It been a long wait for the Loft Formula program to come to Australia, Patrik Diethelm the new Australian Loft Sails importer believes in Formula.
Here are some of my first impressions
The sail bag is big and generous and has a ventilation strip the whole way down
The foot of the sail has a kevlar xply strip
It feels very light putting it in the car
There are four pulleys on the tack
the mast protection padding can be pulled right back giving easy access to the tack of the sail
the top of the sail is a very light xply and some battens have their tensioners near the mast to reduce swing weight
it has roller cams, that is the leading edge of the cam is where the rollers are so the cams roll on and off when rigging as opposed to scraping on and off
it has four cams
it comes with adjustable outhaul, instructions, spacers stickers etc
Rigging
Compared to my current 12m Avanti this 11m sail has a slightly longer boom and shorter luff. I couldn't pull it down to the recommend setting so the quoted luff length maybe wrong, not sure yet. The sail had nice even twist and nice depth. The leading edge had good knuckle low down. I like knucklely sails, my Avanti 12m has this knuckle and it was something my moth mates always looked for (years ago) when you are fully hiked the mast bends and the knuckle is less. It is something you see in the Point 7s which is a brand punching above it weight one could say.
Sailing
When I first got out in the moderate seabreeze I thought I would be lacking in power as I would normally have my 12m on. But I was having trouble holding it down so I sailing over to the naval base at Balmoral, with calmer waves and disconnected the uni joint to access to clew where I re threaded the out haul to the bottom clew hole. Now the leech was less supported and this made a huge difference. The sail had a very different feel to my previous load line sail. Load line sails have strength through the fibres not the laminate. On the Avanti the fibres are curved the result been a softer feel. The Loft has a more direct responsive feel which comes from the large monofilm area and mixed the with upper leech laminate felt like a good balance between lightweight, power and upper leech softness.
Cam rotation was easier than the Avanti, I would describe it as firm and rigid. Cams are there to induce shape and create a rigid wing which holds it shape as the gust hits. Ideally you want to add spacers to get this feel without the sail been impossible to rotate. If your racing you are pumping out of every tack and gybe and easy rotation isn't high on the priorities for me. However if its the forth race of the day I want easy rotation no pumping required please
so you have to find the balance with the spacers.
I used a Slake mast. Slake is fully supporting Loft. Gonzo and Slake did a lot of work together. Slake can reproduce a mast exactly! no other mast maker in the world can do that so you can ask Slake to print you off some Gonzo masts! The other important thing about Slake masts is the resin they use have a higher TG value meaning the mast have to get much hotter before they pop. The longer masts and high download tensions of Formula means you need a high quality mast. With Formula you tend to go a long way from the beach so breaking masts is not a option.
I sailed with four other guys and we where impressed how the sail went out of the bag. Very fast and I couldn't stop smiling
correction the cams are the regular type. I must have just assumed roller cams as when I put them on they came off easy.
