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Paducah said..boardsurfr said..Subsonic said..
The current trend for weightier sailors has more to do with being able to sheet a 9m sail efficiently than controlling foil lift. Foil lift can already be dealt with in a number of ways.
I doubt that. In RS-X and even the Techno class, relatively large sails were quite common, but sailors remained comparatively light, since planing ability in marginal conditions was very important. Top racers were generally light, but nevertheless perfectly capable of controlling the large sails even on the windier days.
With the foil, more speed creates more lift, so a heavier sailor will be able to go faster, all else being equal. Sure, a lighter foiler can reduce vertical lift by dipping the windward rail to increase the angle of the board, but there are limits to that. If the wind is strong enough so that the heavy foilers have the board angled at the maximum angle, then lighter foilers have no choice but to sail at a lower speed, for example by not sheeting in fully. Or maybe there is an optimal angle that's somewhat less than the maximum possible angle, and lighter sailers can foil at a higher board angle at the same speed; but then, they will have an increased risk of hitting chop with the lower board edge, which will also slow them down. Similar arguments can be made regarding parts of the foil breaching.
Another huge difference to one design fin classes is that foiling requires short and intense bursts of pumping to get up onto the foil in marginal conditions, whereas fin races often involved pumping through the entire races. Short bursts work well with "bodybuilder type" muscles, while hours of pumping on a light-wind day require the smaller but high endurance muscles of long distance runners.
An easy way to control lift is simply to change shims, and then tweaks like push the mast base forward, move the boom down, etc. Unless you get a radical, unexpected change in wind during a race you can set up your shims before going out that covers a decent wind range. Controlling the foil in 25 kts isn't so much the issue, imho, having been on the IQ in that much wind. The 9.0 is a very powerful sail, I've seen IQ guys get up on it in ridiculously low winds. I'm not going to debate what the exact number it is, I'll just say conditions that the average or even better than average foiler isn't even thinking of getting off the water and these guys are zooming. It's not so much the lift that the smaller sailors struggle with but overcoming the drag wall. A bigger sailor can hold more power and push the wall further out.
fwiw, Nico Goyard feels like the proposed changes bring down the optimum weight in the upper 80s. (Translation via google)
"Weight-wise, it should actually decrease. We are going to go from a target weight of around 93-95kg in 9m to probably 88kg in 8m "
www.windsurfing33.com/forum//viewtopic.php?p=954794#p954794 Exactly what Paducah said^^^
With the addition of saying sailing upwind on the foil you generate a fair bit more apparent wind speed than an rsx will. Which makes a 9m very hard for a lighter sailor to keep sheeted in, whilst keeping the foot pressure right on board/foil to transfer the power to where it needs to be.
I've had plenty of hairy moments on the foil when the lift kicks in, but theres always something that could've been done to bring the foil back down. Nothing to blame but my own stupid self for the catapaults. And as Paducah said, you can change shims/bump the mast base forward and change footsrap positions to really make the lift manageable.
Bellerophon
> 9 months ago, 18 Apr 2024
