really small speed sail suggestions

Any suggestions for a sail smaller than my 4.4m Koncept for those very occasional really howling days? - like big Sunday at the PiT last year when I couldn't hold my 4.4. Is there a cammed sail available smaller than 4.4m? Would it matter much if it was 50knots as long as you could sheet in? - ie in 18knots you can easily sail 35knots or so, but in the 50knots at the PiT last year the best speeds were pretty much wind speed or less.

Plastic bag tied to mast?

I have been urging AMac to build a 3.8/3.9m Koncept for a couple of years. We almost did it for 2010 but a few last minute design problems pushed it into the 'too hard' basket when we ran out of time.
Since the 27th sept last year we have been discussing it again with interest!
It is the sort of sail that may only be required once every couple of years, but 27/9/09 showed many of us that those days can be the ones where you go faster then ever before, if only you can be in control. I would gladly have been $1000+ bucks down that day just to have been able to put in 5 or more controlled runs like Tony and Spotty did (instead of 2 totally out of control runs. ). After that day I actually believe that I could get close to 50 knots if I had had a smaller, controllable sail in those conditions. If the sail sits in the shed until the next mega day, so be it.

If your thoughts are similar to mine on this, post an expression of interest on the KA sails forum. My understanding is that 6 firm orders could make it a sure thing and I reckon I have about 3 lined up now.

Some calculations re. 27/09/09:- Spotty weighs 50% more than me and he was sailing with only 10% more sail (5m Koncept). He did 50 knots!
Tony also weighs 50% more than me and he was sailing with the same Koncept 4.4m as I was trying to sail with. Tony is the current world GPSSS 10 sec record holder as a result. We all thought, as did he, that he would never use his 4.4m Koncept! He had not even unrolled and rigged it until that day and he has always had one in the van since they were designed in that size. I guess he thinks it was worth having that small sail taking up space in his van all those years now!

Can you (well a sail-maker anyway) cut a sail down in size and still retain a good shape?

Could you keep the same luff length, reduce the boom length, and still have it work?

Any sail designers here that could comment? It would seem much easier to use an older sail and get half a square metre off it than finding a good cammed sail in that size.

Pedro, the other alternative is to load up on food, and before you know it you will be at Spotty's weight...

04 was my first com back into speed world. The kult was on the wrong mast so it didn,t work as well as it could. Sailed it for most of the day. I did try a Wild Winds 3.2 speed trial sail but it had a really short boom making it very twichy,so thats the challenge .....to make a small sail that has a good length boom,nice height and batten placement and is useable in 50kts. Learnt a lot in 09 and would run my normal set up instead of what i ran that day....Gee we need some wind

The new 2010 4.3m Koncept will handle higher wind than the older 4.4m Koncept.

The 4.3m Koncept boom is slightly shorter than the 4.4m.

Not sure if there is any 4.3m avail thou?

340 RDM's are readily available now. The wave sailors use them a bit. :-)

Its, not the length that is so important (we could just do an adjustable head), it is quite vital IMHO to have the softer mast to keep the dynamics of the sail right. (The difference between the same 3.7m KAOS wave sail on the 370 RDM compared with on a 4m RDM is quite significant)

We discussed cutting down an old 4.4m but when we looked into it AMac's comment was that it would be easier (and infinitely better) to design the right sail from the start.

You don't want a shorter boom, you need a lower aspect. Tiny short boom sails get too twitchy. Even though I was massively overpowered on 27-09-09, I was not getting torqued out at all. The sail was not the slightest bit unstable, it was just trying to lift me off the water with way to much power for my weight if I tried to sheet in properly.

I would keep the same length boom as the current 4.3m and might take a little bit off the chord length at the clew (little or no cut-out/overhang). I would certainly shorten the head and the upper leech.
There are other considerations as well. You need the center of effort in the sail low but in such a small sail you don't want it too low. You need to proportion the sail a but differently in this regard to keep a familiar balance and feel. I think the ideal 3.8m Koncept would look a bit different in outline and profile from the 4.3m and 4.9m. ;-)

My favorite sail is a RSR 5.8 - ideal for me from 25 - 35 knots of wind.
After that I have my RSR 5.0 -good from about 32 - 45 knots of wind.
Then there is my 4.6 which rigs on a 370 mast - never to be removed from the garage again!
The 5.8 is so good because it has so much "frontal" drive that can push the nose of the board down when wind is trying to lift it.
The 5.0 still has a fair amount of this righting push from over the boom to drive the nose back to the water,although I have to move it forward in the mast track a little.
The soft mast on the 4.6 has not worked for me in extreme conditions when I want the boards nose pressed back on the water,this is when the soft mast flexes out and the nose of the board lifts -pain or swimming normally comes next!

Hi guys,

Thanks for bringing that day up. It was at West Kirby. Dave White was shooting pics behind his van and at a given moment I saw the whole van being lifted and it moved around 10 centimeters towards Dave. That's when we I said he'd better move away from his car. We called it a day and waited for the wind to die a little and the tide to drop. Windgusts over 80 knots were reported an people came down the beach to watch nature beating down on the West Kirby shoreline.

The roof of a giant supermarket was nearly ripped off while we were waiting in a local restaurant. When we returned to the shore the wind had died to a moderate 50 knots gusting 60 and Dave tried to balance a 3.2 wave sail in the wind. He couln't hold it and was weihing over 120 kilos back then. We waited a litle longer and I decided to take my Stealth 4.2. Actually it felt easy to hold onto in the windgusts we had at that given moment and in hindsight I should have gone onto the water a little earlier, but I have to admit we were too impressed by the force of nature.

Apparently a national sports news program which only broadcasts rugby and cricket eported on some crazy windsurfers fighting the storm of a lifetime in West Kirby. These are the days why I love to call myself a speedsurfer.

Anyone who can ay his hands on this 4.2 and is interested in a superfast and controllable small sail should do so. the sail trims beautifully and as the pic shows it's full and has got plenty of twist to cope with the gusts. Make sure to crank the downhaul though as it will help you accellerate like crazy this way and it substantially lowers the center of effort.

I beleive the pic was taken by Howie when the wind had died substantially. There is also some youtube footage of the day shot by Howie. Halfway you can hear him screaming from joy haha. It was so nice to meet the English crew back then and these are trips which I will recall when I am eighty years old. If I recall well the first run which is shown is the fastest run. Actually this wasn't my 50 knot run as that as set on a Maui Sails 5.0 in Southend, but this trip was way more impresive as I've never experienced this much wind. I can fully understand the call for small sailsizes by those who were in SP at the epic day last year. Barry wanted to help me out with a 3.8 speedsail just before I left Maui Sails, but we never made it. West Kirby showed me we can handle massive amounts of wind if the water tays flat and a sail is small enough and handles well. A 4.2 can be way too big, so I found out and with a 3.8 I would hve been on the water a lot earlier.