Will we be again on North Sails?
A few months ago, Chris Williams of North Sails reached out to me to help find a way to scale the process down to make a line of 3Di windsurf sails that would be affordable for the masses. If we could pull it off, these sails would be half the weight of the lightest sail on the market, have better shape, and last 5x longer than any other sail you can buy. This would be HUGE!
https://www.elevatestoke.com/post/building-the-next-generation-of-windsurf-sails-coming-soon
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By far the best non rigid sailboat sail on the market.
I always thought they should make a windsurfing sail like that.
Alan
Amazing! Half the weight, durable, and better-shaped? Can't wait for the new generation of 3D windsurf sails.
Barrett
If it takes 10 lbs off my waist, whitens my teeth and helps me get through a jibe, I'm... wait, who am I kidding. Nothing can help me through a jibe.
--- The Arrogant Jerk: Crabby and irritable since 1998.
I guess I need to get out more. I have no idea what a 3D sail is or why I should be excited about it. For some stupid reason, I tend to think we live in 3dimensional world (ignoring time). So sails I have already are 3 dimensional. If the shape is wired in what happens when you tack? Seems kind of stupid to make one way sail. Or does it just flip like any other sail. So I get the sail is lighter - but is that all there is to it?
...These are the questions I would like answered first, but searching through video's etc, I see no discussion of mundane things like that - just a lot about how they are made (which I don't care enough about to watch any of the videos all of the way through). So if there is
cliff notecomic strip explanation of any of this I'm all ears. (Ok all eyes.)What happens in a black hole stays in a black hole.
Instead of joining flat pieces of material that end up in a 3d shape, North's process molds custom created panels of cf, aramid and dyneema filaments over a computer controlled 3d mold. Then the whole thing is vacuum bagged and cooked on the mold like a composite structure.
Because the mold is both accurate and very adjustable, you can quckly create a variety of shapes and replicate them. Here's a couple of videos of the North factory in Nevada which are very similar but watch both if you have the time.
Current windsurf sail construction is very labor intensive. If we can get durable, lightweight sails that aren't outrageous expensive, that would be a good thing. No longer is it "choose any two".