I have been sailing using uncut windsurf sails with a wishbone boom for some time now, over the time I have got better at tuning the sails and I am convinced they are better than my suite of cut sails however the long mainsheet necessary occasionally snags and without a boom to grab I cannot push the sail across to come to a stop. With a new build underway I am looking at extending the bottom of my sails to create a clew for a fixed boom. I've seen a few people have done this and I would appreciate comments as to the effectiveness of a boom, attached lower than a wishbone, to set the battens to pop around the mast, is it a worthwhile mod?
Some windsurf sails lend themselves to convential booms with little or no modification
I use a gaastra remedy 6.0 with no modifications to the foot other than an eye to provide outhaul at the lower part of the tack curve as well as the convential position. The only reason I do this is to allow the boom to be shorter
The only reason I can see for modifying the sail is because it looks neater. All my sails are untouched and work just fne with this arangment.
It works because, as we keep saying outhaul is negligable you only need enough to help put the cams on.
The sail is a Neil Pryde RS Racing EVO II 5.4m 3 cam race sail 3-5 years old I purchased 2nd had last month.
The mast is Neil Pryde FX400 100% carbon.
The only modification to this rig is extra glass reinforcing around the point on the mast where the top of my home made mast extension sits.
NOTE: These days i'm steering away from 100% carbon masts, I find 75% carbon much more durable given the extra stresses land sailing in hot weather imposes.
we all went to 100% carbon for two reasons when windsurfing on large race sails ,because they were lighter and had a quicker recovery time when hit by big gusts,the tip was more responsive. However they are not as strong as lower carbon content so where using smaller free ride and certainly wave sailing masts 75% were the first choice. However on the introduction of reduced diameter most swapped to 100% because they have a thicker wall,and are much stronger but they are very expensive and can not be used with cammed sails because the cams don't fit the diameter of the mast. I worked for a number of years for a windsurfing retailer and only had a couple of broken rdm masts returned,used to get several 100%SDMs back under warrantees. One sponsored sailor broke three in One session.
I've been looking at rigging a mast base to fit RDM masts ,you can get 75%s and 100%. I have several 100% but reluctant to try them since If I break one they are about 400+GBP some nearer 500 each. ,the adjustable mast base that fits them is aly tube with 3.5mm wall so that would hold,but a lot of money to replace mast , which I still use for w/s.
