Hi everyone,

I learnt how to windsurf last summer and managed to snaffle some gear off a friend which included some sails that are now 16 years old. Last summer I had been going to the gym three days a week for four years and was pretty strong and managed to muscle my way through thing. I've stopped the gym now and lost a bit of strength and found that the old sails were just killing me. I was fighting them all the way. Sufficient down haul but I was ending up knackered after 20 minutes.

Today I picked up a second hand sail that's a 2012 model and took it out today...boy what a difference a modern sail makes. Lighter with more flex at the top made it much more manageable than the old one. I had a blast and was able to control the sail no problems.

i searched this morning but found little on the subject of modern sail versus older sails so thought I'd share my experience.

anyone else had similar experience?

Wimp
Tough it out !

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tazmania said..
Hi everyone,

I learnt how to windsurf last summer and managed to snaffle some gear off a friend which included some sails that are now 16 years old. Last summer I had been going to the gym three days a week for four years and was pretty strong and managed to muscle my way through thing. I've stopped the gym now and lost a bit of strength and found that the old sails were just killing me. I was fighting them all the way. Sufficient down haul but I was ending up knackered after 20 minutes.

Today I picked up a second hand sail that's a 2012 model and took it out today...boy what a difference a modern sail makes. Lighter with more flex at the top made it much more manageable than the old one. I had a blast and was able to control the sail no problems.

i searched this morning but found little on the subject of modern sail versus older sails so thought I'd share my experience.

anyone else had similar experience?

Yep modern sails make life much easier!

I often think how lucky we are that the guys back in the day kept persevering with the old gear that was so heavy/hard to use, in order to get us to where we are today - which is light, user friendly awesomeness!
Remember trying to learn on my brothers gear and taking about 5 or more minutes to slowly heave the sail out of the water only to make a frantic grab at the boom, get dragged a few metres with my arms popping off, and then falling in the drink again. Good times ;)

Yeah that was me last week!!!

I wonder if it's part of why the popularity of windsurfing dropped off after the initial windrush days where everyone was just pottering around. All this new stuff came on the market that was hard to use because of the design/materials.

The difference in the two sails old/modern is like the difference between a car with power steering and without power steering. I used to have VB Commodore with no PS and had to wrestle the bugger around everyone corner.

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tazmania said..
Yeah that was me last week!!!

I wonder if it's part of why the popularity of windsurfing dropped off after the initial windrush days where everyone was just pottering around. All this new stuff came on the market that was hard to use because of the design/materials.

The difference in the two sails old/modern is like the difference between a car with power steering and without power steering. I used to have VB Commodore with no PS and had to wrestle the bugger around everyone corner.

The original Windsurfer came with a light super bendy mast that was quite easy to learn with then "fun boards" came along ( with a more powerful heavier rig) and slowly the sport got less beginner friendly. Its really only in the last 15 year that performance and user friendliness have converged.

Did you rig the newer sail on a 16 year old mast or a new mast?

Mast is only 10 years old! I learnt on that equipment and had no trouble

Next purchase skinny masts!

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Tozza said..
Mast is only 10 years old! I learnt on that equipment and had no trouble

Next purchase skinny masts!

Yep got it off tozza. Mast is newer.

We used to have light (aluminium) masts, or masts that didn't break all the time (Heavy as lead fibreglass noodles)!

Big difference now is light masts that don't break all the time! (Skinny Carbon)

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sailquik said..
We used to have light (aluminium) masts, or masts that didn't break all the time (Heavy as lead fibreglass noodles)!

Big difference now is light masts that don't break all the time! (Skinny Carbon)

Funny you guys talking about this, I used to sail my old wave jumper & slalom boards with a Rotho Wave mast - very heavy. My gear is at least 15 years old but I saw somw locals doing 35 + knots at Stanley, Tasmania last week. Well I had never seen any gear like it before. Skinny masts & booms & sails I thought would be too big for the wind.
I am now inspired & will get myself some new gear - despite me being over 50. Thanks everyone.

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McSmurfin said..
I often think how lucky we are that the guys back in the day kept persevering with the old gear that was so heavy/hard to use, in order to get us to where we are today - which is light, user friendly awesomeness!
Remember trying to learn on my brothers gear and taking about 5 or more minutes to slowly heave the sail out of the water only to make a frantic grab at the boom, get dragged a few metres with my arms popping off, and then falling in the drink again. Good times ;)

Try weighing some older gear - it can be incredibly light.

Windsurfer One Design sails are very close to 2kg - lots of modern sails that size are over twice the weight.

I found a 10 to 12ish year old 5.7 NP freestyle sail back in Germany and I'm taking it together with a 12ish year old 90% carbon SDM mast with me to Sydney to compare it to my 2015 gear. I rember the sail being incredibly light, so I'm curious to see if really the technology changed that much! ... I expect that I actually won't see much difference though given my not so great skill level.

Ahhhh Tazzie, the commentary is out there. Alas it is not easy to find because it is dependent on knowledge of the marketing jongo. I learnt on the original Windsurfer, still an awesome design, but not a good learner board compared to the 100cm wide learner boards available today. Seabreeze has a huge amount of wisdom...keep at it!