Avalon XTR 7.0 2021 Review
I have had a Avalon 7.0 for a few weeks now and had a chance to use it over its impressive wind range.
Summary - stop reading and just get one. It is the best performing race sail I have ever owned. It's hard to believe any sailor being unhappy with the performance of this sail.
TL:DR Bit for those who really need to procrastinate. Firstly, some disclaimers - I am not sponsored and have no financial interests in Avalon Sails. I paid the full asking price for this pre production sail. I am lazy, heavy, uncoordinated, and of average ability. When I am kitted up, 120kegs of momentum muscle is hitting the water. So for most of the sailing fraternity that is the equivalent to strapping at least two jerry cans of fuel to your back. Please bear this in mind when reading my comments - what applies to me, may well not apply to you.
First impressions - The sail presents as a very clean, almost austere, panel set up of blue and neutral colours with a slighter higher aspect ratio and striking, constant leading edge entry the entire length of the luff. The stitching and seams are finished neatly and with an eye for detail. There is no excess of cloth or stitching, nor ratty loose ends ignored by hiding them from sight in the luff pocket. There is no undue bulk of reinforcing stitches due to clever design and use of gluing technology. The sail has a moderate sized luff pocket made of light flexible abrasive resistant polyester. The hardworking and stressed maximum chord thickness areas of the foil uses a blue pigmented polyester laminate and the remaining trailing sections of the foil is a clear reinforced scrim laminate. For those of you with deeper pockets and longer arms, the sail can be made in higher tech, race materials if desired.
The aesthetic is minimalist, no frills 'nude' appearance with a distinct lack of superfluous graphics and marketing gimmickry. It very much appeals to my sense of function over form, however it may not be for everyone. I noticed the look was polarising for shoreside sailors with comments ranging from; "..it looks homemade." (*) to enthusiastic appreciation of the clean and uncluttered appearance.
(* I am not sure whether the 'homemade' comment was derogatory, initially I thought it was a positive reference to the bespoke nature of the sail versus the commercial offerings from the China and Sri Lanka, but upon reflection, I now think it may have been the opposite)
Specifications -this pre production sail 7.0 I found the downhaul to be approximately 472cm and nominal outhaul of 200cm. There are 7 battens and 5 cams. The cams are reminiscent of the nineties RAF plastic forks and webbing style cams. The webbing length is different for each location
on the mast and hence not only are they a perfect fit, they are light, simple and appear to durable. As a result the sail feels wonderfully light and supple when rigged.
Despite my initial and incorrect reservations, there is only one outhaul clew. Instead, the seam shaping and physical properties of the panel material combinations works effortlessly to depower the head when required. There is no need to break-the-back of the main panel batten to twist off the top panels as per conventional offerings.
The downhaul is a straightforward three pulley block. On my sail there is no mast foot neoprene sock so the pulley, downhaul and uni joint are in plain sight. I believe that this may change in future, but I like the simplicity and accessibility of the current setup.
The mast head is fixed and reinforced with webbing with no fiddly mast head attachments.
Rigging - The hardest part of rigging is the un-learning of cammed sail wrestling techniques that are a deeply engrained force of habit. It simply requires the mast to be slid across the top of the first three cams as per normal, and then the mast tip located in the leading edge of the luff pocket as the remaining cams automatically slide by the mast and engage themselves. The first few times I rigged I was stopping to check they had engaged because it was unnervingly simple. I need not have bothered. As it turns out, it actually can be that simple to rig cams.
The sail is down hauled about 80% and the bottom three cams flicked into place via a downward push on the belly. Once the relatively small zipped openings are closed, they hold the cams in place on the mast and the days of cams popping off as you downhaul or adjust the mast foot settings are gone.
Also gone are the days of rig winches or busted backs to achieve the correct downhaul. Clever design means that the sail can happily 'twist off' without having to turn the mast inside out, As a result downhaul is a fraction of the load used in comparable sails. Once down-hauled, the twist in the head is visible but there is no rattling or floppy leach film, just a smoothly laying off leech line that continues to do so when the mast is under load.
So, cams are easy, downhaul is easy, what about the boom? Same deal, just slide it on when you are doing the cams. The boom pocket in the sail is not zipped, rather it is a matter of choosing one or more of the three seamed pockets. No zips, just beautifully functional simplicity. KISS principle at its best. Given my unhappy history with boom head zips, to me this was an a fine example of improvement by deconstruction of complexity and excellent piece of innovative thinking and application.
Performance on the water is hard to fault. The bottom end is by
far the most impressive of any sail of this size I have ever used. Every square metre of sail pulls forward from the get go. For a heavy sailor on a narrow tail board this low down power is a joy. I was astounded at the ease I could get planing in lightish conditions where I normally would have been using a 7.8 or more. Once up and going, the lift is very stable and always pulling forward with no hint of lateral lift, yaw and drag. When the gusts come through, if I do nothing, I just go faster until such time as the wind backs off, or more likely, I do. The sail is lazy man's paradise. If I want to slow down, I just sheet out. There is no instability, threats of a catapult or any bad behaviour. Even when I intentionally push the limits trying to backwind or stall the sail there are no vicious snaps. It was just really hard to find any vices. I am not sure about the top end power. It seems to have the ability to go through the gears and just keep pulling forward until you chicken out. There are no hysterics or twitchiness, just a deep intimidating assuredness from the sail that you will ease off the accelerator when your self preservation genes kick in. I can't wait to try this sail on a big stretch of smooth and stare it down the barrel for a NM. The handling is such that I suspect the reason I would change down in size is that I have too much power for the water state, not that I am verging on getting smacked by an uncontrolled rig. Playing with the downhaul affects the entry angle and gradually de-powers the head without resorting to a crinklefest of mono film up top. Outhaul gives a finer foil in the belly to also back off the power. But the extremes of either don't seem to kill-off the sail, make it twitchy or a saggy sack. There is no sweet-spot of settings, rather a large sweet-zone. The sail continues to works at all reasonable settings and you are merely fine tuning for your requirements on the day.
Rotation with 5 cams doesn't sound as though it's going to be anyth
ing other than up front and loud. It isn't. And to the point where it was so smooth and quiet I had to check visually that in fact that all the cams had indeed rotated. No tugging or snap into place, rather a featherlight smooth transition from tack to tack that makes you think you might have rigged a no cam sail by mistake.
Video of one handed rotation
fb.watch/3G-rPREPSw/ Waterstarts are better than any of my cammed sails for several reasons. Firstly, the luff pocket doesn't act like Argyle Dam and store several Sydney Harbours of water when you put it in the drink. Next, the cams rotate so easily that they pop over to the right side with no drowning inducing struggle, Then, the sail is so light you don't need to have Thorpedo strength in your legs to lift it up and finally that bottom end power just effortlessly lifts this carcass free from the water.
Derigging is a non event. Just undo your boom, loosen the downhaul a chunk
and unzip the cam pockets and then help the cams slip off the mast. That's it, job done. Again, lazy man's paradise.
Still reading hoping for the
downside? Sorry but it's a pitifully small list. The main item of which is the cost. (currently POA) You ain't going to laugh off the price of this Australian made piece of perfection. Having said that, even though I am always keen for a council verge pick up bargain, I will be replacing all my sails in future when the budget allows. Second, is the foot batten. This is where the lazy man's paradise ends in a uncompromising slap of function over all else. Rather than use a relatively parallel foot batten and foot tack strap, a more efficient angled bottom batten is used. Whilst this gives an excellent foot shape and is better in every respect when on water, when it comes to rolling p your sail, this batten needs to be removed in order to get a nice tight roll. I am simply too lazy and end up paying the price with an oversize poorly packed roll of sail. If you are not lazy and remove the batten, the sail packs with no problem. And finally, the three zips are white. They should be black to match the battens.
See? I told you it was pitiful.
Congrats on making it to the end of another Fangy review. Get ya self a gold star and whack it on the fridge.
Avalon Sail Co is based in Mandurah WA. Phil 'Bugs' Smith is the designer and has a list of accomplishments longer than I can be bothered to type. Remember, lazy man right here. He is incredibly old and knows his stuff.
Faceache link here where you can get all the deets:
www.facebook.com/avalonsails
( one of the early iterations of a RDM. The base is closer to a current SDM, the top closer to a RDM)
). I remember at one of the Longreef Sony Internationals (1985?) Gaastra were showing off their new cambered sails and weren't too impressed with the appearance of our Bugs race sails, they were trying to patent the concept. Anyway main point is that I have been through the whole development of windsurf sails to date and invented or been involved in developing many of the bits and bobs seen in the past and present. What is in our sails today is what I have cherry picked from all those years of development and happy to state most is my stuff. The boom slots for me date from 87-88 and used them in Bugs race sails before joining Hot Sails Maui in early 1990, may have seen the method in the Gaastras of the time, all I know is I hated the open hole with binding all around it. As time has gone on production windsurf sails have become more and more laden with junky finishing detail, bling I guess, can't stand it personally, I am only interested in breaking design down to the purest form possible without compromising performance. They are designed from experience, not a marketing department with a graphics art budget.Cheers,Bugs
Streamlined? Besides the lack of the built in base mast protector, that in my opinion is a necessity, and the lack of boom zipper, there are plenty sails that are as streamlined as this one. Arguably more since 5 cams are really kind of an outlier nowadays. Rigging my 7.3 3-cams Loft Switchblade is easy (see below), first generation Hot Sails Maui GPS (4 cams) was less so but not too bad. I see around new Point-7, NP, Loft full on race sails and rigging seems very easy. However, you are forgetting the new breed of freerace camless sail ... those are easy to rig and derig!!! Hard to comment on the performance of the sail, hyperbole seems to reign a bit there, but really ... no modern race, or freerace sail shows "hysterics or twitchiness". It would be nice to know the weight, it looks built like a tank and I doubt that it is any lighter than any other race/freerace ... but again it is certainly heavier than a no-cams. 
