have you guys watched this, its sure to give you a heart attack

[TomW]

Do a twintip race and see how many will show up

10

[wvickers]

Would be nice if Oracle offered all their video gear and drones etc for kite racing, but then it would be too expensive for competitors.

Having a small gps unit on each board/person with at least 2-3 drones and 1 powerboat on the water running the drones, would certainly give more info, which was similar to what they did during the Olympics.
There are people working on such technology to make it more affordable.
Theoretically one of the drone operators could analyze and edit the footage and provide some post commentary about the rules and sell their services.

However, right now, it would require passing down the money into entry fees or trying to get 2-3 more sponsors, both of which may not be possible.

I can envision that kitefoil racing within an inshore area set up as a grid, like the Americas Cup, could bring in sponsors. It would be exciting to watch for some including having spectators boats just outside the grid. Some of the excitement comes from the wipe outs, which happen alot more in kite foiling.

Even ordinary sailors just don't completely understand how Daniele was coming into to that mark at 25 + knots. I am sure many of them would love watching it all unfold.

Part of the problem here is that there is a large separation of the foilers from the front to the back, can be even 1 mile separate.
And most of the crazy action takes place toward the mid to back of the pack.
The leaders tend to get out in front and extend in sail boat racing, but especially in foiling, and the distance gets very large.
So only having one drone would not catch much of the excitement.

Would be interested to hear others thoughts

[Peter_Frank]

I think the live GPS on each contestant is extremely exciting, when you can see the video footage combined with the graphics showing the speed and current positions, like we see in most races now.

Like this :



Peter

[tkaraszewski]

The last Americas cup in Bermuda used real time velocity, vmg, virtual moving finish lines, multiple one board cameras and course markers in live footage. It really made it exciting. It would be awesome to have these in kite racing.
I'd like to see better "on board" camera like both head mounted and line mounted. If every rider had one it would be fair.

A few years ago there were several races where all the top guys had GPS trackers on their boards, and there was a seperate app that showed all this information for each race. You could replay the race and see everyone's speeds and heading at any point. I can't seem to find it right now, but it's definitely doable.

I don't think anyone would go for the line mount camera, but cameras on the start boat and boats at the mark roundings would be great.

The real problem is getting people to race. Not sure what it's like in other areas, but on the East Coast US, there are very few people interested in racing. Last year I drove 11 hours to go to a race where 8 people showed up for the open kite hydrofoil class. I mean I probably drove past 100 milllion people's homes on my way to the race, but only 8 people thought it was worth it to show up to a kite hydrofoil race Maybe the olympic cycle will bring some new interest, but from what I've seen there is a very small group of people dedicated to racing, but the barrier to entry is very high (cost and time) so very few new people are starting to race.

I would LOVE the opportunity to go racing. But in not gonna fly to San Francisco every week all summer for the chance to get on the water for a few races where I get absolutely crushed by pros.

So I keep racing sailboats.

[alowishus]

Not to be critical but the commentary in the OP's vid would have been better in Spanish.