Zur Info:
Dear Members of the Windsurfing Industry We hope that you have all been keeping safe and well since we last wrote to you in September. Although most of us are enduring the second wave of COVID cases, and many of us are locked down, there does seem to be some glimmer of hope on the horizon with early signs of successful vaccines providing a boost to possibilities for 2021. Looking ahead to 2021, it would be somewhat foolish to try to give any guarantees about what next season will have in store for us, but there is definitely still huge potential for a strong return to a “normal” tour in Professional Windsurfing. Almost all of the regular events are in full planning mode for 2021, and there are also one or 2 new possibilities on the horizon. It may not be business as usual next season, but we wholeheartedly expect to be raising green flags across the disciplines, at some point in 2021. We will release a more formal calendar once the current situation stabilizes, and we will be bringing you more announcements soon, with some further changes to the tour structure including important steps forward towards greater equality and further defined youth and junior programs, as well as new levels of flexibility designed to make it possible to put on much needed events, in locations that we would like to visit. In our last update, we informed you that the iQFOil board would be permitted for women’s foil slalom for 2021. In order to remove some of the concerns that some of you had about brand equality, it has been decided to extend this rule to allow competitors in women’s foil slalom to use any registered foil board up to the 100.5cm limit that applies for PWA course racing boards, meaning that those boards may also be used alongside the iQFOil board on the 2021 tour. For clarity, this only applies to women’s foil slalom and not for any aspect of men’s racing, and is aimed purely at helping to increase participation and provide opportunities for women in the sport. For 2022, the intention is to merge the women’s slalom disciplines in line with the men’s so any special equipment allowances will be reviewed ahead of the 2022 season. There has been a lot of discussion regarding the reduction of equipment on the PWA tour to reduce costs for riders and brands. Although we feel that there are possibilities to do this, we are also aware that it requires significant lead time for the brands to adjust their line ups accordingly. As previously communicated, equipment limits for 2021 and 2022 remain the same with 4 boards and 7 sails for the slalom discipline. However, serious consideration is being given to reducing this to 3 boards and 5 sails for 2023. Final decisions for 2023 will be taken after the early events of 2021 (COVID permitting), but we wanted to make you aware of this intention now so that you can take it into consideration in your planning and R & D schedules. It has come to our attention that some people did not receive the September update, so if you have received this one but not the previous one, please contact us and we will re-send. If you are a senior representative of your brand can you also please check that anyone within the company that needs to receive PWA Industry Updates is getting them, and let us know of anyone who should be added to the industry distribution list. We will be in touch again as soon as we have firm developments for you, but in the meantime let us remind you of the foil and board registration deadline on the 15th December for any equipment to be used on the 2021 tour. Kind regards The PWA |
