2020 Severne Foilglide 7m - First Sail

Had my first sail of the 7m Foilglide today, and seeing as I can't see any reviews for the foil glide I figured I'd throw up a wall of text, and see if anyone else cared! I'll try to update this once I get a few more sails on it.

Short version:If you don't have a sail this size, and all you want it for is foiling, this is a great option. If you are light, maybe you could get away with the 6m. You will probably want a board with parallel rails to get the most out of it.

Spec wise: 7m, 489cm luff, 202cm boom, 4 batten, 3.6kg claimed. I sailed it with a 460 Gorilla RDM, and a Severne Metal 160. On 2018 Naish Hover 122 (modified with outboard footstraps), and a 2020 Fanatic Flow 1000.

Sailor stats: 172cm, 78kg (a bit chubby and unfit at the moment), and intermediate skill level (can land a Spock on a good day, but can't foilgybe to save myself).

On the Beach: First up, damn that's a lot of monofilm, not sure how I'm not going to end up with a million crinkles in it. Rigging however, is super easy, and was pretty much as easy to downhaul as any of my wavesails. I was in a rush, so excuse the top batten tension, and its probably been 8-9 years since I've rigged a cammed sail. Any tuning tips welcome!

I used Wave Grenade Extension set at 30cm, and probably had about 1cm gap (spec calls for 29cm extension), I set the boom to 202cm and outhauled tight use the top clew hole. Had about half the sail sitting on the boom when powered, so I eventually moved the extension out to 204cm and hauled it tight (was getting a bit overpowered as well).

Graphics wise, this is a personal thing, but I'm not a huge fan of a silly looking hexagons printed over it, they probably make it heavier too. Overall judge for yourself, its a good looking sail as long as you like the colour red. I'm really just glad its not the terrible looking new white scheme they seem to be pushing. Finish wise, no issues that I noticed.

On the Water: Launched from the Rockwall at Manly, and according to the graphs, it was about 8-11kts with gusts of up to 16kts briefly. It seemed pretty windy when I was first rigging, so I actually went out on the 5.7m Blade, but wind seemed to have dropped off as I got to the water, and while I did managed to just pump onto the foil, I figured it was a good chance to get the 7m wet. Once on the water the 7m was immediately way more powerful compared to the 5.7m Blade, but lets be real, these two sails aren't in the same league!

Once foiling, it was really well behaved and didn't take long at all for me to be very comfortable on the sail. Initially was windy enough that I didn't have to pump, was just hook in and go. Later on, the wind did drop off a bit, so did a bit of pumping, and for someone who's never pumped a cammed sail, this was extremely easy to pump. It really seems to just grab a big gob of wind and squeeze you onto the plane in 1-2 solid pumps. For all the wavesail guys, appart from the size, this sail will probably make you feel right at home. As far as the cam rotation goes, I never noticed them which I would say is a good thing.

Through the middle of the session, the wind did pick up a bit (nowhere near the point of whitecaps), so I did start to get overpowered. One issue I think is that I really need a board with a wider tail to take advantage of the sail. Whilst I'm pretty sure my Naish has been modified so the footstraps are a bit more outboard, I definitely felt that I could have held the sail down easier with a wider tail on the board. I constantly had both feet barely in the footstraps and out as far on the rails as possible, especially my rear foot where it seemed like I wanted to sail with just my toe in the footstrap. Maybe this was a setup tuning thing as well?

Carving, and going up and downwind, was sweet, there was definitely a bit more inertia there, and so I had to think about half a second further ahead then when foiling with wavesails, but once you get the swing of things the sail was very well behaved. The sail doesn't turn on and off as easily as I'm used to, it really just wants to go, go, go all the time. If you want a sail that will go neutral while you surf swells, this probably isn't it.

Uphauling, and waterstarting, was fine. Luff pocket isn't massive, and even after stuffing the whole thing underwater, because I'm a gumby who doesn't know what he's doing with a cammed sail, it still wasn't really an issue. The sail is really pretty easy to handle, the boom is short enough that I can still easily helitack it (useful maybe for shorter nosed boards).

Few questions I still have:
- Would it benefit from an adjustable outhaul kit?
- Need to try with my usual 28cm harness lines, I ran some 26cm lines on the new boom, which felt a bit odd, but will give it a few more sessions and see. A lot of people seem to rate shorter lines foiling, but I'm not so sure.

Conclusion: Does everything it says on the cover. Considering I rigged it in a hurry, and usually only ever sail wavesails, I was comfortable on this sail after the first 10minutes. Its light, soft and easy to pump. As far as stability goes, I'd say surely there are tradeoffs with only having 4 battens, but I'm not qualified to judge if its as stable as a 6 batten freeride/freerace sail of a similar size. I reckon I'd be happy sailing it in 8-12kts (gusting to maybe 17kts?), and maybe a bit more if I had a board with a wider tail. Any windier than that and I'd prefer to be on a smaller sail anyway. Did I have fun? Yes, had a blast, I don't care for "freeriding" much on a slappa, but with a foil and the extra mobility to go upwind, downwind everywhere, and best of all it makes the red arrow days fun!

Would this be a good sail as a cross over for slapboarding? Probably not, based on how different it looks to be designed to most freeride/free race sails.
Do you need to buy this sail for foiling if you already have a 7m freeride/freerace sail? Probably not.

But if you are like me and generally hate big sails, but love foiling, I think its a good option, with the main caveat being you will probably want a board with fairly parallel rails around 75cm wide to really take advantage of this sail. Also as a random aside, the loop tab on the Metal160 boom seems like its a bit on the flimsy side... not sure what was wrong with the design like on my Enigma wave boom.

For me my foiling quiver will probably evolve to something like:
7m Foilglide as my big sail light winds, say 8-14kts. If I get back down to 72kg or so, I'd probably seriously consider getting the 6m foilglide, selling the 7m, and I could maybe go back to 1 boom. But issue may be that the Enigma wave is too narrow. Eitherway, I prefer small sails so would be interesting to see how much bottom end you lose with the 6m.
5.4-5.5m Freestyle/Wavesail, biggest sail that will fit on a 400mast, for 11-17kts Foiling, and maybe slapping when its 16kts+
4.4-4.5m Freestyle/Wavesail, for 14-20kts, and maybe slapping when 20kts+
4m Freestyle/Wavesail, smallest sail that will fit on a 370mast, for the nuclear days and the Maui trips.

Background:Bit more info for anyone who maybe in a similar situation and is considering this sail. I started foiling 4 months ago on the Naish Hover 122 (2018), and the Naish WS1 foil (2018), as well as a 5.7m Blade, 5.3m & 4.7m S-1's and 4.2m SWAT. A friend has a Naish Lift 6.6m, and there was some borderline days where I couldn't keep up with the 5.7m Blade. I also don't particularly like the blade, so I started to look for a replacement. For locally available gear, the Foilglide looked good, and after umming and ahhhing a bit, I figured if I needed a 460mast and new boom, I might as well go big and get the 7m.

Before foiling I exclusively sailed a 100L Starboard Flare and 5.3m and 4.7m S-1's (all 2012/2013 models) and 4.2m SWAT which was used maybe once a year. I've always kept my gear pretty minimal, 1 board, 1 boom, 2 masts, 3 sails and never liked the idea of big gear slalom or freeride, usually the guys didn't really seem planing much earlier than I was, and it just looked a bit boring. Obviously foiling has changed this, because you can now go upwind/downwind on similar sized gear and lighter winds.

nice review
I have the 5.0 it gets me going with my race set up in 12knts (90kg)

I skipped the 6.0 to get the 7.0, my light wind option, with powerful pumping will get me going in 8/9 knts and once in the air... swoosh !

Just worried like you about the wrinkles....but never mind ! I'll get the new Glide if ages too fast !!!
2021 will have three cams and 5 battens it seems

I think its actually 5 batten 2 cam no? 3 cam doesn't make sense really.

Okay so had another 4-5 sessions on the 7m foilglide, still loving this sail. A few more notes to add, whilst some of these might slew towards the slightly negative, my overall impression is still massively positive, the thing is easy to handle for its size and has gobs of low end power, definitely a sail I look forward to sailing.

Notes:
- Sailed this side by side (7m foilglide, alien 115, fanatic flow 1000) with a friend who's the same weight/skill on Naish Lift Freeride 6.6m, Alien 115 and Slingshot i76, and its a no contest, I barely had to pump onto the plane, and was foiling gybes, easily cruising upwind when he was stuck slogging. Could also point 5deg higher once he was powered up. From casual observation locally I don't see anyone really foiling earlier except the race guys who seem to be fully powered in anything over 8kts.
- Sailed heaps of days that are all red arrows on seabreeze, I'd be comfortable that I wouldn't have to slog or pump much if it was 9-10kts, and I'd probably have a punt in anything over 7kts as long as there was a few gusts to help, and just pump my guts out.
- A bit of outhaul can make a very worthwhile amount of difference on this sail, so lesson learnt is its worth stopping and giving it a bit of a tweak.
- Whilst foilgybes are now at 80% successrate, duckgybes are at 0% success rate, and likely to stay that way. Copped the bottom batten in the face twice trying, I don't think my arms are long enough to deal with the low cut foot. Downwind and upwind 360's are probably possible, and I find it easier to helitack then tack.
- As others have mentioned the middle panel has these vertical creases that I can't really seem to get out of it. They do tend to flutter in lighter winds. Have played a little bit with batten tension and downhaul, but I think this is probably the reason why the next version is going to 5 batten layout. They do seem to disappear once the sail really loads up, but they are a bit annoying to look at in light conditions. Do they affect performance? Maybe a tiny bit? Just ignore it.
- The recommended budget option boom the Metal 160, is not what I'd call stiff at 202cm extension, probably consider going a bigger aluminium boom at less extension, or otherwise I may just invest in an enigma. I went Gorilla Mast (which seems to match nicely) and Metal boom as I was half thinking I'd hate the size of the thing and want to sell it after 1 sail. If you got the money, I'd probably invest it in the boom before I bother upgrading the mast.
- Alien 115 @ 70cm wide is probably not quite wide enough. Its fine in the lighter wind, sailing on a reach, or cruising downwind, but if you are wanting to be powered up and cranking upwind, I'd want a wider board. However the combo does work fine in the lighter conditions. I'll be rigging down to a 4.7m once it hits 14kts, or possibly sooner.
- Its not heaps of fun uphauling a 7m cammed sail, and the low cut foot in particular does get hung up a bit, I do worry a little bit about how it will wear over time. And I'll probably end up uphauling a bit, as its almost a game now how light of a winds I can go sailing in.
- Top panel is tricky to roll up? Still takes me 1-2 goes to get it tight.

At my weight I'm seriously tempted to swap the 7m for the 6m version. The tradeoff in bottom end, vs ease of handling (maybe I can duckgybe the 6m) may be worth it for the sailing I like to do. I get a bit bored just cruising back and forth. Anyone got one in QLD?

Post session photo, this was a 7-10kt day, definitely closer to 7kts when I took this photo!

Hello Swoosh,

thank you very much for your detailed and interesting report. I`m interested in the Foilglide, too. With 82kg I`m foiling with a Starboard Supercruiser and an old Starboard Formula 147. Thinking about upgrading the Formula to Starboard FoilX 145, as well.

I consider this review quite enlithtening, too: windfoilen.nl/en/severne-foilglide-review/

Due to the recommendations of this site, I was going to buy a 6.0, but since I`m going to use the Foilglide in light wind conditions, maybe 7.0 might be the better choice. Did anybody sail Foilglide 6.0 as well as 7.0 and could share his impressions of the differences in handling and power of those sizes?

I'm not on a severne foilglide, but on a Sailworks flyer..
For me at 85kg ish, the 7m size works really well with my supercruiser as the largest freeride sail.

Saw a 7m foilglide demoed today. People really liked it - somehow really smooth to sail and cams rotate beautifully - but bottom panel (the xply bit) fell apart by end of the day - presumably where it gets dragged over footstraps. Not a good look on a nearly new sail that didnt look like it had been used much at all.

Forgot to add, but the "what's annoying" post in the Windsurfing forum reminded me, the Severne Foil Glide downhaul pulley is perpendicular to the sail and so matches my Bic and Chinook mast bases, without having to play mental Sudoku to rig the downhaul.

Anyone tried the 7m with SDM and the SDM cam conversion? Im struggling to get my head around the price of the sail + 460 RDM when I have 3 460 SDM masts (albeit not severne). Im a bit frustrated that 460 RDM has become a thing for this sail, as they are so rare I cant imagine much broader use. But I really want the 7m!

I agree about the SDM versus RDM for the 460 required by the Foil Glide 7 m. I was in Hood River last week and looked for a 460 RDM. Not a single one in sight in anybody's stock. New or used. Yes, they can order, but you should not need to wait for an order, in Hood River of all places.

If Sailworks can cut their Flyer 7.0 to fit onto a 430 RDM, then Severne should be able to as well.

Whole point being, my aging Phantom 6.8 (430 RDM) in Florida is falling apart after years of faithful service, most recently for windfoiling. I would like to replace it with a FG 7.0 from the local dealer, but I might need to bite the bullet and ship my Flyer 7.0 down there.

Awesome in-depth review! I'm really torn between getting a 6.0 and 7.0. The reason I wouldn't pick the 7.0 is because I'm not sure about the top end performance. It seems like over 14knts the sail quickly becomes unstable. The foil glide 2 with an extra cam an batten would be perfect for me, but I guess it won't get released soon.

The ideal scenario would be that I can foil with the 7.0 till about 16-17 knots and then switch to a fin and 7.0 slalom sail. I could switch to a 5.2 severne freek in between to continue foiling, but that's extra gear that needs to be carried and I think it would feel a bit odd.

I got a RRD 460 100% that I use on my 7.0 Loft Racingblade, so perfect.
I'm a 80-85 kg guy and by now used to sail (over)powered.
Great to hear it would fit my quiver.