Hi I have been sailing for a few months but I am still not planning.Im a shade under 100kgs and am using a 150lt board with a 5.8m sail.I realise this sail is small for my size but was useful when learning the basics.I feel comfortable with the basics now so I am wondering what sail size should I go to keeping in mind most of the time I sail out in the bay in 10 to 20 knotts of wind.

Where are you sailing?

What are typical conditions that you will be sailing in?

Im about your weight. If you were to have a 7.4 and a 6.6 or similar you would then have a nice quiver with your 5.7. I would go for a 7.5 or similar first as you will hold it down in a fair amount of wind and you'll get out a lot more than getting a 6.5 first.

A board of that size will easily carry a 9 meter sail. However best to work upwards towards that size.

What sort of sail and mast do you have now? If you have a 430cm mast it will be difficult to find a sail much bigger than 7 meters that rigs on your mast.

It may not be a bad idea to budget for buying a 460cm mast as well as a sail.

Your mast and boom would suit sails up to around 8 meters in size. As advised above you are probably best to get a 6.5 meter sail first but perhaps go for a 7 meter one you see one available.

If you are getting towards 20kn at times you should be planing.
I get a 100L FSW planing easily in that with a 5.6 wavesail (I'm 95kg)

Yes buy a bigger sail for lighter days, but technique is the issue so read up on stance and getting planing and practice

So, what are they planning for heavier sailors? A way to get them planing more easily perhaps .

you could lose 20kgs

seanhogan said...

a 6.5 or 6.7 would get you planning from 15knts

@ 100 kg you'll be looking at a BIG sail to plane at 10knts.... but you've got the board for it.

Big people don't plane in 10 knots . Like me, well maybe with formula gear

watch instruction video about early planing (1 of 3)



he talks a lot about getting planing if your heavy

For me, (just under 100kg), a 133 ltr board with a 7.5m (uncammed sail) - perfect at 20 knots. So I'd definately be looking at more than 7m for those conditions.

Beaglebuddy said...

It seems that matching the sail size to the wind is critical, of course it would be nice to have a full quiver of sizes but that's not going to happen.
So as a beginner like myself you are most comfortable sailing underpowered and if you jump right up to a much bigger sail skipping a few sizes there is a higher likelihood of finding yourself in an overpowered situation.
I would suggest to just buy the next size sail such as a 6.3M and work your way up.

As a beginner, being overpowered is indeed one of the more scary aspects to the sport, aka being blown away and all that!. However, a single sail size-step will have you asking yourself, "...which one... the wind is too close to both sizes...".

If you dont want to have too big a sail, try skipping a sail size -> the sail choice is then much easier... light wind = big sail, strong wind = small sail.

Personally, as a beginner, I find it counter productive being overpowered.
That was the situation today and it was discouraging and not fun at all being out of control. I didn't make any progress and certainly didn't work on my gybe.
Being slightly underpowered not greatly underpowered, on and off the plane I am more relaxed and can work on technique rather than trying to just stay on the board.

It's a matter of being disappointed or discouraged.
Disappointed when underpowered and discouraged when overpowered.
Where I sail it is also mostly 10 to 20 knots when there are people out and they are usually around 6.5M, I'm 100 KG also and everyone else is lighter of course but they are more experienced, sort of a trade off.
Also depends upon one's location, if it's a shallow flat water lake with endless blasting go ahead and be overpowered and blast off downwind to oblivion.
Alternatively I'm on a bay with waves and chop in places so I'm not looking to just go blasting off out of control wherever the wind pushes me.
I am preferring the incremental approach, this sport has a steep enough learning curve in perfect conditions.

Good video.I'm a lightweight but I tend to rely on board volume to plane so the tips are good. Wheres the other 2 videos.?

On a more serious note....
I'd go a 7.5 or thereabouts.

At 100kg a 7.5 will give you a lot of range and should be manageable up to 20K. At 105kg I use my 7.6 TR7 in 18-25K, but it's cammed, so you need to derate that for a camless option.

Something fairly stable, but with some power, would be ideal, like a KA Koyote or a Severne Gator.