Some More 2020 Equipment and Luderitz

Hi

Sorry for the long delay. I will look at some more new equipment, add some thoughts and then briefly discuss the speed event in Luderitz.

New Stuff of Interest 

Patrik

Patrik has tweaked his designs slightly and done away with the two construction approach.  He has also come up with really nice colours for the boards.  

He discusses each of the ranges on his site explaining the design approaches adopted for each model together with his reasoning.  Fanatic and Starboard have always done this properly and it is good to see Patrik join them in providing useful information for us.

If I had no equipment, a large bank balance and was looking for a board quiver to cover all of my windsurfing needs, I would consider ordering 2020 Patrik:

•        Slalom 125
•        F-Race 120
•        F-Cross 103

Look at this thing – awesome colours, two footstrap plug rows, foil box…
a masterpiece of beauty, form and function.

The F-Race is light, long and cool.  It sports a long flat section under the feet for early planing and comfort.

The F-Cross is one of the perfect boards for high speed blasting over choppy water – no cut-outs, not too short, round tail, power box for your high end fins – awesome.

This 3 board combination would adequately cover all of the regular sailing conditions we experience here in Langebaan.   

The F-Race could be substituted with a goldilocks board like JP’s Super Ride, Severne’s Fox, Goya’s Carrera etc if a more playful sailing approach is preferred. 

Because of the advances in foiling, I am now of the opinion that we don’t require big slalom sails any more.  I would not go above 7.5m in the windsurf sail quiver.

Very light winds can be handled with foiling equipment which would add massively to overall time on the water.  A good time to be alive!

Gun Sails

I have always regarded the products of Gun Sails as being good value/middle of the road offerings – not worthy of too much attention.

Lately, the principal of “high quality sailors in an organisation, push the generation of high quality products” has hit Gun Sails.  Pieter Bijl, Ben Van Der Steen and Steven Van Broeckhoven (three mighty sailors from the low countries) have all been working on Gun’s flat water products and some real excellence is starting to emerge.

   

Note the Seal in high tech fabrics.

 

Look at the new Bow which I wrote about in a previous post – an inspired concept which represents just one example of Pieter’s creativity.  Search for his own high tech booms 
(Pro-Boom) for another example.

The 2020 Bow comes in two configurations – Bow Slalom and Bow-Fly Foil.

These new designs allow for high speeds in total comfort whether foiling or blasting on your standard slalom board.  All sizes rig on the special 490 bow flex mast.

One of these sails (the slalom model) was on the water here last week and I spoke with the rider.  His comments make me think that the Bow is an excellent concept but not quite past the prototype stage yet.

The guy said that the sail provides fantastic low end power, keeping good control as the wind picks up.  It is however, extremely heavy – heavy fabric and heavy 70% mast.  

The sail is heavy, both in terms of physical weight and because it works your body like a race sail (4 cams!).

Here are some (humble) suggestions for this concept going forward:

•      Reduce the sail weight to half of its current weight

•      Reduce the number of cams to 2 and maybe the battens to 6 as in the foil model.

•     Reduce the mast weight.  Make it 100% carbon.

•      Make the bottom half of the mast an ordinary Gun 460 or 430 (top spec) mast which could then come with two upper sections – a regular top and the bow top.  This would enable a buyer to sail regular sails as well as the Bow, with the same mast.

•     Make the bow top, pre-bent for easier rigging.

 

Some things for Pieter to consider.

What I suggest is that we all keep an eye on Gun Sails.  The three above-mentioned sailors are creating something special in this company and some great new sails could emerge.  They were recently joined by JuJu who is rocking their pure slalom sails in the PWA and no doubt providing (with Ben), useful feedback to the designer.

Luderitz Speed Challenge 

This speed event kicked off at the start of November and they have had good winds.
  

Two of our local sailors, Karo and Louis, entered and participated 2 weeks ago.  They both did well, Karo hitting 44.55 knots, making her the fifth fastest woman windsurfer of all time.  Very nice and well deserved – she has really worked for this result and has to be the fittest person on our water right now.

Joos, Karo’s dad, accompanied her to help with rigging, carrying and general kit administration.  He says that the vibe in Luderitz is fantastic.  You have the fastest sailors on the planet, in one venue, happily sharing knowledge and experience.   You learn more about tuning for speed, fins, sails and board design in one week than you could learn in a lifetime on your own.  A unique event in a unique venue.

The best time so far has been from Vincent Valkenaers who clocked 53.25 knots on Sunday.  He is on JP Boards, Pryde sails and Z Fins.  

Quite a high percentage of the guys are on Severne sails.

Aurelio Verdi attended, bringing with him a pile of his new speed boards.  I had a look at Karo’s when she got back and it is a thing of beauty.  His workmanship is perfect and incorporates aero-space materials.  Very impressive.

Aurelio has joined Ben Severne and Patrik Diethelm to make three designers who attend the event, enter and ride their own creations down that hectic ribbon of speed and adrenaline.  Respect!

Good Winds    

New Developments, Goldilocks Boards and a new Zulu fin

Hi

Sorry for the long break.  Our winter is not a great time to be thinking of windsurfing and I have also been struggling with medical issues.  Anyway I’m back and able to share some thoughts with you.

    

Here are some interesting new products and developments:

Duotone

Most of you will have followed the demise of North Windsurfing and its transition into Duotone.  Thankfully, the new company retains all of the product design rights and would only have needed to move their manufacture to other facilities.  The team remains exactly the same.  Duotone is perhaps not the most inspiring name for a windsurfing company but who cares if their stuff works.

New Sails

New sails are creeping onto the various sites and everything seems to be getting lighter, faster and stronger - exactly what we need.  I have started paying more attention to Pryde’s freeride and free-race sails now, in light of their phenomenal new race sail.  I’m sure they learned some things developing the race blade and usually, design aspects from an apex product find their way into softer models.  Look at their Speedster or V8 (most of the speed of a pure race sail but way more ease and fun).  Bargain!

Four Goldilocks Boards

I watch for boards capable of being fast, easy to gybe and fun to ride.  My current favourites which tick all of these boxes are the Fanatic Blast and JP’s Super Ride.  These are both designs which, with proper fins under them, promise to be just right in terms of speed, gybing and the generation of happiness.

Reviews and commentary about the Super Ride are starting to appear online and riders are stoked in every bit of feedback I can find.  Incidentally, both the Blast and the Super Ride come with half decent fins so you start with a solid base.

If I had to include one slightly faster board to this small list I would have to include the Severne Fox.  A slightly more freeride design would be the Naish Starship.

 

So there you have it – 4 boards that are, in my opinion (and for my type of sailing) just right.

Some fin options (not an exhaustive list) for the above boards:

·         Zulu Shaka (new edition)

·         Tectonics Phoenix

·         Tectonics Falcon

·         MUF Freeride

I will give my suggestion about how to incorporate one or two Goldilocks boards into your quiver further down the page.

New Severne Board

Severne have launched the Psycho, a free-style board.  This has to be on your list if you are looking for such a thing.  I like the fin.

  

I often wonder what one of these boards would be like with slightly outboard strap options.  Free-style boards have such pop and immediate acceleration – I think you could frighten your mates on free-ride boards.

New Slalom Boards

The new JP slalom boards may not be that visible on the PWA but if you look at the European circuits, they are taking names.  Have a look at recent IFCA events which show plenty of orange boards under purple sails winning.  I recall reading something recently about a new open water speed record on a JP slalom board.  If I remember correctly, the guy averaged over 40k across one nautical mile.

The only criticism I would make against JP is the lack of a 75cm wide slalom model.  To me this is the only size slalom board needed by the non-racing windsurfer.  RRD on the other hand has presented its new slalom range and they have included a board of this width.  Well done RRD.

New Zulu Fin

Robbie at Zulu has re-vamped his trusty Shaka fins.  I have taken this post from a page on his site and use it allow his words to speak for themselves: 

When Robbie says they have tested thoroughly, he means it.  My first gen Shaka is still in use and remains an all time favourite.  

So here is a suggestion about a good way to incorporate one or two Goldilocks boards in your quiver:

•      Your big board would be a foil-optimised, 80-90ish     wide,   light wind killer.  Think Patrik’s Formula-Foil 91   or Pryde’s RS:X Convertible Board.
•      The only pure slalom board would be a 75cm wide model.
•      The next board down is a Goldilocks design (68cm wide   if you are lighter, 73 if you are fat, both if you are rich   and have the space)
•      Your small board will be picked from the many excellent   free-wave offerings available today (Severne Dyno, RRD   Freestylewave, Patrik F-Cross, Fanatic Freewave etc)

• 
  

Your sails would ideally need to start with a 7.5 and 7.0, both able to be sailed easily with a foil and also be racy enough for your 75cm slalom board.  I am thinking Severne NCX, Pryde V8, Ezzy Lion etc.

Your next two sails could be a 6.5 and 5.8 in a nice light sail like Severne’s Gator with the smallest sail being a good wave design in 4.7 or 4.8m.

There you have it – a quiver for most wind and water conditions.  Add a good foil and some great fins and you are set to glean maximum enjoyment from our sport.

That is all for now.

 

In the next post I will write something about a new foil from Zulu and pass on some rider feedback regarding foil vs normal lightwind kit.  Giuseppe Scullino from Italy has been doing some in depth comparisons with his mates and his findings interesting.

Good winds

Phil   

   

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   

Some Severne News

Hi

Here is a short note around some developments from Severne . 

The new Severne Dyno is about to be released and it looks like one serious board for the blaster with wave-riding requirements.

Here it is:

And here are the dimensions:

Once again Severne creates an important board.  I predict that it will fly over rough water with single fin and style in waves with the tri-fin set-up.  An awesome do-it-all board which (like the Fox), just looks right.

The latest  Windsurf Magazine (issue 372) includes a Dyno in their 95l board review.

Here are some extracts from that test write-up:

1.

2.

3.

Thanks Windsurf Magazine!

Please subscribe to this publication.  Their tests and articles are so on point and useful. 

I mentioned the new Mach1 race sail in the last post.  

Ben Severne is clearly determined to see this sail on the PWA podium in 2018 and has employed Matteo Iachino to make it happen.

  

I can’t think of a better pilot and we await the new PWA season with interest.  

(Matteo+Mach1+iSonics ......faaak!).

   

Talk to you soon

Some Thoughts about Foiling

Hi

Windsurf foiling is gaining momentum and is finally becoming quite interesting.  The industry is shaking itself out and things are drawing to a head in the areas of foil, board and dedicated sail design.

What I see is two camps approaching the market from different places.  On the one hand you have companies such as Horue, adapting kiting kit for windsurf foiling and on the other side you have Neil Pryde and JP developing equipment from a windsurfing perspective.

Here is one of Horue’s three boards - the Tiny.  

It is only slightly longer than 2m and comes with a Select windsurfing fin for use when not foiling.  I doubt that it would be particularly good for freeride blasting with windsurf kit. (?)

Horue sells two more dedicated models for advanced foilers who are not interested in a windsurfing application for their boards.  These are the Tiny Pro and the Slant.  I like the sloped deck of the Slant (looks comfortable to me).  Horue also sell two dedicated foiling sails which they claim are light and perfect for the job.

Representing the other side of the movement are Pryde and JP who have developed two purpose built foiling boards, two highly evolved foils (together with F4 - the fin guys) and a fast, purpose built foiling sail called the Flight.

Here is a video of a question and answer session hosted by Sebastian Kornum who has been the rider on the JP/NP development team.

His responses reveal how much development has gone into the program.  The guys are serious!  

Note also, when he explains that the boards are not really designed for windsurfing.  When learning, you spend so much time smashing the front of the board onto the water that they have had to shape the under-side to ensure that when it smashes down, the rails do not bite and it does not suck onto the water at speed causing catastrophic face plants.  This shape of course is not optimised for windsurfing so the foiling board is basically a buoyancy tank to get planing quickly and provide a solid base for sail and foil.

Here is Pryde’s foiling sail in action.  A beautiful thing and something I’m sure we could use on a fast freerace windsurfing board with a slightly upright stance and waist harness (Futura, Patrik F-Race, Goya Bolt, Severne Fox etc).

If you have not yet done so, please have a look at Pryde’s two F4 foils – one in aluminium and the other in carbon.  Very nice!

The problem I have with both of the above camps, is that their foiling boards cannot really perform the dual functions of windsurfing and foiling.  I favour the approach of AHD and Goya who give us stunning windsurfing models which happen to have reinforced fin boxes, suitable for foils.  

This provides the opportunity to try a foil with your proper windsurfing board.  The learning damage could be avoided with a strap-on polystyrene system (maybe a protector of wedge shaped bumpers under the nose to both push the board up onto the plane and protect the underside when it smashes down).  

As soon as you are proficient, unstrap the protector and pass it down the line to the next guy in the same way you handed your training wheels down to your little sister when you mastered the two-wheeler.  

Using this approach, you have saved on the cost of a board and the board you do have, can multi-task.  Bargain!

Good winds        

Slalom Models of Interest in 2017

Hi

I want to say a few words about the slalom boards which are on my radar right now and give some commentary.

The three brands occupying my interest are Patrik, Starboard and Goya.

Patrik

To me, Patrik Diethelm is probably the leading expert when it comes to cut-outs.  He has spent such a huge amount of time developing, thinking and testing over the years and this, together with his drive and supreme personal talent as a fast windsurfer has produced some wonderful slalom shapes with the most effective cut-outs.
 

Very elegant

I like the two strap screw hole arrays - if you want a slightly different angle for the front foot

This year I note that Patrik has registered his standard slalom range with the PWA but also his hollow boards.  Very cool and I look forward to watching the Patrik team go.

 

I know that his Air Inside boards are not made in the Cobra factory and this leads me to worry about the ability of the other facility to produce volumes of the hollow boards.  Will they only go to team members - I wonder (?).

Starboard 

Starboard has to be at the very top of the pile with its current slalom range.  The ultra core reflex carbon versions are impossibly light and the effortless speed these things achieve over the water is awesome.  Louis, a new local sailor has bought a few of the new iSonics and just blasts and blasts.  You can’t catch him and can’t get him off the water (+Severne Reflex-8 sails + Zulu fins).

    

One very small niggle I have with the new iSonics is the number of sailors complaining about the front foot feeling light on some of the sizes (can’t keep front foot in strap).  The problem is probably not that big a deal and I’m sure that swapping fins, releasing outhaul, lowering boom etc can all be tried to remedy the problem.

Goya

Goya is a company which has never been of interest to me, catering as they did, mainly to wave and freestyle guys.  Not so long ago however, they began quietly moving into the free-ride and free-race areas of our sport.  Now, with the new Proton Pro slalom board they have ended up with a formidable board and sail range.

Proton Pro

  

Being wave guys, they have adopted a slightly left field approach (no cammed sails, 6 batten maximum in their fastest Mark sail, extra long free-ride board shapes etc) and I have to say I’m a total convert.

  

Read the reviews on their Bolt free-race board – light fast comfortable and beautifully built.  The new Proton slalom boards also tick all the boxes but in addition have re-inforced skeg boxes suitable for foiling.  How intelligent is that!
(Severne - take note - the big Fox should have one of these!)

Incidentally, when you look at their other kit you understand that these guys are serious:

Ultra light masts – tick

Ultralight, carbon booms – tick

Ultra slim carbon booms – tick
Proper mast extensions - tick

etc

They have (at the time of this post) only one slalom racer in the PWA this year and I will be watching him and the Protons with interest.

That’s all for now.  I will write about foiling in the next post.

Talk to you soon