North Unveil Warp 2011

North release their 2011 Racing Weapon. Here's the Press Release.

Developing the best racing sail on the market means a lot of work. Only with passion and long lasting experience you can reach this aim. Improving it for the next season is more than that, it is actually the painstaking search for details we could enhance. 

It makes us kind of proud that we did it again, so here are our refinements for 2011:

1. Moderate CUTAWAY.CLEW

By purpose we use only a moderate cutaway at the clew. On the one side a massive cutaway at the clew increases the comfort (as the cross batten then can flex off). The disadvantage of such a big cutaway though is that it reduces the acceleration power (due to the flexing of the cross batten). Since you want the maximum possible acceleration in a racing sail Kai uses just a moderate cutaway on the Warp F2011.

 

2. INSTANT.ROTATION

Acceleration as the most important fact to win races is especially essential after jibing around the buoy. But acceleration is only half the secret. The other factor is how fast the sail rotates. The faster the sail rotates the faster you can start accelerating again. One of the secrets of the Warp is our Hyper.Cam which makes it the easiest rotating racing sail on the market. For 2011 Kai went even one step further now: a special batten profiling of the Cross.Batten enables much faster shifting of the battens.  

In addition Kai has reduced the swing weight in the boom area by reducing the clew reinforcements and by using a lighter Cross.Batten. With this the momentum loss during rotation is again reduced. This is especially evident in the larger sizes. Now the new 9.3 rotates as fast as last years 8.5.

 

3. MINI.PROTECTOR

Ferraris Formula 1 cars do not come with the same bumpers like Fiat street cars. So why a racing sail should have the same protector size as a regular sail adding unnecessary weight? This is the reason why we have radically reduced the protector size to the absolute minimum necessary.

CYRIL MOUSSILMANI ON THE NEW WARP

"The last year's WARP was a revolution regarding its superfast acceleration, an attribute that is for sure the essential factor for winning races. The Instant.Rotation concept, NorthSails has developed for 2011 is definitely the next step (...) and it works perfectly. The whole sail is rotating even faster now and the result is better acceleration after jibing and therefore a lot more performance. I currently don't know what to improve next year, as it feels outstanding! But I am sure, we'll find some details again!"