Downwind race and competition formats

Really cool strava style online leaderboard, race.downwind.app with both fastest and slowest runs counting towards leaderboards. More discussion here

Some useful discussions on James Casey video in the comments about whether light wind bay runs (sub 5kn) is the future of downwind.

Posted this for feedback on insta here

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West Aus doing a fun run experimental setup with traverse sections

Last St Tropez ran a flat water relay as a novelty thing which sounds like a good way to keep people entertained on lay days
https://www.instagram.com/p/DBVonClIIj4/?img_index=20

some thoughts from James on a variety of formats

As horrendous as this image may be, I wonder if a pump fest might be a fun side-show for foil events and downwind races, like some kind of TV game show where you get everyone up on foil, and then set a course through the surf and the last person on foil is the winner

Taking suggestions for how to make this interesting

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IMHO you don’t need to try to make an endurance event interesting. But I suppose you could give everyone one of those american gladiator padded jousting sticks.

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More style and flow based comp from Voyager. This will be cool to see, easily will get the flowiest of the flow attending

https://www.instagram.com/p/DBxysHIRfyH/

The world record for a singles skull is 6:30 / 2km. 3:15/km pace.
I think the gear is already there to where the right setup / rider could break the rowing WR.

Sydney Northern Beaches race results.

Sydney foil race results.
1: Nick Kapule
2: Andrew Gibbons
3: James Casey.

Over 40.
1: Trent Gordon
2: Ben Raymond
3: Dave Kissane

Foil Drive division
1: Dave West
2: Lance
3: Adam

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HI x Lift bashing the aussies

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speaking of formats, the Aus races seem to have a thing about running up the beach, looks mega sketch with those dismounts

https://www.instagram.com/jeremycornephotography/

And a cool video of the race :call_me_hand:

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Crazy that lift is still so fast. Considering it’s just one guy designing the whole line by himself who only makes what he wants to ride. :slight_smile:

Photo of Oskar and Andrew coming in to the seaweed shore dump on the same wave fighting for second place so don’t take much from the time gaps of the first 4 after dismount and beach run, but yes nothing really between the lift, armstrong, code and possibly axis when it comes to all out racing. Lift 110 has stood the test of time.

Any detail on what official distance was? Just to get an idea of what sort of pace these guys are hitting.

Dave West had some stats, 17km, looked fast! His average is somewhere around 02:33/km. He finished equivalent ~17th, so I guess the top guys must be doing 2:10 consistently? would be keen to see what they manage.


Thanks man!
We did a local downwind race at 18.5 km in pretty good conditions for us, so was curious how our speeds compare to these “top” guys.
I took 2nd at 44:16 ~2:28/km average so yea the guys in the aussie race were cooking to finish in the mid 30’s

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Yeah going faster than 2:20 feels like a real barrier. Amazing that winner Nick must have been averaging ~2:00 if I get the that right? (35min over 17km)

This is pretty incredible. +38km/h for 1km

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Where’s that image from? James Casey has said he’s had the speeds in 1:40’s I know, but can’t remember offhand what it was exactly. He’s faster than Ku though.