The rumours were in fact quite true… Gaastra planned to join the formula board market late in 2007 and delivered to their every word with the release of the Gaastra Vapor 2008/09 FW board. To comply with the ISAF regulations of a minimum production run of 10 boards, Gaastra has already produced the first 10 Vapors and I have been lucky enough to get my hands on one (number 004 to be exact). Enjoy a short review of the board and some background information on its development from my talks with Steve Allen and others involved with the board. Continue reading →

So you consider yourself a bit of a gun. You’re already throwing stalled one-handed double forwards, or punishing the top guy in your National fleet using only the stock Drake fin. Ready to throw the conventional 9-5 job in the garbage bin and live the windsurfing rockstar dream? It may be a lot harder than you think, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Here are some ideas on how to get started building a name for yourself in the sport, building a profile on things other than just your results and some ideas on how to approach sponsors whether they are windsurfing related or not. Continue reading →

With the trend on the international racing scene for shorter races in Formula Windsurfing (FW), it is now more important than ever to get the best start possible. There are a few startline basics tutorials out there that I have seen, including one from Kevin Pritchard (now offline, but a version with just the text is in that link) and from the LBWS site, however none of them go into detail and as a result, there’s still a lot of people who waste great racing potential by not getting off the line in clean air. So let’s learn how to do it right.To get started, a few important points must be noted about starts. In a fleet of 100 boats, roughly 8-10 sailors will get a great start, another 20 will get an OK start and the rest of the fleet gets punished. That being said, unless you sail on startlines with 3-4 boat lengths per boards in the fleet, there’s usually not enough “clean air” for everyone to get a great start. Knowing the theory of how good starts are set up is important, so to first analyse this lets look at all the possible places to start on a startline. Continue reading →

At every international event in the history of FW racing, there has been a plethora of masts buckling under the high-downhaul loads and vicious air-temperatures that high-performance racing gear is put through. Brands don’t even need to be named because there isn’t a company on the planet who hasn’t had a warranty claim for a broken mast although some have copped more of the flack than others.

Is it because of the design of the masts? The shape of the sails? The materials and procedures used to construct the masts or just the incompetency of the sailors who leave them fully downhauled in the sun that is causing the slaughter of 100’s of masts a year?? My own personal opinion is that it’s a combination of all these factors but I believe that at least 50% of the breakages could be prevented by changing the construction methods of masts and also upgrading the materials used in the production of 100% carbon racing masts. Continue reading →

Hello and welcome to CarbonSugar.com. Hopefully you are here because you windsurf. If not, this is probably the site for you - please click here. Windsurfers: This weblog was a result of having never found any decent ‘windsurfing-specific’ books, articles, tutorials on any racing related tactics, technique, design or construction of high-performance windsurfing gear. Sure, there’s sporadic articles available on the internet with important tutorials and many of the popular worldwide windsurfing magazines write great tutorials, but I wanted more information.

The articles on the web and in magazines were always targeted toward beginner windsurfers and never had enough detail. I wanted more information. I didn’t want to have to scour the web to find more information and I didn’t want to have to always painstakingly disect C.A. Marchaj style books in order to work out how I could apply more information to our highly tuned 5 cam, 10 batten aeroplane wings… Continue reading →