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| Clik here for the 2011 sneak peek, including the specifications! |
UK Windsurf Magazine recently put the KA Koncept through its paces. We're pleased to note that it earned itself nothing but the highest praise. The article can be found in April's edition of the print version of the mag.
Here's what they said.
Background
KA is an Australian brand and anyone who knows speedsailing will know that they are currently holding the top-spot on the GPS Speedsurfing circuit with two riders clocking over 50 knots peak speed. The Koncept was originally designed as a speedsail but its mix of power and control also make it great for slalom.
At a glance
The Koncept is a classic looking sail with 3 cams, 7 battens and a moderate-width sail luff. It is well-built, out of quality materials and looks like it will last.
Rigging
It was easy to rig up and tune with accurate measurements printed on the sail. It fits onto a 460 mast. Unfortunately a KA-specific mast was unavailable; however, teaming it up with another brand mast still enabled it to reach its potential.
On the water
The Koncept was the smallest sail in this test at 7.5 but it still managed to keep up with the bigger sails in terms of bottom end power. It feels light and controllable in the hands with the power feeding in smoothly and progressively. Blasting along, the Koncept handles the gusts exceptionally well and has a good wind range, which is most impressive at the windier end of the scale where it always stayed well behaved and easy to use.
This ease of use meant that you felt confident in anything and can power your board up to some impressive top speeds.
This is a seriously fast sail in a straight line.
When it comes to turning, the light balanced nature of the sail made it feel almost throw-about, the cams rotated smoothly and you were then quickly powering off in the opposite direction with great ease.
Peter Weitenberg, from KA, says: "Set the sail quite deep", touching the boom, for best performance. Don't over- downhaul the sail, as you will lose too much drive from the leech. Draft is locked and forward so don't have the harness lines too much back on the boom.
Summing up
Very manoeuvrable, easy to use and extremely fast. Brings an excellent level of plug & play to competitive speed/slalom sailors and freeracers alike
Melbourne sailor and recent Koyote convert, Michael Green, was kind enough to do a thorough appraisal of his new Koyote 7.4 and send us his impressions.
Details:
Imagine a drunken night where the KA Koncept goes on a bender and scores a one night stand with a KA Kult... the end result nine months later is the KA Koyote!
There’s no denying its pedigree here... the pure speed of the Koncept and the solid “built for wave” construction of the Kult are clearly obvious in the Koyote’s design. But unlike its parents, the Koyote offers a great non-technical all-rounder with heaps of grunt and oodles of control.
First Impressions:
Looking at the weekend forecast... bugger-all wind (welcome to Autumn), I picked up a red 7.4 Koyote... not really knowing what to expect. I’d seen only a few around, and when my current sails started to get a bit long in the tooth, I thought why not try one out and see how they rate...
If I’m gonna be honest, what drew me to this sail in the first place was the graphics! These sails (particularly the black/silver) look hot!!
Closer inspection drew out a few more characteristics...
Firstly the sail is solidly constructed, with cross-ply throughout. Although slightly heavier than standard panels, some really clever panel assembly means the weight difference is negligible.
Secondly there’s a lot of sail area down low- right where you want it.
After spending about 20 minutes drooling over the pretty shiny bits, it was time to hit the water!
On the water:
One word... WOW!
I expected a sail that big would be a bit of a handful but what got me was how light the rig was. Positioning into a water start, it felt like a small wave sail until it powered up...then WOOOO-HOOO!! This sail had some considerable grunt. Power was low and forward but it was extremely controllable. Gusts were handled beautifully and unlike most times I crack out a big sail there was no time where the scale moves from contol to chaos!!
A couple of hours in marginal conditions 5-15 knots had me convinced that this is a pearler of a sail. So much so that the next week, I replaced my entire quiver!
Thumbs Up:
- Australian designed and supported
- Great power down low
- Light feel and control- having muscled some pretty big sails in my time, I couldn’t get over how light this sail felt. In particular the 7.4 felt like my old 5.2... really easy to throw around.
- Solid build and construction
- Great graphics
Thumbs Down:
Not much to say here... these sails are awesome. The two things I noticed are not really to do with the sails themselves but probably more to do with the rigging characteristics of my previous quiver of sails. On the bigger sizes (eg 7.4 and up), the SDM Mast can “stick” on the reinforcing inside the mast tip. This is due to the curve induced by the luff sleeve.
The other thing to watch, (and one again it is probably my fault due to my previous sail quiver) is that your 2 piece sdm can separate as you are threading the luff sleeve. Because there’s a bit more curve than I’m used to, there’s a bit more resistance as the mast is threading. The mast is held in there pretty tight and the pressure of the curve means there’s a chance that as you are getting the mast all the way into the tip, the mast can come apart by 5-10 mm at the joint. I did this on my first two rigging attempts before working out that I need to put the mast over my knee about 75 cm from the tip and bunch the sail up as much as I could.
Overall:
A great allrounder... fast light and powerful. Maybe not suitable for the super speedies, but for those that like a bit of bash and crash and a bit of flat water blasting, this sail holds up perfectly...
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