy winner. as I said, the men will race again in Tenerife, but I guess that's too close to Fuerte to count?

I completely agree. Be realistic: call it the "Fuerteventura Cup" or the "Canary Islands Cup". Fun to watch, if completely unrelated to what any windsurfer but maybe 100 on the planet do, but there is nothing "wordly" in this race.

Have a look at IQ Foil.
www.iqfoilclassofficial.org/events
They have several "games", the 4th this year at Silvaplana CH. These dont seem to count for a "games" overall title, they are just events.

Then the World Championship one-off event at Aarhus a couple of weeks ago. Emma Wilson & Andy Brown won, both GBR, whoop-whoop-whoop.
Also European championship and U23 World Championship, one-off events.

And you think these one-off World Championship events count for nothing?

PWA slalom has shrunk a lot, but the idea of a one-off event is valid. As I said, I'd be more concerned about the lack of competitors in PWA slalom rather than the number of events we had in the past. I'd love to see a slalom-x at Geraldton OZ, the spot where PVB did that video a couple of years ago. But getting PWA sailors there would be expensive, hence I guess why PVB has his wave rally as more local sailors can enter. PWA slalom is very Eurocentric, 30 of 41 sailors Europeans.

There are still people who enjoy blasting around on slalom/freerace kit, but not racing. 22 & 23 July had 200+ sessions.
www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=latestsessions
ps thats just 1 platform, the Ozzies have their own.

Surfmag tested Starboard/Tabou/RRD/Duotone/Tabou slalom v freerace boards and the slalom were 2-3 kph faster iirc.
So if you are a recreational sailor and buy full on slalom boards then are you a victim of marketing?

There is two main differences between the slalom boards and the freeride boards and I doubt any of them contributes to top speed all that much. Not suprised Surfmag could get a similar result with both types of boards.

1) Weight and construction. Lighter, stiffer boards aren't necessarily faster but when you pump them at the gybe mark they are MUCH more responsive and that is life or death at the marks. If you fall off the plane its game over and it happens a lot at Fuerte when everyone is on 5.5 and it is only 20 knots at one of the gybes.

2) Wide / Stepped tails. Maybe some freeride boards have these now, but these really complicated, stepped/layered tails with all the cutouts really give you an extra few cm of width under your feet and that is absolutely the difference when you want to bear away VERY deep downwind and gybe over the wash of another sailor. I don't think anyone is faster than the guys racing in the 90s but if you watch the videos now compared to them see how many sailors can bear away at an extreme angle for 150m in to the mark, then gybe tight and stay on the plane the whole way... no way to do that on a freeride board or a skinny slalom board. Big tails and deep front profile on race sails are the only way to do that!