Custom 7.5m Turbo

I contacted Severne chasing any of the last Turbos but they didn't have any. To my surprise Ben suggested he could make me a custom turbo..
I jumped at the idea.
The price was reasonable , cheaper than a Moto.
It did take a while, but I'm very happy with the end result.
I went with some retro colours as I like the orange and yellow on the 2015 ? models. As a lightweight old weakling I specified light weight was important and bottom end as I usually use it in a patchy 5 -16kts of wind.
It seems to have a nice deep belly.
It rigged beautifully straight out of the bag , I just tightened some battens.
It's a proto type/ custom so there aren't any markings on the luff for setting your boom height but I can add those. There aren't any printed specs but they have penned them on it so that's ok.
I'm keen to give it a go. The boom is 2cm shorter than my 2021 7.5m Turbo and it rotates easily..
And yes our grass is lousy. We're on tank water and have been in drought. That's the first green shoots we've had for 3 months..



The top of the Luff is red.. the photo isn't accurate.


My old Turbo is in the background. It's my most used sail and I've sailed it to death. The windows have heaps of small cracks which are now brittle and breaking.

Hey Sue,

is the downhaul to spec because it looks a touch over downhauled to me.
when the third batten falls away more than the 2nd batten and 4th that's a sign there is too much downhaul. Could just be the way the sail is sitting on the grass in the pic.

as a tip. When you hold the sail up by the clew, the battens should evenly fall away from the boom to the head. Ie. more as the leach progresses towards the head. Batten tension will also effect this so you may need to tweak batten tension further but I find downhaul has a bigger effect at how the third batten falls away on most race sails. For me, a 100+kg guy your sail looks like it's a touch beyond max.

No probs.

you would be looking for the end of the batten to sit higher. More inline with the adjacent batten just above the boom and from there the next batten falls away. You've also got the scallops touching the luff in the head so to me way over downhauled and especially for a light wind setup.

could be other reasons like
the mast ferrule not fully seated so it's longer than spec.
Also brand new sail just needs some stretch time.

Great idea. Keen to hear his thoughts too. I had a chat in a pub with Ben years ago where he said he was always exploring ways to improve rigging outcomes on his sails by making things easier to get right. He saw that as a big part of improving the sport in general.

not sure if you've seen this video. Different brand but has great detail on fine tuning a race sail