G'Day my name is Johnny Miller I do alot of sailing in that 5-20kt range, i spend alot of time hanging onto an 8.7 H2 and 7.8 North Ram F11, i can hold onto the 7.8 in pretty solid winds as it exhausts pretty well, i have a 132, 112 and 92L Jp slalom VI ive broken 30 on all of them, and i always wanna do well on the 92, the other day i had a patchy 10-20 + i put the 7.8 on the 92 but dudes r beating me with smaller sails, ive been to sandy point and i thought the basic jist was the biggest sail i could put on the smallest board was the way to go, im about 65kgs (all muscle, hehe) please somebody help me go faster.............
hey mate, holding a big sail is good if you can put all of that power through to the water. if your sheeting out and bending your knees all that extra sail is just drag. you just gotta find the balance between, your weight, fin size, sail size (and drag) and the conditions. hope this helps :)
Agreed the fastest sail is the smallest one that delivers the most power you can hang onto. Any bigger is just extra drag. Obviously that changes with wind strength
thanks decript, and kato, kato im still waiting to get that life size poster of you, so i can throw darts at it, hehe, your still the greatest to me, luv ya kato
thank you all, i really apprecate all the advice and am going to start trying a different approach based on your advice, that includes eating more burgers, thanks
Have a look at the Dutch, a lot of them dont weight much, having said that a lot of them are tall though which is a distinct advantage. But they seem to sail with more efficiency, rather than huge sail small board, mid sails and mid boards tuned to perfection seems to be the route a lot of them take.
I look a lot at the scores Erik Loots (speedsurfingblog.com) posts and he goes out often on 110l boards and 7m - 7.8m sails yet posts upper 30's in his results.
The new report by Jacques van de Hout about west Kirby last week basically shows how they get better speeds with less board winds, which equates to less of a need for more sail area. I would say look at your trim and tuned your stuff perfectly.
Oh, and by the way, the 7.8 may be stated as too big for your smallest board, I had the same problem with my 95l.....but then tried the bigger sail in it and it fits it like a glove!!! Dont believe everything in the marketing!
, thanks
