Hello!

I'm new with windsurfing. I have an old mast (really old, it's in one piece can not be taken apart and it's not light weighted). I've brought a sail reccently, a NorthSails Lectra 6.3 which is in a very good shape.
My problem is that I dont know if I rigged it good. The manual which I've downloaded from the NS site says things about batten tension which no matter what can not be done with mine. Here is a picture to say it all:




So you can see, my battens do not lean to the mast but to the forward side of the sail. My question is that is this good? Or what am I doing wrong?

Batten tension is like a quarter of a Viagra - just enough to get the wrinkles out.

I reckon it is a mast curve / stiffness problem. Old one piece fibreglass masts are nothing like modern ones of the last, say, 15yrs

here is one chart - www.unifiber.net/masts-selector
there are others like peterman's , butt it is starting to be "old"

i have rigged a North Zeta 4.x sail on an epoxy mast
i do this for teaching and as such am NOT so concerned with performance

based on the charts North is "constant curve" tending towards "hard top"
there are many masts you can try with this configuration
try a newer mast from any company in the middle of the chart and with good downhaul, it should be MUCH better

lotsa luck n good winds
jw

"Pulleys" is the word, and that's what you need to get this sail set properly, (3 at least) but I'm not sure that old mast will take that sort of strain. If the mast breaks, the sharp ends will more than likely damage the sail.

The sail will not handle anywhere near as well as it should, that will make learning much harder.
A newer mast is the answer, but getting it to fit on your board is another problem.
Be aware that back then there could be at least 2 mast diameters, that extension of yours may need a sleeve to fit a modern mast. But you're probably better ditching that as well, it looks like the cause of your pulley problem.

Rubber uni joints have a female thread in each end, bolts then connect them to the mast extension and whatever fits into the board, with any luck that will be compatible with your board.

on my bic dufour i made the following adjustments



this helped a bit, but still is an issue when trying to go for full downhaul

when the equipment is all made to go together, then it just works so much better

this attempt for my Fanatic Ultra CAT works better for downhaul, but did come apart in the local river once :-(

Squid Lips said...

Looks like the sail is from the 90's so it won't need anything like the downhaul of todays sails, or a modern mast. Might just need a bit more outhaul, or even just a bit of wind to fill the sail. When you are using it do the battens pop to the other side of the mast when you flip the sail?

Sorry, I wasn't in Internet range for a while.
Yes, my battens do pop to the other side in bigger wind and if I help a bit with shaking. My concern is that the forward side of the battens really push the sail inside so the seam might broke. Here's a pic of it again:



Do you think it will hold and I can use it without concerns?

Thanks for the other answers too, but I think I might buy a new board sooner and not only a mast because that's not a 100% that that's would fit in this.