Longboard windsurfing in Germany

All shortboard and longboard windsurfing classes are organised under the roof of German Windsurfing Association DWSV. DWSV has over 700 paying members, about 65% of them are longboarders.

Germany was one of the first and largest longboard markets in the world.

Longboard racing has accordingly a long tradition in Germany. The first Regatta with the original Windsurfer was 1972 at Sylt. Today 35 years later, after the golden times in 80´s and 90´s, there are still 40 DWSV factorised longboard racing events, which count for the yearly ranking list. The participant fields vary between 10-60 sailors at each event.

We have currently following longboard and hybrid board classes:
Formel J (U13 4.5, U15 6.8, U17 7.8, U20 8.5), any longboard, maximum sail size is regulated by the age, about 95 sailors, without DSV ranking regulation, just to get the people in to racing.
Techno 293 OD (U13 smaller then 6.8, U15 6.8, U17 7.8), about 25 sailors, growing, the Techno class started 2006, difficulties because of minimum 10 sailors at each event DSV regulation.
RS:X (8.5/9.5) about 25 sailors, ex MOD sailors, stable, Team Germany was quite successful this year, both gold medals and one bronze at the RS:X Youth Worlds, best woman is 3. and best man 18th on ISAF rankings.

Mistral OD, about 15 sailors, declining.
MJOD, about 5-10 sailors, declining, before 2005 we had about 60 MOD U19 sailors.
Raceboard (7.5/9.5/open), stable, 7.5m about 130 sailors (35 are U19, 60 are Masters and older), before 2005 we had together with the MOD sailors about 200.

The figures, which I mention are based mainly on the ranking lists. One gets ranking points, when he/she is a member of a sailing club and a DWSV-member and when there were more then 10 sailors racing within the according class at the event. These rules are made by the German Sailing Association DSV, which we have to follow.

Everyone without any membership can compete at any event, but this person is not listed in the ranking list. Therefore the figures of longboard racing sailors are larger than the figures of the ranking list, since the ranking list shows only the above described ranking point sailors. The current longboard racing sailors are guessed approximately 35-40% more.

This season 5 Warp X 380 came in to the Raceboard Cup. Common used 7.5m sails are MOD, Lefebvre, North and ART.

Some shortboard figures from 06 season:
The DWC-Tour includes 6-8 events per year for Formula, Slalom, Wave/Free_style_. About 70 sailors, stable, 8 are U20 and 23 are Masters and older. One boy won the U17 FE Worlds and U17 Slalom Worlds. Two men are the first and second at the European Free_style_ Pro Tour.

We have about 23 speed sailors.