Slalom Sailing

I used to be a fairly good slalom canoeist and there was a lot of debate maybe 15 years ago about making that more television friendly. They even changed the rules to make the sport less technical. It never managed to break through to large TV audiences and unless you canoed I suspect you couldn't really follow what was going on. Also they only televised the top people so relatively few spills to excite the punters.

Introducing slalom to sailing for the TV cameras could have the same sort of effect - not much greater TV audiences, only sailors understanding what's going on and only filming the top sailors so minimal incidents.

Although the idea is still in its infancy, the plan for the 300's was to have two slalom courses side by side and drag race each other down them.

If that isn't enough to provide good spectating, then we'll have to share the centre gybe mark between the two boats as well!

Either way, it'll be interesting to see the reaction!

 

Happy Christmas one and all anyway - I'm off up to my folks for the annual kidney wrecking race!

But they don't have a competition to see who can breath fastest..........

Done downwind slalom in Lasers - if the marks line up straight (or near straight) you can run by the lee so far that you don't have to gybe  . If the marks are offset but 'close' overtaking is very difficult.

It's such a different game that it would be best to introduce new rules. So do away with 'water' rules, touching marks and other boats would be ok,  - more or less anything goes  - That's great fun when done as a lighthearted 'game' where participants understand that avoiding damage is important. As a serious competition it would be interesting to watch - but not in my boat!

I've done lots of it in windsurfers, with various sorts of boards and various sorts of courses.

The best in many ways was the old pro World Cup style of downwind slalom in surf. One lines of marks was laid in the impact zone, the other near the beach in just enough water for the fins. You'd zig-zag down the beach on a reach, dodging or jumping waves and sometimes have to gybe the slalom board right on the curling wave or lose time. We had one event in Sydney in mast-high waves that Robby Naish (world's greatest ever sailor?) reckoned was the best he'd ever had.

It's great fun, and so is flat-water slalom on dinghies or longboards (flatwater slalom on shortboards seems a bit tame from memory). The original Windsurfer longboard class still survives here and we have slalom events at our titles. You do a W course on the first lap and a P course on the second. Six or 8 competitors per heat. Each heat takes about 3-5 minutes IIRC.

(EDIT Actually I've blown slalom in the last two nationals by getting the course wrong in the heat of the moment so I may be wrong about it being a W followed by P )

Should be more of it. We had an Open on Windsurfers a fortnight ago with the first slalom we've done in ages. Apparently people (dinghy racers and passers-by) were lining up to watch it, because it's fast and easy to watch and you're within 100 m of the shore. Would be great on dinghies.


Edited by Chris 249