Shane said..
...yet when it's on I look out over the river and see fast guys sailing up at Melville ....

At last, my talent is recognised!

Scoob said..

Shane said..
...yet when it's on I look out over the river and see fast guys sailing up at Melville ....

At last, my talent is recognised!

I took up slalom sailing recently having done B&J/ "wave sailing" for a number of years now. I bought a 2nd hand 7m cammed sail and 100l slalom board last year. In the few Wednesday races I've done I'm still getting my arse kicked by the guys on freeride gear. Admittedly they're using big sails(7-7.5m2) but it does go to show that you really don't need to fork out on the top end expensive slalom gear, either that or it just shows how average I am at using it. Anyway I'd highly recommend coming along on Wednesdays on the river, it's a great motivator to improve your sailing all round.

petermac33 said...
It's bad for the racing scene as most racers now have their (ego) device attached to their arm------- and sail at ridiculous angles upwind

then at another crazy angle off the wind.

And most of this sailing is done in the flattest water they can find----to further massage their ego's.

What has happened to across the wind sailing in chop especially,is that it has all but died.

l totally agree with you there's only a few guys who can go fast in chop reaching backwards & forwards these days.a lot of the guys who wear gps bands wouldn't know how to sail in rough stuff. l learnt on the river pinnaroo& & the pond back in the day l remember guys like Claude robbie radis chris (slowboat) nils they use to flog it in open waters

WindsurfingWA said..
Where does Freerace fit into the mix. Format is easy to run and would seem to be a good mix of sailor on sailor racing and GPS. Throw in a gate mark or two and you have a really test of overall skills.

Sorry to hijack this...just spotted this, and its pretty relevant for the discussion that you guys have been having, I'm involved with Freerace Queensland which you may or may not know about.

Free Race is a bit GPS, Bit Slalom, Bit Course, Bit Speed....and a lot of fun...and it's all an equal playing field with everyone on the same patch at the same time, be it smooth, choppy, gusty, or perfect.. easy to organise and run and certainly sorts out who's who in the jungle, and when we race your pretty much guaranteed of at least 1 hour of great sailing, no sitting around, just sailing.

There is more of an explanation in the middle of this thread on the GPS Speed page,

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Gps/FreeRace/?page=-2#lastpost

Plus you can check out the website for past race GPS replays etc, http://www.freeracequeensland.com

* couple of points of note from the your thread,

Freeride/Freerace/Wave Slalom gear V full on Slalom Gear...a 'freeride/race' class is something we are working on to encourage free sailors.
We also have a 30min session for newbies
Gybe marks, depends on your location, we recently did one in a confined area at Golden Beach, no gybe marks required because it was pretty much a figure 8 slalom run just by the nature of the natural sand banks. Unless you have a massive 'zone' there are generally heaps of gybes per hour.

NSW have also been now doing some FR, and there is interest from other states and also overseas.


Most importantly it's low key, no attitude fun, not designed to replace GPS/Slalom/Speed or anything else, it's simply a way of getting everyone off their computers and on the water at the same time sailing at the same place in the same conditions. It's a big test of consistency and endurance also.

The only rule we have is, must be windy, and we have an extremely high success rate of running events in the range of 15-25knts, this is achieved by having 'flexible dates', and late calls on the event, no one wants to travel and spend a day to turn up to a no wind event so we try to leave it late to be as sure as possible we will get good conditions.

It's still new and a constant work in progress, those that have done one all seem to agree it's a lot of fun.

Shane said..
All the boxes are ticked in terms of volunteer coordination of the racing at Pelican Point on Wednesdays. There is a fun, casual environment, good racing and even free beer and pizza provided, yet when it's on I look out over the river and see fast guys sailing up at Melville so we've got to ask what we can do better. Perhaps nobody knows that it's on...should we try to raise the event profile? It can't get much more casual than it already is so perhaps that's the direction to head with it..

I don't see why we can't have EVERYBODY there on Wednesdays for a regular social gathering and fun sailing. We are a relatively small group of like minded people- let's get together. It would be a lot more "real" than sitting in front of a computer typing congratulatory messages to each other on GPSTC after sailing.

Personally I would be there every time if it was a day other than Wednesday Can't make it!

Racing, GPSing, Waves…, even all three simultaneously, it's all good!

AUS1111 said..

Shane said..
All the boxes are ticked in terms of volunteer coordination of the racing at Pelican Point on Wednesdays. There is a fun, casual environment, good racing and even free beer and pizza provided, yet when it's on I look out over the river and see fast guys sailing up at Melville so we've got to ask what we can do better. Perhaps nobody knows that it's on...should we try to raise the event profile? It can't get much more casual than it already is so perhaps that's the direction to head with it..

I don't see why we can't have EVERYBODY there on Wednesdays for a regular social gathering and fun sailing. We are a relatively small group of like minded people- let's get together. It would be a lot more "real" than sitting in front of a computer typing congratulatory messages to each other on GPSTC after sailing.

Personally I would be there every time if it was a day other than Wednesday Can't make it!

Racing, GPSing, Waves…, even all three simultaneously, it's all good!

Agree with 1111
any style of racing is fun, if I can get there I will, but
After work thru peak hour on the other side of river means it never happens.

now if we could just change it to the Pelican point WindForce Wednesday nightracing at Leighton on Saturday afternoon I might have a chance

Take a lead from the Freestyle crew, a few mates got a great event off the ground over a few beers. Actually Green Head is organised the same way, a few mates at the pub catching up over a beers and a counter meal. There is definitely a commom thread here

elmo said..
http://safetybaywindsurfingclub.org.au/SBWC2011/SBWC_Events.html

Elmo, I am a member of SBWC and was aware that it wasn't on the calender hence my request.
I believe that WWA took over the event a couple of years back and since then SBWC have bsically wiped their hands of it for various reasons (depends who you ask) & don't ask me
I think it's time to kiss & make up so everyone can enjoy a mini marathon in the lead up to LOC each year.

It takes a lot of organising but between WWA & SBWC it should be easier than most comps as you would have 2 teams.
Unfortunately with events it's the members (sailors) that are required to do all the work on the day but they are also the ones that want to be in the event so have to sacrifice.

Next year maybe

Interesting discussion on GPS. It mirrors a lot of my feelings over the years.


It seems as if the amount of go fast gear being sold has risen while the level of general sailing skills has plateaued - or even gone backwards.

Definitely gybing skills are rare. I'm sure there were sick gybes going down heaps more in the 90s!

GPS definitely has some positives - however its also has some real negatives on the whole sailing scene.

The major being the erosion of the general beach scene with match racing and 1 on one or group blasting.

Sailing in flat water reveals very little about your tuning - which means that many crew dont learn about slowing down for gybes , looking for a nice berm to turn off, or trough to exit on, maximising speed on tight reaches and being able to be tuned for off the wind chop to put the hammer down in relative safety.

your gear needs to be neutral to be fast - or as Chris Lockwood iconically put it in the Wizards of Oz - Windsurfing is flying - only 1 cm off the water.

Boom too low /track too far fwd / sail too flat - and you are sailing heavy - which you will feel in chop as your rails and nose starts to hit everything.
Boom too high/ track too far back / sail too full - and you are sailing flighty with tail walking and your feet coming out of the straps.

The most common issue that i see with flat water sailors is straps too tight with chop knocking feet out of the straps and massively compromised board control.

Flat water gives you very little of this necessary feedback to get in the neutral flight zone.

And sailing on your own gives you very little feedback too. Match racing will improve your technique and speed faster than anything.

I like the idea of GPS Free racing - but it certainly doesnt make for much of a spectacle as it just seems like random scribblings on a page without a clear winner.
Unless you could have live feedback of results coming in ?

Its no coincidence that the best all round sailors - and the fastest seem to be the ones match racing - and these guys can still smash out good GPS results.

Many of the GPS crew (top performers excepted)are no where to be seen at the pointy end of downwind Marathons - i suspect because they hit every bump on the way downwind.

There must be a way to take the best that GPS has to offer and combine it with a good beach scene.

Leighton is a great suggestion as its a great place to sail with a good balance of longer chop and nice smooth sections for gybes.

The days of watching Slowboat compete in the Wednesday comp do seem to be well and truly over. Such a waste of talent!

Never mind getting to compete against him drag racing across the river. Only sails upwind / downwind now----is this really windsurfing?

I had a GPS once,though never quite figured out how to use the thing.

Sure they are great fun,but slalom and marathon competition have suffered since the GPS rage / craze.

Perhaps it's just a coincidence.

As for someone mentioning putting the Wed comp on at Melville.

Perhaps a beach start a few hundred metres down from the carpark. Then around the outer post,sail back around the inside post,back out again to the outer post,then a long run back to the finish line.

Might be worth a trial period.

Personally i'm not hating
just stating some observations - its not black and white like you are pointing out.

i was quite optimistic about the impact of GPS when it came out last decade.

My personal theory is that it does have some good and some bad things to answer for.

Obviously the whole GPS internet racing scene has been quite successful but there does seem to be an over emphasis on 2 second peaks - not that they arent exciting though!

I think we need to find a way to use the GPS to its maximum potential for doing good for the whole scene. I'd actually be very interested in using GPS to measure performance differences.

sometimes you are going fast when you feel slow and vice versa- a GPS can quantitatively measure these perception errors

But i already struggle just to keep all my gear in reasonable nick to get out for a quick sail - adding GPS just feels like another layer of complication.

My biggest gripe with GPS sailors is this one thread on Seabreeze, I made this Gif series showing my new invention..

Wile. E builds a slingshot on his Gath and uses it to shoot the GPS forward to increase his 2 second peak, finally topping his PB, only 2 knots behind The RoadRunner!!




He even has two hooks on his spreader bar, which was something I once saw down in sandy point.. This is a funny on many levels..

I didn't even manage 3 green thumbs, the humour of GPS sailors is almost as flat as the water they use!!

pinneroo point could be another good venue .plenty of rigging area.once you get out nice rolling swell if done in a ss/w .place has got potenial.leighton is good too even woodies pt.

On the subject of Leighton (or Port Beach), and this has nothing to do with this topic, but I reckon if there was 100m2 of lawn there and a maybe hose, there would be fifty sailors out on a weekend afternoon instead of five.

Come on guys it's only sand!

I've been rigging down in front of the new units, there's a lot of grass and bbq's with People around. It's a little further to carry your gear which is a downside but beats rigging on those concrete and rocks near where we rig at salt.

I can't for the life of me understand why more sailors aren't at Leighton. It's windier then the river and way cleaner.

HF said..
How about actually doing something positive! How's this for a Safety Bay Marathon plan: We nominate a day where everyone turns up at say 3pm, (could do it with less the 7 days notice) get one person to start it and we'll film the entire "race" from a chopper. No official marks, all gybe marks will be filmed from the air so no ones going to cheat? First to a certain beach is the winner and we upload the video to Youtube that night, should be a great positive fun day out.
Doubt you'd need permission/planning approvals as it's just a bunch of guys going for a blast?
We're currently doing training with a pilot for low level work so can easily do it at no cost.

Any thoughts?

I reckon this thread itself is shaping up to be fairly positive. It's great to have a wide discussion with valuable opinions offered, even at the risk of offending some.

GPSTC is hugely successful and popular so any negative comments about it are not likely to result in everybody bailing out of their team - On the other hand, we have seen a steady decline in local windsurfing events with a sparser calendar every year. Once events such as the South Beach Slalom, Swan River Downwinder, Mandurah Drags, Cervantes Speed have disappeared, there has been no sign of them reappearing. If you are ok with this scenario, then continue to focus solely on your GPS sailing and enjoy.

A few people have mentioned a perception of elitism in the racing scene and a necessity for cammed sails, etc to participate. Perhaps competition got pretty serious in the '90s (I don't know) but nothing could be further from the truth at any events I have seen for years, with people at both ends of the fleet coming off the water with big smiles and on all sorts of boards and sails, so I hope I have put that misconception to rest permanently. I think MarkAustralia's suggestion for a freeride division is brilliant!

I'm keen to help with the Safety Bay Marathon if it goes ahead- sounds like some plans may be under discussion so just let me know what I can do as long as it doesn't involve doing low level manoeuvres onboard with the trainee chopper pilot