See the proposed new RS800 sail at the RYA Dinghy Show!

by Alex Newton-Southon, RS Sailing 1 Mar 2013 06:25 GMT Stand B52, 2-3 March 2013

RS800 sail update

A decision was taken at the 2012 RS800 Nationals Class Meeting to look into the development of a new mainsail design.

One aim was to give the 800 a more current look with a square head profile and a change of sail fabric from gold to black.This was partly driven from an international appeal perspective as the class has the opportunity to build outside the UK.

The consensus of view within the meeting was also to improve the sail's usability in all conditions. It was agreed that increased performance should not be the sole reason for change, but that we should err on the side of a sail that would perform a little better than the original in light winds.

Development got underway in October 2012 with the RS Development Team, Hyde Sails and various RS800 sailors. Over the last few months we have made a number of developments to the design and compared new and old mainsails across all conditions, with a range of sailors. We have fine-tuned the square head over various prototypes and are confident we have arrived at a sail that is easy to use in all conditions, thus keeping to the overall concept of the Class.

Technical summary from Hyde Sails

With the square top - the upper- most batten moved up the sail to support the leech head corner. This increased the gapping between the battens, so the sail now has 5 battens.

The new leech profile was juggled to give some positive roach when measured from the line between the aft head point and clew. The width of the head is restricted by the target area and the need to run the roach with a positive curve. We tried several combinations of head width vs' foot length and roach profile. There is always a compromise to consider. If the head gets too big the drag will go up once the sail is overpowered and it makes gybing more difficult. Too small and the sail will perform less well in light to medium conditions.

Also the depth through the sail is controlled by similar needs. The head of the sail needs a certain amount of luff curve and seam shape to function properly across the wind range. The mast stiffness is directly responsible for the amount of depth required. The square top needs more depth to counter its own lever effect.

We have tried some detail changes to the construction of the batten pockets to reduce asymmetry in the gybe loads and also looked at the batten stiffness and shape. The overall aero shape of the sail has remained similar to the original with some changes needed to support the new profile shape.

From my observations and experience in other classes I would expect the new sail design to perform better in light to medium and be similar strong winds. However this difference will be subtle and the skill level of the sailors will no doubt mask some differences.

Mike Lennon, Technical Director, Hyde sails Ltd.

Feedback

Over the past six weeks we have encouraged as many owners as possible to try the sail and give their feedback. All comments have been positive. This is a note from Pete Barton:

A big thumbs up from me! The main does look good, not only in terms of fashion but also in terms of its set and controllability. I liked its fairly flat profile for being user friendly and low drag for heavy winds yet it has the power available in the long leach for the lighter winds. The kicker and cunno do act a little differently, as expected from a square top, and this will provide established teams an interesting (and welcome) new challenge.

Nobody should be worried that it is a massive game changer, if you didn't look up you wouldn't notice the difference! I envisage the efficient square top will make negligible difference to nose diving and that is only ever an issue in a very small percentage of conditions.

Peter Barton

The proposed new sails will be on the RS800 at the 2013 Dinghy Show before the specification change is put to a vote by the RS800 Class Association.

The time schedule, if the vote is successful, is to have new sails available in mid May 2013. RS will offer a discount on new mainsails and jibs for a specified period:

Summary of proposed 2013 RS800 sails

Mainsail
New square top sail, using the same material as the original but with black thread instead of gold. All new mainsails will come with vinyl sail numbers, national letters and flag already attached and ready for use.