How to make a kids rig

[kiwiben]

Got some old sails lying around with a main panel missing? I have discovered these are perfect for a kids rig. You basically cut the clew section off for later, Chop out a massive chunk from the guts of the sail. Chop out a bit from the luff for the boom clamp. Tape it back together with various offcuts and get a sailmaker to sew it up. Cost me $15 for a cool 2m sail that fits my smallest boom setting.

You could also chop down an old flimsy boom you surely have lying around. These can be lighter which is good.

After that the only challenge is the mast. You should have a mast lying around broken just below the join. Chop the bottom half to size if necessary, or just use the top half if your sail is that small. Then you use a RDM extension and away you go. Or do what I did, got a friendly metalworker to make a special sleeve for one of those old mast bases that needed a separate extension.

I got a little kid sailing out to sea after about 5 minutes training on land. Will mpost more photos if there is any interest...
mini sail1.jpg

mini sail2.jpg

mini sail3.jpg

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[joe_windsurfer]

north sails are either gonna love you or hate you :-)

hope u did NOT do the same with the board

what i did instead was purchase an inflatable Mistral WindGlider
much less effort and the kids get to play right away
for the adults - 20 minutes on the water and they are ready for a big longboard with the same sail and NO falling in
trick: make sure the winds are LIGHT !!!

my latest trick for myself - since winds were light all year
bought a 1990 Fanatic Ultra CAT which can handle my 10-oh and 8-oh just fine
can go out in winds 10 kph to 20 knots/40 kph on same board !!!!
NO need to wait for 15 + knots - like some of my w/s friends !!!

morale of the story = just get TOW for newbies AND yurself !!!!

all this has made me watch the SB Phantoms and what Remi is up to !!!!!

[Roger]

Hi Kiwiben and joe_windsurfer,
There is a much better solution to the Kids Rig.
Cost more.... yes, but lighter, more power, easier for the little ones to learn
higher performance (beyond beginner basics) sailing.
The Sailworks Retro Ripper sails, on special ultralight RipStick masts (RDMs here) with
kid sized booms are IMHO the way to go for ALL beginners.
Just size the rig (1.2/1.7/2.5/3.3/4.2) to the size of the sailor and the conditions.
I've taught several hundred new sailors (Age 4-75) using these rigs on Starboard Start boards
with a very high success rate, and a much higher return rate.
In the Starboard/Sailworks "A Taste of Windsurfing" we can handle up to 40 students/day and virtually
all of them can sail on their own at the end of 1/2 hour.
Roger

[kiwiben]

Where do I get theses $15 windgliders and retro ripper rigs? I'll take 3 of each

[nakaniko]

I agree Kiwiben. Imho nice work, make lighter mastsleeve, more holes for better water drainage. Disagree with boom, too thick for children. Good the mast piece if light, better a top of rdm

[joe_windsurfer]

yes roger - i would love to use "real" kid's rigs like the SW rippers
guess what ---- they cost between $250 and $350 each
and NOT very often on the used market
so, the rest of us do what we can

[kiwiben]

yeah you're right about the boom being a bit thick... must work on that because the kid gets tired hands....

[nakaniko]

But I also agree with Roger that the next step could be a proper kid rig. You give a first witness of one of the reasons, the proper thin boom tubes are hard to be done by ourselves. Me too I've done a superlight micro-sail for the children of a friend, with the top of an old sail, de-stching all reinforcement and making it as lighter as possible, but then I haven't find any idea about a kid boom.
About prices it is the same about our adult sails, for first day on the water we can use almost everything that is simply easy, then we want some more. Anyway here in Europe is possible to buy on ebay.de a lot of second-hand kid rigs, starting from cheap simple monofilm sails without any batten, up to performance sails. For example I've made a gift for the birth of the daughter of a (female) friend of mine buying a nice and even almost cheap Hot Sails MIcrofreak 0,8, having a good discount, yes a little in advance...