My Hydra Sport 8.1 showed up today! Unfortunately, no wind today. But I'd thought I'd crack a cold beer and unbox the new sail.

I put the older Hydra (now Hydra Pro) next to the Hydra sport for comparisons. Take note that the Hydra is an 8.5, and the Hydra sport is an 8.1. I think I know where the .4m^2 were shaved off.

A few observations:
The two sails are identical in specs regarding luff, boom size & extension lengths.
The clear panel is clear, no cross stitching.
The cuts (leech, head & luff) look to be very close.

My gybes with the Hydra 7.0 were always much better than on the 8.5, probably due to shear sail size. I'm looking forward to the same sailing characteristics the luff brings with the new 'Sport', but curious to know how the overall power and usage feels. The shape looks awesome! I cannot wait to get this out!

C'mon wind!!!

thanks for posting the pics.
I will be very interested to hear your comparison as I was thinking of getting a larger hydra.

That looks great. to me the hydra sport looks waaaayyyyy better. no matter how good people say the older shape works I think it looks awful and for foiling I have found duck gybing a great way to gybe!
Has anyone managed to duck gybe the older version?

Love the colour

The hydra reminds me of the frogs starship from a very old german scifi tv soap, creepy

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nimo1972 said..
That looks great. to me the hydra sport looks waaaayyyyy better. no matter how good people say the older shape works I think it looks awful and for foiling I have found duck gybing a great way to gybe!
Has anyone managed to duck gybe the older version?

Probably only this guy...