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A windsurfer with modern gear tilts the rig and carves the board to perform a planing jibe (downwind turn) close to shore in Maui, Hawaii, one of the popular destinations for windsurfing. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Windsurfing is a surface water sport using a windsurf board, also commonly called a sailboard, usually two to five meters long and powered by a single sail. The rig is connected to the board by a free-rotating flexible joint called the Universal Joint (U-Joint). Unlike a rudder-steered sailboat, a windsurfer is steered by the tilting and rotating of the mast and sail as well as tilting and carving the board.
The sport combines aspects of both sailing and surfing, along with certain athletic aspects shared with other board sports like skateboarding, snowboarding, waterskiing, and wakeboarding. Although it might be considered a minimalistic version of a sailboat, a windsurfer offers experiences that are outside the scope of any other sailing craft design. A windsurfer holds the world speed record for sailing craft (see below); and, windsurfers can perform jumps, inverted loops, spinning maneuvers, and other "freestyle" moves that cannot be matched by any sailboat.
Windsurfers were the first to ride the world's largest waves, such as Jaws on the island of Maui, and, with very few exceptions, it was not until the advent of tow-in surfing that waves of that size became accessible to surfers.
Windsurfing includes speed sailing, slalom, course racing, wave sailing, superX, and freestyle as distinct disciplines. Though windsurfing is possible in winds from near 0 to 50 knots, the ideal planing conditions for most recreational sailors is 15-25 knots, with lighter winds resulting in displacement mode sailing. Lessons can be taken with a school. With coaching and favorable conditions, the basic skills of sailing, steering, and turning can be learned within a few hours. Competence in the sport and mastery of more advanced maneuvers such as planing, carve gybing (turning downwind at speed), water starting, jumping, and more advanced moves can require lengthy practice.
Training DVDs exist which are useful in a sport where it is difficult for a coach to be close to a pupil particularly when learning the more advanced manoeuvres. The most complete series of training DVDs is the Peter Hart Masterclass series produced by Acrobat Television. There are programmes for the absolute beginner to those wanting to go faster or even wanting to learn to loop. Peter Hart, a former PWA competitor is generally regarded as the windsurf training guru having devised much of the original Royal Yachting Associations training syllabus.
Early Windsurfing
Windsurfing, as a sport and recreational activity, did not emerge until the later half of the twentieth century. Because of the financial stakes in the manufacture and sale of windsurfing equipment, there has been considerable dispute and litigation between parties claiming the rights to the invention.Different courts in different jurisdictions have recognized different inventors, clouding any possibility of clear attribution. However, it is clear from the historical record that windsurfing, as it is known today, owes much if not all to the promotion and marketing activities of Hoyle and Diana Schweitzer.
In 1968, in Southern California, they founded the company Windsurfing International to manufacture, promote and license a windsurfer design. Together with Jim Drake, an aerospace engineer at the RAND Corporation, they were the holders of the very first windsurfing patent ever, which was granted by the USPTO in 1970, after being filed in 1968. They also originated the term "Windsurfer," which was registered to them as a trademark by the USPTO in 1973.
The Drake and Schweitzer creation was a surfboard-like board with a triangular "Bermuda" sail and wishbone booms, connected to the board via a universal joint. The details of the original designs are available in Drake's whitepaper on windsurfing. Also, the history of the invention is discussed in these interviews with Jim Drake [1] [2]. Despite forty years of subsequent development, this apparatus is remarkably similar to windsurfing equipment in use today, and the word which Drake and Schweitzer coined to describe their invention has become eponymous with the sport itself. There is no evidence that they had knowledge of any prior inventions similar to theirs.
Windsurfing International created the Windsurfer as a one-design class. Going one-design was influenced by the success of the Laser and Hobie Cat classes. Each Windsurfer had an identical computer-cut sail, a technology new at that time and pioneered by Ian Bruce and the Laser class. Later Windsurfing International produced other development board sails, so as not to be left behind with the quickly evolving sport.
Windsurfing led to the development of computer programs on early portable computers. Because Windsurfing regattas were drawing a large number of competitors at remote locations, Windsurfing International sponsored the development of software running on portable computers to score regattas, starting with the 1976 World Championships in the Bahamas. The software, named OSCOR, was developed for the HP9825 (then a $20,000 computer) and later ported to the TRS-80. The OSCOR software was eventually donated to the United States Yacht Racing Union.
The boom of the 1980s led windsurfing to be recognized as an Olympic sport in 1984. However, windsurfing's popularity saw a sharp decline in the mid-1990s, as equipment became more specialized, requiring more expertise to sail. Now the sport is experiencing a modest revival, as new beginner-friendly designs are again becoming more readily available.
Boards and Gear
In the 1970s and 1980s, windsurfers were classified as either shortboards or longboards. Longboards were usually longer than 3 meters, with a retractable daggerboard, and were optimized for lighter winds or course racing. Shortboards were less than 3 meters long and were designed for planing conditions. However, this classification by length has become obsolete, as new techniques, designs, and materials have taken the sport in new directions.Most modern windsurfers (1990s and later) are derived from the shortboard design, and are intended to be used primarily in planing mode, where the board is mostly skipping over the surface of the water, rather than cutting through, and displacing the water. Planing is faster and gives more maneuverability, but requires a different technique from the displacement mode (which is also referred to as slogging or schlogging). Generally, smaller (i.e., lower volume, shorter length, narrower width) boards and smaller area sails are used as the wind increases.
While windsurfing is possible under a wide range of wind conditions, most recreational windsurfers prefer to sail in conditions that allow for consistent planing with multi-purpose, not overly specialized, free-ride equipment. Larger (100 to 140 liters) free-ride boards are capable of planing at wind speeds as low as 12 knots if rigged with an adequate, well-tuned sail in the six to eight square meter range. The pursuit of planing in lower and lower winds has driven the development and spread of wider and shorter boards, with which planing is possible in wind speeds as low as 8 knots, if sails in the 10 to 12 square meter range are used. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Modern windsurfing boards can be classified into these categories:
- Freeride: Boards meant for comfortable recreational cruising (mostly straight-line sailing and occasional turning) at planing speed (aka blasting), mainly in flat waters or in light to moderate swell. They typically fall into the volume range of 90 to 170 liters. The so-called freeride sailing movement diverged from course racing as more recreational sailors chose to sail freely without being constrained to sailing on courses around buoys.
- Formula Windsurfing Class: Shorter boards up to one meter in width, for use in Formula Windsurfing races. See below for a more detailed description.
- Wave boards: Smaller, lighter, more maneuverable boards for use in breaking waves. Characteristically, sailors on wave boards perform high jumps while sailing against waves, and they ride the face of a wave performing narrow linked turns (bottom turns, cutbacks, and top-turns) in a similar way to surfing.
Wave boards usually have a volume between 65 and 90 liters, with a length between 230 and 260 centimeters, and 50 to 60 centimeters in width. A general rule is for a sailor to use a wave board whose volume in liters is about the same as the sailor's weight in kilograms - more volume providing additional flotation for sailing in light winds, and less for high winds, where less volume is needed to achieve planing.
In recent years, the average width of wave boards has increased slightly, as the length has shrunk, while the range of volume has been maintained the same more or less - according to board designers this makes wave boards easier to use under a wider range of conditions by sailors of different abilities. The most common sizes of sails used with wave boards are 4.0 to 6.0 square meters, depending on the wind speed and the weight of the sailor.
Freestyle boards Related to wave boards in terms of maneuverability, these are wider, higher volume boards geared specifically at performing acrobatic tricks (jumps, rotations, slides, flips and loops) on flat water. They are usually 80 to 110 liters in volume, and about 240 to 250 centimeters in length, with widths frequently in excess of 60 centimeters. Freestyle boards began to diverge more noticeably in design from wave boards in the early part of the 2000 decade. New School maneuvers, almost all involving a jump-and-spin component) became the predominant part of the freestyle repertoire, superseding Old School moves, in which the board did not leave contact with the water.
Slalom boards
Shortboards aimed at top speed, rather than maneuverability or ease of use.Beginner boards
These are sometimes called funboards. They often have a daggerboard, are almost as wide as Formula boards, and have plenty of volume, hence easy manageabilityRacing Boards
* Racing longboards: Mistral One Design, or the Olympic RS:X class race boards. There are many attempts to bridge a gap between two of these categories, such as freerace, freestyle-wave, freeformula, and so on.The original Windsurfer board had a body made out of polyethylene filled with PVC foam. Later, hollow glass-reinforced epoxy designs were used. Most boards produced today have an expanded polystyrene foam core reinforced with a composite sandwich shell, that can include carbon fiber, kevlar, or fiberglass in a matrix of epoxy and sometimes plywood and thermoplastics. Racing and wave boards are usually very light (5 to 7 kg), and are made out of carbon sandwich. Such boards are very brittle, and veneer is sometimes used to make them more shock-resistant. Boards aimed at the beginners are heavier (8 to 15 kg) and more robust, contain more fiberglass, or even have an indestructible molded plastic shell. For more information on construction, see.
Sails
A windsurfing sail is made of monofilm (clear polyester film), dacron (woven polyester) and mylar. Sensitive parts are reinforced with kevlar mesh. Two designs of a sail are predominant: camber induced and rotational. Cambered sails have 1-5 camber inducers, plastic devices at the ends of battens which cup against the mast. They help to hold a rigid aerofoil shape in the sail, better for speed and stability, but at the cost of maneuverability and generally how light and easy to use the sail feels. The trend is that racier sails have camber inducers while wave sails and most recreational sails do not. The rigidity of the sail is also determined by a number of battens.Beginners' sails often do not have battens, so they are lighter and easier to use in light winds. However, as the sailor improves, a battened sail will provide greater stability in stronger winds. /wiki/Image:Windsurf.JPG/wiki/Image:Windsurf.JPG /wiki/Image:Windsurf.JPGThe windsurfer in the foreground is using a camber induced sail and is fully planing using the footstraps, while the other is using a rotational sail and is not planing.
Different sails are used for various disciplines of windsurfing: wave, freestyle, freeride, race. Wave sails are reinforced to survive the surf, and are absolutely flat when depowered to allow riding the waves like surfers do. Freestyle sails are also flat when depowered, and have high low-end power to allow quick accelerations. Freeride sails are all-rounders that are comfortable to use and are meant for recreational windsurfing. Racing sails, obviously, provide speed at the expense of qualities like comfort or maneuverability.
The size of the sail is measured in square meters and can be from 3mē to 6.5mē for wave sails and from 6mē to 12.5mē for racing sails, with ranges for freestyle and freeride sails spanning somewhere between these extremes. Learning sails for children can be as small as 1.7mē and racing sails being up to 12.5mē large.
[edit] Olympic class In Olympic Windsurfing 'One Design' boards are used. All sailors use the same boards, daggerboards, fins and sails. The equipment is chosen to allow racing in a wide range of sailing conditions. This is important for the Olympic Games, as events have to take place regardless of whether there is enough wind for planing. The Neil Pryde RS:X is the current Olympic class which is going to be used for the first time in the 2008 Summer Olympics. * International RS:X Event Calendar including results, reports, photos and videos [edit] Formula class /wiki/Image:Bry.jpg/wiki/Image:Bry.jpg /wiki/Image:Bry.jpgFormula racer in San Francisco Bay. Formula windsurfing has developed over the last 15 years in order to facilitate high performance competition in light and moderate winds. Formula is now a class of windsurfing boards controlled by the International Sailing Federation that have the principal characteristic of a maximum 1m width. They have a single fin, with a maximum length of 70cm and carry sails up to 12.5 mē. Class rules allow sailors to choose boards of different designs, as long as they are certified as Formula boards, and use fins and sails of different sizes.
Large sails in combination with the 'wide-style' design allow planing in very low wind conditions. However, if these requirements are not met, the boards cannot be used and events will not take place, as non-planing sailing is very difficult with this design. Formula boards are used on "flat water" as opposed to coastal surf; but racing is still held in windy conditions involving swell and chop.
Formula boards have excellent upwind and downwind ability, but are not very comfortable on a beam reach unless sail and fin size are reduced. This explains why the course is usually a box with longer upwind and downwind legs, or just a simple upwind-downwind loop.
Slalom
Super X
This is a new discipline in windsurfing competitions, a cross between freestyle and slalom. The competing sailors are racing on a short downwind slalom course, have to use duck jibes on all turns, and are required to perform several tricks along the way, such as jump over an obstacle, spock or even front loop. The competitors are required to wear protective equipment. SuperX discipline disappears at the end of 2006
Speed sailing takes several forms. The ISA (International Speedsurfing Association) organizes ( under the umbrella of the ISAF) competitions in various locations around the world known for conditions suitable for good speeds. The events are made up of heats sailed on a 500m course. The average of each sailors best 2 speeds on the 500m course which is typically open for 2 hrs/heat is their speed for that heat. As such it is possible for the sailor with the outright fastest time not to win the heat if his second best time pulls his average down.On 11 November Bob Cunningham achieved a peak of 45.2 knots at West Kirby in the UK while in the southern hemisphere Chris Torkler made 44.6 knots in Auckland, New Zealand on the 9th and Chris Lockwood achieved 48.9 knots 2 second peak speed at Sandy Point in Australia on the 13th November 2006 with a 500m average of 46.1 knots. On 18th January 2007, Dutch sailor, Martin van Meurs went on to increase his (max 2 sec) speed to an incredible 49.4 knots at West Kirby UK.
[edit] Freestyle
Freestyle is a timed event which is judged. The competitor who has the greatest repertoire, or manages to complete most stunts, wins. Freestyle is about show and competitors are judged on their creativity. Both the difficulty and the number of tricks make up the final score. Sailors who perform tricks on both tacks (port and starboard), and perform the tricks fully planing score higher marks. High scoring moves include; Shaka, Burner (funnel ponch), Double Forward Loops, the Funnell (invented by freestyle champion Ricardo Campello in memory of Andy Funnell), the Chachoo and the Clew First Puneta (switch stance Spock (windsurfing)), Eslider, Flaka.Wave
Similar to freestyle (though wavesailing preceded freestyle) except that the stunts are generally performed in surf and points are awarded for how well the waves are ridden. A typical wave contest will score two jumps going out and two wave rides coming in. A good heat would consist of a clean forward rotating jump, a backward rotating jump, a long slashy wave ride and a trick on the face of the waves such as a goiter or wave 360.
/wiki/Image:Windsurf-wipeout.jpgWave jumping wipeout! While attempting a forward
Records
A windsurfer holds the outright World Speed Sailing Record: Irish born sailor Finian Maynard who competes for the British Virgin Islands reached an average speed of 48.70 knots (25.05 m/s or 56.05 mph) over a 500 metre course at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (France) on 10th April 2005 [12]. This exceeded the previous record of 46.82 knots (24.08 m/s or 53.88 mph) set on the 13th November 2004 by the same sailor at the same venue. These performances brought back to windsurfing the record which had been held for over 11 years by the asymmetrical wing-sailed trimaran, Yellow Pages Endeavour.
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