Bill,

I am not a racer, but I've been sailing longboards and formula boards for a while, so I'll take a crack at it, untill someone who really knows comes along.

1. I think normally when sailing upwind with a longboard the dagger will be down and if there is enough wind you will be railing it. Longboard have pretty small fins so sailing upwind shortboard style (CB up) is not a very quick way to get upwind. I can only see that happening with a lot of wind (if ever) and Peter Hart's longboard racing video never mentions the subject. Otherwise, the cb would be down (though not necessarily all the way down when the wind gets strong.) Depending on your longboard, you can make some pretty fast speeds upwind with the cb down in railing mode, almost as fast as planing.

2. As for formula boards, I don't think raising the rail out of the water is really what they are trying to do. Certainly, you would not raise the windward rail anything like you would with a longboard. I had a video about formula racing ("Winning Formula") which talked about the best technique and railing a formula board is never mentioned. I suspect what you've seen in the pictures reflects the fact that those big fins produce a lot of lift, and there is a tendancy for them to want to push the windward side up a bit.

3. Don't know. Aerotech used to make a sail specific to longboard racing (Dagger VMG, I think) but not sure if they still do. I'm guessing a no-cam would not be the way to go for serious racing, but others probably know better than me.

If you are interested let me know, and you can borrow my videos.

I'm sure you'd always get upwind faster with the centerboard down. When it gets windy I usually slightly retract the c'board (the tip might move aft ~2 in.) to keep the board from railing up too hard. A little bit of railing is good as it loads up the c'board and helps the board swim upwind better. In planing conditions, mast track back/ board fully retracted I can't really make very good progress upwind on a 51 cm pointer fin.

I'm not sure about the best technique on Formula boards, but I think what you describe is right-- by pulling up and to weather with your front foot, you load up the fin and get it working (same as on a slalom board).

I don't know that much about the new sails. I've got an '05 Aerotech VMG 7.5 and I guess it's designed for formula style or just wide boards, but it seems to work great on my Equipe. It's very powerful for its size, and stays very stable when OP'd. I have been fine with it in 5.5 conditions. The giant luff sleeve is not everybody's cup of tea but if if you don't drop it, no problemo. They used to make a "VMG Dagger" . Somebody told me that Steve Gottlieb said they could do a limited run of them if there was enough interest.

my $.02.
1. C/B down. You have to be super-powered up to go faster up wind with just the fin. A big longboard fin is only 44-46 cm while an F Board fin is 70 cm. You lose a lot of "lift" underwater by not using the C/B. As well, using the C/B lets you rail the board, use the whole shape as a lifting device which makes it go upwind like an old-style America's Cup yacht. You can go upwind with only a fin, of course. But with the C/B down, you find you are trying to keep the board from heading straight up when it's blowing - thus, Chris's rec to pull it up a bit.

2. Yes, rail the F board. It has really hard rails for just this purpose (as did course-slalom boards of the 90's. Made them go upwind well but were a b1tch to jibe for the intermediate). More recreational boards soften the rail so they turn better but don't scoot upwind quite as much. Again, Chris nails it with the tip about the forward foot pulling while the back foot pushes (and on an F Board, pushes hard),

3. Oddly enough, for the most part, no. Most modern sails have leeches meant to open in a breeze - twist - and are pretty flat up top unless it's a longboard specific design like the Dagger. This is what gives modern sails their range at the expense of low end. So how do they compensate? Using larger sizes. A large flat sail will have a wider range then a smaller full sail. A 7.5 used to be a huge sail. Not any more. Some rec sails, though, are quite powerful, Retros, freestyle and low-wind surf sails. A 7.5 race sail, otoh, won't be. It's designed to be used when us mortals are on 5.0s or smaller.

This isn't to say you can't use your 7.5 but when you get spanked in 5mph of wind by someone with a 15 yr old IMCO rig, don't feel bad - your sail really isn't crap.

I believe it was Tinho that told me to rail boards with big fins. He said if you point your toes slightly you will raise the windward rail, take advantage of the leeward rail and you will change the fin angle to provide a slight lifting force from the fin. The lifting force of the fin helps reduce the wetted surface and causes earlier planing. I am not an expert and don't even race but this was told to me by someone who should know.

Alan

RE: Sails

A local old time longboard racing legend asked me to check on an Aerotech/Exocet Pacer sail as a modern sail for his longboard. They were discussed on Aerotech’s Forum and a picture is on Exocet’s webpage.

http://www.aerotechsails.com/forum/showthread.php?t=916

http://www.exocet-original.com/products/pacer.asp

Another picture, way down on the thread (post 20) - http://www.exocet-original.com/forum/read.asp?ID=1211

When I checked about a month ago, the Pacer sails were available. The Pacer X-380 board will not be available until 2007.

BUT, according to the their web page, the Pacer sail only comes in 7.0,8.5,9.5 sizes. If anyone is interested, I could double check on the sizes, availability and prices.

Also, just a reminder, it’s CLOSE OUT time, and there are deals to be had.

Gene
WindSense Windsurfing
770-967-0104/404-735-4944

I believe it was Tinho that told me to rail boards with big fins. He said if you point your toes slightly you will raise the windward rail, take advantage of the leeward rail and you will change the fin angle to provide a slight lifting force from the fin. The lifting force of the fin helps reduce the wetted surface and causes earlier planing. I am not an expert and don't even race but this was told to me by someone who should know.

Alan

Alan, Tinho is a lot faster than I am but I'm not convinced about the "lift" bit. It does reduce wetted surface but you have to balance that with any drag you introduce by having an irregular plan shape in the water (it's no longer symmetric.)

I'm not an engineer but playing a bit with an online vector calculator, even putting a 100 lbs of horizontal force on the fin (and remember tha we are pushing at an angle to being with) at 5 degrees of heel only generates about 10 lbs of lift. Assuming it's about a 45 degree angle from your harness to your feet, you'd have to push at about 150 lbs to generate that 100 lbs of horizontal force and 10 lbs of lift. Formula fins to create a heck of a lot of lift but I can't see that it translates into significant vertical force. (Yes, my things have burned after a long overpowered ride).

http://id.mind.net/~zona/mstm/physics/mechanics/vectors/components/vectorComponents.html

Maybe the engineers here can persuade me otherwise. Randy? Bill?

I did find this interesting blurb on the Starboard website re: one of their F boards:

Full rail design
With fuller rails and a vertical section of the rail that extends higher, the use of the rail when biting upwind is maximised. Towards the tail, these fuller rails also provide an extremely high degree of comfort for the feet - unanimously approved by all top team-riders. Towards the nose, the start of the chamfers have been edged forward so as to provide an improved upwind bite, yet on the downwind tack, the chamfers continue to add comfort and control against sharp chop.

It may not have been Tinho, it may have been from Windsurf Mag. Not sure. I have fought with the big fin issue for a long time and still don't understand it. I just don't understand how it relates to early planing. I do understand how it gets you upwind but the planing thing just doesn't add up to me. Now I sail with a twin fin board. I don't see a significant reduction in planing ability, I go upwind just as fast and the added control caused by reduced leverage makes me faster because I can stay powered. Wardog from Surfing Sports seems to have a pretty good grasp of it all but he loses me pretty fast. I do know I am ready for some wind.

Alan

I just don't understand how it relates to early planing. I do understand how it gets you upwind but the planing thing just doesn't add up to me.
Alan

Early planing is a lot like going upwind, ie the apparent wind is way forward.

When the apparent wind is that far forward, the sideways force on the sail is relatively large vs. the forward force. Compound that with at 12-14 mph, the flow of water over the finis pretty slow. To take an analogy from the aeronautical world, when you need a lot of lift at low speed, you need a bigger wing (you could also use a more cambered wing but we really don't want a fat fin in the water when we are trying to go 25 as the wind comes up).

If you don't get that lift from the fin, the board goes sideways, not forward - or at least, not forward fast enough to plane. As well, it may go sideways enough to stall, the dreaded slow speed spin out when you hit a lull and keep the pressure on the fin (a different dynamic than high speed spin out). The fin stalls, basically, like an airplane going too slowly.

This is also why slalom boards can go well upwind with small fins when it's blowing so much harder. When they are going 25 mph, the force of the fin is roughly 4 times as much (Bill, correct me if I'm wrong here) than at 12 mph - the speed of an F board that's barely planing.

Twinzers can go upwind well, but never (never, say never, I know....) as well as a long fin - the same reason biplanes fly well but you never see a bi-wing sailplane. Sailplanes need to maximize lift vs. drag and use long hi-aspect wings which remind you a lot of those long formula fins. Thus, a twinzer is fine for rec applications or sailing at Hatteras but you don't see them on the race course - at least at the front of the fleet.

9.5 Pacer sails are available, call for prices.

Gene
770-967-0104/404-735-4944

I am not sure where I stand on the twinzer fin thing. I own two of them and like them because they are forgiving and easy to sail. A technically sound sailor would be able to get the most out of a performance board but for the intermediate sailors we are forced to be around here, the easy sailing board can be faster.

In the early 1990s we all went high performance and wanted to sail the same stuff Robby sailed. What we got was a bunch of straight railed performance boards that I couldn't make work. I was slow on the high performance stuff. Now my gear is tuned down to where I can sail it. I am faster, I make almost every jibe and I can sail longer.

So in my opinion when you start talking about what is faster you have to match the equipment with the skill level. If you want some high performance stuff like Robby sails I still may have a board laying around. It will fly if you are Robby. For me I will likely never sail it again. I will stay on my slow stuff, going what I consider fast.

I like the sailplane comparison. When I flew sailplanes and hangliders I flew the equivalant of what I sail now. Believe it or not, my first hanglider was an EasyRiser, a biplane. It was easy to fly and I could stay up all day on that thing. It wasn't fast though and lacked penetration. It was sure fun though. It had a good minimum sink but a bad L/D. Oh well, enough of that.

Alan

Pretty amazing the sailplane, hanglider connection to windsurfing. If I'm right, Bill H, me, Barrett, Alan, Fred Dey and I think (correct me if I'm wrong) have all flown gliders (hanging or otherwise) at some point in our careers. And there may be others.

I don't really buy the idea that railing the formula board produces much upward lift. (This is sort of a variant on the old theory that leaning a sail to windward produces upward lift.) If (and I'm still not that sure of it) railing helps a f-board go upwind quicker, its just from digging the rail in and from a little reduction in wetted area. (I'll have to watch my Winning Formula vid again. I will say that I think I usual do rail the board a little, but it did that w/o much effort from me.)

Pretty amazing the sailplane, hanglider connection to windsurfing. If I'm right, Bill H, me, Barrett, Alan, Fred Dey and I think (correct me if I'm wrong) have all flown gliders (hanging or otherwise) at some point in our careers. And there may be others.

There are others - I'd go through the list but I'm sure I'd leave someone out. That's not even counting the pilots. Blake Richards (Northwave) and Bill Hansen (formerly WindWing, two of the best West Coast sail designers either flew or designed hang gliders.

I too have been known to take a flying leap... actually quite a few.

Last year was a real blast. I still wonder why this kind of racing died? Wasn't there over a hundred sailors there at one time?

There were 100 sailors at the Fall Classic in '96. Tudor Watch and Mistral sponsored several seasons of racing back then and it was huge fun. They had a series scoring system and you had to sail at least 6 events to be in the running for some really good prizes, Tudor (Rolex) watches, airline tickets, boards, sails etc. Grand Salm events in the series gave you double points and your score was improved in larger fleets. Atlanta was one of the GS stops that year so that made for the big turnout. It was pretty cool. Mistral brought their charter truck so people could just drive or fly in, rent a board for the weekend and race. They also brought lots of flags, a sound system, etc to make it more of 'an event'. The door prizes included men's & women's Tudor Watches ($800 value).

Probably the highpoint of that era for me & Ginny was sailing in the Mistral Worlds in San Francisco in 1992. The very cool and professional St. Francis Yacht Club hosted the week-long event. For $200 we got an IMCO and an Energy slalom board with four sails, a lot of cool clothes, plus events all week to go to, eat, carouse and hang with the big dogs. Robbie Naish even winged in for a few days to meet and greet the little people. The sailing was intense at first... 200 boards on the starting line, 7 knot current, 25 kt wind, great whites, boats everywhere (and I mean bigguns). In one race on the Energy fully powered on a 5.2, I had to cross behind a guided missle frigate. I remember launching off his ~6 ft wake and looking down into the trough from maybe 15 ft... yikes. The long distance race was twice around a ten mile triangle; Crissy Field across in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge to Berkeley, down almost to Alcatraz and back up the city front. Pretty cool scenery.

I think two things led to the decline of that kind of racing. They dropped the sponsorship of the series, so it was less compelling to go to lots of races, (plus there was a kind of feeling that "it's not like it used to be"). Second, the fleets got more and more fragmented. Some people wanted to race longboards, Formula came on strong. There was Sport Fleet and Open, and there were still a lot of IMCO racers that only wanted to do that. Age brackets and Men's & Womens divisions were always part of the mix too. It was iffy going to a regatta and counting on racing in a Sport-Formula-Women's-Grand Masters division. As an organizer, it's frustrating... how many trophies do we need?, how many meals?, etc, etc. I think it would be fun to have a regatta with "no class" at all... Sail what you got and let's see what happens. Three trophies, maybe some winner-take-all prize money.

What seems to make the most sense for Lake Lanier is a one-design format. The defacto 'one-design' for here that works best is a Longboard with a 7.5 limit. Open unlimited is usually a longboard and something around a 9.5. But we invite Formula, Hybrid, RSX or anything else, (5+ entries needed to form a trophy group). If, for example, there are just a couple of Formula or hybrid entries they could race Open Unltd.

Even though the regatta numbers are down it's still big fun. You will always find somebody sailing at your level, so you never feel totally out of it on the water. And once you see the better sailors who've done it for a while, you really appreciate the challenge. Also, the racing is just a part of a regatta road trip. The venues are always at least 'interesting' and often really nice with a lot of funsters there for a good time. It is sort of a moving party that reconvenes in a new spot.

cv

The talk about wether to rail a Formula board or not is all good, but what is missing is WHEN. Same with longboards and using or not using the c/b. This depends on wind!! If you are going up wind and sub-planing or "just" planing you need to keep the Formula board flat. Railing at this point will only cause more drag, more wetted surface. Now with that said, once you can fully plane and move the track back, or get into the footstraps, then slightly railing the board to the leward side will produce more lift off the fin and help to point higher on the wind. The other part of this complex arrangement is the Sail placement, the way you are holding it. If you are planing, feet back in the straps, the sail will be raked back. You will be holding the boom further back and the leading edge of the sail will be changed which assists in lift also.

I have been in reaces where we did pull the mast all the way back going up wind and had the c/b raked back past halfway, but that is very rare. The wind was blowing 20 - 25 with higher gusts.

The key is to get out on your board whenever possible. Sail it in no wind, light wind, heavy wind. Try different things. Sail with a partner on the same equipment. Ask alot of questions. Fall alot! The more time you spend on the board sailing will become instinct. That is foot placement, railing, c/b up or down, where to have your hands on the boom, etc.. When that happens you can spend your energy thinking about the conditions, and where you want to be on the race course.

I have beaten lots of people better and faster than me by not having to think about the mechanics of sailing. But remember it is really about having fun!! Dont lose that

K

Speaking of course racing, I can't seem to find the N.O.R info for the fall classic. Just wondering the fee for this years event? The whole fin thing is pretty interesting. I learned alot at last years event. I left my centerboard down on a reach leg of the course on that sat. Next thing I know it looks like I am trying to do an old school rail ride trick. Only I don't know how to do it. Face meet sail and water! Can't wait to learn something new this year. I'm ready, got my marine tex!

mmmmmm, I love the smell of Marine tex in the morning

Speaking of course racing, I can't seem to find the N.O.R info for the fall classic. Just wondering the fee for this years event? The whole fin thing is pretty interesting. I learned alot at last years event. I left my centerboard down on a reach leg of the course on that sat. Next thing I know it looks like I am trying to do an old school rail ride trick. Only I don't know how to do it. Face meet sail and water! Can't wait to learn something new this year. I'm ready, got my marine tex!

email Chris. I'm sure there is a fee because it covers food, drink, snacks, etc.

I will have the invite out in about a week. Also stay tuned to this channel for a downloadable copy. I am glad you're gonna make it Colin. Bring some of them other Shell Point weasels. Dan & I are planning to go to the Endless Simmer in October. I hope some of the Atlanta people that haven't been will make it too. If there was ever a regatta with the emphasis on a good time, this is the one. (Kelvin, Mimi, Shreddin' Betty, LeeO'C, Windlord??) See you there.

cv 404-386-8505

I have been there, once. The weeds were so thick i had to sail backwards every 100 ft!!! Then the wind came and we all sat and watched

When in Oct???