Slalom is up first.
Day 1, crashes galore. The place has more of an out into the swell and in to the beach over the back of a swell. John Skye was in the box with Ben and he said that made trimming a slalom board tricky. He did the slalom there a few years ago.
After 2 eliminations, William Hubbert leading the men's, 2 6th places. correction 4th & 5th. A lot of results from top guys of 1 decent elimination, 1 howler with a crash or PMS. Will they continue in the same manner, or will their howler become a discard and they get more consistent results from now on?

4 eliminations in the women's, Sarah-Quita Offringa 3 wins + a second. In her interview she said she was on 6.5m and 5.6m. She looked a little overpowered with the 6.5m in the last elimination where Blanca Alabau pipped her to the line in a dramatic finish.


www.pwaworldtour.com/index.php?id=38&tx_pwaevent_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=340&cHash=61eb563ed7561dc510e147975efd5c91
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www.windguru.cz/559365

what a location!

I don't know why, but it's my favourite place to see them race at.

Great to see one of the young Bonaire girls competing, they've got plenty of kids enjoying the sport over there.

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Subsonic said..
I don't know why, but it's my favourite place to see them race at.

Because usually it is very windy? Taty said he was on 6m at the windiest point of the day.

Nico Prien's round-up

The wind station at the windsurf centre.
In Nico Prien's video they had 20 gusting 28 for elim 1, not sure if that was the reading from the start boat or centre. Guess start boat.

www.windguru.cz/station/373

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PhilUK said..

Subsonic said..
I don't know why, but it's my favourite place to see them race at.

Because usually it is very windy? Taty said he was on 6m at the windiest point of the day.

I think its that, and it just looks like a paradise on the edge of a desert. For some reason thats appealing (to me). Blue skies, blue water, etc. i know other places have that going on, but for some reason it sticks out on the camera at fuerte.

i guess it reminds me a bit of further up the coast here in WA.

Looks like they will be starting in 15-20 minutes time. 11:40 local time.

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PhilUK said..

www.pwaworldtour.com/index.php?id=38&tx_pwaevent_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=340&cHash=61eb563ed7561dc510e147975efd5c91

Great link. They have a scrolling "live ticker" that is pretty nice, too, if you aren't somewhere where you can watch/listen.

The racing has been great despite the challenging conditions. Watched a race earlier today where Goyard moved from fifth to first or second. There are lots of position changes and the variety of lines through the jibes make each mark rounding much more interesting in the past. I think the competition as well is higher and more evenly matched than Pozo making everyone fight for every place and seems, imho, to be contributing some to the crashes as no one can take anything for granted.

I should add that it's probably the most compelling sailing competition to watch even vs SailGP or AC. Of course, I'm biased a bit. If they had the budgets of something like SailGP for better drone and on the water cameras (live helmet cams?), this might be an amazing watch.

Day 2, Sarah-Quita continued her form. Nicolas Goyard regained his.
Some close racing again. I didnt watch it all yesterday after getting in from sailing, but there was some crazy gusts which sent sailors off downwind on a mad reach. Prien had a good one, 14'40 in the video


Kit registered here. Goyard has a 3.7m! 475 & 360 wings. Tiny kit
nor.pwaworldtour.com/Fuerte_2023_Equipment.htm

Been great action watching the racing. They are on the edge of control. Nico said he was doing 37knots. What's the thoughts on why more out of control then other events. Running with the swell?

Gusty winds off the land and a swell? At Pozo I think the swell was more with the wind, here it is at an angle. Some of the crashes are after they have gone over the top of the swell and the foil breeches. 2hr 40mins into the video, E6 Losers Final, Enrico got 4-5 touches going over the swell on the final reach, plus 1 swell he avoided by going very high. I think Alexandrea & Maciek bounced off the top of a swell in a gybe. The light wind yesterday showed the well lines off more before it got windy.

Scotty Smallman is improving fast, and his smallest front wing is 540. His home spot is Portland Harbour UK, the speed sailing spot. I saw him last week before he flew out to Fuerteventura and he said he has been sailing more in the bay since Pozo. He was on the fin at Pozo but realised he had to ditch that.
The 1st time I saw him sailing in 2014 he beat my speed by 0.3knots, and he was 12 years old.

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Today's elimination 7 Final was the best foil racing I've seen - especially from Nicholas G. Lots of lead-changes - far more than you'd get on a typical fin race, and amazing athleticism. There seems to me to be something different about his gear which the other guys haven't figured out yet. SPOILERS BELOW!







Goyard got trapped at the start, trapped again when Martini went down in a jibe, but somehow worked his way up from underneath on what appeared to be a smaller sail than the rest. Full-on drag race with Maciek and Goyard appeared to be on too big a wing, flirting with breaching half a dozen times and touching down hard enough to explode a few times too. He seems to be more willing than the rest to touch down coming out of jibes and even broad-reaching, and doesn't lose much speed. He has an extra knot at least over the field when he drives hard - more heel to windward and what looks like more fin-pressure from the mast itself. I wonder if his mast is doing something cute under pressure - perhaps bending longitudinally like a super-soft Formula fin. Doable with CAD if the layup retains torsional stiffness somehow. There also may be something cool about the nose of the board which is allowing him to bounce off of touch-downs better than most.

I watched about an hour of footage.

The foils in the male division totally dominant with no exceptions.

Around the buoys is their biggest advantage.

Top speed - they now seem marginally faster.

The increase in drag when using a foil over a fin seems to be more than offset by the reduced drag by the board sitting much higher over the chop.

With the woman being much lighter the top end speed when using a foil seems to be no faster or even a touch slower in the stronger winds.

I am thinking with fin windsurfing technique is a greater factor than foil windsurfing when it comes to speed.

This is also my personal experience sailing with foilers - the bigger guys seem to go 3 to 4 knots faster than the smaller guys.

With fin sailing usually a knot or so is all that separates one good sailor from another regardless of weight.

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Pcdefender said..
With the woman being much lighter the top end speed when using a foil seems to be no faster or even a touch slower in the stronger winds.

I am thinking with fin windsurfing technique is a greater factor than foil windsurfing when it comes to speed.

This is also my personal experience sailing with foilers - the bigger guys seem to go 3 to 4 knots faster than the smaller guys.

With fin sailing usually a knot or so is all that separates one good sailor from another regardless of weight.

There are a few things that can distort this image. Weight can be an advantage for speed, but there are plenty of exceptions to this rule -Sebastian Kornum and PD are just 2 examples.
The bigger difference you see for foilers may be partly due to wing choices. A heavier foiler on the same foil needs more lift, so he'll go faster (angle adjustments like shims are an alternative option, but they have their limitations). Outside of high-level racing where sailors can choose wing sizes, few foilers are really pushing the limits. Nico Goyard was able to pass Soe at will, despite probably being 15 kg lighter - but he had small foils specifically developed for him.

For women's speeds, keep in mind that Sarah-Quita is one of the tallest and heavier sailors, with crazy skills when it comes to turns. She was the only one who was able to beat the fins most of the time; if you ignore her, fin speeds and foils speeds were much closer, perhaps similar to where men were a year or two ago.

Nico Prien crashed on his foil at 37 knots apparently. Thats insane.

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Maddlad said..
Nico Prien crashed on his foil at 37 knots apparently. Thats insane.

That's not how I understood him - to me it sounded like he was saying that he hit 37 during the catapult itself. In other words, he was cruising at 33 or so and then got slung forward hard enough to briefly hit a 37kt transient GPS spike while in midair. Still pretty sick...

I think he reached 37kts in the crash.

Yeah baby, fins are back!

lot of talk about fin or foil.. I'd be keen to see it left to the sailors to choose and run both together.

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Awalkspoiled said..
That's not how I understood him - to me it sounded like he was saying that he hit 37 during the catapult itself. In other words, he was cruising at 33 or so and then got slung forward hard enough to briefly hit a 37kt transient GPS spike while in midair. Still pretty sick...

Agree. I always get a couple of extra knots in a good crash . In windfoil catapults, that's just a very short spike (1 or 2 readings at 5 Hz). In winging, it's often enough to set the top 2 second speed for the session, since I'm flying along under the wing without the board. Much more fun than a catapult when hooked to a boom, and easier on the neck.

The foil crashes in Fuerte are pretty crazy! The fin crashes look almost harmless in comparison.

If you want foils like Nicolas, get in there quick. Just 12 left.
www.phantom-foiling.com/infinite

Nicolas Goyard said he might be at Sylt, but not the others. So the World Championship title is still up for grabs.
A great win for him, the kit & skills seems to be developing at a great rate.

Sarah-Quita Offringa has the talent, rarely made a mistake. She said after it felt like her best win.

Shoutout to Bobbi-Lynn de Jong, the 13 year old who had a best elimination of 6th, and a 7th in the very windy last day, on a NP 4.9m sail and iSonic 60cm board. The mind boggles.

The coverage of this event has been the best so far, replays, drone, captions etc.

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PhilUK said..
If you want foils like Nicolas, get in there quick. Just 12 left.
www.phantom-foiling.com/infinite

Phantom have released the more affordable version of the Infinite foil. And what is nice you can use your Iris R mast with it.

Used to think that watching foil racing was dull but some of those crashes are spectacular.
notice in one video a rider walking by in the background was wearing neck and back protection.

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Gestalt said..
Yeah baby, fins are back!

lot of talk about fin or foil.. I'd be keen to see it left to the sailors to choose and run both together.

That's what they do. The women have had Sarah Quinta on the fin and the others chose the foil. The men can choose what they want to sail on but they all chose the foil. I personally reckon that each race should be one or the other or the whole event on foil and then the next event on fin.

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Wind Smurf said..

Gestalt said..
Yeah baby, fins are back!

lot of talk about fin or foil.. I'd be keen to see it left to the sailors to choose and run both together.

That's what they do. The women have had Sarah Quinta on the fin and the others chose the foil. The men can choose what they want to sail on but they all chose the foil. I personally reckon that each race should be one or the other or the whole event on foil and then the next event on fin.

Last day got some fin wins ... I still think they should split the fleet.

Foils are dominant, but we know they would all rather sail fins. Everyone wants to watch fin sailing. Foil racing is a bit dull in comparison and the stance very awkward-looking. Fin and Foil divisions would be good: or removing foils altogether.

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Shifu said..
Foils are dominant, but we know they would all rather sail fins. Everyone wants to watch fin sailing. Foil racing is a bit dull in comparison and the stance very awkward-looking. Fin and Foil divisions would be good: or removing foils altogether.

I disagree. Foil racing is just as exciting, especially if you've actually tried doing what they're doing at any speed. Once again, its only the fin lovers that bitch and moan about foils when they're getting spanked by them in the races. As soon as the fin wins a race they start cheering that fins are back, despite losing 99% of the races. What those guys and gals were doing in Pozo and Fuerta on foils was absolutely amazing and should be appreciated for how great it was.

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Maddlad said..

Shifu said..
Foils are dominant, but we know they would all rather sail fins. Everyone wants to watch fin sailing. Foil racing is a bit dull in comparison and the stance very awkward-looking. Fin and Foil divisions would be good: or removing foils altogether.

I disagree. Foil racing is just as exciting, especially if you've actually tried doing what they're doing at any speed. Once again, its only the fin lovers that bitch and moan about foils when they're getting spanked by them in the races. As soon as the fin wins a race they start cheering that fins are back, despite losing 99% of the races. What those guys and gals were doing in Pozo and Fuerta on foils was absolutely amazing and should be appreciated for how great it was.

Ben at 4:06:44. He absolutely agrees with you, and calls it "epic... this is the best racing I've seen". He also mentions how challenging it is and how on edge everyone is pushing the speeds they are. More names are showing up at the front of the pack than have in a long time.

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