woensdag 23 november 2011

Hotsails freestyle sail development p.3


The Design Part. As I do a study graphic design I needed to get involved with this design. There are a few made by Hot and a few by me.

Hopefully some wind in the upcoming days to do some testing!


Hot sketch 1.



Hot sketch 2.



Paul sketch 1 - I used the light stuff in the top. This is to expensive also Hot demanded to have the logo in full version in the top.



Paul sketch 2 - I put the logo in and also put the logo on the mast sleeve. This would cause the look to be a bit more agressive. These are just some colours I tried. Especially with print stuff you can do every colour you can imagine. I also included my padding design at the mastbase ;). Just a try, Hot is not making this "YET"! ;)



Paul design 3 - just an option



Notes that Tom made for the actual making of the sail. These were my first designs. I did not mentioned high load spots and stuff that need more reinforcement because of high pressure.




Hot / Paul final design - Hot made this final design. As you can see Hot took some stuff from my designs and made this sick final design. I like it a lot, maybe some strange sick colours if the sail will be in production. 

For now 'note' that the sail is a prototype and it is not sure this will be a production sail!!!




maandag 21 november 2011

The Fog

There's a lot of fog at the moment. Trying some timelapses with my new camera. Here some
test shots.










Photos: Paul Zeper

donderdag 17 november 2011

Hotsails freestyle sail development p.2

Check out the detailed pictures of the new Hotsails Freestyle pro 4.8.

foot - clew angle, allmost straight
clew patch
Loose leech / twist
profile / battens slightly more than half way over the mast
First batten above the boom
bottom batten
small dacron panel in the front of the sail


maandag 14 november 2011

Hotsails freestyle sail development p.1

I compared 3 hotsails sails. The Bolt 4.7, Firelight 5.0 and the new Freestyle pro 4.8 (no production sail yet). As you see immediately

the firelight is a bit bigger, 5.0, but in this report I will only look at the shaping and how the sails look on land. To be clear, all sails are

rigged for freestyle purpose, so not for wavesailing. With freestyle we want power, control with perfect handling for especially ducking.


When is a sail good for ducking? Well, when you duck a sail the sail should stay as neutral as possible. Lets say you duck with a camber

sail. When you throw the sail behind you de camber will flip to the other side giving the sail more swing and you'll throw it in the water

immediately. So we want some profile for power, but not to much.

Besides the ducking abbilities it must be light and easy to handle. Well all 3 sails are light. The firelight is the lightest production wavesail

at the moment. The Bolt is the 4 batten new school freestyle wave and the Freestyle pro s a 4 batten full monofilm sail that felt pretty

much the same as the firelight. I will not weigh the sails as that is a bit B@##SH@#@ in my opinion. It is the feeling especially on the water.


The Bolt

The Bolt is fully x-ply, making the sail a lot softer than monofilm sails. The bottom batten ends above the boom. Because of this the whole

sail twists. I can tell a bit more about the sail as I'm allready using it for more than 2 years now. To keep it short, some feautures with

okay / good / awesome.

- Getting planing: awesome

- Power: awesome

- Ducking: good

- Light on the water: okay

- Handling: good


The Bolt is pretty good, but as the moves get bigger and more technical, we (the Hot freestyle PWA team) demanded a new sail that was

even better. A sail where you don't even have to duck to do a massive kono or burner (not possible). So we came out with the Freestyle pro.


profile of the new Hotsails Freestyle pro

Freestyle pro

Okay, no water experience yet but rigged it an checked every detail. First, the construction is super light. Hot used the same mast sleeve as

on the Firelight. No OX-webbing, so it will not survive a mast breakage or reef walking experience as good as the OXwebbing mastsleeves.

But it is light and stiff. Besides the light sleeve the sail is allmost a 100% monofilm. Monofilm is not only light as you have it in

different thinckness, it is also stiff. Monofilm can give you a super stiff and direct feel.

Rigged the FSPro is very thight. The top has a lot more tension than the Bolt and the top two battens are pulled thighter away from the mast

to. Only the bottom batten has some profile for the power. There is a small stroke of dacron in the front of the sail. This will give you

some forgiveness and an easier built up. What does that mean? When you duck the sail and crab it on the other side of the boom the dacron

absorbes some wind and than you can push out to do you move. No dacron would mean instant power and a bigger chance of getting blown

of your board.

Conclusion for now, stiff, direct, light. It will be more stable than the Bolt, but don't know if it will plane as fast. It seems that the sail is going to be

better in ducking and you'll probably also get a higher top speed than with the Bolt. It is definately weaker.


Batten tension of the Firelight

Firelight

The Firelight is the new super light wavesail. It feels light and it looks light. Super detail and some really nice exotic materials. But I don't care!

How will it be for freestyle? At the moment there is about zero wind and zero degrees in Holland so I can just tell what I see.

The firelight has a lot of profile. It looks powerfull. The two bottom battens have some seamshaping, so fast planning guaranteed. The sail

feels really light, but don't know how it will feel if the wind will fill the sail. I think the handling will be easy, but the ducking will be harder. Like

the camber example. I think the sail has to much shaping for freestyle.

One more thing is the line from the clew to the mastbase. With the Bolt it's straight and with the FSpro allmost straight. The Firelight has a lot

more square meters under the boom. So also for ducking maybe more difficult.

Conclusion: hard one, can't really tell, feels light, will plane fast, questionmark for ducking.



I think this is it for now. Nex time less text more compare photo's and enjoy your sneak preview of the new Hotsails Freestyle pro.


donderdag 10 november 2011

New Camera test

A day on the road true The Hague with my new camera. Not a lot of testing yet. Have to clear up my mind before getting really creative again. This is just a post to keep things going. Enjoi!







woensdag 9 november 2011

Beats&Pieces

Last friday Beats&Pieces was happening. It was a great succes with around 200 different people that showed up and checked out the pieces and listened to the music. Up to the next one.

Thanks to all the Artists:

Art: Robin Leevel, Caro Butters, Wairtistic, Jut & Jul, en Setik.

Dj's: Mike Jungerius, Vincent-Paolo, Mr Blonde, Paulsebastian & Teenageluck