New Sail

Question
I have a old Mistral Super Light board that came with a Mistral 6.3 Progress Line sail. The sail is starting to rip and I need to replace it. But when I look online for one, none of the new sails have the same look or size.  What would be a good replacement to keep using the same mast and boom?

Answer
Hey Mike,

The look of sails is just the difference in technology from then until now. New sails have a much larger range of wind and are more user friendly in many ways. You will probably have to choose a 6.0, 6.5, or 7.0 to stay in the range of your old sail. To keep using your mast, look at the length of the mast (luff) and the stiffness rating of the mast (MCS). Look for sails that match these numbers fairly closely. Your mast may be just a bit long compared to what new sails are made for. It should still work fine as most sails are designed to use an extension to maximize the wind range of the sail. The biggest factor will be finding a sail to match the stiffness. The stiffness of the mast shapes the sail more than any other factor. To soft or too stiff and the sail will not get it's proper shape and loose performance. You have a little room to work with. Say your mast is MCS 27, ideally you would use a sail for that stiffness. But you could get away with a sail wanting an MCS 26 or 28. Going outside of this range of one stifness up or down will give you a poorly rigged sail. If I remember correctly, the mast on those older Progress sails was a fairly stiff mast. You may need to look at slalom or race type sails to find something that will work with your mast. Don't ignore checking freeride or freeride/slalom sails as these are the most user friendly sails of the new era.

Hope this helps.
Keep on sailing,
Windlover