Pretty sad for the RSX

well said!

If anyone has a spare RSX laying around near Sydney I will gladly increase the participants for Sail Sydney which starts on Thursday. PM me if you do :)

The RSX ladies decided to train in Sydney to save costs. There would have been just 2-3 of them in melbourne - virtually a training camp anyway. accomodation had not been organised, airfares to pay, boards to get down there. They drove to sydney and stayed with friends for nothing.

With an overseas trip only a few months away - it comes down to costs. It would have cost us another $1000 for Jo to go - this will go toward a new sail for the coming overseas events.

Well, I'll give you my 2c:
1. I don't care about one-design. I've sailed in box rule classes all my life, and I'm more than happy to race in any mixed fleet on yardstick. Some of the best racing I've had recently has been against International 14's.
2. In the prevailing conditions where I live (i.e. 10 knots +/- 5) my raceboard feels like a souped up sports car. Ergo I look forward to going sailing no matter what the forecast says.
3. At upwards of $5K RSX isn't exactly cheap. Sure you can spend more than that on formula gear. But there is a *lot* of second hand formula gear around. Raceboard is harder to find second hand, but if you do shell out for new gear what you get is absolute state of the art.

Having said all of that, I'd seriously consider RSX if I was buying again now. The light wind fun factor is a bit of a killer, but the wind range you get out of the one rig is unmatched.

Fascinating discussion guys. I've always been intrigued by the Olympic classes and wondered why they're not more popular. Fantastic to get some educated insight. Thank you!

Chris249

Cheers for the last post, a big effort to explain your thoughts thanks for taking the time. The last two paragraphs of my rant were not in response to anything you said.

They are the only ones with a vested interest as they are the only ones allowed to produce the equipment. They don't actively promote it like they do their normal equipment range because actually it's not a particularly big money earner (cost of producing equipment + ISAF take a clip + large number of warranties + free equipment supply at bigger events) compared to regular equipment.

NP sold roughly 25,000 sails (this is a bit of a guess based on the past few years in the industry) last year and I'm thinking probably less than 500 were RSX? No need to advertise it then ... almost irrelevant compared to selling +10,000 freeride sails.




Distance is a major factor. Also it just boils down to someone actually putting their money where their mouth is and making it happen. I did an 2-year Olympic campaign... no coaches, no funding, not even allowed to sail out of a yacht club in AUS with it... gave up due to the insane costs involved and little/no-interest from YA to ever give us a coach even to just tow us home from a 6 degree day in Medemblik when it was a 1 hour beat upwind to get home in the late evening... haha.

That lack of support was sad so I tried to do something about it. Got involved with RQ in Brisbane, coached for 3 years... helped to push YA to get funding for coaches to get Jo, Luke, Joel + others a tiny bit of training during the week. Had to fit it around my other work but it went really well... Jo and Luke rep'd AUS as youths many times and both are in prime positions to go to Rio if they continue (I hope so!!!). Then got involved with the AST and coached Jessica to her first ISAF World Cup gold medal... BICs were starting to really get traction in QLD etc etc...

Then I went away to Europe to compete for a few months and came home and was impossible to get any interest at the club to get back onboard in coaching or anything and lots of the sailors had stopped sailing (Joel etc) ... So I moved on to other work and I don't see many apart from Jo out on the water anymore there outside of the BICs... kinda sad.

My point is ... it comes down to yacht club funding and finding the right motivated people to get involved with coaching/support and finding a way to KEEP them motivated. I don't think it's completely YA's role to fund grassroots (nor will they ever do that for windsurfing... probably would for kiting I imagine!) I see it as more the yacht clubs. The yacht clubs should be funding it not to get more people in to windsurfing, but to give an option to all the kids who grow up on opti's etc but quit sailing as they get a bit older for various reasons... maybe windsurfing (BICs) can offer some more excitement and keep them sailing. They keep sailing, they keep paying membership fees which the clubs need. Surely keeping 10 more kids in a club and their families all joining would subsidise the cost of getting a coach down on the weekends during the summer???

There's little pockets where this happens and Jason with the scouts in NSW is really awesome too ... just have to keep pushing, pushing, pushing. Once you let it slip it dies FOREVER.

Think Sean hit the nail on the head...especially the numbers, they really tell the story..
the board is a shocker,, seriously cumbersome outdated piece of crap, that represents .00001% of how and what windsurfers want to sail. (and totally agree with Ben the class should be 'Windsurfing' not the brand name.

As soon as you let go of wanting to plane in 8 knots and realise the sport is windsurfing, not sailboarding your problems are nearly solved, gear requirements become minimal, costs massivly reduced, fun factor up, can stick gear 'In' a car not in a truck or trailer that RSX needs.
1 decent Freeride or Slalom board will cover most people 12-30knots wth 2 sails and for a fraction of the cost, set courses that are a decent distance and are friendly to this type of sailing gear, not up wind down wind slogs and you will get people interested in racing. This gear set up is actually a realistic Air travel option also.

RSX does not represent the sport of windsurfing well, too an outsider the gear is too big & too expensive.. The techno is a lot more realistic option, I'd do away with a centreboard model though, smaller board and just set courses to suit and ensure min wind range is 12 knots, no wind no sail, not a big deal, surfers dont surf when there is no swell..plenty of alternatives to do..

The LOC will get 200-300 participants again on all sorts of gear, and unless its a no wind event i doubt you will see 1 x RSX, so again there's your proof people want events like the LOC and are happy to travel to part of it and it always draws a crowd...if the LOC gets 2-3 particpants then I will be proven wrong.
Ditch the RSX, forget Olympics, plenty of other sports do well without them, and do more fund freeride race events like the LOC(which also gets great media and publicity for the sport nationally and internationaly) which is why toursim WA get on board also. Last month saw it get Qantas coverage in their inflight mag through Events WA, great Windsurfing PR.

Just my thoughts a free rider and from talking to others I'm not alone...
Any way wind is up here this morning, time to throw a realistic compact board and 1 sail in my car and get amongst it...

It's cool that NSW has a committed racing group of 20 kiters. NSW also has committed groups of windsurfer racers associated with Stormriders (40+), Marmong (???), DAC (25+), Narrabeen (15?), Illawarra (20+), and groups at St George, Belmont, Middle Harbour etc. So at state level and at national racing titles there are several times as many windsurfers as kiters. Of course, kiting is newer....personally I think when it comes to the Olympic events all the boarders should be wary of talking numbers as the boat classes are miles more popular.

Sure, windsurfing's numbers are way down....if the kites concentrate on high performance gear they may go down the same blind alley, and the Olympics could lead them that way.

Just compare what is comparable:

Numbers for the kiteboard racing fleet Vs numbers for Windsurfing fleet (even just the formula fleet, not the Slalom and formula).

then you can compare the numbers for:
Rsx fleet Vs one design kiteboard racing fleet.

I just do not like when people compare the popularity of a box rule class versus a one design class (like ISAF did)...

Follow the link for an interesting comparison of moth, laser, finn, RSX and kiteboard racing.

I think the summary was that the Finn and RSX are both irrelevant in modern single handed sailing.

"A View of the Past and Future of Singlehanded Dinghy Racing"
forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=13754

Interesting article by Paul Heineken from St Francis Yacht Club, he's not related to Johnny or Erika Heineken (top kite racers) by any chance.

Yep. Pumping is heavily restricted in most dinghy classes; effectively banned in most concditions. Pumping was banned in the Olympics in the days of Lechners and Windgliders and from my experience racing Lechners at national level, there wasn't a problem with pumping.

It does mean that at high end regattas like world titles you need judges on the course and that can lead to controversial calls, but these it's so easy to get vids that should become less of an issue. Heck, these days people who were concerned that others were pumping could just stick a Go Pro on their hat and take it to the protest room. From one point of view, those who are in favour of pumping because of enforcement issues could be old fashioned.

There's 400 slalomers at LOC v how many kite racers in WA; 40+ Formula guys at the NSW Formula series and 40-50+ longboarders in NSW v 20 kite racers; don't know about other states but it seems there's little evidence that there are more kite racers.

And of course if numbers of active racing sailors are what counts, ALL boards are out of the Games.

Just a few points about the kiters at Sandringham:

- The boards use a "box" rule where you can ride anything as long as it fits into the standard overall dimensions.

- Most people ride North race boards (the green boards), followed by Cabrinha (Neil Pryde), then an assortment. The boards are almost all production boards (even among the top competitors at Sandringham). It is fairly close to one design. I believe the fins are where people get creative.

- Most people would have two kites, 3 at most. I doubt if anyone would use 6 kites unless they were sponsored pros. Even then there would be little point using 6 kites. 2-3-4 would cover all winds from 6-8 knots up to 40+. On the very windy days at Sandringham the kiters were using 13m kites to well over 30 knots. The same kite would be competitive down to 12-15 knots.

- The vast majority of kites are freeride kites. There are almost no race specific kites. The kites are generally the same as you would use noodling around on the bay or in the surf. The Ozone Edge is the most popular by a long way.

- In general there is not a huge difference in board speed between racers. It is hard to close up on somebody riding the same gear as you. Generally heavier kiters have an edge in strong conditions and lightweight kiters have the edge in light conditions. The big advantage comes when you turn. The really good guys can tack in an instant. Everyone else gybes and loses ground or falls and quickly restarts.

- There is a Friday night race series at Sandringham where anyone can turn up and race. It is free to enter and you can race on any gear you want. They generally get about 15-20 people out racing. They race in all weather from sub-10 knots to 20+. I suspect they would go out in 30+ if that was happening.

- There are a few young guys who have taken up kiting and started from scratch on second hand race gear. They are out all the time. One is doing quite well. The others are floundering but persisting.

- Some of the other kite racers are former windsurf/kite/yacht veterans who have come out of retirement and are frothing like grommets about this fun new sport.

- I ride a race board for fun but I don't race. The race board fits in the back of my car across the back seat (with the fins removed) alongside my kite surfboard.