North E-Type 6.6 Commentary

Hi

As mentioned in the previous post I want to share some thoughts about and give some commentary on this iconic freeride sail.

Initial Impressions  

When we purchased the 6.6, I rigged it on my North Platinum 460 SDM mast.  This is North’s first choice of masts for it.  Their second choice is their 430 SDM and the least favourite mast option is a 430 North RDM.

On the 460 SDM, the sail rigs perfectly.  Once you have tightened the battens the foil is absolutely smooth and as you apply downhaul, it falls off beautifully – a really nice piece of design.  

On the water the sail is powerful for its size, certainly equal to a 7m GA or Vandal sail in this class. The low end is actually quite ferocious and it gets the stickiest of boards planing – no problem.  My first impression was that it is really racy.  It was totally at home on my Falcons 113 and 124 and I had some concern that it may not suit our Tabou 3S 116 very well.  I need not have worried.  It is fantastic with free-move boards – fast, controllable, easy.

Rigging    

The sail comes with trimming marks to help you rig for light, medium or strong winds.  My belief is that you can pull it down to beyond the ‘strong wind” mark for most of your sailing.  It is extremely powerful as mentioned.  I have also discovered that you need not be frightened about applying outhaul.  Once you have dragged it right down, pull it out more than you think you should.  This exaggerated outhaul brings major stability into the rig.  

With the sail rigged like this we had some really fantastic sailing.  My only niggle was that when the wind really picks up the sail can start owning your ass (especially when rigged on a slalom board).  The sensible thing to do in these winds is to rig a smaller sail of course but I always aim to get the widest range possible from my sails and the 460 SDM mast restricts me slightly at the ragged top end.

I have moved away from GA sails and the problem with this as a strategy, is that it leaves you with masts which may not be compatible with your new sails.  I have a Gaastra 430 RDM which I used with my old GA Cross 6.4.   The old Gaastra masts are super stiff and I had a feeling that this stiffness in the RDM mast may just give me controllability and ease without losing stability.

 

The combo has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.  The sail is soft and light in the hands now and can be pushed into wild conditions with confidence.  I have to say that rigged, it is not as neat as on the official 460 SDM – it definitely looks a bit dishevelled when you drag it down but the results on the water are just fantastic.

 

We have now bought an E-Type 5.8m and I will be rigging that on my trusty black Fiberspar RDM which has seen such distinguished service with the 6.0m Cross in violent conditions.

OK that’s enough rambling for one post.

Good winds

BTW I hear rumours that Fanatic has developed a new long, super lightwind Falcon board for 2017.  I would like to think that my blog posts had something to do with this but I’m sure that it is a co-incidence.  

They are also bringing in a board called the Blast – a super fast, super comfortable free-race model for non-racing blasters. How intelligent is that!   Can’t wait!      

     

          

       

New Fins and Karo’s new Page

Hi

I apologise for the scarce posts, but at this time of year windsurfing is not at the front of the mind. When one is not sailing, other things become important.

Fins

Anyway, to start getting ready for the new season (October) I have obtained two new Zulu fins, one for each of the big boards.  

I now have the T-Rex 138 in addition to my beloved Pritchard Replica formula board and will be trying each with different sails.  I felt that I should get the best fins I can find for each board to give each a good chance to shine.  

We obtained a 50cm Zulu fin for the 90cm board and a Zulu 46cm fin for the 85cm T-Rex.  I hope the 46 fin will be big enough – we will see.

The fin in the snaps is the 50cm size.  The 46cm fin is in the T-Rex already.  

These fins are absolutely beautiful - light strong, flexible with a tactile, organic feel in the hand.  

Look at the shot with the box fitting.  Robbie makes this from carbon fibre making it both super strong and super light.  

All in all a piece of art whose superb functionality imparts a sort of voodoo power. 

Karo’s Page

I promised to mention one of Karo’s new online pages.  Regular readers will recall the post in which I mentioned Karo and the fact that she had been chosen by Severne Sails and Zulu fins to represent their respective brands.

 

http://star-board-apparel.com/blog/q-and-a-karo-van-tonder/

The above page link is part of Starboard’s Apparel  site – please have a look at it.

 

Karo is gathering sponsors at an alarming rate and by the time our new season starts she will be in the perfect position to give windsurfing visitors help with all sorts of purchasing decisions (fins, sails, apparel, harness lines and a lot more).  If you plan on visiting us, please contact Karo in respect of anything windsurfing or water sport related.

In the next post I will discuss the 2016 North E-Type 6.6m sail which we sailed most of last season.  I think that I have managed some fairly significant tweaks to this sail and I will share these with you.

Good winds

Phil    

New Equipment

Hi

Two pieces of new equipment caught my eye this week.  The first of these is GA's 2017 Vapor race sail and the second is Patrik's hollow formula board.  The formula board has been around for a while but he has put it on his site at last.

GA Vapor 2017

The 2017 GA Vapor sails have made an appearance at various GA distributor events.  Here are pictures from the facebook page of  Bartek Grzesiek.

      

What an involved piece of design!  I’m not sure how it works but I applaud the attempt to get rid of the overhanging batten above the boom end.  Incidentally, most of my sails have an overhanging batten and I have to say that they all perform well.  The overhang just irritates me.

GA’s efforts with the new Vapor, almost solve my problem but I have to wonder if Avanti’s simple approach is not the way to go:

 Without the opportunity to try both sails I have to side with Avanti on this.  Simple often turns out to be better.

Patrik Formula4 Airinside

Patrik has his new hollow formula board on the site now – a sublime piece of design and proof that when something looks right, it often is.

  

Steve Allen won the Australian Formula Windsurfing Nationals on this board winning every single heat on his way to the final.  No mean feat.

   

You can see why I chose this board as one of the inspirations for my new super board concept.  Just narrow it to 85-90ish cm and stretch the length to around 240 cm to create something really special for the non-racing blaster who wants to smoke in lighter winds.

Good sailing  

PWA news and a Development on the Big Board/Medium Sail/Medium Fin front

Hi

Here is some PWA commentary and also a development on my big board/medium sail/medium fin initiative.

 

PWA

Matteo Iachino has left Fanatic/North as most of you probably know.  This came as a surprise to me in light of his great form last season.  He has moved to Point-7/Starboard and seems to be doing even better on the new stuff beating everyone else to win the first event in Korea.  The new Point-7 race sails seem to have the right stuff and I have the feeling that this year’s iSonics are also particularly good.  The first lady in Korea was Lena Erdil, also on Point-7/Starboard.

Julien Quentell has made a big move, leaving Pryde/RRD to join Avanti Sails and Patrik Boards.  This too was a surprise since he seems to have been with his previous sponsors for ever and has always performed well.  Go through the videos on the PWA site and you will see Julien dominating one of the heats on his new equipment.  A nice performance but I note that neither Avanti nor Patrik show him as a team member at the time of this post.  Not good.  The could both have posted the heat vid to promote their respective brands.

Big Board/Medium Sail Quest

You will know from recent posts that I am pushing to get more sailors to try bigger boards with slightly smaller sails and fins than they were designed for.  Well here is the latest installment.  

I happened to be glancing through a schedule of sale items on the site of one of our equipment suppliers.  On the boards page was an old F2 T-Rex which immediately drew my attention.  This is a board from 2002 made specifically for Dunkerbeck to win the formula racing that year.  

The whole formula movement was finding its feet and so F2 produced two sizes of T-Rex.  The one in the sale was the smaller of the two (138l, 85cm wide, 262cm long) and since it is also a full carbon board, it seems to fit perfectly into this big board/medium sail category.  I contacted the guys, gave them a silly offer and two days later the board arrived at the door.  

Despite the time of the year and the usual cold and fluky winds it brings, we were given a bonus of good wind shortly after the board arrived.  Ellie and I took the beast out with my 7.8 camless sail and a 45cm fin (both sail and fin much smaller than envisaged for this board).  

The wind picked up to way beyond what I would expect to sail this combo in, but we decided to hold on to see if we could survive.  Well, it performed beyond my wildest dreams.  The board shoots onto the plane and accelerates effortlessly to what feels like a pretty decent top speed.  Chop is handled easily and the board seems to shrink as speed increases.  Due to the leverage over fin and sail, we were both able to hold the rig easily despite being totally overpowered.

 

Windguru shows some reasonable wind coming in a few days and I will take the board out again, hopefully in calmer wind.  I will report back if I get a good session.

You will note the chamfered rails which help the board shrink as soon as it starts to fly off the fin.  The rails also seem to aid in the turns so you can drive the thing round like a much smaller slalom board.  Note also how the rail hardens and sharpens up towards the back of the board.  All in all, this T-Rex is an impressive piece of design.  Peter Thommen knew what he was doing.

I could not comment on the larger T-Rex which was 170 or 180 litres, a meter wide and over 270cm long (a real monster).  

I urge you to look out for a good second hand 138l T-Rex like ours if you can find one.  Guaranteed you will have fun and will frighten your mates in light to medium winds – all for very little money!  Release your inner raptor if you feel strong and sail it way over-powered as we did.  

You also have the bonus of being able to screw in a long fin and fly with an easy, flat 10m sail in light winds.  Bargain! 

Some Holiday Options

Hi

I apologize for the long break but I have been involved with other stuff lately.

 

Here is a short note to share a link which I received from one Chio Espinosa who runs a surf travel website.  Chio asked me to mention the service they provide and I think that it may be worth a look.  The site contains dozens of water sport resorts which can be booked online.  The prices seem reasonable and the resorts (although mostly surfing spots), include a few nice windsurfing destinations:

www.BookSurfCamps.com

I will try to get these guys to acquire more pure windsurfing destinations on their books in time.  If I can do this, it could become a really useful resource for the windsurfing community.

Our season is really over now and the rain and cold have arrived.  Not much local sailing to report on then, but I will keep an eye on the PWA racing from May and comment on notable stuff.

 

Looking ahead to our upcoming season, Karo is working on a program of activities for non-racing windsurfers over our racing week in January.  The racing will take place from 02-06 January 2017 and an impressive field of slalom racers is expected. If any of you plan to visit Cape Town or Langebaan in January, please consider being here over this period.  We will get some informal racing going for the recreational sailors and Karo is organising talks from some of the pro’s (rigging, fins, gybing etc).  It should be a really nice break for any windsurfer. 

Our annual downwind dash takes place after the racing (8/9 Jan) so you can enter if you feel strong.  These are all things to bear in mind if you are planning to visit this part of the world over that period.

Good winds

Phil

Additional Post on Light-Wind Super-Boards

Hi

Martin Cross responded to my ramblings about a new class of big fast boards and his comments made me realize that I need to explain some of the reasons for my position on this concept.

The first thing Martin said was how good the Starboard UltraSonic is and I have to say that of the current crop of big freerace boards, this has to be the pick of all of them.  I will therefore include the US on the list.  In my dreams, the other three shapers will build the boards I suggested and I would then be fascinated to see a comprehensive back-to-back test of all four boards.

The other thing Martin queried is my requirement that the big board should be able to perform with a flat 7.8m sail.  Here I need to explain:

The biggest sail many local sailors own is a 7.5m, cammed model of some description.  Some guys have pure race sails, some have softer free-race options.  I personally own race sails in sizes up to 9.8m but my equivalent in the 7.5 area is a camless,  7.8m/7 batten sail.  This sail is also the biggest on offer by our local rental shop so we see them on the water constantly (especially at this time of year when our wind has lost its teeth and is interspersed with evil lulls).

The board customarily used with the 7.5 sail, in our light winds, would be a slalom model of around 80 cm wide and around 130l in volume.  On so many days we have good wind in places but with light patches.  On these days the guys will take their 80cm/7.5m board/sail combos out and usually battle to get going.  The gusts are fine but in the lulls they fall off the plane and wobble for much of each run.  In these conditions I rig my 7.8 on the 90cm board and simply fly.  The board width keeps me going through the lulls and the strap distance from the centre line provides massive leverage over both sail and fin for effortless control in the gusts.  The result is the ability to sail as long as I like, in total comfort and high speeds over flat water.  With this set-up I am able to smoke sailors on formula boards with 9m race sails - as long as we don’t go deep downwind or very tight upwind.  On those tacks I am not so clever (in fact - note to self - don't do that again!).  

A nice aspect of the 90cm/7.8m combo is that if the wind picks up, you move straight down to your 75cm or 71cm slalom board without the need to change the sail.  If the wind drops, rig the old 9.8m race sail, screw the big fin onto the wide board and continue sailing.

The secret of this enhanced performance in squirrelly conditions is to come down on the fin size.  My board was designed to be sailed with 11 and 12m sails and 70cm fin but I discovered that it is 100% happy with a smaller fin and smaller sail.  As I say, the leverage provided, makes this type of sailing something really special and based on these experiences I wrote the previous post.  We need a special class of modern board to capitalize on the type of conditions described above.  

 

Starboard created the US for exactly the type of sailing I describe and I’m sure that it is one fantastic product.  My wish list comprised three other boards from three other designers who I think, could each make a huge contribution to this class of sailing.

A possible quiver with one of these boards at the top, could look something like this:

90 cm Super-Board

75 cm Slalom (Fanatic Falcon or Patrik F-Race)

64.5cm fast B&J (Patrik F-Cross)

60.5 cm fast B&J (Patrik F-Cross) or smaller wave board depending on your sailing preferences.

I am a huge fan of rigging the B&J boards with slalom fins for phenomenal speed over choppy water with light sails.

The above quiver may be something to consider

All the best

         

The Perfect Light-wind Board

Hi

As mentioned in the previous post I would like to try to imagine a perfect lightwind, high performance board for the non-racer who likes to go fast. 

I would disqualify modern formula boards from this exercise because they are difficult and brutal.  I would also exclude 85 cm slalom boards because they are too narrow.  

We are looking for something around 90cm wide with a length of around 2.5m.  These dimensions, I believe, make it possible for the designer to create the combination of ease, speed, control and early planing we seek.

Light wind boards currently on the market include Starboard’s UltraSonic, RRD’s X-Fire Lightwind Ltd and JP’s Super Lightwind.   These boards all seem to have the correct dimensions and, on paper, offer exactly what we need – early planning, easy control and high top speed.     I am unsure of all three of them however.  The UltraSonic and the Super Lightwind both earn enthusiastic reviews when they are tested alone.  As soon as other boards are included in back-to-back testing, weaknesses emerge.  In one test, Fanatic’s Falcon 152 was included in the line-up and the consensus of the testers after exhaustive comparisons, was that if you want superior lightwind performance, you would need to go with the Falcon.

The above review also stated that the RRD is somewhat technical to sail at its full potential.  These comments have caused me to reject the three boards above.  I’m sure that they are all good but I’m not convinced that any of them will become cult boards.  We need a cult board in this class.

 

So – why not just opt for the Fanatic Falcon 152?  This is the board which out-performed the others in terms of speed and control.  Well, the dimensions and shapes are wrong for a start.  The board is only 230cm long.  This, together with tail cut-outs and recessed deck, is a recipe for stalling through  gybes (for the normal sailor).  It is also difficult to get into the straps (you virtually step into the water to get your feet in).  As with most slalom boards, this one has just one row of footstrap holes.  I have read good reports about the performance of the 152 but also read one owner’s comment that his front foot keeps coming out of the strap.  Red flag!

Despite the above concerns I am going to put the 152 on the final list.  The board will need to be altered though, before we can accept it as a possible cult board.  Other boards which make it onto the list of possibles are Elix’s R1X,XL (also to be altered), a board from Patrik which does not yet exist and if Mike Zajicek wants to make our cult board then he is on the shaper’s list automatically.

It occurred to me that once you start specifying what you do not want in a particular design, you also need to say what you do want.  Here is what we want in my opinion:

•          Light construction (under 8kg)
•          90cm width
•          150 litres volume
•          Over 245cm length
•         Able to carry cammed sails of 10m+ with a 60cm fin           and also perform with a camless 7.8m sail with a                 50cm fin (sails from 7.5 – 10m).
•         Very early to plane, very easy to gybe and keep                     planing through.  Effortless control at speed.
•         Extremely high top speed in medium winds
•         A finger slot for carrying (see RRD X-Fire Lightwind)
•        Light straps (see Starboard iSonics)
•        Two strap position rows.
•        We may need to ditch the cut-outs and may even                  require something like a diamond tail.  (?)

·          

Elix

The big problem with the Elix XL is the length - only 232cm so not acceptable.  Another concern with this board is the bottom shape.  I notice a pronounced V and I’m not sure that this is what we need for the sort of speeds and acceleration I envisage.  I may be wrong here of course.

The Elix is definitely an interesting proposition but there are too many unknowns.  If we exclude it then we are left with three potential boards.

 

The first is a board from Patrik.

This awesome machine (which only exists in my head at this time), uses his Formula v4 hollow board as a starting point.  5cm is removed from each edge to arrive at our required width of 90cm.  The board is then stretched to achieve a length of 245cm.  Two footstrap rows are required, a finger recess for carrying and hey presto we have one version of our dream board – the Patrik Lightspeed.

 

The bottom would look something like this but as I said, the cut-outs may have to be ditched.  Note how flat the underside is.  Simple and fast!

Patrik, if you are out there, please build the Lightspeed immediately!

Fanatic

We could do a similar exercise with the Fanatic Falcon 152 which, since it is already 90cm wide, would only need to be stretched to make the grade (once the straps are sorted of course).  This is my stretched 152 concept. 

  

Dan, please join the quest to advance this board class.  Build the Falcon Wing 152 and make so many windsurfers very stoked.

Mike’s Lab

Mike, you automatically join my list of chosen shapers to build your version of the vision.  Here is the imagined Mike’s Lab Megaflight - a board one would purchase and keep for life as a prized possession! 

 

There you have it.  Three blueprints for a memorable windsurfing concept.

Good winds to those of you not getting too cold

 d