I am keen to hear your opinions as to the best sail for light winds (assuming that foiling is not an option) such that you could use a 7.8m instead of an 8.6m and get planing easily in light winds for a heavier rider.

NP V8 is pretty good for getting heavy me going ..

Weight and board and fin please

Hi Shifu
i'm 94 kegs
I am lucky to have more boards than a grown man should own particularly with my skill set
My 130 litre falcon board is my first choice for the light wind 80 odd cm wide from memory

Light winds meaning 12-18 knots?

Well, there is no 7.8 sail that can replace an 8.6, on a board that is large enough for an 8.6 sail.
Personally, I really like the Severne overdrive sails, very lightweight and good low end power.

Any decent cammed sail from the '80s will outgrunt any current sail, the blue/purple 7.5 Mistral/Gaastra being a good example. It'll be very backhanded so you'll need to run the mastfoot all the way forward, and it'll overpower easily but it'll grunt you up as quickly as a modern 9.0.

The closest modern equivalent is probably the Hotsails Maui Speedfreek but I'd go with the NP V8 if it were in the budget.

Turbo gt? It has a very narrow wind range (light wind) and there's also a fine line between setting it for low end power and the cams popping off. I got rid of mine in the end for a overdrive, similar low end but never gets over powered and is so much easier to rig.

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SurferKris said..
Well, there is no 7.8 sail that can replace an 8.6, on a board that is large enough for an 8.6 sail.
Personally, I really like the Severne overdrive sails, very lightweight and good low end power.

Well that's not true.

In regards to the old school grunt, I learned my first plane on a full cam 7.5 by north. Super stable, easy to handle and uphaul.

Ultimately I still needed a raf 9.0 to complement my formula board and crush 8-12 knot days at 70-75kg. The most wind I had to handle was 23-24 knots in the gusts.

A bigger friend was happy on his 10.6 everyone else would top out at 9.5 or so. A 7.5 will have grunt but not enough surface to leverage the lighter winds.

You need at least 15-20 knots to take off at 94kg. Won't go anywhere in 12/13-18 on a 7. That's 8+ territory.

The Severne Overdrives certainly do the job, as others have mentioned. Plenty of power for light winds and still comfortable when fully powered up. This was my 7.8 at Lake George paired with a 113L iSonic 67 (I'm 96kg):

Did we ever decide whether a camless freeride had more get up and go grunt than an equivalent sized multi-cammed sail? I thought we had.

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Imax1 said..
NP V8 is pretty good for getting heavy me going ..

I'm also a fan of 2 cam sails , even though I use Ezzy lions ,(2 cam) ,I do have 7,8 race sails ,but they are heavier and faster ,
and you need a bit of width in your board to carry the extra weight ,
so you can use a bigger sail on a smaller board with a 2 cam sail ,another good choice would be a 8,0 cheetah ,but then
the new lions can be used with or without cams ,so I would presume the cheetah will be gone soon ,,the V8 is also a great sail .
Some great sails out there ,I would be looking for something that will suit your masts ,

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Shifu said..
Did we ever decide whether a camless freeride had more get up and go grunt than an equivalent sized multi-cammed sail? I thought we had.

I use a 7.0 Gator (this size is more "racy" than smaller sizes) when my brother uses a 7.8 Overdrive I'm 94 kg he is 83kg both on same size boards - we are both "powered up" the same amount, although the Overdrive is faster in the top end speeds acheived

Ezzy Zephyr, no experience with it but seems to be their marketing angle.