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Chris 249 said..

Gestalt said..

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.

How consistent are those winds, actually?

I was racing in WA over Christmas and the "ever-reliable" sea breezes stalled for days on end. I just sailed on four days in and around the Bay Area in the USA and in that "ever-reliable" sea breeze area we spent much of every race in about 5 knots of breeze or less. I was trying to arrange a windsurf in Cape Town and the "ever reliable" wind didn't happen.

The Sail GP catamarans, which admittedly try to race in city centres but also don't need as much wind, have repeatedly been hit with days that are too light to sail.

There is little doubt that I am a wind-jonas these days, but having done half a dozen events run by the PWA's predecessor it's pretty common that whenever you schedule a windsurfing event the winds will be lighter than normal.

None of the spots you mentioned made my 16kn and above list because their average is not high enough to be "reliable".

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Gestalt said..

None of the spots you mentioned made my 16kn and above list because their average is not high enough to be "reliable".

Yes, but the point is that even places that are well known for supposedly having reliable winds often don't have them in reality, in that they can get days on end without enough wind to race.

As another example from your list Sylt in August (which is when the contest used to be on) only missed out on your cut by 2 knots and yet from memory the wind was often way too light to race, and by so far that even if it had an average 2 knot stronger then there wouldn't have been enough difference. And while as your lists show, there are places with consistently stronger winds but many of them would be very hard to organise an event at.

I've got to admit, I can't see how the PWA can improve its viability unless there are major changes, and I don't pretend to know what they would be or whether it would have any great benefit to the sport or to many people. Lots of pros and ex-pros in various parts of sailing don't seem to be blissed out about their life in general from what I've seen. It means a huge amount of sacrifice of long-term career, family, and future life options.

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Chris 249 said..

jdfoils said..

PhilUK said..

Yet foilers moan. FFS, the foil events are on the calendar, there are only 2 fin only events.

Not moaning. With waves, sausages, and beach starts the format is strongly biased towards the fin... But if you want to drive development rather than stifle it, you should leave the door open.

Unstifled development in foiling in small craft surely just leads to kites and unlimited amounts of custom kit, pit crews etc, doesn't it?
As was noted long ago, without "stifling" development there is almost no such thing as sport itself, so it's a lot more nuanced than a simple choice between driving development and stifling it.

The moth class is an excellent example of unstifled development expanding possibilities. Expensive for sure, but awesome.

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Chris 249 said..

jdfoils said..

PhilUK said..

Yet foilers moan. FFS, the foil events are on the calendar, there are only 2 fin only events.

Not moaning. With waves, sausages, and beach starts the format is strongly biased towards the fin... But if you want to drive development rather than stifle it, you should leave the door open.

Unstifled development in foiling in small craft surely just leads to kites and unlimited amounts of custom kit, pit crews etc, doesn't it?
As was noted long ago, without "stifling" development there is almost no such thing as sport itself, so it's a lot more nuanced than a simple choice between driving development and stifling it.

The moth class is an excellent example of unstifled development expanding possibilities. Expensive for sure, but awesome

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Chris 249 said..

Gestalt said..

None of the spots you mentioned made my 16kn and above list because their average is not high enough to be "reliable".

Yes, but the point is that even places that are well known for supposedly having reliable winds often don't have them in reality, in that they can get days on end without enough wind to race.

Yeah, I think what we consider as reliable should maybe be revised.

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jdfoils said..

Chris 249 said..

jdfoils said..

PhilUK said..

Yet foilers moan. FFS, the foil events are on the calendar, there are only 2 fin only events.

Not moaning. With waves, sausages, and beach starts the format is strongly biased towards the fin... But if you want to drive development rather than stifle it, you should leave the door open.

Unstifled development in foiling in small craft surely just leads to kites and unlimited amounts of custom kit, pit crews etc, doesn't it?
As was noted long ago, without "stifling" development there is almost no such thing as sport itself, so it's a lot more nuanced than a simple choice between driving development and stifling it.

The moth class is an excellent example of unstifled development expanding possibilities. Expensive for sure, but awesome.

But the Moths ARE "stifled" in development, by their restrictive class rules. They are far slower than a kitefoiler. If it wasn't for class rules that "stifle" development there would be no Moth class as we know it because all the Moth dinghies would have been made obsolete by windsurfers decades ago and the windsurfers would in turn have been made obsolete by kitefoilers.

Just as you find Moths to be awesome despite the huge design and performance limitations imposed by class rules, so fin windsurfers can find fin windsurfers to be awesome despite design and performance limits.

Rules that create separate classes don't "stifle" development, they allow different design challenges and allow people to enjoy different things. If we didn't have rules that "stifle" development the PWA would just be a kiting event.

Synopsis of the absolutely stifling international class rules:
Max hull length 3.35m (11ft) + 500mm extensions allowed front and back
Max width 2.25m
Sail area 8.0m2
Single sail, single hull, single crew
No weight or material restrictions (typical hull 10kg, typical all up 30kg)
Restrictions: Multihulls, trapezes, moveable seats and sailboards are prohibited
Wing sails: Allowed
Foils: Allowed
Anything not specifically restricted is allowed, the first paragraph of the IMCA rules says: "The International Moth is a single-handed development class boat. The intention of these class rules is to give the designer and builder the fullest liberty in design and construction, within these rules to develop and produce faster boats"

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Chris 249 said..

jdfoils said..

Chris 249 said..

jdfoils said..

PhilUK said..

Yet foilers moan. FFS, the foil events are on the calendar, there are only 2 fin only events.

Not moaning. With waves, sausages, and beach starts the format is strongly biased towards the fin... But if you want to drive development rather than stifle it, you should leave the door open.

Unstifled development in foiling in small craft surely just leads to kites and unlimited amounts of custom kit, pit crews etc, doesn't it?
As was noted long ago, without "stifling" development there is almost no such thing as sport itself, so it's a lot more nuanced than a simple choice between driving development and stifling it.

The moth class is an excellent example of unstifled development expanding possibilities. Expensive for sure, but awesome.

...

Rules that create separate classes don't "stifle" development, they allow different design challenges and allow people to enjoy different things. If we didn't have rules that "stifle" development the PWA would just be a kiting event.

Exactly. The craziest thing the PWA tried to do was to race fin and foil together. Four years with not a single fin win. It almost caused fin to disappear all together. Now fins are back and might be here to stay ... but some miraculous light wind performance development would be very welcome!

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jdfoils said..
Synopsis of the absolutely stifling international class rules:
Max hull length 3.35m (11ft) + 500mm extensions allowed front and back
Max width 2.25m
Sail area 8.0m2
Single sail, single hull, single crew
No weight or material restrictions (typical hull 10kg, typical all up 30kg)
Restrictions: Multihulls, trapezes, moveable seats and sailboards are prohibited
Wing sails: Allowed
Foils: Allowed
Anything not specifically restricted is allowed, the first paragraph of the IMCA rules says: "The International Moth is a single-handed development class boat. The intention of these class rules is to give the designer and builder the fullest liberty in design and construction, within these rules to develop and produce faster boats"

I've had four Moths so I am very familiar with the class.

As said earlier, without rules the Moth class that you like so much would probably have become first catamarans and then become windsurfers and then kites. So without the rules "stifling" those development the Moths you and others love would not exist. All the people who love them would have nothing like them to sail. The world would have less choice. The sport would not have had their developments to learn from. Almost everyone would be worse off if there were no rules to stifle the Moth from becoming a completely different craft.

The point is that it is not "stifling development" to ensure that a particular type of craft - like a non-foiling windsurfer or the Moth as a monohull boat rather than as a kitefoiler - remains the same type of craft and doesn't morph into something else, or effectively get thrown out of its own events.

It's not "stifling development" to ensure that a Moth remain a boat, it's not "stifling development" to ensure that a cricket bat isn't used in baseball or whatever, it's not "stifling development" to make sure they don't add 9000 watt motors to Tour de France bikes - it is just ensuring that people can play the sport with the gear they want to use, have freedom to race the gear they like, and not change it to a different sport.

Fin windsurfers created the PWA and fin windsurfing has a right to remain in the event it created, without being changed into a different sport or discipline. You don't get to just walk into a major event and demand that it lets itself get taken over by a different discipline or sport. No one demands that the PWA should allow kites, which would get rid of all the windfoilers. No one whines because the Supercars don't allow F1 cars to race with them and win every time. No one demands that the swimming in the Olympics should be taken over by fin swimmers.

So - to repeat the question - if you don't want "stifled" developmentmwhy are you even interested in windfoiling when you could be kitefoiling instead? And how would you react if you turned up to a windfoiling event and the kiters came in, demanded to race and then won everything and effectively threw the windfoilers out of their own event?

Love this point Chris. There needs to be rules and constraints.

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duzzi said..

Chris 249 said..

jdfoils said..

Chris 249 said..

jdfoils said..

PhilUK said..

Yet foilers moan. FFS, the foil events are on the calendar, there are only 2 fin only events.

Not moaning. With waves, sausages, and beach starts the format is strongly biased towards the fin... But if you want to drive development rather than stifle it, you should leave the door open.

Unstifled development in foiling in small craft surely just leads to kites and unlimited amounts of custom kit, pit crews etc, doesn't it?
As was noted long ago, without "stifling" development there is almost no such thing as sport itself, so it's a lot more nuanced than a simple choice between driving development and stifling it.

The moth class is an excellent example of unstifled development expanding possibilities. Expensive for sure, but awesome.

...

Rules that create separate classes don't "stifle" development, they allow different design challenges and allow people to enjoy different things. If we didn't have rules that "stifle" development the PWA would just be a kiting event.

Exactly. The craziest thing the PWA tried to do was to race fin and foil together. Four years with not a single fin win. It almost caused fin to disappear all together. Now fins are back and might be here to stay ... but some miraculous light wind performance development would be very welcome!

It's easy to judge these things in retrospect. They needed to run fin and foil together to test the idea. The idea was tested and discarded. That's how to go about designing robust outcomes. All ideas need to be tested including what might seem as bad ideas. I see that as the pwa doing their job. Most recent example was trying the new wave format.

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