sheddweller forum posts in last 60 days

sprayblaze said..
Reading behind the lines means that carbon laminates maybe lighter and bells and whistles in the beginning, but over time strecth. If you buy a 150 cm wave sails after using it 20 times it ends up 154 cm which might not be bothering fore some people despite spending a fortune.

Does this amount of stretch happen? Have you observed it?

Nicko29 said..

sheddweller said..

sprayblaze said..
The boards look sick, can't wait to try the new quad 9. Why only big sizes in haiku package?- maybe not supposed to be jumped as much...
As for the sails I am a bit skeptical- less monofilm means less reactivity, less skin tension. Apart from the mast- monofilm is the motor of the sail. No matter how durable expensive and sophisticated are laminates, nothing beats monofilm. Otherwise race sails would have abandoned monofilm long time ago for good. The 24/25 wave sails were a good compromise between monofilm/scrim surface area and proper positioning of monofilm with a patch above the longest batten- a very important place for the behavior of the sail. Lets see what the reviews will say. Cheers

What do you mean by "reactivity" ? Power up? Depower? It's a bit vague id like to understand your description more? what characteristic do you think monofilm is giving you that laminates don't? Do you have examples or can you describe the feeling of laminates sails relative to film?

Monofilm is thicker than the 2 thin films of the laminates, therefore it is stiffer. When pressurised it stretches less then is more reactive to gust.
Carbon laminate is even stiffer if the connection (bonding and or sewing) is well made, and only in the direction of the carbon strippes.
I guess this makes it difficult to use properly in slalom sails, that's why Monofilm is still used.
I guess if a sail designer had unlimited time and budget to design the best slalom or speed sail, he would end up using carbon laminate, or even more 3di. But FEA and CFD are expensive and difficult to use properly on a windsurf sail.

well, i was really looking for actual felt differences, what you have given me is an explanation of why you think it does something, not that it actyually does do that thing or a description of how that thing manifests
so what does "stretches less" and "more reactive to gusts" mean in practice? so really we are talking about wave sails, so the stiffer more reactive sails in film ( if true)- what happens in a gust? do they accelerate quicker? power up quicker? feel more powerful? less powerful? go faster? go slower?
is there any video you could point to where we could see this effect? are there any sails that are noteably more reactive or less reactive that you could point to?

5 years isn't long enough to develop a race sail? PMSL! ??

Muppet said..


Sounds like ignorant arrogance to me. I'm not saying amateurs should have identical set ups to pro's. But if budding amateurs are not meant to emulate the elite, then who are they supposed to emulate? I'd bet my house that Boujmaa would have compared his set ups with other pro's before he turned pro himself. It's the first thing I do when I see a pro's rig on the beach...

Kinda but not really. A famous sail designer used a sail designed and set up for a famous pro, came back in after an hour and was genuinely perplexed, he couldn't understand how the pro could even sail in a straight line, and he said that's one of the worst sails he has ever used. The famous pro was like ..WTF ...this is the absolute best sail In the world....look what I can do on it!
The sail designer was pretty good at designing sails for customers, he was not very good at designing sails for this particular pro. There is not necessarily any point in setting your gear up like a Top 10 pro, if you are an average weekend warrior.
True story.