As I understand, for low wind, putting minimum downhaul is good but I am confused about the best outhaul set up. Is it better to have minimum outhaul so that sail leans on the boom with loose leach or have a medium tension with tighter outhaul which may give better bounce and pumping potential?
Select to expand quoteSA_AL said..
As I understand, for low wind, putting minimum downhaul is good but I am confused about the best outhaul set up. Is it better to have minimum outhaul so that sail leans on the boom with loose leach or have a medium tension with tighter outhaul which may give better bounce and pumping potential?
Low wind I use a single cam sail with adjustable outhaul and I do find that too little outhaul I find I get less power per pump. But I rig it with much more depth than my normal wind foil sails, but not as much camber as I would use it for finning
All these talking about less downhaul have led many to way under pull their sails. Most sails downhaul range is within a couple cm, espacially wave. From what I was told Ezzy sails have some more setting range (hydra line more specifically), but over all settings depends on brand and model.
I mostly rig up about the same downhaul for fin or foil riding. And I set outhaul just to have minimal tension.You should make your own judgement from experience with your gear, but do not under downhaul, the sail wouldn't take its shape. But adjustement are very little on most sail.
I have had a better feeling for low wind using less rigid mast (ie shorter mast), as when foiling you usually have less 'pressure' on the sail and wave sail don't get in shape correctly. So I use a 310 mast along with a longer extention when the sail specs displays a 340 as ideal. Camed sails must be more adjustable, but I have very little experience with these, and most that use camed at my local spot are using adjustable outhaul, and this seems to be a must have for efficient very low wind foiling. And once again, less downhaul is still quite a lot of tension.
I think this depends upon the sail you use and the conditions. I'm using Ezzy Lions 2 cam (2016) to learn and last session I used the 8.5m with maximum downhaul and maximum +1 outhaul. The sail was quite flat, but was comfortable in the gusts. Previously I have tried medium downhaul and outhaul settings and found in the gusts I had too much power and crashed more.
Aerotech FreeSpeed 8.0 no cams with a freerace 100% carbon 460 cm mast, for light wind (8-10 knots) down haul until I see a crease in the top panels, then back off until they just disappear, for out haul tension so batten closest to boom is a little less than halfway across the mast. I do not pump the sail in light winds, just pump the AFS foil with F1080 wing on a Goya Bolt 135 which at 80 cm wide and 243 cm long has good glide and responds very well to foil pumping.
In general for light air, downhaul until leach wrinkles and ease it till leach just firms up. Another indicator is batten rotation, if they don't rotate through then you need more downhaul because kiciking them over is hard to do on foil 
Relativly lose outhaul but as thedoor says if it's to loose you lose pumping power. Leach tension is important! Pump both the sail and the foil to get going. If you can rig a bigger front wing.
