First PWA Racing of the Season, New Equipment and a note about Free-Race Boards

Hi

PWA

The first PWA event took place recently in Japan.  

The slalom heats were few because the wind was extremely unsteady but there are a few observations to be made.

The first observation is that the foiling side of things seems to have come of age.  It is closely fought and quite entertaining to watch.  Gonzalo has emerged as the guy to beat having dedicated himself to the discipline over the winter.

 

Gonzalo is on Starboard/Severne and is flying.  The new Severne Hyperglide sails seem to be pretty much foiling state-of-the-art at this point in time.

  

Many of the riders prefer sails other than pure racing designs for foiling (Julien Quentel uses Tempests – not the new Machine M-6 race models for example).

Interesting though, is that the Pryde sailors have no problem with their new race blades – foil or slalom – bring it on.  This attests to the user friendliness of the design and to underscore this, Antoine won the slalom racing and came second in the foiling – on the same sails.

  

When Pryde launched this model with its fresh shaping and reduced batten count, I predicted that it would prove to be something special.  It is still early days but watch this space.

New Equipment

RRD is getting serious about foiling at the highest levels and is about to release their new foiling board.  They clearly wanted to give Antoine the best chance of winning and so, made a proper, light, purpose built, foiling machine.  Nice!

Fanatic has released the Jag Ltd, a freerace board which looks interesting.  The Blast is more of a high speed freeride machine I suppose, so the new Jag makes sense as a useful addition to their line-up.

 

I note that the construction of the Jag is the same as the Gecko so it might be quite heavy.  I’m not sure why they would not have a textreme option for those of us allergic to heavy stuff.  

The weights of the new boards are not shown on the spec sheet which makes me extremely nervous.

The boards come with Choco Black Pearl fins which are decent blades.  You could easily take the supplied fin as your middle size and supplement with something like a Tectonics (Phoenix or Falcon) for your smaller size and a full on carbon fin for the larger size.  One board/ three fins/ job done.

Besides the concerns regarding the weight of the Jags, I would only say that the straps look too far back for me.  This is a 100%, sitting - in - armchair opinion of course but I just have the feeling that the straps are too crowded towards the back of the board.  This is better for speed I suppose but I don’t know.  

I would need to sail a Jag to get some sort of feel.  Buying one blind would definitely not happen whereas if I were to get a good deal on any of the other boards listed below, I wouldn’t hesitate to take it untried.

The Free-Race Board

The new Jag is one of many free-race designs on the market right now.  Off the top of my head these are the models I would be looking at if I needed to choose one:

• Severne Fox 
• RRD Firestorm Ltd 
• Patrik F-Race 
• Starboard Futura 
• Goya Bolt Pro 
• Fanatic Jag (need to try first)

Severne’s Fox is the only power box board here which is not a problem in the smaller sizes but in the bigger sizes I would definitely prefer Tuttle and deep Tuttle boxes.

Why I fancy these designs in the appropriate size, is because they:

• Are longer than their slalom counterparts 
• Have inboard strap plugs for those of us tired of stepping into the water trying to get feet into slalom straps. 
• Can be sailed very happily with freeride, free-slalom or full race sails 
• Can be sailed with a range of fin types – from wild water shapes to full carbon race blades 
• Are so much more enjoyable to sail than slalom boards in all but the flattest conditions.

For my weight, I would order one of these boards of around 70cm wide.  Anything bigger would need to be pure slalom and anything smaller would be a fast free-wave board.  

I may share a few thoughts about some fast free-wave shapes in an upcoming post.

OK, that’s all for now.

Good winds and stay sheeted in   

News about Patrik Models, Foils, Boards and Fins

Hi

I have been waiting for some of the 2018 equipment ranges which have still not been introduced.  

Patrik

Patrik finally introduced his new slalom range which now includes two construction options.  He is still not showing his hollow boards which would make three.

Anyway the two constructions on the site are GBM (high spec) and GET (lower spec).  The red GET boards are quite attractive, not much heavier but more flexible (probably good for control in the smaller sizes).

    

What concerns me slightly is that the two construction lines seem to be different designs.  Here is the 130l version of each construction.  Have a look and see what you think:

All the sizes seem to show slight differences between grey and red models.  What gives?

Industry Concerns

I am still waiting for MB slalom and free ride models, most of the Avanti sail line, Naish’s 2018 Starship etc.  Angulo may have thrown in the towel.  They have had no new stuff on their site since 2016 and Peter Bijl has nothing on the sales part of his site.

 

These things are easy to complain about but the sad thing is that they all point to troubles in the industry.  The traditional windsurfing market is shrinking and everyone (each supplier and consumer) needs to consider the way forward.

 

Suppliers clearly need to broaden their customer base with kiting, SUP, foiling, apparel pure surfing etc, with windsurfing being a shrinking part of what they offer.  The industry also needs to develop a business model to give the best chance of surviving.  

I’m not sure what such a model may be.  Maybe everyone signs on to the central manufacture of accessories (lines, extensions, mast feet, booms etc), standardized and manufactured in one place to contain costs.  I’m thinking three levels of each thing (high tech, medium tech and budget).   Each supplier would then merely choose a technology from the factory, have its branding affixed and take bulk orders.

        

Another approach could be to decentralise the whole thing, manufacturing small quantities of equipment in a range of small facilities spread across the windsurfing globe.  This could be done using a combination of clever licensing agreements and strict quality control together with modern manufacturing and materials technologies.  Such an approach could be both lean and flexible.   I may share some ideas about this in a future post.

Anyway, here are three nice new developments:

Foil

Mert Ozener alerted me to RRD’s new aluminium foil,  sporting an adaptable mast head which can be configured to accept a whole range of fin boxes.  

This is really intelligent and commendable.   

The pity is that it is only available in aluminium.  I suppose CF is more difficult to set bolts into.  They prefer to mould everything into one piece for integrity.  Anyway - well done RRD.

Fin

Gareth Hill mailed me from England saying that he has ordered a Fly-Fin from FRPGear.  Gareth is one of our local sailors who has homes both here and in England, allowing him to live (and sail) in perpetual summer.  He is also a competent windsurfer who will provide feedback on the fin’s performance in terms we can all understand and relate to.

The guys at FRP have produced a large (and slightly bewildering) variety of shapes for their fins and have even made their own board.  Fantastic!

 

I’m not sure if all of this stuff works for normal high performance blasters but I admire the energy, enthusiasm and inventiveness of these guys.  

Their fabrication is top-notch because of their history with the technologies.  Gareth is going to give us feedback on the fin he has ordered and I can’t wait.

Boards

Danny Bruch is in the process of establishing a new windsurfing brand.  It will be known as Diamond Boards and it promises to be something special.

Danny, as most of you will know, is a world ranked windsurfer who spent many years developing boards for Starboard.  

He has moved to Tenerife where he has organised a manufacturing facility very close to his local windy beach.  Very nice.

  

The set-up provides an opportunity to manufacture in the morning and test the very next day, an example of the lean, flexible approach mentioned above.  

Danny compares his concept with the established Cobra factory based approach where you fly to Thailand, fashion your proto-types with the factory, fly to a suitable testing venue with the proto-types, test them, amend shapes where necessary, fly back to Thailand and furnish the final amended plans for volume production.  This is a hugely wasteful process and Danny’s set-up is so much more elegant.    

Diamond Boards will offer their own proprietary shapes covering all the windsurfing disciplines but will also offer the opportunity for you to specify something tailored to your own needs.  

Say you really like your Starboard Kode Feewave, but would prefer it with a power box centre fin.  You could specify such a thing, lodge your payment and await delivery.  Very cool!

Good winds