Mera TOW

[anonym-anvandare]

Om jag själv får bestämma väljer jag numera vind för 11m2 segling samt sol. Detta är vad Formula har betytt för mig. 12 m/s och liten bräda är helt OK det med men att vara ute och nöta med mitt 11 är det bästa.

[anonym-anvandare]

Några av de svar jag fått på starboard forum

4/16/2004 6:59:27 AM
Dear Ulf,
I am with u. Spent easter in Tarifa from april 3 to april 11… april 3 and 4 rented 90 litre fanatic and 4m2 sails….rest of the days used my own gear; combination 11m2-8m2 with SB F158. That translates as follows….
22% ….. SMALL GEAR
78% ……BIG GEAR.
Average TOW, per day 4hrs.
MY TOW 100% compared to 22% TOW for the rest of the population. There were a lot of frustrated windsurfers for easter week in Tarifa. I saw no wide-boarded big sail windsurfing. except for myself and two others.
Cheers. murray

4/16/2004 7:51:09 AM
Ulf,
Total is almost 189 hrs so far on 83 sessions. Average # of session is 8/month. Average duration is about 2.27 hrs. There is a huge variability in these numbers: wind, job, vacation & family permitting…
Here is the complete story with an additional 2 wave boards (Acid 62 L & HiTech 80 L) and a large freemove/freeride board (Carve 111 L):
– 5 hrs with a 4.2 wave sail in 25-33 knots
– 3.5 hrs with a 4.7 wave sail in 19-27 knots
– 15 hrs with a 5.4 wave sail (of which 4.5 hrs were on HS105) in 17-22 knots
– 7.5 hrs with a 6.9 freemove sail in 12-18 knots of wind
total = 26.5 hrs
– 36.75 hrs with a race 6.6 sail & HS105 in 15-20 knots of wind
As for narrow (50.6/56/62.8 cm width respectively) versus wide (76 cm) boards, compare 26.5 hrs with 3 boards (4.5/12.5/9.5 hrs respectively) versus 162.25 hrs with a single HS105 for full planing TOW (since I began recording all my session as of March 2003 at mytrims.com).
As for small sails (4.2-6.6) versus big sail (6.9, 8.2 & 10.6), compare 60.25 hrs versus 128.5 hrs.
Cheers !
JM

4/16/2004 12:27:58 PM
However, we’re talking about windsurfing here, not tennis or golf or any of those other no-wind alternatives. If it’s windsurfing you want to do, one can presume you want to be on the water and planing. Not on the beach, or golfing, or mountain biking, etc.
So, if it’s windsurfing you want, in almost all locations of this planet, you have to cover your bases by including big gear. Pure and simple. Even in the mighty Columbia Gorge, if all you have is a 4.5 and 80 liter board, you’ll sit on the beach a lot. I use my 7.5 and big slalom board down there all the time, even at the high-wind sites.
I’m looking forward to my next trip to Baja, east cape sites. With the gear I used to take (4.5-8.5 sails, slalom to flapper boards) the TOW percentage was never any better than about 65%. With FW gear and up to 11.0 (or even 12.5) sails, that will easily get up to 90%. Those famous 2 or 3 days per week when it does not blow down there, almost always still offer enough wind to get a 11.0/FW/70 going.

Rick  ( )

4/18/2004 4:44:36 PM
Have to say the big sail thing is working for me! My biggest sail used to be 5.0 anyone in the Netherlands will tell you that that is quite unrealistically small. But I thought the fun was in the big days, with loads of wind and waves. I still love those sort of days but my amount of time on the wather has definitely tripled an I’m loving it. O.K. the hardcore sesions is what I love but a nice session of sunset sailing with my 8.4 is what I’m liking more and more!
Really If you’re not sure, try some big gear from friends or shops and you’ll know what I’m talking about!!
Happy sailing!
Mr.Happy  ( )

4/18/2004 7:15:49 PM
Mr Happy
You big pathetic cheat, selling out to the 4.5m+ losers !
No real surfer with more than one b**l ever sails 5m+ !!!
You can never look at the beach babe’s again !

Go big or go home  ( )

4/19/2004 7:47:59 AM
And that’s another thing. With big gear you are actually down the beach whilst there’s people & a vibe. Not just a deserted storm swept scene. Don’t tell anyone but unless I am abroad somewhere real warm I prefer ‘summer breezes’.
Name withheld  ( )

4/19/2004 8:58:15 AM
Would be nice to meet you on the water guys, but the net is OK too.
Go big or go home is for me: Take your big powergear, -or you´ll have to go home 9 out of 10 days = 9 weeks out of 10 weeks if you just have 1 day free/ week.
With a 4,5 sail the beach babe´s would just laugh at you when you´re acting like a rounding mark, for the rest of the windsurfers doing planing freestyle manouvers around you

In SURF 4/04 a 20 years old german freestyle competitor says, that it´s hard to develop freestyle skills at home in Germany.
He says he´ll plane 5 minutes out of 2 hours a good day at home in Germany. -He recommends Bonaire, Fuerteventura and Maui to the Germans who like to do new school freestyle. -I like that he is realistic about the possibility to sail small gear in germany.
I wouldn´t recommend a guy in Tenerife to focus on skiing, even if he can find snow on Teide, more often than a german guy can find strong winds at his homewaters.
Should everyone who likes to windsurf regularely move to Bonaire..
-Or should we backup our small gear with powerstuff that works in Sweden/Germany and gives us quality TOW.
A girl from Luleå or a guy from Skellefteå/Sweden, can do wave performance 5 days a year on home waters, if they don´t have a job where they are needed 8 to 5, when the waves roll in. -Winds usually fade out when you go from work in the afternoon.
Beside work you should have no family, friends or other people trying to rob you off those 5 days.
If You´re totally free every day you can do new school freestyle 25 days a year.
You have 100 days with quality TOW on your FW stuff.
Classic freestyle (planing Back Wind Jibes, Upwind 360´s etc) you can do 100 days a year with the right equipment.
From 8 knots of wind the frustration blows away.
A bonus on a FW board is that you can do classic freestyle, slalom or FW-racing in just shorts and harness july and august, something that was impossible, with just small gear.
A powerful 9,0 is super for classic freestyle on a 85+ cm wide Formula board. It´s much more fun planing through manouvers in 8+ knots of wind than sitting on the beach.

-Time to dust off the small gear when there´s wind enough to avoid swimming between the gusts.

Quality TOW to you guys! -Ulf

P.S. -Om du ser att du ibland får vänta 3 veckor på tillräcklig vind för din största bräda, då är den för liten, och du måste komplettera den med något större som ger dej mer power! -Annars stagnerar din utveckling, och du riskerar att tappa intresset.
När du får segla för sällan, orkar du till slut inte längre lyssna på sjörapporterna, och du missar även de få dagar det blåser tillräckligt för dina småprylar. -Jag har tyvärr sett flera surfkompisar vandra denna tragiska väg, men hoppas slippa se fler göra detta misstag.
Tack vare brädor i storlek från HS till Formula har vi idag dubbelt så många aktiva som för 10 år sedan, -folk vill segla! -inte vänta på vind.
Till den som tror (förutsatt att han inte är 9 år och väger 34 kg) att man är cool om man har 4,5 som största segel måste jag säga att
cool rimmar på fool..
D.S.

[anonym-anvandare]

Eddy Patricelli skriver:
Hey Ulf,
Always appreciate your feedback. It’s good to see so many people improving their TOW with bigger gear. And I’ll definitely try to do a better job of keeping things real.
Believe it or not, my editorial “Going Big” hoped to confront gear snobbery among wave sailors and high wind junkies — the biggest gear snobs of all. It’s message (Go Big) was meant to carry beyond the scope of the gear sizing it described, but it sounds like that came up short. My apologies.
FYI — my 6.7 low-end bias wave/freestyle sail (w/ a carbon mast and boom) on my 117-liter freestyle board has planing with the 11.0’s pretty consistently. I won’t beat ’em upwind in or in a race, but I’m more maneuverable than they are. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still supportive of the ultra-big stuff. But I did grow up in the Gorge. Perhaps I’m still working that out of my system.
But come on, I’m making headway. Two years ago my biggest was a 5.4. This year it’s a 6.7. Next year? — for sure, I’ll go be going bigger again. 
Hope you’re well,
Eddy
 
Great to hear from you Eddy!
You´re definitely on the right track, and I have good hopes for you in the future..
You see, my definition of big sails go from at least 7,8-9,0.
If real world folks don´t bother with bigger than 9,0-10,7 I fully understand it, but I had a cure for those of my friends who, 2 years ago, rigged way too small, – I did a planing Backwind Jibe ( on my 85 cm wide formula with 56-58 fin and a drafty/ powerful 9,0) around them when they didn´t plane. -My “high clew” , high aspect 9,0 is perfekt for Ducks , Flip 360´s and lots of other planing classic moves in superlight winds.
All of my friends have now upgraded to 7,8-9,6 sails. They simply noted that I had a much bigger freestyle repertoire, were faster and generally had more skills (thanks to more TOW) the odd day when strong winds swept by and everyone (including me) was on small stuff.
Lots of TOW, makes us love every aspect of the sport, -while the “cool” guys with minimal TOW have a tendency to quit, -if I haven´t got a chance to “cure” them on the water.

There has to be a great deal of positive, inspiring articles in the mags, focusing on light wind (8-12 knots) classic freestyle and slalom, ( to balance the wind snobs talk about “sailing doors and flunders” ) if we want to see, continued growth of the sport, and Wind Surfing as a sport (and mag.) for the people!

I believe you wanna sell copies Eddy, -and I´m fully confident that Wind Surfing, with you on the steering wheel, together with great companies like Starboard, will make this a reality.

Take care, -and keep up your good work Eddy!
Ulf

[anonym-anvandare]

5/9/2004 9:44:34 PM
All you guys who complain that longboards are the past…how come you NEVER consider that in the past, windsurfer was much BIGGER than it is today. Maybe a return to the past wouldn’t be bad at all.
So a longboard is slower (in many conditions, NOT all). Who cares? Look at other sports. Speed has little to do with popularity. Around the world, slalom water ski-ing is much more popular than speed racing water ski-ing which is much faster.
Downhill ski-racing is more popular than speed ski-ing.
In surfing (“real” surfing, not windsurfing), longboards are (IIRC) now out-selling “performance” shortboards by 2:1.
In dinghies, slow boats like Lasers are much more popular than skiffs. In catamarans, the slow Hobie and Dart are more popular than A Class and Tornadoes (and the fastest small cats are almost extinct).
I don’t get how FW guys can attack IMCO for being slow – if speed is all why aren’t you sailing speed boards or slalom? FW is great, but so are all types of windsurfing.
I see on the ‘net that last year, the Italian championships for the original 22kg Windsurfer One Design got 64 boards. Last, our original Windsurfer championship in Australia got 60- more than FW. It’s slow, cheap FUN and the class is expanding (as a proportion of windsurfing) again. MAybe going back to the future would not be bad at all….
Chris 249  ( )

5/10/2004 8:35:55 AM
What a market China would be if there could be a board produced for the conditions in Poland, Finland, The lakes in Germany and China.
If windsurfing can´t be done in China.. or next saturday when you have a couple of hours free for sailing, -there´s something wrong.
FW is great, but there´s skilled FW-sailors here in Sweden who puts their biggest FW-sails on Lechner type of boards, to be able to sail, because 4-7 knots winds are very common outside the trade winds of GC, Maui and Cabo Verde ( the last island is, in the latest SURF issue, said to have the same conditions as the Lakes in Germany, I don´t believe a word of what SURF says. People outside the SURF personel know the Cabo Verde has perfect quality side shore winds, and perfect waves to power up the boards.
If we could have the wind snobs shut up, and the realists take over development of the sport, we could be back to the big fleets of the early 80 ies. Realists know that lakes has gusty winds who needs totally different boards / sails than Angulo´s Cabo Verde. Look at side 5: Freemove 115 litres test, -I´m just laughing..).
I love hard winds, but I want to sail too.. and would very much like to see something to complement my FW-boards when winds make them drop of the plane.
Use superbig Folding Fins or whatever to produse boards the can be sailed those beautiful days when everybody goes to the beach to enjoy the sun.
SURF-testers: try to sail one of the thousand cold gusty lakes in Finland when there´s
a usual low quality 3-11 kn. wind.. -you won´t take a freemove 115.. -if you are grown up.
Quality TOW to you all! -Ulf
Ulf Astrom  ( )