New Foil Army

The advent of foiling on the PWA tour has brought a new group of men and women racers to the fore, John Carter takes a look at the Olympic windsurfers upsetting the rankings and asks the PWA elite for their opinion of the new contenders.

- Kiran Badloe, Jordy Vonk, Sebastian Koerdel, Thomas Goyard, Marina Alabau, Blanca Alabau, Gonzalo Costa Hoevel, Julien Bontemps, Matteo Iachino & Ross Williams

Japan was my first ever PWA event, we were training on RS:X in Japan so we were already in the area. The Olympic RS:X venue is actually very close to the PWA event, just a 45 minute drive away. I have been getting well into foiling in the last year. I really enjoy it, so it was a great opportunity to come and race with the best PWA sailors, show my face and see if I am competitive with these guys; I would love to win the foil world title!

Foiling is fun; the courses are different to what we normally do. It’s a much shorter more exciting course and the level is definitely tough. All these PWA racers are very fast and know how to tune their gear. They are pushing the likes of myself and Thomas Goyard; we definitely have to use our very best racing skills. The Olympic fitness and knowledge of course racing helps, but the short courses are also new to us. We can’t apply all of our tactics. We have some situations though which we might recognize a bit earlier because we do this type of racing more often than the PWA guys. I have been pumping a lot on the upwind legs, I don’t think they like that! Everybody is friendly and I feel at home already. Myself and Thomas are definitely lighter and have the right physique for foiling. If it picks up a few knots I think that can change. The big slalom guys are probably going to show us how it is done. Overall it will be a pretty fair battle. Everybody has conditions that play to their strengths.

“EVERYBODY HAS CONDITIONS THAT PLAY TO THEIR STRENGTHS.”

SEBASTIAN KOERDEL