Re: Well ...

From: Will Estes (westes@netcom.com-DeleteThis)
Date: Mon Oct 11 1993 - 14:21:05 PDT


Received: from hplms26.hpl.hp.com by jr.hpl.hp.com with SMTP (1.37.187.4/15.5+IOS 3.14) id AA05355; Mon, 11 Oct 93 14:28:11 -0700
Return-Path: <westes@netcom.com-DeleteThis>
Received: from netcom.netcom.com by hplms26.hpl.hp.com with SMTP (16.6/15.5+ECS 3.3+HPL1.1S) id AA29865; Mon, 11 Oct 93 14:28:49 -0700
Received: by netcom.netcom.com (5.65/SMI-4.1/Netcom) id AA16648; Mon, 11 Oct 93 14:21:06 -0700
From: westes@netcom.com-DeleteThis (Will Estes)
Message-Id: <9310112121.AA16648@netcom.netcom.com-DeleteThis>
Subject: Re: Well ...
To: matt@hpisod9.cup.hp.com-DeleteThis (Matt Yamamoto)
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1993 14:21:05 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: wind_talk@jr.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis (Windsurfing Mailing List)
In-Reply-To: <9310112050.AA15840@hpisod9.cup.hp.com-DeleteThis> from "Matt Yamamoto" at Oct 11, 93 01:50:13 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 2972      


'Matt Yamamoto says:'
> How was the trade show? I got an early report from Andrew who went up
> Wednesday and he said there weren't any really significant new products
> or designs this year.

There were a couple of pretty big innovations:

1) Neil Pryde has some really clever engineering in their new sails:

A) They have eliminated all tightening straps on the leech and
replaced them with a mechanical clipping mechanism. I was talking
to Barry Spanier about this, and he is claiming it reduces drag by
10%.

B) On the cam itself, they have devised a way to eliminate any lateral
pressure on the CAM, and thereby reduce stress and wear on the mast.
What they do is truly engineering genius: they put the camber into a
cloth pocket which then fits into the CAM. This forces the
reinforced cloth to take the lateral force into the mast rather than
the mast getting that force. Next, they put rollers on the CAM
itself, to prevent any wear from the normal turning of the CAM
around the mast.

I bitched to Barry about the shitty low-end on his World Cup sails.
His response indicated to me that he is so totally focused on the
high-end that he doesn't really care about the low-end any more. He
advised me to just get softer battens and use those in the World Cup
sails to give them a better low end. I'm thinking of writing Neil
Pryde and asking him to sell a softer set of battens as an add-on
product for every World Cup sail.

Barry said something I found really interesting: he said that if
*he* was out sailing for recreation rather than in a race, he would
only use the World Cup sails if he was on a carbon-epoxy board. If
he was on a production board, he said he would use the V8 because it
has better low end. Hmmm....

2) In a sign of things to come: F2 was showing a *production*
carbon-epoxy board. It was 9'6" and 13 lbs! They will retail for
$2,000, but I have to believe that once production quantities rise
we are going to be seeing production carbon-epoxy for less than
$1500 retail.

3) Windsights is making a big push into the Bay Area. They are
installing real-time sensors at all the major sites, so now we will
get data updated to the minute, and have one convenient number to
call to get all of the different sites.

> Did everyone give Fiberspar hell for their weak Fiberspar booms? And
> have they promised us a new, improved, unbreakable design for next year?

Yes, I sure did. They are going to increase the thickness of the
joint that is breaking. Some interesting facts here: 1) They told
me almost all the breaks have been on the 5'6" product and not the
shorter boom. They have almost no warranty repairs in the Gorge;
2) They claim that the Nautix head had very few breaks, but
apparently Nautix blew them off and refused to sell to them any
more! I sure would like to know the politics behind that story....

-- 
Thanks,
Will Estes              Internet: westes@netcom.com-DeleteThis
U.S. Computer           Saratoga, CA  95070



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Dec 10 2001 - 02:27:04 PST