Last night we held a season wrap up and review of the Victorian Wave series.
Although this year we were let down with lack of conditions, we did get 3 x successful comps ran and managed to crown an overall winner for the series!

One of the biggest hits of the year was our 'B' division, which is a bit more of a less competitive environment aimed at having a bit of fun and getting into wavesailing and the other initiative that was well received was the wave clinic which we incorporated at the final round at Sandy Pt.

This season we really had planned on hosting a lot more clinics etc but just were let down on several occasions with lack of wind..

Firstly thanks to Duncan for his help and all his hours sitting on the beach to be our judge, thanks to Stephen and WV for their support & of course the support of our two shops RPS & SHQ.

For next year we are working on increasing attendance and looking at what else needs changing.

How did everyone find any events they attended? Any feedback? Anything you would like to see more of or done better?

How did everyone find the event notification system of SMS, email & website? Did everyone know when an event was on?

We have found the only way to get a chance at good conditions here in Vic is to have the events 'on call' for the best conditions, we will continue with this next year. Obviously the only downside is lack of warning when an event is on… but hey windsurfers are used to dropping everything when a good forecast pops up!!

All feedback appreciated

The clinic idea on the last event was great and helped bring many others in to this side of our great sport. If you missed that clinic, there will be many more in the future.

ok a few things i think we should aim to work on

- improved organisation with judging
the nsw crew has got this down pat. they have people judging the events from different divisions (no bias), with a specific scoring system based on the pwa rules of riding in the critical section, scoring aerials, linking moves together etc. (obviously this is relevant to the A division)

there have been a few greivances over the judging, which is hard, seeing no one wants to be sitting on the beach so i think we need to implement a bit more structure. i'm not sure what the best way to go about this is so open to suggestions here.

*possibly designated judges from both the A and B divisions to judge the division they are not sailing in with one head judge?
*if there are a large number of competitors split the expression session into two groups so the judges dont miss anything?
*specific breakdown of what will be scored eg. number of jumps and waves

- demo gear supplied by the shops
the wavesailing events are good opportunities for everyone to try out the latest wave gear in actual wavesailing conditions as opposed to the bay. team riders from the shops are basically guaranteed to be attending so it really isn't difficult for them to bring a couple of boards and sails down for everyone to try.

- photos and video
conditions this year weren't excellent so not a huge loss but im sure everyone would like to see videos of the events. this is easily doable - ive got plenty of camera gear it is just a matter of people with a bit of an idea of how to get decent footage filming from the beach while they are watching the action. jodi has been turning up at the events to get photos and i'm sure that will continue.

Think Al has come up with some really good points...

Good points from al, although could be hard to have someone who has only just started wavesailing (B division person) to judge the A's.
If its not too hard to do I think having smaller groups of 5 or 6 in a heat would be heaps better. Having heats from the start gives people more of a chance to get through heats which is obviously more fun and also better experience for if or when they go to bigger competitions. That would free up some people for judging as long theyre not bias.
I never had any touble knowing if anything was on and they were good fun. More locations would be good

i agree that some beginners in the B div might have problems judging an A heat but there are sailors (Tommy!!) who are definitely capable.

i know what you are saying zac about the expression session format vs. heats from the start. it would be good to have the expression session as a seeding round determining the ladder as opposed to a knockout round but if the conditions are inconsistent (which they often are) time constraints would be a limiting factor. it is possible to use both formats depending on the conditions eg. a consistent easterly at sandy point vs. gusty, frontal westerlies down on the west coast. also determining seeding and all that would take up additional time...

the way the ASP tour is judged is they take the scores from 5 judges and remove the highest and lowest scores, leaving 3 scores to be averaged. i guess this could be a way of removing potential bias but then means that scoring becomes complicated and time consuming.

agree about more locations but again that is dependent on the conditions. it would be epic to have a competition at logo high + right point in a strong south west...

I don't think your proposals are hard to organiser or manage. They just require planning and people. Once people have seen what fun the events are the more likely they are to help out.

I volunteer (assuming they don't mind) Zacaroon, Off the wall, H2O and Gingerpom to help out + myself as I am sure we will be going to more now.

Good points guys.
Its important to keep this kind of chat going, and get as many people involved as possible. It's the only way to improve and run better events.

Unfortunately, I think we are going round in circles with this whole judging thing.
I like your points Al. Have a judging criteria and permanent judges would be awesome! Seriously though, who is going to do that? Are you? It would be awesome if you would…
I know I'm not willing to spend half a day driving down the coast only to sit on the beach and not even get wet.
I would be very surprised if anyone is really willing to offer their time to do that? If there is anyone out there that would, please speak up now!

Without permanent judges I don't think it's possible to have judging criteria.
To be honest I really don't see this as a problem.

Example - If a sailor rides a wave, get 3 turns with an aerial. Does it matter if out of 3 judges, one scores it a 7, the other a 5 and the 3rd scores it a 4?
I don't think so, as long as they are consistent on the day with judging against everyone else.
Wavesailing is all about impression! So go out there and impress the judges!
Who cares about a criteria really. It's not the PWA, its Vic Wavesailing. We are a small community.

The whole point of this series is to have fun! A bit of friendly competition and also promote and grow the sport that we all love!
If we keep at it, and continue to have a fun series where we get everyone involved as much as possible I think other sailors will take notice. With a bit of luck with conditions, the numbers will grow and maybe in a couple of seasons time we will have the numbers to run a more serious competition.
I don't think we are quite at that point yet. Give it time and it will happen!

Cheers.

Something that would be bloody hard to organiser but a really good crack would be a Pro/Am event. This could work really well as an informal clinic and get sailors talking.

Format Requirements: 4x Pro sailors / as many ams as possible
Format -
Each team has 30 mins (or a time to be agreed) with their pro sailor prior to the event.
Then:
Team 1 & 2 sail off against each other (30 mins) Judged by Teams 3 & 4
Team 3 - 4 sail off against each other (30 mins) Judged by Teams 1 & 2
Winners from each round - sail off in the Grand Final (judged by a few from the losing teams)

I think we need to apply the WIIFM principle to the pro riders / judges - What's In It For Me? I will never be in the Pro situation windsurfing, but I have been for sailing and I know from experience that although it does leave a warm fuzzy feeling helping others it does detract from your own limited leisure time.

So why don't we put in a small cost to the Am sailors if we did this? I know I would be happy to pay a few bucks if I got tips that reduced my swimming time, or made me turn rather than speed sailing straight DTL.

Just an idea.

Select to expand quote

ka707 said...


Have a judging criteria and permanent judges would be awesome! Seriously though, who is going to do that? Are you? It would be awesome if you would…
I know I'm not willing to spend half a day driving down the coast only to sit on the beach and not even get wet.
I would be very surprised if anyone is really willing to offer their time to do that? If there is anyone out there that would, please speak up now!

Without permanent judges I don't think it's possible to have judging criteria.
To be honest I really don't see this as a problem.

Example - If a sailor rides a wave, get 3 turns with an aerial. Does it matter if out of 3 judges, one scores it a 7, the other a 5 and the 3rd scores it a 4?
I don't think so, as long as they are consistent on the day with judging against everyone else.
Wavesailing is all about impression! So go out there and impress the judges!
Who cares about a criteria really. It's not the PWA, its Vic Wavesailing.

im more than happy to be judging but then you get into the muddy water of 'that guy scored me lower than i deserved' blah blah complaining about bias etc.
if i am judging it will have to be judging the B division simply because i am competing in the A. i am happy to do that as are many of the other A sailors.

the B and A division sailors are not out competing at the same time so that is why i think people can be designated from each division to judge. these people are the kind who know what they are talking about and will be usually be at the events.

when i say judging criteria i dont mean a fully concrete thing - like a goiter landed out the back scores a 7 and a forward loop is a 3. but the fact is we have had problems this year and we need more structure. at the last event guys were getting four turns and aerials on the one wave and lost out to forward loops done out on the back off chop... that is the kind of thing that shouldnt happen.

at the nationals we had this debate about scoring jumps done way out the back - where do you draw the line? if a move isnt done off a wave through the break is it more of a freestyle move? how do you score that?

i mentioned the ASP scoring system as a way to reduce the impact of biased decisions if A division sailors are judging A division heats. if we want it to be fair for everyone some kind of criteria is needed.

I think it does need to be fun, and those expression sessions are certainly among the most fun, adrenalin-packed sessions I've had. What's better than being out in waves surrounded by everyone spurring eachother on and going nuts.

One thing we just have to watch with the opening expression session is making sure we've got enough judges for it. I'd say we were short for a couple of our events this season. The subsequent heats are usually fine, as it's easier to follow, but, in the expression session, when it's windy and drizzly with spray and reasonable waves, it can be very hard for one person or even two people to have their eyes on 20-30 sailors all at once. I've judged at previous National wavecomps (Gold Coast and Tassie), often watching either 2 or 4 people at once. When the field spreads out, even this takes concentration to make sure you don't miss key moves and turns. It's very easy for the eye to stray over to a sketchy forward attempt and potentially miss someone nailing a vertical top turn.

So, I don't think we need to change much. Perhaps just ensure we have enough judges (perhaps a few from B division), or keep a limit on the expression session and run 2 if numbers get too much.

Might also need to the VW Association to agree on a simple relative scoring process and share with everyone so sailors know the standard relative scores for different moves. Doesn't have to be too rigid, but to run a fair wavecomp, we do need to pay respect to the relative value of different waverides, jumps and loops. Agree that pretty much jumps should only count off the face of a wave, not chop.

The NSW Wavesailing Association has a webpage of scoring formats (http://www.nswwavesailing.org/news_story.asp?newsID=50):

E.g.
WAVERIDES
"RankingManoeuvre
1. Catching a wave
1. Gybing off the wave
1. Gybing onto the wave face (not swell)
2. Duck/one handed gybing off the wave
2. Weaving around on the wave face
3. Monkey/Pirouette gybe off the wave
3. Riding the wave at the critical section
3. Chop Hops (on wave face)
4. Body drags (on wave face).
5. Hitting the breaking wave at the peak
5. One handed top turns
7. Forward loop in the chop on the wave.
8. Off the lip aerials.
9. Off the lip forward loop.
9. Table top aerials.
10. Off the lip 360 deg. (Takas, Goiters etc)
10. Off the lip back loops.

Notes:
c.One-handed manoeuvres enhance difficulty and score, but the difficulty of the basic manoeuvre should be taken into account. A sailor who performs a much more difficult manoeuvre should be more highly rewarded than a sailor who simply removes one hand during an average manoeuvre.
d.To encourage progress in wave manoeuvres, new moves will be scored highly, but only if executed in a controlled fashion.
e.If it is difficult to clearly determine individual waves, then the entire sail in may be scored as one wave. Sailors will be informed of this at the skippers meeting or at the check in.
f.If a sailor is on a wave at the end of the heat, that wave will continue to be scored until the sailor exits the wave.

JUMPS
Ranking Manoeuvre
1 Chop hop off swell
2. Jump off wave ie lifting feet
3 High jumps
3. Long Jumps
4. Planing High jumps
4. Planing Long jumps
5. One footed jump
5 One handed jump
6. Table tops
7. Forward loops
7. Cheese rolls
8. Back Loops / Push Loops (must be clean)
9. Table top forwards
9.Clew First Loops (must be high to get max points, also while doing a back loop you must rotate the full 360 degrees.)
10. Double forward loops
10. No footed superman forward (Kryptonizer)
10. Double back loops



Notes:
a) One handed manoeuvres enhances difficulty and score
b) To encourage a progress in jump manoeuvres, new moves will be scored highly, but only if executed in a controlled fashion.
c) Jumps will be counted when executed from the face of the wave (on the way out) or off the back of a wave (ie on the way back to the beach)
d) Jumps are scored higher where the jump is higher and/or landed planing"

Don't know of anybody landing double backloops yet though.

Cheers

Great comments. More discussion the better. I too would be happy to help ( thanks for nomination Tom). Let's look at some training and accreditation of A and B sailors who judge the opposite section. Ie A sailors score B and vice versa. Judges decisions final and not to be questioned. Otherwise judges will not want the job. If you expect to to be judged then you really also need to put time in as well. Maybe discussion at end of comp as to moves and scores. If someone bitches suspend them for one comp or deduct points.

that list was interesting - they score catching a wave and gybing off a wave?? we don't need anything like that but i agree with andy and darren about ensuring a standard of judging.

i think we need to have a meeting at some stage and go over this...

how about thinking outside of square, I propose one of the judging person be a surfer ie non-windsurfing to get an outside perspective, its waveriding afterall and who better to judge than a surfer?

also how about video all the action and have poll here ie to use the poll as a scoring system?

having video feedback would be interesting but it isn't feasible and i can't see it happening to be honest. you cannot run a competition if you are waiting for people to judge videos and there is always the risk of missing action.
it would be better just to have fun videos after each event with decent conditions, showing the action and everyone enjoying themselves on the water.

i can't imagine any surfer wanting to dedicate their spare time to sit on the beach and judge windsurfing without some kind of incentive?

it looks like a lot of people have opinions on here with the red and green thumbs - how about voicing them?

Has anyone thought of holding fixed "long weekend" events?

SHQ's Melbourne cup weekend always seems to be a success with at least one sail over the long weekend. Having everyone down there makes a late call for an event possible.

Apart from Melb Cup, there is New Years, Australia Day, Labour Day then Easter to end the season. Locations could vary.

Having a 3 day window surely increases the chances of a successful comp, and if no wind then surf/SUP/clinic/bbq/beer

I noticed there was a dud comp called for sandy point this season (on a sunday) with the day before (i think sat) being pretty good conditions. Long weekends would overcome this problem.

Roaming events in between to fill the gaps would be ace.