There is a lot of discussion on online forums about the virtues of new vs old windsurfing gear. This section is dedicated to highlighting the differences that you must consider when rigging and sailing using vintage gear.

You might have noticed that modern sailors on modern gear have their harness lines very close together on the boom...maybe only 6 inches or less apart. But if you look back on how vintage gear sailors have their harness lines they are often up to 2 feet apart ! The reason for this is because on a vintage sail; as the wind picks up the Centre Of Effort moves backwards. As such the sailor also needs to move backwards to balance the change. Thus old school / classic sailboard sailors slide down the harness line toward the end of the boom as the wind picks up. In comparison - modern sails do not have a change in the Centre Of Effort so the sailor stays in one position - usually more forward and vertical than an old school windsurfer.

Also I just had to mention this observation. The 80's harness lines were a simple velcro arrangement with all the brands following the same basic principle of attaching your harness lines to the boom and allowing you to adjust and replace the rope length. My challenge t modern gear designers is how come so many new harness line systems require you to pull the end of your boom off to install them and once the harness rope wears or breaks you have to throw the system out ?  This doesnt seem like 40 years of progress. Now I do understand there are adjustable and replaceable system available but the difference is that in the 80's ALL systems were like that. By example ... last week I set my entire Mistral Take-off rig up in about 2 minutes (yes even with the tie-on boom - which I hate) but it then took me 10 minutes to pull it apart and fight to get the modern harness lines off my other boom and then re-install them on my Take-Off boom. If I had some of the 80's velcro ones there would have been no dissassembly required and I could have had them on in about a minute.

Modern sails require A LOT of downhaul. In fact once you get the downhaul set correctly on a modern sail you hardly need any outhaul at all. In many cases you might only be stretching the sail with outhaul a couple of centimetres. Vintage sails on the other hand need both large amounts of downhaul AND outhaul. When rigging a vintage sail, alternate applying a bit of downhaul then a bit of outhaul. You might need to do this 3 times. Expect to have to stretch the sail up to 30 centimetes in the case of old soft sails with the outhaul.

WARNING when de-rigging a vintage sail (especially a dacron/mylar composite) release the downhaul and outhaul in increments. If you release either of these in one go the sail will distort and potentially tear the mylar away from the dacron. You had to be mindful of this even when these sails were new, but with 40 year old glue holding that mylar to the dacron and most sails already having some delamination you want to avoid doing anything that will stress them more than neccessary.

One thing you will hear from a lot of sailboarders is that new sails are much better than vintage sails.  I think it is worth discussing this further. The truth is that most modern sails dont work very well on vintage long boards because the COE of these sails is further forward and requires you to stand in a forward leaning upright stance. Vintage longboards have their footstraps much further back than modern boards so you need to be able to rake your sail back to even get into the footstraps. (IE you want a sail that has the COE further back)....you guessed it vintage sails (pre 1995). 

Apart from changes in contruction materials; what are the practical difference between newer and vintage sails ?

1/ The COE stays static in new sails and moves back in vintage sails - this significantly impacts both your stance and how far back you can get on your board.

2/ New sails have a loose leech (back of the sail) which means they release the wind in heavy gusts thus giving you a wider wind range. You can take a modern 7sqm meter sail out in 20 knots which would be impossible with a similar vintage sail. Typically a vintage 5.5 or 5.0 would be the sail of choice.

3/ Vintage sails are more powerful, especially in light winds. They do not release any wind when they get hit with a gust. This is great when sailing in optimum conditions but can be a problem when sailing in overpowered conditions as the tight leech design can actually increase drag.

4/ Vintage sails made with dacron and even dacron/mylar composites are more tear resistant and are resistant to aging compared to todays monofilm sails. (Even though you hear about folks complaining that there dacron/mylar composite sails are delaminating, the fact that they still exist says something - you wont find any 40 year old monofilm sails because sunlight damages the material making it brittle, combined with the fact that the monofilm is easily damaged by fins and other sharp objects slicing through it)

5/ Weight is and interesting one, there is no doubt that those vintage sails can be heavy when they are wet, but at the same time an old dacron sail without and battens is pretty light when it is dry.  Overall a modern dry monofilm sail  is compareable to a vintage dacron/mylar sail when it is dry. But once the dacron gets wet it tends to absord the water compared to the monofilm which repells it.

There is no question, modern booms are superior to vintage booms. This is mainly due to the fact that modern booms clamp onto the mast without needing to be tied on (like the one in the picture). The old tie-on booms were difficult to get tight and were the cause of a broken mast more than once. 'nuff said !!!!

Note: Because todays sails have generally shorter booms it can be difficult to find a long boom (>250cm). I have one sail (1982 Mistral 5.7 that requires a 260cm boom). For this one sail I have an old tie-on boom that I use. For my other 30+ sails I have 2 modern booms that I use. Chinook Sport 130-190cm and Chinook Sport 180-240cm. Both are tough inexpensive booms that work on both SDM and RDM masts without need for a shim.