Projection 762 Help please?

It's all gone quiet on the P762 front.  Does anyone have any stories, sails on order, plans for 2010 or IRC optimisation thoughts?

They came come and crew on Big Purple anyday!!

chic,

we went from 38m2 to 48m2, for heavy wind tight reaching we do go for the smaller kite, for ease of handling, but in all other cases we use the big'un, definately deeper and faster.  Fortunately we sail with some beefy lads most of the time and the mods that i have suggested would probably only work well on a ditch like the crouch. As for handling the 48m2 in heavy airs dead downwind we havent had any control issues, so long as people are paying attention, but id say that paying attention is paramount in any boat in big winds.

If i could id have a 38m2 code zero on a furler,  a 48m2 sym and 48m2 asy

or in quatum sails lingo a R0, R3 and R6

http://www.quantumsails.com/sails/racing_sails.aspx

Hi Garth, we also have a 46sqm spinnaker which we've used in big winds without too much of an issue, but the jump to 47sqm seems to be the tipping point for us.

However, I don't think you can have it both ways - if you want a light airs runner you should go for the 47 or 48sqm and have it made from 0.5oz with light clew patching, but that's not a kite that's going to be able to cope with strong breeze. A GP kite for the Projection is going to be made from 0.75oz with heavy patching to spread the load at the clews, and it's the weight of the clew patching, webbing and rings that stops it flying properly in light airs... With the benefit of hindsight I would have had a different 47sqm kite made. 

Having seen a few ruined 0.5oz kites through the loft over the past year I wouldn't recommend going lighter for a GP kite. Seriously, I don't think the bigger kite makes us go faster when its windy, it just gets uncontrollable!

Everyone here seems to have their preference, but we all seem to go fast - we won the Autumn series here against some difficult boats and we've done ok for most of the season.

Hmm. I'm not sure about that one. For some reason I've managed to
accumulate 7 kites and each has its uses, but the ones we use the most
frequently are around 45sqm. Our newest one is 47 and my observations
are that despite technically being a GP spinnaker it's definately most
effective as a downwind sail in up to 15knots. When it gets gusty we have
little control over the direction of the boat - it's the only one that makes
the boat roll uncontrollably and it can be a pig to gybe - those 'extra
horsepower' often mean faster in the wrong direction. It's hopeless for
reaching (ie anything where there's flow over both sides of the sail), four
huge blokes on the rail aren't enough to keep the rudder in the water and
I'm convinced that the drag makes it slower than many of our smaller
kites. If you're going to go for it I'd recommend that you get a runner with
lighter patching so that it's most effective for going deep in light winds -
for everything else I've found that smaller kites are more manageable and
believe it or not, faster. Big assymetrics? I've noticed that the 762 rudder
tends to stall out more easily than the J80 which will almost sail on its
side before the rudder gives up so I'm not sure about that one either!
You'd have to be on your toes...