The latest and greatest from Avalon Sail Co. head designer; Phil Smith (ex- Wild Winds and Hot Sails Maui).
This is the 6.6m variant from the new speed range that the Avalon Team have been working on.
Attached is a photo from its first rigging (straight from the computer onto the cloth), and it is already looking fantastic. The latest sails feature 'Flexible Zone Technology', and some of the latest shaping techniques to support shape throughout the sail and keep a 'locked in' profile while fully loaded.
Another interesting feature is the no bull approach to advertising, and excess weight. "These are racing and speed sails. People are buying these pieces of kit to make them go faster than everybody else on the water, and so we need to give them every edge they can get... That starts with weight," says head designer Phil Smith, "Everything that is on this sail is here for a reason, nothing else."
Check out the Avalon Sail Co. Facebook page for more info.
www.facebook.com/avalonsails
WOW! great looking sail man, it looks massive for a 6.6, and doesnt appear to have much leech or twist, it looks like it would be very powerful, it actually looks like there is very little mast curve, which might explain not much falling away at top, it looks great, thanks
it is a bit boring looking. surely a little colour wont make it all that much slower?
Select to expand quoteboardboy said..
it is a bit boring looking. surely a little colour wont make it all that much slower?
It's not a prototype of how it looks, it's to test how well it works.
They'll be custom sails, so it may be possible to get the colours you want, personally I don't care, I just want to go fast!
Hopefully Phil will have it down the beach tomorrow and I'll get a go on it.
There's a saying I have in the real sailmaking world and that is "coloured cloth is **** cloth". And by that I mean higher tech material is normally produced in it's natural form and speaks for it's self.
In the windurfing world of sailmaking the material is genrally very low tech. Because you don't stand around with a sail flogging it's brains out you can get away with it, and because of the pressures of marketing and pricing it's accepted that you make it pretty colours and load it with lots of dingly bits to disguise it's basic form to excite the punters.
If that's what you're after then there are a gazillion made in China toys out there for you to choose from, you won't find that in our sails, what you will find though is a sail that is fast, light and durable and a joy to sail with. There's alot more going on in these sails than your average sail, you may not have picked up on it yet but there are no tube battens in the sail. We have always worked on getting the 3D form as correct as possible along with the correct placement and choice of materials to deal with controlling distortion yet allowing flexability in other areas to enable you to shape the sail more acurately.
That to me is the really exciting stuff, choosing a colour.....yawn.
Cheers,
Bugs
Nice looking bit of kit. Exciting thing is that it is designed and made in Oz. I look forward to hearing how she goes on the water. Number of cambers? designed around what type of mast? Looks like a nice clean shape and I love the lack of colour
Thanks for sharing.
Low res photo doesn't show it in its best light. The blurry film is actually gold coloured Kevlar scrim which looks very cool in the flesh.
This sail reminds me of the old Neil Pryde Slalom MkIII, only with a boomcutout. When was it, 15 years ago, or more?
Select to expand quoteMrFussy said..
>>>>>>>>
That to me is the really exciting stuff, choosing a colour.....yawn.
Cheers,
Bugs
Hey welcome bugs, about time you joined us, and added a bit of common sense.
I look forward to seeing the results on GPSTC.
This thing better be a rocket seeing as though it doesnt have '**** cloth' and 'pretty colours and dingly bits for punters'.
Congrats on being a 'real' sailmaker.
In the meantime my money is going to the 'unreal?' sailmakers, though they may be faceless corporations, they are yet to give me **** for an opinion.
Select to expand quoteMilsy said..
did you get the chance to use the sail? any feed back on its perfomance? thanks
Here's the session.
www.gpsteamchallenge.com.au/sailor_session/show?date=2013-07-14&team=105
2PBs and the other 4 his 2nd best, in very marginal conditions. Only a knot or so off one of the states fastest sailors.
The bottom end of this sail is fantastic, it's very light and rotates like a dream.
Went extremely well for it's first time on the water, Bugs has found a bug and is in the process of fixing it, (gets a bit back handed in the gusts)
ok, thanks decrepit, it looks like the sail went well, great looking day for the wa coastal crew,thank you and good luck with it all,,,,,,,ha, i agree with you boardboy, the Avalon sail making co. better hopes it makes a sail that clearly out performs anything else on the market, it should no worries with the no coloured cloth, ha,,,
It does look like a Pryde/Gaastra sail from the early 1990's - I used all of them and they were great in their day. But looks can be deceiving. I'm interested in seeing a broad range of results from a range of conditions. Good luck with our project!
Hey Bugs, I just thought of your marketing angle,
" My wife didn't marry me for my looks, you shouldn't buy my sails for looks either.
She thought form and function, so should you."
You can thank me later
