is very sad but bound to happen when the windsurfing class is RSX
it just has got no hope of competing against something with the excitement and spectacle of kite racing. perhaps they will bring windsurfing back in the future like the multi hull with a different class like formula

scarrgo said...

is very sad but bound to happen when the windsurfing class is RSX
it just has got no hope of competing against something with the excitement and spectacle of kite racing. perhaps they will bring windsurfing back in the future like the multi hull with a different class like formula

Have you seen kite racing? I have once and it was incredibly boring on TV. Little speed or little visual speed anyway. Big, funny looking kite boards that look nothing like normal kite boards, more like weird old fashioned windsurf boards. Gotta say the whole competition on TV was boring. It was from Vietnam or somewhere like that. In what looked like a kiting jumping competition the commentators worked themselves into a lather whenever a kiter did some sort of dangly twisty move.

Let them have the Olympics. It's irrelevant to 99.9% of windsurfers or kite boarders.

WS is in good company. Surfing is not an Olympic sport either.

WS community now has to decide on its format and supply strategies for the next bid for Olympics and get the ISAF on side. If they can go for the simplicity of the Kite concept, why do we persist with RSX or Formula concepts?. Why not go direct to the Slalom format with manufacturers bidding to supply within a design 'box'?

Subsonic said... kitesailing

It's catching on already!!

I wonder if its going to look like this?

Looked at objectively, that RRD kit is very nice.

Saw another brand race board at Auswind last week. Similar but it ran 2 38 fronts and 2 42 rears! Thats a lot of fin!
Windsurfers do the odd bit of damage with 1 let alone 4!
Signed the petition www.change.org/p/isaf-keep-windsurfing-as-olympic-discipline as I feel sorry for those young riders including a number in WA who had Olympic dreams

To say I am sad that windsurfing is going would be a bit hypocritical, I have never paid any attention to it in previous games.
The RRD video is interesting, in a promotional video where I expect they could use the very best riders and edit to their hearts content they could not show uncut decent tacks or gybes (ok upwind or downwind board-side changes). If this is the format proposed it does not seem to be well developed. Maybe also it will have the same level of interest from kiters being so far divorced from what most kiters do.

Its probably a good time to buy a cheap RSX if you want one.

Is kiting even sailing?

Windxtasy said...
Is kiting even sailing?

More like a form of hot air ballooning I think?

out of interest how is kiteboarding meant to work in light winds?

i thought one of the reasons we have the rs:x equipment is that racing needs to be able to be run from 5-30kts... kites don't fly unless its 10+kts?

wonder how those raceboards handle chop, looks like they would be hard to keep level without mastfoot pressure to keep the board in check.

Yet again ISAF and the Olympic Committee have shown that they have no idea in what they are doing with sailing. After the unbelievable decision of having NO Multihulls at London (apparently they are too boring to watch - Finns are much more exciting... hmmmm).
Now they have decided that because there are a lot of people enjoying (not racing) kite boarding then they have booted out windsurfing.
Windsurfing has, after 30 years of Olympic involvement, got a well organised training and racing system which includes youth development and all... now what happens? I feel for all the young up and coming windsurfers who have been working on their olympic dream only to have a group of Out of Touch administrators destroy their years of work..
Look on Sailing Anarchy for info on the history of what happened to Multihulls (Tornado Class). They have got Multi's back in for 2016, Let's hope Windsurfing rightly gets this decision changed..
Dave Sandos - NZL46.com

Is anyone really that surprised? The ISAF review the events for the Olympics like any other discipline. They can only have so many, so they are not able to add one without dropping another. (cycling dropped a road event to include BMX). Every few years the ISAF review the classes and for some reason with windsurfing their are challenges to the class. The mistral was dumped for the RSX (pryde by the way), and I remember starboard made a push to dump the RSX after its debut with a one design formula - it failed. So I gather that the manufacturer of the one design kite / board has approached the ISAF and their pitch got up. Pretty simple really. It will run for a few years or not depends on wind, and then be reviewed.

Whilst it is unfortunate for guys and girls who have invested time and money into this goal, it is I'm sad to say the way sport is. Personally I think the RSX class was a step backwards from the IMCO, and maybe the ISAF agrees, who knows.

Longlines said...

WS is in good company. Surfing is not an Olympic sport either.

WS community now has to decide on its format and supply strategies for the next bid for Olympics and get the ISAF on side. If they can go for the simplicity of the Kite concept, why do we persist with RSX or Formula concepts?. Why not go direct to the Slalom format with manufacturers bidding to supply within a design 'box'?

too true.

imagine the launching size area