VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

Are there any lovers of the Hot Sails Liquid 6 batten freeride sail on the island? Should Jeff make it again?

wait till the verdict is in on the GPX...

not bad.. now if it only had 3 battens..

Hehe yeah 6 battens are SOOO 2 years ago.....

I tested the GPX in April. Chris lent us the prototype. Felt pretty good but fairly finicky to rig. You had to get it just right. I got 2 on order, we shall see.

How far will this go?? Will we'll go all the way to battenless?

Hmmm - one could just take out #2,4,5 battens and try that.

6-batten sails have smaller panels to repair on punching thru sail as a couple folks did Sat past!

Speedy_G wrote:I tested the GPX in April. Chris lent us the prototype. Felt pretty good but fairly finicky to rig. You had to get it just right. I got 2 on order, we shall see.

How far will this go?? Will we'll go all the way to battenless?

I see the future: small, cafeteria tray sized board, little fins, inflatable battens for the sail, maybe a tiny boom with strings going waaaaay up to the sail. Oh, and shorts worn over a full wetsuit. Just kidding about the shorts. That's just ridiculous.

Yeah, who would wear shorts over their wet suit? That makes no sense at all!

Hi J,

Seems more like they need to rationalize the line-up a bit. There are a whole lot of different speed-oriented freeride and race sails, and several different wave sails of different sorts of construction. The new direction seem popular for the wave sails.

If there is anything missing it is an all-rounder like the Naish Amp/Moto, NP Fusion, etc. A 5 batten light wind wave/freestyle/freeride sail with a bit of a tight leech, low aspect ratio, and moderately high clew. With modern materials, there should be something tough but with a bit of stiffness like you get from monofilm. The Liquid I only used a few times, but it felt pretty one-dimensional.

Anyhow, just an idea.

I be more inclined for a dedicated slalom/race sail over a large freeride sail, but that's me.

One day I want to try a race and/or free ride sail and see how they differ from wave sails.

nanmoo wrote:One day I want to try a race and/or free ride sail and see how they differ from wave sails.

I'd say they are generally more racey and/or free-ridey than wave sails. You could also say they feel less wavey. But I'm no rocket surgeon.

For sails above 6.0, I would prefer a twin cam, small cams, one above and one below the booms. As a lightweight I find the supported leading edge is most useful in the low end where I can coax the board onto a plane and then take full advantage of the apparent wind on the relatively smooth water. Camless sails are more top end oriented. A small person will just go to a smaller sail so these multi battened no cam sails are built for heavyweights in plenty of wind. A super ultra light and powerful twin cam would be spot on for me. So in answer to the question; no, you needn't make any of that particular model for me.