I had tried to post a long-winded reply about sails and stuff, but it seems to have not made it in. I'll try again but I'll make an effort to not be so long-winded! Here goes. If you are going to race in class events you will need class legal sails, and only Hobie sails are class-legal. As far as getting new sails from other sources to be cheaper (ok in open class racing), my recent experience is that may be false economy (my other non-post had the gory details, I'll go over them if you want either here or in email). Basically, I got a new main for my 18 from Hobie, and had a chance to compare with a leading "affordable" sail. The sail from Hobie was much preferable. In a nutshell, if you are racing at all, in my opinion the class-legal sails are a minimum requirement. If you are open class racing you can go nutso and get a fathead main or some other custom concoction, but I wouldn't go the simply cheap route.
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<br>If you can find recent used sails in good shape that would be a good low-cost way to go. My feeling is that quality of the Hobie sails has improved dramatically, but I'm not sure exactly what date to pin the improvement to.
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<br>My new sails are white for the simple reason that they are cheaper that way. That the white sail cloth is supposedly more stable and stretch resistant is a bonus, but I honestly don't know for sure if that's true other than that's what I hear. Also, for racing, you'll hear some people say that the white is better because you blend in and might not get noticed for infractions or such. Whatever. I'd guess it really boils down to whether you like the looks of the colored sails and whether you want to pay for them.<br><br>Keith Chapman, Annapolis, Md.
<br>H-18
<br>Northstar 500 (monoslug)
<br>WRCRA - www.wrcra.org