"David Ezzy Explains the 2007 SE Sails"
The new 2007 Wave SE sails have radically more shape forward than
previous sails. I am referring mainly to the two battens directly
above the boom. Battens #3 and #4 have a very deep draft right behind
the mast. Having this extreme shape forward gives the sails a very
stable, yet powerful feeling.
The critical design feature is that the draft does not
extend back.
The endobatten allows us to really wind up the batten tension and
still keep the sail symmetrical and easy to flip. A traditional batten
pocket would not work with my new profile.
The draft in the middle battens is very rigid, almost like having a
cam, but the sail still has a soft feeling and flips easily. The fact
that the batten is so locked makes the sails very stable.
New Rigging Concept for 2007:
The required downhaul tension is much less on the new ’07 sails. In
fact, if you over-downhaul you kill the nice feeling. The reason is
that if you downhaul too much, you remove a lot of the forward draft
that is built into the sail.
The new sails have a huge outhaul range. It can be as little as 2.5
cm and up to 6.5cm. The outhaul is the main way to flatten the sail.
In strong winds you use a lot of outhaul. Having a lot of positive
outhaul is a good thing. It equates to how much range a sail has. Many
sails on the market have one outhaul setting that varies only by on
about a cm either way for light wind and heavy wind. This means these
sails will have less wind range.
Our sail on the other hand can be set totally bagged out, or super
flat. Both settings feel great.
Click
here to view the video of David Ezzy rigging the 2007 SE Wave
Other Refinements:
We have new sleeve cloth this year for the wave sail. This cloth
has surpassed my expectations. We now have much stronger yarns in the
warp and weft, plus an extra weft yarn that stops the tears from
traveling up the sleeve. While testing the sleeve cloth, two of my
riders broke masts at Hookipa. Neither of them tore the sleeve. But
what was most surprising is that both of the guys sailed their rigs
back to the beach with fully broken masts and the mast sleeve material
held together and did not tear. In my 30 years of windsurfing I have
never seen this happen, let alone twice!
Also new this year is the tack pulley. I have had many people
request a pulley over the years and I finally got around to designing
one. At first I looked at just using the same pulley design that Pryde
and everyone else uses. After testing it I realized that it had a
design flaw because the pulleys turn in opposite directions when
threaded for a standard base. They need to have dividers to stop the
pulleys from touching. The dividers also stop the rope from jumping a
pulley while rigging.
There are other smaller improvements as well. A new
clew patch better supports loading, a new head patch and extra
reinforcement on the foot of the sails. Also, a new window shape and
additional leech stabilizers between battens #3 and #4.
The 6.5 and 7.0 SE have 6 battens (like last year) but the boom has
been shortened up a bit on both, which gives them nicer handling.
These two sizes are called "Ezzy Wave Free-Ride Edition".
Last but not least, we have greatly enhanced the colors for ’07. All
of the new colors are very noticeable on the water. Feedback has been
terrific.
• Designed for flat water, freestyle, side-shore, onshore, any-shore
wave sailing.
• Endobatten construction for a symmetrical profile on both starboard
and port tack.
• Spectra®
reinforced XFilm stops rips dead in their tracks.
• New foot cloth with double the Spectra® yarns, stops harness hook
punctures and nose-ofthe-board tears.
• Vinyl window provides perfect visibility and great durability.
• No monofilm.
• Strong RBS® Epoxy battens.
• Outhaul gauge shows you how much outhaul you need.
• Super-thick mast pad wraps around your universal and flips up for
easy rigging.
• Fits regular diameter masts and skinny masts.
• EVERY sail is rigged and checked before it’s shipped. |