The cynical and yet to be convinced Andy King reports on how he was turned into a Speed fan...
The word on the street is that speed sailing is back, and back with a vengeance. We have been told that our beaches are soon to be re-invaded with speed needles and heavily cambered over-sized sails. Yet is this really likely to happen?
Certainly media focus has been brought back to speed sailing and rightly so with the world open sea record once again captured on a windsurfing board. Boardseeker set me the task of investigating this and the first of 604 distribution’s Speed events at Weymouth seemed like the ideal place to begin.
Being the owner of a Leyand Daf 400 series van, it is obvious to most that speed is not my current obsession.
I do own a motorcycle but again it’s no race bike. In fact quite the opposite as it is actually a trials bike that rarely exceeds 20mph. I guess that’s a reflection of my windsurfing as well really as I have been firmly set on the wave and freestyle route for some years now.
So you can imagine my delight at waking up at 7am on a cloudy seemingly windless Sunday morning to endure the painful hour and a half drive to Weymouth from Southampton, to cover a speed sailing event.
However my spirits rose as I finally neared Portland and I got my first glance at the sea. There were few white caps disturbing the near flat water yet to my amazement there were plenty of windsurfers planing.
I had feared that I would be spending the day watching the committed entrants wallowing down the speed strip trying to break that elusive 5 knot barrier.
10-12knots: will it be enough?
Weymouth is a great location for a speed event because within the harbour walls sits a vast area of protected water which is exposed to wind from nearly all directions. Ideal conditions are when a strong south-west wind blows and a super flat speed strip is created in the lee of the shingle spit come road to Portland. Today however the wind was from the south and far from strong, blowing a mere 10 – 12 knots at best.
The Contest
The guys from 604 had already littered the beach area with lots of nice, shiny new toys and were now setting up the speed run. Due to the side shore southerly wind, the organisers set a course starting 500m out and a far way upwind. The sailors would then bear away and head towards the finish buoy whilst being timed using a police style radar gun shot out of a boat sat just upwind of the finish buoy.
An average time was then calculated from 3 speed readings taken over the length of the run.
Despite the light winds there was still a good turn-out with a real mixture of recreational sailors right through to an Olympic medallist! You certainly did need to be comfortable sailing big gear to get a time in the top ten though as a lot of the UKWA racing fleet were out giving it their all trying to get that extra half a knot of board speed over their rivals.
As the action on the water continued the scene on the beach was that of entrants quickly changing gear and hunting out the fastest demo equipment for the conditions. There was much discussion and debate over what in fact was the quickest gear except where the new GPS F2 was concerned. With the huge display mounted in the deck of the board and the fastest speed of the day recorded for all to see there was certainly no room for excuses with this board!
The winner? Windsurfing!!
It must be a joy to have no objective judging or complex racing starts and rules to deal with.
So Dan Ellis got to take the event win but in my opinion the biggest winner of the day was windsurfing as a sport. Despite light winds, that not more than 5 years ago would have forced the event to be postponed, we got to see the event completed with all the entrants giving it a good shot. No world records fell today but a great day was had by many and it soon became apparent that speed sailing is ready for a revival. After all, the competition format is so simple, sail as fast as possible. It must be a joy to have no objective judging or complex racing starts and rules to deal with. In theory all you need is one run and you can be back home in time for Ski Sunday!
It was inevitable that some sailors would soon begin to tire of the endless list of moves to crack and lust for the simplicity and thrill of speed again.
Has the invasion started?
Back to that question of whether our beaches are soon to be re-invaded with speed needles and heavily cambered over-sized sails? Well in speed sailing hot spots like Weymouth it is clear that they never actually left. Had the wind blown old boots then the speed needle and many of it’s slightly more refined wider descendents would have been sailed down that strip, as they often are when conditions here allow it, contest or not!
"This one has me in it!" - Kevin Greenslade & Simon Cofield check out their prizes
Our sport has, since it’s creation, seen cycles in trends between speed and manoeuvrability. With all the recent focus going with freestyle and free ride it was inevitable that some sailors would soon begin to tire of the endless list of moves to crack and lust for the simplicity and thrill of speed again.
Yet lets not forget that speed is and has nearly always been a priority in any board and sail design despite the compromises that have to be made to balance this speed against some level of manoeuvrability.
Part ex your freeride board? Not just yet.
Think before you jump on the wagon and part ex your free ride board. After all why was it that free ride came about at all? It is because you have to have a balance between speed and manoeuvrability. You may not be the fastest on the water and you may not be the best at all the moves but you are the complete sailor enjoying the best of both worlds!
So my advise is to “blast your current board and hard as you can down the next speed event strip and crank into a beautiful carving 360 as you pass the finish line!”
See you there... Andy King
Sarah Ayton, Olympic Gold Medallist (in a dinghy anyway!)
FULL F2 Speed Results (on Excel document) here
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