Northwave Sails?
Ken Berger
>I'm looking to replace my quiver, and am considering Northwave sails
>(made by a custom sailboard shop in the Gorge). Through a special
>purchase, I can get them at 20-30% off.
>I'm considering purchasing the following sails:
> - Northwave Trilite 3.7
> - Northwave Trilite 4.2
> - Northwave Slalom 4.7
>
>I primarily sail in the Gorge; thus I want a sail that can take
>some abuse. Currently, I sail most in 4.5 to 5.5 conditions (I'm
>6'4", 190#). This summer in plan to get out in some higher winds
>(~4.0 conditions).
>
>Do you have any experience (good or bad) with Northwave sails?
>If you were buying a new quiver, what kinds of sails would you consider?
I haven't owned anything but Northwaves for the last 4 seasons. I
have a quiver of 93 Trilites. They really are great sails.
I would recommend for you to get the PRX race sails instead of the
slaloms in the big sizes. I think the prx performs better in light
wind. Also if you are going to get serious about sailing on big
Gorge days, a 3.2 is a must. Therefore, I would get:
3.2 Trilite
3.7 "
4.2 "
4.7 "
5.2 "
5.7 PRX
Even at 30off, that should set ya back about 2k+ (isn't this sport
great?!)
KB
P.S. Big westerlies yesterday in the desert. Winter has returned,
therefore I must snowboard instead of sail this weekend. See you on
the wave, weather it be liquid or frozen. Face shots in Heather
Canyon tomorrow....
Rolland Waters
> I'm considering purchasing the following sails:
> - Northwave Trilite 3.7
> - Northwave Trilite 4.2
> - Northwave Slalom 4.7
>
> I primarily sail in the Gorge; thus I want a sail that can take
> some abuse. Currently, I sail most in 4.5 to 5.5 conditions (I'm
> 6'4", 190#). This summer in plan to get out in some higher winds
> (~4.0 conditions).
>
> Do you have any experience (good or bad) with Northwave sails?
> If you were buying a new quiver, what kinds of sails would you consider?
Northwave makes a good sail. They're not Hurricanes, though. :-)
Actually, the only thing I'd be concerned about is going from the
Slalom 4.7 to the Trilite 4.2; depending on how the sails are sized,
you may find that it's a bigger gap than the .5 m2 difference in size
would indicate, since the Trilites should have significantly less
power than the Slaloms.
However, if the gap from 4.7 to 5.7 doesn't faze you then the
4.7->4.2 gap probably won't either, although it's worse having a gap
in the middle of your quiver than at either end. The guys at Northwave
should give you a straight answer on the sail sizing.
My personal bias is for all sails in a quiver to be one type. But my
quiver stops at 5.2, and if I got a 5.8 I'd definitely get a race or
slalom sail as opposed to the 5.8 Hurricane. The Gorge (as opposed to
say the Oregon coast or Hawaii) is a classic case of where > 5.0
conditions are very different (i.e. flat) from the < 5.0 conditions,
and so it does make some sense to switch sail types around the 5.0
size. But if you were going to the coast a lot, you'd still want
a wave/swell oriented 5.0/5.2/whatever, since taking a slalom sail
into shorebreak and surf is sub-optimal.
Rolland
Rick Burleigh
Organization: Eskimo North (206) For-Ever
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 15:29:35 GMT
Lines: 21
I'm looking to replace my quiver, and am considering Northwave sails
(made by a custom sailboard shop in the Gorge). Through a special
purchase, I can get them at 20-30% off.
I'm considering purchasing the following sails:
- Northwave Trilite 3.7
- Northwave Trilite 4.2
- Northwave Slalom 4.7
- Northwave Slalom 5.7
I primarily sail in the Gorge; thus I want a sail that can take
some abuse. Currently, I sail most in 4.5 to 5.5 conditions (I'm
6'4", 190#). This summer in plan to get out in some higher winds
(~4.0 conditions).
Do you have any experience (good or bad) with Northwave sails?
If you were buying a new quiver, what kinds of sails would you consider?
Thanks,
Rick Burleigh
rbu...@atl.com | rbu...@eskimo.com
Dave Fenwick
rwa...@bvu-lads.loral.com (Rolland Waters) writes:
> Northwave makes a good sail. They're not Hurricanes, though. :-)
At the beginning of last season I was looking for a new quiver of
sails. I narrowed it down to 2: Northwave Trilites or Hurricane
SuperNukers. I talked with Blake (owner/designer) at Northwave (he
works in the office next door to me) and Doug (owner/desiger) at
Hurricane.
I ran into Michael Low coming out of Hurricane with a new quiver of RED
(his trademark color) SuperNukers. These are the sails HE got - and he
tested them all. See his reviews in Performance Windsurf Report
magazine. That helped sell me, as well as the beefy construction and
handmade care that goes into them. They are all cut and made one at a
time. Although more expensive (there's never any special sales), I
bought Hurricanes 2.8 through 5.2. I also passed on the 5.8 because I
feel a cammed sail is more appropriate for above 5.0 conditions.
Don't get me wrong, though. Northwaves are great sails. I just wanted
quick rigging, cam performance without the cam, fast RAF rotation,
instantaneous de-powering, and indestructability. Although it has no
cams, when you rig up a Hurricane without the boom it has the same
shape as a cammed sail (it just needs a half inch of outhaul). The top
twist off in a gust is amazing as is the bottom end wind range. I
could have made do with half the number of sails.
One thing to note: For some reason known only to Blake, Northwave
decided to save money and just removed Terry McDowell as production
manager. So now they don't have anyone in charge of production (or
even worse, everyone's in charge)! Terry worked at Northwave for eight
years and helped make Northwaves as good as they are. I hope the
quality will still be there.
______________________________________________________________________
Dave Fenwick sig...@netcom.com | Where do you go for vacation
HOOD RIVER, OREGON | when you're already there?
______________________________________________________________________
Rolland Waters
Message-ID: <RWATERS.94...@baja.bvu-lads.loral.com>
Sender: ne...@bvu-lads.loral.com
Organization: what, me organize?
References: <CMppp...@eskimo.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 18:50:19 GMT
Lines: 42
In article <> rbu...@eskimo.com (Rick Burleigh) writes:
> I'm considering purchasing the following sails:
> - Northwave Trilite 3.7
> - Northwave Trilite 4.2
> - Northwave Slalom 4.7
> - Northwave Slalom 5.7
>
> I primarily sail in the Gorge; thus I want a sail that can take
> some abuse. Currently, I sail most in 4.5 to 5.5 conditions (I'm
> 6'4", 190#). This summer in plan to get out in some higher winds
> (~4.0 conditions).
>
> Do you have any experience (good or bad) with Northwave sails?
> If you were buying a new quiver, what kinds of sails would you consider?
Northwave makes a good sail. They're not Hurricanes, though. :-)
Brent Robinson
writes:
> If you were buying a new quiver, what kinds of sails would you consider?
Well, I can't comment on Northwave sales in particular, but
I would be inclined to look for a manufacturer with either
bigger (or much smaller) steps between sail sizes when
putting together a quiver.
I purchased a quiver of 5 Simmer twin cams a few years back.
They are spaced 0.6 m**2, with sizes 3.4, 4.0, 4.6, 5.2, 5.8.
If I went with 0.5 m**2 spacing, I would have needed 6 sails
for the same coverage, eg: 3.4, 3.9, 4.4, 4.9, 5.4, 5.9.
Therefore, in a full quiver a slightly bigger step size saves
having to buy 1 sail. Less cost & one less thing to have to
lug around. And, I don't think there is much of a penalty
performance-wise.
I find the 0.6 m**2 step size just fine (even in the smaller
sizes) and I am sure this would be true (at least for
recreational use) for modern sails from any decent
manufacturer. In larger sizes even bigger steps would work.
Alternatively, go with smaller step sizes and skip every
other one.
How about it rec.windsurfers, is it time to abandon
delta = 0.5 ?
Brent.
Dave Fenwick
All sail sizes are designed to work ON THE SAME MAST!
What a concept! :-)