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NathanG said..
Thanks Andy for your input. I definitely don't want to see the foil development class slow down or detract from it. I was part of the crew who developed foiled Moths for your enjoyment... no worries, my pleasure mate!
I am yet so see a decent fleet of >5 kites racing in Australia on a weekly basis. Foil racing currently is a pretty small niche that most of us refuse to join without sponsorship enticements. Everything changes too fast... that crazy Ozone Chrono is so yesterday. Need R1, Sonic , Elf or F-one this month.
The weekend warrior doesn't want to buy your outdated gear, no matter how cheap (how many hours on those bridles?). What they want is access to is large fleets intent on close, fair and affordable racing. Affordable means I can buy new gear that will last until the end of the 3 year development cycle. Have you experienced this?
My personal opinion is that foiling looks lame outside the context of competing in a large fleet with a diversity of gender, age and ability.
You have highlighted two failed attempts at one design. Probably from mismanagement though AGMs... Lasers still get great fleets and are an Olympic sport. Why is that Andy?
"if you are keen on one design sports, there are many declining One design racing sports you join." How should I interpret this? Can we take some emotion heat out of this discussion. Luckily we're not all aspiring fighter pilots...
This is my first post in the racing forum. Please go easy on me.
The AGM josh spoke of is the IKA worldwide Agm, were each country gets a vote on items raised. we votes by way of Kiteboarding Australia.
As we race under ISAF rules of sailing, One design would be managed by ISAF and this was vote against.
the vast majority of the worldwide race fleet has various issues when the raced under one design/box rules in Formula and would prefer not to go down that road again.
One design doe not mean cheaper. How much cheaper is a RSX board than the average free race board used at most event.
The formula kite boards from 2.5 years ago, ie TMV or North could be used by the best in the world and get a podium. these can be board for around $500 now and it great nick. With more foilers come more 2nd hand gear in good condition. we'll see this happen this next summer in Australia, a good 1 season old foil for $1500 will soon be common.
Ive always been a big fan of moths, impressive kit, but kite foil beat them in every way now.
A moth will cost 2nd hand around 10k, a new one 25k and throw in another 10k for mods for it to be semi competitive on a world stage.
Look at the number of Moth racers looking to flog their Moths at cut throat prices to venture off and find classes where the wallet doesn’t win the races.
We have near on 30 foil racers now in Perth, and even had a full formula fleet for many events.
Last season we had racing almost every weekend, some weekends different events on Saturday and Sunday.
State titles had near 30 entries, including females, juniors as young as 13 oldest 57.
We even launched an event which included other classes, cats and sailboards. variety is the spice of life.
all up we had around 50 racers attend various events over the summer.
We attend many sailing regattas and work very closely with the sailing clus and communities to progress/build our fleet, increase number and leverage funding for our racers. 2 racers received sailing grants to attend major events including a junior to attend the worlds earlier this month.
We are no working on junior development programmes to engage more youth, introduce them to kiting and hopefully someday get more racers from it.
We have racers that are on spotz 1, now that would be heading for its 3rd summer(cycle)... at our level of racing if you are a good racer you could still make the podium on gear 2 years old. and with bigger fleets comes more divisions and classes, age categories as we have done for many events.
in your first season, the gear is decent even if a season or 2 old will matter little compare to you refining your skills. miss one tack or gybe and it doesnt matter how little or how much, one design or not and you're out of the top spot.
lasers, 29. 49, etc... all strong classes.... easy to learn, hard to master.
you can’t take a foil, train for a weekend and then compete a regatta like you would at junior sailing training camp.
it’s a mental leap of faith, you buy the foil... commit, get your ass handed to you for a few weeks learning and after a few month racing is possible.
one design will not make any difference to the entry pathway to learning and competing.
www.facebook.com/perthkiteracing www.pkr.club
www.facebook.com/groups/perthkiteracing Regarding sailing Olympic classes, each country has a very clear path way, from being 6 years old and learning to sailing through programmes such as tackers ( average 500-1000 juniors trained in AUS per state each year) and then the classes they can progress to. coaches that are dedicated to junior development, and programmes to promote and sustain participation.
Its the reason Yachting Australia is restructuring to better support clubs and free up resources for more of this activity.
Formula kite is now an Olympic sport and has been awarded a Olympic medal by way of Sailing, its including in all the warm up events and in the Junior Olympics, the sailing bodies are already looking to see how they can leverage their junior programmes to build kite racers. this is a numbers game, for every 100 kids that flies a trainer kite you might get 1 junior kite racer.
Australia has no kiting junior development programmes, and has leveraged ZERO of the structures, programmes or funding options available in all states over the past few years as is done in other sports to attracted, support and promote juniors. This will be a key activity to remove any doubt that it’s just a fab and seriously develop the sport
NathanG
> 9 months ago, 28 Jul 2015
