Yeah, some of these conversions are fairly easy (like the one you did), but some are not. If the board is in good shape, many of those old designs are perfectly good boards for days when the wind is 0 - 10 kts (lull to gust).

In the teaching mode, compared to today's wider beginner boards they're not so good for pure beginners (never been windsurfing before), but once the sailor can get up, get going, tack and come back again, IMO an old longboard is better than a widestyle board because it tracks better and gives the sailor better tactile feedback with rig and feet movements / weight shifts. These boards are really quite fine for teaching, and I've watched a lot of beginners and low-intermediates have a blast on an old longboard fitted with a more modern sail. If the old longboard doesn't have easily adaptable fittings, one is faced with a BIG remodeling job of cutting off the deck, installing some Divinycell and a modern mast track and glassing it back up. A non-trivial job. If the old board is shipshape, that's probably worth it; if not, I'd advise a new board.

In contrast, modern sails on old shortboards is typically a disaster because the COE of the sail doesn't match up well with the far longer distances between base, straps and fin of old shortboards. Modern shortboards are so vastly superior that I think old shortboards are only useful for architectural ornaments or drag boards.

As to the Freak for ghosting along in winds <6 kts, it does go flat but it still goes, and I'm not convinced that adding shape would really improve matters other than visual appearance to the sailor. If it does, I suspect the observer on shore would note an increase in VMG from 2.141 kts to 2.368 kts!!   

In exchange for the ease with which a Freak does spinny/twiddly things, sail 360's, helitacks, etc., I find the flatness of the Freak helps entice the sailor to not just stand there and ghost along going B&F, but to do something. Which of course leads to a fair amount of stretching one's limits...and then falling in, climbing back on board, trying again, more falling in, spending an hour or two like that with some friends laughing and communing with them and Nature and God. On a warm and windless lazy summer day, enjoying the passage of time doesn't get much better than that. THAT is what this kind of windsurfing is about, and is what I think those kind of windsurfers are looking for.

Yes, sail design for different sizes nearly done. That is all so far....

NYOcean has posted images of his I think....
Pretty basic.

While waiting for an HSM version of the soft sail, I found a curiosity on eBay.  It's a Top Sails (of Holland) Dragon Wing 9.2m2 dacron sail, year unknown - actually, I don't know anything about this sail.  What's interesting is that it rigs on a 430 mast with 16-18cm of extension, and a 270 boom - these numbers are approximate, I have only just sailed it for the first time yesterday, and there are no markings on the sail.  It has a novel clew solution - an internal aluminum spar.  This keeps the boom length from being impossibly long (many of you may consider 270 impossibly long), and avoids the crease that runs across the Maple Leaf.  It is also full batten (they are very soft and flexible battens).  When I rigged it yesterday I could not get the bottom (longest) batten to avoid and s shape - I now suspect this is too much downhaul, but I don't know for sure.

I took the sail out in 5 knots on an old Mistral Maui v2 (winger pintail), and it felt great - lots of pressure.  By days end the wind was 8-9, and I was planning all the time.  It was a workout, but it was a lot of fun.  I wish I had my 9m2 Speed XP rigged alongside it to see if it would have had the same power in the higher-but-still-marginal wind - will do that test soon.

My thoughts: 
1-  Internal spar is great for a low tension sail (weight of spar is not an issue - it is light).
2- Only the top 2 battens are necessary (not sure, but I suspect just a small batten to support the leech is all that is needed below)
3- I would think the best design for a sail like this would have it rig on 460, and then could be shorter boom (and would help to reduce the necessity of the lower battens, and might make the sail more stable at speed).  Perhaps the dimensions of this one came from original windsurfer mast/boom?

I don't think this is a great sail, but it has many of the elements I had considered desirable for the ideal light air longboard performance sail.  It is not the simple sail that most of this thread has been dedicated too - perhaps more of the never-materialized Psychofreak?  Jeff, your thoughts?

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Last edited by nyocean (2011-08-04 02:59:15)

But do you calculate the roach from the clew or from the end of the spar?  If from the spar, there isn't that much leech until you reach the 2nd-from-top batten, which would still need to be full length.  I had thought that a slightly more high-aspect version of the sail could be cut with less leech, have the full top 2 battens, and partial lower one(s).  Anyway, what interested me is that the spar seems to work for a big soft sail (and these days could of course be carbon).  I am looking forward to more sessions with the sail to refine my thoughts about how well it works.

summersailing in DK:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg387Pj9iBQ

Tak Mads! Awesome vid! I think I need to put that wood daggerboard and the old Windsurfer original sail and team boom on the Windsurfer Original. Hmmm, maybe not. The SF 5.3 have to do.

Mads-  thanks for the vid. 

Surfingsen-  Maui is not lightweight version, it is the one you have.  It was my first board as well when I was a kid, if you don't count a Crit 320 that delaminated within 10 days and so was returned for this board.  As far as I know there never was a lightweight production version, just the lightweight custom that Robby Naish sailed to victory in the old world cup (or whatever it was called).  As I understand it, this Maui was a production version of that same shape.  I suppose the pad makes it heavier still (one or two pounds?), but makes it much more sailable (non-stick doesn't last 30 years).  The shape is very good - I'm surprised you don't still sail yours.  It's heavy, so doesn't accelerate that well, but it rails, has good speed on a plane, and handles ocean swell very nicely.  And it's indestructible, literally.  And it takes big sails.

It is... this after recently sailing the LCS Equipe.

Hi!
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.

So, is the summer sail project still alive?