Hello to all keen windurfers in the uk.



ok how do i start.



My name is michael and I'm writing from the east coast of australia. I've been windsurfing for about 9 years and love hitting the water when 20+ knot winds blow through. I'm mainly into wave and freestyle sailing as the beach is not far away and in summer the seabreezes are quite frequent.



The reason I'm starting this post is to hopefully start a disscussion about sail design as I'm currently in my last year of industrial design a a university nearby. Basically it's a year long project where we get to choose a topic to reasearch on and ultimatly come up with new innovative designs for our chosen topic.



My topic is looking at minimising the amount of sails needed for each sailer. I'm not sure if it's the same where u guys are, but here in australia on average each sailor owns between 3-5 sails varying in size and design for different conditions. I'm looking at possible owning just one sail (yes that right ONE sail!!!!!!!!!!!) by creating panels that can be added or subtracted via zips or other means, so it becomes cheaper and more effecient.



Basically I'm just after thoughts, ideas, directions or anything u can add to help me hopefully design somethin u guys might use in the future. It's a big project that i have going, along with a local sails maker that has sponered me to help create various prototypes along the way.



all feedback is appreciated.

thanks alot and keep sailin!

Michael!

You must be on the hunt for the holy grail of the windsurfing world get us all to have one sail that covers all our needs from speed to wave to freestyle and not to forget the main group of windsurfers the flat out blasters out there for fun.



Just the thought of having only one sail makes me think of the following things.



1. Its going to be expensive. Well the big sail lofts are not going to want to see there income form sails drop are they. From people spending say in the UK 260/ sail x5 = 1300 down to only ever buying 1 sail at the current market price of 260 is lost revenue of 1040/customer.

2. This one sail is going to have to be very durable and durable in windsurfing means heavy not what you are after when doing the more energetic wave and freestyle.



These two points put a side if you could make a sail which performs as well as current market sails and is a light and the price reasonable. I would be in the queue waiting to buy one.



GOOD LUCK ON THE PROJECT

Its been done before. Way back in the Mid 80's by none other than the late Baron Arnold De Rosnay he got his kicks being the first to windsurf from country A to Country B totaly unsupported. He had sails he could zip section off. His sail would be something like a 4.5 - 5.7 - 7.5.



If you didn't know he finaly disapeared doing some sea crossing near tiawain, leaving behind the ultimate surf babe Jenna De Rosnay.(nearly as goog looking as Suze)



Back then sails were a lot more simple and although his sails would have detracted on the performance since the available sail performance in those days were low anyway it didn't matter.



To a small extend some modern sails can have the same effect by puting more downhaul on and dropping power off the head. I have just made a sail for a customer who wanted a 6 meter to fit between his 5.5 and 6.5 - thats quite a small gap to fill and if i made the sail too powerful it wouls end up with the same range as his 6.5 or if it was too top end it would end up replacing the 5.5. I have made a very flexiable rig to he can rig it for just the amount of power he requires. this is doen by playing with the luff curve so the as you pre-bend the mast it pregresively drops the tension off the head/leech. This is fine for freeride applications but allthough the sail may not be overpowered if you have too much loose cloth the sail will loose any "wave sail style snapyness"



If you have any questions you can email me (email on website)



Could someone cleverer than me please have a look at http://www.hawaiianshirt.com/jennaderosnay/jenna.html

and paste in her picture





here you go - bert





John (I still love Jenna De Rosnay)



http://www.sailrepair.co.uk

hey thanks for ur quick replies so far.



Sideshow - I am generally look in the wave/freestyle domain as thats what i'm mostly interested in. Although saying that wave sails are generally smaller and take alot more of a pounding in the surf so durability is definatly a issue. Also because this is a university project cost is a fair way away as mass production 100 times beyond the horizon at the moment if u know what i mean. I'm not try to replace all styles of sails into one SUPER sail. Maybe one sails for each genre or type of sailing.



Sailrepairer - It's interesting to read people that have tried different things before (Baron Arnold De Rosnay) as this type of info is exactly what i'm looking for at the moment. I'm quite aware of the technique of applying more downhaul to spill of those big gusts, but i find that 'flappiness' at the head of the sail when alot of downhaul is applied for stronger conditions, is almost unecessary and slightly irritating. well its not unecessary as thats all we really have to work with at the moment.



What are ur thoughts on instead of cranking the downhaul on to essentially create less surface area that the wind can catch, being able to remove small amount of the sail while keeping a nice shape to the sail.



I was thinking that this would also keep the leech of the sail still quite tight making the 'snappyness' of the sail still perfect for wave sailing conditions.



Thanks heaps guys for ur coments and keep the coming!

over and out from aus.....

Michael

Then your back to zips again, which could work if keprt away from area of load ie the head and clew. You would start off with a sail the shape of a naish Boxer zip off 0.7 of a meter to have a normal outline and then another bit to leave you with a pinhead shaped sail. the characteristics of the sail would change greatly though. To keep the characteristics you would need to shorten the luff. Do do that in sections is going to need lots of buckles webbing etc.



the end result would be the 3 in 1 sail would probably cost the same as 2 sails and each size would not have the performance to match a solo sail.



I unfortunately had to make raceing dinghy sails. The customers were never happy. if it was light wind they wanted full sails, strong winds, flat sails and they could only register one suit per event. In the end we made them some sails with velcro seams and showed then haw to alter the shape to suit the comditions. All that for a boat the shape of a bath tub that might do 5kts in a Hurricane.



I have just remembered seeing a long time ago where intead of zipping off the leech/head area you zipped off the foot and used another clew eye 30 cm further up, a bit more like reefing a yacht sail. the sail had 2 sections you could zip off. But that was in the days before foot battens



All food for thought, better get back to making my 6.7



http://www.sailrepair.co.uk

Why not create holes in the sail itself rather than remove whole sections.



You could add an extra device like the downhaul that could pull down a tensioned sheet of plastic that opens up slats in the sail effectively spilling air from the sail. releasing this device would cause the plastic to rise again and close the holes. (as a bonus it would help beginners trying to uphaul by letting the water through the sail)



Any millions of pounds/dollors can be used to sponsor me for the london marathon (see other forum)



p.s copyright 17 March 2005!