I finally got my hands on the Hydra 8.5. Like most of us, I'm trying to find that ultra light wind machine to take me into a low wind spectrum with foiling.

Unpacking.
Out of the box, you need to piece together the long batten that sits below the boom. This thing is long(wide). Once together and in the bag it sits at 8ft high. But with a 460 cm mast, it's also very light.

First test conditions:
I moved my harness lines back a few inches per Dace Ezzy's tips. The lake I sail on in the mornings is at 6000ft, we have 20% less air density, and the winds are heat related thermals running off our local mtn range. The wind this morning was 5 to 8 knots.

The rig is light!!! I had this paired with an Ezzy hookipa rdm mast, carbon boom with dual harness lines (see my other thread). My board is a SB foil 177 with a SB race fuse and an 1100 front wing.

Uphauling was surprisingly easy. At 8.5, this wasn't your normal 8.5 that feels massive. It feels like my cheetah 7.0 but with much more power. Once up, the power was quick but had a soft feel. Everything came up to speed quickly and with one small push for flight, I was up! The wind was probably 7 knots, and I sailed through a low wind pocket that had less than 5 knots before getting into a tad more wind. First jibe was awesome! And the second, and all the rest. I pointed downwind and this sucker just kept everything steady! The wide foot and 'auto adjusting luff' make all the gusts completely manageable. Guys, this sail is awesome for those really light wind days. If you are ever in the Colorado, USA area, come try this out. Upwind, downwind, this thing is amazing. I've been on large race sails with this foil set, and they are 10x harder to manage than this sail.

Summary: if you want a light wind, stable, and light sail to foil on, this is it.

I'm going to try and get some video footage.

Happy sailing all.

Thanks for the review. Look forward to the video

Still working on getting coverage for the video.

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IndecentExposur said..
I finally got my hands on the Hydra 8.5. Like most of us, I'm trying to find that ultra light wind machine to take me into a low wind spectrum with foiling.

Unpacking.
Out of the box, you need to piece together the long batten that sits below the boom. This thing is long(wide). Once together and in the bag it sits at 8ft high. But with a 460 cm mast, it's also very light.

First test conditions:
I moved my harness lines back a few inches per Dace Ezzy's tips. The lake I sail on in the mornings is at 6000ft, we have 20% less air density, and the winds are heat related thermals running off our local mtn range. The wind this morning was 5 to 8 knots.

The rig is light!!! I had this paired with an Ezzy hookipa rdm mast, carbon boom with dual harness lines (see my other thread). My board is a SB foil 177 with a SB race fuse and an 1100 front wing.

Uphauling was surprisingly easy. At 8.5, this wasn't your normal 8.5 that feels massive. It feels like my cheetah 7.0 but with much more power. Once up, the power was quick but had a soft feel. Everything came up to speed quickly and with one small push for flight, I was up! The wind was probably 7 knots, and I sailed through a low wind pocket that had less than 5 knots before getting into a tad more wind. First jibe was awesome! And the second, and all the rest. I pointed downwind and this sucker just kept everything steady! The wide foot and 'auto adjusting luff' make all the gusts completely manageable. Guys, this sail is awesome for those really light wind days. If you are ever in the Colorado, USA area, come try this out. Upwind, downwind, this thing is amazing. I've been on large race sails with this foil set, and they are 10x harder to manage than this sail.

Summary: if you want a light wind, stable, and light sail to foil on, this is it.

I'm going to try and get some video footage.

Happy sailing all.

Thanks for the review. Anything to add after more TOW? I have a Hydra 7.0 and a Slingshot setup including the 84 front wing. At 200 lbs I really need a solid 10 knots to get on foil, maybe 11, and even then I'm pumping like a champion to get up. Any thoughts on steady state wind minimums for the 8.5?

Thanks for the reveiw.
Has anyone had a chance to try the hydra next to the neil pryde rs: flight sail?
Would be interesting to see considering the hydra is camless while the pryde sail has two chambers and obviously looks like more of a traditional slalom sail.

Sailworks is rumored to be revamping/expanding their line for 2020. Bruce Peterson is riding a new Flyer that looks more like the Lofts/Severnes, etc. Interestingly, there's a new Hydra variant with a less pronounced bottom batten.

If you are looking for low end horsepower, this is probably a much better comparison than the Pryde Flights.

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Paducah said..
Sailworks is rumored to be revamping/expanding their line for 2020. Bruce Peterson is riding a new Flyer that looks more like the Lofts/Severnes, etc. Interestingly, there's a new Hydra variant with a less pronounced bottom batten.

If you are looking for low end horsepower, this is probably a much better comparison than the Pryde Flights.

Any idea what size that sail is? I see an 8.2 Flyer on their Website, but it says out of stock.

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excav8ter said..

Paducah said..
Sailworks is rumored to be revamping/expanding their line for 2020. Bruce Peterson is riding a new Flyer that looks more like the Lofts/Severnes, etc. Interestingly, there's a new Hydra variant with a less pronounced bottom batten.

If you are looking for low end horsepower, this is probably a much better comparison than the Pryde Flights.

Any idea what size that sail is? I see an 8.2 Flyer on their Website, but it says out of stock.

I asked and it's a "stretched out" 8.2 that's high aspect sitting on a 520 mast and 208 boom. 6 battens and 3 cams.

I am a huge believer in high aspect sails with moderate tight leach for foiling and if this sail makes it for sure into the line up, I will be interested.

A friend of mine uses a custom Flyer 8.2, 5 batten, 2 camber and it's lighter than a regular RAF 6.4.

Great report, thanks. Just a couple of days ago, a guy with a Flyer 7.0 and what looked like a formula board visited out spot, and he looked great - 100% in control and always flying.

We've been trying a bunch of different sails on our foils, and the differences were quite pronounced. Some sails that I love for the slapper don't feel good at all on the foil; they are top-end oriented. Another sail that I never cared for on the slapper and thought about selling is great. Our freestyle sails (older North Idols and Idol LTD) work great. My wife has a 7.5 m Aerolite raceboard sail that super-light with a tight leech and tons of power, and that also works great. It uphauls more like a 6.5. My old 8.5 V8 worked ok, but it's a pain to uphaul, so if for foiling below 10 knots, I'd want a lighter sail like the Hydra. Not really necessary here on Cape Cod, though, we get enough wind to foil on a 6.5 at least 3 times a week.

It would be great to hear from others who have tried different sails for foiling about what works how well.

For anyone interested in the Hydra, Ezzy has made some changes which he now calls the "Hydra Pro". I didn't get all the details yet but he added a 5th batten to all sail sizes (6.0 and below had only 4 in 2019). The panel layout is a bit different for 2020. Dave foils so much that I'm sure he's made some great changes. The Hydra Sport was described to me as a hybrid but not totally optimized for foiling while the Pro will be a purely foil sail design (so maybe the 2020 version is completely no compromise?). Anyway, the new brochure for the Hydra Pro is attached.

My understanding of the theory suggests a low aspect design will have an advantage generating lift at low speed, but the high aspect will be more efficient as speed builds. So I would expect a low aspect to design have an edge in pumping for take off, but the high aspect to have better speed/angle and glide thru' once in flight. That was partly why I got a low aspect Flyer 8.2 2019 rather than the interesting high aspect HSM Superfly - my main concern was take off in patchy inland conditions. It would be great to trial my Flyer back to back with the high aspect version to see how that theory works out in practice. Whatever, mine is indeed grunty and light, but no doubt the shorter boom version would be more 'flickable'.

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Fast505 said..

IndecentExposur said..
I finally got my hands on the Hydra 8.5. Like most of us, I'm trying to find that ultra light wind machine to take me into a low wind spectrum with foiling.

Unpacking.
Out of the box, you need to piece together the long batten that sits below the boom. This thing is long(wide). Once together and in the bag it sits at 8ft high. But with a 460 cm mast, it's also very light.

First test conditions:
I moved my harness lines back a few inches per Dace Ezzy's tips. The lake I sail on in the mornings is at 6000ft, we have 20% less air density, and the winds are heat related thermals running off our local mtn range. The wind this morning was 5 to 8 knots.

The rig is light!!! I had this paired with an Ezzy hookipa rdm mast, carbon boom with dual harness lines (see my other thread). My board is a SB foil 177 with a SB race fuse and an 1100 front wing.

Uphauling was surprisingly easy. At 8.5, this wasn't your normal 8.5 that feels massive. It feels like my cheetah 7.0 but with much more power. Once up, the power was quick but had a soft feel. Everything came up to speed quickly and with one small push for flight, I was up! The wind was probably 7 knots, and I sailed through a low wind pocket that had less than 5 knots before getting into a tad more wind. First jibe was awesome! And the second, and all the rest. I pointed downwind and this sucker just kept everything steady! The wide foot and 'auto adjusting luff' make all the gusts completely manageable. Guys, this sail is awesome for those really light wind days. If you are ever in the Colorado, USA area, come try this out. Upwind, downwind, this thing is amazing. I've been on large race sails with this foil set, and they are 10x harder to manage than this sail.

Summary: if you want a light wind, stable, and light sail to foil on, this is it.

I'm going to try and get some video footage.

Happy sailing all.

Thanks for the review. Anything to add after more TOW? I have a Hydra 7.0 and a Slingshot setup including the 84 front wing. At 200 lbs I really need a solid 10 knots to get on foil, maybe 11, and even then I'm pumping like a champion to get up. Any thoughts on steady state wind minimums for the 8.5?

I've found the 8.5 does really well covering a wide wind range if you set the downhaul between min and medium settings. Even for lighter air I won't take it down to the min setting. I've been in situations where the sail is just well overpowered, but still manageable to handle the gusts.

Well, I have the new Hydra sport 8.1 on the way for testing. I'd like to compare the cheetah 8.0, Hydra (pro) 8.5 and the sport 8.1 all together for a comparison.

Hydra has the long boom low aspect coupled with the narrow head short mast combo.

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IndecentExposur said..
Well, I have the new Hydra sport 8.1 on the way for testing. I'd like to compare the cheetah 8.0, Hydra (pro) 8.5 and the sport 8.1 all together for a comparison.

Sure would be interesting. David Ezzy said the following re the Cheetah for foiling: "The cheetah is okay for foiling. A bit heavier and not quite as smooth as the Hydra." Looking forward to any video when available.

The video of Bruce Peterson shows him foiling a 2020 Flyer prototype. I think it is his 8.5.

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segler said..
The video of Bruce Peterson shows him foiling a 2020 Flyer prototype. I think it is his 8.5.

No its an 8.2m2. Looking forward to the video of the Ezzy Hydra 8.5 m2.

Bruce's biggest production foil sail is the 8.2 (I have one), but his 2020 prototypes have other sizes. He is developing big high aspect ratio foil sails for racing as well as other new sizes and aspect ratios for wave and freeride. Last month I was out at the Event Site on a light day with my Flyer 7.0. Bruce was testing his 8.5 prototype. He complained that July was too windy to test his 9.5 prototype. Dang.

Just thought I'd add some review notes on the Ezzy Hydra Pro 8.5. After a few sessions with it I believe this sail is really best suited for a wider board and/or higher performance foil than my Slingshot Levitator/76/84 combo. On this kit the 8.5 was difficult to handle because the board/foil is not meant to be sailed in a very hiked out position. You stand much more on top of the Levitator/SS foil than you do a raceboard. That means you end up sailing with much shorter harness lines than you might like and I found it uncomfortable and a bit cumbersome. However, when I used the 8.5 on a Falcon Foilboard with a Starboard 800 wing/115 fuse, the sail was a much better match. I was instantly able to lengthen my lines substantially and move them back to achieve better rig balance. So, my takeaway is that, like windsurfing, you have to be careful not to overcanvass your board/foil. The 7.0 works fine with the Slingshot but in many ways I really enjoy that board and foil a whole lot more when it's windy and I can use a really small sail to carve on waves.

Select to expand quote

IndecentExposur said..
I finally got my hands on the Hydra 8.5. Like most of us, I'm trying to find that ultra light wind machine to take me into a low wind spectrum with foiling.

Unpacking.
Out of the box, you need to piece together the long batten that sits below the boom. This thing is long(wide). Once together and in the bag it sits at 8ft high. But with a 460 cm mast, it's also very light.

First test conditions:
I moved my harness lines back a few inches per Dace Ezzy's tips. The lake I sail on in the mornings is at 6000ft, we have 20% less air density, and the winds are heat related thermals running off our local mtn range. The wind this morning was 5 to 8 knots.

The rig is light!!! I had this paired with an Ezzy hookipa rdm mast, carbon boom with dual harness lines (see my other thread). My board is a SB foil 177 with a SB race fuse and an 1100 front wing.

Uphauling was surprisingly easy. At 8.5, this wasn't your normal 8.5 that feels massive. It feels like my cheetah 7.0 but with much more power. Once up, the power was quick but had a soft feel. Everything came up to speed quickly and with one small push for flight, I was up! The wind was probably 7 knots, and I sailed through a low wind pocket that had less than 5 knots before getting into a tad more wind. First jibe was awesome! And the second, and all the rest. I pointed downwind and this sucker just kept everything steady! The wide foot and 'auto adjusting luff' make all the gusts completely manageable. Guys, this sail is awesome for those really light wind days. If you are ever in the Colorado, USA area, come try this out. Upwind, downwind, this thing is amazing. I've been on large race sails with this foil set, and they are 10x harder to manage than this sail.

Summary: if you want a light wind, stable, and light sail to foil on, this is it.

I'm going to try and get some video footage.

Happy sailing all.

I have the same sail and I think this sail is as easy to uphaul as my 5.7 lift from Naish , very very light and with little downhaul and outhaul to have a huge draft this sail can be pumped very effectively . It does not seem to be made to be abused though . Very fragile material .

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kiter49 said..

IndecentExposur said..
I finally got my hands on the Hydra 8.5. Like most of us, I'm trying to find that ultra light wind machine to take me into a low wind spectrum with foiling.
------------------------------
Happy sailing all.

I have the same sail and I think this sail is as easy to uphaul as my 5.7 lift from Naish , very very light and with little downhaul and outhaul to have a huge draft this sail can be pumped very effectively . It does not seem to be made to be abused though . Very fragile material .

I am using Sailworks Flyer 2020 8.2 with Lightstick mast. It has 2 cambers and the weight of Flyer is 4.2 kg and 8.5 hydra is 4.5 kg. Both of these are extremely light sails you could find for foiling. Flyer pumps very efficiently. I noted that the sail start to tear at the cambered areas due to pressure and it seems they should but thick patch in order to prevent premature tears. Otherwise, I am very happy for the performance of the new sail especially on 8-10 knots wind days (I am 225 lbs).