I have 7.8, 6.2 & 5.5 Evo2 sails and find they dont rig very well using the older italian made X9 masts,

Are the Italian and Chinese made masts really very different??

Thanks

Ian 

i think the easy answer ian is yes..... even when you look at masts that hold the same imcs and curve standard (constant or flex) but hold different carbon content or are made in a different factory they are totally different in they way the sail sets. look at all the issues i had with the severnes, between blue and red to the enigma, the sail only rigged spot on and worked on the enigma, the mast it was built around...

best suggestion is take the mast from the same year of manufacture as the sail, and the recommended one for top line best performance

Hi Ian,

When I first got on NP I had the chance to use both of these masts on the 6.2m EII.The Italian made NP 430 was softer than the newer NP-made one. Initially I preferred the older Italian made one because it was gusting over 40kts and I didnt have a smaller sail... so of course the softer mast felt better on a brand new sail. With used sails, the tension gets more evenly distributed as the seams are stessed, and the result is a softer feel, so the stiffer masts dont feel so brutal.

Make sure you set the batten/cam pressure for each mast since the diameter will be slightly different. The hypercam arrangement is quite complex but it is the only system that allows simple adjustment of cam pressure while the sail is rigged. On the newer EIII sails this is even easier with the addition of a hex key tensioner internal to the bat-cam.

The way I check the cam pressure is to unzip the batten opening on the luff, and push down on the back of the cam where it connects through the sail body, with the back of my palm, to see how much pressure is required to push the cam off the mast, and how far I can push it off the mast. This gives me an indication of how much I need to tension or release the batten.

When tensioning the battens, there is a point at which further tension will not increase cam pressure- this is when the posts of the cam are pushed hard against the front ends of the slots in the sail body. At this point, further batten pressure will likely result in breaking the batten end cap. Beware of this. It can happen if the mast you are using has narrower diameter than the sail was designed for.

Aside from that the general tuning I used on the EII was to keep the cam pressure quite high on the bottom two cams, with very low tension on the top two. That allowed the top part of the sail to twist more easily and as a result it felt a bit softer.

The EII race sails really are sweet when they are rigged correctly. I have a 5.1m EII waiting for some strong wind...

when I say tensioning, this is a bastardisation of the word. technically its putting pressure on the batten when you tighten it up, not tension. I will now write 1000 times on the blackboard, "I promise not to call pressure, "tension" ever again".

I would like to see a picture of the blackboard   ;-)

Hi Chris, very handy advice on cam pressure, the Pryde cam design is quite complicated but think I got it now.

I'm fairly confident I've got the sails rigged properly, outhaul,downhaul, cam pressure etc. I'm just trying to find out from other pryde sailors  if I really have to splash out on new 400 and 430 masts to get the best out the evo2 sails.

Thanks

Ian

Hi Ian, Yep, they both work great. If you want a softer feeling sail, the old italian ones give you that. If you want a bit more stiffness then the newest X9s give you that. Thats what I found when I tested those different masts. Both work great. The current X9 430 is a great mast. Seems tougher than the older IT made ones. I used it a lot on my EIIs and now EIII 7.0.