It was once said by the 13 times World Champion
Bjorn Dunkerbeck ”A good sail rigged bad, is
like a bad sail rigged good, but if you’ve
got a good sail rigged good, its going to be very
nice!”
The moral of all this is that to have the most
fun windsurfing, it is important to make sure that
your equipment is both suitable for you and also
rigged properly.
The steps below should guide you through the very
basics of rigging a sail. We will be examining sail
tuning in more detail in a later issue (you may also
want to check out our David and Goliath article from
the July issue).
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The picture shows the four
components that you will need; mast, sail,
boom and mast extension/base.
It is important
that your mast, boom and extension are of
suitable length to fit the sail as they are
all available in a selection of different sizes
to suit sails from 25.m to 12.5m! |
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If you are lucky enough to have
purchased a sail that is less than about 4 years
old, it is likely to have some form of trim guide. The picture shows that on
this sail, the guide advises a luff of 389cm (which is a 370cm mast with 20cm
extension to give the closest match).
It also recommends setting the boom to
151cm (your boom should be marked with length settings to match this). Most
rigging guides are fairly accurate, especially
when using all components from the same manufacturer. |
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Roll out the sail and sleeve the mast from
the bottom. The life of your sail will be greatly
extended if you take to crease the monofilm as
little as possible whilst doing this. You must
ensure that your mast is securely located into
the top of the sail.
It is also worth checking
at this point that your 2 piece mast has
not come apart during the rigging procedure.
Sometimes the mast can come apart a small way
which can cause it to snap when downhaul is
applied. |
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Insert your mast extension, making sure that the both the extension and the mast
are free from sand. If there is any sand in there, make sure that you clean it
thoroughly before proceeding. If you do not you will probably need Geoff Capes
to help you de-rig!
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You must now downhaul the sail. We recommend
pulling on approx 70% of the required downhaul
at this stage and then pulling the rest on
after you have outhauled the sail.
The sail
will be easier to downhaul with outhaul applied
and the boom is likely to be easier to attach
before the boom cut out tightens up from
applying full downhaul. |
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Secure the boom at the clamp in the necessary way. Be sure to check that the
rope is fully hooked on to the clamp. The picture shows how the rope can sit
only half on which is likely to cause the boom to fall off a later stage!
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Tighten the clam. The clamp should be tight enough to provide a very firm fit
to the mast but beware that over tightening may crush your mast. The clamp would
normally take about 50-60% of your strength to clamp up. |
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Most modern booms now have some method of attaching the outhaul similar to the
one shown in the picture. Both ends of the rope are secured to the boom and the
out haul is attached simply by threading the loop of rope through the eyelet
of the sail and then hooking it back onto the boom as illustrated in the pictures. |
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Apply outhaul until the sail reaches the end of the boom (remember that you have
already set your boom to the required length for the sail). Applying the outhaul
may take some force so it is best to sit on the floor and use your foot against
the end of the boom to tension the sail. Secure the end of rope by applying several
half hitches (as shown in the picture) to ensure that if the cleat fails, the
rope will not slip out. |
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It’s now time to flex your muscles
and pull that last bit of downhaul on. Make
sure you pull the sail right down to the mast
base so that there is no gap left.
If you struggle to pull on enough downhaul,
you can buy different forms of ‘rig
pullers’ from your local windsurfing
shop that will make the job easier.
A useful trick is to tie a bowline in the
end of the rope and put your hand through
it in the way shown in the picture. This
will stop the rope from digging into your
hand when pulling on the downhaul.
It is also very important that you use your
legs to pull on the downhaul rather than your
back ensuring that your back is kept straight
at all times. |
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Once your downhaul is applied, you can
stow the excess rope neatly within the mast
base. |
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If you have done everything right, your rig
should look something like this! You can see
that there are no creases in the sail, the battens
are pulled back from the mast (rather than all
being stuck around the side of it) and the leach
is slightly loose at the top of the sail. |
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The final step is to stand the sail up
and check that it feels OK on the beach and
that the boom height is set somewhere between
chest and chin height. |
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