Developing the AC-1 Speed.
Yes we have developed a brand new sail dedicated to Speed sailing!
From today you will see images and videos from the AC-1 speed in action in Luderiz with Twan Verseput. Thank you to Raffaello Gardelli, organizer from the Speed Channel in Luderiz, also for 2021 the speed event is on.
Our brand is born from the competition scenes and all products are put under stress to donate maximum performance, does not matter for which level or discipline. We proved with Point-7 and the Point-7 Black Team, to have achieved winning results and world titles in the main world tours in wave, freestyle, long distance, and slalom. Our next challenge had to be speed.
We invited Twan Verseput to test out our AC-1 sail to see if he was happy to join our Black Team and work with us on developing a new sail from that base for the next Luderiz Speed Challenge. After testing the AC-1 he was stocked from the extra power and speed he had in his runs and decided to join straight away.
When a new rider joins the team, and a new team rider joins the brand, the motivation is always super high to start exciting new projects, and this project is what is now available also in production: The AC-1 Speed.
When you have a PWA slalom sail which is known to be one of the fastest sails on straight line, to think to make a speed version of it, can be more than half of the job done already, but to boost it to have a speed version, power ingredients needed to be added to it.
When developing a pure PWA slalom sail, you need to think to have a fast sail for the first reach, fast acceleration off the start and out of the marks, but still the sail needs to be easy to handle in the jibes and forgiving over possible waves and higher chop, and certainly agile to be able to escape from uncomfortable situations. With a speed sail the focus goes only in one direction. Maximum power. Power= Acceleration= higher average speed.
When looking at the difference between our AC-Kpro and AC-1, the only main difference is basically size of the mast sleeve. The AC-K has a 20% smaller luff sleeve against the AC-1. Making the sail even lighter and forgiving in the handling, but without loosing the nice race feeling and final speed of the AC-1. Less power to contrast in the gusts and therefore easier in harder conditions for less technical or less trained riders to achieve the highest possible performance. Having to use the AC-1 speed in easier water conditions, and in shorter runs, the horsepower of the sail could be increased without any compromise. We therefore increased the size of the sleeve in the boom area by two-digit figures. This gave straight away a boost in the acceleration and certainly that over a knot faster top speed. The wide sleeve increased the possibility to feel power through a long and wide downwind run.
The base has been re-shaped to close the gap also when fully powered. Generally, in slalom sails the base is kept a little higher to be more agile when jibing in strong wind, but in this case, we only wanted to see no air space between the board and sail base. This increased nicely the stability of the sail, allowing the stance to be more stable and continue to use 100% the power of the sail in the only position you want when you go fast.
ANDREA CUCCHI’ I remember when I tried the sail the first time, I was excited as the sail looked beautiful on the beach with this huge mast sleeve. So aggressive. Unfortunately, not on a speed water surface, I had my first run on the sail. I was on a 5.6 weather conditions on Lake Garda where the water can be 1m chop high, but you can still find some flat areas between the waves. I closed the gap, and suddenly I felt like the gear was gone and I was left behind. So much acceleration I never had in my life. I was sailing between the channel of the chop and I was sure I had never had so much power and speed in the same condition. I saw this chop at one point in front of me, and normally I would just kind of know how to tackle it, but with this sail, I was worried. From the energy I was getting from the sail, I thought…. When I hit that chop, I will fly up to the moon, I ended up unhooking to absorb it. The AC-1 speed is the real deal for speed sailing and when you will be on the right speed conditions all that extra grunt will be the fuel you need to set the records. So excited today to see already the sail blasting in the channel at over 94kmh speed with 30 knots.
TWAN VERSEPUT PRESENTS THE AC-1 Speed. Check out the video
From today follow Twans FB and instagram to see photos and videos of the action in Namibia.
