New Olympic events.

Originally posted by Sam.Spoons It seems to me that the guys arguing against pumping back in the day were ex dinghy sailors like me. The guys who came into windsurfing without any dinghy background were pretty much all pro pumping. I suspect most of those would have given up racing sooner had pumping remained outlawed. I'm also one who dosen't agree with pumping to the extent the Finns do it, what the RRS historically allows (in simple terms, a single pump to promote surfing on a given wave) seems about right to me.

That's about the gist of iit, but back then you were permitted three pumps per wave which you do need if it is genuinely pump induced wave surfing. Finns don't do that, they employ the same sort of 'rhythm' pumping we use when there are no waves, if you watch Ainslie, who's about the best I've seen at rhythm pumping boats, he isn't trying to catch surf, well not in any of the footage i've watched, which tbh isn't much more than the 2012 Weymouth event.

Edited by iGRF - 10 Nov 18 at 6:38pm

Originally posted by Chris 249 As late as the mid '80s guys like Naish, Cabrinha etc wouldn't pump in light winds

I learned how to perfect the technique from Rob as he pumped his way from behind and right through me upwind in Greece in '79 and that was a windsurfer rig, the Tencate model, slightly stiffer mast than the US models, I have no idea what the Windsurfer rig you use down under is like, I tried to import them some time back but they were still one piece which made transport difficult.

The Imco rig was built around the period when Flextop masts were in vogue, which made it a great 'pumper' but it also afforded excellent adjustability so you could downhaul the balls off it in strong winds then balloon it out on the offwind legs if you had a decent adjustable downhaul /outhaul system which most Imco Racers did. All in all the Imco set up was an excellent race combination it's only downside was low volume tail which didn't help heavy weights in light to marginal winds and so the optimum rider weight came out around 67 kgs and 6ft+ Right up to the end, 20 mph plus wind it would beat most Raceboards I bet even today you could give current raceboards a hard time with it if windy enough.

However the feeling was it didn't do anything for the sport and so a group of us decided to get a shorter wider high volume hybrid developed and gave a back of a beer mat spec to Bruce Wylie who then came up with the Prodigy, the rest of the tale I've told before, it was during the period Jacobs was collecting every European windsurfing brand he could. Fanatic, F2 all previous competitiors forced into the same stable as Mistral North. The result was three or four credit lines became one, so dealers were no longer able to rob Peter to pay Paul and so there was a collapse in the retail chains. Along with other political stuff everyone then hated the B&M group, so nobody surprised that the Olympic decision went to NP's RSX after the Hayling trials even though the Prodigy proved the faster board across a broader range of conditions. Most of us were baling anyway so it didn't seem that important, but with hindsite that was the real beginning of the end.

As a side note, Carlsberg sponsored the Europeans which were held in Guernsey during 84 I recall, so other countries were aware of what was going on, not that it mattered if you'd ever raced in Europe you'd soon have realised you'd be nowhere if you didn't know how to pump. Carlsberg also by sponsoring Windsurfing and Mistral made enough money from the hotels, bars and restaurants they opened in the Channel Islands to cover the sponsorship budget for the next five years, all from that one event.

Edited by iGRF - 12 Nov 18 at 12:51am

The thing is, pumping isn’t compulsory, the same as hiking like a ninja isn’t compulsory in dinghies.

For both, the more you train the faster you’ll go.

Of the people bemoaning pumping on raceboards, how much time do you spend in the gym so you can hike your dinghy as hard as the youngsters?

As an aside, my son sailed his £300 raceboard in the club racing yesterday. Everyone seemed very pleased he was out there. 15 knots of breeze, pumped on the downwinds, and rolled all bar the fastest Musto upwind. Interesting to see that he sailed pretty much same angles upwind as the dinghies, where on the rsx he’d have gone lower off the fin, so much more compatible with club racing.

SS, it was still illegal at the time I was talking about. Like you and others, I think it was terrible for windsurfing, and that's coming from someone who does better when pumping.

There were lots of reasons Windsurfing long boards disappeared, it wasn't entirely down to pumping, I could make an argument aggressive hiking is killing dinghy racing, but it isn't killing it any more than pumping killed windsurfing. No pumping can and does get enforced, but like rocking, ooching, pumping, as well as other rule infringements, protests have to come from the fleet.

The reason long board disappeared after the Olympic decision, even before then, was simply there was not enough shelf space and stock turn for the retailers, I fought really hard to keep long boards in stores, but all the other brands supported the UKBSA which tended to attract vertical dinghy style rig supply. I.E. sail and bits suppliers direct to racers then there were far to many 'sponsored' lower tier riders that didn't involve the dealers and it quickly became of no interest to the trade, so ceased to be promoted and left to the cottage end of the business which ended up where we and lots of dinghy classes are today. If you don't have a market structure profiting from the promotion of the activity they just promote something else which they did, short boards. The reason RS succeeds is because it started off as a windsurfing and dinghy retail operation and borrowed all the best bits to build what you see today, the reason Laser didn't was because they tried to play both routes, offering shops only 16% margin in a world of 30% minimum and selling direct themselves.

There were other reasons the closure of small schools by the RYA in the mid nineties post 96 Action lifestyles licensing period, I don't know where 423zero's club was but I'd guess if the shop school closed then the rest quickly followed, here in Kent we had four or five windsurfing schools, they all got closed by the RYA Inspector who just happened to own a bigger operation on the Kent Sussex border.

Earlier, there were constant style changes, Div 2 became Div 1, then Funboard and rather than the class carrying on almost the entire sport would just shift at a stroke, that's the way it was, fashion and image more important than the activity of racing.

Edited by iGRF - 12 Nov 18 at 11:51am