11. The Sport Explained

Formula, Wave, Freestyle, Slalom, Supercross, Freeride…the list is endless.

Formula Windsurfing

Formula Racing is done on wide boards and huge sails (12.5 square metres) to allow fast planing (powering along off the rear section of the board, often faster than the wind). This allows competition to be held in as little as 8 knots of wind, hence it’s popularity with event organisers, sponsors and sailors. It is an international discipline where the competitors race around the course in a large fleet using speed and tactics to their advantage.

Super Stars: Ross Williams, Arnon Dagan, Antoine Albeau, Allison Shreeve, Lucy Horwood

Slalom

High speed, high adrenaline windsurfing where maximum speed (30knots+), control and good turning ability in high winds is necessary for the windsurfers to get past the finish line first. Competition is run in heats, for example, 8 in a heat with the top 4 going through to the next round.

Super Stars: Antoine Albeau, Kevin Pritchard, Micah Buzianis, Karin Jaggi

Wavesailing

Possibly the most expressive and adrenalin rushed discipline of the lot, but it is very condition dependant. The waves are ridden like a surf board, but with the added versatility of a sail, aerials and power tricks are brought into the picture. Explosive, fun to do and watch, and very addictive. The waves also provide ramps for the highest jumps, forward loops, backward loops, tabletops and big crowd pleasing wipeouts!

Super Stars: Jason Polakow, Josh Angulo, Levi Siver, Bjorn Dunkerbeck (pictured), Iballa & Daida Moreno

Freestyle

Freestyle basically means mucking around with the sail and board to do anything other than carry on in a straight line! It was originally performed on longboards where, with a stable platform, the sail and the sailor could spin around the board doing fancy tricks. However, freestyle today has gone up another level where the kids (I say kids, because at the moment, there is only one person above 21years of age in the PWA Freestyle top 10!) manoeuvre their shortboard and sail through mind blowing and ballistic aerial tricks at full planning speed with apparent ease to fool us all.

One of the simpler moves in this discipline is the extremely hard ‘spock’. It goes something like this: windsurfing at top speed, do a jump, turn the board round in mid air so you are now flying backwards, while also moving hands round the front of the rig, to grab the other side of the sail. Land nose first, sliding backwards, whilst turning away from the wind, on the wrong side of the sail, feet still in the footstraps. Once through the wind flip the sail, grab the original side and continue in the same direction. Get it!

Freestyle is a spectacular sport as the action happens really close to the beach. There is now a European Freestyle Tour as well as PWA events.

Super Stars: Jose Estredo, Antxon Otaegui, Tonky & Taty Frans, Victor Fernandez (pictured) Laure Treboux (pictured), Sara Quita Offringa, Daida Moreno

Super X

The newest discipline to emerge which combines slalom sailing and freestyle. A course is set consisting of a number of buoys which the competitors have to gybe around (turning 180 degrees, in windsurfing speak). On some legs there are a number of inflatable obstacles which the competitors have to jump over, on others the competitors have to perform a standard trick which could be anything ranging from a forward loop (a somersault in which the sailor and the kit perform a 360 degree forward rotation in the air ) or a spock (described previously). The winner is the first to cross the finish line. It is an action packed discipline where at any one time there are a number of competitors in the air, or crashing. Very much like a water based motocross.

Super Stars: Antoine Albeau, Kevin & Matt Pritchard, Daida Moreno

Speed

Any of you who have witnessed windsurfing know that windsurfers can go pretty fast. Speed sailing is all about going the fastest in a straight line. From the 80's, windsurfers broke speed records all over the shop and were generally accepted as the fasted sailing craft on the water. However, the record was taken away from windsurfers by an extremely expensive fixed wing Tri-maran named the “Yellow Pages”. This purpose built craft took the record to about 48knots, in only 20 to 30 knots of wind, disintegrating at the end of its world beating run. However, in 2005, Finian Maynard won it back with a world record run of 48.70knots over 500m on a canal in France!

Super Stars: Finian Maynard, Bjorn Dunkerbeck, Cyril Moussilmani (pictured), Karin Jaggi, Zara Davis

Olympic

The Olympic class is one design, (everyone uses exactly the same kit to race on) and not really extended to other windsurfers apart from future Olympians. The standard required for the Olympics is high as it is extremely physical and demanding on the body and the brain as tactics & fitness are the key to winning races.

The best thing about the Olympic class is that it qualifies for Lottery funding through the RYA and this is fed down to the Youth classes and other Junior windsurf racing. So even though only ONE girl and ONE boy get to go to the Olympics, the majority of funding helps young sailors progress in the sport through a organised racing structure until they become proficient enough to race internationally or move into other disciplines of the sport.

Super Stars: Nick Dempsey, Casper Bouman, Bryony Shaw, Alessandra Sensini

Freeride

Freeride is anything that you want it to be. Most boards sold today are classed as freeride and they come in various shapes and sizes enabling anyone at any level to take windsurfing to which ever level they feel like. It’s all about going fast and having fun and the UK has a good freeride racing scene (called freerace). But the majority of sailors simple blast around at their local lake or beach with not a care in the world!