20 AUGUST 2019
PWA FOIL RACING
High wind foiling with big sails is not for the faint hearted. The
2019 Catalunya Costa Brava PWA World Cup saw some of the
wildest professional wind foil racing to date as sailors battled
raging Tramontana winds. On the flip side, the opening day of
the event saw some of the lightest winds yet encountered for
professional foil racing and then, later on in the event period, for
the first time in the PWA, the sailors competed in slalom foiling.
The event put the sailors on the edge of foil performance in a
variety of conditions; John Carter asked the pros their opinion
of the limits for foil racing being explored to such extremes?
FLYING
ON THE
EDGE
Words Matteo Iachino, Gonzalo Costa Hoevel, Jordy Vonk,
Julien Bontemps, Sebastian Koerdel, Antoine Albeau, Ross Williams,
Nicolas Goyard, Maciek Rutkowski // Photos John CarterJORDY VONK
T
he positive about the range of conditions we
faced was that it is actually really difficult to
tune your gear without this huge wind range.
Then you have to find the extremes, which is new to all
of us. I only received my sails the day before Japan, so I
am still getting used to tuning them. Nobody ever tried
to go out with an 8.0m in 40 knots before. Prior to the
high wind race we were all just trying to figure out what
we could do to cope. I think it was super awesome that
we raced in those conditions. It was very good to find the limits and I think
we even went a touch over. I went on a 7.8m and it was just ‘man up’ and go.
We learned so much from the first race to the last race. It was already a big
difference in our sailing. Next season when we know we need to compete in
those conditions we will be trained up for it and looking much better. I used a
smaller front wing and raked the back wing to give as little power as possible.
It was definitely scary. I was one of the few guys who didn’t crash and that was
basically because I saw them all going down and decided to take it super easy
and not injure myself. I lost some places doing that, but I wanted to survive
and knew it was not the time to push hard. The light wind conditions were also
tough, I am 90 kilos so it is hard to get up on the foil and beat the RS:X guys
who are pumping all the way up. That is the other extreme, you need to get on
the foil as quick as possible in such light conditions.
“IT WAS DEFINITELY SCARY.”