Test Review - 07/11/2012

2013 Naish Chopper Medium









Our first Test Review for this slightly oddball sail is in and we are very thankful to Jon for taking his time getting this one to us, as he has now got to know the sail and has gone further than those 'first impressions'. You can find out more about the Chopper sail by Clicking Here.. after you have read the review :) !

Pricing is currently (November 2012) S £479, M £499 , L £539.00 and XL £569. A Naish 370cm RDM 60% Carbon mast is £319.00 and their 90% £439.00.

Jon is an experienced wave sailor and surfer, uses Naish Boxer sails (so he is well versed in Low Aspect Ratio) and weighs in at approx. 62k (10 stone).

 Naish sell the Chopper as a very tuneable 4 batten wave sail for lighter
weight sailors where all the "surplus" sail area has been removed. The idea
being this results in a very compact, tuneable sail to which normal m2
sizing doesn't apply, so Naish have adopted a Small, Medium, Large and X-Large sizing system, roughly equating to normal 4.2, 4.7, 5.3 and 5.7m but with overlap between the sizes..I think lots of sailors get too hung up on choosing the "right" size sail for any given conditions when really with technique and tuning it should be possible to get out there and rip most days with a minimum amount of kit. All of the sail sizes rig on a 370cm mast too, keeping down costs and the amount of gear you need to lug around. 

Looking for a "One Rig" solution to the vast majority of conditions I sail
in:  4.2-5.3m weather with waves, I was most interested in the "medium" size
which I hoped would comfortably cover 4.7-5.0m weather and perhaps be OK in 4.2m weather too, so in theory pretty much every south coast wave session
covered by one sail and one mast... 

First impressions on having the sail rigged on the beach was 'it looks nice',
albeit quite unusual due to the compact shape, but when picking the rig up
the weight saving from use of high tech fibre and also losing a fair amount
of surplus sail cloth was immediately apparent - by far the lightest rig of
its size I have ever felt!  And actually lighter than most 3.5m rigs I have
had.
On the water in powered 5.0m weather and the lightweight feel continued. The
power is pretty low down and back which is what I like and the compact shape
made it feel like there was pretty much nothing going on above head height
at all! Fiddling around with the down haul I was able to keep planing even when the wind dropped to 5.8m weather, so it's very tuneable and I think the same would apply at the top end.

I think the best way to describe the overall feel of the sail is that it
feels like the "best bits" of several different sails sizes put together (in
a good way!).. For the "Medium" size that's the weight and responsiveness of
a 4.0 on the wave and in transitions with the power of 5.0 in a straight
line. The overall feel is quite springy, which won't be to everyone's taste
and the light weight is a bit disconcerting at first as it doesn't feel like
you have much in your hands at all and you ought to be underpowered.

In short, as a very tuneable, light, "one size fits all" wave sail its
looking pretty good. Cons? Definitely not a general freeride/blasting sail
or for heavyweight sailors who like plenty of grunt in a wavesail
(definitely not for lovers of EZZYS for example) ..but then Naish never
claim any of these attributes, so in my view it does pretty much everything they
say it will.

Reviewed by Jon Loomes

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