This is my speed sail. Very important is the dowel hull. I use the recommended settings, plus or minus half a centimeter.
Today I used the recommended settings. Also very important is this strap. You give a lot of tension to make a nice profile in the sail.
Also very important is the boom height. With little winds use a higher position, with high winds use low position for maximum control.
The head of the sail is also very important. Always push it in the right direction because otherwise the sail won't open properly.
Very important for speed sail. And last but not least, don't use too much outhaul. No pressure at all.
I'm shooting about the same or equal to slalom sailing. The only two things I can think of that are really different to slalom sailing is my harness length and the distribution of the power in my hands.
For speedruns, I like my power to be balanced, not 50-50 on my hands. So I'm trying always to, especially during a speedrun, during downwind runs, to get a little bit more like 40-60.
That's meaning my must hand gets 40% of the power and my sail hand is getting almost 60% of the power.
The idea behind this is when I'm turning downwind, the sail starts to react to the wind again. Because your boat is turning downwind, your sail must open a little bit and that's something the sail does when you're not as locked as 50-50.
Another thing is the harness lines. I like to have them pretty short when I'm sailing in moderate wind or less wind. That's because I can keep the momentum better.
When you're putting your course as long as possible, then you start bagging a little bit and that's not a really efficient way of sailing. But when the wind gets up, my course gets longer, every time.
When you go sailing, it's most important you do the after rigging because when you rig like normal, it's okay. But then when you go on the water, you feel the sail, you feel the board what it does when the board takes off and goes to high.
You put your boom a bit lower so you get a flatter board which is really important with a small fin. You keep the board really low so you get a lot of control out of it.
Also, you can take the mastrack and get it some bit more to the front to keep the board lower. But if you lose fin pressure, you have to take it much more to the back to get more fin pressure out of it.
But then your board gets up again so you have to lower your boom. Also what you can do when you want more fin pressure is leave the base plate where it is, take your harness lines and put them a bit more to the back so you can get a lot more fin pressure and power in the run.
Make sure your lower battens are really tight so you get a nice full profile in the under part of the sail.
The third batten, you have to always watch out, don't give it too much pressure because also rotation is getting less and when the pressure also in the upper part of the sail is getting more and you want it into the lower part of the sail.
I always like to keep the rope as tightly as possible to the sail to keep it more direct because I'm not using a trim set because I don't like it because there's a lot of rope and it swings and when you get the gust it's not converted into speed directly.
When it's really stiff you get much more speed into the sail directly when you hit the gust.
What's really important for me is the first downhaul to see how far you have to pull through to get a nice fall in the sail.
It's a few times to test to see how it really goes and you only get two or three times behind how it really is.
Then it's very important to have camber pressure on the bottom two or three cambers.
You have to have enough pressure so that it doesn't form in the wind gusts. This can be helped by putting spacers in between, so you have more pressure on the camber.
Also, you have to have enough tension on the bottom three or four cambers. This is done by turning the camber.
Then I always turn the top in the direction of the speeder so that the sail opens up nicely.
Also very important is the outhaul. I pull this so far that the sail is in the back of the trapezoid line.
What you also see is that the cross-button over the gieck heavout. It opens in the sail.
The way I look at speed sailing is that you are basically dancing with nature. Nature will be always stronger than the human body.
If you go on a speed course, ideally the wind will be broad, the angle will be broad, so you will sail into a course like this.
You will then experience that the wind starts shifting, at least the apparent wind.
As if it feels in the end, as if the wind is coming from the front. But as the gust hits, and that's the point where it gets difficult,
the wind changes back toward crosswind or even from the back. Then you want to sail to breathe.
In that case, it's super important that the panel, the sail body itself, is giving with the wind.
As you are not as powerful as the wind, and especially in gusts of 50-60 knots, which I like especially,
you have to go with the flow and this sail allows me to do that.
In the gust, the sail needs to be able to breathe, but it needs to be able to breathe through the front, through the sleeve.
If I push this section down, you see what's happening. The draft deepens and with this motion, in combination with the sideways bend of the mast and the loose leech,
the board will lie flat on the water. This helps you to accelerate and to keep and to gain control in the gust.
Then, as the apparent wind changes again to the front, as you go faster, this will happen.
The sail draft will move back a little again. This is perhaps the most important thing in high wind to keep the control in the gusts you are looking for.
What I really like to do, and it's good for speed surfing, is to really pull the tech strap and it will give you the nice deep profile here below.
A nice profile here below will give you really the power in the lower part of the sail. It will keep the board down and it is easier to control the board and the sail.
What I also like to use is the adjustable outhaul. Now the sail is really flat and I use this position going upwind because it will save me some strength and it will save me some energy for going in the deep downruns and also for the rest of the session.
When I go into the downwind run, then I release the sail and then it gets a more deeper profile overall and it really helps me to go into a downwind run and keep the power.
The NordSales has a visual trim system and I really play around with this. When you go to the first part of the visual trim system dot, then it's really for low wind and medium wind conditions.
When I go into speed surfing, then I really go to the end of the visual trim system dot and it will give me better acceleration in the deep downwind runs.
For speed surfing, I'm using wide base fins. I really use low boom position with long harness lines like this is the length that I'm using my underarm.
If I'm sailing just half wind, I barely have to touch my boom. When the gust is coming, I open my boom a little, the board is going to pop up and then this is my acceleration gear. So that's how I make my runs.
To look at my proper downhole settings, I use the recommendation and for visual inspection, I use the Neil Pride logo when there's a wrinkle going to the top. That's the perfect position.
