It's not exactly accessible technology for small, medium and up and coming manufacturers so if 3DL windsurfing sails become desirable this could limit the diversity and dynamics of the sail industry and options available. Which I think is a shame.
Likewise with yacht and boat sails, having the sail body for 3DL sails manufactured in one central facility (Is anyone other than North doing 3DL sails?) with only the finish work done locally is the beginning of the death for the local loft and indeed the sailmakers trade entirely.
I guess it's inevitable at least to some degree as the world becomes more globalised...

None of this is any commentary on the sail itself mind you!! Lap em up. I hope you like North Sails.

Repairs are easy just like a board, cloth and resin minus the deck grip

saltyheaven said..
I hope you like North Sails.

No, I don't.

The sail now becomes a wing

Mastbender said..

bu..bu..but that is Ben Proffitt you are referring to !. He might not hold a mic properly, but he is a good windsurfer !

They are going to have to improve the aesthetics a bit I think.
Pretty basic proto on display.

albentley said...
It is also very hard to hear the price when Ben asks him!!

Sounded like 2000 euros, I imagine they will sell like hot cakes if that's the case...

3Di is much different to 3Dl.

There is no film in 3Di sails and the cloth is made up of tissue thin carbon and spectra with a soft epoxy glue. These this strips can be laid on the mold in varying numbers of layers depending on strength as the individual "cloth" weight is so low.

It is quite an interesting process, and quite different even though similar adjustable molds are used.

Von said..
Repairs are easy just like a board, cloth and resin minus the deck grip

Still not sold. Are all the minor sail repairers going to buy infinitely adjustable curved floors to lay the sails on when gluing bits on?

3D?, I didn't see any 3D in that sail.

Sounds interesting though, probably a bit more high tech to what Severne currently have in the Pro sail.

The bottom line of this North innovation, the same lot that brought you the 3 piece( intentional mast)
its going to be cost prohibitive .

Avanti do have some tech speak in their sails. As do Severne, membrane, which is some material, technora?

windsurfers have been moaning for years the cost of boards
if this gets established they will have some additional Topic.
of some note, North make sails for Americas Cup sailboats, this comes down from those. The cup people have bottomless pockets , numerous sponsors, budget like Mercedes F1

intentional buzz kill, sorry no, just my POV.

Mastbender said..
Intriguing, but I'd sure like to see a better vid about it w/o some idiot who thinks he's funny and has no clue how to handle a mic.
The vid was very hard to watch, and I tried but had to give up about 2/3's the way thru.

Sorry... but not to do with holding the mic wrong. Basically i saw the guys with a new sail so grabbed my camera and mic out the van.. gave it to my mate and just filmed it as i thought it would be interesting. But in the hurry i didn't realise the cable was causing interference and i didn't give my mate any head phones to check. I had to get rid of a chunk of video from the beginning as it was unwatchable. Then I thought about not putting it online. In the end I thought it would be better than nothing. (i did apologise in the explanation) so sorry about that.

Yeah don't think I'll be making purchase any time soon haha

Just looking at an old Windsurfing mag in my collection from July 1995 and found this.

Heh, I remember those sails (Oceanic) saw some being used but they faded out pretty quick, I wish we had prices like that today, but those were kind of pricy for the time.
Hea proffitt, sorry about my harshness, it got away from me, but I was intrigued and stuck with it until I got the gist of it.
One of the things that has always kept my interest in this sport, close to cutting edge technology,,,,,,,,,,, Americas Cup boats are at the cutting edge, but we're not that far back.