Welcome

Welcome to the Blog of Windsurfer Fleet 18

Fleet 18 was founded by the late Glenn Taylor in the 70s and has ever since been dedicated to the promotion of windsurfing regattas in the San Francisco Bay Area.

During the summer months (April through September) we meet every Tuesday evening on the Ryan Lagoon in Foster City (off Shell Blvd, next to the Foster City Skate Park) for 3 to 4 races on olympic triangle courses in the main lagoon with the first race starting at 6PM.

Visit the Fleet 18 home page for more information.

Equipment

The equipment we use is nearly “One-Design” but we are not strict about the equipment used. The recommended equipment is: a 11 1/2′ board of about 240 liters of volume and a sail of up to 7.5 square meters. The Mistral IMCO sailboard (previously used in the Olympics) is the standard, but other suitable craft are OK. Starting in the 1998 season many of us began sailing on Mistral Superlight II boards equipped with Windwing 7.5 sq. meter sails. The Superlight II is almost identically the Mistral Equipe II so Equipe II boards can also do well in our group activities.

By 2012, the Windwing and IMCO sails had become pretty shabby and we have made a mass purchase of Kona One 7.4 sails. These sails are much flatter than the IMCO 7.5 so are not as good in light or moderate wind, therefor we have decided to forbid the further use of the IMCO sails.

The Kona sails have no camber inducers. The Kona 7.4 uses a 460 mast.

The original Mistral Superlight craft are quite competitive in this fleet, often beating all IMCOs and most Superlight IIs in winds less than 12 mph.

Tuesday Night Races

Join us for our weekly races on the Ryan Lagoon in Foster City during the Sommer months (April through September).

We are a small number of windsurfing enthusiasts enjoying bouy racing on as-close-as-possible-to-one-design windsurfers (see ‘Equipment’ post).