Rob11 said..MrFussy said..
I very much ponder the fact that the windfoil race dudes are using/needing 10m plus, to me that says something is very wrong.
Let us know how the rig goes racing against current 10+m sails.
Maybe i need a moth sail 8.25m on a foil to maximize light wind? Thoughts?
Won't need to be like a Moth sail, yes some shaping values will be the same in parts of the sail though, sections are sections and if something is required to do a job it must be there. The main problem with our current methods of madness to shape windsurf sails is that it is done with a lot of distortion, one of the main things being using less luff curve up top and excess down low, downhaul the snot out of it and you turn the sail inside out higher getting twist and jam the excess round back with cams down low and you get some forward shape, designers use varying combinations of luff load and seam shape to form that lower sail shape. fill the sail with a bunch of tube battens to stabilize the mess and hey presto off you go. I call it panelbeating as far as sailmaking goes. This is why the need for high luff tension, you have to stretch the sail into shape and often the setting range is minimal, either side of the design spot the sail is a dog, outhaul can be critical too. The approach I am taking is from a more traditional sailimaking point, just shape the sail the shape it needs to be and make shore the mast bend is pretty right, just the natural bend of the mast at the amount to make it stiff enough to stand the sail up, no shaping via luff round, downhaul tension is more moderate at the amount needed to prebend the mast and just lock in the designed shape. What this means then is that we can reintroduce more forward shape up the luff and design in the amount of twist needed (you can't put shape in forward effectively if you are sucking out the luff to create twist), the more shape there is in the entry the less twist is needed behind that point so the leach can be firmer. What then happens is that more of the sail is drawing properly, sail gets more efficient and can be smaller, with a better leading edge the sails stall less, point higher and run deeper, this has been the case with the Moth stuff and an area of continuing refinement. Windsurf sails will always be that bit flatter up top (and so the need for more twist to maintain correct entry angle) than rigs like Moths because they are hand held rigs (with a stayed rig you can cope with a bit more brute force and ignorance) so is a form that is easier to hang on to, but they can sure get a whole lot better yet, so we're getting stuck in and so far so good. The sails now have a far broader setting range so you can set them to suit foiling or slalom use, could be that the one design of race sail does it all, is starting to looking that way. Hope this makes some sense and adds up to Fangy's review, getting a bit stuffy down this rabbit hole so I'll head off now to Liptons for a spot of COVID sail testing.Cheers, Bugs
