what to choose

[<jamis>]

I am an beginner intermediate. I am planning to buy a light wind board and my 2 options are AHD GT75 or FD68. Both are wide boards and I heard a lot of good things about GT75 early planning and top end speed ratings. Any way my problem is I'm not sure whether GT75 (which is my favorite) will be too fragile for my level of sailing or not. I can sail in harness no problem with straps and tacks, no jibe yet. I'm planning also to get a 6.5 and a 8.5 GTX for those boards. What would you suggest me to get for both sails and boards. For 8.5 I'm going to buy an ignition 75 mast. Some friends of mine suggested me to get a 8.5 Nitro4 and %100 carbon ignition mast but I feel like it's almost impossible for my level to use a Nitro. They say Nitro and RS in above 8sqm sails feel lighter and better than a GTX or other similar sails. Is this true and what would you suggest me for 8.5 sail? I'm 70 kg. and pretty quick learner. I don't want to invest in an average board which will not give me good sensation in a short period of time. On the other hand FD's use protec technology which gets the board less fragile. Is there any way to protec the nose of the board (other than deviator). For example a supplemental second layer of something added by the owner?
For any advice thanks in advance.

[sukhdev]

quote: I am an beginner intermediate. I am planning to buy a light wind board and my 2 options are AHD GT75 or FD68. Both are wide boards and I heard a lot of good things about GT75 early planning and top end speed ratings. Any way my problem is I'm not sure whether GT75 (which is my favorite) will be too fragile for my level of sailing or not. I can sail in harness no problem with straps and tacks, no jibe yet. I'm planning also to get a 6.5 and a 8.5 GTX for those boards. What would you suggest me to get for both sails and boards. For 8.5 I'm going to buy an ignition 75 mast. Some friends of mine suggested me to get a 8.5 Nitro4 and %100 carbon ignition mast but I feel like it's almost impossible for my level to use a Nitro. They say Nitro and RS in above 8sqm sails feel lighter and better than a GTX or other similar sails.

That's hearsay. GTX 8.5 weighs 5.25kg, Nitro 4 8.5 weighs 5.45kg normal spec, 5.25kg KPro spec so its insignificant. The lightest sails are no cam sails.

For the mast, 490 100% Ignition is 1.54 and 75% is 2.25kg.

If you put an aluminium boom on then forget about all this stuff, weight difference between 2 booms of the same brand (say chinook) for carbon and aluminium is 5.14kg for carbon and 6.36kg for aluminium. So the boom is the single biggest weight saving in the rig!!!! I see this all the time, someone fusses over sail weight specs and then slaps on a boom thats 1.x kg heavier.

Thus if you want a light rig, first get the lightest boom (carbon) then get the lightest mast (carbon 100) then get the lightest freeride sail, for the kind of boards you have in mind you will never use the Nitro to anywhere near its limits so why are you paying 30% extra for a race sail over the GTX or GTR or Matrix?

In my opinion both the boards above are too small to qualify as light wind boards. You should be looking at boards 90cm wide at least. At your stage you are not going to hit the speed limit of any board you sail but you do need the stability, pointing ability and early planing that a wide hull offers. Don't be seduced by something that looks sexy, you will progress far faster on a wider hull.

Re nose protection, for all the Starboard models we offer a nose protector which is factory made to help prevent nose damage.

[<jamis>]

Thanks for the reply Sukhdev. So can we say that 6.5GTX and 8.5GTX are ok for that kind of board with %75 ignition masts?
Best regards

[sukhdev]

yes, both work fine. 75% is ok. You might want to consider a 2nd smaller fin for either board for the 6.5 if you ever run into control problems.