The 2010 UL rigged super soft would fit the bill perfectly. If I was still sailing on our lake in light winds with my Mistral Superlight. It would not make those who want speed happy, but for that old feeling of not planning effortless cruising...

Somewhere here on the forum is an image of an oldskool HSM designed proto sail that worked with new masts. It was white with a maple leaf in read. I recall you were interested or bought that sail?! My memory may not serve me right though

You might be right, and I do not have a direct comparison to make an accurate analysis, but I think they will be very close at the least, and you do get 2 sails for the price of one.

You are correct on your 1st point but the sail does not twist off under subplanning conditions and even under light planning conditions, which is why they have such a great bottom end range, and saying that rigging under tension with the US rigging is a bit of an oxymoron.

It would be great if someone could do a real comparison as I am doing a bit of extrapolating, but based on Joanna's fun with the ULUS on our longboard, I would at the minimum suggest that the ULUS is the closest available sail to what you are looking for and I would go out on a limb and suggest that it is so close that it would do quite nicely.

Aloha,

Years ago a group of us at High-tec Accessories SLO got an in industry group buy on some windsurfer one designs and I still sail it today with the original sail. Unfortunately the original 6.0 sail with a full head batten is now a delaminating sticky mess.  I would love to find a replacement for it.

I also use this board for teaching the kids and parents to sail using some of the SF Kid sails during our Family vacations. The WSOD doubles as a good flat water SUP (better SUP glide than Kona One due to lower volume and flex) (Just got back from a great 3 family houseboating trip on Lake Mohave.) I also sometimes throw on some smaller wave sails and larger slalom sails. The SF Kid Sails are nice but are too flat due to requiring to be rigged too tightly. To sail them back up wind better after rescuing my students, I sail one handed and push draft into the sail with the other hand. Nothing beats sailing the One Design and the Kona One with the original soft Windsurfer sail. This is due to the sail being able to fill it self in lighter winds.

From my years of sailing one designs in San Luis Obispo during our old Wed night races. The Higher aspect WSOD 6.0 sail with single full batten at the head and a super soft mast was the best thing going in the lighter winds for course racing, freestyle, and all around sailing. This was even against the guys running mistral equips. Once the winds picked up to ~ planing speeds then these would take the lead. The only thing better for light wind course work was a SuperLight with a 7.0 that I started to sail from my old shop. But those sail and board combos was not as good for freestyle as the “Windsurfer”.

In light winds, the 0 head sail, as in the maple leaf are just a bit too retro and miss the mark for what a custom replacement sail should be. They were good for rail riding and other free style tricks that benefited from the draft being more aft with a long boom when the winds were higher. Other that, the maple leaf style was used as a “storm sail” . When considering a custom replacement, a fuller head would be key.

What is the "ULUS"?

The better starting point template for a soft longboard sail (from the Original WS web site):
The problem with these is that they are not surf frendly due to materials and construction. . . the booms as also too long.
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Last edited by CB_Surf (2010-08-13 12:37:04)

So, NYOcean, how is the maple sail?

Just posted and realized I hadn't seen CB_Surf's excellent post - agree with it all.  Fuller head on those sails.  And look at the tack of the sails - very high off the deck - should have long sleeve (or dropped tack grommet) so that lines don't run this length (more elegant solution).  And of course they are made of the wrong material (and could be bigger still, and don't have a good clew solution, and don't have the HSM build).

Obviously, I want one, but I may be one of the few on this forum.  HSM rightly has a superb reputation for high performance sails, and those high performance users are here.  But how many of those users are after this sail? 

It is a conundrum that many windsurfers don't even know that they would be better off with this sail than what they've got.  There has been lots of hand-wringing over the sport's shrinking popularity, much of it rightly (I believe) focusing on the pervasive idea that windsurfing is high performance or nothing.  I enjoyed my rib-cracking 4.5m session of 2 weeks ago as much as anyone else on the water that day, but not to the exclusion of sailing a longboard in the surf and ocean swell.  Good thing I enjoy longboard sailing - it's how I can have fun locally most of the time (my 4.5m session was the first I had in 20 years).  The same could be said of the majority of places where people windsurf.  Now we have a number of longboard choices once again (and if you count SUP boards - lots of them), and a few sailmakers are making sails for them (Aerotech in particular).  But the new sails are all planing sails and in concept much closer to what's already out there.  Take a chance Jeff - once again, do something no-one else is doing.

A couple more photos.  The first is of the Maple Leaf tack as I rigged it on a 430 (you will note that the collar on the extension is not all the way into the mast - it was a long extension, and that's as far in as it would go).  I think this is roughly the right height off the deck (a few inches to high?), but there has to be a good solution for this.  The second photo is of an old Windsurfer Rocket 45 PIN sail.  Beautiful color, but delaminated.  See how the mast sleeve is beginning to extend down a bit for the tack grommet?  Maybe it should just go further.
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I think your top batten 8m Superfreak idea is interesting, Geoff - and is a radical extension of Dolf's rigging technique for the SF UL -  but don't think it will do.  I would defer to Mr H on this one, but I think you'd wind up with a pretty odd sail that was flat in all the wrong places, and instead of having proper draft, would simply have excess material.  As for booms, I have a 250-300cm aluminum boom that is ok, and sub $250 (Gun Sails).  The excellent Chinook triple clamp course goes to 244 and is under $200 (this boom is my staple).  Again, high performance (stiffness) is not necessary for the sail I envision.  But there are possible solutions for the clew that might allow the boom to be slightly shorter, though next size down in Chinook is 229cm, which is a pretty big jump.

"One of the problems Jeff has to solve is having a good sail for a small market of longboarders without making it too pricey. Others in this thread are fond of the UL Freak for longboarding, so there's no need for a special sail for them."

The UL Superfreak is no doubt a great sail - it's simply not intended for this purpose, and so for this purpose won't perform as well, will be heavier, and more costly.  In a word, it will be inefficient.  If no dedicated sail comes along, I will make do with my Maple Leaf - but at some point somebody (other than Original Windsurfer) will figure out that a well executed simple sail is missing form the market.  I've said my piece, squeaked more that one wheel should.

Thought I was done for 2010, but snuck in 36 hrs. at the beach about a week ago, and had a sunset sail on the Maple Leaf in 15mph winds that was perfect.  So, I can report that an old sail design does just fine on a plane - this even surprised me.   Here is my impression of it.

Quick to accelerate in a puff, surprisingly fast on a plane (though probably not competitive with modern sails).  Had I been on a contemporary sail it would have been my 8m SuperFreak - much bigger.  The Maple Leaf is a longboard sail - I had to walk up and down the board frequently depending on wind strength (don't know what I would have done on a shorter board).  In gusts off the wind, I couldn't believe how far back on the board I was - but not a problem.  In chop the sail was definitely more difficult than a modern sail, since it is "twitchier", and steers the board more quickly.  The board itself felt lighter - possibly there is less downward pressure at the mast foot with this sail? This was one of the real pleasures of the session - it felt very much like surfing.  My 11'4" Pacifico was darting all over the place and I was moving all around it.  Some might not welcome this sensation - I certainly did.  I also noted that upwind speed was very good - though I found myself wishing I had a daggerboard - I think it would have allowed considerably better upwind planing performance.  I have a very short video of the planing speed, but its AVCHD - a format that I have to convert to post - will work on that.  The next morning I had the sail out in maybe 5mph of wind - definitely sailable and fun in these conditions when NO other sail that I have would have been.  Light or moderate air, this sail turns the board instantly - jibes and tacks are the quickest I have done by a wide margin.

I would certainly like to sail this sail in a planing session again - but it will have to wait for 2011.  By then perhaps I will have a new HSM big brother for it?  Or will I have to turn elsewhere?  I was looking over the new StarBoard SUPer line-up, and saw an odd sail in the product literature.  Some investigation lead me to Severne Sails, who indeed does have a light air longboard specific Dacron sail called the "SUPer Light".  In a fit of hyperbole, they call it "probably the lightest, yet most powerful foil ever designed for windsurfing."  It is very much of the shape described in earlier posts in this thread - single batten supporting a fat head.  It is 6.5m2, and rigs on a either a 430 or 460, and 200cm booms.  $350.

So I tried to find someone who had it in stock.  No one does.  It seems to be just a it better than vaporware.  The US distributor described it to me as a "highly specialized" item.  Obviously, they're not selling a lot of them.  Perhaps that's a caution to mr H?  Or would HSM have a much easier time of it, since dealers don't need to sell the sail - it could be sold online through the HSM store?  Also, the Severne literature keeps using the word "retro", which is unfortunate, since it undercuts the idea that this sail will preform (and because it's the name of a competitor's product).  Anyway, in an earlier post I said that if HSM didn't make the sail, in the future another sailmaker would - it appears that this comment was already out-of-date.  I would rather see an HSM version, with all that we have come to expect from the design and build of these sails (including some Kevlar to better hold the shape, please).

Some photos of the Maple Leaf sail on the Pacifico are below.  Ok, now I'm done, really.

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Last edited by nyocean (2010-09-22 14:36:00)

That sail is film, not even in the same hemisphere....

The Starboard sail is trying to do this job, but the sail is pretty awlful. This style of sail is WAY harder to make overall than conventional sails. It is also harder to make it look cool, but these issues are able to be overcome.

The difference in this style sail and the Freaks is the TENSION. The Freaks are a fully modern sail under high loads, allowing high wind performance that can exceed conventional film sails in many conditions.

This style sail is LOW tension sail, with little luff curve, little downhaul and outhaul tension. This allows the sail to shape in VERY little wind, and outperform modern tensioned sails in light wind.

I can do this. With SUP as a potential market, I will take this on. What do you think, 3 sizes? 6m, 7m, 8m?