26 AUGUST 2019
PWA FOIL RACING
GONZALO COSTA HOEVEL
N
owadays we have managed to achieve
a foil setup that many guys used in the
light winds and were still on the same foil
setup in the strong winds. The foil and wings are quite
consistent on the Starboard foil at least. With the
sails we just went from 10.0m to 8.0m and hung on.
The Tramontana day was just survival mode. The
scary part was the downwind. You have no escape.
You just pray that there won’t be some high chop in
front of you. If there is then you have to come up, but the wings come out
of the water and then you go straight down again. I was in 2nd and fell on
the last downwind leg. You could see from all the pictures there were some
very scary faces. It was much worse than doing regular slalom in that kind
of wind. On the foil you don’t really know how to anticipate the ups and
downs like in slalom. You could have been on a 5.5m sail in those winds but
we are restricted to three sails. We all registered 8/9/10m as we only expected
to race in light winds. When the wind dropped to 25 knots, 8m was actually
fine. In 35-40 knots I was on a 8.0m and am sure I would have been better
on a 5.5m! Sailing with a lot of guys made it even scarier. When I was ahead
I was fine, as I didn’t have to follow anybody. When you are in a pack and
a guy falls in front of you then you have to try and avoid them, but you are
just as likely to also explode! I saw guys going down like dominoes. When
you commit on a foil it is very hard to make last minute adjustments or slow
down. When you make a sudden turn then everything seems to accelerate.
Imagine going 20-30 knots already scared, somebody falls and you have to
point suddenly upwind, you are going to get more speed and have to eject.
In the light winds it is a big disadvantage for guys like Antoine Albeau as he
is racing against guys who are 30 kilos less than him. If you are racing in 4-5
knots you can expect that he is going to struggle to get planing. It takes him
longer to load up and achieve his best upwind angle. That seems to be a little
unfair in 4-5 knots. It is cool that we are exploring new limits. Last year we
could never go in 4 knots, now we can even keep foiling in 2-3 knots. I think
we need to find a limit and decide what is fair or not.“NOW WE CAN EVEN KEEP
FOILING IN 2-3 KNOTS.”