stribo said...I have two 7.6m sails.One has cams and rigs on an rdm.The other has no cams and rigs on an sdm.The cammed sail i can squeeze about two more knots out of . It feels heavy but stable in the gusts.The no cam feels much lighter but when you get powered up or a gust hits you can feel every thing flexing out of shape and generaly give you a hard time untill it settles down again.
I reckon for speed and slalom racing cams are the go.
For fun all round sailing no cams are the go as they don't take as much energy out of ya.
When I went to Dahab a few years ago, the hire place I used only had cammed sails in the 8m and 8.5m sails. Everything else was no cams, and mostly wave sails in the smaller sizes. As Dahab is gusty I had a heck of a time trying to get going on the non cammed sails as by the time they got their shape in the gust, the lull would hit and the shape would disappear.
I preferred the cammed 8m by far and was out on that when others were out on less than 6m sails. I know my weight makes a bit of difference, but the cammed sails certainly felt more locked in and stable for that sort of gusty crap wind. It was way less tiring for me that way than struggling with the non-cammed sails.
A week later I was using a different hire place that had North sails and I used the r-types and another type of cammed sail. Much better. It allowed me to get away with a smaller board too as I was able to keep going in between the gusts.
But when it all comes down to it ...use whatever you can get your hands on to get on the water
Windsurfing will never be wrecked....
Nope. Not true. Windsurfing is wrecked when you have had at least 4 hours sailing time, your hands can't contract to hold a beer bottle, the hot water from a shower makes a slightly better stinging sensation than the pouring rain you just sailed in, and you know that tired as you are, if the forecast holds you will be doing the same again tomorrow.
Did I say wrecked? I meant good!
Had to rig it so the sail was touching the boom when sheeted in, maybe hanging over a bit in the gusts and only the top of the leech between the first two battens was slightly loose but this got me planing. Once unstuck the XTC flies, I think it would plane through 12 knot lulls. Perhaps it is a bit bigger than advertised? It feels very floaty under foot.
