Its been discussed a little about windsurfing sails which are stayed from the top rather than at the boom with the benifit of staying at the top being able to reduce not so much the twist at the top but the bending off at the top. The stay system on the IF is overall good as it provides a roll bar for safety and that design using the windsurfing sail is no doubt pretty good as is in high winds.

What Im hoping to try one of these days is a system which uses the current boom area stays but also adds a line from the end of the rear beam to the top of the sail. There would be an independently controlled line on each side of the sail. This picture: shows a test of a rope added to the left side of the boat in the picture and you can see the sail being pulled over to a simulated windward in the picture. The picture shows the connection on the rear beam.

In my quick experiment, it looked like a 2:1 leverage would be good for this. I was thinking about putting a small rope loop at the very top of the sail and the pull down lines would be 1/16 inch diamter stainless steel cable. Im thinking the 2:1 leverage would come from a block mounted on the end of the rear beam and also, the cam cleat would be mounted on the end of the rear beam. A single rope would go to the pilot who could pull in to affect the droop and twist at the top of the sail and also pull up to release the cleat.

Anyone tried something like this? FYI, I think in high winds, I would not even rig it. In high drag conditions where you cant get the speed up to make the rear down force foil work, this boat just doesnt perform that well regardless. However, in low drag conditions where you can get the rear down force foil to work, I think this could allow a smaller sail to be used and some possible speed improvements..

By the way, seems the msn forum wont allow you to log in to post.. Any suggestions for a good free forum?

How much do you think you'll gain buy makeing it adjustable. Like you say it will be used in light winds and on your biggest sail.

Interesting concept but why even make it adjustible? Standing rigging should suffice but maybe not all the way to the top of the mast. I would think some twist off is beneficial.

I use a 550 cm all carbon windsurfing mast. In winds into the 40s, I've been told that the top half bends to horizontal. An amazing piece of tecnology creating loads of stability, but there are times when I'd trade some of that for a bit more speed.

I got to try it yesterday with a 7.6m**2 sail with an unstiffened 460 cm mast. I had the tip pull on only one side and before sailing, you could see that it put an "S" shape in the top batten - ie, it inverted the batten so that the sail camber went the wrong way near the mast.

It was real light winds but it felt like to me that when I was on the tack which had the rope keeping the tip from bending off, the sail would not get into "5th gear". Ie, I think the tip pull possibly made things a little slower. I think the same sail with a stiffened mast would have been faster.

Im still going to give it a try with my 9.0 which is what I normally would have used in this wind. I think the hook in the top batten is possibly what hurt things so maybe the 9.0 will behave differently.

As I've gone to shorter rear planks, the Flyer has surprisingly become more stable, forgiving, easier to handle. This seemed counterintuitive until I realised I was making the craft more like a windsurfing board, for which of course the sail system was designed. Is it faster? I doubt it. Will I try a 5 footer? Probably. Is it even more fun? Yep.

I tried this three years ago...IF hiked so bad it was impossible to keep it within control...Ended up twisting the front plank until it snapped...And drove back home discusted with the IF...