Windsurfing is not all the same. Like in many individual sports there are different varieties of sailbording. A look at traditional kinds of sport like gymnastics or athletics shows how wide the spectrum of a single kind of sport can be. Regarding alpine skiing the range of disciplines starts with downhill, covers slalom and ends up with freestyle skiing. Seing young, fast-developing kinds of sports (trend sports) the aspect of diversification is even more important. A specific style quickly becomes a defined disciplin.

 

Various styles have emerged early within windsurfing, which sometimes show great differences with regard to the course of movements and the surfing material used. Out of these variants, own disciplines have developed quickly, which today at the level of competition are performed with separate contests and evaluation sets.

 

The most important disciplines of windsurfing are waveriding, freestyle, different varieties of racing (like RS:X, Slalom, Formula and Supercross), speedsailing and also indoor-surfing.

 

Wave

Wave is about riding high waves. The focus is on interacting with the wave – just like „ordinary“ surfers, without sails, do. Competitions are normally one on one – with only the winner moving on to the next round. Together with freestyle, this is the only discipline that is evaluated by judges.

Here is a video of waveriding: http://www.youtube.com

 

Freestyle

This is the youngest windsurfing discipline. It is also evaluated by judges – what counts, are spectacular, break-neck jumps and maneuvers. The fact that you can freestyle even on lakes with comparably little wind makes this new sport very attractive to youngsters.

Here is a video of freestyle windsurfing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmxkdltBdls

 

Race (Olympic Class RS:X, Slalom, Formula and Supercross)

Race windsurfers have to sail a parcours at a certain time. This parcours is normally marked by buoys and has to be raced back and forth (as opposed to speed windsurfing, where there is a race track with a start and finish.

Subcategories are for example: Slalom 42 (this is a PWA-format only allowing a certain number of boards per group), Formula (a ISFC – International Sailiing Federation – format only allowing boards matching their criteria. The German DWC and the Eurocup abide to these rules).

 

Another specialty: Racing is olympic! As a olympic discipline, the windsurf racing is called RS:X, after the NeilPryde board that has to be used for all competitions. This board is designed to allow windsurfing in low and moderate wind conditions with good performance.

 

Speed

Speed windsurfing means sailing down a race track of either 100, 200 or 500 metres. Obviously, this discipline is all about time. The riders can be as fast as 80 km per hour!!

 

Here is an example of race windsurfing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opidMBj5Raw