8.5 sail compared to 7.5 for light wind planing

brynkaufman2 · Joined: 10 Sep 2002 Posts: 383 Location: Kailua Oahu

Wow, some great information.

John, I also read your tip about setting the mast base in the aft position on James' blog when I was researching a larger fin.

Mine is in the center position, so I will definitely move it back for my next session.

Sailboarder, a 2 knot difference from the 40 cm to the 46 cm fin is exactly what I need. That is really encouraging, and like you mentioned, if I do end up going with a bigger sail, the larger fin would be good to pair with it.

I am going to try setting the mast track aft and a larger fin prior to buying a larger sail. If I can gain 2 knots with these changes I am good to go, without the cost and hassle of a larger sail.

I also watched David Ezzy rigging my sail and now understand that a 1 cm down haul difference is all that is needed to go from medium wind to light wind, and I read Peter Hart's post on all the techniques and tuning that go into light wind planing, so I hopefully have a solution.

I will update this thread again once I have my new fin and mast track aft and let you know how it worked out.

Thanks!

carl · Joined: 25 Feb 1997 Posts: 2674 Location: SF bay area

I would probably go with the Ezzy 8.5 instead of the Sailworks 9.0.
Different brands measure the sails differently so one brand's 9.0 might compare to an 8.5 (or even 9.5) in another brand.
If you keep in the same brand and even model if you can,, at least you know that the 8.5 will be about a meter larger than a 7.5. (and IMHO a meter DOES make a difference in that size range)
As an example: I went with an Ezzy 9.5 to replace my old Naish 9.0 as my biggest. I rolled them out on top of each other and they were almost exactly the same size!

konajoe · Joined: 28 Feb 2010 Posts: 517

joethewindsufa · Joined: 10 Oct 2010 Posts: 1190 Location: Montréal

sail efficiency and sailor weight ...

what if 200 pound person is pumping on an 8-oh
and 100 pound person is pumping on a 4-oh and smaller board

for me when winds are marginal, it is the lighter people with smaller equipment that seem to pass me ...
they manage to plane EARLIER (and sure skills can be part of it)

the best thing i did to improve early planing was lose 25 pounds
on same equipment had better results and can move around much better
unfortunately gained 15 pounds back
by next summer plan to do that again (lose the 15)
at 230 can plane in 17.5 with 8-oh (using james' calculator)
at 215 can plane in 16.4 knots with same sail
that's a one knot improvement with lots of benefits !!!
(obviously NOT everyone is overweight heavyweight like me )

brynkaufman2 · Joined: 10 Sep 2002 Posts: 383 Location: Kailua Oahu

So I bought a 50cm fin Maui Fin - looks like this one but last years model.

So far it was great. Luckily, the wind picked up gusting to almost 20 mph with my 7.5 Ezzy, and I still felt in control. Then the wind dropped to give me a taste of light wind sailing with the fin, the average was 9.8 mph, with gusts to 13 mph, and I was still planing and having a blast.

It is still to early to tell if my wind minimum has dropped. The 9.8 mph might be misleading because of the 13 mph gust to get me going.

However, this fin is faster and the board goes up wind faster. I can stay in control even in pretty strong winds for the 7.5 sail. It did feel like the front of the board was a bit higher out of the water, especially because I did move my mast track back. Turning with a 7.5 sail is not so fast to begin with, so I did not really notice a huge difference turning with this fin, although turning upwind was definitely easier.

I assume Exocet does not provide a fin like this as they have to account for various sailing styles and for SUPing, but if you like blasting and want light wind and upwind performance, I highly recommend it.

The only downside is this fin is sharp like a giant knife. I keep the cover on it in case the kids bump it when in the garage.

At this point I probably won't be using the stock fin again unless I find performance issues when it is blowing up to 30 mph.

jingebritsen · Joined: 21 Aug 2002 Posts: 3371

what's incredible is how much i really like the stock fin on any board that its size was appropriate for.

with the base all the way back, try the stock fin again.

brynkaufman2 · Joined: 10 Sep 2002 Posts: 383 Location: Kailua Oahu

John, I have been running with the stock fin with the base all the way back since you suggested it, and it was a great suggestion, thanks.

The stock fin on this board is awesome, so I don't want to give anyone the wrong idea. This board and the stock fin lowered my planing threshold by 2 mph. I was trying to see if I could lower it another 1 to 2 mph with a larger fin.

I still need more time on this fin to really tell, but my gut feeling is I am going faster in lighter wind and planing sooner, and the board remained controllable in higher winds.

To me this is a high performance board in most conditions, with the bonus of very light wind planing and wave riding. Thanks to the iWindsurf community for turning me on to this board, I am having a blast with it.