Welcome to Formula Windsurfing, or as we less formally know it as, FW. Windsurfing is a type of ‘sailing’, like any non-powered boat is, and FW is the fastest travelling and most exciting sailing class in the World. Racing in nearly any wind conditions, on any stretch of water and reaching speeds over 65km/h skimming across the water!

Let’s explain it a little more…

FW racing happens at big events that run for up to 6 days at a time. Usually around 80-130 competitors compete at each event from countries all over the world. Each day during the event, a number of races are run and at the end of the event the total score for each of the sailors is calculated, and the sailor with the lowest score wins the event. We are all human, and it’s possible even for the best sailors to make mistakes or to break some of their equipment and so for every 4 races run, a sailor can discard 1 race towards their total points. Discard means that this race is not included in their total score for the event. For example, a good sailor might win 3 races in a row but on the final race he has a crash and can’t finish the race; therefore he can ‘discard’ that final race score and only count his first placings…

The races are quite simple. Some marks (big inflatable buoys) are put in the water and a basic course is made by putting two marks about 1.5km apart. At one of the course, a startline is made using a boat and one mark (the ‘bottom’ mark), then the second mark (the ‘top mark’), 1.5km away is placed directly upwind. The race is started using a flag system (much like traffic lights on the roads) to help the sailors know when to start. The sailors then head up to and around the top mark and then back to the bottom mark twice – ie, two laps.

At the bottom mark the second time a finish line is made with the start-boat and the bottom mark. The first person across the finish line wins the race and scores 1 point. Remember to win the event you want to get the LOWEST points.

To go around the course, FW is a little different to other racing sports. You don’t have to travel the same way around the course, in fact, you can go any direction you like as long as you go AROUND the top mark and AROUND the bottom mark. So, when the race starts you will see the sailors all choosing a different direction to go upwind to the top mark, they all go a different direction because they want to find the best wind on the course. Wind can sometimes be different strengths at different places on the ocean, and so the sailor who picks the best way to go and stay in the best winds usually can win the race.

HOW DO WE DECIDE WHO IS THE BEST WINDSURFER?

There is a group of events happening all around the World which are part of the Formula Windsurfing Grand-Prix World Tour. From each event, the winners receive points for their overall positions in the events (much like the points received for winning a football match during the season, moving you up the results table). At the end of the season the sailor with the most points becomes the Grand-Prix World Tour Champion.

As well as the tour, there is a one-off World Championships event in one location somewhere in the World. In 2008 it was hosted in Portugal. The winner of this event is known as the FW World Champion. The reason there is this separate event is because of tradition. There wasn’t always a World Tour, and so the only event deciding the best sailor in the world was the World Championships event. Now, with more money and media interest in windsurfing, enough professional events could be hosted to make a ‘tour’, however, the guys in charge of running windsurfing decided the World Championships should still exist as a separate event as it always has, since the beginning of FW racing.