Objectivity ?? Measurements ???

[Farlo]

Hi Carlos, this is true but the top of modern sails is mostly designed to release excess pressure. It's pretty obvious on some models where the whole upper part will dangle down sadly when rigged. IMHO comparing surfaces whether or not accurate gives only a very rough indication, notwithstanding other factors (design, mast, downhaul, etc).

[carlosgp5]

Yeah Farlo,I might sound dumb, but the first poster didn´t make sense to me... lenghts of luff, and boom don´t give sail area.
If I understood your post, you say that with the sail rigged and fully downhauled, the upper part, where the leach is open, would not count as sail area?
I find this subject very interesting...
For example, now severne has de Overdrive 11, and the Overdrive 11 light wind. If you get both unrigged and put on the floor one on top of other, you realize the differences in boom lenght and top width, however, both should have same area.
I´ll give it a try sometime, I´ll photograph and measure it on a Cad software, as someone gave the idea on previous post.
Cheers

You can change when rig depowers with mast choice and even amount of power available with adjustments but no matter what you do you can not alter the sails area. Rightly or wrongly it is the paramater we choose our sail`s by for that reason alone it should be measured accurately and by same process accross manufacturers.

Its not complicated.

Just measure the sail area by same method properly

[Farlo]

Hi Carlos, the upper part counts as sail area but difference in boom length, or in the overall profile of the sail, have a lot more impact, I think. And yes it is certainly possible to measure sail area properly, however it may not change our life or make sail choice easier. I guess the Overdrive and the Overdrive light wind have completely different behaviours for the same surface.

[Ken]

The basics we all want to know:

Board length, width, volume

Sail size, mast length, boom length

It seems so simple, but variations or misrepresentations do occur. Finally, Starboard got away from the "virtual volumes" on their boards and got real.

As with boards, different sails that have the same basic measurements do and should vary considerably in performance. We use them in different ways so design/performance specifics will vary based on what the designer was trying to achieve.