The Lightwind-Beast development

I get many emails on how to make catamarans more effective for lighter winds. We can see many sails which is not so efficient. It has power, but cannot go forward fast. I have seen several cases on different regattas that the boat is flying a hull in really low wind, , but was very very slow. It means it has too much drag.

This whole light wind passion started several years ago, when we bought our Tornado. We have lots of light wind days on Lake Balaton. I have started to think how to pimp her. Now let's see what was done in the last two years.

Europa 30 Bestia - the mid-genoa

"Bestia" (HUN 12) is another Europa 30 we are working on. This boat has already a set from us, which was made last year. The inventory contains the genoa, the mainsail, and a small jib. It turned out that the gap is too big between the jib and the genoa. The task was to make a mid-genoa which perform best from 4-6 beaufort.

3D view of "Bestia" sails

Europa 30 Johanna - the mainsail

The Europa 30 class is a really Hungarian class, it contains really different boats so the class rules use the KLR formula to make the class more unified. Our sails are quite successful in this class. The first set was made in 2012 for the boat called "Fétis" ( HUN 16) and the second generation came in 2014-15.

Johanna with the old sails

1D Inside - Chat with the CEO

A little Q-A with our CEO, Panka about 2015.

Favourit project:

The Formula16 sail optimization before the Europeans. It was a tough project, but we did it in time and its result was visible immediately. I could move on the white table for the last time in this period because of my baby bump ;).

1D Inside - Chat with the Loft manager

A little Q-A with our loft manager, Deni about 2015.

Favourit project:

For sure,  the Optimist project. The road from the talking to the first generation sails was a great fun. It is a continuous work. We started the designing process with my experience from coaching, I was fully involved in the testing and tuning process, so I feel this project very close to me.

It was a great challenge to compare the materials and designs. Small boat, big challenge.

Photo: Lászlófy Csaba

F16 Optimization - CHP2k16 Jib

Our F16 sail optimization started around late May, early June 2015 for the Europeans. I have started to write another post about this project it turned out to have different posts to the different sail types.

Let's start it with the jib. The reason I have chosen this sail to start with is very simple. The last version got finished just right before Xmas and headed straightly to France and participating on the Martinique Cata Raid. It was a quite quick project for this sail, the time was far too short for the right and full analysis, we had to built the jib in an absolutely short time.

By the way, the guys, Emmanuel Le Chapier and Théo Constance won the F16 class and got 4th overall, fighting against the F18s.