Sounds like you're not even using race sails. You don't need a crank, just look after you gear - wash it after use and spray silicon spray on the pulleys before use. Use a cleat handle to grip the rope but wrap the rope around it a few times as well so the cleat doesn't stuff-up the rope.

If it is widesleeve or larger than 9m dont even bother with a cleat. Get a downhaul winder and save your back.

How many times have you used the sail? Alot of new sails use dacron style materials in the luff and this has to stretch a bit first- many sails used to be left rigged overnight before you used them. Not so sure i'd do this with NP RS4 and onwards though.

sorry neb but with big new race sails it wont work or at least you wont get your harness hook back to sail with. RS4's have something like 70cm's of mast bend which is a tremendous amount, every time i am near someone rigging one you take a step back each time they wind... it literally looks like the mast is about to fold in half.

I have downhauled race sails pretty much my whole windsurfing life (and i will downhaul so leach is loose down to boom often) but with my old RX2 7.2 and 9m I would get to a point and I couldnt physically put anymore downhaul on... that point was probably almost max normal downhaul so if I ever wanted to use them in big winds I would have to use a winder- which i never did opting to change down instead.

go the winch. i use one on all my race sails. they are great and make it easy. with my race sails i cannot even begin to get the correct downhaul without the winch. with my wave sails i use s hydrodynamix hydro pulla. excellent tool. one tug and your all done.

Sorry DW, in your first post you didn't mention cams not rotating so I presumed that it was not a race sail, but hearing that it is in fact a modern NP race sail, it is common knowledge that they do have quite a lot of DH tension. The smaller sizes may be possible to DH by hand but 9m and bigger would definitely require a crank.

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Originally posted by nebbian

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Originally posted by mkseven
... so if I ever wanted to use them in big winds I would have to use a winder- which i never did opting to change down instead.

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So do you use a winder or winch? Or just downhaul with a cleat/harness?

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I just use a cleat, occasionally i have borrowed a winder. I can get probably 90% of the range downhauling with the cleat but most of the time I would change down after that but they were relatively easy to downhaul sails compared to most widesleeves and those with very stable luff materials. My new race sails are very straight in the luff and quite easy to downhaul with a cleat.

How much outhaul do you have on? Just prior to putting tension on the downhaul I put tension on the outhaul, a couple of cms more than I am planning to sail with. This causes the mast to bend more than required and make the downhaul a lot easier to pull down.

The biggest sail that I use in an old 8.8 NP RX1 (4 cams). I mainly use cleat handle or sometimes the harness hook (when I cannot find the handle), both are suitable to get more than enough donwhaul on.

I am tempted to save up a few pennies for North Power XT though