E Lands Goes Off!!

UK Pro Phil Horrocks, is wintering in Cape Town thanks to new sponsors Lease UK. He sent us this epic report from Elandsbaai, which is a 3 hour drive north of Cape Town. Over to Phil....

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Mini-interview with PWA Chairman Jimmy Diaz

Crowd pleasing action at Sylt

Jimmy Diaz has recently taken over from Phil McGain as PWA Chairman.  We caught up with Jimmy to see what changes he has in store!

What change would you like to see at the PWA under your Chairmanship?

There are several things that I would like to see happen within the PWA whether I am Chairman or not. The first is to get more events on the Tour. I would like to see a minimum of 8 events per discipline. If you look at sports like tennis, football, they have a lot of events per year and I think windsurfing needs to have that also. Then below that we would have a qualifying tour of a similar amount of events. Then something is happening all the time in terms of competitive windsurfing.

But what about making sure you’ve got the sponsors & the prize money to run all these events?

Yeah, that’s the tough part, coming up with the money. But first I think we need to establish a really valid, strong tour. I would like to see more media coverage through television. We have been experiencing slow growth, slow re-generation but I would like to see something more exponential and in order to do that on a global level we have to have more television and if we have a strong tour we have something to present. It’s very much a catch 22 right now but by making the structure a little bit easier for more organisers to put on events, we’re getting the ball rolling.

Would you still like to see an overall sponsor for the PWA?

Yes! An overall sponsor, a sponsor per discipline or a sponsor per region. What I foresee is having something like a Caribbean leg which would be sponsored by a company which had specific marketing interests in that area, the same in Asia and perhaps Europe. Having an overall sponsor would be great but how viable that is at the moment, I don’t know. But once we have a really strong tour, once we have the television in place then I think we can get a lot more sponsorship.

EFPT, IWA, AWT…wouldn’t it be best if you all sung from the same hymn sheet as you are now all trying to go out and aim for the same type of sponsors?

Yes, it would be! That has been a problem in windsurfing and if we are able to come up with a unified system then that would make things a lot clearer. But to me the PWA is the pinnacle of the sport and every sport has to have that to go mainstream. You have to have kids with posters in their rooms saying, one day I want to be like Nik Baker or Daida Moreno.

It also gets very confusing for the media when you have a PWA Champ, an IWA Champ, an EFPT Champ….

Yes, I agree. One of the other goals I would like to achieve is to clarify that, so that you only have one guy approaching a potential company saying, ‘I am the freestyle champion’.

Is Slalom 42 going to take over Super X? We’re just going to have to wait and see what the organisers ultimately want. If organisers are demanding Super X then we will keep on going with it.		Phil McGain hands over the PWA Chairmanship to Jimmy

No, we’re sticking with Slalom 42. It is a lot more exciting to watch and it’s a lot more friendly for the media to cover. Also there are more recreational sailors just racing back and forth, so the gear used in Slalom 42 is much better suited towards the consumer market than Formula. Formula is still a very good discipline but right now, the PWA is going slalom.

But what’s the minimum wind speed required for a Slalom event? Didn’t Formula came along because slalom competition needed so much wind to run that events didn’t happen and sponsors pulled out?

Slalom can now be run in 8 knots and that’s where Formula has done fantastic things for the sport with the development of the wide style boards & the bigger sails which have been adapted for slalom and free ride. The slalom kit we’re using now has directly evolved from Formula.


The PWA needs some big sponsors

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Background to Poll Question: An Investigation into the Bending Deflections of Windsurfing Masts

Tanya Saleh, Student Windsurf Champion & a regular competitor on the UKWA Tour is also a student at Bristol studying Mechanical Engineering. Tanya asked us to help with her 3rd year project by asking our readers about broken masts via this month’s poll question. Over to Tanya to explain why she needs your help…

• Destructive testing (load it
  until it breaks)
• Measure a response time (displace the mast and measure how long it takes for it to return
  to its original shape)
• Calculate the IMCS number (how stiff it is)

But does anyone actually understand what is going on in terms of the dynamics of the mast? How does it twist and bend? Where is the stress and strain?

With my project partner, Will South, and my enthusiastic Professor, Dr Morgan, we entitled the project “An Investigation into the Bending Deflections of Windsurfing Masts”. We are using strain gauges* and data loggers** to enable us to understand exactly what is happening.
Before we could even rig up the sail we had to carry out some experiments with the mast modelled as a cantilever and hanging weights off the end. These were carried out firstly to prove that the mast is circular and secondly to find out where the maximum strain was along the length of the mast.

After this we rigged up the sail for the first time. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that there were some 14 wires running down the length of the mast along with 7 strain gauges, all of which are extremely fragile. Nor had I thought of the fact that luff tubes aren’t exactly generous in the space department. So we had a few hic-ups resulting in some re-wiring and re-sticking of gauges.
Once back on track we applied downhaul in measured increments and watched in amazement as the results started to come out quite different to how we had expected.

We have a test rig built for the New Year where we shall be able to measure wind direction, speed and force through the bottom of the mast, in conjunction with the bending of it. I cannot divulge the exact findings yet, since we still have a lot of work to do.

If you are interested in our work please don’t hesitate to contact me. tanyak297@yahoo.co.uk

None of this would be possible if it weren’t for Naish Sails UK, so thanks to Jon for trusting us with a bunch of kit!

* A strain gauge is a very long, thin piece of wire. It is accurately stuck to the relevant specimen and a voltage is put across the two ends of the wire. A force is applied to the specimen, such as downhaul on a mast. As the specimen lengthens or shortens, so does the wire, thus changing the resistance of the wire which in turn produces a change in voltage. Simple!!

** The data logger can take readings of up to 1000 times per second so needless to say it’s very accurate.

Poll results from last month

Where do you buy your windsurfing kit?

Lagoon Watersports presents Guy Cribb Intuition

Guy Cribb is running six INtuition evening clinics this season at Lagoon Watersports in Hove, Brighton. The clinics are mainly for intermediates covering gybing,
tacking, waterstarts &

For more information or to book please call 01273 424842 or e-mail:

info@lagoonwatersports.co.uk.

Masters of Speed

We have all been waiting for the big Maynard, Dunkerbeck, Albeau showdown, but after 56 days on hold through the Autumn of 2005, the famous speed canal goes into hibernation practically unused. 

Unbelievably for the team set-up down there, intent on breaking the 50knot barrier, there wasn't a single day with over 35 knots of wind!!

Current World record holder, Finian Maynard remains philosophical however:

“We will wait patiently for the right moment to launch our offensive on the last frontier in sailing. All efforts are being directed towards the ultimate goal of 50 and there will be no stone left unturned in the quest for the perfect set-up.”