Raceboard and Formula Nationals at RQYS Jan 20th to 24th

A little teaser of what to expect

Looks great. Used to love sailing my race board.

Should we be combining classes these days and just having one windsurfer nationals? We all like the same sport after all.

If enough fleet numbers can separate the 'classes' and have raceboard, LT and formula/foil.

MatStirl said..
Looks great. Used to love sailing my race board.

Should we be combining classes these days and just having one windsurfer nationals? We all like the same sport after all.

If enough fleet numbers can separate the 'classes' and have raceboard, LT and formula/foil.

We've looked at it, but it's not that easy. Some classes favour more open water; some have a significant number of kids and less experienced sailors, who don't. Some classes favour places with up-market accommodation, some need a wider range of options. Some fleets seem to be mainly single (at least for the weekend) guys, some have lots of people who bring families who may want more options for off the water stuff.

On the water management is also problematic. LTs do slalom, freestyle and marathon; if the other classes want to do course racing at that time then you're going to need two race committees, more boats, more marks, more scorers etc. And in NSW, you may be looking at 150 entries or more if everyone came together, and there are very few clubs with enough infrastructure for that.

Sharing the course is also problematic when the classes have such different speeds and turning characteristics. If you're on an LT and a RB is five lengths behind and you're going upwind, you've either got to accept taking their bad wind which annoys the LT; or tack quickly and call starboard or just luff, which annoys the RBer. One RB inside you at the bottom mark can ruin an entire race for an LT, and vice versa.

The other issue is that some people sail more than one class at nationals, which is impossible if they are both racing at the same time. Oh, and the LT attracts sailors from most states where the others are largely NSW/Qld, which brings in another set of issues.

Some shots from Sail Brisbane held over the weekend

Watch out for the next generation coming through

Hope you get a good turnout and some juniors. I wonder if RB and formula numbers will contract further in future.

Love the raceboard but LT might eat into its already limited numbers.

Yep it's great to see you had 10 entrants for the race board class at sail Brisbane , keep up the good work of promoting your class .

azuli said..
On the contrary, the number of Raceboards on the start line for our club racing at RQYS has doubled this year, mainly thanks to youth graduating from Techno, and they are giving us old blokes a run for our money as shown in the photos above .

Haven't seen any LTs racing at RQYS this season. saw one last season but it was doing the shorter Opti course because they are much slower.

Windsurfing classes aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, they can provide the opportunity to do more racing, attend more events and have more fun, which is what it's all about

Sounds good.
Tried to delete my post but couldn't figure out how.

Unfortunately the raceboard never gained a foothold down here in Hobart. Formula was popular but then dropped off. LT and freeriding dominate at moment.

Enjoy the racing.

MatStirl said..
Saw RSX and maybe Techno in footage?
Who gets around the course faster - them or the RB?

Depends a bit on who's sailing them, raceboards will beat a techno no trouble, but the RSX is competitive with the RB's when the wind comes in and they are able to plane upwind :)

MatStirl said..
Saw RSX and maybe Techno in footage?
Who gets around the course faster - them or the RB?

Yes quite few techno sails 8.5m youth using them on race boards not any techno 293 in the above photos

the 8.5 sails worked well as a youth choice for those transitioning onto race boards from the techno class

cheers Jeff

Chris 249 said..

MatStirl said..
Mmm.
Thought an RSX might beat a RB in a planing weather. Just shows that RB pretty efficient on most conditions

I'm going to sail my Mistral Prodigy/8m against the LT's and paper tiger cats soon. Guessing I'll be closer to PT's if over say 15knots.

PTs can do 3 laps to LT's 2.

I think the yardsticks are pretty good measures of relative speed overall, although the comparative speed on any particular day varies a lot;

Windsurfer = 112 (lightweight or heavy winds) 116 (heavyweight in light winds)
Laser = 114
Raceboard 7.5 = 97 (lightweight or heavy winds) 99 (heavyweight in light winds)
Raceboard 9.5 = 93
Paper Tiger = 92.5

I think we had the Techno on 115(?) in NSW interclub racing, with the RSX and Prodigy on around 102; although the RSX was competitive with RBs in light winds neither was competitive in light stuff.

The RB is certainly an efficient all-weather machine.

In tas states in March - LT's, Bic Techno, Prodigy were all about same speed and alternated wins. I was very surprised Techno etc could match it with LTs. Wind was very light.

cammd said..
Some racing photos from the 2016 worlds I like

Awesome photos from the 2016 raceboard worlds. Thanks for posting. I hope the LT leads to more interest in raceboards particularly in WA where there are no "pan am style" raceboards racing anymore. The LT is the best raceboard we have for course racing here that is sailed every week.

where are the Formula entries ?

G00DSY said..
Are there any updates / photos/ results on this?

Racing starts today

Looks like they are updating results live

www.sailwave.com/results/2020RaceboardNationals.htm

Dropped in for a look today, was great to see a good fleet. IMHO Fewer Severne sails than before and more of the newer RB specific sails with tighter leeches up top mostly set on Slake masts and carbon booms. Boards may as well be OD Starboard Phantoms except for one F2 World Cup that I was unable to steal. Watched the first race through binocs and was very impressed to see how powered up the first few were heading dead downwind. Gobsmacked at how quick these guys can take the bottom mark, could have been on foils. Maybe the physio and doc will let me go back with the PanAm one day....