Below are some pics of the 7.8 OD R8,just thought I'd share for those whom are interested.
The shots aren't the best as I'm no photographer but have to say it rigged easy and looks slick in the flesh,I haven't tuned it so you may see some creases,just hope I get on the water with it this weekend

Looks great djl!

Looks like a lotta extension on them.

Can't wait to pick up the reflexes on the weekend

Thanks for sharing the pics.
The first R8's did arrive last week, looking nice.
What mast did you rigged sails on? Already on the new ones? We don't have them yet.

Alright, now I'm drooling.

What mast have you got yours set on shinobi? What's the rotation like?

Merry X-MAS!!!


Just picked a couple of sails today, thanks to non Christmas Japan ;-)
Can't wait to get them all set and ready to go.

So far, I'm using the older red masts which are not having any impact on the rotation but the upper limit is impacted from my feel. I'm using one 490 SDM100 on the 9,7/9,4 Reflex which is gives more power and have a better top end control.

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Subsonic said..
Alright, now I'm drooling.

What mast have you got yours set on shinobi? What's the rotation like?

Rotation is a dream, I've taken mine out for a spin and no probs there at all.

Sailed the OverdriveR8 7.8 for the first time yesterday on the new 2017 iSonic 127. The wind ranged from quite light to powered up and felt locked in the whole time. Was using last years 460 mast and the cams rotated perfectly, never even noticed them.

Sail felt excellent with the shorter boom length and still had heaps of low-end. Managed a 30 knot NM and did over 200km, so quick and easy! The 127 felt very compact and was great (thanks to Ben for the on-water photos).









Have also sailed the iSonic 97 and it felt superb - fast, easy to gybe and controllable over chop! Can't wait to try the rest of the 2017 gear ...

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AUS02 said..
Sailed the OverdriveR8 7.8 for the first time yesterday on the new 2017 iSonic 127. The wind ranged from quite light to powered up and felt locked in the whole time. Was using last years 460 mast and the cams rotated perfectly, never even noticed them.

Sail felt excellent with the shorter boom length and still had heaps of low-end. Managed a 30 knot NM and did over 200km, so quick and easy! The 127 felt very compact and was great (thanks to Ben for the on-water photos).









Have also sailed the iSonic 97 and it felt superb - fast, easy to gybe and controllable over chop! Can't wait to try the rest of the 2017 gear ...

that last pic - 2017-gear-p0rn

Just had a fang on overdrive 5.7 up at shark bay in what doddi called a light wind day and I rated at somewhere between nuclear and apocalyptic. Standing with the rig parallel the water the leach flaps like a flag but as soon as you get it up all goes quiet and it's nice. It looked after me. Very stable, never overpowered, easy grunt to get going, good rotation. Absolutely sweet sail recommended for nuclear days.

just out of curiosity - how much wind on that day to make it nuclear and apocalyptic - for you that is

Have received new quiver of R8 Reflex 7.0 and 7.8 and Overdrive 8.6 and 6.2. Have tried all but 8.6. I have to say I'm really impressed with all of them. The Reflex just feels solid yet quite light for a race sail. rotation even on the old Enigma masts is excellent. top end is great, bottom end is grunty and the balance is superb. The 6.2 OD I've had in up to 30-32 knot gusts at safety bay on a 92 Patrik. did not let me down in those conditions although a smaller fin would have helped. The 7.0 rigged perfectly straight out of the bag, although i did find that the 6.2 and 7.8 seemed to sit better on about 4cm less boom than recommended, although after a 2nd session on the 6.2, I've moved back to -2cm so maybe a bit of stretch required ? Not sure why the discrepancies but it's not an issue. you just have to play around a bit with the settings. it didn't impact the balance of the sail at all.

My view is that they have made the OD more Reflex like and the Reflex more OD like if that makes sense. that is, they appear to have taken the best of both and blended them together. I have an OD R5 which was great but they are defn closer together now in performance.

I think Ben has really nailed it this time

I am not sure how much wind there was. It is an unusual place. On the beach wind meter said 24 knots but where the speed run is across the bay about 2km away and in a Venturi formed by two hills, so the rule of thumb is add 10 knots so probably mid thirty knots. Not what I would normally call nuclear but it's the look of the place with tide coming in against wind the bay gets short sharp chop and plumes of wind blown foam. Also I had to walk my gear upwind against it listening to the flapping because I busted my toe and it wouldn't tolerate sailing over the chop. Looking back it was just a windy day but at the time I definitely had the feeling it was nuclear. Only other time I have felt that way was sailing a day when the airport recorded 56 knot gusts, but that was on a lake I had sailed many times before. I guess a lot depends on where it is, what the consequences are and what the surrounds are like. Shark bay is aptly named and also has sea snakes, sting rays, sharp shells and stone fish (but not where we sail). The nearest town is Denham and that has the honour of being rated as the worst place in Australia to have a medical emergency. Not sure why, but that's what the locals reckon.

I had a full session on the 7.8 OD8 on Saturday and was very impressed.
The rotation was brilliant,I use the SDM75 ,not the new Apex,rigged to spec,remove the half cam spacers(out of habit),plenty of controllable grunt and just wanted to accelerate in the gusts as well as being powered enough to get through most of the holes.
I've had most of the Overdrives over the years and honestly say these are the best,light,fast and awesome rotation.
A real winner in my book

love the look of these Severne sails
here we are starting to see less n less of them - across the big water in North America

one thing i never understand is the battens
why do they look like they are bent at the wide luff sleeve ??
at first i thought they stop there, but these are cambered sails !!
please enlighten me how this is ??

Not sure what you mean but can only gather you are talking about the cam pushing on the mast,hence bending the batten to give you the full belly of the sail

here is a pic taken from this post
the arrows point to the section in question
how is it that the battens look so BENT there ??
(not curved, but actually bent)



actually, i think i see the error of my ways !!
the batten is running across the back of the wide luff and the top is giving the illusion/conclusion that the battens are bent
sorry for the confusion

don't see this on my MauiSails due to the dark edge on the wide luff



and i repeat - nice looking Severne sails
my only concern is always that batten sticking way out past boom
buddy broke his more than once

Hi Joe,

from my point of view, the battens aren't bend to a larger extend but it is the angle of the mast sleeve that meets the button that let the battens appeal quite bend. Similar to most other race sails, Severne is using tube battens with soft tips at the front. The batten itself will hardly bend. Not sure if the batten tip just starts right away where the mast sleeve meets the sail body (monofilm).
If you look at the angles of the pics that you are comparing, you will see that the MS pic is from right above the sail while the R8 pic is from the bottom, providing a view of the profile.

I'm using Severn OD and Reflex sails since 4 years and haven't yet broke a single batten tip or the batten itself. Only the end of the reflex tensioners proved to be quite affected by shorebreak. Hence I'm very happy to see that the R8 doesn't have reflex tensioners at the boom anymore.
that being said, I helped one friend who managed to break a tip (not the batten itself) and he did this during some strange lightwind session with way to less downhaul.
NOTE: Since last year, I'm letting the cams jump of the mast without any outhaul tension, which is causing stress on the batten tips and cams, yet no issues besides faster de-rigging and a load POP. ;-)

~Shinobi

update to my earlier post. i now have my new Apex masts to suit these sails and the bend curve has certainly corrected the earlier concerns with the outhaul settings. now rigging to spec. only problem is that the previous boom 175-225 i used on the old 7.8, is now too 'short' because the setting at 222cm requires it to be almost fully extended, which badly impacts it's stiffness.

need to get a different boom now :(

After reading all the good news about the new OD8 sails I`ve just received my OD8 7.0.
Since I already have a Severne 430(100%) RDM mast I plan to use the sail with this mast (also using RDM cambers).

From my point of view for sizes up to 6.2 the RDM masts are a realy good choice, also for sizes from 7.8 and bigger the SDM masts definitly working fine.

So my question is, what is the best mast for the OD8 7.0, RDM vs. the new APEX SDM mast?