There's at least half a dozen locations where this would be stellar. Just look at the places the tour went to in the 1980s. The Gorge, Omaezaki, La Torche, Hookipa, Sylt, Tarifa etc.

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Taavi said..
foils + sausage would be nice

That would slice it up nicely

Won't see this with the foiling. Gotta love the fins

Seems to me like the fin has consequences that the foil doesn't. ie what line you take impacts speeds much more on fin and fin gybes are a real differentiator.

Foil Slalom is a bit like sail GP

Also nice not having to watch these humans catapult from a stepladder at 30+ knots

Much less broken gear this year.

My suspicion is that most riders would prefer fin in those conditions, but were forced onto foils last year

www.pwaworldtour.com/index.php?id=38&tx_pwaevent_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=359&cHash=caad02636580af46a906c7d26caf8b10

Fuerte is gonna have both

Nothing beats high wind fin slalom. The racing has been epic, Pierre Mortefon doing an amazing Job (His sail designs are 4 years old). Day 8 showed that high winds don't need any sausages or chicanes. Hope it howls in sotavento too.

Windfoiling has no doubt added a new deimension to the sport, but its not real windsurfing. For me to 'surf' a board has to be touching the water, i don't mind if people don't agree.

Nico Prien is a big lad, 95-100kg?, and he was using his 5.6m yesterday. Jenna Gibson is 'average' size, whatever that is these days. She was on her smallest sail, 5.0m. Her largest sail is 6.8m, and would need that large for Sotovento. She was alongside Ben in the box saying possibly a smaller sail would have been of use. I think 4 sails would be a better limit. But then if they do foil & fin at Sotovento then I think they want to keep the kit down to 3 boards 6 sails for everything.

Ben got to the bottom of Cedric Borde's sausage failures in the early eliminations. At home he was practising chop hopping, and he was hooked in. It worked, so thats what he did. Someone told him everyone else was unhooking and he went around asking or texting others what they did

Impressive skills on display. Incredible to think there are some kids in the fleet. 14yo in the women and 17yo in the men.

Am I the only one who finds all these sausage references disturbing?

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Gestalt said..
Impressive skills on display. Incredible to think there are some kids in the fleet too. 14yo in the women and 17yo in the men.

Brendon is quick. He visited WA last season with his father. Soundly beat the slalom fleet here in a few events. The likes of Rowen Law and Mr Slowboat. It's interesting to see where he is so far as the PWA fleet goes, gives a bit of a reading on how good the PWA guys are.

he'll be one to keep an eye on in future if he continues down the PWA path. Not sure how much foiling he does though.

Yeah the pwa competitors are on a whole other level. not just in a straight line but around corners too. I'd love to see WA get something going again. Would fly over and be a spectator for sure.

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Subsonic said..
Am I the only one who finds all these sausage references disturbing?

I'm not sure if I dig the sausage jumping in racing.
A separate form of event with technical obstacles, body drags, limbo gybe, how far up the beach one can ride, impact passes etc would be more fitting for sausageness I think.

Amazing how good the sport looks when you run simple races in high wind locations! ....In those winds you'd be competitive on non race gear also, need more of this ...WA...Hawaii, Hood river, Green Island Qld, Windy wellington NZ etc etc

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Subsonic said..
Am I the only one who finds all these sausage references disturbing?

Go to Preferences: Settings: Tools: and toggle Sausages to "Hide All"

The sausage needs to be bigger, I seem to remember they when about a meter high years ago

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Gestalt said..
Yeah the pwa competitors are on a whole other level. not just in a straight line but around corners too. I'd love to see WA get something going again. Would fly over and be a spectator for sure.

I'm some ways I'm wishing I hadn't watched it.
The videos of myself in ' epic' conditions now look lame..
Still I'm glad I can still get out there and have a go.

I'm feeling pumped just watching it. Looks like a load of fun. I think jumping the sausage should be compulsory. A new skill to learn.

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Kazza said..
I'm feeling pumped just watching it. Looks like a load of fun. I think jumping the sausage should be compulsory. A new skill to learn.

A lot of incentives to get it right.

They should put the sausage to jump as a physical start and finish lines.

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JonesySail said..
Amazing how good the sport looks when you run simple races in high wind locations! ....In those winds you'd be competitive on non race gear also, need more of this ...WA...Hawaii, Hood river, Green Island Qld, Windy wellington NZ etc etc

Not to be insistent but we have been here for the last couple of quarters of a century. Yes, there are a few, very few, locations where you can get 20-30 knots of wind quite frequently. But the problem is the "quite frequently". The PWA shows up and the wind does not, and then you end up with the 9.0s and 90 cm wide slalom boards.

The next PWA is at Fuerteventura, and it will probably work for Salom X, but do not expect a repeat in other locations ... it's not going to happen unless global warming bring in much stronger winds

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duzzi said..

JonesySail said..
Amazing how good the sport looks when you run simple races in high wind locations! ....In those winds you'd be competitive on non race gear also, need more of this ...WA...Hawaii, Hood river, Green Island Qld, Windy wellington NZ etc etc

Not to be insistent but we have been here for the last couple of quarters of a century. Yes, there are a few, very few, locations where you can get 20-30 knots of wind quite frequently. But the problem is the "quite frequently". The PWA shows up and the wind does not, and then you end up with the 9.0s and 90 cm wide slalom boards.

The next PWA is at Fuerteventura, and it will probably work for Salom X, but do not expect a repeat in other locations ... it's not going to happen unless global warming bring in much stronger winds

i am keen on seeing both slalom and foil racing and leveraging those 2 disciplines as far as possible. currently there are only 2 of each which is not many compared to wave events. fwiw there are more youth events in foil/fin than adult.

lets test your assertion though.
As was pointed out there are many locations that get great consistent wind.

Western Australia, Green Island, Canaries, Fuerte, Portugal, France, Brasil, Cape Town, Namibia, The Gorge, Hawaii, New Zealand, Greece, Aruba, Bonaire, Omezaki, fiji, New Cal, Vanuatu and on and on.

that's a very long list with only 12 months in a year. so the issue is not windy locations but money to finance events.

some more reading for you duzzi.
www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01260-7

quote "We show in more detail the distribution of the minimum percentile rank for each continent. This minimum percentile rank highlights regions that score a relatively high value for all three variables and can, therefore, be considered attractive for high and sustained wind energy generation. We find that the American Midwest, Northeastern Canada, Australia, the Sahara, Argentina, parts of Central Asia, and Southern Africa are the regions that have the highest minimum percentile ranks"

end quote


Good news, spain isn't in the list so the other locations must be pretty good.

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PhilUK said..
Nico Prien is a big lad, 95-100kg?, and he was using his 5.6m yesterday. Jenna Gibson is 'average' size, whatever that is these days. She was on her smallest sail, 5.0m. Her largest sail is 6.8m, and would need that large for Sotovento. She was alongside Ben in the box saying possibly a smaller sail would have been of use.

Even more so her Falcon with 99 l und 63 cm as smallest board might be quite big.

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Gestalt said..
some more reading for you duzzi.
www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01260-7

quote "We show in more detail the distribution of the minimum percentile rank for each continent. This minimum percentile rank highlights regions that score a relatively high value for all three variables and can, therefore, be considered attractive for high and sustained wind energy generation. We find that the American Midwest, Northeastern Canada, Australia, the Sahara, Argentina, parts of Central Asia, and Southern Africa are the regions that have the highest minimum percentile ranks"

end quote


Good news, spain isn't in the list so the other locations must be pretty goo

Wind for windmill and wind for a Slalom X are quite a different story. But anyway, I do hope they find other feasible locations. I just doubt it. This has been tried for the last 50 years, and it never really worked.

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duzzi said..

JonesySail said..
Amazing how good the sport looks when you run simple races in high wind locations! ....In those winds you'd be competitive on non race gear also, need more of this ...WA...Hawaii, Hood river, Green Island Qld, Windy wellington NZ etc etc

Not to be insistent but we have been here for the last couple of quarters of a century. Yes, there are a few, very few, locations where you can get 20-30 knots of wind quite frequently. But the problem is the "quite frequently". The PWA shows up and the wind does not, and then you end up with the 9.0s and 90 cm wide slalom boards.

The next PWA is at Fuerteventura, and it will probably work for Salom X, but do not expect a repeat in other locations ... it's not going to happen unless global warming bring in much stronger winds

It's true! I went to La Torche for slalom and we sat on the beach the whole week without wind (did one day of wave though). Canary Islands are wind factories... not too many places like it that are easy to get to.

Same as Marignane (south of France); when PWA went there a few years ago they sat on the beach for a whole week and only managed a single low wind foil race or so, while this year's AFF had three consecutive days of nuking conditions...

If only there was something for these pros to race on days/weeks when wind was low. I am thinking if there was a better plan B maybe we would see more events scheduled for fin slalom.

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duzzi said..

Gestalt said..
some more reading for you duzzi.
www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01260-7

quote "We show in more detail the distribution of the minimum percentile rank for each continent. This minimum percentile rank highlights regions that score a relatively high value for all three variables and can, therefore, be considered attractive for high and sustained wind energy generation. We find that the American Midwest, Northeastern Canada, Australia, the Sahara, Argentina, parts of Central Asia, and Southern Africa are the regions that have the highest minimum percentile ranks"

end quote


Good news, spain isn't in the list so the other locations must be pretty goo

Wind for windmill and wind for a Slalom X are quite a different story. But anyway, I do hope they find other feasible locations. I just doubt it. This has been tried for the last 50 years, and it never really worked.

the data i linked compares wind reliability and takes into account wind droughts so is a study into the locations where it blows consistently. unfortunately some of those places are also not likely to find sponsors easily. what is of note is that most of southern Europe is considered unreliable due to wind droughts.

putting aside sponship for a second.

surely this is the approach and most likely where the pwa is headed.

find a reliably windy venue,
book a 2 week window
run slalom fin/foil, freestyle fin/foil and waves (venue dependant)
if not enough wind then slalom x just doesn't happen. you still have foil racing.

no sitting on the beach in france waiting. fin and foil are not mutually exclusive.

look at the efpt whom have solved the wind thing.

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jusavina said..
They should put the sausage to jump as a physical start and finish lines.

Best idea!

I'm going to throw my opinion in the pits of fire too... because I also am an armchair-expert.

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Gestalt said..
putting aside sponship for a second.

We cant do that - it is about 99% of the whole task [ of organising a competition ]. Here is why:

- Pozo is a unique place, even by the Canary Islands standards; it is because there is grandstand-seating right at the waters edge. Every other venue requires some form of temporary scaffolding. And then there is the public-facilities (food, toilets, parking, etc) For all of those people saying "we can do this elsewhere", then good luck with that.

- Any competition will require authority and insurances.... those need money to be paid up front.

- If the competition wants support staff, either those people need to be paid, or there needs to be some other type of compensation (such as free local accommodation)

- If you want competitors to turn up from locations other than the nearest suburb, then you need to provide some prize money.

- If there is no wind, due to practical reasons you cannot move the venue to another location; you probably want to provide some non-wind entertainment

... but if we really do want to ignore the source of money -->>

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surely this is the approach and most likely where the pwa is headed.

find a reliably windy venue,
book a 2 week window
run slalom fin/foil, freestyle fin/foil and waves (venue dependant)
if not enough wind then slalom x just doesn't happen. you still have foil racing.

no sitting on the beach in france waiting. fin and foil are not mutually exclusive.

look at the efpt whom have solved the wind thing.

As is already stated with examples, a "windy venue" is more accurately called "likely windy venue".

I was lucky enough to have just spent 9 days in Pozo only just the week before this competition. The day before I turned up, the wind decided to show up. Pozo had not had any wind for the few weeks before that. What to do if wasn't windy during the competition-window ?

Then there is the "if the windy venue decided to have light-wind, we can just use light-wind gear". Which competitor has enough will and/or money to bring every variation in gear ? ... and that is ignoring that the PWA requires registration of your gear ahead of the days' event.

... maybe PvB can share some of his thoughts from his recent experience.