Some Gybing Pointers

Hi
From time to time I do something on gybing.  Here are some more pointers.  Gybing and gybe moves warrant our attention given their importance to what we do on the water in every session.

These shots are from the RRD video on the new Firewing sail.  The rider is John Skye - an awesome wave sailor who probably dislikes slalom stuff.  His gybe is not as crisp as one of Antoine's but because he gets the basics right, he flys through the move with ease:

This aerial shot shows the body leaning into the turn while flaring the sail

The sequence starts here.  He banks the board, pulling in with the back hand, knees bent 

Downwind, he flares, looking forward through the window and starting the foot change

His feet have changed, he controls the board with his front foot keeping it down and also steering.  He looks directly in the direction he wants to go, and flips the sail

He collects the boom pulling down with elbows down.  He continues looking in the direction of travel, knees bent and bum low to hold against the powering sail.

We have racing here next week and some men have arrived from Mauritius.  Nice guys and hot sailors based on what I saw on the water yesterday (Severne, Loft, Patrik, Starboard - Nice!).  I think they are on ZFins.

Talk to you soon   

New Select Fin

Hi

Just a quick note.  Following my previous post and my comment about the absence of any visuals for the new Select Rhino, Kevin Do wondered whether the new G10 S1 is actually the Rhino.  I'm pretty sure that the G10 model is something completely different.  They call it the S1 Hi-Wind.

The thing I am waiting for is shown by them as a roughly shaded outline labelled "Coming Soon"

 

 Well "soon" has come and gone Select.  Where is the elusive Rhino??  We need visuals!

Looking at the Hi-Wind above, I have to say it looks the business.  My dream fin for wild water speed would be the iFins Fight Club or the iFins Air but I have to say that this new S1 is going to be worth a try.  Nice shape and altogether a classy thing.

Talk to you soon

GA Matrix, New GA Team Members and the Conversion of a 3S 116

Hi
I rode Karel's 2015 Matrix 6.0m and it was every bit as good as he described.  This has to be on the short list of anyone looking for a fast, easy, camless sail.  Very, very nice.  Peter's sails have a characteristic linear power delivery which gives you the confidence to push hard and continue accelerating without the usual wide eyes and white knuckles.  Every year this feature of his sails seems to improve.  My ideal small sail quiver now comprises 3 Matrixes (matrices??) - 5.5, 6.5, and 7.0.  I will enlarge on the logic for this selection in a future post.

Speaking of GA sails, I note that Taty Frans, Ludo Jossin and Antoine Questel have all joined the GA team.  These are all pretty impressive sailors so watch out for more Vapors kicking ass in 2015 slalom heats. Taty moves from Maui Sails and the other two racers move from Loft.  Interesting. Those of you who watch the PWA race videos will recall Taty (a freestyle guy) coming in with a huge jump in one of the heats and rounding the bouy with a duck gybe in another.  Awesome!

One thing which concerns me is the Tabou team.  None of the above guys is moving to Tabou.  This team has not seen new talent for ages and even though Ben has been riding the boards, he is not included as a team member.  What is going on?

On the subject of Tabou, regular readers may recall my only complaint with my Tabou 3S 116 - the lack of proper outboard strap positions for fast blasting.  I made up some aluminium plates which enable me to temporarily re-position the straps so that I could test whether outboard positions would work.

I only changed one side to get a feel.  The placement works perfectly and allows me to control and exert pressure on the fin.  Much faster!  I will consider making the plates in carbon fiber during our off-season.  My aluminium protos above will serve as good templates.  I would cover the final plates with rubber deckpad material.

No news yet on the new Select Rhino slalom fin.  Come on Select we need visuals!

Talk to you soon

Phil    

2015 Severne Performance Sails on Site

Hi

I note that Severne have posted the new Reflex and Overdrive onto their site.  I'm not sure why they took so long this year but the final result looks stunning in each case.

Overdrive

Reflex

Seeing the two models together like this demonstrates the slight design differences.  The Reflex is going to be one fantastic racing machine but the narrower sleeve and softer shape of the Overdrive would make this my choice between the two.  Nice work Severne.

I am giving some thought to re-visiting the ideal quiver question once again.  There is a lot of new stuff on the market and this has changed my thoughts about optimal sail/board combinations for advanced windsurfing blasters (us).

Karel, one of the hot inland sailors, has bought (amongst many other pieces), a 2015 GA Matrix 6.0m and reports that this is one awesome sail - very direct and almost race sail-like but easy and controllable.  I must say that I suspected as much from the design of the thing.  I will try to get a ride on this sail when the strong winds return and will report back.

Peter's designs just keep improving year after year.  The graphics and colours have also moved into a completely different league.  The colour above looks good in the picture but is even better in real life. Stunning!

Talk to you soon

Phil

New Avanti Sails and some Manta Pics

Hi

I apologize for the long break - the silly season can throw one's routines out sometimes.  We have had some good sailing recently with three fast upcountry sailors (Karel, Andy and Rob) keeping the locals on their toes and one super-fast Arthur hanging with our best.  The bodies are recuperating now however over some quiet days.  Our next wind is expected on Friday and Saturday.

Avanti
Avanti sails always impress me and their new race sail looks stunning.  These guys came up with carbon fiber load path reinforcing a while ago and although Severne's recent moves in this direction are impressive, Avanti was at the forefront:

Just look at the shape under tension in the top two pictures.  What a beautiful thing!

The bottom picture shows the side-on view and I am heartened to note no protruding batten at the clew.  This approach tempts me to shorten the overhangs on two of my existing sails.  I have wanted to do this for some time but feared that the new shape would somehow not work.  Dan however, knows what he is doing so I am now feeling a lot more confident about cutting two perfectly fine sails.  One would need to do the mod in conjunction with one's sail repair person to ensure that the new margin is properly strengthened and that all the reinforcing is properly stitched back onto the clew area.  I haven't decided yet.

15 Manta Pics
The Manta pictures below came from www.ewindsurf.fr but I think that the original photos came from a guy called Ken Kitahara at Maneuverline.

Bottom of the new 61

The new 71

The new 81

  

The 71 and 81 boards show slight differences in the cut-outs compared to the 2014 boards.  Both designs are hugely impressive and I have no doubt that they are going to work perfectly.

The 61 bottom is really interesting - much simpler than the bigger boards but I have an idea that it will be something special on the water.  Simple need not mean ineffective and there is a certain elegance of design here.

That is all for now.  Talk to you soon.

Phil

Select Fin Update and a Suggestion for Financing New Equipment

Hi

I note that Select are now listing the new VMax 3.0 on their site.  I gather that the larger sizes have more grip than the 2.0.  Unfortunately no updates on the new Rhino race fin.  I am looking forward to seeing (and hopefully trying) this fin.

Speaking to the local windsurfers on our beach, an overriding topic of conversation is the increasing costs of new windsurfing equipment.  If you are a young guy with the skill and passion to enter slalom racing seriously - how on earth do you afford a quiver of new race sails, boards, rigs and fins? This is actually quite serious for the sport and I'm sure that more than a few potential windsurfers are opting for kiting instead.  Not good.

Anyway, this line of thought prompted me to mention my commercial website to the readers of this blog.  One of the sections of this website is devoted to methods of earning money online and if you are interested, I provide the link below.  Please understand that my website is for the general public and so I'm sure that sections of it will be of no interest to you but establishing an online business is something we should all be doing (especially if we wish to continue buying tasty equipment).  Anyway, here is the link to the site.  Please go to the root page of each topic and read this before going on to its subsidiary pages.  Knowing windsurfers as I do, I think that the material on affiliate marketing and the stuff about commodities and Forex trading will be of interest.  The other stuff - not so sure.

Anyway, please have a look.  All the approaches suggested actually work!

Here is the link:

[Phil's Website]      

Mast Specifications by Sail Brand

Hi

A while ago I received an e-mail from Giuseppe, a reader from the north of Italy.  He is keen on buying a 2014 GA Vapor and asked whether he should opt for the outgoing GA gold mast or the new blue model.

The easy answer is to say that since the sail would have been designed on the gold mast, this is going to be the best thing to buy.  What I also try to do however, is to think about what is going to happen down the line.  What happens when you replace the sail?  Will the gold mast still be useful?  My advice to Giuseppe was that although the gold mast may (?) be better on the 2014 Vapor, he should opt for the new blue model if possible.  GA tell us that the new masts will work on their older Vapors so he should not have compatibility problems.  He will also have a mast which, in the future, will work with a number of different sail brands and this is the purpose of this post - to give you some mast stats by sail brand.

I wrote a post about mast bend statistics a few years ago.  For those of you who did not read it, here is the short version.  Windsurfing mast bend characteristics are measured as follows:

Suspend the mast from two points (one 5cm from the base, one 5cm from the tip).  Hang a 30kg weight from the point exactly mid way between the two suspension points.  Measure the mast deflection at the mid point when the weight is applied.  For this example assume the deflection is 10cm.
Now mark a point half way between the base suspension point and the mid point and another point half way between the tip suspension point and the mid point.  Measure the deflection at each of these points when the weight is applied.  The tip quarter will deflect more that the base quarter of course. For this example, assume that the tip quarter has deflected 7.8cm and that the base quarter shows a deflection of 6.4cm.  These three figures give us the measures we require.  We take each of the quarter measures (7.8 and 6.4) as a percentage of the mid section deflection (10.0).  So here we have the position of 78% tip deflection and 64% base deflection.  From these two percentages we calculate the curve delta of the mast.  Simply deduct the base deflection from the tip deflection.  In this case the curve delta is 14.  The higher the delta, the softer the mast top.

Here are some deltas you may find interesting:
       
        GA      Point-7      KA      Maui      North      Severne        Loft          Pryde
460   14        14            14         14           13             13            13              17

490   14        14            14         14           13             13            13              17

These are all stats for SDM race masts.

The above measures show a huge change in some of the brands.  Maui used to have really hard top masts with deltas of 9 or 10.  Gaastra was not far behind them with deltas of between 10 and 12.  Now GA masts are actually softer than both North and Severne.  They are now also compatible with a range of other sails.  Nice!

Pryde and Tushingham are the two brands who persist with very soft top masts.  Antoine certainly gets results out of this approach but I have a feeling he would win on any of the other brands as well.