Slalom Sailing

For sailboards it's a valid form of competition, because it is close to what short-board sailors do anyway, and particularly if run with the inshore buoy in the surf, it is a serious test of skill. For dinghies it would be real dumbing-down to a single skill which shouldn't be that hard anyway: gybing. It doesn't sound that exciting to me to watch either, once the novelty wore off. Then again, I'm not a spectator by nature.

Originally posted by fizzicist yeah but gybing in a big swell with lots of wind is also about choosing the wave as well. Plus this isn't about getting one crucial gybe right - it's about nailing ten consecutively in quick succession. That's a different challenge!

Gybing and tacking must be two of the most over-complicated things in the world. You do it so often you don't even think about it, like breathing.

In windsurfing, pre short boards (25 years ago!), there used to be a slalom event as part of the youth nationals. It consisted of 2 lines of 3 marks laid into the wind eg looks like a six on a dice. One board started on port and went up the portside line of bouys and the other started on starboard and went up the startboard line of bouys, tacking round the bouys. The boards would then cross over sides at the top and gybe down the other line of bouys, cross over at the bottom and then repeat the course and finish on a run. This was always the most fun at these events with a large group of supporters on shore cheering on the sailors as the course was set a few meters from shore.

Originally posted by turnturtle Stefan I think the point is that it will instigate capsizes and crashes- which apparently makes sailing interesting to the proles

Yes I had figured that out. But if you watch sailboards doing slalom courses, they don't actually crash into each other very much, for two very good reasons. 1. if this is the kind of racing you do, you practice and get good at it 2. crashing hurts, especially on high-speed slalom courses, so you try pretty hard to avoid it. By the way, I did slalom racing in my windsurfing days, so I've actually had some experience of it. 

As for lots of capsizes; is everyone so bad at gybing then? I suspect if you were going to be shown doing it on the TV (as was the suggestion in the original post), you'd practice first so you didn't capsize.

Edited by Stefan Lloyd

just stick to normal sailing guys we love the sport for what it is not what other people want it to be!1