Speed World Cup...

Dear Speed Sailors !

Lots of things have changed since the International Speed Windsurfing Class (ISWC) has become an official ISAF international class in May 2007.

The ISWC board wants to inform you about the changes that we implemented over the winter break, giving you more service, more sailing, more fun on the water !

New Structure
Reflecting the developments in international windsurfing, there will be a major change in how the events and the tour constituted by them will be promoted. Main idea behind this change is giving the professional riders as well as our many amateurs the possibility to compete in the events they are most interested in, while not having to spend the whole year travelling.

The 2008 World Tour
All events in the 2008 schedule form the 2008 world tour, with a world cup winner at the end of the year. Grade A, B and C events all count towards the 2008 ranking, giving competitors in other parts of the world the possibility to join the tour and qualify for the world and continental championships.
The man and woman on top of this "rolling" ranking at 31.12.2008 will be the world cup winners and will be rewarded at one of the main boat shows beginning of 2009.

One-Off Worlds and Continentals
World Championship and Continental Championships will be held as one-off events inside the 2008 tour, having the highest factors towards the rankings. With this change, we expect more top sailors in our Grade A and B events, while giving the majority of the riders the freedom to choose between their favourite venues with reasonable time effort. The schedule is not finalized yet, the provisional dates can be found further down.
The Rulebook 2008, reflecting these changes and giving you more detailed information, will be available soon.

National Championships
Every country can nominate one national event to become part of the 2008 world tour, giving points towards the rankings. For the details and organizational aspects check further down.

New Tour Promoter
The ISA has done a great job in the past years, bringing speed back to life again, paving the way for the ISWC and the new Speed:World:Tour. From 2008 onwards, the management of the tour will be taken over by Markus Schwendtner and his company. Jan Cas Smit is still valuable member of the ISWC board and will process all tasks of the ISA regarding the 2007 ISA Speedsurfing Grand Prix Tour, including final payments of tour purse etc. For anything regarding these topics (price money, tour purse) please contact Jan Cas directly at speedsurfer142@web.de

New Website
Effective 14.02.2008, the new website of the Speed:World:Cup is online. We appologize that not all content has been transfered up til now, but we will finalize this task in the next days.
Check www.speedworldcup.com

Hall of Fame
Together with the new website, we implemented a speedsurfing hall of fame, to show our respect to the heroes of our sport.
It was a very hard decision for the board to decide who should be in and who not. We decided for the initial hall of fame to only reward retired sailors, as it was impossible for us to draw the line.
We welcome Thierry Bielak, Pascal Maka and Fred Haywood in the beginning, we will add Babette Coquelle as soon as we find some pics...
At the end of every season, we will have another member towards the hall of fame voted by our sailors. Watch out !

Rider Profiles
For the promotion of the individual riders, we implemented a riders section. For the beginning, we only put some well known names in. We will send a questionaire around in the next days to all of you to include as many active sailors, from amateur to pro, as possible.

Newsletter / RSS-Feeds
Also available is a newsletter to keep you posted about the latest developments in speed sailing around the world. You can subscribe and unsubscribe at the bottom of the new website. There are also RSS-Feeds available for general news and press releases.

Official Partnership with GPS-Speedsurfing
After a long time of going separate ways, the ISWC board and the technical group at GPS-Speedsurfing (GPSSS) finally found its time to join forces and go together into the speed sailing future, covering all aspects of speed windsurfing around the world.
Details about our new partnership will be released in a separate press release.

National Events with GPS-Timing
GPS is the easiest way to set up regional and national competitions in a valid format, and to avoid various formats to be formed, we decided to assign GPSSS the full responsibility for the technical and organizational aspects for national championships held with GPS-Timing. Further details will be distributed as soon as possible. In the meantime, you can directly contact Martin van Meurs (martin@gps-speedsurfing.com)

2008 Schedule
The schedule for the 2008 events is not finalized yet, here is what we have at the moment:
ISWC World Championship Fuerteventura: 25.07.-02.08.2008, 35.000 Euro pricemoney
ISWC European Championship Karpathos 20.08.-25.08.2008, TBC
ISWC African Championship Walvis Bay: 18.10.-28.10.2008, TBC
We are working on another Grade B event in Tarifa, news to come.
The french championship will be held in Port St. Louis from 22.03-28.03.2008
The belgian championship will be held in Gruissan from 24.03.-28.03.2008
More national events to be released asap as well.

So far with the latest news, we will come back with more detailed information in separate newsletters to give you an inside view of the many changes.

Enjoy life, and see you on the water !
Your Speed:World:Cup Team