Hi All,

I'm looking at buying a new sail around 7.5m. Currently the Severne NCX, Neil Pryde V6 and North Sails X or R type have me interested. Maybe also the Ezzy freeride? I'd be interested to hear any one's experiences with these sails. I ride a Fanatic Eagle 126 mostly just freeride, bump and jump, etc. Thanks in advance.

Out of those I rate the Ezzy the best for you're needs.

I'm far from a sail "guru", and one of my theories has already been proved wrong. But I thought cambers where mainly for light wind, when there's not enough force to fully "set" the sail. Once you're fully powered up, cambers shouldn't make a huge difference.

Hi ejmack, I have been out of the sport a while and just getting kitted up again now. Some things don't change and what I have experienced is that cammed sails are great to lock in the drive and if constructed correctly the draft will stay in the correct place - they are better when fully powered up (overpowered). Large no-cams are better in lighter winds when you are trying to get on the plane as the draft and depth moves a lot more (balloon slightly) when pumped enabling a quicker transition onto the plane. Newer no-cams hold the draft better as well. As for constuction and longivity you may want to look at Tushinghams, T3's in no-cams and Lightning in 2 cams - they are very quick, hold their draft position, constucted well (great durability) and also far cheaper than most of the major brands. Don't know if any shops carry them in Vic - but check out the website to find out more.

Regards

Tony

There's one thing I do know! I don't want to use cams in waves!!!

It's not just the flicking thing, you also need to depower at times, a cammed sail doesn't do that very well.

I can see how cams keep tension in the sail and stop it moving about. I've yet to use the cammed sail I have on loan in high winds, it'll be interesting to see how it compares to my wave sails.

Cams / No cams??

Surely, you're not thinking of using a 7.5m sail in waves?

I wouldn't simply right off cams... The fastest light-wind sails all use cams, eg: NP RS5/6/Racing, Gaastra Vapour, etc.

I personally have a GunSails Booster 7m which has 3 cams - it would have to be one of the better sails I have used for pumping in light air as the foil is deep, low and well forward.

(The Booster however has other faults, it lacks top-end speed and is quite hard to de-rig.)

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Originally posted by mathew

Barry Spainer's weblog explains that old-school wave sailors wanted de-power capabilities of non-full-lenth battened sails; where as new-school sailors grew up only using full-battened sails and so prefer the constant power.

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Here I go again, opening my big mouth, and I wouldn't want to ague with Mr Spanier. But the so called soft sails came out when sails were cut with more shape, and yes a fully battened sail didn't turn off, it always had a bit of shape.
But then wave sails went flat, and full battens held the sails that way. These sails really turned off, took a lot of wind to give them any shape, that's why they had such lousy bottom ends. (much more so than the soft sails, that only required a light puff to shape them up)

Now there seems to be both schools, some wave sails like north and ezzy have shape built in and don't fully turn off, others are much flatter and are harder to turn on.
But even the sails with shape are much flatter than the first fully battened sails, and still depower enough for wave riding.

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I have always wondered why cams arn't used in wave sails, as the cams will give you more power during wave riding

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Don't necessarily wont more sail power wave riding, power comes from the wave, what is needed is control, that's why depowering is desirable at times.

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My question for wave sailing would be, is depowering something of a side effect that you learn to live with?

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No, not being able to depower would be something you'd find very hard learning to live with.

For example, I've just started using a borrowed cammed sail for this gps speed challenge thing. Just found gybing with the cammed sail so much harder, I find it much easier to flip the rig when it depowers on the way round.

May just be me, but I've only had uncambered wave sails since the 80s.
From last month I've joined the GPS speed challenge and I've been using mates cambered sails. Found them much harder to gybe, for 2 reasons.
1 The 6.6m Gastra's I borrowed from Hardy need an energetic pump to get them to rotate, this unsettled my gybe and made it slower to power up.
2 the shape in the sails seems to push against me as it's rotating, I had to be much more forceful getting it to go round.

Saying that I've also used an Avalon Sail Co 5.5m twincam rehack. That rotated much easier, so I guess it depends on the sail. I haven't had enough experience with cams to help there.

My 2cents.
I think you need to decide what you want your 7.5m sail for.

Get a cammed freeride (2or3cams) if you want to use the sail in stronger winds as cams really help making a sail stable allowing you to have more sail cloth up in stronger winds with out pulling off ballance.

Get a cammless sail if once it hits 20knts you will change down to your 6m ezzy.

For example i have used my 7.7m 5cam tushy x-15 in winds upto 20-25knts with no problems as the sail maintain stability where as my previous Maui sail 7.5m cammless sail was all over the place once it got to 18-20knts.

My tip would be get a twin cam sail freerace sail such as the tushy lightning(2cams). With this option you get the best of both worlds and its a sail you can keep and still use once you have improved and want greater performance in stronger winds.

Cheers Bender

You could always get an Ezzy Infinity,

I have on 07 6.5m and it works great with or without the cams.
If its cranking i can put one or both the cams in and if its light wind i can use no cams.

works a treat whichever way u use it

Jimmy