Lift-off for youth windsurfing on foils

iQFOiL class manager Gonzalo Costa Hoevel and his team have been working hard to reach this important milestone in the young history of this class. “We are super stoked to be here at the Youth Worlds for the first time. There’s a lot of anxiety and excitement among the sailors. They really want to get on the water and start sailing.”

Like nearly every fleet at the Youth Worlds, the windsurfing competitors will be racing on brand new equipment supplied by the manufacturer. “Starboard have provided the equipment for this event,” says Costa. “We have brought around 80 sets, which gives us a few spares to work with for the 62 sailors competing in The Hague. I personally looked through every foil set to make sure that the foils are as evenly matched as possible, because that’s the thing that makes the biggest difference to your speed. It was a long process, but important to get it right for such an important event.”

Costa says the gap between the experienced and the least experienced at this event will be big, but that the plan is to help close that gap as quickly as possible with coaching and daily video feedback for the newcomers to the iQFOiL. “We have a lot of sailors from Optimist and 420 dinghies coming into the iQFOiL, and in no time they’re already performing really well. Compared with a really experienced windsurfer who’s come through the Techno route or some other windsurfing, it’s surprising how quickly the dinghy sailors can get to the same level. I’ve seen some sailors get to the same level after just six months.

“We’re also seeing youth sailors achieve world-class speeds in a very short time,” Costa adds. “Because the youth sailors tend to be smaller than the senior sailors, they’re on a narrower board – 85cm wide instead of 95cm for the Olympic board. So the board being slightly smaller means less drag too and that means they can be really fast, sometimes faster than the senior guys. In the right conditions I think we’ll see some sailors hit more than 30 knots speed this week.”

by Andy Rice, event reporter for World Sailing.