The Olympic circus
September 21, 2007 · Print This Article
The move to dump the Mistral One Design from the Olympic games can be seen as a straight hatchet job on longboards. Many of the sailors, coaches and countries in the sport were happy with the MOD. The push came from others within the industry and sport, and from ISAF head Paul Henderson. He hadn’t seen many MODs being sailed just for fun, and he had a major issue with pumping (and Mistral as a company, according to some). He demanded a new “state of the art” board that fulfilled criteria like representing “current windsurfing” and which needed less pumping. He ignored the fact that not a single one of the other Olympic sailing classes fulfilled had all the same attributes; the boards were held to stricter criteria than other types.
An Olympic board has to be sailable in light and fluky winds, so it was obvious that Formula was problematic. Companies tried to combine the strengths of Formula boards and longboards by creating the “hybrids”, which had centerboards and were mid-way between longboards and Formula boards in dimensions.
The problem is that the laws of nature haven’t been revoked. A short fat board still needs lots of power to perform. Ironically, ISAF’s first trials to select a new Olympic board just proved that the longboard still dominated in many conditions. ISAF got rid of the potential embarrassment of having the old board beat the new ones by banning the Mistral for the final set of trials, in breach of decades of lore from earlier Olympic trials. Even in its absence the well-proven production MOD was finally ranked as the sailors’ third choice, behind two fragile and lightweight custom-made prototypes. Henderson made the choice for the sport - in an unprecedented move, he said that windsurfing would be dropped from the Games unless a hybrid replaced the MOD.
By the time the lightweight RS-X prototype that won the trials was morphed into a production board, it ended up as heavy as the older, longer and higher-volume Mistral. Some sailors love it. Some of the original test team swore that the changes had destroyed the concept. Others just swore about it.
The RS-X is an interesting board to race, and it certainly goes faster than the Mistral a lot of the time. But it certainly hasn’t unified the sport as had been hoped, and ironically a French/Spanish study has shown that it actually requires more pumping than the IMCO (Mistral One Design).
I completely agree with this point of view. A question though, if a longboard were now to be an Olympic board what would it be?
I can’t see the Kona One doing any where near what the IMCO can do. Maybe Mistral should look at designing a modernised version of the IMCO, new rig, etc.
I tend to think that the IMCO was too much influenced by the original concept of the Raceboard class to be a perfect Olympic board, even if modernised. Coming from the days when design was heavily influenced by the World Cup, with its 12 knot minimum wind speed, it’s too small in the tail, too slow to tack and too much of a high-wind design. I’ve got an IMCO, and I like it as a board and hope the class survives, but for my two cents worth an Olympic board should tack faster and go faster in light winds. The top guys can get anything around the course well in a breeze.
I wonder if there could be a totally new type of board, sort of like a modern Raceboard but more designed around light wind speed and fast tacking. Sort of like a “D2 meets Mistral Superlight Mk 1 meets Raceboard” breed.
Make it a strict one design, with two sails, and follow the “white board” concept where there is only one supplier but other sponsors or manufacturers can put their own brand on the board and sail. Keep it fairly cheap (ie not ultra-light) and maybe you could also allow sailors to do shortboarding in a production shortboard using the standard mast and boom and one extra sail, if there was enough wind at the Games. That would stop the shortboard-only fanatics and other builders from whinging and undermining the Olympic class. This sport is too wide to be represented only by one style of board, of whatever type, but a longboard and a bump ‘n jump board that could be used for freestyle and slalom allow just about every aspect to be highlighted. Costs? Well, the other builders always say that open design would allow them to sponsor sailors, let them put the $ up as they say they will.
Personally I think these days Olympic selection is the death knell for widespread popularity of any class, unless it is already hugely popular like the Laser. Even there, I think there’s been a reduction in people in the “open” age bracket where they have to compete against Olympians - the growth in the class comes from Juniors and Masters AFAIK.
Just my own ravings.
this link is the funny windsurfing video i have i highly recommend it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHLLk7YjKEc&feature=related
cheers
bart
The modern MCO was a direct plug copy of the custom world cup raceboard that developed by Mistral after the initial success of the first generation Equipe. You might recall that the original Equipe was a tri-concave to double with a winger-pin tail. At that time, the IMCO actually was the original Mistral Superlight (Div 1).
The modern IMCO was a beefed-up version of the gen. 2 Equipe. I think the gen 2 equipe was offered in a total of four construction versions. LCS, another that I forget, XR and what we know as the IMCO.
There is a huge difference between the IMCO and the final XR offered in 1992/3.
IMCO: Little or no carbon.
XR: Lots of carbon and also a single layer on the bottom.
IMCO: Fairly heavy, more durable in terms of dings.
XR: Much lighter (my XR weighed 24 lb. dry) and more durable in terms of rocker line stability.
IMCO: Glass reinforced plastic centerboard.
XR: Foam-wrapped carbon fiber boards (2 available, incl. a HUGE light wind board)
IMCO: Fin was piece of crap.
XR: Use any fin you like.
IMCO: Decent upwind angle, OK speed with pumping.
XR: Better angle due centerboard and fin differences, plus higher speed from light wind and more precise rocker. Also could carry larger sail due to lower hull weight.
IMCO: Inferior downwind angle due to all the above.
XR: Balistic downwind and reaching speed for above reasons.
IMCO: Olympic fitness required to pump.
XR: Far easier to pump, and less pumping required.
The IMCO should never be seen as the benchmark, even in its day. The XR was so far superior and not that much more expensive. If ever there was a decision that emphasised elements other than performance, the IMCO was it.