AC-1 LTD 024 | The Development
It’s always the biggest challenge to develop especially a racing sail. It’s a sail which gets very used by riders, windsurfers who spend lots of time on the water each day and that know the sail inside out. They get used to the sail; they learn to trim each millimeter of it. The expectation of a new version is that it must be better and often the first run on the sail it what gives them the first impression if the sail is better. Therefore, being better on the first run without having had time to tune it as their previous model, which has been studied in each corner to get the best out of it, the sail must be a lot better.
We have always been known for our racing sail to be fast and comfortable when wind started kicking in. We always worked in making the sail easy especially for when the conditions start to be really racing conditions. Meaning that the sail had to have a bit more power as when you use it in racing, but in the last years we had worked in bringing all this racing performance to be very friendly. The reason why we even were able to develop the only racing sail with 3cams.
For 2024 the idea was to get finally the power out of the sail in light wind to also have a higher acceleration when the sail would not be normally powered as it would have liked in normal medium to stronger racing wind conditions.
We developed a new profile along the cross batten of the sail, which is the second batten counting from the bottom. The batten that goes across the boom. We increased the deepness of the profile right behind the first entry of the profile along the area of the rider’s stance. This gave a huge boost to all sizes in acceleration and speed in lighter winds. It increased insanely the drive at low gears and as a surprise it stabilized a lot the control of the sail on the board. It increases the stability of the front part of the board over hard conditions.
This change had opened a second development possibility to the AC-1 LTD. Reducing the higher part of the outline of the sail. The stability of the new profile allowed to feel that there was no more need of a wider head to stabilize the outline and help with power. This could have been now reduced to a smaller area bringing immediately 2 advantages which will be felt on the first run. The first being a much lighter weight. The second which is most important in terms of performance, a total steady aerodynamic rig in the downwind, making it super easy to keep a very high speed as the comfort increase supremely. The areas which have been reduced starts over the boom area, so the boom length and power to the fin to rail the board nicely, has not been touched. Finding the right cut had been a challenge, and we went testing each possibility by reducing 0.5cm at a time to get to the best point.
This is now the reason why of the new sizes. Sizes are now not as important as it used to be. The sails are developed to work in a specific condition as their wind range capacity has been increased a lot. For example, if you take the new 8.8, you will not feel the need of a 9.2, and can be handle easy till the wind is almost really powered for a 7.8, where you could even realize that from 7.8 you could just size down directly to a 6.0.
We are pretty sure that the acceleration in the sling shot of the smaller sizes will impress all the speed sailors. The power of the bigger sail and easy light feeling will finally be the dream sail of every slalom lover.
Soon in your hands to start a successful racing season, whether at the PWA, Defi Wind, on your GPS or just against your friends!
Andrea Cucchi ITA1
