2017 Elite

Every year, for over 30 years, David Ezzy worries about what he can do to improve his sails. He describes sail design as crawling around a pitch black room, trying to figure out what the furniture looks like - a painfully slow process, requiring patience and science.

For 2017, the Elite has gone through some fundamental improvements. The new sail inspires us to sail better and to rig up quicker to get more time on the water. The new luff panel makes the Elite more maneuverable without sacrificing overall performance. The biggest change though, is perhaps the new construction process, with makes the Elite feel lighter, allowing it to plane more quickly.

The Elite's philosophy is to be the perfect all-around sail - we use the Elite for flatwater fun to bump-n-jump to high-performance onshore to radical down-the-line. It's our go-to sail, so we need it to be easy. The wide wind range allows us to carry fewer sails which makes packing the car less of a headache. And the calibrated rigging system means we can have perfectly accurate tuning in seconds so we can spend less time rigging and more time on the water.