The 2008 Exocet Gorge Blowout

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In her windblog, Temira called it "seventeen miles of downwind misery" and challenged her readers to "try it if your dare" - but most of the 50 or so competitors running the 26th edition of the Gorge Blowout had a great time. Winds looked pretty filled in all along the river on the drive up from Hood River, and quite a few people seemed to remember how windy last year was (more than one person was overheards saying that things looked "just like last year" with an ominous undertone...).

Dale and Bruce, who've pretty much sewed up the top two spots in the race for over a decade now (Bruce told me he has missed 3 out of the 26) split in their gear decisions, with Dale going for formula gear, and Bruce rigging (relatively large) slalom stuff. The rest of the fleet was similarly all over the map - quite few sailors on slalom or freeride stuff, a healthy formula contingent, and the intrepid Kona fleet (ranging in sail size from low 6's to Pepi's 9m). I went Formula, riding a 9.9 (Exocet Warp Formula 08 with a 9.9 Sailworks NXfw and a Finworks formula fin).

The combo was right on for me - right off the start, I was neck and neck with Dale for the first mile or so (we both chose to start at the Washingtong side, giving us the opportunity for a long deep reach to get away from most of the fleet; Bruce was a bit higher, apparently trying to roll us, but suffering from not quite enough breeze, so his angle was off quite a bit). As soon as we got into a bit more breeze, Dale (who was on a 9.1) started pulling away from me bit by bit (Bruce used to joke that off the breeze, we're all just Dale bait...). With Dale slowly but surely pulling away, Bruce (who was doing a remarkable job working his slalom gear downwind) stayed close. I knew that if I wanted to beat him, I'd have to pull away from him in the light stuff at the top of the course, so I pushed hard and led him for about the first quarter of the course until we got into a bit more breeze - and then he started catching up. From there until Viento, we basically traded jibes, depending on who caught a bit of a favorable header, or how much pressure there was (as soon as there was a puff, Bruce's slalom gear came into its own). We jibed around the mark at Viento (half-way through the course, and the start of the junior blowout) neck and neck - pretty cool after over 8 miles of racing downwind/upriver.

After Viento, conditions were a bit light for a stretch and I started pulling ahead just a wee bit; I hoped that it would stay lighter all the way through the corridor, but the pressure started building bit by bit, with the holes getting smaller and the puffs getting stronger. And sure enough, Bruce got past me in a big puff, and from then on, his advantage grew as we were getting into the almost furry conditions in the upper corridor - where I had to work it to hold on, he was able to just send it. By the time we made it to the top of Swell City (where people were sailing 4.5's at the time), it was clear that the wind was filled in all the way to the White Salmon Bridge and Bruce's lead would be unbeatable.

Dale won the race in something like 1:03; Bruce was about 2 minutes behind him (the stronger winds at the bottom allowed him to catch up a bit), and I came in 3rd (2nd Master's) a little less then 3 minutes later (I baubled my first transition of the race and actually dropped the sail on my second to last jibe in plain view of the Event Site - good way to keep the old ego in check...).

Results and pictures to follow - some standout performances, though:

• Derek Nielsen came in fourth - here's a guy who's really stepped up his game over the past couple seasons.
• Todd Selby, at age 17, did the full distance and finished really strong (I believe he was in 8th?), which won him the junior division for the full Blowout.
• Marion, who is all of twelve years old, I believe, won the junior Blowout outright (that's right, she beat a bunch of teenage boys - I'm sure there were a few bruised egos...)
• Ben, age 11, I believe, was the youngest competitor.
• Shelley won the women's fleet - and placed very respectably overall.
• Pepi won the Kona fleet and pulled off some very stylish looking jibes right before the finish as he was duking it out with another competitor for a photo finish.

Thanks to Exocet for supporting the event (US distributor Steve Gottlieb raced as well, placing second in the Kona fleet and showing good spirits despite having gotten stuck in the light air at the beginning on too small a sail and having to work pretty hard to get down the course). Thanks to Scotia for pulling off another flawless event, Darren for providing great race management on the water, and all the volunteers who helped out.

5 weekends back to back...

This weekend marked the 2nd of five weekends of back to back racing for me - last week's Gorge Cup, this weekend it was the Harrison Blowout, next weekend it will be the Exocet Gorge Blowout (14 miles downwind/upriver from Stevenson to Hood River), the weekend after that (August 1-3) will be the Gorge Challenge, and to cap it all off there'll be Canadian Nationals in Squamish Aug 8-10. Not a bad run - hopefully conditions cooperate.

This weekends racing at Harrison Lake was really fun - Carey and Jackie Caronni have been putting on a weekend of racing every summer for a very long time now. Saturday's are scheduled for the Blowout (downwind race from the Harrison boat launch to the Bear Creek campground), with formula racing and some figure 8 fun slalom at the boat launch on Sunday. Harrison is only about 1 1/2 hours from Bellingham, so it's practically in my backyard. Still, this was the first time I've been able to go - for the past five years, there's always been some scheduling conflict for me.

Saturday's downwinder had to be canceled for the first time ever due to no wind (try that on for size - the event's been running since the late 80's, and they've finally got skunked on one of the days - who says lakes are flukey?). Sunday, however, offered up really nice conditions - super smooth water (hardly any fetch upwind), good breeze, and brilliant sunshine. The lake is amazingly clear (and nice and cool), and with the mountains all around, it's quite scenic.

We had three races on a pretty fun course - start slalom style off the boat launch, go deep downwind to a mark in the middle of the lake, round that and go way upwind to the upwind shore (where you had to figure out the tradeoff between the lift on shore vs. the slighly flukier wind), then beam reach to a mark below a few hundred yards below the start, and finish upwind. I was nicely powered on 10.8 in the first race, then switched to my 9.9 which was the right call for heats 2 and 3. I got three bullets (recovered from a really big crash right after the start on the third heat when I made a lucky call in favor of the near shore lift to lay the top mark with double tacking - sorry, Carey), Carey got three 2nds. Big shout out to Elliot, who came in third and race really well - maybe he should reconsider not taking his formula gear to the Bay Area.

After the racing, I got a chance to spend some time sailing with my kids (yep, both of them at one time - nothing like a 3-year-old whooping with glee and saying he wants to go faster...). Hope's getting quite good at handling the sail, and uphauling is no big deal for her anymore; she's looking forward to doing the Big Winds kids camp next week.

Huge thanks to Carey and Jackie - this was awesome, fun grassroots racing. They had the whole thing well organized, had gotten a huge box of very cool prizes and raffle items, and just spread the stoke all over the place. Great fun - I'll be back.

Next weekend is the Exocet Gorge Blowout (big shout out to Exocet for sponsoring this heritage event!). Check out Scotia's VMG Events site for details on that, as well as the following weekend's Gorge Challenge.

Da Kine Derby - July 14 Gorge Cup race report

Originally, we'd hoped for slalom, especially since we had a two day window to run either on Saturday or Sunday. With the sudden emergence of a short heat wave on Friday, though, when the wind switched West again on Sunday, it wasn't slalom material (despite Bruce's best attempts to convince us otherwise, milking it hard on his 8.2 as Darren was setting the course). Instead, the call was for Formula, and that turned out to be the right decision, as instead of holey/flukey slalom of questionable quality, we got to do some really good course racing.

The course was short and fun - a quick upwind to the gate, round the jibe mark, back up to the gate, back down to the jibe mark, and reach for the finish (the juniors did only one lap). That made for an interesting combo - because the races were so short (only one heat in which the wind crapped out on us, took more than 8 minutes for the leaders; most were around 7), good starts were crucial. The gate added a tactical dimension - if you rounded to the right side of the course, you'd have two jibes and might overstand the jibe mark; if you rounded to the left side (and into shore), you might not make the jibe mark and end up with three jibes - and you pretty much had to make that decision as you lined up to start either port or starboard, as throwing in more than one tack would have taken you out of the race right away.

In most of the heats (especially early, when the start line was pretty long), starting on port was the ticket - you'd get into the current, flop over, then ride the smooth water on the inside all the way to the jibe mark. Later on, a shorter start line, along with a bit of Northerly slant to the breeze, mixed things up a bit. There were some great fights for position at the bottom mark as people jockeyed for the inside lane going up. Off the breeze, we had to occasionally go for close calls when going into shore and navigating around the large "dolphin" style pilings, which must have made for entertaining spectating from the Event Site bluff.

We had seven heats. Bruce dominated, winning 6 and then sitting out the last one. I had 4 seconds, one 3rd, and one 4th (horrible start on that one), and won the last one in Bruce's absence. MacRae, Jac, Derek, and Eric Sinclair all had some really good heats - it's fun to have close racing like that, with lots of little duels all over the course. I got reasonably close to Bruce a few times, but his solid tactics and consistent speed and angle left no doubt that he owned this one. It's nice to see that now that I'm tuned up on my Exocet and the Finworks fins, I'm competitive with Bruce on speed and angle (if you've ever lined up with him, that's not easily accomplished).

Speaking of gear - I'm pretty happy with my overall setup. The Sailworks sails continue to give great range, stability, and performance. My Exocet WF08 is a joy to sail with its responsiveness. And the Finworks fins are working really well - it's nice to have the confidence that you can push on the fin when you need the power, while still maintaining great speed and providing that smooth, predictable ride that allows you to push. I used a Pro all day and later let a friend test it while I provided a benchmark for him and he switched back and forth between the Pro and the fin he had raced all day; afterwards he actually accused me of sandbagging because the difference was so apparent. It took me a while to recalibrate things from last season, as I've made some pretty radical changes in my gear and haven't had enough opportunities to line up with tuning partners. At this point, I'm glad I did, as the investment seems to have been worth it.

One of the things I'm noticing is that my stance has changed quite a bit. I'm using longer and longer harness lines (roughly 26-28", as opposed to a max of about 24" last year). I've also been experimenting with a fixed (as opposed to sliding) spreader bar; while it doesn't give me that tweaked/twisted body position that I used to like for driving the board, the more squared stance seems to provide more leverage to really take advantage of the liftier and softer fins, so I spend more time flying the foils and less time tail walking. Still working on that one, but so far it seems to be a net positive, especially in slightly rougher water. Interestingly, that also seems to translate to slalom, except there I haven't really had a chance to test it against others, so it's just a matter of feel at this point.

A big shout out to Bill from Da Kine, who sponsored the event and provided not just a kick-ass BBQ dinner, but also a really nice array of raffle prizes. Thanks also to Scotia for again organizing a fun day of racing - she's a logistical power house and probably one of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

Next up for the Gorge Cup is the Exocet Blowout on the weekend of July 26/27 (date to be set based on forecast) - a fun downwinder from Stevenson to Hood River, which usually provides about 17 miles of highly variable conditions and is always good for epic stories.

I finally found the Meaning of Life

and it's now in my coffee cup. You see, the blend of the day at Grounds Coffee here in Hood River (where I'm having breakfast this morning before hopefully racing this afternoon if the forecast holds) is called Meaning of Life (a robust Italian roast, according to the label). If only I'd known it was that simple ;)

Pre-race windsurfari

This weekend's Gorge Cup is the Da Kine Derby (thanks to Da Kine for the support) - and to maximize our chances of running slalom, the schedule called for Blowout-like flexibility with the decision to race either Saturday or Sunday to be made based on the forecast. And that forecast looked pretty stellar by mid-week. After all the up and down and back and forth of the early Gorge season the North Pacific High seemed to finally settle into place, and iWindsurf was calling for solid Westerlies through Monday. My scheme was to get to Hood River by Friday afternoon, tune up a bit, and then be ready for what at this time looked like a Saturday morning skippers' meeting.

And then, just to drive home the point that Mother Nature doesn't work on a schedule, the forecast changed. A massive thermal low was settling in - resulting in a classic heat wave for the Gorge.

So the plan changed a bit -I got some more work done on Friday (conveniently, the little fires that erupted and needed to be taken care of didn't get in the way of time on the water...), then headed south to go sailing at Des Moines Beach Park (see map).


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Rick Martin was already there and rigging his 10.4. Rick keeps telling me that the place on most summer afternoons is just made for Formula, with steady breezes in the low teens, pretty friendly waterstate (no voodoo chop anywhere), and miles of water to explore. I'd have to agree - just peeling around on the 10.8 for a couple hours was a lot of fun. There was more pressure along the shorelines (both west and east), so I headed west towards the Pt. Robinson light, made may way upwind a few miles, headed back over to the east, and rode the pressure downwind along the shore making quick jibe after quick jibe. I had to stop myself from going back for more (the breeze was holding, and the views of Mt. Rainier and the surrounding coastlines sparkling in the sunshine were delightful), but with a big weekend of racing coming on, two hours seemed like enough exercise for the day.

BTW, the one thing to watch out for at Des Moines is the little shoal right off the launch north of the pier - you can sail around it, or walk out to and over it, but at high tide it would make for a great fin cruncher if you aren't aware of it. This is the venue for the Seattle City League races that are run Wednesday nights in late spring/early summer; too bad that those are usually later in the day when the breeze dies. I could see this being a fun place to race Formula.

This morning, after a good night's sleep, I got a really nice slalom session at Stevenson. I hit the water at about 7:30, among the first few people on the water. The iWindsurf sensor sits on the pier just east of Bob's Beach, and while it was well filled in out in the channel, the windline was about 100 yards off the head of the pier.
The low numbers the sensor showed until way later probably accounted for the rather low turnout; it wasn't until about 10 that there really was a bit of a crowd out there; by 11, the wind started getting a little flukey - nothing to slow you down on slalom gear, but there was a bit more slogging going on among the sailors on small freestyle gear. Excellent session, nicely powered on the 7.2 and my Warp Slalom 67 (about 105 liters).

So far, the sailing/driving ratio is already way more beneficial than for my last trip to the Gorge - time to stretch, do some work on my gear, and get ready for tomorrow; at this point, the forecast is for slalom conditions - I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Racing - the ultimate zen exercise (yeah, right)

This is the wind graph for Saturday's Cog & Leaf Gorge Cup. We had a pretty decent forecast (15-21 in the afternoon), a sponsor (Sailworks - the cog part of the equation, and Roberts, hence the leaf), awesome trophies (commissioned by Bruce and created by MacRae, who is a metal working wizard and whose steel art is pretty cool), as well as arrangements for post-racing dinner (Mexican).

And a little after 3, the breeze came up. We all got on the water and checked out the course (same as last time, except the marks were more in a straight line, which would open up all kinds of tactical options downwind). Unfortunately, it died (with a vengeance) before we could even get a sequence started. As the day wore on and the wind continued to no-show, Bruce joked that the minute the first burrito was broken into that night, the breeze would come up.

Sure enough, at about 5:30 or so, with reports of no breeze anywhere within a 100-mile radius and completely flat pressure gradients, the race was called, sailors derigged and loaded their gear, Amy arrived with the food (yeah!), beers were cracked open - and the water started to show some texture. Darren and Scotia were game to run fun races as long as wind and light held out (thanks!), so a bunch of us got on the water (properly fortified with excellent Mexican food) to run fun races (since the event had been called, these couldn't count - so those excellent trophies are still waiting for a good use).

We got to run two quick heats before the wind got too streaky. On the first start, I started starboard with just a few others as most of the fleet expected the usual port favor and just wanted to get into the still-fast river current to take them upwind. I decided against that at the last second because of the northerly slant to the breeze on the Washington side and the big hole near shore (right around where you'd tack before hitting the eddy-line - the big current masked that hole, and I just sort of discovered it sailing around before the start). This worked out great, as the port starters, after clearing us, got knocked like crazy. I made it to the windward mark in first by quite a margin because of that and held on to it. With the streaky conditions, I was glad for my 10.8 and the big Finworks LT; not sure how Bruce managed to get his 9.1 around the course and get second- he must have some sort of anti-gravity device to get- that, or he really worked it, as he sat out the next one and let one of the juniors use his rig.

Second heat was different, as the breeze started filling in at the south end - so it was back to port starts. I ran the line for a bit to get away from the pack and have a nice pocket to leeward to accelerate, then came up over the line about 1/3 of the way in (Nikoka, on the RSX, was kind enough to keep the rather eager pack stacked above/behind her from spilling onto the line, so I got a clear lane). The first few Starboard starters, led by MacRae, cleared me easily, but when they tacked, the current and better breeze in the middle had already given me enough of a lift to where they were lining up with my wake. Jay got second, followed by (I believe) Mac Rae. And then it was time to finally bag it for the day.

As I talked to my 8-year-old on the phone while derigging the first time, her comment was that "it just wan't meant to be." Great perspective, I guess. I'm glad we got our little spurt of fun-racing in at the end, as that made me feel a little better about the total of 11 hours spent in the car that day. Hopefully, over the course of the season, the driving/sailing time ratio will improve a bit. Considering that the PWA guys all flew to Korea for a big slalom event and got completely skunked for a whole week with not a single result, this just goes to show that this sport will teach you some form of zen - whether you want it to or not.

Check that UJ tendon!

After one of the heats at the Gorge Cup a couple weekends ago, I went to move my mastbase forward a bit. Looking down at it, with the pressure from the tackstrap and the angle of board to mast giving a fortuitous bit of visibility into the recesses of the lower base cup, I noticed that rip you see in the picture. Mind you, this was my back-up base (I tend to use a different one as a matter of preference), and I had replaced the tendon late last season as a matter of caution (I do that at least once a year). As I couldn't get my hands on one of those original (yellow) Streamlined tendons at the time, I got this one at a shop in the Gorge. Didn't worry about it too much - hey, it's urethane, not much to it, right?

I checked my main base (which I reverted to for the rest of the days' racing) - its Streamlined tendon (which had seen probably three times as much use) was still fine, with no cracks to be found even upon close inspection.

Lessons:

1. Not all UJ tendons are created equal - it appears that there's more to making a urethane tendon than one might assume, and that Streamlined has it figured out better than the other guys.
   
2. Check that UJ tendon - the crack was not readily apparent when inspecting the base visually; it was only when it was loaded and extended that there was enough distortion that you could actually see the crack, which was otherwise hidden by the base cup. So really get in there to see - don't just rely on it probably being ok.
   

Gorge Cup DQ Dip'n'Dash

My first Gorge Cup for this season, the Dairy Queen Dip 'n' Dash took place May 31 at the Event Site. Derek Nielsen lined up Dairy Queen as a title sponsor for the event (way to go, Derek!), and he got to choose the course accordingly. On the left you can see what he came up with (according to Derek, that happened in the wee hours of the morning...).

It was a quick course, and I'd think the most apt description would be FW slalom - our regular upwind to mark A just off Well's Island, followed by a quick sprint around marks B, C, the start pin, and a reach to the finish - 4 jibes in all. Conditions were typical early season Gorge - pretty brisk breeze (especially up high near the windward mark - we could have easily raced slalom on 6.0's up there), and quite a few holes down low (which made any thoughts of actually switching to slalom a moot point). The current out in the channel was ripping, which together with the strong breeze and monster gusts made for really lumpy water up there (following Bruce around the windward mark in the first race was the first time ever I detected a hint of hesitation in his jibing; mind you, that was a "hint of hesitation" compared to the rest of us, who were flailing quite a bit). On the inside, there was quite a bit of back eddy, resulting in really smooth water.

Tactics were pretty straightforward - start on port, get into the current as quickly as possible, and then switch into slalom mode. At no point was I really pushing for downwind angle (even the broadest legs were not "free" in that way), so downwind tactics were what you would do in a slalom race - how to pass/cover on straights and in mark roundings (which, when traveling at mach speed on OP'd formula gear, can be extremely interesting). The rough conditions put a premium on board and sail handling and smooth transitions; the big current and shifty (both up and down and oscillating) winds made reading the layline at the top challenging.

Most racers were on 9's; I used my trusty 9.9 (since I chose not to have a 9 this season - hmm, maybe I need to reconsider that...), which resulted in serious handling challenges at the top.

Derek stepped up and performed great, being one with the course he had specified - he clinched second overall for the day behind Bruce (all bullets except race 7, which he sat out) and ahead of me by 1.3 points. I found that upwind in the smooth stuff, I was very much competitive on angle and speed, but that I hadn't nailed it in the lumpy stuff (I was losing angle on Bruce there). I also made a couple of errors on laylines - one such error ended up being rather costly - in the 7th and final heat, I thought I had the windward mark but missed it narrowly; the raging current moved me past it on the wrong side, so I had to sail a big circle around it. All that maneuvering in big overpowering gusts and large irregular chop and swell caused me to flounder badly for quite a while, losing 4 places in the process - very annoying. In hindsight, I should have been more conservative on calling my layline, or just given up on pushing for it a little earlier and just let the current take me up on the proper side of it (it's hard to beat around 5 knots of true VMG provided courtesy of the river with a couple extra tacks); but that just didn't compute in my at that point somewhat addled brain (wrestling the big sail around for seven heats had clearly taken its toll on my mental acuity).

Results at the VMG Events website - another well-organized race, a fun bbq afterwards, and a good time had by all. One thing this day made clear is why Formula sailing works so well for making sure you get a good event. Sure, at the windward mark, conditions were beyond what's reasonable for formula racing - but it wasn't dangerous, just suboptimal. And as a result, we had a full day's racing. We could have run slalom - and had a truly mediocre day's racing due to the large holes at the bottom of the course. It would have been no less challenging - but the stories told afterwards wouldn't have been epic tales of survival at sea (excuse the hyperbole) but lots of grumbling about not being able to plane through the holes at the lowest jibe mark. I'll take holding on over that any day ;)

Twisted

Check out these two pictures (courtesy Emmett MacDonald) - same sail, same amount of downhaul, taken within 3 minutes of each other at the Friday Night race in San Francisco in April.

The obvious difference is that one of them is upwind, with the outhaul fairly tight, and the other is downwind, with the outhaul cracked off a bit, going deep. These two pictures tell the story as to why today's formula sails are so insanely rangey - upwind, there's good drive, w/o the leach going all soft and soggy; downwind, if you get hit with a gust or the board hits a wave and decelerates a bit, there's enough twist to prevent you from being pitched over the handlebars when the leach catches.

Earlier generations of big race sails were huge advances for their time - but there was a lot less range, and twist was a lot less refined. When I started racing in 99, the big sails could be tuned with low downhaul tension, resulting in great performance upwind but a scary ride off the breeze. Or they could be tuned with enough downhaul tension for the leech not to catch off the breeze, which resulted in great speed all around but horrible angle upwind.

Mind you, that night I was on a 9.9 when, reasonably, a 9.0 would have been much faster and more appropriate for all racers on the course except Big Ben Bamer (who later also confessed to his 10 feeling a little big at times...). With all that range, I can realistically get a away with a two-sail formula quiver. My 10.8 is powerful enough for racing in what, for West Coast standards, is stupid light air, while my 9.9 is raceable even when it starts blowing like stink. Sure, there are tradeoffs (I didn't much care for the lower upwind angle the bigger sail forces on you in survival conditions at this particular Friday night race, or in the last two heats of last year's Nationals) - but unless you race in the Bay Area a lot, it's hard to justify a 9.0 anymore, and unless you race in Florida or Europe, the same holds true for a 12. Guess it's time to buy Bruce a beer this weekend when I go down for the Gorge Cup.

Olympics - FOD?

Starboard has finally officially announced their bid to be the supplier for a one design class for the 2012 Olympics. If they are successful, that would end the RS:X debacle (which was a great example of many well-intentioned actors creating a compromise so bad it's almost laughable...).

My understanding of the rules for the 2012 selection process is that it has to be a One Design class, and it has to be established by 2008. The question is whether FOD (Formula One Design) can actually establish itself as such a class - it's hard to see formula racers flocking to it, and the Olympic racers are a bit busy right now.

What I think Starboard got right:

• Yes, full planing racing is more exciting, simpler, less costly, more representative of the sport, etc. - just like they claim.
• Yes, the equipment exists (unlike the RS:X, which was just a bunch of proto-typed gear at the time of the selection - and the production stuff came in way heavier and with huge consistency and quality issues)
• Yes, Formula is the most successful racing format around - and for good reason, as it's fun, challenging, and strikes a good compromise between those aspects and the feasibility of getting events to actually happen. Longboard racing is lacking on the former aspect; slalom is lacking on either the second or, if taken to the extremes of light-air slalom in 8 knots, the former.

What I think they got wrong:

• Anyone else bothered by the assertion that with a 3-cam 11m, a 75% carbon mast, an alloy boom, and ONE standard fin, we'll have quality racing for a broad band of competitor weights in conditions spanning 6-25knots? I think it's safe to say that's over-selling the point a bit. To wit:
• 6 knots is highly marginal even with 12.5m rigs and super-powerful fins on today's wide-tailed boards. Even 8 knots is a bit sketchy. And since race committees tend to be somewhat liberal in interpreting minimum wind threshold requirements when there's a big event at stake. For China, given the conditions there, the 6 knot threshold will probably mean that they'll start racing as soon as the anemometer on the start boat comes up over 5 knots a couple times - and that would make for horrid formula racing (it makes for horrid racing on RS:X, too, but at least they didn't promise anyone exciting performance in that wind range, just that it would be doable).
  
• On the other end of the spectrum, that 11 with a fin big enough to get going in under 10 knots will be a real handful in true 20 knots, and somewhere near uncontrollable for even most pros at a true 25 knots. So for a small surcharge on the equipment (a second rig and fin pale in comparison to the cost of travel and training for Olympic hopefuls), we could instead have real competition over the whole range. Seems penny-wise-pound-foolish to me.
  
• What's up with the alloy boom? Trying to show some cost savings? Racing this gear at anything like an Olympic schedule, that boom will come up for replacement a fair bit - why not be honest and just spec carbon? Again, penny-wise...
  
• And yes, the gear is cheaper and less complicated than the RS:X, but does anyone truly believe that the claim of useful hull lives of 4-5 seasons truly apply for Olympic hopeful-level use? Reality still blows away the RS:X on economic terms - why oversell?
  
• Yes, there'll be less pumping than with the RS:X - but that's not saying a whole lot. Meanwhile, by enforcing one-size-fits-all and cutting off the big rigs, you can be sure that there'll be a ton of pumping if there's any racing anywhere close to the 6knots they're promising the organizers.
• Oh, and then there are semantics - Formula originally referred to the notion that equipment was regulated only by numbers - Formula 3/1 meaning one board/three sails, etc. - with the intent being to strike a compromise between keeping cost reasonable while also enabling innovation and spanning a large range of conditions and sailors weights/sizes. The result is that at the last FW Worlds, the 1st and 2nd placed sailors (Antoine Albeau and Steve Allen) are almost 20kg apart in weight, yet they were racing very competitively - don't expect that if they both have to use the same size fin and sail. Formula One Design, on the other hand, is a bit of an oxymoron.
  

Don't get me wrong - I think this is a breath of fresh air. If windsurfing is to be Olympic, and if it has to be One Design , then something like this is the ticket. I find it ironic, though, that one of the slides refers to FW as one of the feeder classes (along with FE and Techno293) for FOD - it's more likely the top FW racers will keep racing FW (since the competition is fairer and the racing will be at a higher performance level in a broader range of conditions), but will "downgrade" to FOD for trials and Olympics-related competition.

On the whole one-design requirement, I'd have to say that it's pretty hard to swallow that one - it's not like every skier or bike racer has to be on the same equipment for fair competition. In the sailing world, one design is the accepted norm, so I guess as long as we're under their umbrella, we'll have to play by those rules (unless we somehow get the numbers and internal funding infrastructure to write our own meal ticket). Still doesn't make any sense if you ask me, though... ;)