Windsurf Sail & Mast

An app for windsurfers

For windsurfers specifically — not for kiters, not for wingfoilers. Only what belongs to a windsurf rig: the mast, the sail, and how the two work together.

Windfoil belongs here too: the board is different, the rig is the same.

A familiar spot

A mast comes up cheap. Or yours snaps while the sail is still perfectly good. Or you are putting a kit together from what you have and want to know what fits what.

The question is always the same: will it fit?

And the answer is nowhere to be found. A mast is marked with plenty — length, stiffness, material. What compatibility actually depends on is not marked at all. The way a mast bends along its whole length decides whether the sail sets properly or fights you all day. And that figure is simply not printed on masts.

Then the hunt begins. The sail maker says: use our mast. Another maker lists outright what does not suit its sails. The forum offers three answers and two of them contradict each other. The shop shrugs: “should be fine.”

Who needs this

• Anyone buying second-hand. A mast is not pocket money. A mistake costs you either the purchase itself or the sail that never quite works.
• Anyone whose gear outlived the company that made it. Brands come and go; masts last long and change hands. Once a brand is gone there will be no official answer — no site, no support. And the gear is right there, waiting for a replacement.
• Anyone building a rig from mixed parts. One brand's mast, another brand's sail — an ordinary story. Sometimes it works beautifully. Sometimes it flatly does not. The difference is not luck but a figure you can look up beforehand.
• Anyone who would rather not pay for the sticker. There are makers who build masts for other people's sails — good ones, and cheaper than branded. The only question is which one fits.

What you can find out

Whether this mast fits that sail

Not “it should be fine”, but a clear answer with the reasoning behind it.

What to do when the brand is gone

We keep what has been discontinued as well: what those sails asked for and what covers them today. A living company has no reason to describe what it does not sell — so this has to be gathered separately.

Who actually made your mast

There are surprises here: several well-known brands took masts from the same factory for years. Sometimes the only difference between them is the sticker. Sometimes the opposite: the order went to a shared factory but to its own drawings, and the mast really is different. Worth knowing both when buying and when hunting for a replacement for a vanished model.

How the thing works at all

Why one mast opens a sail up and another makes it heavy and dead. No formulas — just so you understand what is going on.

What is not here

Boards. Kites. Wingfoil. Those are separate subjects and we do not take them on — better to do one thing properly.

Nor is there a promise of absolute precision. Two masts of the same model off the same line differ a little — the makers admit it themselves. A mast that has done several seasons loses its character and no longer matches the catalogue. And windsurfing still has no single standard to put all this in order.

So we say plainly where exact knowledge ends and “most likely” begins. A reference that pretends to know everything for certain does more harm than one that draws its own limits honestly.

In short

Everything you would normally have to fish out of old catalogues, forum archives and conversations with people who have been at it for years — gathered in one place.