Im looking for the lightest rig available.
Does anyone have any good suggestions for the lightest available sails/mast/boom on the market?

Ah what kind? Freestyle, wave, slalom, freeride, race, formula, speed?

Oh and what size?

My kids have got a 1.5m rig that is pretty light. Will that suit?

Haha! Thats excactly what I was looking for!
I am looking for wave sails in the range 4-6 sqm. And maybe some freeride sails 6+.
Which sails has the lowest weight pr sqm?

Still not totally sure what type of sailing you're after, but for just pure lightness, my guesses would be the Ezzy Legacy, for a 5 batten sail, and/or the Hot Sails KS3, a 3 batten sail. But I'm sure there are many others that I'm not familiar with.

Just purchased a Goya Eclipse Power wave sail. Beautiful, responsive sail. Very light and durable. Goya is adding lots of skrim to their sails now giving them a longer lasting life. So far Goya has been my favorite sail. Tons of available power, when you want it most. Just pull your back hand on the boom and the power is distributed. Amazing clean power delivered. Feels like you have a turbo on board. If you have to much power, lighten up on the back hand and loosen the outhaul ever so slightly and the power backs down. The best sail I have ever owned!! Flex top or constant curve mast is recommended for Goya sails. Ezzy masts are the closest to a flextop that I know of. Ezzy is the flexiest constant curve mast to a Goya according to Jason Diffin, sail designer for Goya. I use an Ezzy mast with my Goya sail and it sails beautifully.

Naish sprint ...very light .
did sail a few( recreation freeride sails ) neilpryde sails last year ...very light
so light I reckon you could fall through them ..

Id be looking for strong sails and average weight ..EZZY.cheetah .

if your looking for light ,look for ..less battens and free ride sails .
wave sails are built stronger ,so extra weight, although I think any thing under 6.0 is light .for me .

masts and booms ..the more carbon in a mast is generally lighter .

Severne gear is the lightest by far. The booms are made from egg shells. Lol.

And exclusively available at your neighborhood Wal-Mart super center.

Lightest sail I would say Severne S1 Pro Edition... the one I have weighs 2.6 kgs. and in combo with a 400 Severne mast and Enigma boom the entire rig feels very much like a 4.8 in another brand I used to have.

this one seems quite lightweight (the rig)

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stehsegler said...
Lightest sail I would say Severne S1 Pro Edition... the one I have weighs 2.6 kgs. and in combo with a 400 Severne mast and Enigma boom the entire rig feels very much like a 4.8 in another brand I used to have.

Let me guess, the other brand is NP? I'm tempted to switch to severne, but they lightness must come at a cost. AFAIK, severne does not have their own factories, so it's not like they have a magic material or process that no one else can use.

HSM is supposed to be bringing out a "Spiderlok" version of the KS3 that will be in the same weight range as the S1 Pro.

The HSM KS3 and Firelights are very light (I've tried both), as well as the Blade Pro and S-1's. I can't comment on the Severne's, but one of my mate's Firelight was only in it's 2nd year when I looked at it at the start of the year, and it looked like it had seen better days. As you said MyCranky, we'll see how long this lightness fad survives.

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Kimba said..
These are pretty light...
http://www.avantisails.com/sails/overview
They are however a little hard to get is OZ...

They look amazing! It seems like they were doing this membrane stuff well before Severne. It's also interesting that they have bigger gaps between sizes. But I wonder how fixable they are if they do tear. I also heard that they feel quite stiff i.e. no give in them because the material is not stretchy at all.

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jn1 said..
The HSM KS3 and Firelights are very light (I've tried both), as well as the Blade Pro and S-1's. I can't comment on the Severne's, but one of my mate's Firelight was only in it's 2nd year when I looked at it at the start of the year, and it looked like it had seen better days. As you said MyCranky, we'll see how long this lightness fad survives.

I've been told that NP went through the lightweight phase around 2010. I have an NP sail from that era. It is very light. The monofilm just ripped for no reason. It looked clear and not aged at all to me, so I figured I should repair it. The sailmaker accepted the job with reservations. He reckoned that if the monofilm just lets go like that, then it's at the end of its life, so even if the panel is replaced, another panel may go soon. Sure enough, the sail tore again the second time I used it after the repair.

North Platinum Aero 400 mast = 1.15kg

North Platinum Aero 140-190 boom = 1.85kg

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MrCranky said..

Kimba said..
These are pretty light...
http://www.avantisails.com/sails/overview
They are however a little hard to get is OZ...

They look amazing! It seems like they were doing this membrane stuff well before Severne. It's also interesting that they have bigger gaps between sizes. But I wonder how fixable they are if they do tear. I also heard that they feel quite stiff i.e. no give in them because the material is not stretchy at all.

I only have experience with Avanti race sails and thought they would be stiff and unforgiving but to the contrary; they feel soft but locked in and still look the same as when I bought them a few years back. You don't get the batten rub marks and cloudiness that monofilm starts to get after only a few uses. They are supplied with scrim patches so if you do happen to accidentally stab them with scissors the rip stops at the nearest technora yarn.

?rel=0

Thanks, very interesting.

Do they have a distributor in Australia? From the Unifier mast selector site the mast curves seem to be like Gaastra... Is their designer ex-Gaastra?

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MrCranky said..

I've been told that NP went through the lightweight phase around 2010. I have an NP sail from that era. It is very light. The monofilm just ripped for no reason.

I've had 2010 Pryde sails... don't thing I'd call them lightweight. weight is less of an issue in the smaller sizes but in the bigger sizes (5.3+) it makes a huge difference, especially if used in combo with a light mast and boom.

The Avanti sails look interesting. Membrane technology has has been around for close to 20 years in yachts and the sailmakers I know agree that it has clear advantages, at a cost.

Sails on offshore yachts get a real beating. They are put under very high loads, sometimes get extreme point loads over handrails and rigging, and then they get dragged down flapping in a hurry, dragged aft over fittings, shoved down the hatch, jumped on for a few hours, shoved into a bag, then they get dragged up and do it again time after time. Despite this, the membrane sails seem to last really well these days (although rich yachties replace them anyway). I've got membrane sails with gaping holes in them that I haven't bothered to fix because the membrane is such an effective tear-stopped. It wouldn't be surprising if membrane wavesails worked really well, too.

Just for comparison's sake, the Windsurfer One Design 6m weighs in at a fraction less than 2kg. Obviously I'm not saying that the OP will want one for wavesailing, but it does show that the common claim that modern rigs are lighter needs some qualification.

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Chris 249 said..
The Avanti sails look interesting. Membrane technology has has been around for close to 20 years in yachts and the sailmakers I know agree that it has clear advantages, at a cost.

Sails on offshore yachts get a real beating. They are put under very high loads, sometimes get extreme point loads over handrails and rigging, and then they get dragged down flapping in a hurry, dragged aft over fittings, shoved down the hatch, jumped on for a few hours, shoved into a bag, then they get dragged up and do it again time after time. Despite this, the membrane sails seem to last really well these days (although rich yachties replace them anyway). I've got membrane sails with gaping holes in them that I haven't bothered to fix because the membrane is such an effective tear-stopped. It wouldn't be surprising if membrane wavesails worked really well, too.

Just for comparison's sake, the Windsurfer One Design 6m weighs in at a fraction less than 2kg. Obviously I'm not saying that the OP will want one for wavesailing, but it does show that the common claim that modern rigs are lighter needs some qualification.

Is that individually placed reinforcement threads tech offered as a contract service to sail makers by some sail cloth manufacturer? I can't imagine a windsurfing sail manufacturer taking on something like that. If so, who provides the service?

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MrCranky said..
Thanks, very interesting.

Do they have a distributor in Australia? From the Unifier mast selector site the mast curves seem to be like Gaastra... Is their designer ex-Gaastra?

No Distributor at the moment, you can buy direct - freight might be a killer.

Dan Kaseler was with Naish early on and his sails had the outright world speed record for a few years. He then moved to Gaastra and later created Vandal.

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morts said..

Kimba said..
These are pretty light...
http://www.avantisails.com/sails/overview
They are however a little hard to get is OZ...

Page 15 of the 2016 Lookbook the Condor sail is a 3 batten & 7 cam sail. Unique!

And the cost savings of a proof reader are passed on to you

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Alphamale said..
Im looking for the lightest rig available. . . .

But, why? What's the real benefit of a super-light rig; the weight of the rig is borne down through the mast-foot when sailing. Why sacrifice durability to save a few grams?

Unless, it's swing weight that you're looking to save, or, perhaps the effort of lugging the rig from the car park to the water, and vice-versa at the session end.

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NotWal said..
Is that individually placed reinforcement threads tech offered as a contract service to sail makers by some sail cloth manufacturer? I can't imagine a windsurfing sail manufacturer taking on something like that. If so, who provides the service?

I'm out of date on this stuff, but the major sailmakers for big boats have centralised facilities and ship sails out from there all over the world. North Sails was the leader with 3DL (which I think stood for Three Dimensional Laminate but was initially known as Three Day Life - it's got over those teething problems) and their facilities actually have a huge three-dimensional mould with hundred of hydraulic jacks under it. They work out the intended sail shape, adjust the huge mould so that it takes up the same shape, then lay the mylar panels down. A machine then lays down hundreds (or thousands) of continual fiber threads from corner to corner to take the load.

I imagine that there must be some companies who will sub-contract the actual production, allowing the "sailmaker" to work on design. That's pretty much what the local branches of the multinational big-boat sailmakers do, I think.

Actually Jethro would be the expert on all this; he can probably set us straight.

AFAIK yacht north sails and windsurfing north sails are different companies - the latter just bought the brand name.

BTW there is a freestyle windsurfer on another forum saying avanti sails are fragile and hard to repair.

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Bristol said..

Alphamale said..
Im looking for the lightest rig available. . . .

But, why? What's the real benefit of a super-light rig; the weight of the rig is borne down through the mast-foot when sailing. Why sacrifice durability to save a few grams?

Maybe not for race sails but it makes a massive difference in wave sails. The difference for the entire rig can be as much as 4 to 5 kgs ... fighting that extra weight in marginal conditions is quite significant.