KA Chief Andrew McDougall recently sent Danish / honorary Aussie racer Jesper Orth a couple of 2010 Koncepts to try out. Jesper recently departed Severne Sails after quite a few years with them developing race sails and racing. He was keen to try some other brands 2010 offerings.

This is what he had to say about the Koncepts and the Lancelin Ocean Classic held last weekend...

Jesper: When I stopped with Severne mid December I was keen to try out different products to see what options the future could bring.

Andrew from KA was quick to send me some 2010 8.3 and 6.4 Koncept to try out.

I was immediately very impressed with the sails, and knew from all the speed guys that those sails are super fast off the wind.  But I did not really know how they would go in a more packed, tight, ‘high pace” slalom competition.

I was testing before the event against 2 other top brands race sail and felt very good on the KA sails. Heaps of power all the time and a very balanced feeling. But it always is when your are in the “heat’ during competition that you get the real idea of the sails performance.

After this weekend I have confidence that the sails have huge potential!!

The Lancelin Ocean Classic downwind marathon was good fun. I had an 8.3 Koncept and 122 RRD board. The wind picked up just before the start and a few guys got caught out with too big gear, including myself. It was a stupid mistake as I had the 7.5 and smaller board ready as well, but hey,- I’m pretty happy with 7’th position as I was struggling the whole way down. Peter Volwater, who won the race, had a  7.0 and smaller board.

We did 5 slalom rounds Sunday and it was a very close fight between Peter Volwater, Chris Lockwood, Dan Engdal, Patrick Diethelm and myself.  Chris got 1’st, I got 2’nd and Volwater was 3’rd. We all won some rounds, and it cam down to the smallest margin in the end.

I used the KA Koncept 6.4 and it has super acceleration off the start line. Straight-line speed is amazing and jibing is fantastic. The Koncept is less low aspect than many of the other brands, and jibing you can really feel how quick you can flip the sail and immediately accelerate out of the jibe. Rotation from the 3 camber sail was just so smooth and easy.

I noticed the other KA team riders doing very well in the Marathon (Craig, Ben, Matthew). My girlfriend Annika, used the 6.4 koncept and got 2’nd in the Marathon after Karin Jaggi.

Thanks for lending me the sails,

Jesper

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