I have inherited 8m2 and a 6m2 Phantom Iris X MK2 sails.
Rigging on Slake SDM (Gaastra/Severne curve) Rigged as per Phantoms specs and found both sails are rotating quite poorly.
Interesting observation is that rotation is average, but possible on the starboard tack, but almost impossible on the port tack without a spinning back-kick:) I emailed Phantom and got a quick (but short) reply. Try more downhaul and a note that even though not the correct mast, it should rotate just fine with more downhaul.
Have just tried rigged both with another 2cm downhaul and it feels like an enormous amount of force. Its to the point where I'm scared the mast will give up, but perhaps its just because I've never had to downhaul that hard before. with the extra downhaul I needed to ad another 4cm on the boom lengths to compensate. Rotation is now great on the starboard tack and average, but acceptable on the port tack.
Again the same for both sails?? Is this normal that sails have a good rotation side and a bad one, and its the same for the same line of sails?
I have also loosened the bottom batten as that's the camber that struggles, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.
The only other advice i have been given is to apply a light spray of silicone to cambers every time i rig, but am yet to try this. Has anyone done this and does it make a big difference. I also understand that the last trick is to machine a few MM of the camber, but hoping to avoid this procedure.
Additional notes: on the water the sails truly are amazing. Stability and low end grunt, stable when overpowered and handling gusts extremely well.
Build quality: Not impressed. Lots of stitching coming loose on sails that might have been used 4-5 times. The foot of the sails seems like it has a strange excess of material, to the extend where it almost folds up on it self. Tack strap doesn't fix this...
The camber zips are so short that my hands cant get in there without removing all the skin on the top of my hand??
Perhaps the garlic sniffers over in "Garlicstan" have very small hands?! I will have to invent a tool to push the cambers on with:(

Help much appreciated...

Thanks

Yep, I find most of the tighter race sails I've owned have a better rotation on one tack than the other. I believe it's to do with which way they get rolled up/stored.

I'm not at all familiar with the phantom race sails, but there should be some sort of system for adjusting the tension in the luff pocket. On Severne sails it's cam spacers that sit behind the camber inducer over the batten end. Neil Pryde it's a tether system. Have a look in the luff pocket at the camber inducers and see what you can see. Loosening the batten will be unlikely to have any effect, because the luff pocket is stitched onto the sail panels, making it a completely seperate zone of tension

SDM masts are only 'standard' at the bottom where the extension goes in. If your mast has a larger diameter at the cam than the Phantom mast than unless you can remove spacers the cam will have a lot of pressure and be harder to rotate.
Duotone have a screw driven adjuster now to adjust cam pressure. Ezzy have cam sleeves of different lengths, a tape measure and reference table in the bag to cater for different diameter masts at the cam.

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SheikYerbouti said..
Perhaps the garlic sniffers over in "Garlicstan" have very small hands?! I will have to invent a tool to push the cambers on with:(

... I am about to be an ass ...

Based on what you wrote, it is pretty clear that you dont really understand how to rig a modern sail, ie: you dont put your hands into the zipper when rigging the cams.

And similarly not really understand sail design; the foot of the sail is meant to have excess material so that it can flex a bit like the top of the sail (the tack strap is not meant to fix a non-existent problem).

Maybe ask someone local to you, to demonstrate how to rig it. They will likely need to take it for a spin to ensure it feels like it is rigged correctly.

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mathew said..

SheikYerbouti said..
Perhaps the garlic sniffers over in "Garlicstan" have very small hands?! I will have to invent a tool to push the cambers on with:(

... I am about to be an ass ...

Based on what you wrote, it is pretty clear that you dont really understand how to rig a modern sail, ie: you dont put your hands into the zipper when rigging the cams.

And similarly not really understand sail design; the foot of the sail is meant to have excess material so that it can flex a bit like the top of the sail (the tack strap is not meant to fix a non-existent problem).

Maybe ask someone local to you, to demonstrate how to rig it. They will likely need to take it for a spin to ensure it feels like it is rigged correctly.

Haha! you are not wrong about being an ass:)

I have rigged cambered sails for over 10 years and always put my hand through the zipper pocket to put the cams on and so do other sailor's i see rigging cams. I prefer using Gaastra camber sails where the zips are 50mm longer where it is easy to put your hand in without removing your skin. I'm sure you have a genius way of rigging your sails without putting your hand in, but i don't.

Other than that, i suggest you take your ****ty attitude elsewhere if you haven't got anything positive or constructive to ad

All the best!

I did make a useful suggestion - ask someone else to rig it, because you dont understand cammed-sails.

- If you had been rigging the sails for 10 yrs, you would have already known you needed more downhaul, without the need to whine to the manufacturer. [ Here's what you need to know about windsurfing -> the "needs more downhaul" is the answer to every windsurfing question that has ever been asked. And yes, this is also comedy. ] Given that it is only rotating well on side and not the other, is likely an indication that you need even more downhaul - say 0.5-1cm

- It is normal for a sail to rotate better on side than the other. No sail is perfectly symmetrical one-side-verses-other... some brands will alternate the batten-stitching one side then the other, specifically to try to more-closely make it symmetrical. But even then, the zippers are typically all on side. The net effect is a "preferred side" which sometimes manifests itself as a quirk in the rotation.

- You dont put you hand through the zip to rig the camber - for any sail brand. The zip is only there for you to adjust the camber-tension (when not rigged) and to add some slack-material while the camber is positioned on the mast. There are many youtube examples of how to do this - most brands use the same technique -> minimal-to-medium downhaul, push the luff-seam downwards, while pushing the cam-head upwards.

- Tuning cambers is an artform. Its not unusual to require spacers, or to trim 1-2mm of the back-end of the cam.

PS. My attitude isn't ****ty, it was clearly self-deprecating as a method of adding some comedic-relief to the discussion. This is an Australian windsurfing forum, its part of Australian culture. A Phantom is not sold in Australia, therefore I can only assume this comedy is not apparent.

PPS. Maybe you could leave your racism elsewhere while you are at it.

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mathew said..
I did make a useful suggestion - ask someone else to rig it, because you dont understand cammed-sails.

- If you had been rigging the sails for 10 yrs, you would have already known you needed more downhaul, without the need to whine to the manufacturer. [ Here's what you need to know about windsurfing -> the "needs more downhaul" is the answer to every windsurfing question that has ever been asked. And yes, this is also comedy. ] Given that it is only rotating well on side and not the other, is likely an indication that you need even more downhaul - say 0.5-1cm

- It is normal for a sail to rotate better on side than the other. No sail is perfectly symmetrical one-side-verses-other... some brands will alternate the batten-stitching one side then the other, specifically to try to more-closely make it symmetrical. But even then, the zippers are typically all on side. The net effect is a "preferred side" which sometimes manifests itself as a quirk in the rotation.

- You dont put you hand through the zip to rig the camber - for any sail brand. The zip is only there for you to adjust the camber-tension (when not rigged) and to add some slack-material while the camber is positioned on the mast. There are many youtube examples of how to do this - most brands use the same technique -> minimal-to-medium downhaul, push the luff-seam downwards, while pushing the cam-head upwards.

- Tuning cambers is an artform. Its not unusual to require spacers, or to trim 1-2mm of the back-end of the cam.

PS. My attitude isn't ****ty, it was clearly self-deprecating as a method of adding some comedic-relief to the discussion. This is an Australian windsurfing forum, its part of Australian culture. A Phantom is not sold in Australia, therefore I can only assume this comedy is not apparent.

PPS. Maybe you could leave your racism elsewhere while you are at it.

My main focus will have to be you admitting to being an ass:)

Thanks for your help

The Iris X mk2 (and older Phantom sails) need to be rigged a particular way.

Downhaul the sail till there's about 3-4 fingerwidths left to go, and put the bottom camber in. Try to see if you can get the others to fit as well, but I'd wager you can't at this point, so downhaul the sail more after that and do the other 2.

Yes, there's no space for the hand to fit inside the zip of the bottom camber. The old RF 1st gen foil sails were like this as well, which they rectified in the R mk2 (which is now outdated).

For the extra flappy material on the foot of the sail, it's normal. Originally, the X Mk2s came with a tiny vertical batten that slotted into the bottom panel. If you look at the bottom closely, you'll see where it was supposed to go. Problem is, these kept falling out and putting holes into people's boards, so they stopped shipping them with the vertical batten altogether. The consequence of that is the foot of the sail curls up on itself, and as you have noticed, this does not go away even when tightening the tack strap.

I won't comment on the rotation because you're not using the brand's mast.

The sails are great, but I felt that despite it being designed as having lots of low end grunt, it seemed to have less low end than foil slalom race sails of the time (I got up earlier on the HG4 8.0 than the X mk2 8.0). However, the Phantom was fast (but not as fast) with less effort and easier to gybe.