Had my first go on the new Reflex4 in 8,6, which a nice and light sail.
It does replace my trustworthy Vapor of the same size.
As the conditions where quite gusty and not enough to being fully powered up, it is difficult to make a comparison.
My first impression are that the sail is lighter and easier to handle, also the pumping is more direct.
I do look forward to get the sail better tuned and the board trim adjusted, plus some new fins for the iSonic127.

Only big disappointment is quality of the batten. The lowest batten broke directly after 20 minutes of sailing on flat water.
Thought that I had trouble with the 490 enigma last year (first one broke instantly, after that it took months to get a new one) it seems that this year Severne makes some new trail&error with the battens
Sorry but not in a sail of this price class.

Did the batten break as you were rotating the sail? Having the end of the boom set to tight against the sail can put to much weight on the main batten as the sail rotates. If it was the bottom foot batten, I broke one of those pretty quickly also. I simply dropped the sail in a certain way that the foot batten caught on the edge of the board and it broke like a piece of raw spaghetti. totally an accident and my fault. That particular batten is a small diameter variety with a very light wall thickness. Obviously intended to save weight but it's quite easy to break. I replaced mine with a larger diameter variety with a heavier wall thickness. It had no noticeable effect on the sail.

Getting the battens out of a Reflex is pretty easy, just back out the grub screw and pop the little loop off the tensioner. Then just pull the batten out with a pair of long nose pliers. I'm lucky enough to have a very good supply of old tube and rod battens so I usually just sleeve some rod batten in the break with some super glue.

take some time to play around with the cam spacers and get the cam pressure on the mast just right. On my Reflex 4 7.0 I had to remove all of the spacers on the main batten cam and I even filed a couple of millimetres off the main cam. On my Reflex 4 9.6 I have the cam tension as tight as I can tolerate to try and get some more wind range but on my 7 metre I have it set so that the sail rotates with a flick of the wrist. The wind range of the sail is still excellent so you don't need excessively tight cams for these things to work well.

The Reflex's are an awesome sail and I'm stoked with my 7 metre especially. It just turns every bit of power into forward movement with such ease. They are however pretty sensitive to downhaul and outhaul adjustments but I find this to be a good thing as you can get them feeling comfortable in most conditions.

The main message I want to convey is definitely get that cam tension as right as you can get it. Do this and your time with the Reflex will be much more enjoyable.

P.S. Take it easy on that tack strap. Those things are evil.

I tried the 7.0m R4 rigged on a Enigma 460cm mast the other day,on a Patrik 92 litre with 34cm G10 fin in only 15 knots and was on the plane most of the time.

I agree the bottom end is unreal,cheating actually! Could not plane once on my 6.5m code-red on the 100 litre Patrik with 38 G10 fin. Not sure if it was the half a metre larger sail size or just a better designed sail,or a bit of both.

The R4 7m feels a lot fuller,lighter and smaller than the R3,which i found to be on the heavy/flat side.

Also tried the R4 5.6m which has a very short luff,this also planed good with amazing feeling of stability.

Hi Cluffy,
thanks for your feedback and tips to replace the batten.
Good to know that it is easy.

I had a chat with my shop to replace the batten but I was told that it (the too light and prone to break batten) is a special technology making the sail faster.
Hence I need to source some batten on my own and replace it OR spend some more money on a Severne batten which will break just as quick again.
I don't have understanding for this mind set of Severne. Using an too weak part of the sail, which is apparently breaking frequently, and than to let the customer alone with it. Why does Severne not offer replacement for such a typical engineering mistake?
==> When Gaastra had some problems with too soft cambers they replaced it without any stress, very good service.
Now I'm scared to buy the 7.8 and 7.0 R4 because I don't want to spend so much money for such a fragile product. That said, doesn't the Severne HP say that the R4 has an upgraded durability??? Maybe downgraded would be the right wording.

Did anyone experience the same with the O4? Maybe that is the better option.

~Shinobi

You could replace the foot battens with old school round to flat fibreglass battens sourced from old sails.
I have done this on a Loft and two Reflex's that I have and had no issues what so ever.
The battens I had were from some old Gaastra sails from the 90's that the outside diameter was a perfect match for the various tension adjusters used on both sails.

You should be able to get them really cheap and in plentiful supply.

Shinobi,
You could repair like I have in the past.
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/General/Carbon-tube-for-battens/

Sailing off the beach and sometimes in some pretty wicked shore break, I have successfully repaired several broken battens without any noticable loss of curve flex.

Get some batten joiners (those plastic bits that join the tube to the solid) and some solid fibreglass rod (the stuff that is at either end of the complete batten). Cut the conical end off the plastic joiner and then cut the solid rod to the length of the two joiners and then sleeve the break with the joiner and rod. Then get some light cloth, mix up some epoxy and wrap the break about 5cm either side of the break. I very rarely tidy up the broken ends of the carbon tube as they usually go back together nicely.

Also try to get the batten the same length of original otherwise you have to modify solid rod at leech end to get maximum tension.

You can get away with sleeving just one plastic joiner (without solid rod) half way either side of break but it's not that harder doing it with two.

Finding my Reflex4's great. Used the 5.6 for the first time a couple of weeks ago and got my fastest 2-sec speeds in TAS, with two runs over 43 knots in not particularly great conditions. Sail felt great. Have used the 6.2 and the 7.0 quite a few times and they definitely feel lighter and more powerful than the Reflex3's. Very Happy!

I used the R4 7.8 in 25-30 knots. Wasn't planing on using a sail that size in that wind but it came in windy. Sail was so stable and in control, couldn't believe I could use a sail that big in that wind Felt awesome.

Sausage,

thanks for the repair tip.
I repaired the batten according to your instruction. Only changes I made was to forget to remove the black plastic cover from old rod in the first attempt...
Later I added some stopper in the tube on both sides and than glued the rod with epox resin into the tube.

The sails works great but I still don't apply full button tension, not interested in further repairs.
Actually it does works so well that I couldn't resist in buying the R4 in 7.8 as well.
Here is a pic of it during the first rigging on Gaastra 100 mast, which I think is too soft (I tried my other Gaastra 100 490 in the R3 9.6 and it wasn't that good), Of course the sail does need some more downhaul but it was just a short test rigging. Haven't tried it yet.

After a first ride I see if a new Enigma 460 finds the way in my Hiace.
That said, the speedsurfingblog made a good comparison between R4 and O4, made me thinking about my sail choice
www.speedsurfingblog.com/2013/06/severne-reflex-4-versus-severne.html
Now an O4 in 7.0 is on order, which should also be more forgiven to the mast so that I can use my softer Gaastra.

regards from the rainy season
Shinobi