Naish Lift RN

I've never really been into Naish Sails. They seem to follow their own design path rather than follow trends and main stream design beliefs. This can produce mixed results but is not necessarily a bad thing, as is evident with the Lift RN freeride foiling sail.

To get the lowdown on the Lift RN, just visit the naish website, for the simple reason that the sail does everything Naish claims and it does it extremely well. That being said, I'll just add my own observations and opinions.
www.naishsails.com/product/lift-rn/

Rigging and unrigging.
Naish recommend using an sdm mast and I have to agree. I think an rdm would give the wrong result. Rigging up is simple although the mast is a very snug fit and takes some pushing to get it all the way up. Pushing from the bottom is bad I know but moving the sail down the mast the traditional way is going to result in some nasty scrunching of the monofilm around the luff area. There is an xply luff panel but it is quite narrow.

The sail runs quite a bit of skin tension even into the leech area and the leech pressure is very tunable via downhaul tension. It's a lot like a wave sail in this regard.

The scrunching issue also brings me to my other gripe, getting the mast out. There is no screwdriver loop at the top of the sail to hold the sail while you pull the mast out. I looped a bit of spectra cord through the top to solve the issue. An easy fix but the consequences could be nasty otherwise.

Everything else I have to say about the lift is glowing praise and good news. The Lift is a dream to use and I love it. The lift also has some clever design features, not least of which is the clew cut out. what this does is modify the properties of the leech considerably so that twitchiness is not an issue that it might otherwise be in such a short boom sail. Did I mention the Boom is short? Yeah, it's really short. 170 on the 7.6, 160 on the 7.0 and 154 on the 6.4. Actually chord length is a little bit longer due to the clew cut out but still very short. Despite this the sail feels wonderful and not at all twitchy due to the very well designed leech and highly tunable leech tension. The foot roach is also quite deep and large which helps to keep the centre of effort low, another design feature that helps to make the handling of the lift absolutely wonderful.

The lift also has tube battens but they seem to be a little thinner and softer than regular tube battens. This is another feature that helps to make the leech pressure on the Lift dam near perfect. It is clear that this sail is no slap together to fill a market niche. A lot of work and design has gone into this sail and the results are fantastic. My flights have never been longer or more stable and freeride foiling has never been so easy or enjoyable for me.

I could crap on a lot more but I think you get the idea. It's a great sail and I highly recommend it.

Pro's
Everything ever.

Cons
no screwdriver loop.
You might need a new boom as your old one may be to long.