Foil racing is all go for the 2018 PWA calendar and after a successful start to the season in Yokosuka, Japan it was clear the new racing discipline has a bright future ahead. Old dogs are having to learn new tricks, so we quizzed the pros about their foil racing setups and technique and hear from the PWA race director on the challenges of setting foiling courses.
JOHN CARTER The PWA race tour kicked off in dramatic style on the windswept beaches of Yokosuka, Japan where the slalom and foil elite would race for the first time on their new equipment for the 2018 season. Slalom was still centre stage on the billing but the momentum for the new foil discipline could not be ignored. New rules were introduced setting the board width limit at 91cm and compulsory wearing of helmets and impact vests for safety purposes. With an upgrade in prize money also from €5000 to €15,000, many racers were taking foiling far more seriously than last season.
With the added advantage that foiling can take place in winds right down to 5-6 knots, most days invariably kicked off with foil racing before the wind kicked in for slalom. The third race of the four completed started in ideal 7-12 knots for the two opening heats, but while the seeding was being calculated for the final the wind cranked in blowing a solid 18-25 knots across the M shaped course. What ensued was a dramatic and thrilling race which showed how foiling can not only fill in the gap in light winds but can also put on a show to match slalom when the wind is much stronger. Many guys were hanging on for their lives down the reaches and several big crashes and close shaves went down, fortunately without any accidents or repercussions.
Personally shooting the racing from the press boat was a whole different thrill and challenge to downwind slalom. First of all, as many racers will mention, it is that weird silence as a foiler passes you by that is kind of eerie! With only the fuselage of the foil slicing through the water, especially in light winds, the racers pass you hovering above the water with a grace and serenity that is quite surreal. The start line is obviously one of the most intense parts of the race as the rider’s bunch up ready for the green flag on the countdown. Then the racers are off heading upwind tactically looking for wind shifts and lay lines utilizing their course racing and Formula skills from days gone by. When the wind cranks in, it was a whole different story with looks on faces turning from smiles to ashen looks of worry and complete concentration. At the marks guys were yelling and screaming to avoid collisions and luckily after four races the whole fleet came out unscathed.
The tech side of foiling has endless appeal to those racers that love fiddling with gimmicks and like tweaking and developing. Throughout the week guys were in their tents, sanding, gluing, measuring and tinkering with wings, angles and any adjustments they could muster. At the end of the week, ex Formula racer Gonzalo Costa Hoevel emerged as the clear winner and he is obviously buzzing on the new discipline, as are many of the other racers who have dedicated time over the winter into foil training.
For the race crew it was a tough act juggling between foil and slalom as there has to be time for switching disciplines when the wind picks up and with only a few days with a decent forecast there was a risk of losing slalom results as a result of starting a foil round. In the end a round of slalom for men and women was completed alongside four foil races which were mostly in the lighter winds.
Right now slalom still holds the fort with the majority of the event organizers, but foil is already making a huge impact and don’t be surprised if next season some events will be demanding foil only races if the PWA allow.
GONZALO COSTA HOEVEL
Right now I am using the standard race foil from Starboard. It is the same as last year with the long fuselage 115cm and then a front wing of 800cm2 and a tail wing of 250cm2. That is our standard race foil and with this foil you can race in light winds with very good angles upwind and downwind. At the same time it is a very easy foil to gybe because it keeps your glide momentum and speed even if you slow down so you don’t collapse.
A normal foil uses a smaller fuselage but bigger wings so it is easier to carry in the water and easier to handle. The further forward you have the front wing the more power and lift you get in lighter winds. You can get that with the front wing further forward or with more area on the front wing and keeping it further back. With the wing further back it is a bit easier for the beginner to have a normal windsurfing stance compared to the race foils we have. With the race foil you have to lean forward and control most of the foil with your front leg so it is quite different from the normal windsurfing stance. So with the foils we have developed for beginners you actually use the same stance as normal sailing. When I started foiling it was really difficult to learn. Now you hook in with your regular stance and go. When you do something wrong it just collapses, but you start getting that feeling of how to stay in the air. If you want to start foiling with a race foil you have so much power that even if you do something wrong you will stay up. Then you don’t really get the feeling of how to control the foil.
I use the foil 127 board which is the 91cm wide foil board from Starboard. It is a great all-round board in light and strong winds. For the design we took quite a major decision not to only make a foil board for advanced racers. This is an all-round board that will go in light winds right up to 25 knots. We made a board that is easy to use. There are a lot of boards on the market that are quite specialized for under 15 knots so when it gets windy they are very technical and challenging. Our board is very easy, that is the philosophy, a good race board but also easy for the normal customer. The main thing you can see different to a normal board is that they are super wide in the back. It has quite a straight outline. The back foot gives you a lot of stability and comfort. On a normal board for foiling you always feel your back foot is too far inside and you start twisting your body and get back pain. With the foil race board you stance is similar to when you are slalom racing so it is much more comfortable. The nose is not so important, the main thing is that the tail is wide.
I used the 9.0m Severne HyperGlide but I did not receive my production models yet. That is our foil oriented sail. I have the last prototype of the 9.0m, which is the same as Amado and Matteo were using. My sail is basically the same, they are a little bit softer to pump and easier to handle with a slightly shorter boom than a normal slalom sail. When you are in the air everything feels more agile. The shorter boom gives you more ability to readjust your stance for foil flight. A sail with a longer boom makes it more difficult to tweak your stance. That is why a lot of guys use 7.8m sails or 8.6m. They use smaller sails just because there is a smaller boom. We have a smaller boom with a taller sail. That gave us agility and ease of use. I use the same harness lines and boom height as slalom but many guys go shorter.
I am loving the foil races. Some of the races in Japan were so extreme, I have not had that feeling for a while. It is like sailing on a 5.5m and an 87 litre board but with twenty five guys around you, all crossing and reaching. It was super intense, exciting and full of adrenaline. The format is like Formula because you go upwind, but there is a lot more adrenaline because you are on the edge all the time. Your heart rate must be through the roof. The whole race I am fully pumped up because it takes so much energy and focus. You need to be fully concentrated all the time. Every tiny change in your stance and the way you balance is critical. The gybes in the air are scary but the races are amazing fun!
ANTOINE ALBEAU
This year’s foil races have been way more extreme already. We are more racers with a better level. It reminds me of Formula windsurfing with more speed and acceleration. It is super exciting to race but the race we did when the wind picked up was super intense and could have been dangerous. I was amazed because while you are racing you can talk to the guys behind you without raising your voice. We were so much in control at the marks that you could speak to the guys around you and let them know the lines you were planning to take to avoid collisions. It was really easy to talk to the other racers with no sound from the foils. I think the racers are going to push more, but at the same time they are aware when it can get dangerous. They play safe when they are on the edge.
I am using the new Neil Pryde carbon foil. We have changed it a little bit with a bigger front wing. The fuselage is a bit longer as well. Last year we were the first ones in production, the foil was really good but was missing a lot in the super light wind, so this year we worked on the light wind side. The racing foils are quite different. For experienced racers it is not hard because we adapt easily, but if a newcomer wants to try he will struggle with this foil and will have problems. Especially if they have not foiled before on a surfboard or a SUP. We have been working a lot with Neil Pryde on our recreational foils and the first aluminium foil we made is amazing. It is for beginners with big wings and a big profile. You can try and learn without footstraps. It is so easy! You don’t need a wide board even, they work with all boards.
We tried to make a sail design for the foil with Robert and Arnon in Maui. We did not find any big difference or advantage. That is why we are going to just produce a big size foil sail, not a full range. I don’t think people will want to buy a range of foil sails. The sail we have, the Evo10, is amazing for foiling already. It is very fast. All our guys raced on the slalom sail, the 9.4m, and they were flying. I use the 9.8m because I am a bit heavier. The Evo 10 is amazing for foiling. We decided last year to have 91cm max width for RRD. A lot of brands pushed it to the maximum with the dimensions. We were even a few mm over so I had to sand it a little bit, but in the end we need to sail in light winds so we need to make the boards as big as we can. They are just wider in the back, but as we use wide wings you need to extend on the side of the board to control the wing and the power. If you use the recreational foil we are about to bring out with a smaller wing but big profile, you don’t need to have a wide board. It is even easier with a narrow board.
SEBASTIAN KÖRDEL
I loved the foil racing. I had been training all winter for it and am happy that we are finally able to show what we can do on the racecourse! The racing is very exciting visually both in light and stronger winds. It is fun, exciting and even scary sometimes. The wind picked up in one race and we had an M course which involved a lot of reaching. Everything is so unbelievably close. You are on the brink of losing control with five guys in very close proximity around you. We are all racing at high speeds and if somebody makes a mistake the whole situation could be really scary. I think in the higher wind let’s say from 15 knots upwards we need to have courses that are purely upwind and downwind so we can choose our path and get a little bit more spread out. When we are reaching we are locked together and that is when it gets a bit on the edge. It is super funny because you can talk to each other. I had one situation where I was going downwind with Arnon and he was on the outside of me. I just spoke to him in a normal volume, “Arnon this is scary”, he looked back round at me also talking at normal volume, “OK I let you go round the gybe”. There is no sound from the board hitting the water, you can just talk to each other even during the racing. It is almost like being on hover boards. We are flying across the water and not being touched by the chop or the waves.
I am riding with the Starboard race foil, the best foil there is! It is working very well. When training in the winter I have been playing with the angle of the foil and have found my perfect settings. In a new discipline like this you try and get as many measurement points as you can to understand what is happening. We found out that one of the main points of feeling good on the water during a session is connected with the angles of the foil. We are checking that all the time. There is a certain angle that it needs to be which I can’t tell you right now (Laughs)! It depends heavily on the board and the scoop it has etc. It also depends on the foil you are using and your style and some of this you have to find out for yourself. I would just say go out and if it feels good on the water check the angle and write it down. We have an electronic angle measurement tool to help us record settings.
I am using the Starboard foil board. Honestly with this board I think we really have an advantage. That board is so easy to foil. From the first time I stepped on it I was so comfortable. From one moment to another you keep the control. You are able to push and concentrate on other things than controlling the board. That helps in racing a lot!
I am using the GA slalom sails. We tested them a lot and sometimes when it gets a bit windier the slalom sails work really well. I am happy with the 9.4m as it is exactly the same sail I use in slalom. I have a touch less downhaul. The slalom sails work fine for me at the moment. We will see how that develops in the future. I also have my boom slightly higher and the harness lines a bit to the front. If you have them the same as in slalom you tend to over sheet the sail. With the lines more in the front you have more back hand pressure, which helps you get upwind and lifting. There are a lot of tiny details to learn how to get the best performance. I have tried a few different foils and boards and the Starboard is the most radical race board and wide in the back. It looks very aggressive and racy but it is actually the easiest board of all. You have the most comfortable stance and it is the easiest to control. Any day I foil I will take this board over any other!
STEVE ALLEN
I am using a Boss foil and Neil Pryde foil. The beginner’s foils have a shorter fuselage so guys do not get so high out of the water. When they crash from too much lift they are more likely to keep planing rather than catapult and crash. My foils are stiffer and faster than normal recreational foils. In some ways they are a little easier than aluminium foils. If you really want to go fast the pure race foil is easier because they are stiff and solid under your feet. I had one race where my foil was slightly loose on my front wing and it was moving. I had that happen to me in the strong wind race. It was so hard to control like that. The moment anything moves just a little bit or if something breaks or is not 100% solid, then it is very difficult to control.
I am using the Patrik scaled down Formula Board developed for foiling. It was made to be 91cms wide like all the other brands are doing. It is good for foiling because it is wide. I developed some pads to get my back foot out a little bit more to have more power over the foil. Even without that it works great and the board also works as a normal windsurfing board if you want to ride it without the foil. This board is more versatile than most other brands. The wide tails are basically there for the upwind foiling. Once we are downwind we don’t need the tail so wide. I am using a 9.7m Formula sail. Because we are doing upwind racing the Formula design is made for that. For my smaller sizes I would like a scaled down version. I change my harness lines to a little shorter for foiling and have my boom height higher. It is not a big change but it is a little different to slalom and more like Formula. The height of the boom gives you more power, angle and control.
I like the foil races but I had bad luck so far with my front wing moving. I was not quite in the zone. I feel like I have good equipment and I know I am competitive in light and strong wind. I am looking forward to more. I am disappointed in the race crew that they did not do more racing in the light winds. There are too many guys competing that have only done it a few times so you can’t really count them when deciding if the conditions are suitable! You can only look at the top half of the fleet, if they are going fine let the race go. If there is some big heavy slalom guy yelling, let him yell! These guys need to be on the correct equipment. Antoine and myself have sails close to 10.0m! There are a couple of guys with 9.4m and the rest have 9.0m. They are all 90kgs plus guys. It is their mistake. Foiling can go in less wind than Formula so I think we need to push it in that direction also. Basically we should not be sitting on the beach anymore. The moment we get a wind direction we should be going racing. I think they should raise the width to 1.0m so the big guys like Antoine can plane earlier in the very light winds and compete against the lighter guys. I want to push the sport to go in 3-4 knots with the correct courses and correct equipment. Foiling is evolving, with even bigger wings we can get up earlier and just glide through wind holes. I think it is really exciting.
PIERRE MORTEFON
When the wind picked up it was one of the scariest races of my life! It was super dangerous because we were all on too big equipment relative to the wind strength. Before the final it was fine, but the wind picked up another 10 knots which made a huge difference. The racecourse was quite small and everybody was close together. It is only the beginning of foil racing for a lot of the guys. For me it was dangerous. I checked the footage after the race and on the video it looks like it was 12 knots but on the course it was 25 knot gusts and I was scared and over my limit.
I raced on the same foil as I would use in 6 knots and I did not have time to change to my 7.7m. I was way overpowered. We just received a new big foil sail for light winds but when the wind picks up we go back to the normal slalom sails. If we want to race in lighter winds you need a softer sail and something easier to pump. Now we have a Fanatic board we developed this winter which is 91cm wide and almost square in the back. The main objective is to plane early and point upwind. That was the goal when we developed it. I think for reaching you don’t need such a big foil board. It is important to have the width in the tail to give you comfort. I did not enjoy the race! For me we clearly overlapped into slalom racing conditions and we should have switched to slalom before that race. In my opinion foiling should be for 6-12 knots, any more you need to switch to slalom. When I jumped back on my slalom gear I got my smile back!
JULIEN BONTEMPS
We raced in a lot of different conditions. From strong to light winds and with different courses. I prefer when it is strong on the foils. It is much more fun. I did not even come to Japan for slalom, just for the foil racing. I don’t have time to train for slalom on top of my other commitments. When I have time to go on the water it is always foiling. The windy race was a bit tricky because the big gusts were on the edge. It is fun to push the limits. We had crashes and everybody was pumped with adrenaline. I am using the F4 foil, the JP foil board and the NeilPryde Evo. I don’t have the Pryde foil sail but the slalom sail works fine. We rig the sail slightly differently with less downhaul to have the sail flatter to have less drag. When you go downwind you can release a lot from the adjustable lines. The foil has a 1 metre mast and a 120cm2 wing. The race setup is more for upwind and downwind. If you want to reach you should use smaller wings and a smaller fuselage. It was a challenge to sail with all that power when the wind picked up but I enjoyed it!
MATTEO IACHINO
The racing was fun. I guess we can compete when it is not suitable conditions for slalom. We also competed in strong winds and that was a tough race. It was exciting and scary at the same time. I did not have any control at all going downwind. I was just focussed on not crashing myself. I was not even focussed on the race. I had Arnon about 1 metre in front of me and did not even think of overtaking him. I thought about it for a moment and my front wing came out of the water and I almost crashed so I just focussed to stay on the board. I guess I need to train more in stronger winds. So far I only trained when it was super light winds but I guess we need to be ready for when the wind suddenly fills in.
I am using the Starboard foil and board, the one that is on the market. I am also using the new Severne HyperGlide sail. We have one batten less on this sail and the clew is shorter which gives more stability and power upwind. The sail is lighter, although I don’t think the sail makes a huge difference. I wanted to save my slalom sails just for slalom, so I raced on the HyperGlide. The race foil board is a lot bigger than a normal foil board. We race on a 91cm wide board which is 91cm wide right at the back foot strap. It is like a door! It is not narrow in the tail and it is quite big, so it allows us to perform in super light winds. That is what we need, we want to show that we can race in super light wind.
THIJYS VAN DER MEER (RACE DIRECTOR)
I have set a variety of courses so far. Some have been slightly experimental but obviously with the foiling we don’t just want Formula courses, we want some more excitement with reaches as well as the upwind and downwind. I am very aware of the safety and we make the start lines compulsory starboard or port starts so we don’t have everyone crossing. Foiling is becoming a bigger discipline so we are trying to make the courses exciting, different and safe. Starting on a reach can be dangerous and all the riders requested upwind starts. We have used box courses, M courses and straight upwind and downwind. With the upwind and downwind we are trying to end on a reach at least so we have riders coming in a straight line to the finish. It is easier to see who is leading and who is not that way.
The M course was intended to be a nice course for light winds. We have gybes in the downwind part of the course so guys gybe on top of each other and block each other’s wind. This stops them from getting up on the foil. When the wind picked up I did not want to lose too much time so we kept the same course. It ended up being on the edge. Some of the riders were scared. Some actually said they would rather go out in Jaws than sail those reaches overpowered! You kind of get the drift they don’t want too many reaches in strong wind! We are still experimenting, let’s put it that way!
