Sailfest......

Originally posted by GarethT

Originally posted by GarethT

Going way off topic now, but why is pumping bad? 
Is roll tacking bad too? 

Pumping is bad because it raises the level of athleticism required to compete at the very top level. Then again that must also be the same for dinghies.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with roll tacking I guess as long as it isn't done in excess.

I bear a certain responsibility for pumping in windsurfing, back in the day my naivety caused a bit of an issue when Eric Twiname published an article I'd written about the need to learn how to do it properly, given the problems we as the British Team faced when travelling overseas.

Much later, when we were building the Mistral Class and we had a sponsor (Carlsberg) who insisted that the racing start at 12 noon come what may on the Saturday, and that the event were visible (Quite logical if you think about it, why would they want to sponsor something taking place miles out to sea that nobody could see), so if you want to race in nothing then pumping is pretty much your only option and back then we were a bit of an Elite class.(And young). So we waived the rules.

Do I regret that now with hind site? Not really, everyone comes to the end of an athletic career and I hung on longer than most and the fact still remains it is impossible to police, even if you banned it, had referees, those of us that know the subtleties would still reign supreme, something that does go on in the Kona class I'm sure since it's being won by the same pumping French b**tards we came up against in the Europeans in 1978.   

I think with dinghies it is much easier to police, (just by watching the mast rocking about) and they had/have a greater culture of self policing than we, protests rarely occurred in Windsurfing in the post fun board era.

But to use it as an excuse to not pursue the sport is as I said just a bit disingenuous and I think in these days of falling club numbers, we're all missing a trick not encouraging sailboards on the start line. I also know as a fact now rather than conjecture that what you learn racing a longboard does carry over into dinghies and vice versa, with the exception of maybe the lee bow effect which we still firmly believe in.   

Edited by iGRF - 28 Aug 14 at 1:18pm