Dear Windsurfers,
Last week I completed my homemade windsurf sail. I copied North Sails 4.7 Curve. However alittle bit larger.It is 4.8 sqm and weight is 4 kg(including battens). I spent 8 weeks to produce this sail. Sail material is opac color % 100 polyester (monofilm) and different colors of polyester fabric. I don't advise windsurfers to produce their own windsurf sails. Because it takes too much time. Producing a sail needs wide area, lots of material and industrial type sewing machine. But if you compare the price with the original sails it is really very cheap.Homemade sail costed to me 130 US Dollars.

Good job, but I'd eliminate the outhaul pulley, that is very old school and hinders the performance of the sail, that point of the leach should be solid with the end of the booms, you don't want it flopping back and forth.

how does it go?

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Mastbender said..
Good job, but I'd eliminate the outhaul pulley, that is very old school and hinders the performance of the sail, that point of the leach should be solid with the end of the booms, you don't want it flopping back and forth.

Look at some pics of speed or slalom sailing - often there is *negative* tension on the outhaul, ie: the rope is completely slack... you *do* want it flopping back and forth. Can you explain what you mean?

just shorten the boom by about 8 cm and attach "rope" ONLY

otherwise you do NOT have a solid "pocket"
wasting energy !!! and POWER

Is it see through? I have a sail that's really fast but no windows(ncx proto) but it's a bit disconcerting when kiters hacking upwind pop out of your blind spot right in front if you:)...a bit hard to wave ride too when you can't see the wave :)

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Mastbender said..
Good job, but I'd eliminate the outhaul pulley, that is very old school and hinders the performance of the sail, that point of the leach should be solid with the end of the booms, you don't want it flopping back and forth.

Dear Mastbender,
I have to use this pulley because my arm power is not enought to rig this sail. I have been using these kind of pulleys since 1988. These pulleys are my best friend.. All my homemade sails are not flopping back and forth. My sails are very rigid on operation. Thanks for your idea. I will search this pulley problem. Bye..

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curac said..
how does it go?

Dear curac,
I haven't tested my sail yet. I am waiting June. But sail is rigid. In my opinion it is not going to cause any problem. Because this is my fourth sail. Bye..
Melih

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Lindz1510 said..
Is it see through? I have a sail that's really fast but no windows(ncx proto) but it's a bit disconcerting when kiters hacking upwind pop out of your blind spot right in front if you:)...a bit hard to wave ride too when you can't see the wave :)

Dear Lindz 1510,
This material is not transparent. But if you clean it with soap it becomes clear. You are absolutely right. Later I am going to clean the main window with soap. Thanks.
Melih..

Impressive!

How did you copy the sail, did you pull it apart? How did you work out how much seam shaping to use and how did you work out the luff curve?

I think I will stick to second hand

Btw why not use the plastic hitch on the boom, I get a two to one pulley just using my wave boom, without using a pulley.

I just started using pulleys on all my sails with my adjustable out haul. Works fantastic! I don't notice any difference in loss of performance. The reason I added pulleys is because I was going through out haul line way too fast. The out haul line gets eatin by the clew grommet. There is so much friction on the out haul line around the clew grommet area.

The trick is to find a real small high performing pulley and find the smallest shackle and shackle It on the clew. I personally like the micro pulley, by Ronstan. It's a very clean looking setup when done correctly. If there is any performance difference with or without the pulley, it would be so minor. Personally I can't tell a bit of difference. I'm a performance nut, and if something doesn't feel right, I will tweak it and if that fails, I will do away with it completely. So, the smallest pulley, smallest shackle and high quality out haul line will perform beautifully!

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racerX said..
Impressive!

How did you copy the sail, did you pull it apart? How did you work out how much seam shaping to use and how did you work out the luff curve?

I think I will stick to second hand

Btw why not use the plastic hitch on the boom, I get a two to one pulley just using my wave boom, without using a pulley.

Dear racer x,
It is very easy to copy a sail. First I laid the sail on the large wood table. Then I drew the frame with pen on the table. I divided my sail to 5 window parts.( in theory not breaking into pieces the original sail). 5 battens means 5 windows. Later I put the monofilm on the table and copied with pen. I copied the luff curve with same technique.
Total material is:
7 sqm 150 micron monofilm.
6 sqm white and colorful dacron fabric
6 pack of double sided tape
4x chrom nickel collet
original 2x pulley
5 m polyester strap
1x mast stopper

As I understand you, plastic hitch is not enough for me.
If you are interested in homemade sails I can mail you detailed photographs. Bye,
Melih...

Good job Melih!
It has a lot of merit to this at home, I hope your wife didn't get too grumpy :)

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Sin said..
Good job Melih!
It has a lot of merit to this at home, I hope your wife didn't get too grumpy :)

Dear Sin,
Marriage and windsurf what is your opinion about these two words? Shall we open a topic about these words? Female windsurfers won't like this topic.

Start the topic!!!!!!!

Hi Melih,
The sail looks well put together. Foot looks a little flat, always good to have a bit of belly in the sail there to help keep the drive low. I used to use vertical seam shape between the luff panel and main panels but most sails now have it behind the battern pockets. I reduced the size of the luff panel so much to reduce weight that vertical seam shape wouldn't have worked anymore anyway. Here is one of mine, you can see the belly in the sail below the boom that the seam shape that runs behind the battern pocket puts in.

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Mastbender said..
Good job, but I'd eliminate the outhaul pulley, that is very old school and hinders the performance of the sail, that point of the leach should be solid with the end of the booms, you don't want it flopping back and forth.

hi Melih,
superb work of patience..
?'d eliminate also the outhaul pulley. ?''ll show you next spring on eagean coast how you can arrange easily.

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airsail said..
Hi Melih,
The sail looks well put together. Foot looks a little flat, always good to have a bit of belly in the sail there to help keep the drive low. I used to use vertical seam shape between the luff panel and main panels but most sails now have it behind the battern pockets. I reduced the size of the luff panel so much to reduce weight that vertical seam shape wouldn't have worked anymore anyway. Here is one of mine, you can see the belly in the sail below the boom that the seam shape that runs behind the battern pocket puts in.

hi Melih,
A little bit belly shape is better on low wind condition. do you pretend to use espacily on high wind condition?

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Magic Ride said..
Start the topic!!!!!!!

any female windsurfer on Seabreeze ?????*

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melih said..

racerX said..
Impressive!

How did you copy the sail, did you pull it apart? How did you work out how much seam shaping to use and how did you work out the luff curve?

I think I will stick to second hand

Btw why not use the plastic hitch on the boom, I get a two to one pulley just using my wave boom, without using a pulley.

Dear racer x,
It is very easy to copy a sail. First I laid the sail on the large wood table. Then I drew the frame with pen on the table. I divided my sail to 5 window parts.( in theory not breaking into pieces the original sail). 5 battens means 5 windows. Later I put the monofilm on the table and copied with pen. I copied the luff curve with same technique.
Total material is:
7 sqm 150 micron monofilm.
6 sqm white and colorful dacron fabric
6 pack of double sided tape
4x chrom nickel collet
original 2x pulley
5 m polyester strap
1x mast stopper

As I understand you, plastic hitch is not enough for me.
If you are interested in homemade sails I can mail you detailed photographs. Bye,
Melih...

That's was the point I was getting at. I.e how did you copy the seam shaping if any. I guess the original did not have much to begin with. I am not sure pulling apart the panel, would have allowed you to measure the seam shaping in any case. But was curious about any insight. Was also curious if you used a template for the luff curve.

I think Shortboardcrazy is a female. She seems very nice and easy going. She would probably be ok with the male Sence of humor. She could probably add some two Sence to the topic.

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airsail said..
Hi Melih,
The sail looks well put together. Foot looks a little flat, always good to have a bit of belly in the sail there to help keep the drive low. I used to use vertical seam shape between the luff panel and main panels but most sails now have it behind the battern pockets. I reduced the size of the luff panel so much to reduce weight that vertical seam shape wouldn't have worked anymore anyway. Here is one of mine, you can see the belly in the sail below the boom that the seam shape that runs behind the battern pocket puts in.

Dear Airsail,
I like your sail, good job. Good material ( reinforced monofilm). T think you don't use batten tensioners. No problem. When I go for surfing I always release the rope to give a parabolic surface to my sail. It is a good point. I am still learning how to make a good sail. Thanks for your ideas. Do you have any photographs while producing your sail? Bye.

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Magic Ride said..
I just started using pulleys on all my sails with my adjustable out haul. Works fantastic! I don't notice any difference in loss of performance. The reason I added pulleys is because I was going through out haul line way too fast. The out haul line gets eatin by the clew grommet. There is so much friction on the out haul line around the clew grommet area.

The trick is to find a real small high performing pulley and find the smallest shackle and shackle It on the clew. I personally like the micro pulley, by Ronstan. It's a very clean looking setup when done correctly. If there is any performance difference with or without the pulley, it would be so minor. Personally I can't tell a bit of difference. I'm a performance nut, and if something doesn't feel right, I will tweak it and if that fails, I will do away with it completely. So, the smallest pulley, smallest shackle and high quality out haul line will perform beautifully!

Dear Magic Ride,
Can you send me a photo of micro pulley?

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racerX said..

melih said..

racerX said..
Impressive!

How did you copy the sail, did you pull it apart? How did you work out how much seam shaping to use and how did you work out the luff curve?

I think I will stick to second hand

Btw why not use the plastic hitch on the boom, I get a two to one pulley just using my wave boom, without using a pulley.

Dear racer x,
It is very easy to copy a sail. First I laid the sail on the large wood table. Then I drew the frame with pen on the table. I divided my sail to 5 window parts.( in theory not breaking into pieces the original sail). 5 battens means 5 windows. Later I put the monofilm on the table and copied with pen. I copied the luff curve with same technique.
Total material is:
7 sqm 150 micron monofilm.
6 sqm white and colorful dacron fabric
6 pack of double sided tape
4x chrom nickel collet
original 2x pulley
5 m polyester strap
1x mast stopper

As I understand you, plastic hitch is not enough for me.
If you are interested in homemade sails I can mail you detailed photographs. Bye,
Melih...

That's was the point I was getting at. I.e how did you copy the seam shaping if any. I guess the original did not have much to begin with. I am not sure pulling apart the panel, would have allowed you to measure the seam shaping in any case. But was curious about any insight. Was also curious if you used a template for the luff curve.

Dear racer X,
I am still thinking how to explain the easiest way copying the sail. Bye,

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melih said..

Mastbender said..
Good job, but I'd eliminate the outhaul pulley, that is very old school and hinders the performance of the sail, that point of the leach should be solid with the end of the booms, you don't want it flopping back and forth.

Dear Mastbender,
I have to use this pulley because my arm power is not enought to rig this sail. I have been using these kind of pulleys since 1988. These pulleys are my best friend.. All my homemade sails are not flopping back and forth. My sails are very rigid on operation. Thanks for your idea. I will search this pulley problem. Bye..

Very easy and fast to rig.

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melih said..

racerX said..

melih said..

racerX said..
Impressive!

How did you copy the sail, did you pull it apart? How did you work out how much seam shaping to use and how did you work out the luff curve?

I think I will stick to second hand

Btw why not use the plastic hitch on the boom, I get a two to one pulley just using my wave boom, without using a pulley.

Dear racer x,
It is very easy to copy a sail. First I laid the sail on the large wood table. Then I drew the frame with pen on the table. I divided my sail to 5 window parts.( in theory not breaking into pieces the original sail). 5 battens means 5 windows. Later I put the monofilm on the table and copied with pen. I copied the luff curve with same technique.
Total material is:
7 sqm 150 micron monofilm.
6 sqm white and colorful dacron fabric
6 pack of double sided tape
4x chrom nickel collet
original 2x pulley
5 m polyester strap
1x mast stopper

As I understand you, plastic hitch is not enough for me.
If you are interested in homemade sails I can mail you detailed photographs. Bye,
Melih...

That's was the point I was getting at. I.e how did you copy the seam shaping if any. I guess the original did not have much to begin with. I am not sure pulling apart the panel, would have allowed you to measure the seam shaping in any case. But was curious about any insight. Was also curious if you used a template for the luff curve.

Dear racer X,
I am still thinking how to explain the easiest way copying the sail. Bye,

I understood using panels as template, what I was curious about is did you use any seam shaping, and if so how did you determine how much and where to use it.

Perhaps being a wave or free style sail it not appropriate.

Not a criticism, btw my sail DIY extends to self adhesive sail repair tape. But I do understand the theory

Hi Melih,
i haven't any photos of building sails. My first was copied from an Ezzy wave, did that quite awhile ago. Tensions on all parts of the more modern sails have increased hugely over the years, hence the requirement for specialised battern tensioner etc. the foot, clew and head require a lot more reinforcing to take the loads, so much so my machine isn't up to the task anymore and starts to drop stitches in the heavy stuff. Also all those special tensioners and eyes cost and add to the price of a sail and reality comes into it. My sails cost about AUD$100 to build excluding batterns, these will double the cost, no resale value plus labour and you really need to do it for the love of it.

Seam shape becomes a guess, you can see it is there as the panel of the copied sail doesn't lay exactly flat and you can tell where the extra material is but how much and where it starts and finishes is the hard part. Unless you disassemble a sail you will never get it exact and my mates are hesitant to let me pull their sail apart. Had a mate who did pull a pryde raf wave apart some time ago and made a pretty good copy. You never know how a sail will set until it's rigged, and some of mine have darts where I had to remove some seam shape. My seam shape is behind the lower battern, about 20mm from memory and behind the 2nd and third battern, about 10mm each. The upper seam shape starts about half way out from the luff along the battern, adding material in a curve until you get to the leech where you have the full 10 mm. Hopefully this allows the foot to have locked in drive but the upper part of the sail to twist off in the gusts and not to just try and pull you up and over the front.

As I said, I might be way off track on the seam shape, but the sails work ok so I'm happy. Would i make more sails, don't know, overseas imports are bloody cheap considering the labour and material costs. But I do tend to punch rather large holes through panels with my body at times and the old batterns get used on the next one. Next one will require a new mast skinny mast so new mast curve. I did work as an employee at a commercial Sailboard sail loft for two years hence my user name.

That's really creative that you are able to recreate the same sail. I'm sure there is a Sence of pride and appreciation there. Just curious how many hours it takes you to complete at sail?

Takes about 8 hours to build a sail if you have all your templates already made, a few evenings work. Nice to use your own gear, I was lucky to move to Culburra in NSW many years ago ( not there now). In Culburra everyone made there own gear, we only bought masts, it is just what you did.

Airsail,

That is really neat to hear. Have fun with your projects and thanks for sharing. We all look forward to seeing your latest creations.

Melih

The effort to make a sail must be enormous, I have to applaud your fine effort. I would be interested to hear how she sails.

Nice one