Anyone know what sort of weight range performance kids sails are targetted at? My wife is around 50kg and constantly getting over powered ona 3.7, can't easily get hold of a 3.4 in nz but got some neil pryde kids sails between 3 and 4m in the shed waiting for my kids to get bigger. Cheers
They will work fine,put them on the right mast though.My boy at 32kg can hang on to a 3.4 redback in the same wind I use a 4.4.
The problem with 'regular' small wave sails is that they are made for a completely different wind range than 'small frame riders' will be using them in, while the geometry of true kids sails are also not adapted to adults. A good alternative is the Duotone One range; my wife really likes hers.
I don't know about the Neil Pryde sails but the true "kids" sails that I have tried and not very nice sails, they are just for beginners, and once you know how to windsurf they don't work well.
The sail aiming at juniors and women are much better though and the Severne Redbacks are simply great sails, aimed for people of about 55kg and below, I think.
I'm about 65kg, 175cm tall, and I love them. I have the Redbacks form season 2023, and they are much better than the "senior" sails to me. The Redbacks are "softer" and therefore start working in a lower windrange (compared to regular sails). To me this corresponds to about a half a step between sailsizes. E.g. if the wind is right in-between a regular 5.3 and 4.7 sail, the Redback 4.7 will be just perfect.
The problem is that the regular ("senior") sail are designed for heavier people and they therefore start working later/higher in terms of wind strength, and in the wind-strengths were those sails are in their sweet spot, I will feel overpowered and tossed around like a rag...
So the regular sails will in effect have a rather narrow windrange were they "work" for a lighter weight person. This is especially true for sail of around 4.2 and smaller (in my experience). One can use a shorter/softer mast than recommend, but it only helps a little bit. With the Junior/Women sails I feel that the range is extended in both directions, they get both going earlier in the low-end, and they also twist and let power off better/earlier in the high-end. This gives a much broader range of use, in terms of wind-strength.
Another advantage is the boom height, the regular sails need to have a rather high boom position, in order to provide a sensible mast-foot pressure. This then means that the boom feels too high for wave riding etc. The Junior/Women sails are designed to work with a lower boom, without producing excessive mast-foot pressure.
So my recommendation would be a Junior/Women sail, rather than a small "senior" sail or a "kids" sail.
Having played around with this I find that sails with some static shape like Ezzy's seem to work well. RAF wave sails simply need a lot more pressure to start working.
I have some early 2000s Ezzy's that when rigged on a shorter RDM with long extension seem to work very well.
I think possibly the Taka could do the same in a more modern sail.
Interestingly this came from using these to foil where you might not be so loaded up.
SurferKris makes some great comments above. Not tried the redbacks due to mast compatibility but they sound nice.
My son and daughter used the NP Dragonfly range from 1.5-3.5m2 (we had 4 sails) and we even took them on 'planes in a golf bag. However they are too soft for decent wind and just don't hold their shape. They were good until my son used to go out in much stronger wind. He used e.g. the Duotone Hero around 3m2 which was nice. I won't post it again but if you search "Max 12 and a half yrs old - Windsurfing Mauritius 2016" you can see it in action used by a maybe 45-50kg kid at that time. The wind is stronger in the second half of the video, whic( is just a short 3 and a bit minute clip showing progression over the week.
More recently my wife (59kg) uses 2.9/3.3/4.0 NP Combats for windfoiling and absolutely loves them. They all rig on a 340 mast (TPX100), smallest Severne 140-190 Enigma Boom and she's very comfortable down-winding in the swells with these, pleasure to watch and you can really trim them for the conditions with lots of DH and slightly less outhaul etc.
I spotted some ladies specific - I think they were Hot Sails Maui - sails, for sale on NZ facebook windsurfing marketplace, or TradeMe a few weeks back. A whole quiver of smaller sizes, quite reasonably priced, if I recall.
