Topic: Sail choice and rider weight.
Hi,
I'm interested in your experience regarding sails preferred by heavier riders. There seems to be a common belief that a heavier sailor wants a grunty powerful sail and that a lighter person will tend to prefer a softer sail.
Being 90kg myself I have traditionally followed the power sail route with Naish Nalu / Force's / Ezzy's and similar which worked well for me in cross on conditions. However I now sail in mostly very gusty cross off down the line conditions and am questioning the wisdom of the grunt and go power sail approach because it makes everything such a workout and is very unforgiving in the gusts.
In your experience do heavy people really need/prefer a sail with more torque or is this just an excuse for a lack of finesse? A light guy rigs a "soft" 4.7 and the heavy guy a "soft" 5.0 to compensate for weight or should the heavy guy go simply go for a more powerful 4.7? Is it just a matter of personal preference or do you see a distinct tendency in one direction?
I now have a 5.3 Superfreak (beautiful build quality) which I have used a couple of times in underpowered then highly overpowered side shore conditions and I'm quite impressed so far. I've found that it needs quite a quick gentle kind of pumping to kick it into gear rather than the big heave or two that seems to work with a power sail. Oh and the "ball bearing gybe" description now makes perfect sense, magic.
Thanks