Hi fellow sailors

This is my first attempt at reviewing a product, and as it's my first 4 cam full racing sail that I have used.
I am only able to give you my point of view as I compare it with my other sails which are GAASTRA GTR 7.5 with no cams and the 3 cam user-friendly GTX 7.0.
Both are rigged on a 460 100% carbon SDM mast.

So, this story of mine started about 5 months ago when I was mesmerized watching Arnon Dagan, an Israeli PWA slalom sailor and R&D designer for RRD and Neil Pryde, laydown a Gybe in what only can be described as the speed of sound and with the ease, grace and effortless of a baby unicorn on top of clouds!

Right there I decided I'm going to try to progress my sailing in the hope to one day, to be half as good as he is.

I quickly realized that you need the right tools for the job, so I got myself a new RRD Slalom V7 Xfire boards(V8 already out) and then started to look at all the sail options. Needless to say there are plenty of choice.


Point 7 sails always were on the top of my list due to the killer looks, PWA performance and very passionately presented sailors, as well as the local dealer here in Melbourne. Jurgen from Thebigblue.com.au surfshop invited me to touch and see how easy it is to rig the full race 4 cam ACONE.

I had the misconception that full race sails are hard to deal with on land, and even harder on the water(which is somewhat true if your luff pocket fills with water) but with some experience in water starts and quick rig recovery, those are very manageable.
After seeing I can rig an AC1 in less than 10 minutes, I ordered two sail sizes from Jurgen that I predict will be useful for the conditions we have here in Port Philip Bay, and the Inverloch flat waters were I often sail.
I chose a 7.2 and 7.9, as well as 460 C100 mast from Point 7 to match.

First time rigging I rigged the 7.9 for a light wind day and was surprised with the fact that almost no adjustment to the battens was needed. A month of use later and only a tightening of the bottom few was needed. Popping the cams to the mast is much easier than in the 3 cam GTX sail I have and the sail quickly come to shape ready for about 1-3cm of outhaul, just enough to touch with light pressure on the back of the boom. A quick test to see if the cams will flip to the other side and I was happy to see that even with light force they all pop into shape!

On the water I mentioned beginner, yeah? The 7.9 combined with the RRD XFIRE 114 V7, a 6kg board, saw me on the plane with two pumps. I was very happy with how easy the power comes in at low speeds. I did find that I had a hard time to sheet in with so much sail area but, once moving, the sail became easy to control. At speed, the sail is extremely stable thanks to its 4 cams. Even with the harness lines very close to each other, I found I needed to be mindful of the wind direction variations and gusts, as its harder to notice than in other sails I have used.

Gybing Well, as I am not great a gyber yet, having a bigger and heavier sail doesn't help but what did help is coming into gybes with greater speed and stability, something I struggled before especially on the choppy bay waters. Hopefully this part of the review will get updated, with many more planning exits out!

To conclude The Point 7 AC1 line of sails are top of the line racing gear, but with ease of use and end user customer care, which helps in moving up in the racing world a breeze I feel my decision was justified. It has tremendous low-end power and extreme stability at high speed.


I have attached a short video from a 9 knots gusting 13 knots day, enough to get going- slow yet great fun.


Hope to see you all on the water,
Safe sailing

Ido

Nice review.

I had a crack at one of these in new cal. I was also impressed

Nice looking sail

I like the look of their no cam too..

black looks awesome in a sail.

So sorry to say this... but it needs more downhaul. Point 7 sails, as you will see tend to open up in the leech more then most other racing sails. This will help with gybing, acceleration and ease of use (it will feel lighter in your hands )

Also while you do this, giving it more downhaul. Tighten the 2 top battens with great strength, so that the leech opens up and then slowly closes again in the absolute top.



Do what you want with this advice :) there is no perfect trimmed sail for every sailer, but this was just an opinion from a point 7 team rider.

Select to expand quote

oos said..
So sorry to say this... but it needs more downhaul. Point 7 sails, as you will see tend to open up in the leech more then most other racing sails. This will help with gybing, acceleration and ease of use (it will feel lighter in your hands )

Also while you do this, giving it more downhaul. Tighten the 2 top battens with great strength, so that the leech opens up and then slowly closes again in the absolute top.



Do what you want with this advice :) there is no perfect trimmed sail for every sailer, but this was just an opinion from a point 7 team rider.

Hi oos!

Thanks for the tip, I shell give it a go next time on the water, I got a pully system to help to downhull the sail, recommended by Jurgen, I think it will make things easier!

Ido

As funny as it seems the 2015 AC1 doesn't require as much downhaul as the previous years.(+2 on recommended setting)

As for the 7.2, when really downhauled, it's a downwind speed beast but struggles across wind.

Advice I got from the PWA p7 riders was recommended downhaul and plenty of negative outhaul.

Yeah, unless youre really overpowered there is almost never any reason to not bag the outhaul. Unless youre going upwind.

Ofcourse the amount of downhaul changes from person to person. Look at alberto for exampel. He sailed with more downhaul and his mast base further back then anyone else on tour. Which in theory should make your board fly to the moon. Yet he was the second fastest in the world.

Hi Guys,

Three months since My last post, I decided to film a little clip on the water,

I am slowly getting used to the jibe motion, and the flip of the sail, and learning a lot on rig recovery - still a lot to learn and improve.

It's definitely important to get the sail up as soon as you drop it, before the Luff pocket fill with water, so I often jump on the up-hull just to get the water out before trying to water start

I find that I mostly use my 7.9m, due to the very large wind range I can still hold it around 20knots and choppier condition



Safe sailing,
Ido