from Britt at NorthBeach
"Here is one of our local windsurfers who has committed himself to representing our country in the Olympics. We are fortunate to have several sailors who are on the path or are definitely hard core considering it. A tribute to the Clearwater Community Sailing Center Youth Windsurfing program. Noah Lyons is such a talented nice young man. Please consider helping him on his Olympic path." https://www.facebook.com/groups/1042817712457508/posts/7072641972808355/
"Every athlete dreams of being the best in their sport, and the Olympics is where the greats are separated from the best. My goal is not only to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, but to place in the top 10 overall, which would enter me into the final, winner takes all medal race. "
Please pardon my ignorance (uninformed), will the 24 Paris events be windfoiling? What type of equipment will be used?
Thanks for your assistance
Pat (toolman 3336)
Thank you for contacting the Paris 2024 IQFoil Help Desk. It is our pleasure to assist you.
Yes, Paris '24 will be windfoiling - the one design IQFoil. One board (220x95 196 l.), one sail (9.0 for men, 8.0 for women), one foil wing (900cm2), two foil fuselages (1 course race, 1 slalom) plus a fin for super windy days though in practice, I don't think they get much use at all. There are also youth and jr rigs - smaller boards and sails.
Downwind slalom for light wind races, course (up/down) for stronger winds and options for long distance races, too.
One nuance of the gear - sail is by Severne. Board designed by Starboard but built by Cobra. Starboard had first dibs on it but, now, other brands can put their label on one subject to license fees. Have seen boards labeled by FMX and one other brand I don't recall at the moment
Starboard IQFoil site: https://iqfoil.star-board.com
IQFoil class: https://www.iqfoilclassofficial.org
Medal race at last year's world championship - reaching start, downwind, upwind, downwind and reach to finish. Five minutes of suspense and thrills. It would be difficult to imagine this in most other sailing classes.
Wow. Full on race sails.
Having tried the Maui Sail 9.2 TR-8 I got from William for the first (and likely last) time this weekend, I observed the following:
1. You don't want to drop this sail, ever. Unless you're the Hulk, it's going to take a while to drain the gallons of water out of the luff sleeve, before you get the head of the sail more than a foot above water.
2. The boom is over my head (I'm 5'6") when standing on the board, even at its lowest position. This also means my easy up haul won't work (see item 1).
3. Once you rake the sail back and are in the straps the boom height still seems a little high but I can hook in. Maybe longer harness lines would help.
4.You REALLY need to pay attention to the rigging instructions. It matters which order you pop the cams on the mast. With practice it might not be too bad.
5. It does feel rock solid and fast once you get going.
6. Definitely not a fun sail for mere mortals.
Bill Herderich
From me? Did I forget this? Anyway, surprised the boom is so high. I have a MS Titan 9.0 of about the same vintage that I got from Ed and used on a raceboard that doesn't have this issue. Strange.
Rigging modern cammed race sails seems to involve a magic combination of outhaul and downhaul. For my Severne, downhaul about 12 cm short of the final and outhaul to about 2-3 cm of final. Any tighter on each and there's too much tension in the luff sleeve. Any less and I can't push enough on the battens for the cams to pop on. Get the settings right and they pop on in 30 seconds.
Keeping the water out is key to uphauling - easier said than done, of course. Once forgot to zip the cam zips and the sail flooded beyond my ability to uphaul it.
I love my Severne HGO 8.0 despite 4 cams, big luff sleeve. And, I fully understand that almost everyone else here would absolutely hate it. I'm sure, for example, Barrett and Langdon would as soon eat ground glass than deal with it. But, for range, speed and angles, there's nothing like them.
You can probably find a buyer for your TR in Florida pretty easily. There's a no cam Aerotech on Craigslist for relatively cheap - almost brand new with 100% carbon mast. I like the Titan for longboarding as it has a less floppy leech and reasonable batten count.
Noah 26th overall after the first day of racing (all slalom) at the IQFoil Europeans in Lake Garda. Hoping he continue to perform well. That's an amazingly competitive fleet when you consider the depths of some of the national squads like France, UK, Netherlands, etc.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/windsportatlanta/posts/7437019219673385/
Videos:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1042817712457508/posts/7316734145065802/
blog update after winning both Miami and Clearwater OCR races
https://noahlyons.org/blog-2/new-year-similar-me
Langdon