i have a KONCEPT 5.0 and rig it on a RDM, it's a powerfull sail and has a great range and would equal a freeride 6.0, on the water it's as light as and very twitchy and unless your fully powerd up say 20 to 25 knts its very tricky to jibe and theres no room for era, it feels like i need an extra 6" on the boom and leech,
has anyone found the same problem
the sail is rigged on a loft 400 RDM 100% with mini cams and neil pride cam spaces too compensate for the RDM
i rig all of my sails with minimin outhall and ajust the downhaul, only ajust outhaul when the wind picks up on the water while sailing
Twitchy = + Downhaul, no?
I was out few weeks back on an old KA Kaos, a rarely used sail. Rigged it so it "looked" right... nah. Twitchy as can be, very "on/off" and overpowered. Came into beach, added about 2cm downhaul and presto, perfecto.
400 mast icms 19 100% and its an 08 sail & full carbon boom, i had some KA CAM space's but there hidden away in a safe place somewhere
the pride's do the same job, don't get me wrong it's a powerfull sail and awesome to sail,(just a bit fickle on the jibes) im wondering if any one elese rigs there's 5/0 on a skinny,
i have found that the mini cams change the shape at the mast slightly because they don't have a big knuckle as the standard, maybe that could flatten the sail out at the mast and that could give the sail a feel like it has to much outhaul(any comment's)
I allso have a PRIDE RSS 5/8 08 and rig it on a skinny and i dont have any problems
To get more shape or knuckle you may have to remove the cam battens and sand abit more off the batten taper this will help give more shape to the sail.
The 08 Koncepts do have a slightly flatter profile, and the sanding tip actually came from Mr McDougall .
Hi Keef , I am not 100% sure exactly what you mean by " a bit tricky to gybe" could you elaborate. Is it not rotating properly?
If you could take some photo's of it rigged and send them to andrew@kasail.com marked "attention Martin" and I will take a look..
I am thinking that your Loft skinny may be a bit soft in the lower half and the sail is setting a bit flat in the entry down low. If thats the case it is easily fixed with a bit of batten sanding but lets have a look first.
A twitchy sail generally indicates that it is set to flat in the bottom half, too much outhaul. Don't be afraid let the outhaul off so the sail is, or almost touching your boom and control the power with more downhaul. That puts the power down low where you can best handle it and lets the upper leech twist right off and generally solves that on/off power twitchiness.
Regards Martin
thanks for the tip ill give it a go, talking about mr Mcdougal i noticed the standard cam's are the same as the wildwinds he was makeing back in the 80's
Sounds to me like 'twitchy' is a sail set problem, and the stalling thru a gybe in marginal conditions is separate: lack of power in general and/or technique problem
next time ill rig my aerotech 4.5 charge on the same mast and rrd wave, and come to the conclusion horse's for course's
Sorry mate I have no idea.
But as a generalisation: for my wave sails this is how much downhaul I need:
Visualise the "square" formed by the top batten, the second top batten, the mast and the leech.
I have to downhaul a wavesail until the floppiness extends 2/3 of the way IN from the leech to the mast.
I have no idea about KA race sails but if you are not approaching that level of floppiness you MAY be off.
Stribo where are you...
looks like too much batten tension on the koncept to me and not enough downhaul.
edit*1st pic that is.
could be wrong though.
thank's for the tip gestalt i didn't consider the batten tension, if its not the battens and its the mast i'm not going to buy a sdm mast, so look in the buy and sell cos it will be going cheep
I reckon the first is not enough downhaul (you knew that) and the second is a starting point for downhaul... absolute min.
I'd try 20 - 30mm more. (I mean the tack comes down another 20-30mm, not that you pull 20-30mm more rope thru
thanks mark but im not sure that will solve it i'm sure its the mast
the one thing i like about these sails is they have powerrrrrrrrr i meen for a 5.0 sail in a straite line there great
Hi Keef,
I also have a 5.0 koncept on a rdm for my ca 55. I found they like to be full with not too much outhaul as when they're too flat they get twitchy. Also if you were out yesterday then it was very squally wind with huge shifts which made it annlying
at the moment i like my ca 55 better than my KA ,but i'm sure ill learn to love it, there has been times when fully powerd up and blasting past the guys on 6's+, as i said horses for courses
Hi Keef, I agree with Gesalt it looks like you have too much batten tension on the cam battens . They need to be tight but not to the point where you are distorting the film. Not enough downhaul on photo 1.
I guess I still clearly don't understand what your problem is exactly. If it is not rotating through the gybes them definitely the overtensioning of the lower battens will be contributing. If it is "twitchiness" set the sail so the film is just touching the boom, if you are doing this then I can't figure why you would be having real problems. Remember that this is a small sail and by nature is going to feel twitchier that a larger size.
I honestly can't see any problem with the way it is rigging on the Loft Skinny, it looks fine to me in photo 2 which is downhauled correctly. If you compare it to the Pryde you will see the Koncept has more shape down low so and the shaping is a bit more forward. My experience with Pryde race sails is that they have a quite heavy, backhanded feel and if you are doing a direct comparison the Koncept will feel much lighter to handle . Maybe this is what you are not used to? If you look at the sails you will see the draft on the Pryde is further back which gives this feeling of it pulling more on the back hand. Some people prefer this feel, especially bigger ,stronger sailors but they do get quite physical when it gets windy.
With a more forward positioned draft the Koncept doesn,t pull on the back hand as strongly and remains back hand light even when overpowered. If you are used to the feel of the Pryde you may consider this a more twitchy feel ? but I am only speculating.
I hope I have helped. If you do have more photo's I would love to see them but from these shots it appears your mast is not an issue.
Regards Martin
Oh, and before people start jumping all over me, certainly not having a dig at Pryde sails, not at all, just explaining the differences in rig ergonomics between the KA Koncept and Pryde RS, they are different.
I like KA Sails, what is wrong with them, are they made as well as the other brands like Neil Pryde, Gaastra, Maui Sails ect ?
