SAILS ON REVIEW:
Gaastra GTX 7.0m
Naish Redline 7.0m
Neil Pryde V8 7.0m
North Sails Daytona 7.3m
Tushingham Lightning 7.0m
Like the slalom boards tested earlier in this
issue, freerace sails are designed to be used
in overpowered conditions, and quite possibly
in a race environment. The five contenders
that we have on review here are some of the
most stable and advanced camber induced
sails we have ever had the pleasure of using
…but which one is ideal for you?
The first question you need to ask yourself is whether a freerace sail what you
are really after. What is your sailing style? Where do you sail and what level of
performance are you looking for? Freerace sails are the next step up from a
twin cammed sail, often (although not always) incorporating three cams and
specialising in powered or overpowered conditions. Their true niche is offering
top end stability and control along with raw speed, ideally partnering efficient
boards that thrive on being loaded. They have evolved to fill the gap neatly
between the twin cam (designed to perform across a
wide range, including the provision of bottom end
power to un-stick the modern widestyle board), and the
race sail, to offer a level of performance close to that of its nocompromise
sibling, whilst being lighter to handle and more
practical to rig and tune. With the re-emergence of slalom sailing and
renewed enthusiasm for high performance cammed sails, the development in
the freerace sail market has stepped up a gear this season. We have included
the Tushingham Lightning in this group to act as a benchmark all-round twincam
contender, giving us something to compare the performance of the more
specialist freerace sails with.
So to answer the original question of whether a freerace sail is the appropriate
route to go down, ask yourself what type of board you intend to partner it with.
All the sails here are impressively stable and will continue to drive power into the
board with every gust. If the board you are using has reached its speed limit and
can’t handle any extra surges of power, the energy has nowhere to go but
through you as the sailor, which will present control issues and begin to pull your
stance out of shape. In other words, these sails need to be coupled to a board
that can cope with their efficiency. Relating it to cars, you wouldn’t use a Ferrari
to pull a caravan for instance … the refined engine wouldn’t have the bottom
end torque to be comfortable whilst its high performance and speed would go to
waste. Staying with the car theme, you buy a head-turning car like a Ferrari if there is the chance to enjoy the performance on offer, be it round a race course or on the German autobahns… (Either that or you just want to publicly display how
deep your pockets are to compensate for other appendages you own!) There is
no point owning one if all you’re going to use it for is quick runs to the local
newsagent and a leisurely Sunday drive through the countryside. These sails
are designed to be sailed hard and aggressively; to provide the impetus and
consistency to challenge yourself in the most testing conditions.
WHY GO FURTHER?
It has to be said once again that the five sails here are undoubtedly some of the
most impressive cammed sails we as a test team have ever tried. Such is the performance level and range available that it presents the question of why go
for a full-on race sail? The extra speed and efficiency they may offer will
undoubtedly come at a cost, the most likely being the practicality of rigging the
sail as well as its handling. The choice is of course yours, but in our opinion,
unless you are a serious racer competing at the very top flight, these freerace
sails offer more than enough for most.
