Now I am a long way off being comfortable to race on my new set up.
I was out today on my 10 Edge and Temavento RC70
Wind was 15-18 knots.
My vmax was 29 knots and I can tell you, I felt like the world was going past me waaaaay too fast. I have been over 40 knots on my TT at a local speed spot but, this was over chop and felt like all I was waiting for was an explosion, which did happen on nearly every long tack.
I am getting good upwind angle ( I think ) 40 degrees, and maintaining 15 knots max, off the wind I am exploding, just totally out of control though I know that will come with more experience.
What kind of speeds are people doing upwind and downwind?
There was a video where Johnny Heineken was saying the top guys are riding about 15 knots upwind (28 kmh) and 28 knots (52 kmh) downwind I think. He said downwind speed is the same no matter what the windspeed but the higher the wind, the lower they can head downwind.
As stated earlier as a quote by Johnny Heineken that boards are going around 28 knots downwind, he is probably referring to max downwind angles on the course. To achieve higher speeds on your courseboard in the mid 30's, you would need to go slightly higher than this angle and have good wind. Of course it all depends on wind strength and water conditions especially play a major role. Leucate starts this weekend for the speed trials and you will probably see slalom and small course boards hit over 40 knots on the course. In testing, they have hit mid 40's which was unthinkable even last year until the speed trials in Marthas Vineyard. Rob Douglas and Damien Leroy both did times over 42 on the 250M course when I was in Marthas Vineyard for the Lynch Cup speed trials in October while riding small courseboards. It was previously thought that these boards would only get to 35 knots.
alex a wrote:As stated earlier as a quote by Johnny Heineken that boards are going around 28 knots downwind, he is probably referring to max downwind angles on the course. To achieve higher speeds on your courseboard in the mid 30's, you would need to go slightly higher than this angle and have good wind. Of course it all depends on wind strength and water conditions especially play a major role. Leucate starts this weekend for the speed trials and you will probably see slalom and small course boards hit over 40 knots on the course. In testing, they have hit mid 40's which was unthinkable even last year until the speed trials in Marthas Vineyard. Rob Douglas and Damien Leroy both did times over 42 on the 250M course when I was in Marthas Vineyard for the Lynch Cup speed trials in October while riding small courseboards. It was previously thought that these boards would only get to 35 knots.
I personally think that to get the overall record back, we need to be looking at small 3 finned boards as riding flat is FAR more efficient than trying to edge against a 9m kite in 40 knots of wind.
I don't think it will be long until we see 50 knots on small course type boards.