**Note: Since I originally posted this, Ron has put a great summary of the race up on his website, including official results, stories, and a photo album- http://www.i-to-i.org/**
Woo hoo! I finished Ron Kern's annual "Inlet to Inlet" windsurfing race in Fort Lauderdale.
Ron explains the race to some of the windsurfing and kiteboarding competitors.
This is my GPS track. It was a 24.5 mile round trip. The second picture is a close-up of the southern part of the course.
The wind was 15-20 knots side-onshore from the East-Northeast, which made for rough water and intimidating shorebreak. (See what happened when a catamaran tried to launch.) Fortunately, all the windsurfers who showed up made it out successfully.
I rode my Starboard Formula 135 with a 58 cm fin, and I played it safe with the sail choice, rigging a "small" 8.0 sail- an Aerotech Freespeed. The previous day I had tried my 9.5 Ezzy Cheetah in similar conditions at the race site and found it doable, but more tiring. Since my goal was to finish the race without crashing or running out of stamina, 8.0 was the right choice. The only thing awkward about it was that my boom was too long, leaving some bare line between the clew grommet and the clew. Oh, well.
My setup-
Compared to 2008 I improved one notch in the standings, getting 3rd place. My 1:35 time was a lot better than my previous 2:43, thanks to a favorable wind direction requiring just one tack, and thanks to riding a Formula board instead of the Kona ONE. (There were four Kona ONE competitors in the race this year, and I think they all finished. Their course was a little shorter than ours. The Port Everglades Buoy was the downwind mark for everyone, but the Kona boards had an upwind mark a few miles closer than the Hillsborough Inlet Buoy.)
Though I was satisfied with my own time, I was way behind Ron Kern and kite racer Zack, who finished in 1:10 and 1:13, respectively. Ron was on his 9.5 Neil Pryde sail and Mike's Lab formula board with a 64 cm Ifju fin. Zack was riding a custom 70 cm wide tri-fin directional kite-race board with 42 cm side fins and 38 cm back fin. Initially I thought Zack had won the race, because he was leading on the way to the Port Everglades Buoy. But Zack said Ron passed him on the upwind leg and was untouchable after that. Both the leaders were real gentlemen who were good sports about the competition.
My video for the event didn't turn out as great as I was hoping because the !@#$ camera fogged up. If you want to see the schools of soaring flying fishes, the deep blue water, and the giant sea turtles that I saw out there you'll just have to do the race yourself next year.
After the race, Ron and Sue Kern hosted a nice "debriefing" at their beautiful house. There were tons of prizes and beverages donated by the race sponsors:
Nevin Sayre is a champion windsurfer and kiteboarder who is heavily involved in promoting youth windsurfing through local and national sailing organizations. In a public letter to US Sailing, whose representatives recently voted to replace windsurfing with kiteboarding in the 2016 Olympics, he outlines some serious concerns about that vote. Foremost among his concerns is the fact that, in contrast with windsurfing, kiteboarding is unsafe for kids and logistically unfeasible for incorporation in youth sailing programs. Take a look at what he has to say here.
PS- Mr. Sayre has first-hand experience of how dangerous kiteboarding can be. Check out this picture of his gross kiteboarding head wound from sailworld.com.
Windsurf racing has been in the Olympics every quadrennial since 1984. As the sport has evolved, however, the Olympic boards and sails have periodically changed, always amid controversy and debate. The general trend has been a move from boards optimized for sub-planing performance to boards designed for faster planing performance. The trend has stopped short of planing-only boards, however, because the Olympic sailing committee has wanted gear that can be used in ANY wind, and the best planing-only boards still require a steady 8 knots or so for good racing. Planing-only windsurfing also tends to require multiple set of sails and fins for different wind strengths, which is incompatible with Olympic sailing's "one-design" philosophy, i.e., all competitors have to use the exact same gear all the time.
The current Olympic one-design gear is the Neil Pryde RS:X. It was used in China in 2008 and it will be used again in England in 2012. Nobody really LOVES the RS:X, which is a lot bigger and clumsier than what most windsurfers ride for fun, but it fulfills its mission of being able to navigate the race course both in planing mode and in light wind "displacement" mode. As with previous Olympic windsurfing classes, RS:X competition in light to moderate winds is characterized by the competitors constantly rowing the air with their sails; "pumping" to go faster. That means Olympic class windsurfers have to be ultra athletic, but it kind of misses the point of sailing, which is moving with wind power as opposed to muscle power. It also looks really un-fun compared to other forms of windsurf racing like slalom and formula where the nature of the gear limits the need to pump, or the Kona one-design class where a rule prohibits pumping. Therefore only a small minority of windsurfers (the most competitively-driven and masochistic) aspire to compete in the RS:X class. Nevertheless, it's a source of pride for windsurfers to have their sport represented in the Olympics, and to marvel at the levels of athleticism and sailing skill reached at such an ultimate tier of competition. I for one am super proud of America's Farrah Hall and Bob Willis, who busted their asses to reach the top ranks in the US and to qualify our country to compete in England this summer.
This video shows an RS:X race in light to moderate wind, where there is a mix of pumping and planing performance.
As for kiteboarding, there have been people lobbying for several years to make it an Olympic sailing class. But most windsurfers assumed that the same factors preventing planing-only windsurfing gear from getting into the Olympics (the one-design constraint and the need to be raceable in any wind condition) would be insurmountable obstacles for kiteboarding. After all, kiteboarding has no existing one-design classes and it is a planing-only sport that requires steady wind to keep kites aloft. So the windsurfing world was shocked when it was recently announced that the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil would add kiteboarding and eliminate windsurfing! How did this happen?
Well, kiteboard racing has undergone an impressive evolution in gear performance and organizational professionalism since its haphazard beginnings. Refined, windsurf-like kite-race boards are now among the fastest and earliest-planing wind-powered watercraft of any kind, and there are big, competitive fleets in the International Kiteboarding Association's world championship tour.
This is an interview with the current kiteboard racing world champion, Johnny Heineken, and it shows some footage of kite course racing.
With large kites on long lines that can loop and "sine" through the air to generate power, kite-race boards can get going in surprisingly light winds. Just how low the wind requirement is tends to be exaggerated, and the problems of what happens if there is a lull that allows the kite to drop in the water are overlooked. Nevertheless the wind threshold for practical kite racing seems to be at least on par with that of formula windsurfing. Of course, kites can't compete in ALL conditions, as evidenced by their skunking at a 2011 Miami Olympic sailing classes event last year where RS:X windsurfers raced successfully.
Anyway, what seems to have happened is that lobbyists for Olympic kiteboarding miraculously convinced sailing's governing bodies to overlook their usual one-design constraints and wind minimums to consider the current form of kiteboard racing for an Olympic slot. Then, when compared against the RS:X windsurfing class, which is still crippled by the one-design rules and the air-rowing dynamic in light winds, kiteboarding looked a lot more spectacular and had the leg up for Olympic selection. Of course, some questions remain-
1. Why couldn't they bump one of the other sailing classes to have windsurfing AND kiteboarding? After all, windsurfing and kiteboarding are very different from each other, as I discussed in a previous blog post, but they are each among the most popular and accessible forms of sailing. Actually, the Olympic committee DID bump two big-boat classes out of the Olympics, but they kept four types of monohull dinghy: laser, finn, 470, and 49'er, which I think is about twice as many dinghy types as needed. (On a positive note the committee added catamarans back in, which I think is good since cats are fast and popular among recreational sailors.)
2. Why couldn't they give windsurfing a chance to compete as a production board class (e.g., formula or slalom) like they did for kiteboarding? It seems like the selection committee has been considering "boards" as something distinct from the other sailing classes, based on their forcing a choice of kite- OR sailboards. So if they're willing to suspend the one-design constraint and raise the wind minimums for kiteboards they should be willing to give the same special treatment to sailboards.
This post is getting long, so let me try to wrap it up with a summary of my thoughts. I actually don't think this decision is the end of the world for windsurfing. In fact it may not even be the final decision- there's a petition gaining a lot of momentum now to keep windsurfing and have both sports in the games.
If the petition works, great. If it doesn't work, I think our next move should be to lobby for production class windsurfing (slalom and / or formula) to be in the Olympics. This could be our chance to finally get away from the whole air-rowing one-design thing and show our sport for what it really is to most people- a fast, free, thrill ride across the water.
I haven't been windsurfing lately. It's winter, it's cold, it's dark early, and I've been strongly compelled towards other worthy and less worthy pursuits. Nevertheless, I've been thinking and dreaming about windsurfing, and trying to keep up with all the windsurfing news on the Internet. There's actually more news than one person can follow, given the proliferation of windsurfing-related blogs, forums, Facebook pages, and manufacturer and magazine websites. So I focus on are the bits that I think are the most interesting, like the development of new and unusual gear. Below, I describe some of the new toys that I think look especially cool. You'll notice a predominance of longboards with daggerboards. Longboard windsurfing was an underrated part of the sport for a long time, but it has had a modest resurgence lately. I think people are realizing that on most bodies of water, most of the time, longboards perform better than shortboards. And the boom in popularity of stand-up paddleboards has made it cool again to have huge boards on top of your car.
Anyway, here are the boards:
#1- The AHD "Tactik" (320 cm x 76 cm, 250 liters) This board lacks footstraps and has a thick nose shaped like a boat hull for slicing through the water. In these respects it resembles the "Division II" longboards that were used for light wind racing in the 1980s. However, whereas the D2 boards had a boat-like hull all the way back to the tail, the Tactik transitions to a flat bottom at the tail. This allows it to "plane" and reach high speeds with the daggerboard withdrawn in stronger winds. There was a kind of similar looking board called the "Pacer" produced by Exocet in 2005, but it was a little shorter and didn't have such a dramatically hull-shaped nose. It also had tons of footstraps and a daggerboard that stuck up through the deck, making it awkward for beginners and probably limiting it's general appeal. AHD may have gone a little too far in the other direction by totally eliminating the footstraps, though. Footstraps are one of the main things that keep you from getting flipped over the front of the board and smashing the nose with the mast when you're going fast.
Sorry the narration is in French.
#2- The Exocet "RS-D2-Elite" (380 x 77 cm, 428 liters!) This board is like a longer and more extreme version of the Tactik, and it has footstraps. Its wave-piercing nose was apparently inspired by high-tech sailboats called skiffs. If the marketing schpeel is true, then the D2-Elite may be faster around a course than traditional raceboards in both non-planing and planing conditions. It's too new now to know for sure, but folks are already discussing it on the LBWS (longboard windsurfing forum).
This video is in English, but with a French accent.
#3- Exocet Windsup 11'8" (360 x 78 cm, 220 liters) This is another longboard from Exocet that hopes to achieve a seemingly impossible design goal. That goal is to be able to catch and ride waves well as a stand-up paddleboard while also being able to plane early and work as an all-around windsurfing longboard. The challenge has been that the ideal nose-to-tail curvature, aka "rocker," is vastly different for a paddleboard versus for a windsurfing longboard. A paddleboard's tail is designed to nestle against the slope of a wave, whereas a windsurf's tail is designed to minimize drag and sharply "release" the water to allow planing. Windsurfing with a typical paddleboard is fine at low speeds, but when you try to accelerate to planing speed it feels like you're dragging a dead whale behind you. Likewise, stand-up paddling a typical windsurf board is fine in flat water, but you'll have a hard time if you try to catch a wave. "Step-tail" designs try to get around that by superimposing both kinds of rocker and having a little ledge to separate them and allow water release. (See figure.)
Exocet's earlier step-tail boards, i.e. the Kona line, worked really well for windsurfing in either flat water or waves, but not so well with paddle power only. This new Windsup 11'8" is a bit wider and thinner than the Konas, and has a shallower and differently shaped step in the tail. I'm hoping it's a real winner but I haven't been able to find any decent pictures, videos, or reviews of it. If you have $1600 you should buy the one they have at Sailworld Cape Cod and let me try it.
#4- Starboard "Phantom(s)" (377 x 67 cm, 263 liters; 320 x 71 cm, 260 liters; 295 x 72 cm, 192 liters) Starboard is known for having a huge range of boards and for always pushing the limits with weird new designs. Sometimes their innovations take off, like when their ultra wide "GO" revolutionized shortboard design in 1999. Other times their much-hyped toys turn out to be white elephants, like 2003's fast but quirky "Hypersonic." Starboard went against their own short and wide trend when they were among the first windsurfing companies to introduce a new racing longboard (The Phantom 380) in the 2000s. (Longboard development had stopped when light wind windsurfing fell out of fashion in the 1990s.) Anyway, for 2012 they have a whole bunch of Phantoms. Their main one is the 377, which is designed to compete in the "International Raceboard Class" where boards can be a max of 380 cm long and 70 cm wide. It's a typical looking raceboard in all respects except that it has weird wing things that expand the planing surface of the tail. They're supposed to make the board plane earlier, which is the same effect you would get from widening the entire tail. But, unlike widening the entire tail, they don't interfere with water flow at non-planing speeds. One of the main annoyances of sailing a longboard is that you feel like you can't plane as early as you would be able to with a wider shortboard, so I'm pretty stoked that Starboard is trying to get around that.
The little brother of the Phantom 377 is the 320, which is designed to fit into the "Hybrid" raceboard class where boards have to be at least 71 cm wide and no longer than 320 cm. They say it has a real good raceboard feel and is competitive against the full length boards without being quite as expensive or hard to transport. Older longboards that were 340 cm or shorter tended to be kind of sinky and crappy performing compared to the bigguns, so I'd consider it a pretty good advance if the 320 avoids that.
The odd one of the Phantoms is the much shorter, green, 295. It's supposed to be a fun and fast raceboard for youths between 40 and 75 kg. A lot of adults are less than 75 kg, so it might interest them, too. It seems to have a less extreme version of the wings on the 377, and it shares with the 377 a "diagonal" adjustable mast track. The mast track is on a little ramp, so when you put the mast base forward for light winds it's up a little higher, and when you put the mast base back for planing, it's recessed into the deck of the board. I don't know if it makes a huge difference, but it seems like a cool idea. I think the idea of the 295 is to compete with the Bic Techno 293, which is currently the most popular one-design board for youth racing. The Bic is a decent board, but it's getting pretty dated now, and it's a good bet that the Starboard is a better performer. I have mixed feelings, though, because windsurfing is a small sport and I worry that having multiple boards try to be the dominant one-design board for youth might just destroy youth windsurfing entirely. Or not. I dunno.
#5- The Neil Pryde RS ONE (300 x 80 cm, 209 liters) Neil Pryde mainly makes sails and rig components, and the only other board they make is the Olympic Windsurfing One-Design board, the RS:X. Just like Starboard with the Phantom 295, I think Neil Pryde made the RS ONE to try to kill the Bic Techno 293. It would make sense, because the Bic Techno 293 class is currently the feeder class that supplies talented young sailor to the higher tier RS:X Olympic class. Neil Pryde would naturally want to have a monopoly on the youth feeder class as well as the Olympic class. That said, the RS ONE looks like a pretty good board. It was designed by the guys at Exocet who have a lot of experience with longboards and the somewhat wider versions of longboard that they call Hybrid boards. I'd like to try the RS ONE, Phantom 295, and Bic 293 side-by-side just to see if there's really a difference.
This is the slick promo video for the RS ONE.
#6- Patrik Diethelm Formula V2 This one isn't a longboard. In fact, as an ultra-wide shortboard for planing-only racing it's pretty much the opposite of a longboard. Though all modern formula boards are 100 cm wide at some point, this one is really taking it to the limit by carrying that width almost all the way to the nose and the tail. The tail width on this one can actually be adjusted a bit if you don't want it super wide, because it has some funky extender plates under the back footstraps. It also has plates in the cutouts on the underside the tail that you can raise or lower depending on the wind strength, water roughness, etc. And it has lots of "chicken strap" options for when you're on a screaming reach or barreling downwind and you just can't control the board from the outside back strap. Basically there's a ton stuff to geek out about on this board. Since I haven't tried any formula board newer than a 2004 I'd really like to take one of these monsters for a spin to see how they've changed.
#7- Airush ONE What is it with everybody naming their product the "ONE?" It seems a little presumptuous. Anyway, I have to apologize for this "one" because it's a kite. Yes, even though I've quit kiteboarding I still keep half an eye on what kind of new stuff they're coming out with. This kite caught my eye because it seems so practical and hassle free. It's an inflatable kite with a simple bridle and only one inflatable strut, plus the inflatable leading edge. The thick leading edge, the "D" shape, and the bridle design keep it from needing any additional struts. When I was kiting my two main complaints were: 1) the kites had too many complicated, flimsy, and self-destructing parts, and 2) the kites didn't stay in the air or relaunch off the water well in light winds. If the advertising hype for this Airush is accurate then it flies in lighter winds than any other inflatable kite and has less potential for self-destruction. It's also supposed to turn fast and be resistant to stalling, which is good if you're trying to ride waves. IF I ever get back into kiting this is the kite I would get.
**Background: I quit kiteboarding and sold all my gear late last fall.**
**Begin Post**
One of my favorite things about blogging is that I sometimes get interesting questions from readers. Today was special because two different people separately asked me the same question.
Person #1- Hi James, Do you ever think about returning to kiting? Do you miss it at all? Just wondering. [Person#1]
Person #2- James, do you miss kiting at all?
Here's an excerpt from what I wrote back:
Hi [Person #1],
Yeah, I think about it sometimes. There are some conditions where it's easier to get powered and have fun with a kite, and it almost always looks more impressive than windsurfing to the people on the beach. But I feel that I've satisfied my curiosity about what kiting is like, and proven that I have the ability to do it pretty well. So the only question I ask myself now is, "Is the added joy, compared to just windsurfing, enough to justify the added trouble, expense and danger?" And my answer to that, at least for now, is a fairly clear, "No." Windsurfing gives me basically all the same thrills, challenge, and exercise I got from kiting.
...
-James
Person #2 asked an interesting follow-up question...
Hey James,
I asked because I saw something you posted on the iWindsurf forum saying that you would look into the [brand x] kite if you would kite again.
In this area there are very few windsurfers left, everyone seems to have switched to kiting. I envy their camaraderie, if not their sport.
I love it that I can windsurf in offshore winds or go out in a really light breeze for a leisurely cruise. I just wish there would be more of us.
Thanks,
[Person #2]
...to which I replied:
Well, in Florida, peer pressure was one of the main reasons I tried kiting. My local spot was very popular with kites, but I would usually be the only windsurfer. There's no reason you can't hang out with kiters as a windsurfer, but trying kiting did give me a little head start with the camaraderie there.
If I had tons of money I might pick up a 13-15 meter kite and a big twintip for the sub-15 knot seabreeze days where there's no waves to SUP and I just want to plane without working hard.
-James
So there you have it. I don't miss it much, but if I had all the time and money in the world I would still do it when conditions were good.
Just to put something multi-media in this post, here is the video from my last kiteboarding session EVER, November 30th 2010 in Nahant. (This doesn't count once or twice on buddies' gear when I visited Florida over the winter.)
A while ago I posted a table relating kite size to body weight and wind speed for kiteboarding. It starting getting a lot of hits, so I decided to go ahead and soup it up as an entirely interactive kiteboarding calculator, modeled after my windsurfing calculator spreadsheet. It has two pages- one for kites and one for boards, which you can switch between by clicking the "kitesize" and "boardsize" tabs at the bottom. As with any effort to apply simple math to a complicated and subjective thing, it ain't perfect, but it ought to help give less experienced kiters a rough idea about what kind of gear they need.
If you can't view the embedded version, you can download the file here.
This happened a couple months ago, but the YouTube video just turned up today, prompting my post. A strong, long Nor'easter storm off New England sent mega swells South to Florida, where they turned usually-tame Fort Pierce inlet into a heavy, double-overhead break. Some of my kiter buddies were brave enough to ride it. Here's Brent Beringhaus and Greg "GK" Kuklinski. Wow.
And the video.
I don't know if any windsurfers made it out that day. I was in Boston. Wah wah.
They've had sailing in the Olympic Summer Games since 1896, but the number of divisions and the types of boats have changed a lot, as interestingly described in this Wikipedia article. Right now they race about 7 types of boats, which includes one type of windsurf. In this post I briefly describe all the current Olympic classes, then weigh in on the controversy of whether things should be rearranged to add kiteboarding as an additional class.
The longest enduring model of boat in the Olympics is the "Star", a 22' keelboat with a crew of two, which was designed in 1910 and has been in the games since 1932.
The second longest enduring Olympic sailing class is the "Finn", a 15' dinghy sailed by one person, which was designed in 1949 and has been in the games since 1952. Compared to other singlehanded dinghys, the Finn favors a bigger, heavier sailor, so the burly male sailors of the world insist that the Finn remain an Olympic class to give them a chance to compete at the top level.
The third oldest Olympic Class is is the "470", a high-performance 15' dingy sailed by two lightweight athletes. It was designed in 1963 and has been in the games since 1976. The 470 is really complicated, with a lot of sail area divided among three sails, and a "trapeze" so the sailors can hike out over the water to balance. It requires a bunch of weird physical techniques from the sailors, like pelvic thrusts and disco pointing, to reach maximum planing performance. Fabulous!
Since 2000 there has been an even more complicated and higher performance 2-person dinghy in the Olympics. It's called the "49er". These boats have a ridiculous amount of sail area and special wings that the sailors stand on to get leverage over all that power. 49ers are fast enough to be competitive with windsurfs and kiteboards.
There's two other kinds of dinghy in the Olympics, the Laser (for men), and the Laser Radial (with a slightly smaller sail, for women). The lasers are nice, cheap, simple boats with one sail that are very popular with recreational sailors. The laser is a singlehanded event in the Olympics, but it can hold two people if they're not too heavy.
There was a 20' catamaran called the "Tornado" in the Olympics from 1976 to 2008. They dropped it for 2012 but they're probably going to bring it back in 2016. It has a two person crew.
The newest Olympic boat is the Elliot 6m, a moderate-sized keelboat with a full array of sails and a crew of about 3. It was designed around 2000 and will sail its first Olympics in 2012 as a women-only event.
Last but not least is the windsurfing class, which has been in the Olympics since 1984. In '84 the board was a "Windglider", which was a flat-bottomed longboard similar to the original Windsurfer One-Design that popularized the sport in the 1970s. In '88 they used round-bottomed boards called Division II boards, which were fast in light winds but awkward to sail. They used round-bottomed boards again in '92, but with some upgrades to the board and sail. From '96 - '04 they used a modern, flat-bottomed longboard called the Mistral One Design. That was a good board, but people complained that you had to be a very specific weight to be competitive. They also complained that the narrow longboard wasn't representative of performance windsurf racing in the 2000s, which was mostly done in 100% planing conditions on wide shortboards. In 2008 they changed the Olympic windsurf board to the "RS:X", a cross between a longboard and a wide shortboard, which used a daggerboard in light winds but fully planed around the course without the daggerboard in stronger winds. (For more info on the different kinds of windsurf racing, and picture, check my older blog post here.)
The perennial crisis for Olympic sailing comes from the fact that hardly anybody cares about sailing except sailors, and sailors care SO MUCH about their own favorite types of sailing that they rarely see eye to eye regarding what types should be in the Olympics. That and there's a high cost and hassle per athlete in sailing because of the large and expensive equipment and the logistical support needed. With those challenges in mind, I think that the organizing principles for choosing Olympic sailing classes should be:
1) Representing the most popular, affordable, and portable type(s) of sailing with the minimum number of classes. 2) Providing an interesting spectacle for TV viewers, raising the worldwide profile and popularity of sailing sports. 3) Giving a fair chance for the most talented and dedicated athletes to rise to the top.
For #1, I think it's useful to start by supposing you can only have ONE kind of sailing in the Olympics, so you have to pick the most general. Then as you add additional classes you do so in the way that hits the broadest branches of the sport first and the finer divisions later if resources allow. If there could only be one kind of boat in the Olympics I would pick a simple, single-handed dinghy like the Laser, which has all the elements of a traditional sailboat, including a fixed mast, a centerboard / keel, and a movable rudder.
If there could only be two kinds of boat, I would pick Laser and kiteboard, because kiting is the most different kind of sailing from the Laser, yet it still meets the criteria of being popular, affordable and portable. As a bonus, kiting would be a good TV spectacle (#2 on my "organizing principles" list).
If there could be three kinds of boat, I think windsurfer would be the next to include. Windsurfing is not as distinct from traditional sailing as is kiting, but it's still pretty different, seeing as the sailor stands up and holds the sail and doesn't use a rudder. Windsurfing is also pretty good as a TV spectacle because of the speed and the focus on the athletic rider.
If there could be four kinds of boat, I would add a sporty, 2-person catamaran. Little catamarans are the cheapest and most popular kind of high-performance sailboat, their split hulls effectively differentiate them from the first four kinds of boat, and they look pretty dramatic on TV when they get up on one hull. The Tornado catamaran that they've been using lately seems like a good one.
If there could be five kinds of boat, I would add a moderate-sized keelboat with a crew of about 3, since a lot of the world's recreational sailboat racing is done on boats of similar nature, i.e. bigger than a dinghy. Having a "real" sailboat in the Olympics might also help evoke the nautical mystique and the seafaring and naval battles of yore. As for the particular boat model, I think the Star has had a good run, but it's an old design that's boring compared to modern keelboats of similar size like the Elliot 6m. So I'd vote for the latter or something like it.
Only if there could be six or more kinds of sailboat would I consider adding a high-performance dinghy (aka "skiff") like the 470 or the 49'er. If it came to a choice between the two, I would go for the 49'er, because if you're going to go high performance you might as well go all the way for the maximum TV spectacle, and also because the 49'er is supposedly more accommodating of different size and weight sailors.
I'm getting pretty long-winded here, but I can't skip #3: giving a fair chance to the athletes. Making the competition fair for more than one specific body weight has been a major point of contention. One solution might be splitting the classes into actual body weight divisions by rule instead of de-facto body weight divisions by class of boat. Then you could get rid of some of the cheesy classes of boat like the Finn that only exist for the heavier sailors. Having fewer classes of boat, but more competitors per nation per class of boat, would give the competitors more opportunities to train together and share equipment and stuff.
For windsurfing and kiteboarding, fairness could also be increased by relaxing the one-design restrictions to allow different sized sails or kites for different weight competitors. That seems to work pretty well in the Kona ONE windsurfing class. You could also go a step further by allowing windsurfing and kiting competitors to choose different equipment for different conditions under a "box-rule". A box-rule allows a diversity of gear, but sets certain limits on the amount of stuff each competitor can bring, what size it can be, whether or not it can be custom made or has to come "off the shelf", etc. For example, the box-rule for the formula windsurfing class says you can bring one board with a max width of 100 cm, three sails with a max size of 12.5 m^2, and three fins with a max length of 70 cm. Switching gear between races would require a shift in the way the competitions are held, but you would need a shift, anyway, if you were going to try to accommodate kiting. That is, instead of launching from a marina or boat ramp like the current Olympic classes, the kiters would have to stage their show from a beach, and the beach would suit the windsurfs better, too.
I think some kind of blend between a box-rule and a one-design rule would give the best combination of fairness, coolness, and affordability for Olympic windsurfing and kiting. Like, multiple sizes of sails and kites would be allowed, but they would all be the same model, and there would just be one model of board. Being allowed to use a jumbo kite or sail in light wind would make 100% planing competition realistic in winds down to 7 or 8 knots. And the windsurfing class could finally get away from the continuous sail pumping, aka "air-rowing", that characterizes underpowered windsurf racing. Air rowing is an extremely athletic skill, and I have the greatest respect for those who are good at it, but it looks super lame and unappealing and windsurfers rarely do it except in Olympic style competition.
One problem with getting a tight box-rule for kiteboarding (which I believe is a prerequisite for fair Olympic competition) is that most kite raceboards have at least three fins, with an infinite variety of fin sizes, shapes, and tilt angles that need to be tweaked and changed all the time for different conditions.
A possible way around that would be to use a twin-tip kiteboard with a single center fin that could be adjusted on the fly for different conditions. This kind of board is a recent development, but it apparently performs on about the same level as the more fin-crazy directional raceboards.
Dang, is it ever cold here in Massachusetts. There is a lot of wind but I am definitely NOT thinking about windsurfing. Actually, that's a lie. I AM thinking about windsurfing, but only in a mournful, unrequited love kind of way. If it got up to 4.5 Celsius (40 Fahrenheit) I might don the drysuit and give it a go, but this below-freezing stuff is just not my style.
I reckon now would be a good time to post the final results of my "What's your minimum air temperature for windsurfing or kiteboarding?" survey. Here they are:
Looks the most common temperature cut-off is between 10 and 7 Celsius (50 and 45 Fahrenheit), but there is a significant minority of insane people who claim to ride in sub-freezing weather. Must be Canadians and Europeans.
I learned how to kiteboard about a year and a half ago when I was living in Florida. Although I often had gear failures and frustrations, I mostly avoided injury, and I found kiteboarding to be easy, fun, and well-suited to Florida's prevalent, light seabreezes. Windsurfing remained my preferred sport for winds over 15 knots, but a 12 meter squared kite and a few kiteboards took care of most of my "light wind planing" needs. I figured I'd be a two-watersport guy for the rest of my life, but things changed.
One thing that changed was that I moved to Massachusetts, where the wind is gusty and the water is cold. I've kited a bit here, but it's sketchy. In these conditions I prefer the security of a board that floats and a sail that I know will stop pulling when I let go. It's also windier overall in Massachusetts than in Florida, and I don't seem to need anything more powerful than a 7 or 8 msq windsurf sail and a slalom board to get plenty of fully-powered sessions.
Another thing was realizing that I simply like windsurfing better than kiting. It's not that I don't like kiteboarding- I do. I think it's cool to be effortlessly powered in "tweener" wind strengths with a kite, and the soaring, Peter Pan jumps are a rush. But the basic riding sensation is more satisfying to me on a windsurf. I like the direct feedback from the board, the fin, and the sail, and I feel more like the whole assembly is an extension of myself. On a windsurf I can sail along not doing anything special, just appreciating the feeling of motion and forces in balance. I get a little of that kiting, too, but it's not as nice.
The final thing was my limited storage space, time, and financial resources. I started thinking about an extra $1500 in my pocket, a less cluttered van and board rack, and fewer "what to rig" decisions, and I decided to QUIT KITEBOARDING AND SELL MY GEAR. If I someday find myself idle rich and living in a warm, light-wind place like Florida or San Diego then I may take it up again. We'll see.
Anyway, here's a video from yesterday afternoon of what may have been my last kiteboarding session ever. Below the video I've listed the kite gear I have for sale.
2008 Flysurfer Speed 2 (closed-cell foil kite) 12 msq. Perfectly tuned with bar and lines included. $750 SOLD Two-line trainer kite, 4 msq, with bar and lines. $60 SOLD Michael Gebhardt - designed directional freeride / raceboard. Unique and extremely badass. $500 SOLD 2006 Litewave Freeride 179 cm Twintip. Best beginner kiteboard ever, and very comfy ride in chop. $180 SOLD 2009 Litewave Spirit 137 cm Twintip. Do-it-all kiteboard for medium and stronger wind. Nice footpads. $250
Dang. While I was windsurfing on the East side of the Nahant causeway Saturday a kiteboarder got nearly killed on the West side of the causeway at "Dog Beach". Here is the ikitesurf forum thread that describes the accident...
On a related note, American kiteboarder Rob Douglas broke the world speed sailing record AGAIN, just a few days after the last record was set. His speed over 500 meters: 55.65 knots / 64 mph. Crazy. Then he broke his wrist and had to go home to America from Namibia where the record attempt was happening. Check out the ludicrous video.
This kind of thing reinforces my decision to only kite in lighter winds.
At various points in the past decade, each of three very different types of watercraft; windsurf, kiteboard, and specialized sailboat, has held the world record for wind-propelled speed on liquid water. So it has been an interesting decade, if you're into that sort of thing. Here's a rundown of the record-breaking from sailspeedrecords.com. This is average speed measured over a 500 meter stretch. A knot is 1.15 mph:
Year, Type of Watercraft, Skipper Name, Venue, Speed 1993, Yellow Pages (wing-sail sailboat), Simon McKeon, Sandy Point, Australia, 46.52 kts 2004, Windsurfer, Finian Maynard, Stes. Marie Speed Ditch, France, 46.82 kts 2005, Windsurfer, Finian Maynard, Stes. Marie Speed Ditch, France, 48.70 kts 2008, Windsurfer, Antoine Albeau, Stes. Marie Speed Ditch, France, 49.09 kts 2008, Kite-board, Robert Douglas, Luderitz Speed Ditch, Namibia, 49.84 kts 2008, Kite-board, Sebastien Cattelan, Luderitz Speed Ditch, Namibia, 50.26 kts 2008, Kite-board, Alexandre Caizergues, Luderitz Speed Ditch, Namibia, 50.57 kts 2009, Hydroptere (hydrofoil trimaran), Alain Thebault, Hyeres Bay, France 51.36 kts
Wow. I think it's unlikely now that windsurfers will ever recapture the record, since Antoine Albeau's amazing 49.09 knot run in perfect conditions in 2008 is a full 5 knots slower than Caizergues' new kiteboard record. Oh, well. I think it's just easier to get extreme speeds on a kiteboard because of the physics of it. The kite is higher in the air where the wind is unobstructed, the board and fin can be smaller, and the kiteboard can run at a deeper downwind angle. Of course, "easy" is relative. All these record attempts look extremely difficult and dangerous to me, and I wonder how long it will be before someone gets killed smacking into a sandbar or something. Yikes.
I may have mentioned at some point that my two-year marine biology research fellowship in Florida was ending and that I would be moving to Boston Massachusetts soon to start another research job. Well, if I failed to say it earlier, at least now you know. I no longer live in Florida.
Yep, 24 hours driving a 16' Penske truck with my minivan towed behind it, broken up by an overnight at my sister's house in Cary, NC and another at a La Quinta hotel in Stamford CT, and I arrived at the stoop of my new home: 42 W Baltimore Street, Lynn MA. The place is smaller than where I lived in Florida, and I had a heck of a time fitting in my fabulous windsurfing board rack. The neighbors probably thought I was nuts, sawing the excess length off the 2 x 4s of the rack in the middle of the shared hallway at 9pm, shirtless and stinky with sweat and with the zipper busted off my shorts from where I tried to support the corner of a dresser with my johnson while shlepping it out of the truck. Anyway, right now I'm sitting in the computer lab at Northeastern University's Marine Science Center in Nahant, decompressing after a busy day of just-moved-to-a-new-place type work tasks and errands. Ahh.
My last week in Florida was pretty fantastic in terms of windsurfing, with a couple days of big waves and decent onshore winds related to Hurricane Earl. On the very last watersports day both the wind and the waves were nice and there were actually 5 windsurfers at the Fort Pierce South Jetty. Woo hoo! I took a few pictures from that day, presented in the slideshow below. One of the windsurfers was John Campbell, aka "floridawavesailor", who is a real good rider. He does lots of backwinded moves, like, carving 360's.
The video below is from an earlier day in the week, when the waves were good but the wind was not quite strong enough for the shortboard and 6.8 msq sail I was using. The session was saved by the "gorge effect"; the fact that the current and the wind were going in opposite directions in Fort Pierce inlet, which increased the apparent wind speed and the steepness of the waves enough to get planing and have a good time. The song in the video is one my friend Emily Westermeier sings. I think it's good but she's not so sure, so if you like it leave a nice comment or something.
I have some video from a windier session, too, that I'll edit up later if I have more time.
PS- Got my first session in Massachusetts after work today. It was a kiteboarding session in up and down SW winds at "Dog Beach" in Nahant. Pretty fun, and the air and water were warm enough that I could get away with a shorty wetsuit. Don't expect those mild conditions will last, though!
Windsurfing has a slow learning curve in which bravery and athletic talent alone are not enough to get you beyond the kooky beginner phase. To progress in windsurfing you must also mentally tune in to the nuances of wind and water conditions and learn the technical aspects of gear and rigging. Therefore, by the time you make it to an intermediate level in the sport of windsurfing, you are probably well rounded in terms of understanding, ability, and common sense. If that's you, give yourself a pat on the back.
Kiteboarding is a little different because it has a quicker learning curve in which either bravery/athleticism OR tuning/technique can get you going. So there are two kinds of intermediate level kiters; the ones who rely predominantly on their bravery and athleticism, whom we'll call the Brats, and the ones who take a more cautious and deliberate approach to gear tuning and technique, whom we'll call the Tutes. Generally, younger kiters and those with a surfing or wakeboarding background are more likely to be Brats, and older kiters and those with a sailing or windsurfing background are more likely to be Tutes. The best kiters have the good qualities of both Brats and Tutes.
As you might guess, I'm more of a Tute. As such, I feel it is my duty to share some unsolicited advice with all the talented Brats out there by pointing out the dumb things they do and how they could fix them to become much better kiters that I'll ever be.
Dumb Things That Good Kiters Do by James Douglass, a bad kiter
1. Struggle with inappropriate sized kites for their weight and the wind conditions. A Brat will usually go to the beach, see what size kites the other guys are using, and rig about that, regardless of whether he is 125 lbs or 250 lbs. Dumb. Kite size for a given wind strength is directly proportional to body weight, so a 125 lb person should use a kite half the size that the 250 lb person is using. For more specific kite size advice, check the chart I made here.
2. Ride too small a twintip or a surfboard with too much rocker. Brats usually do well in powered or overpowered conditions that freak out Tutes, but they often have trouble in the light winds where Tutes flourish. This happens for several reasons including Brats' tendency to try to ride the same, small board all the time, or to dumbly consider a sinky little surfboard with tons of tail rocker to be a good light wind board. It doesn't matter how skilled a rider is; a small twintip (anything < 150 cm) just doesn't work very well in light wind, even when paired with a big kite. And a dinky, rockered-out surfboard will not get going and stay upwind nearly as well as a big flat twintip.
3. Oversheet (choking the kite) and over-edge (forcing the kite to the edge of the wind window). This is another reason why Brats suffer in light wind. They aggressively sheet and sine their kites for power, while burying the rail of their board as hard as they can in the water. This often stalls or partially stalls the kite, slows them down, and prevents them from going upwind. Then they walk back up the beach and pack up, complaining that it's not windy enough and dammit when are we going to get some REAL wind. It would work better if they flattened out and finessed their boards to create less drag, more speed, and more apparent wind in the kite so they wouldn't have to sine it for power. And then they could sheet out and edge just a bit to have the kite pull them effectively upwind.
4. Don't put upwind "in the bank" on the way out or at the beginning of a session. Just like what goes up must come down, what goes downwind must somehow come back upwind. Brats often gleefully zoom off downwind without realizing it, maybe because they didn't pay attention to the wind or current direction, and then have to struggle to make it back upwind to where they started from. It's better to go upwind as much as a possible when you first start out, to make sure you can maintain ground, and to build up some buffer space downwind in case the wind dies.
5. Launch in a ridiculous way. Some Brats feel that to be a good kiter they need to do one of those lame, show-off starts where you slide your board down the sand of the beach, pop off an embankment, or hop into the footstraps when your board is floating in ankle deep water. It beats up your gear when you do it right, and it beats up your body AND your gear when you do it wrong, and it's tacky. Just wade or body drag out away from shore and launch like a normal person.
6. Jump too close to the beach or over super shallow water. Just because you can usually jump, land, and turn around in about 100 feet doesn't mean the 100 feet remaining between you and the shoreline is a good place to try to jump, land and turn around. And just because you usually land softly doesn't mean you will land softly when you do a big air over 6 inches of water. Even if you do everything super skillfully, shit can happen with the wind that makes you go a little further, higher or faster than you expected, and then you crash and hurt yourself or some other people.
OK, that's it. Now here's my videos from the weekend, both shot Sunday. I started out kiteboarding, then when it got windier I went windsurfing, so that's the order the videos are in.
After work Friday I went down to the beach and took some pictures of my buddies kiting the lingering winds from Tropical Storm Bonnie. It was high tide and the wind had shifted from NE to SE since my windsurfing session in the morning, so the conditions were kind of ugly with lots of closely-spaced windswell and shorebreak. The ugliness was compounded by the fact that the jetty had collected tons of drifting seaweed into a swirling stew along the shore. But wind is wind, I guess. Here's the pics:
After work yesterday I had a kiteboarding session that was so fun it totally made up for my frustrating session the other day. It ended up being a solo sesh because my buddy who showed up was grounded with air bladder leaks. Being by myself was actually ok for a change because it helped me concentrate and relax and notice the fish and bugs and birds and things like that.
It was also a cool session because I did some line-mounted camera experiments that worked pretty well. (See videos.) The song in the first video is "River in the Road" by Queens of the Stone Age, and the song in the second video is "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse.
I had a great windsurfing session early today, blasting around the Indian River Lagoon on my cool-looking black and red slalom board with its matching red and black 8.4 meters squared sail. I felt pretty "dialed in", and enjoyed passing my kite friend John like he was standing still. Heh heh. I quit, contented, around 2pm.
Unfortunately, I got a "second wind" after a refreshing fast-food lunch of fat, sugar, and caffeine, and decided to join a different set of buddies at the same spot for a kiteboarding session. I have a love-hate relationship with kiteboarding. The act is beautiful when it works out, but the gear is horrendously finicky and unreliable. If you use an inflatable kite, your bladders and valves are likely to malfunction, or at least weigh your kite down in light winds, and if you use a foil kite, the bridles are likely to tangle, the fabric to wick wetness, and the chambers to fill with water such that you can't relaunch it if it crashes. Basically, all kite gear SUCKS in one way or another.
There's a diehard camp of foil-kite advocates, however, who will tirelessly espouse the flawless wonders of foil kites. Here are their common claims, with my critical evaluations of those claims based on my preliminary experiences with a foil kite.
Claim #1- "Foil kites are more powerful and efficient and fly better in lighter winds than inflatable kites." Status = Partially true. If it is tuned correctly and flown skillfully, a foil kite will fly and stay aloft in wind slightly lighter than what it takes to keep a bladder-inflated kite in the air. And because it weighs less, it will rise faster and give more power on the "upstroke" when you are getting going. Once you're up to speed, the 3d airfoil shape of a foil kite pulls more for its size and goes upwind at a better angle than an inflatable kite. But foil kites have a tendency to "overfly" the wind window, "front-stall", and collapse, especially if the wind is gusty or shifting in direction, whereas bladder-inflated kites hold their shape much better and respond to wind changes better.
Claim #2- "Foil kites are more convenient and less of a hassle than inflatable kites." Status = Partially true. It is definitely nice not having to pump up your kite and worry about bladders and valves leaking. Also, the foil kites pack up nice and small and you don't have to lug a pump around. However, it takes a longer for a foil kite to recover from a crash, because it gets really heavy with wetness and sand and there are complex bridles that take a long time to get untangled. Further, foil kites require "tuning" to keep them performing properly after their lines stretch with use. You need a PhD in aerodynamics and fluency in German to figure out how to tune them in a way that will make them fly better and not worse.
Claim #3- "Modern, closed-cell foil kites relaunch from the water as well, if not better, than inflatable kites." Status = Total bullshit. IF you are standing in shallow water, and IF there is lots of good wind, and IF your foil kite just happened to crash in the perfect, untangled position at the center of the wind window, then it will relaunch about as easily as an inflatable kite... except that it will yank you downwind with crazy force because you're relaunching it in the "hot zone" instead of at the edge of the wind window. Of course, if your foil kite crashes anywhere other than at the center of the wind window, if it does any folds or inversions when it's falling out of the sky (which it will), if you're in water where you can't touch, if the wind is less than a steady 12 knots, if your feet are in a floaty directional board that doesn't provide much resistance against the kite, if the kite happens to get a little water in it when it crashes, or if a wave washes over the kite, it will be next to impossible to relaunch. I have only been able to do a deep water relaunch 1 out of the 5 times I have accidentally crashed my Flysurfer Speed 2 in deep water. And I ain't no kite kook, neither.
Claim #4- " Foil kites let you jump high and get major airtime in relatively light winds." Status- True. I am not a very good jumper, but I have had some really nice, floaty airs while riding my foil kite. The only thing is that jumping makes you susceptible to getting in a position relative to the kite and the wind wherein the kite will collapse on itself and crash out of the sky. The difficulty and hassle of relaunching a crashed foil kite tends to make one more conservative about jumping.
Claim #5- "Foil kites turn fast." Status- Not mine. My 12 meter Flysurfer Speed 2 foil kite turns at about the same speed as my 14 meter inflatable kite, if not slightly slower. When I have to turn the kite for jumps and transitions I need to plan ahead and get the timing right so I don't sink while waiting for the kite to turn. At least the bar pressure required to turn the kite is relatively light.
Claim #6- "Foil kites are safe and easy, especially for self-launching and landing" Status- Mostly false. It's easy to self-launch a foil kite in most winds, and it's easy to self-land a foil kite in light wind, but it's extremely sketchy to self-land a foil kite in strong wind. Also, because of their powerful, lofty pull, their propensity to fold, tangle, and re-power in gusts and wind shifts, mediocre de-power systems, and their sometimes sluggish steering responses, they probably increase you're likelihood of having a serious accident. I chose not to fly my inflatable kite in wind over 20 mph, and I'll definitely excercise the same caution with my foil kite.
Conclusion- Foil kites may be better now than when they were first invented, and maybe even a little better than my 2-year old Flysurfer Speed 2, but they still have a long way to go before they are as safe, convenient, and dependable as inflatable kites for use on the water by average kiters. I would say that at this point in time, foil kites are most appropriate for good, technically-minded kiters who rarely crash the kite and who sail "door" style twintips close to shore in flat, shallow water and steady, light to moderate winds.
Specific areas for improvement- My Flysurfer Speed 2 would be improved if: 1) It flew with more stability slightly further back in the wind window, 2) It didn't have so many long, fine bridle lines, 3) It had water-repellent fabric and didn't get water in it so easily, 4) It had one-way drains all along the trailing edge that would let the water out when you were trying to relaunch it, 5) It had a users' manual with better pictures and better English translation, 6) The bar had bigger scoops for winding up the lines and stronger bungees on each end that would really lash the line-bundles down well, 7) The chicken loop line and emergency depower line were made of strong spectra or something that wouldn't get moldy and wear through and have to be waxed with a candle and stuff, 8) It had the ability to relaunch at the edge of the wind window like an inflatable kite.
That was a lot of words, now here's the video. The main words it has are angry swear words coming from me when the kite is resisting my attempts to relaunch it. The swear words are pretty bad, aggressive, blasphemous and scatological, so if you don't want to see that ugly, bad-tempered side of your favorite blogger / son / nephew / friend / whatever then turn the video off right after I crash the kite.
I'm a marine biology professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. My professional page is here, my personal blog is here, and my no-longer-maintained science blog is here.
