Arnaldo

There is nothing illogical about wanting to have control over the shape/foil of your sail under as wide a range of conditions as possible. Just because the sail material has less stretch does not say the sail doesn’t move…the whole point is to control the movement…to have it attain and retain the designed shape…not just randomly respond to the conditions.

A hypothesis is one thing…real world sailing is a different proposition. When a sailor’s career lives and dies on his/her race results, they are going to use the fastest equipment they can get their hands on. Windsurfing has never been shy about taking on the most radical ideas and putting them to the test. If your design ideas are all that you purport them to be we should be seeing a shift to more flexible sail material in the future. Good luck. It sounds an awful lot like 1985 technology to me.

Personally I have been hard core windsurfing for 26 years, I have used all the different type sails that I spoke of earlier. There is no way you can equate a top of the line soft sail design that was popular when I started with a top of the line sail of today...been there done that!

I designed and built high performance sailboards (till about 2000) that hung in there with just about anyone’s with an equivalent rider. All my attention was on performance increases… board, fin, sails, masts, booms and the interaction between them, getting the feedback first hand...Bottom line is …The only thing that counts, is performance on the water…all the rest is just batting the breeze…regardless of who it comes from. Show me measurable advantage in real world conditions (against the industry standards) and then I will consider adopting your position.

Bob