EDITORIAL
““Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” George Bernard Shaw.12 AUGUST 2019
PROGRESSION
T
he Land Rover Defender
is an interesting vehicle for
me. I grew up with them
as my father used one dai-
ly with his work, they seemed inde-
structible but that was mostly due to
dad being a dab hand with a spanner.
My father bought ex-army ones as
they were cheap, but if I wanted to
reclaim a bit of my childhood now it
would involve several mortgages and
a couple of winning lottery tickets. I
exaggerate, maybe just one. Defend-
er residual values seem to rise in the
face of all reason. A modern 4x4 is
relatively cheaper, has a driving posi-
tion that doesn’t require the services
of a chiropractor and hasn’t been put
back together ten times on someone’s
kitchen table as they rebuild the en-
gine and chassis following a YouTube
video. But a modern 4x4 doesn’t have
owner’s clubs, dedicated magazines
and come with a sheepdog as stand-
ard. Even so, why do people pay huge
sums for the Defender’s cutting edge
technology from the 80s when auto-
motive engineering has moved on so
much? Much as I love Defenders, I re-
ally don’t know and that’s why they are
so interesting for me! Progression is a
funny thing and rarely in my experi-
ence linear, especially in windsurfing.
It’s human nature that as we advance,
we also look back with rose tinted
glasses so flowery they need pruning.
People love Defenders because they
hark back to a simpler time when
the engine management system was
a hammer and hose clip. Off-roading
was about the fundamentals of prop-
er throttle control and gear selection,
not pressing the ‘off-road’ button. But
if you want to actually go somewhere
with a degree of efficiency and a car-
bon footprint that is less than that of a small country, then you can’t beat the
latest all-wheel-drive wonder wagon, buttons and all.
WindSUPs are a staple of my windsurfing diet this time of year, sailing
them invokes the nostalgia of long summers on long boards, a long time ago;
selectively omitting the long periods of time I’d spend falling off the poorly
designed board and swearing at the unforgiving rig. “They don’t make kit like
they used to do.” – yes, thank goodness. My windSUP is the modern guise
of my first boards, but the years have been kind to its design. Infinitely more
stable and practical, yet the basic feeling is the same, the slow motion sailing
allowing time to reflect on and revise the fundamentals to all windsurfing.
But if the wind picks up, much as I love the simplicity of my baggy sail and
modern retro board, out comes the latest in laminate and composite tech-
Words Finn Mullen // Photo Tam Mullennology for planing to infinity and be-
yond. It’s been that way for a while,
but if history tells me anything,
it’s that it won’t be that way in the
future, no matter how much I cling to
the nostalgia.
“Last year we could never go in 4
knots, now we can even keep foiling
in 2-3 knots,” says Gonzalo Cos-
ta Hoevel, 2018 PWA Foil World
Champion in our lead article, ‘Flying
on the edge.’ Gonzalo and his peers
discuss where the limits of foiling, in
high and light winds lie and nostalgic
it isn’t. The UK’s leading profession-
al racer, Ross Williams, goes as far as
to say, “I think foiling should be the
stand-alone PWA race format. You
can go with one board, three sails and
can compete in anything. Less equip-
ment, more people potentially and a
bigger market. It makes sense to me.”
For someone so heavily invested in
the current status quo, that’s a bold
statement to make, but he’s not alone
in suggesting change. We interview
two-time Olympic gold medallist
Dorian van Rijsselberghe this month,
Dorian could be considered the lead-
ing RS:X sailor in the world, but that
hasn’t stopped him from pushing for
foiling to replace the RS:X as the
Olympic class. Writing on his blog
he says, “Foiling is the future, young
people can start the sport with less
money, it also appeals to them more
because you are rising from the water
as it were. You also go quickly. It’s just
more fun.”
Dorian altruistically cares for the
next generation, whether by his views
on foiling or through his foundation
supporting young athletes. He recog-
nizes the real future of our sport, any
sport, is in the hands of youths as well
as equipment designers. But get the kit right and the youth will follow.
WindSUP and foiling collide this month as we test some of the designs
that can do both and maybe the future direction of our sport will be equip-
ment that crosses over more to cater for young poly-athletes that want to do
it all. We are already seeing the evolution this year of ‘wing surfing’ and the
advances in that will no doubt drive the low speed lift and control capabilities
of windsurfing foils. We’ll always need windSUPs, as Peter Hart explains this
issue, they are the best tool for learning and improving wave sailing; and all
the other disciplines we already have will still exist in some form. And no
doubt we will reminisce and eulogize over the kit of 2019 in years to come.
Who knows, a few decades from now, what the ‘Defender’ of windsurfing will
be; start the kit hoarding investment now!The road to
progression
starts with the
lightest wind,
Finn putting in
the graft on a
windSUP.