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Hello!
I'm new with windsurfing. I have an old mast (really old, it's in one piece can not be taken apart and it's not light weighted). I've brought a sail reccently, a NorthSails Lectra 6.3 which is in a very good shape.
My problem is that I dont know if I rigged it good. The manual which I've downloaded from the NS site says things about batten tension which no matter what can not be done with mine. Here is a picture to say it all:
So you can see, my battens do not lean to the mast but to the forward side of the sail. My question is that is this good? Or what am I doing wrong?
Endruboy, it looks like not enough downhaul. The batten tension won't fix this as it's mainly to tweak the sail (ie; get wrinkles out, create shape), and won't help clear the mast. Increased downhaul will give the mast the flex it needs to push to the front edge of the luff & clear the battens. The problem is possibly that the mast & sail don't work together also. Masts have varying flex ratings and ideally, the sail & mast should be compatible. I have a sail that doesn't rig well on my mast and has worn holes in the luff pocket, but when powered it still sails well.
An old mast & new sail generally won't work well. It would be interesting to hear what others have to say though.
Batten tension is like a quarter of a Viagra - just enough to get the wrinkles out.
I reckon it is a mast curve / stiffness problem. Old one piece fibreglass masts are nothing like modern ones of the last, say, 15yrs
Modern sails are designed based on the flex curve of a mast.
Modern masts can have very different flex curves so if you have a North Sail, I would say go and get a North Mast.
If you get a Neil Pryde, it will be to soft, if you get another brand, it may be to hard etc...
Some will work on others and there is a chart floating around somewhere but realistically, your sail brand dictates your mast brand or vice versa.
then, you want to play with your downhaul until you flatten out the bottom of your sail and allow your top section to crinkle a little which will enable it to twist off easily.
I would say your problem is around your mast, not batten tension.
here is one chart - www.unifiber.net/masts-selector
there are others like peterman's , butt it is starting to be "old"
i have rigged a North Zeta 4.x sail on an epoxy mast
i do this for teaching and as such am NOT so concerned with performance
based on the charts North is "constant curve" tending towards "hard top"
there are many masts you can try with this configuration
try a newer mast from any company in the middle of the chart and with good downhaul, it should be MUCH better
lotsa luck n good winds
jw
Thanks for the answers. The main problem is that I have an old Mistral Maui with original equipments (it's in a pretty good shape). I have only one hole and a rope "stop" in the masts base and it's hard to use a block (or tackle, I don't now this in English) therefore it's hard to downhaul my sail. Despite of this, I managed to downhaul it pretty hard (with a rope drawer).
So there are three new quiestions:
1, If I downhaul this more, is it possible that my sail would split/broke?
2, If I buy a new mast can I slide it to my old mast base? Here's a pic of it:
3, If I'm not able to fix it just yet, is this rigging will probably cause damage to my new sail?
Thanks again the answers, they already helped a lot!
"Pulleys" is the word, and that's what you need to get this sail set properly, (3 at least) but I'm not sure that old mast will take that sort of strain. If the mast breaks, the sharp ends will more than likely damage the sail.
The sail will not handle anywhere near as well as it should, that will make learning much harder.
A newer mast is the answer, but getting it to fit on your board is another problem.
Be aware that back then there could be at least 2 mast diameters, that extension of yours may need a sleeve to fit a modern mast. But you're probably better ditching that as well, it looks like the cause of your pulley problem.
Rubber uni joints have a female thread in each end, bolts then connect them to the mast extension and whatever fits into the board, with any luck that will be compatible with your board.
I'm betting that old rig will fail somewhere with proper downhaul.
Ropes will break, sail will tear, something will give.
on my bic dufour i made the following adjustments
this helped a bit, but still is an issue when trying to go for full downhaul
when the equipment is all made to go together, then it just works so much better
this attempt for my Fanatic Ultra CAT works better for downhaul, but did come apart in the local river once :-(
Looks like the sail is from the 90's so it won't need anything like the downhaul of todays sails, or a modern mast. Might just need a bit more outhaul, or even just a bit of wind to fill the sail. When you are using it do the battens pop to the other side of the mast when you flip the sail?
