Tuning Your Kit for High Wind
Posted on 16 February, 2010 | 3 Comments
High wind Formula racing! It doesn’t get any more exciting, challenging, fulfilling and hardcore than that! With class rules that allow the Formula boards to be raced in up to 35 knots, its important that regular racers learn the do’s and do not’s of setting up their equipment to stay in control in high winds. [...]
...Continue ReadingTo The Windward Mark: Advanced Tactics
We’ve already looked at how to get a great start in FW racing, but what about after the start? The first upwind beat to the windward mark is certainly the most important leg of the race, and with the trend for shorter races on the Pro FW Circuit these days, your position at the first [...]
[Read More]Power to Weight: Your Stance vs Antoine’s
After the Antoine Albeau domination of the 2007 FW Worlds in Brazil, a great post was written by Andreas Macke posing some ideas on how one man could dominate an event so much. One thing to consider is that Antoine is around 100kg whereas 2nd placed Steve Allen was 82kg at the event. Power-to-weight plays [...]
[Read More]How fast can your FW kit go?
It all started with a post on the Star-Board forum about sailors having difficulty getting their new Starboard F161 formula boards over the 30 knot mark. From there, sailors from around the world reignited their interest in achieving the fastest speed on the gps-speedsurfing formula rankings. Being present at the beach where Dennis Littel posted [...]
[Read More]Save your back … rig it right.
On the Formula circuit there is still a lot of people still using various downhaul-cranks or “ting-tuggers” (as they are known in Australia) to apply the high downhaul tensions required on the larger formula sails. The time and effort it takes you to insert and secure the crank, feed the rope into the loop and [...]
[Read More]The new Gaastra Vapor board review
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 [...]
[Read More]Windsurfing Rockstar Guide To Sponsorships
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 [...]
[Read More]Why your FW starts need to be better.
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 [...]
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