Maui Sails Global 5.4m

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MauiSails have three ‘wave’ ranges on offer: the Global, Legend and Ghost XT. The Global (tested here) is their power wave targeted at fast high wind sailing, all types of wavesailing and freestyle. The Legend is focused more on cross-shore riding, while the Ghost XT is essentially a lightweight version of the Legend.

On the Beach

The Global is one of the lighter sails in this test at just 3.71kg. The luff length of 425cm sits within the middle of this group, while the boom length of 177cm is one of the longest.

With virtually no pre-set shape in the battens the Global sets a little differently to most of the sails within this group, and as such looks very flat on the beach. Once loaded up the fullness pulls into the sail (in a fairly rearward position), while the front of the sail remains fairly flat.

Initially we used the sail with the ‘recommended setting’, but found it pulling hard and relatively heavy in the hands. We then added some more downhaul (which looked a lot on the beach, but was okay on the water) and the sail seemed to lighten up and work a bit better. It’s noticeable that the power is further back on the Global than on nearly all of the other sails in this group, and that the sail has a finer entry than most.

 

On the water

The Global is again quite different in feel to most of the other sails within this group. The finer entry and more rearward pull position make it more critical to sheeting angle, while the flatter unloaded profile means that the sail feels quite low on power until it loads up. Once loaded up there’s plenty of ‘grunt’ from the sail, but to be honest, with recommended settings we found it very difficult to turn this ‘grunt’ into forward drive.

With more downhaul added the sail lightened up a bit (at the cost of some bottom end power) and felt smoother. But even with this setting the Global generally felt a little heavier in the hands than most of the other sails (despite the lower material weight).

The Global has a reasonably soft, springy feel to it, coupled with a moderate power delivery. With less downhaul there’s loads of grunt once the sail loads up, yet we found it hard to turn this into early planing performance. It’s not bad, but with all that grunt in the hands we expected it to be amongst the first to plane. At the top end the rearward pull position, finer entry and softer feel ultimately limit control.

On the wave the lighter material weight and the ease at which it depowered made the sail feel quite agile and manoeuvrable. The rearward pull position was actually quite useful for snapping tighter, more back-footed turns.

OVERALL IMPRESSION

The Global is a sail with a lot of ‘grunt’, but we struggled to turn this into useful power. At the bottom end we expected to get better planing performance from it, while at the top end it was a little harder work than some of the other sails. Nevertheless, the lower material weight and ease of depowering made it feel quite agile on a waveface, and the rearward pull position gave it a more locked-in feel for flat water blasting.