Old SailWorks Retro 9.5

Early in my "windsurfing career", I used to buy fully cambered sails because I was a "longboarder". As I migrate to free-ride and free-race boards, I find this is no longer necessary. My first BIG sail was a MauiSails TR-4 10m² race sail with 4 cambers. I purchased it with the 520cm mast in 2010 from Paul in CT. In 2013 I purchased a TR-6 8.4m² race sail from WindSpirit (it has the initials M.B. on it, but is NOT Martin Bertrand/Bert). 

I have had a free-race MS-2 with 2 cambers from Christophe that I had to trash - killed it in the winter on ice n snow... I liked that sail a lot. I also have a free-race GAastra Swift 10m² sail with 2 cambers from JF that I like a lot, but it is on its last legs ...

The TR-4 10m² sail was sold in August 2022 to Francois Gauthier - without the mast. I am still using that hard top mast with the GA Swift. Bert is interested in this mast - to use with a large Severne sail ...

Now ... the title of this post is SW Retro 9.5 and not a full discussion on large sails, aye ? 

Well, I felt like I needed to give some background before I critique the sail ...

Claude thinks the sail is from 2004, which is almost 20 years ago. He says he has used it about that many times as well ... It has NO cambers and 7 battens ...

In that picture it looks like it should have more downhaul - I am at 525cm fully downhauled and am NOT at the marking on the sail --> next time I will try with more ...

I tightened the battens before the above picture, but I am unable to get all the wrinkles out between the bottom 2 battens. I am using a SailWorks JoyStick 490cm/75%. Thanks to Réné for that one !!

... and therein lies a little surprise ... This sail has a luff of 525cm and suggests a 490 mast !! The second surprise for me was ... how easily it downhauled !?!
My experience with SW sails has been that they were mofo's to downhaul.
You had to crank or get yourself one !!!

This sail has no "tack strap" nor handle on the outside of the bottom of the luff for downhauling. No place to tuck your excess downhaul line and no strap to keep bottom flap of the luff tight to the mast. All NO biggies, but the "tack strap lacking" surprised me.

Let's see if we can determine the year.
Did I pay too much for a 20 year old sail ?? $250

This SailWorks Retro 9.5 has clear monofilm - must be even older

Based on this ... https://www.sailworks.com/previous-year-specifications and the monofilm window and the yellow strips on my 9.5 ... 

I am guessing my Retro 9.5 is from 2005 ...

All in all, I do like the sail and $250 was what I was ready to easily pay in order to have a backup sail for my GA Swift 10-oh ... 

My test session in the video above scored a 9.5/10 and the missing 0.5 was cuz I did not put my front foot in the strap #$%^&*( L😄L

Oh yeah... one caveat ... The mast cap does not always go on or come off easily and the top of the luff can be a little finicky or difficult to get past the "hard bend", but I am "used" to this with some of my old sails ...

Here's a vid with sound and a sailboat in the back lol: