ISAF Kiteboarding Trials

[Toby]

IKA News:

ISAF Kiteboarding Trials

Start of the ISAF Kiteboarding Trials
Wednesday, 21 March 2012 05:29

March 21st, 2012, marks a new stepstone on the way for kiteboarding to become part of the Olympic Sailing Competition and the ISAF Sailing World Cup.

18 riders from 10 nations and 4 continents will demonstrate from today on what kiteboarding is capable to do. An ISAF evaluation panel consisting of members of the ISAF windsurfing and kiteboarding committee, events committee and equipment committee will collect all data and present a report to the ISAF mid year meeting.

The list of participants ready like the who is who of the international kite racing scene: both mens world champions - Johnny Heineken for course racing and Damien Leroy for Slalom - are present as well as womens course racing world champion Steph Bridge. The European Champions Julien Kerneur and Katja Roose are here as well as the freshly crowned Asian Champion Yo Pudla Narapichit. The list is completed by a wide variety of national champions.

The daily briefing for the riders is set for 0900 when the plan for the upcoming days will be discussed and the courses to be run today announced. We will update whats going on here in Santander through our facebook and twitter channel - Stay tuned !

ISAF Kiteboarding Trials Day 1
Thursday, 22 March 2012 07:23

Yesterday marked the start of the ISAF kiteboarding trials in Santander. With all top sailors in the world attending this is really a display of talent here in the north of Spain.

Unfortunately the wind never materialised - the race committee was setting the courses planned for the day and moved them in the ever changing winds, but we never reached a suitable strength and racing was called of at 1600.

Evaluation continues today with the course racing format first and the slalom format second if the wind allows.

ISAF Kiteboarding Trials Day 2
Thursday, 22 March 2012 22:26

With the sunshine and warm temperatures the wind arrived as well at the second day of the ISAF kiteboarding format trials in Santander, Spain. After the morning briefing, the whole kiteboarding fleet headed over to Playa Sardinero the prepare their equipment and to be ready as soon as the wind kicks in.

Unfortunately it took until 1300 before the wind stabilized in direction and strength to allow a course to be set. The race committee announced to firstly go for two standard windward/leeward course races to have a baseline before testing all the new course options on the agenda.

Both races went underway in light conditions between 6 and 9 knots on a two lap course with a leeward gate to give everybody an idea of todays kiteboard course racing abilities. Then the race committee quickly changed the course to a standard downwind slalom with a reaching start - in the meantime the sailors headed out to the race courses of the multihull and skiff evaluations to race these nice new boats. Coaches and spectators were impressed on the board speeds and upwind angles.

A full round of Slalom went underway then with the reaching starts proving to be tricky, but a lot of action on the gybing marks and also some crashes and tangles.

In the later afternoon the whole fleet and the ISAF staff headed back to the CEAR sailing center then to get feedback from the riders on the formats tested today and different options that could be taken into consideration.

Tomorrow will see the evaluation of the two new racing formats short track and enduro in different configurations. After the feedback from the riders the evaluation panel will then look into further testing of the most successful formats.

In general we receive overwhelming interest here, not only on the land were some riders showased their equipment in the morning to the multihull and skiff sailors as well as coaches and MNA reps, but also on the water were the kiteboarding races draw a lot of interest from the supporting boats for the multihull and skiff evaluations.

Racing continues tomorrow with a good forecast for the whole day which should allow to finish the first step of the trials and then investigate further racing and scoring options.

The ISAF kiteboarding format trials will end on Sunday March 25, and the ISAF evaluation panel will then prepare a report to the ISAF midyear conference in Stresa, Italy.

[Toby]

ISAF Kiteboarding Trials Day 3
Sunday, 25 March 2012 00:12

Day three here in Santander greeted us with sunshine and plenty of wind. The morning riders briefing saw a healthy discussion about the six different course formats that the race committee prepared. This included Enduro with two different course options and mandatory jumping on the reaching legs, a short box course, a windward/leeward course with gates on both ends, and two options for short track racing, one with and one without gates.

Riders and race committee headed out to the course area around 1000 and set the first course option for an 1100 start. It should prove to be a busy day for everybody on the water, riders and especially mark layers who managed to change the many marks on the water in just a couple of minutes.

The enduro courses brought some interesting insight in terms of the slalom part and the jumping part, and some of this experience will definately find its way in the final proposal that the ISAF evaluation panel is putting together to be presented to ISAF at the mid year meeting beginning of May in Stresa, Italy.

The box course also proved to have interesting parts for both tactical upwinds and downwinds and will surely find its way in the final format.

The two gate windward/leeward course looked pretty confusing from a spectator point of view although offered a lot of tactical options.

The last format trialled was the shourt track course with two gates and a reaching start which proved to be really spectacular and also very tactical because of the many options do go down and up. This course would be run in heats in a straight knock out elimination series, which would be a completely new thing in the sailing world.

All riders came together then in the evening with the evaluation panel to give their feedback on the various course options and to fine tune them.

There is another two days of trials coming up now to develop a complete competition format with the best of everything, before the evaluation panel will prepare their report to the events committee which then will make a recommendation to council.


ISAF Kiteboarding Trials Day 4
Sunday, 25 March 2012 00:20

Day four here in Santander looked like a lay day which gave the ISAF evaluation panel for the kiteboarding format trials the opportunity to present their first conclusions to the 18 sailors from 10 nations and 4 continents.

An equipment presentation then took place in the boat park for the ISAF equipment committee before the evaluation panel hit the meeting rooms for further discussions and finetuning of course options.

Around 1400 a 6-7 knot seabreeze filled in which allowed the kiters to head out to the course area and race the multihulls and skiffs. They took also the opportunity to have a chat on the water with ISAF resident Goran Petersson and VP Teresa Lara and explain equipment and tactics on the water.

2011 slalom world champion Damien Leroy and 2011 course racing world champion Johnny Heineken spent over an hour to explain our sport to Goran and Teresa.

Today was also a showcase of high performance - the skiff and multihull evaluation panel confirmed wind readings of 6-8 knots max and the kiteboards hit the courses of the other boats with more than 25 knots boatspeed and amazing upwind angles. Definately everybody here in Santander is talking about this low cost high performance craft now.

After racing the other boats for another hour the kiteboards headed back to the CEAR where discussions about the proposed kiteboarding format for the sailing world cup and the Olympic Games continued.

Tomorrow will conclude the ISAF kiteboarding trials with the simulation of all course options for a full event setup. This will be a box course for the opening series, a box slalom course for the final series, and a short track course with a reaching start for the medal rece series.

The ISAF evaluation panel will then prepare their report to the midyear meeting in Stresa, Italy, beginning of May 2012.

[Toby]

[ronnie]

Maximum of 8 knots of wind and over 25 knots of boardspeed????????

What board and kite was that?

[Toby]

ISAF Kiteboarding Trials Day 5
Monday, 26 March 2012 12:10

The 2012 ISAF Kiteboarding format trials wrapped up yesterday with an extensive discussion about the future strategy to get kiteboarding into the Olympic Games. It became quite obvious during this week that the report of the ISAF evaluation panel will be a very positive one and that everybody would love to see kiteboarding in the Olympics as soon as possible, but with currently only two medals available for windsurfing AND kiteboarding this still proves to be a difficult one. In the end it now comes down to politics, and surely the best way out of this for everybody is to get two more medals from the International Olympic Committee

Around 1500 everybody packed up the equipment then and started to head back home, where the discussions with the ISAF Member National Associations will begin, now that Kiteboarding has proven that there are no race management nor event organization implications and that kiteboarding offers new and exciting racing formats. It also became clear that kiteboards are by far the most performant sailing vessel on the water which adds a lot to the excitement for spectators and media.

The event format that came out of this will be a combination of two different fleet racing formats based on a windward/leeward course but with an added slalom part that tests not only the tactical skills of the sailors but also the equipment handling skills. The big new thing then is the medal race series which will be a straight knock out format on the new short track course with a reaching start, which is comparable to the Americas Cup Series format and by far the most exciting thing that we all here in Santander have seen for a long long time: fast and furious reaching starts, incredible tactical opportunities on the upwind and downwind legs with gates, that allow for a variety of passing opportunities and position changes, and a reaching finish that nicely lines up the fleet before the finish and gives the spectators and the media the opportunity for the money shot.

ISAF will now prepare a report to the mid year meeting when we will find out how the issue about the windsurfing and/or kiteboarding can be solved.

[Toby]

The big new thing then is the medal race series which will be a straight knock out format on the new short track course with a reaching start, which is comparable to the Americas Cup Series format and by far the most exciting thing that we all here in Santander have seen for a long long time

can anyone explain in more detail how this works??? Maybe with a drawing???

[davesails7]

Maximum of 8 knots of wind and over 25 knots of boardspeed????????

What board and kite was that?

Seems crazy right! I don't think this is out of the ordinary though. In about 10 knots of wind with my Dyno 18m and 2011 Cabrinha Race 183 (stock fins, only ~25cm) I've had prolonged periods of 24 knots according to GPS. I'm a complete novice raceboard rider. Pros with big custom fins would be much faster.