The Vietnam leg of the tour is over with most of the top sailors ending up in top ten positions. The top 5 men and women are as follows:
Men Women
1. Dunkerbeck Reflex2 Offringa Vapor
2. Albeau Pryde Evo Jaggie Reflex2
3. Diaz Warp Arutkin Warp
4. Jossin Loft Blade Demont Reflex2
5. Allen Reflex2 Erdil Loft Blade
Note the strong showing of Reflex2's.
Loft Sails has definitely got its act together with the new Blades. Last season Jossin was never in contention but with this sail he won two of the heats decisively. I have always been interested in Loft's race sails because all sizes rig on RDM masts. I'm sure that this gives an excellent feel on the water. They don't publish weights but looking at the sail it appears to have quite a large area of light scrim above the boom. Nice!
I mentioned in an earlier post about Taty Frans entering slalom racing for the first time and I have to say he did pretty well. He won one heat and came in second to Peter Volwater in another. He is really good at cutting inside at the bouy in rough water and his sails are so much smaller than the other sailors. A man whose usual sail is 4.7m doesn't need huge area to get going. In the heat with Volwater, Taty nailed a few long jumps on the final leg to the finish. Great stuff.
Other points to note - Ross Williams did pretty well on his new Vapors. Definitely better than last year. Josh Angulo put in a good run on his Gun sails and Sylvain and Benoit showed that the new Simmers are working just fine. Their new Tabou boards may also have something to do with this of course. Ben vd Steen who is also with Loft now, cut his foot open on someone's fin in a crash so was at a huge disadvantage but still managed to win one of the heats. A man to watch.
These are early days in the tour and it is going to be really interesting to watch how things develop as the season progresses.
Thanks for this update Phil.
ReplyDeleteFor others information those reflex2's are also making non pro's faster all over the world.