Got my first chance to ride my pre-owned F156 and the Loft 10.8 Saturday in AL. Holy moley- forget whitecaps. It was blowing 5-7 and thought I'd take it out on a lark. I was staying lakeside and I hadn't been sailing since the clinic. The worst possible thing happened to me... on the first little puffed, I planed. There wasn't a whitecap in sight all day- and this puff was maybe 7-8 tops. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but it wasn't the kind of day I'd ever associate with short boards. I got a few more rides before the wind really petered out.
Yep, the sail is big, the boom (266) is actually longer than the board (264). But it's like the Retro, large no-cam freeride with a twisty head. With a bit of patience, it came right out of the water although there isn't a chance in heck I'll ever waterstart that sucker.
Don't know how much I'll use the sail, but this definitely redefines summer windsurfing in my book. I can't say how much it planed sooner than the beloved Start, certainly easier to pump, and the 70cm fin helped vs. the 65 I've been using on the Start. I think the Start (and boards like it) is a better all-round value, the cushy deck, the thickness (the 156 is thin and not shy about sinking a bit), the price and durability. But if your goal in life is to plane on light summer days... step up and try a Formula board some day. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of the effort to gain more lightair performance out of these boards to make them Olympics-worthy.
For all those days where there is a fresh breeze but it just refuses to whitecap, and we get a lot of those here in the early fall and late spring, this is the ticket. Not that planing defines all, each to their own, but this is a fun way to tool around the lake on a nice day.
Thanks for the report. How difficult/tiring was the giant sail compared to a mere 9.0 or so?
Radny
It's bigger. No doubt. Not intolerable but bigger. (after all it is 20% bigger). But not as bad as one would think. You have to be conscious of keeping the mast vertical so you don't have to fight the leverage of the long boom length but the sail is fairly light (ie don't learn to jibe with your spiked harness on it).
I wouldn't say a 10+ is everybody's cup of tea but if ya gotta plane in August... I'd like to see how I hold up in 10-12 with it though.
10-12? One thing I've always wondered is what would be the next size down for a sail that big? Would it be 8.5-9.? or say something like a 7.5?
I'd think something in the 8s if the budget allowed and you were using the same board, ie I'd think a wide board would hold more sail than a smaller, say 130/70-85cm board would. That way you'd be planing from just under whitecaps, maybe 10ish, well into 15-18mph or more. So something like 10.5,8.5,7.0 etc would make sense.
Of course, every time I buy a sail, it throughs everything off kilter. Maybe now that school's in, we can meet and you can take it for a spin.
Sounds like fun