Also depends on your skill level, boards, conditions, the rest of your quiver, what type of riding you have in mind. For example, two cammed sails less than a meter apart is generally tight in the average freeride quiver but if you are very performance oriented, you may prefer a tighter quiver spacing.

Had the big OD and traded for a Turbo. 8.5 Turbo is awesome for my needs - more tuned for light wind which is what I want out of a big sail. If you want to be able to hang on to a big sail in heaps of wind to get you accelerating out of a gybe, that's more the OD. Both great sails but you need to ask what you want them for - that will lead you to the answer.

sboardcrazy said..
OD more of a pain to uphaul / watertsart if you drop it in chop. Better off the wind than the Turbo if you're after speed. The Turbo is more user friendly but you probably already know that..

So this is where I'm at now. 9.2turbo got ordered for light wind on the ultrasonic. 10-14knots
i have a 8.6od to go with my fox140 for the 12-18knots. Can be held in much more if Needed
now this is where I'm not sure, for those 16knot plus days should I go 7.5turbo or Stick with the 7.8OD. I like the idea of the easy to use Turbo but wonder if It would get overpowered to quick. The OD wouldn't get overpowered but Sometime I just want a easy day.
normaly when it's 7.8 weather top speed is not my concern but control is so as long as the turbo can handle 20 plus knots i think that's the way I'll go.

I can do the 10 to 20knots on the fox140 and overdrive 8.6 but wanting to make the extremes more comfortable and as I have the ultrasonic and fox120 I figure I might as well get a sail for each.

Ben1973 said..

sboardcrazy said..
OD more of a pain to uphaul / watertsart if you drop it in chop. Better off the wind than the Turbo if you're after speed. The Turbo is more user friendly but you probably already know that..

So this is where I'm at now. 9.2turbo got ordered for light wind on the ultrasonic. 10-14knots
i have a 8.6od to go with my fox140 for the 12-18knots. Can be held in much more if Needed
now this is where I'm not sure, for those 16knot plus days should I go 7.5turbo or Stick with the 7.8OD. I like the idea of the easy to use Turbo but wonder if It would get overpowered to quick. The OD wouldn't get overpowered but Sometime I just want a easy day.
normaly when it's 7.8 weather top speed is not my concern but control is so as long as the turbo can handle 20 plus knots i think that's the way I'll go.

I can do the 10 to 20knots on the fox140 and overdrive 8.6 but wanting to make the extremes more comfortable and as I have the ultrasonic and fox120 I figure I might as well get a sail for each.

I haven't used Overdrives but I own 8.6M, 7.5M & 6.5M Turbo GTs.
The 7.5M is my favourite sail & is pretty light, has a huge wind range & I would guess 1kg lighter than an OD.
I generally run the 8.6M & 7.5M on a 120L RRD Firestorm, the 8.6M feels a tad too big for that board.
I used to run the 7.5M on a 101L Firestorm & it was magic in wind around 15-20 knots.
Not sure about comfort above 20 real knots of wind though.

I even used the 7.5M the other day foiling in about 8-10 knots & it was great as it pumps easily.

sboardcrazy said..
I remember once sailing in overpowering winds on my 7m NCX. I wasn't enjoying it as it was too on and off.. I came in and rigged the larger GT 7.5m and had heaps more fun!
Not a comparison with the OD but still testimony to it's user friendliness..
My impressions are the OD are setup for well powered up control whereas the GT gets going earlier and is more user friendly ? That may be wrong but that's how it feels to me . For a lightweight like me the OD are only just coming into their zone when the wind gets to the stage where I need to change down. Great for flatwater sailing but not so good in chop..I use a 7m in 12-19kts .

I agree. I really wanted my 6.0 and 7.0 NCXs to work, I've never used cammed sails and didn't want to start. I just couldn't get them to work for me, they were just too twitchy. I swapped to Overdrives and they felt great, plenty of guts if that makes sense.

I have a Turbo GT 8.5 and 7.8 Overdrive M2, then Mach 2s for 7.0 down.

The thinking was that the bigger the sail, the softer and lighter (relatively) I wanted the construction, and the easier I wanted it to rotate. The downside is that when I'm on my bigger sails, the less scope I have for sailing overpowered, but I think that's a reasonable compromise. On those lighter days I'm not that concerned with performance, I just want to get out for a sail, so I don't want a big luff pocket or lots of cams.

remery said..

I know what you mean. I had heaps of negative downhaul to try and get some shape. I ended up trading the 6.0 but kept the 7.0 because I seemed to get on ok with it and I thought it would be good for foiling.

Happy accident... the GTs have a reputation for being a nice freeride foil sail. Sam Ross seems to enjoy his.

Ben1973 said..
Took the Turbo Gt 9.2 out for its first trip tonight.
very light wind, no white caps and I'd be surprised if there was 11knots in the gust.. I really didn't think I would get going BUT the thing is a power house, really easy to pump on to the plane and once there it just keeps going. It's definitely a light wind weapon.
The bad side is it's a real pain to rig, getting the mast up is a real struggle and I've never had so much hassle getting the cams on. I can rig my OD in minutes with no effort at all but this was a pig. Hope it gets easier with a bit of use.

The luff sleeve is narrow & hard to get the mast right in without creasing the monofilm.
I damaged the luff pocket on my 8.6M by pushing the mast in all the way without wrinkling the monofilm, the stitching gave way 3/4 of the way up.
Now I just rig & ignore the monofilm getting scrunched, just a fact of life for this style of sail.

I also rig on skinny masts, that helps a bit.

Too much outhaul will kill the power, have the sail touching the boom all the way to the harness lines & tighten as required from there as the wind picks up.

I've owned both, Turbo GT harder to rig as previously said. I found it got up and going nice and early BUT top end grunt just wasn't there. I have all overdrive's and love them except when they just fall apart. I recommend anyone who keeps Severne for a few years buys a sewing machine like me ????