When it took an acre of monofilm to plane on a lightwind day. I came across some links clearing things out. Most are dead now but peterman.dk is still up (he foils now) and has some good historical info. The heyday was in the early aughts (04-09) Big boards, big fins (70cm) and big sails (up to 12.5m2. Masts were fragile and fins and boards seem to go obsolete in a year or two.
http://www.peterman.dk/windsurf-formula-boards01-startgb.htm
For some context, we were foiling 6.7s and 5.4s in conditions like this yesterday. The wide board revolution which started in the late 90s helped keep windsurfing alive in lighter airs until hydrofoils totally upended things starting around 2016-17. On the race course, within a couple of years, foils had made traditional formula gear obsolete. Formula is still fun to ride if you have the gear but foils are easier on the wallet and your back. Those big sails could be a bear to get out of the water.
He's got an interesting site, didn't see that before, with all the formula gear info.
When I started out near Seattle (2014), I didn't realize how light wind it was there. The more I learned (and I could just go upwind/downwind with a bic nova 160 w/ daggerboard), the more I realized I'd need some big gear to get planing. I then stopped, moved, and picked it up again in 2020 not having ever really planed. An 8.0 sounded scary large and a 9.5 very intimidating
. Took me a while to pull the trigger on the 9.5 cheetah and finally got a beach start my first time and I realized it wasn't so bad...
Lots of respect for people that used the formula gear. I notice the boards have a lot less width in the back than the IQFoil 95cm wide. I ran that with the 68cm drake and got it planing twice. In light wind (12kts or so), it felt fine, lots of upwind/downwind ability, could swear I felt the fin flex. But 15+ knots and I understand the utility of chicken straps! I didn't have them in though.
Easy to get beat up in those conditions with the huge sails. But I'm guessing it is just something you get used to. The other thing is that the big cammed sails move so much more slowly through the air than the little light freestyle things, so more time possibly to correct a mistake...
Very likely you could feel the fin flex - by design. The reason Kashy fins became so popular is that he figured out how to make the tips flexy without them snapping off. They were the go to 15 years ago. Retail on them was like $700-800 (he was hand sanding them, a laborious process) but the wait time was like years. If you wanted to jump the queue, it was a 4 figure purchase. Next regatta, spend some time with Ron Kern who was a beast in Formula and ask him for stories.
I still really like my "Potato Chip" (Techno Formula) and my 11.0 Retro. My second favorite board behind my Phoenix 320. I've had many happy hours of planning here in Atlanta, including odd places like Sweetwater Creek State Park (descriptions here and here) and Webster's Ferry at Allatoona (descriptions here and here). It's really stable to stand on and takes a giant step when jibing.
The 11.0 Retro is easy to uphaul and waterstart and has a great range. I can comfortably sail in 20 mph. It's had some durability issues and doesn't go upwind very well (operator error?). It was not a very good choice for the Fall Classic. Hopefully I can start using it again some time.
Bill H.
Bill Herderich
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