I took my first sail on the
Starboard Phantom 380 and
Severne Raceboard 9.5 today. There was barely any breeze, but the sail provided punch and the board had surprising glide for a planing bottom raceboard. The glide in this wind was similar to sailing my old Lechner A390 Div2 hull. I think the rocker development on this board is remarkable. It sits in the water very well and makes fantastic use of its waterline. The sail has a lot of depth at the boom, but key for lightwind and pumping is that it also has depth higher up the sail and a tight outline. I was very happy with how well it pumped, and how light it is.
Hopefully there will be some breeze this weekend so that I can try it out in planing conditions as well.
I sailed off of the
Village Beach in Elkhart Lake, WI - my home waters. Check out how clear the water is in the attached photo album.
Feel free to
Contact Me if you have any questions about this gear. I think it is going to be a great all around setup for course racing, especially in the Raceboard Class.
Arden, EL-11
Arden,
ReplyDeleteHave you ever looked at polar plots for your windsurfing boards? I think it would be something cool to maybe compare after a race.
Alex
Hey Alex,
ReplyDeleteIf you mean speed vs direction, I have only looked at that a little bit. Winds tend to shift enough that it is hard to get a good feel for capability of various gear that is sailing at different times. However, Adam and I have both had our gps's at a few races and then it is interesting to compare one to another on a race by race basis and see how they compare. We just keep in mind that differences in speed and angle can be caused by the wind or the sailor/gear.
Later,
Arden
Hi Arden!
ReplyDeleteNice photos of the raceboard gear. I just bought a brand new Phantom 380 along with a used starboard raceboard 9.5 sail that starboard made a couple of years ago to accompany the board. Today was my forst outing on the kit and I have a few questions, mostly concerning the set-up, as the performance was absolutely great.
First, did you get normal screws for your footstraps by the factory? My board (a 2011 model like yours) had some extra-wide screws supplied, which, when I tried to fit in the board made the superior layers crack, so I gave that up and borrowed some fanatic normal screws from a surf club, which, of course, worked amazingly. But it almost cost me the day AND a lot of looking around.
What mast did you rig the sail on? I rigged mine on a new RS:X mast, but both from the setup on the beach and from the performance on water I got the feeling it's a bit too soft. I suspect it should also be a bit too soft for the severne as well, since the dimensions are similar. I'm planning to buy the Severne for next year...
Keep posting your photos, they look great! Maybe some high-wind ones, too!
Thanks in advance,
Dimitri
Dimitri,
ReplyDeleteI'm not as sure about the Starboard 9.5 raceboard sail since I've never seen one in person. Is this picture like your sail:
http://www.windsport.com/uploads/Image/GearPhotos/2010previews/Starboard2010/StarboardPhantomSAIL.jpg
~OR~
http://www.silverarrow-sailing.com/guppy/img/DSCN7687.jpg
Like I said, I haven't seen one of those, but some of the Canadians I race with have seen it. They said the Severne 9.5 looks much better than the Star 9.5. So, hopefully you can get onto a Severne 9.5 at some point. Kevin at www.windpowerwindsurfing.com can get you set up. He is the owner of my local shop and has sold several of them, and has also been using the 8.5 version himself. We have an 8.5 Limited class here that is popular, but Raceboard is gaining more and more interest.
I have been very happy with my Severne 9.5 - it completely meets my needs for a big raceboard sail. I rig it on a 530 Severne Enigma mast and that seems very good for me at 77 kg and 182 cm. I can make the sail soft by using very very light downhaul, and I can make it tight by applying the recommended amount. It also accepts extra downhaul quite well (compared to other big raceboard sails).
As for the Phantom footstrap screws, mine are also large size. I think the screws go in rather hard because the inserts haven't been fully tapped yet, or seem to have some resin (or similar) in the plugs, maybe accumulated during board manufacture. Anyways, I found it useful to take a "normal size" footstrap screw with same thread frequency and run that down maybe halfway into the plug in order to sort of tap it. After that I was able to faster the larger screws that came with the board. I had similar experience with other starboards as well, especially my formula HWR.
Hope that helps.
Arden
arden.EL11@gmail.com
Hi Arden!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your quick answer. It's funny you posted a photo of SUI-9, cause that's the exact same sail I have, I actually bought it from Vincent himself! So yep, it's really THAT sail! Him, too, used to rig it on an enigma mast and never had any problems...well, it's true that, by definition, a 530 mast WILL be stiffer than a 520 mast. Maybe I have to change a mast too... As for the screws I definitely wouldn't change them if they work OK, cause seeing the top layers come off at the insertion of the screws was scary. As long as the smaller screws work I'm not going to change them. It's really nice of you to inform me on the dealers in Canada, but unfortunately I live in Switzerland. But thanks a lot anyway! I hope you post more photos of you raceboarding, it's such a cool discipline (maybe a bit geeky to the rest of the windsurfing world but who cares?)