Accessable kite foil racing

I came to kiteboarding from a sailing background in Moths, Sydney's 18 foot skiffs racing scene and sailboarding. The quality and size of these fleets have fallen dramatically since their heyday largely due to their development class structure.

The start of the global foil “Gold Cup” has a similar feel to Australia’s now dead 18 footer Grand Prix racing scene. TV rights, exotic locations, etc… The average punter can’t get involved beyond watching the action.

I am one of many a middle-aged weekend kiting warriors with 3 active kids with whom I’d love to share my passion for kiting. The prospects are dim of this happening, because they think it is a fad sport and there are better alternative sporting scenes for them. Time will tell if kiting is a fad… (for discussion in the general forum some other time)

Can we please discuss instituting a global or Australian “one” design foil racing program?

Suggestions:

- One manufacturer who sponsors supplying well priced gear outside traditional retail channels. Traditional retail will benefit from selling more harnesses, wetsuits, impact vests, helmets, etc to a larger kiting community.
- Manufacturers compete for this monopoly right on a 3 year basis.
- Technology upgrades when changing manufacturers is NOT necessarily a good thing (some will remember how good windsurfer racing used to be in the 80’s… now dead too)
- All kiters use the same kite, bar, foil mast, foil fuselage and mast track
- Choice of foil area and board volume so that the sport doesn’t discriminate on sex, age or weight.
- Alternatively, make it a strict one design class with all competitors having to wear weight jackets if they are undersized (say 95kg).
- Structured weekly racing in the windy season away from the shore (which is crowded with beginners and show-ponies)
- Take the racing into the dingy clubs that have been losing their youth membership and are better at dealing with insurance. It also gives us a good bar to share a beer after racing!

Benefits:

- An accessible racing scene for amateur kiters
- Grassroots participation (average age of kiters is now approaching that of sailboarders!)
- Structured time on the water for the time poor that can’t make the beach when the ideal conditions are on. Foils have a much larger range of wind conditions available to them.
- Foil racing in its current development class form will die quickly. The sponsorship dollars dry up and then we’ll call it a past fad. Lets capitalise on the current interest and create an alternative with fleets of committed racers (time and money commitment).

What do you think?

No rules for foils!!!! first calss way to kill a sport by adding more, lesson learnt on RSX and Kite formula.

The weekend warrior has access to the same gear raced by the lads that win gold cups and the foil costs less than a decent mountain bike/road bike/sail boat/ tinnie. a decent 2nd hand race foil will cost around 2k.

You can race with any klite to get started. If you have a decent local race scene, there are heaps of racers at every level of skill so heaps of fun to be had.

Anybody can enter Foil Cup or any other foiling event, there are no exlusions. heasp of lads from Perth heading to twonsville in October.

if you are keen on one design sports, there are many declining One design racing sports you join.

One design is not the answer..... a strong local level club racing scence is the answer!

Thanks Andy for your input. I definitely don't want to see the foil development class slow down or detract from it. I was part of the crew who developed foiled Moths for your enjoyment... no worries, my pleasure mate!

I am yet so see a decent fleet of >5 kites racing in Australia on a weekly basis. Foil racing currently is a pretty small niche that most of us refuse to join without sponsorship enticements. Everything changes too fast... that crazy Ozone Chrono is so yesterday. Need R1, Sonic , Elf or F-one this month.

The weekend warrior doesn't want to buy your outdated gear, no matter how cheap (how many hours on those bridles?). What they want is access to is large fleets intent on close, fair and affordable racing. Affordable means I can buy new gear that will last until the end of the 3 year development cycle. Have you experienced this?

My personal opinion is that foiling looks lame outside the context of competing in a large fleet with a diversity of gender, age and ability.

You have highlighted two failed attempts at one design. Probably from mismanagement though AGMs... Lasers still get great fleets and are an Olympic sport. Why is that Andy?

"if you are keen on one design sports, there are many declining One design racing sports you join." How should I interpret this? Can we take some emotion heat out of this discussion. Luckily we're not all aspiring fighter pilots...

This is my first post in the racing forum. Please go easy on me.

Select to expand quote

NathanG said..
Thanks Andy for your input. I definitely don't want to see the foil development class slow down or detract from it. I was part of the crew who developed foiled Moths for your enjoyment... no worries, my pleasure mate!

I am yet so see a decent fleet of >5 kites racing in Australia on a weekly basis. Foil racing currently is a pretty small niche that most of us refuse to join without sponsorship enticements. Everything changes too fast... that crazy Ozone Chrono is so yesterday. Need R1, Sonic , Elf or F-one this month.

The weekend warrior doesn't want to buy your outdated gear, no matter how cheap (how many hours on those bridles?). What they want is access to is large fleets intent on close, fair and affordable racing. Affordable means I can buy new gear that will last until the end of the 3 year development cycle. Have you experienced this?

My personal opinion is that foiling looks lame outside the context of competing in a large fleet with a diversity of gender, age and ability.

You have highlighted two failed attempts at one design. Probably from mismanagement though AGMs... Lasers still get great fleets and are an Olympic sport. Why is that Andy?

"if you are keen on one design sports, there are many declining One design racing sports you join." How should I interpret this? Can we take some emotion heat out of this discussion. Luckily we're not all aspiring fighter pilots...

This is my first post in the racing forum. Please go easy on me.

The AGM josh spoke of is the IKA worldwide Agm, were each country gets a vote on items raised. we votes by way of Kiteboarding Australia.
As we race under ISAF rules of sailing, One design would be managed by ISAF and this was vote against.
the vast majority of the worldwide race fleet has various issues when the raced under one design/box rules in Formula and would prefer not to go down that road again.

One design doe not mean cheaper. How much cheaper is a RSX board than the average free race board used at most event.
The formula kite boards from 2.5 years ago, ie TMV or North could be used by the best in the world and get a podium. these can be board for around $500 now and it great nick. With more foilers come more 2nd hand gear in good condition. we'll see this happen this next summer in Australia, a good 1 season old foil for $1500 will soon be common.

Ive always been a big fan of moths, impressive kit, but kite foil beat them in every way now.
A moth will cost 2nd hand around 10k, a new one 25k and throw in another 10k for mods for it to be semi competitive on a world stage.
Look at the number of Moth racers looking to flog their Moths at cut throat prices to venture off and find classes where the wallet doesn’t win the races.

We have near on 30 foil racers now in Perth, and even had a full formula fleet for many events.
Last season we had racing almost every weekend, some weekends different events on Saturday and Sunday.
State titles had near 30 entries, including females, juniors as young as 13 oldest 57.
We even launched an event which included other classes, cats and sailboards. variety is the spice of life.
all up we had around 50 racers attend various events over the summer.

We attend many sailing regattas and work very closely with the sailing clus and communities to progress/build our fleet, increase number and leverage funding for our racers. 2 racers received sailing grants to attend major events including a junior to attend the worlds earlier this month.
We are no working on junior development programmes to engage more youth, introduce them to kiting and hopefully someday get more racers from it.

We have racers that are on spotz 1, now that would be heading for its 3rd summer(cycle)... at our level of racing if you are a good racer you could still make the podium on gear 2 years old. and with bigger fleets comes more divisions and classes, age categories as we have done for many events.
in your first season, the gear is decent even if a season or 2 old will matter little compare to you refining your skills. miss one tack or gybe and it doesnt matter how little or how much, one design or not and you're out of the top spot.

lasers, 29. 49, etc... all strong classes.... easy to learn, hard to master.
you can’t take a foil, train for a weekend and then compete a regatta like you would at junior sailing training camp.
it’s a mental leap of faith, you buy the foil... commit, get your ass handed to you for a few weeks learning and after a few month racing is possible.
one design will not make any difference to the entry pathway to learning and competing.

www.facebook.com/perthkiteracing
www.pkr.club
www.facebook.com/groups/perthkiteracing

Regarding sailing Olympic classes, each country has a very clear path way, from being 6 years old and learning to sailing through programmes such as tackers ( average 500-1000 juniors trained in AUS per state each year) and then the classes they can progress to. coaches that are dedicated to junior development, and programmes to promote and sustain participation.
Its the reason Yachting Australia is restructuring to better support clubs and free up resources for more of this activity.

Formula kite is now an Olympic sport and has been awarded a Olympic medal by way of Sailing, its including in all the warm up events and in the Junior Olympics, the sailing bodies are already looking to see how they can leverage their junior programmes to build kite racers. this is a numbers game, for every 100 kids that flies a trainer kite you might get 1 junior kite racer.

Australia has no kiting junior development programmes, and has leveraged ZERO of the structures, programmes or funding options available in all states over the past few years as is done in other sports to attracted, support and promote juniors. This will be a key activity to remove any doubt that it’s just a fab and seriously develop the sport

Nathan, a laser sail costs less than $50 to make and retails for $850. It lasts 1 regatta. One design is not cheap!

i am riding with one set of wings, one foil just moving my foil on board back and forth and im sweet so far in USA Gold Cup.Others like Spotz, Sword.. got lots of different wings

should be 4 on lake Macquarie this summer mate, feel free to contact us and head up to meet us all

Nathan, racing starts in Sydney this weekend. Sunday 12pm briefing at George s river sailing club.

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Kitesurfing/General/Interesting-CR-X-One-Design-foil-racing-thingy/?page=-2#lastpost

exactly what I was thinking would be good for youth and those weekend warriors not wanting to join the hydrofoil world tour.

Thanks Neil Pride / Cabrinha team

Good luck and all that but, I can't help but think it would be much cheaper and fairer to have racing where you can ride anything you want and have classes based on age and/or rough equipment classification.

$250 registration fee and $5000-8000 for specialised kit doesn't seem much of an incentive for people to come and race. For those prices I could buy a very nice carbon foil and a decent performance kite.