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petermac33 said..
Ben let me try out his 5.5m proto of the Overdrive yesterday. When I went out the wind had just picked up to 25 knots plus.
It has only six battens and has a very large camber.Rotation was excellent.
The standout for me was its weight - crazy light,guessing no more than 4kg.
He had it rigged on a small aluminium Enigma boom with lots of downhaul,also he was using a RDM mast.
Downside - above 25 knots it was no easier to hold than my 6.2 R7.
I could hold it but it was a lot harder to turn the unstable power in to forward motion. The leech was only shaking a little.
With only six battens I guess that is the price to pay.
With less downhaul and around 15-20 knots - that could be its sweet spot
With the shape down low being extremely full and its weight super light you can use this sail in much lighter winds than a normal 5.5m.
Reckon it planes as quick as my 6.2Reflex.
I still much prefer my Reflex.
I used small OD's (R5) as I wanted to save on buying SDM mast buy using my RDM mast for these smaller sizes. However I never really felt stable with them in the high wind range, yet very happy with the 6.2&7.0 (tried them both with RDM's and SDM's and both went well - slight better wit the SDM on the 7.0).
Some R7 reflex's (5.2/5.6/6.2) came up for sale along with some 400 SDM's and I grabbed those - man what a difference!
The stability and acceleration was a massive leap - much more so than the 6.2 and above.
I think its about your expectations in what conditions you are using them in. When I use my 5.2/5.6 its full on 25knt+. When I'm using my 6.2+ it's powered up but not excessive - if its excessive I change down to smaller gear.
I run a R8 OD 7.0 and a 8.1 turbo (2016), then reflex's 6.2 and down. I like the light handling of the OD and Turbo.
What I found with trial and error for me is that there is a trade off between size/stability/handling (its a 3 way matrix), and that handling is more important with the larger sizes and stability with the smaller sizes. A 5.6 Reflex is only just a little harder to manoeuver than a 5.6 OD however both are small sails, hence the manoeuvrability difference doesn't out way the stability difference. However at 7.0 I feel this does become an issue depending on what you are want it to achieve (Slalom vs freerace)