Hell yes, it's like car brands.
My experience is based mainly on race sails (though more recently some freestyle/wave sails). I generally get a long time out of sails unless their is some design oversite such as badly placed stitching or poor monofilm quality.
Traditionally pryde, love the feel although sometimes the sails are a little too solid for going quick through the chop etc. Pryde's are more often than not step on and go fast straight out of the box no having to get used to the finer points of the sail. I loved the VX series- awesome, stable, fast and everything in the right place with relatively good longevity. After that they kind of went to sh#t, though before that the monofilm was very UV susceptible also. The rs-racing onwards seem to have improved again in quality but masts dying and general poor quality of other rig components was disappointing. The quick death of both my rx2's and sheertip v8 soon after acquiring turned me off monofilm big time. Oh and the price
though they do have very good season sellout prices. Release date at the start of our season which is good.
Gaastra have some awesome designs, you want a fast blasting sail pick almost any race gaastra back to '94 but they were made to a light weight panel spec so the monofilm tended to wrinkle or rip pretty quick. Alot were "quirky" in one way or rather.
North, well made in some points though they do make some glaring faults with odd seam placements etc. Nice sails but lack that pryde feel so never fully agreed with me. Another get on and go brand. Pricing bad. I did see the 07 daytona's the other day and all I can say is build quality [}:)], double stitched seams etc very hardcore. I dont really understand the understated white/grey thing though.
Now I'm on aerotech though I dont competely know that my allegiance lies with them. Their design agenda is very different to everyone else. Some bad design points (like north) but in general the materials of their top end sails (race/wave) is very good. The silver pentex is very cool as is the cuben by all reports, the xply is also good. The standard large reinforcment xply is kind of ordinary but still better than most monofilms. Their other sails I just dont like the materials they use in luff sleeve etc. Performance very good but again a little quirky (I like quirky sails, just like quirky cars
).
This year I updated my sails, the main brands of consideration were-
aerotech, North, KA and Gun (post blade release Loft would have been included). Big detractions were for Gun and Loft due to no pre-testing/limited exposure- if I knew the aero's and North worked then thats what I would go for generally.
You're conscience helps decide which sail you buy?
