On a recent windy romp through the British Virgin Islands, I found myself aboard a 45-foot charter cat, caught up in one of those moments that fellow sailors know only too well: All was going perfectly until it wasn’t. One minute we were successfully shaking a reef out of the main in anticipation of a long reach down Sir Francis Drake Channel to the Bight on Norman Island, and the next, the reef lines were incredibly tangled and the flogging sail was stuck in the mast track, unable to go up and unwilling to come down.

Instantly, a relaxing afternoon voyage became a lot like work as I scrambled up onto the cabin top and climbed up mast steps, hanging on with one arm, and clawing frantically with a boat hook in the other to pull down the sail so we could straighten out the mess. A tense few minutes ended well enough, but it was a good reminder of the forces at play when wind—lots of it—meets boat.

The engineers at Harken had similar—though larger-scale—scenarios in mind back in the 1980s when they created the first Battcar System for use on supersize record-chasing multihulls. The solution: affix sections of tracks to the mast and install cars with ball bearings to replace the main’s sail slides. This let the crew manage the enormous spreads of battens and cloth used to drive the powerful cats.

It didn’t take long for sailors aboard other top race boats to see the advantages of being able to safely raise and reef sails from the security of the cockpit, and today, Battcars are basic gear aboard pretty much all of the sailboats taking high-speed laps around the planet—or rounding the buoys in local waters, for that matter.

But what’s good for going fast can also be a welcome addition on cruising boats, where owners want to keep things safe and enjoyable, and where shorthanded crews might encounter a wide range of conditions to which they’ll need to react quickly.

There are other options, of course. Many boats today have in-mast furling, but their mainsails can’t carry battens and therefore have a hollow leach, which means less power. Or they rely on vertical battens that can be troublesome to remove should the sail need to come down in a hurry. In-boom furling is also available, and while these systems allow for full-cut sails with battens, they tend to be expensive, and they too require care when furling. And what do you do if you buy a boat without such systems?

Call me old-fashioned, but a traditional full-batten main not only looks good and performs well, but it also can be dropped easily—so long as you point the bow into the wind. Add a Battcar System, and it can be doused with control or reefed no matter the wind direction, thanks to the ball bearings in the cars that attach it to the mast.

Harken has designed its systems so that retrofitting them is a relatively approachable project for the do-it-yourselfer, and one that will be a lot less costly than buying a new furling mast or boom.

Since their introduction in the 1980s, Harken’s Battcars have evolved, though the basic concept is pretty much the same. Ball-bearing cars are loaded onto a track that runs up the mast. Instead of a boltrope or slugs, the sail is attached to a vertical pin on each car with a loop of webbing sewn onto the luff. On early cars, a cotter pin or ring was used to secure each pin, but current design employs a pushpin that locks itself into place. Older cars also relied on end caps to secure the ball bearings, and if those caps were damaged, the bearings could come loose and quickly disappear overboard. To prevent this, Harken developed captive ball bearings that are locked into place with retaining rings that can’t accidentally come undone.

Harken initially offered three systems—dubbed A, B and C—for boats from 35 feet up to about 60 feet. They’ve since added an AA line for boats down to 21 feet, and custom Battcar systems are available for larger yachts of 100 feet and more.

As a DIY refit project, installing the track appears fairly straightforward. On a smooth extrusion, holes can be drilled and tapped, and the track screwed into place. The ideal time to do this, of course, would be when the mast is down for winter storage, but it can also be done with the mast stepped, and in the case of a mast with a groove, it would require just one trip aloft using what Harken calls ‘Slug Track’ and a compliment of slugs. The required tools are fairly basic: hacksaw, file, drill and a couple of bits, Phillips head screwdriver, putty knife, crescent wrench, Allen wrenches, and a tape measure.

The slotted-mast installation kits include slugs that are fed into the sail slot. Then sections of the track get screwed loosely to the slugs and are pushed up the mast. The final piece of track gets cut to fit, and then an end piece is installed and tightened down. Once that’s done, someone takes a ride up the mast, tightening all the remaining screws as they go.

The system uses three different types of cars: one designed to hold the sail’s headboard, another to accommodate the battens, and intermediate luff cars that go between the batten cars. Installation-kit details are available in Harken’s online catalog. Select the number of cars and track sections you’ll need, install the track, slide on the cars, and you’re good to go. 

To adapt a sail for the system, all that’s required is to have a sailmaker replace the existing slugs with loops of webbing to attach to the Battcars’ pins.

With lazy jacks installed, dousing the main, even when sailing downwind in breezy conditions, means just letting go with the halyard, and reefing can be done from the cockpit, meaning no one has to go forward on deck. Safe and simple, right?   

To learn more about Harken’s Battcar System visit https://bit.ly/HarkenBattcarVideo

The post Tame the Main appeared first on Cruising World.

Not so long ago, most production sailboats featured sail plans that were a bit different from what one might encounter when looking at how boats are rigged today. For example, older sloops typically carry 130 to 150 percent genoas that, when sheeted hard on the wind, extend well aft of the shrouds. While these large headsails demand some grunting on the winches to haul in the sheets during tacks—and typically require roller reefing or downshifting to a smaller jib when the breeze freshens—they allow boats to sail deeper angles without hoisting dedicated off-the-wind sails for reaching and running downwind.

By contrast, the current trend in sail plans typically features a larger mainsail and non-overlapping or just slightly overlapping headsail, typically in the range of 107 percent. While this approach makes it relatively easy to trim the jib while tacking upwind, as soon as the boat cracks off and sheets are eased, boatspeed drops, especially in the lighter airs that are common to coastal waters during the summer months.

To address this loss of power, today’s sailmakers offer dedicated off-wind sails that liven up performance when sailing deeper angles. I reached out to three leading sailmakers—Dan Kaseler, who owns Quantum Sails’ Seattle loft; Adam Loory, who works as UK Sailmakers International’s general manager; and Bob Meagher, from North Sails’ Fort Lauderdale loft—to learn more about the best options for cruisers.

In all cases, the sails they recommend are custom-designed and built for the owners and the boats that will use them. Here’s what I learned, starting with the most weatherly sail and clocking back to those that are better-suited for deep-angle runs.

Code Zeros

These rockets came to fame aboard racing sailboats in the late 1990s and early 2000s, allowing racers to quickly fetch deeper angles than a racing headsail could efficiently carry. For race boats, code zeros are subject to specific rules that describe their midgirth measurement (namely, 75 percent of their foot length). Cruising code zeros aren’t subject to these same constraints, however. As a result, midgirth measurements that run 55 to 65 percent of the sail’s foot measurement are common, making them easier to sail and friendlier to furl.

A cruising code zero typically would be used when sailing on any point from a close reach to a shallower broad reach, with their sweet spot ranging from 75 to 125 degrees true wind angle, depending on their midgirth measurements; the larger the percentage, the deeper the sail can be carried. They can be made from a variety of materials to match a customer’s needs and budget. “Code zeros take the place of 150 percent genoas, and then some,” Quantum’s Kaseler says. “But they’re not good for deep angles. If you try to fly them dead downwind, they’ll fall out of the sky.”

While the DNA of today’s cruising code zeros is rooted in the racing world, UK’s Loory makes it clear that these sails are far different from what can be found aboard a modern TP52 racing sloop.

“Cruising code zeros are flat, reaching spinnakers on furlers,” Loory says. “If cruisers want to sail closer to the wind with their code zeros, they’ll need a stronger sail that’s made out of laminated fabrics. If they’re not concerned with sailing close to the wind, the sail can be made from a performance 1.5-ounce nylon.”

As Loory notes, code zeros typically reside on furlers, allowing them to be deployed quickly, and are tacked to a hard point that’s in front of the forestay. Unlike jibs and genoas, which use furlers with drums that contain the furling line when the sail is deployed, code zeros tend to employ continuous-line furlers (pull one direction and the sail unwinds; pull the other direction and it refurls) that furl the sail from its bottom up or from the top of its leech downward (the latter are known as top-down furlers). This arrangement, Kaseler says, requires that the sailmaker incorporate a torsion rope on the sail’s front edge. This torsion rope can be attached to the head of the sail or it can be integral to the sail. Either way, the torsion rope’s job is to provide a stiff, shroudlike member that translates effort from the furling line to a clean and tight top-down furl.

Also, unlike furlers used to roll up jibs and genoas, code-zero furling drums are usually dedicated to the sail, so when it’s time to lower the rolled-up sausage and store the sail, the furler goes into the sail bag with it.

Unlike other sailmakers, North Sails refers to its code-zero-style sails as G0s, with the “G” standing for “gennaker.”

One consideration when buying a G0, says North Sails’ Meagher, is whether the sail will live belowdecks and come up for occasional deployment, or whether it will remain furled-up and hoisted, ready to be unwound as the wind angle dictates. While the always-up option is easiest to use, it requires special consideration when the sail is being designed. “You’ll need a sun cover, which is a light, 6-ounce fabric,” Meagher says. “But there’s a practical limit to a sail that can carry a 6-ounce sun cover—your sailmaker will need to increase the sail’s weight and stretch resistance.” This, he notes, typically means that the sail will need to be built out of 2- or 3-ounce fabric. “You can use lighter sailcloth, but the sun cover will usually shrink and pucker the sail material.”

Also, Loory says, it’s important to remember that a sun cover that’s light enough to be flown on a code-zero sail isn’t as typically burly as the fabric that’s used on a roller-furler genoa or jib. “It’s really lightweight material—it’s not like Sunbrella.” Code zeros, he adds, typically come with a Velcro closure on their clew, which keeps the sail tightly furled when it’s not in use. “It’s not a cover for leaving up for a month,” Loory says. Because of this, he advises that it’s best to lower code zeros after use (say, the weekend or a cruise) rather than leaving them up for the entire season, headsail-style.

While code-zero sails work just fine on monohulls and multihulls, one important consideration involves standing rigging on the latter. “Multihulls are limited by their wide sheeting angles,” Meagher says. This limits their ability to carry higher angles. “When sheeting outside the shrouds, they can’t get the sail in any closer.” Because of this, multihull sailors are likely to find that their code zero/G0 won’t carry at as high an angle as a monohull that’s flying a similarly shaped sail.

Cruising Spinnakers

Once the wind angle rotates to a deep broad reach, Loory, Kaseler and Meagher recommend that cruising sailors shift from a code zero to an asymmetric pole-less cruising spinnaker, sometimes called a flasher, screecher or cruising gennaker (see “What’s in a Name?” opposite). “A lot of cruisers don’t have a spinnaker on the boat or they haven’t used one,” Kaseler says. “So they pole out their jib, and they’re going slowly. But when they get a cruising kite, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened.”

Like all sails, cruising kites come in a variety of shapes and geometries, however most spinnakers are bigger and rounder than code zeros and are usually built out of ¾- to 1.5-ounce ripstop nylon. According to Loory, a bigger bluewater-bound boat will want to spec a heavier material, while a coastal cruiser who mainly plies flatter water can go with the lighter material for most summer days in places such as Long Island Sound, Narragansett Bay or Puget Sound. Windswept San Francisco Bay, however, is a different story. “Ounce-and-a-half!” Loory advises when asked about this latter venue and other windy bodies of water. Others agree.

“A 1.5-ounce kite can be carried with a lot of breeze before it vaporizes,” Kaseler says, adding that a typical cruising spinnaker can be carried in breeze ranging from 4 to 25 knots. “Typically, cruisers aren’t stepping up to heavier fabrics—they just go with a smaller kite,” he notes.

Given that modern cruising kites are asymmetrically shaped, Loory advises that their effective range picks up where a code zero ends (roughly 125 percent TWA) and goes down to roughly 155 degrees off the wind.

While nylon is a much stretchier material than the laminates (or Dacron) that are typically used in code-zero sails, this can be an advantage on puffy days or when sailing in offshore swells. “It’s a shock absorber if the sail collapses and refills,” Meagher says. This absorptive quality reduces shock loading on the mast and standing and running rigging.

Cruising kites can be deployed and doused using furlers or dousing socks, sometimes called snuffers or sleeves. While both have their merits, they also have their drawbacks. For example, it can be physically demanding to furl a cruising chute in a breeze, while dousing socks requires a crewmember to go up on the foredeck to pull down the sock and snuff the sail.

Another consideration is room at the bow. “Most of the time, there’s room for a nonfurling sail on a tack line from the anchor roller,” Meagher says. Furling sails, on the other hand, require that there be room to attach the furler. He says that it’s easy to check if there’s room. “Just run the halyard to the designated tack spot and look. Sailmakers also can raise the tack to accommodate tight fits.”

While racing boats typically sport bowsprits or retractable sprit poles that extend the spinnaker’s tack far in front of the forestay to ease jibing, the three sailmakers I talked to were clear that this equipment isn’t a prerequisite for cruising spinnakers. “It can be tacked to the bow,” Loory says. The sail just needs to be forward of the forestay. One option, Kaseler notes, is to tack the sail to the anchor roller, provided that it protrudes far enough forward to accommodate the sail.

One drawback to flying a kite close to the forestay is that it can be tricky to jibe. While outside jibes (meaning that the sail’s clew and leech rotate in front of their luff) are usually possible, another option, Loory says, is to simply douse the kite, jibe the boat, and then redeploy the sail.

While spinnakers bolster the grin factor aboard most cruising boats, it’s important to know a crew’s limits and to act accordingly when an afternoon zephyr develops into a stronger blow. Loory advises that cruisers apply a simple rule for deciding when it’s time to take down the kite: “When the boat heels too much, or when it’s uncomfortable.” He adds that it’s more about the crew’s comfort than breakage. “Or if your autopilot can’t control the boat.”

Others advise similar thinking. “Ask yourself, Am I comfortable taking the sail down right now?” Kaseler says. “If the answer is yes, keep going; if the answer is no, take the kite down.”

While Meagher agrees that heel angle is a good indicator for when it’s time to take down the kite (or bear off) aboard monohulls, he notes that since multihulls don’t tend to heel much (unless they begin achieving vanishing stability), multihull cruisers should instead use windspeed charts to dictate their sail options, including reefing the main rolling up a code zero or dousing a kite.

North Sails divides its cruising spinnaker category into two kites: a G1 and a G2. Meagher says a good rule of thumb is that a G1 will carry an average cruising monohull from 100 degrees TWA to 140 degrees, depending on the wind speeds. A G1′s ability to sail to weather decreases by roughly 10 to 15 degrees for multihulls, however cruisers can sometimes move the sail’s tack to the boat’s windward hull to achieve lower points of sail. “A G1 is our all-purpose asymmetric,”

Meagher says. “If someone wants a one-off-wind-sail inventory, go with a G1. If you want the broadest angles and a two-sail inventory, go with a G0 and a G2.” G2s cover points of sail from deeper broad reaches to runs (roughly 120 to 165 degrees TWA).

Irrespective of what type of off-wind sail you fly, the laws of physics still apply. “Cruisers can get into trouble with shock loading,” Meagher says. This occurs when a spinnaker collapses and refills, or when sailing in seas that can cause the kite to collapse in the trough and refill as the boat rises on the back of the next wave.

“The sail’s breaking point can plummet with age and UV exposure, so the more you use the sail, the weaker it becomes,” Meagher says. This is especially important for sailors who spend extended amounts of time sailing under the Caribbean’s intense sun. Because of this, heavier-weight sails tend to outlast lighter-weight sails. On the other hand, heavier sails can be harder to carry in lighter air, take up more space belowdecks, and are heavier to physically move around. Also, as with G1s, the stretchy nature of their ripstop-nylon material helps to act as a shock absorber, saving the mast and rigging from unnecessary punishment.

What’s in a Name

“It’s an industry problem—there are too many names for the same thing,” Quantum Sail’s Dan Kaseler says when asked about the various names applied to off-wind sails. Talk to boat salespeople, and you’ll hear terms like blaster, screecher, reacher, gennaker, cruising chute, etc.

“As a sailmaker, we can see the same geometry, but for the general public, it can be difficult to parse it out. People don’t realize that they’re talking about the same thing.”

The key to navigating this nomenclature minefield, according to all three experts, is to establish the right rapport with a reputable sailmaker.

“A sailmaker needs to know how your boat is set up, so they come and measure the boat,” UK’s Adam Loory says. It’s important that the sailmaker understands your cruising agenda and how you plan to use the sail. “You don’t want to buy a mail-order cruising spinnaker.”

Bob Meagher from North Sails agrees: “It’s important that customers have a conversation with a sailmaker they trust. Don’t focus on sail names—focus on what you want to do with the sail. It’s a tool. Sailmakers can build a fantastic sail for any need, but they need to know what a customer needs.”

David Schmidt is CW’s electronics editor and frequently writes about sailing gear as well.

The post Off-Wind Sails for Cruising Boats appeared first on Cruising World.

It’s easy to be satisfied enough with cruising sails. Seasonal sailing and a nearby sail loft minimize the consequences of any problems. Offseason, local sailmakers inspect and repair. They might report that those sails won’t last forever, while pushing a glossy brochure featuring impressive new technology into your hands. But cruising sailors are…frugal. For seasonal sailors who are careful with their canvas, cruising sails can work well enough for a decade or more. However, shift to a sabbatical cruise in the Caribbean or extended voyaging through the South Pacific, and the consequences of worn and torn sails grow quicker than wind in the ­leading edge of a squall.

In 2015 we were enjoying the wild, far side of the world on our Stevens 47, Totem. The Indian Ocean offered Nelson’s lauded Trincomalee Harbour in Sri Lanka and countless Maldivian reefs as prized playgrounds for a relatively small group of offshore sailors. Along the way, MacGyver-ing autopilots, outboards and other gear into working order was common. “If it breaks, we can fix it or do without” is a self-fulfilling axiom when remote. But sails that withstood one squall too many began to fail. A common repair using adhesive Dacron proved inadequate. MacGyver-ing cruisers struggled without a nearby sail loft.

Fortunately, there was an experienced sailmaker in the group: me. I’d repaired sails in unloftlike places before, such as the inside of a stiflingly hot shipping container in Antibes, France, tweaking a 900-pound Kevlar genoa for a 120-foot sloop. While cruising on Totem, I repaired sails in roomy cockpits, skinny foredecks, splintery docks and on an ­idyllic beach. No clean, spacious sail lofts inhabit remote-cruising reality.

I am a sailmaker without a sewing machine. Not a problem: There is usually a cruiser nearby eager to lend their machine. Good Samaritans abound when it comes to sewing machines, with the caveat that “it might need a tuneup.” This sets up a trade triangle. I correct the machine’s timing and smooth the burred hook so that it sews. Then I sew the failing UV cover—shredded cloth fluttering from the genoa leech like Tibetan prayer flags—back onto the sail. In exchange for the repairs, I receive sincere gratitude, thus keeping alive the tradition of impoverished, appreciated sailmakers.

At uninhabited Salomon Atoll in the Chagos Archipelago, Ripper’s (not its real name) crew carefully piloted into the coral-head-studded lagoon. Once secured on a mooring, Ripper’s crew asked for help repairing two sails damaged on passage from the Maldives. Before seeking out a Good Samaritan with a machine, I dinghied over to assess Ripper’s sails. At a glance, I winced, knowing that any repair would be unreliable. 

Before explaining the issue, I demonstrated it. Pinching each side of a tear, daintily for effect, just a light tug easily tore it further. Ripper’s crew winced. “What are you doing?” they demanded. The sailcloth was like tissue paper, badly damaged by the sun. Unrepairable. That four-year-old sails built for offshore duty could be rotten confounded the crew. How did we stare at these sails over thousands of miles, without a hint that they were doomed? they wondered.

It’s ironic that long-distance sailors often learn more about suturing pork bellies and analyzing diesel-injector spray patterns than inspecting the sails that muscle them so far. Those skills are worthy of practice, especially suturing with its similarity to hand-sewing sails. But skill in sail inspection is attainable without years spent crawling around sail-loft floors like a deranged J.R.R. Tolkien character. Fundamental knowledge about sail materials is the crystal ball required to seeing problems before they happen.

Sailcloth 101

Fibers bundled together make yarns. The more fibers there are in a yarn, the thicker, stronger and heavier it is. Weaving yarns mechanically locks them together with strength in two directions. Fill yarns run across a cloth roll. Perpendicular to those are warp yarns that run the length of a cloth roll. Diagonal to fill and warp yarns is called cloth bias. Without diagonal yarns in woven cloth, the bias has more stretch and less strength. This Achilles’ heel of woven cloth is mitigated somewhat by very tight weaving and synthetic coatings to rigidly bind the yarns into place. 

Another method of making yarns into cloth is by chemically bonding them with other material layers. Though there are different lamination techniques, they all rely on the integrity of chemical bonds. The same fill, warp and bias direction apply but without being limited to fill and warp yarns only. Laminated sailcloth can and often does have diagonal yarns that give bias strength and stretch resistance that woven sailcloth cannot match. Laminated sailcloth and the construction options that it enables are far superior to woven sails in all measures but one: Chemically bonded layers are less tenacious than woven yarn. 

Frugal cruisers like tenacious sailcloth. Dacron offers durability and economy, so it’s no surprise that woven Dacron crosscut for upwind sails and woven nylon triradial downwind sails remain the most common choice for boats up to about 55 feet. Sometimes, trauma—as in an uncontrolled jibe—can bring an unexpected end, even to tough sails. The role of DIY sail inspection won’t prevent botched sailhandling. It does help sailors to stay tuned to subtler issues like UV damage, chafe, bias distortion and delamination (of laminated sails) that ­degrade structural integrity. 

Sail Inspection

I divide sail inspection into two categories: passive inspection and active inspection.

Passive inspection

While sailing, do more than admire your beautiful sails. Inspect them. It’s a hands-off, zoomed-out approach and still helpful. Try to position yourself so the sun is shining through the sail toward you. Look for variations in the light passing through the cloth for possible signs of 1) subtle tears; 2) a line of weakened yarns from hard or repeated creasing; 3) an area of thinned cloth caused by chafe; 4) pinholes from bias distortion that loosen the weave; and 5) discoloration from UV ­damage (can also be dirt, which requires more testing).

When sailing downwind, look where the mainsail lies against rigging. This points to obvious chafe spots to check during an active inspection. Keep in mind that those spots change when reefed. Is better chafe protection on rigging or sails necessary? 

While sailing upwind, look for damaged sailcloth where the genoa leech impacts rigging. In an active ­inspection, the cloth there might feel much softer than other parts of the sail. On the mainsail, look for horizontal wrinkles projecting outward from luff attachments. If halyard tension is good, these wrinkles might indicate a luff hardware misalignment. Luff slides shouldn’t carry much load. Misalignment can lead to distorted or torn sails and broken hardware. Also note that the battens should present a smooth curve. Irregularities could be a fracture or break that can hole a sail very quickly.

Active inspection

Up close and hands on gets to the heart of sail inspection, but finding a space to do so can be challenging. If you’re able to lay the sail flat, inspect the top surface and then flip the sail over to inspect the other side. When space is insufficient, inspect in smaller sail sections that fit the available space. In the absence of a suitable workspace, go vertical. On a windless day, hoist up a sail several feet at a time, inspecting both sides as you go.

Downwind sails made with thinner, lighter cloth are easier to inspect. Tie a line to the head of the sail and secure it to a fixed object, such as a tree or bored crewmember. Near the head, lift the sail overhead, with arms held high and apart. Then slowly walk toward the foot, with arms fixed in place, forming a 3-foot-wide viewing area of sailcloth. Think of this as a sailmaker’s X-ray machine, looking for light and color variations as the cloth slides by over your hands. Downwind sails are easily damaged by snagging on fixed objects and need this active inspection to surface a problem.

Upwind sails get too heavy to inspect in the same way. Instead of the X-ray-machine approach, traverse the top surface in 3-foot-wide swaths. Scan the surface of the sailcloth for abrasion, frayed yarns, small pinholes and, of course, more-obvious tears. Remember those downwind chafe spots you noted on the mainsail? Look there. Take note of color variations. Is it soiled, as we see on Totem’s sails in the dusty and rainless Sea of Cortez? Or more of a yellowed patina from baking in the sun? If an area shows possible damage, slip under the sail to look up through as a kind of spot X-ray. Subtle topside damage might shine through clearly from below. 

Feel the cloth surface for textural differences and areas of greater roughness. This can indicate degrading sailcloth. Crinkle the cloth to gauge the hand. Dacron and nylon tend to be crinkly from coatings added for bias stability. Softer areas indicate that the coating is chafed or failing from excessive bias stretch. This was the case with Totem’s genoa by the time we rounded South Africa after a sporty Western Indian Ocean crossing. Crinkling laminate cloth can reveal delamination—failed chemically bonded layers. Delamination is revealed by a higher-pitched, extra-crinkly sound.  

Test stitching integrity by scratching a thumbnail firmly across stitching. Broken stitches indicate that the thread is rotten from UV. Fraying stitches indicate ­rotting thread. Both conditions are repairable if the sailcloth isn’t also rotten. Stitching that tends to get more exposure is on UV covers; the mainsail leech, which might not get covered as soon as the sail is lowered; furled downwind sails (screecher, cruising code-zero) that have little or no UV protection; and webbing reinforcement exposed on furled sails.

Inspect sail hardware. Metal sail hardware isn’t affected by the sun, but it can wear, corrode and deform. Inspect battens—along with the pocket—especially at the ends for wear from point loading. Inspect luff cars with low-­friction bearings. Worn or lost bearings and ongoing use can irreparably damage the car and track. Plastic hardware degrades from UV; check it closely for discoloration and rough surfaces, which might indicate damage.

On passage to Madagascar, the crew on another boat in our group shredded their mainsail. No problem—they had a spare! Unbagged, the spare main’s mildewed funk put it to question; upon inspection, the aluminum headboard was a corroded, crumbling mess. I repaired it by installing a large stainless-steel ring, secured by hand-sewn polyester webbing straps.

The Tear Test

For crosscut Dacron sails that have done time in the sun, the only way to truly test sailcloth integrity might make you cringe. Gauge sailcloth strength by deliberately tearing it a little, just as I did with Ripper’s main. Make a 1-inch cut parallel to the fill yarns (across the crosscut panel width) in the suspect area. Then tear it a little by hand. If it tears like tissue paper, it’s rotten. If it tears with relatively little force, then it’s rotting.

Yes, this method hurts! Review UV damage indicators before cutting into a potentially good sail. Those indicators include areas with discoloration (not dirt), rough texture, pinholes and very softened hand. If the cloth is suspect and your local sailmaker isn’t nearby to say otherwise, this is a sure way to verify cloth integrity before going on passage.

I recently taught a class on sail inspection to a group of cruisers in Mexico. Within a few days, three students reported testing and confirming rotten sailcloth. All expressed sincere gratitude for help exposing this before departing on the 3,000-nautical-mile passage to the South Pacific (made impossible later due to COVID-19 restrictions). 

Ripper sailed 1,200 nautical miles to Reunion Island with old sails and a conservative sail plan. There they collected new sails and carried on to circumnavigate the globe. Journeys and destinations get woven into the sailing adventure of a lifetime, one yarn at a time. 

A former sail designer for America’s Cup and Vendée Globe competitors, Jamie Gifford now focuses on cruising boats.

More Cloth Smarts

Polyester fibers that make up Dacron sailcloth degrade at the same rate from UV exposure. However, differences in the yarn sizes make or break sailcloth strength. Exposed outer yarn fibers degrade from UV exposure. And they act like sunscreen to protect the inner fibers. But small yarns have few inner, undamaged fibers. This is why we orient the tear test with the cut parallel to the fill yarns. It’s the smaller warp yarns being tested. And this point is a consideration for new sail choices. High-aspect Dacron uses small warp yarn to dedicate great fiber density in the fill direction, thus making the warp yarns more susceptible to UV degradation. This is the case of failure for most UV-damaged sails. Low-aspect Dacron is a better choice for tropical sailors, even with a high-aspect-ratio rig.

DIY Tips When There Is No Loft

• Sewing thick layers: Pull out your power tools, and pre-drill holes for stitches with a small bit.
• Patching the torn test area with adhesive Dacron: This is suitable for sails with rotten cloth, where the sailor needs to eke out just a little more use. Wipe the repair area with acetone, and then ­apply two layers of ­adhesive Dacron.
• Patching the torn test area with 3M 4200: This is suitable for a sail that retains cloth integrity. Cut a Dacron patch (similar weight to the sail) that is about 1.5 inches longer on each side than the tear. Wipe the repair area with acetone. Spread a thin layer of 3M 4200 FastCure over one side of the patch. Press the patch over the tear. Be sure the patch stays pressed into place until cured.

The post How to Inspect Sails appeared first on Cruising World.

When the rail is ­submerged and the angle of heel exceeds the crew’s inclination for comfort, you’re either in a race or you’re well past the time to take a reef.

Most cruisers prefer to savor their passagemaking rather than shave a few seconds off each mile. So, when it comes to reefing, it makes sense to get an early start. The goal is to have the reef tucked in before the anemometer announces that you’ve missed the sweet spot — a narrow boundary that separates “way too early” from “way too late.”

There are three significantly different approaches to reducing mainsail area: slab reefing, in-mast roller reefing and in-boom roller reefing. Each approach delivers a reduction in sail area and repositions the mainsail’s center of effort. In addition, a good reef flattens the sail, keeps the draft from migrating too far aft and prevents leech flap.

Many cruisers prefer reefing from the cockpit, while a few of us still opt to work at the mast. Regardless of your choice, clip your harness to a jackline or hard point while reefing, especially at night or in rough seas. Some crews turn their boat head-to-wind while reducing sail, but they are usually not offshore, thrashing through a seaway.

I prefer a close reach, or even a little deeper point of sail, as the optimum reefing angle. It allows you to spill breeze and depower the mainsail without flogging the sailcloth, and still keep the boat making way under a well-trimmed jib or staysail.

Once on course and ready to reef, it’s important to depower the mainsail. Begin by easing the sheet so the sail is just on the verge of a luff. The person on the helm should steer carefully to maintain this point of sail, and make sure that the boom vang has been released. Not doing so makes reefing more difficult and can even lead to luff damage to the mainsail or hardware that attaches it to the mast.

The cornerstone of a good reef is a tight luff, and that hinges on having a secure, carefully positioned new tack point such as a gooseneck hook or a snap shackle on a short pendant. Such hardware holds the tack ring close to the mast and proximal to the gooseneck. Sail material, track and slide dimensions, and the stack height all affect the location of the new tack point. A good sailmaker will take these issues into consideration. The bottom line is to provide a secure, well-placed floating or gooseneck-attached tack point that can handle the halyard tension it takes to set a flatter well-shaped, reefed mainsail.

Those using single-line (jiffy) reefing systems face a different challenge. These make life easier by controlling both the tack and clew via the same line, and even eliminate the need for a sailor to go on deck. But they also introduce a new problem. The single-line approach makes positioning the tack point more difficult. Some sailors lessen the negative effect by carefully setting the line pull angles at the gooseneck and outboard end of the boom. Their goal is to establish line tension that keeps the tack close to the gooseneck while adding adequate outhaul and downhaul to the clew. Jiffy reefing changes the order of the lines handled. It’s important to first tension the reefing line before adding the final halyard tension. When slab reefing, you do just the opposite: You tension the halyard and then pull the clew aft and tight.

As with most tasks aboard sailboats, mainsail reefing can be a highly debated topic, and there’s no single solution that meets all needs. However, there are a few additional hints that will make the job easier. If you’re singlehanding, try reefing the mainsail in a heave-to position. The maneuver smooths the seas, steadies the motion and decreases pressure on the sail.

Heaving to involves a tack without the release of the jib sheet. The backed jib causes the bow to bear away, but by turning the helm to windward, the rudder offsets the force of the backed headsail. The mainsheet is eased until the sail is on the verge of a full luff, allowing the crew to easily tuck in a reef. Once the reef is set, the crew sheets in the mainsail, brings the jib over to the same side and, once the boat gathers way, the crew can tack back onto the original point of sail.

Another valuable reefing aid is the addition of a second self-tailing two-speed winch so both the main halyard and the reefing line can be simultaneously kept in play. If you’re heading offshore, consider adding a topping lift, even if you have a rigid vang that supports the boom. It will allow you to raise the outboard end of the boom when reefing — a gesture that makes the reef-setting process even easier. And lastly, stay focused on keeping the mainsail depowered throughout the reefing process.

Ralph Naranjo’s latest book, The Art of Seamanship, shares a lifetime of lessons learned aboard various boats at sea.

The post Time to Reef the Sails appeared first on Cruising World.

Most sailboats these days have a roller furler made by one of a handful of manufacturers that include Facnor, Furlex, Harken, Schaefer Marine and Profurl. While features may vary, the basic hardware and how it functions are similar. A rigid foil, or extrusion, with one or two slots for a sail’s luff tape, covers the headstay. There’s a line drum with a shackle for the foot of the sail at its base; up top, there’s a swivel to which the head of the sail and halyard are attached. The extrusion comes in sections, and inside each joint there’s some sort of fastener that doubles as a bushing to ensure the tube spins freely around the stay.

To go sailing, the crew simply pulls on the leeward sheet to unroll the jib. As the sail comes out, the furler line is wound up on the drum. To reduce sail or put it away, the sheet is eased as the furler line is pulled. The whole process is easily done singlehanded, and better yet, the work takes place in the safety of the cockpit.

And that’s exactly how the old Furlex furler on our Sabre worked — for a few seasons, at least. Then one day, it didn’t. Late on a breezy afternoon as we returned to the mooring, I went to furl the sail, but the furler drum wouldn’t budge. Going forward, I discovered that the furling line had somehow jumped the drum and become knotted under the furler. Oh, some salty phrases came to mind as I worked feverishly to sort things out, the sail flogging me about the head all the while.

Like a trick learned by an evil child, the line jumping off the furling drum became more and more common. In equal measure, it became increasingly harder to get the sail to unfurl. Finally, whatever mechanism was used to lock the foil in the top of the furling drum failed, so the whole extrusion would occasionally pop free and turn independently of the drum. Forced to drop the jib to the deck on a few occasions when conditions turned unmanageable, I even came to yearn for the hank-on sails of yore. At least they went up, and more importantly, came down easily. Clearly a long-term solution was needed. Time to call Schaefer again.

Getting Started

The first order of business when choosing a new furler is to determine the diameter of your headstay, the diameter of the clevis pins used to attach the stay to the bow fitting and mast, and the length of the stay, from pin to pin.

The first was easy. I dug out my Sabre owner’s manual, looked up the rig specs and then used a caliper to confirm that over the years, no one had altered the thickness of the headstay from the original 9/32 inch. Next, I measured the pins in the toggles that attached the furler to the bow: They were ½ inch.

The first was easy. I dug out my Sabre owner’s manual, looked up the rig specs and then used a caliper to confirm that over the years, no one had altered the thickness of the headstay from the original 9/32 inch. Next, I measured the pins in the toggles that attached the furler to the bow: They were ½ inch.

Finding the length of the stay was more of a challenge, since I had no eager volunteer to take one end of a tape to the top of the mast. Instead, I noted the length specified in the Sabre manual, and Schaefer supplied me with a new headstay that was a bit longer than needed. It had a swaged-on eye and turnbuckle at one end and was unfinished on the other. One of the last steps in the assembly process would be to cut the new wire to length and install a Sta-Lok eye. More on that later.

Then I gathered the tools I’d need. I purchased a 100-foot surveyor’s measuring tape at a local box store. The rest, I already had: a couple of large crescent wrenches; needle-nose, locking and regular pliers; a rivet gun with an 1/8-iXnch nose; a cordless drill, bits and a tap kit for contingencies; a hacksaw with a new blade; a bottle of permanent red Loctite thread-locker; screwdrivers; rigging tape; a large plastic bucket for tools and parts; and an old towel on which to work and keep small parts from falling between the boards of the dock where I’d do the install.

For crew, I used food and drink to entice my two CW office mates, Jen Brett and Herb McCormick, to leave work on a summer day. Joining us was my daughter, Rebecca, a mast climber from the time she was a child. When I installed the furler on the Ericson years ago, I asked one helper to be the keeper of the manual, and it worked well. This time, the chore went to Rebecca. My instructions to her were simple: Keep the booklet in hand, and read and reread each step aloud as we went along.

Then, I watched the video. Schaefer’s Fred Cook put together a quite detailed how-to video that explains in terms simple enough for even an English major to understand how to go about the job. I watched it from beginning to end a couple of times before and after reading through the equally thorough instruction manual. By the time I was done, I knew what all the parts looked like, what they were called, and had a reasonably solid notion of how they fit together.

The Big Day

Furler Team Jackalope gathered at the boatyard at 0900. In the back of my pickup, I unpacked the parts box and removed the sections of furler extrusions from their cardboard tubes. As recommended in the video, we saved the tubes so that once on the dock, they could be folded in half and placed under the furler to make it easier to handle as we put it together.

With Jackalope tied to the dock, I grabbed a screwdriver and pliers and pried apart the Furlex’s line drum to reach the turnbuckle I assumed was inside. To my surprise, there wasn’t one, which meant the adjustable backstay did all the fore and aft tensioning of the fixed forestay. Who knew?

Before letting off the backstay, we secured the jib halyard to the bow cleat and tensioned it with a cabin-top winch. Then it was time for Rebecca to climb into the bosun’s chair with an assortment of tools for working aloft. I tied her onto the main halyard with a bowline, backing up the knot with the shackle for good measure. Then Herb and I hauled her to the top of the mast with the other cabin-top winch.

Up above, Rebecca used a couple of clove hitches to tie the spare jib halyard to the top of the furler. While I pulled the cotter pins to free the lower end of the furler from the bow, she did the same aloft. When we were ready, I passed the bottom of the furler to Herb, who walked it down the dock as I lowered the assembly with the halyard.

Rebecca was back on deck and ready with the installation manual in no time.

Before jumping in and riveting the extrusions together to build the new furler, Schaefer recommends dry-fitting them. Good advice. Right off the bat, I got things backward assembling the pieces of the furler drum and overlooked the fact that the first couple of foil tubes are different in size to accommodate the sail feeder — lessons learned without expensive consequence.

Once the furler drum assembly was complete, we continued working our way up the furler, step by step, as Rebecca read the manual aloud and Jen chronicled our progress with her camera. When the end cap was in place, we took the whole thing apart and began anew, this time playing with live ammo in the form of stainless-steel rivets.

The tube sections were slid down from the top of the stay. To connect them, a two-piece inner joint had to be fitted around the stay and slid into either tube. Then eight rivets had to be popped, four on each side of the foil. I quickly realized that while ours was adequate, a better rivet gun with longer arms for more leverage would have worked better. I also found it easier to put all the rivets in place first, securing them with rigging tape if necessary, and then hit them with the gun.

Section by section, we worked our way down the dock until we came to the last one, which, along with the stay, needed to be cut to the right length. Time to break out the measuring tape.

With the old and new furlers sitting side by side, I took a long screwdriver and ran it through the bottom eye of the old one, keeping it as perpendicular to the stay as possible. In that way, I could measure the distance from eye to eye accurately, the tape clearing the remaining hardware at the bottom of the furler.

The Schaefer manual includes a simple-to-use calculator table that accounts for the length taken up by the new furler’s bottom toggles (used to provide flexibility and prevent damage to the forestay) and the Sta-Lok fitting at the top. Fill in the numbers, and presto, you know where to cut the stay, and therefore the last piece of tubing.

Just to be sure, I marked the new stay where it would be cut, and where the eye of the Sta-Lok fitting would fall. Then I used the tape to remeasure the pin-to-pin lengths of both furlers, and then, for added insurance, lined them up directly side by side, pin to pin, to make sure everything looked right.

With the hacksaw, I cut through the marking tape on the wire, then took the last tube to a sturdy table and trimmed it too.

Back on the dock, I slid the last tube over the wire, added the top swivel and end cap, then installed the Sta-Lok eye, using the prescribed thread-locker to keep it from failing.

It was now about 1400 — so much for the estimated three-hour installation time. After a quick lunch break, we hauled Rebecca back up the mast. The spare halyard was tied back onto the new furler, then I pulled it aloft as Herb walked it down the dock.

Once the new furler was in place and the backstay re-tensioned, just a couple of tasks remained. To ensure the halyard meets the upper swivel at the right angle and doesn’t wrap around the foil — parallel to or slightly aft of the angle of the headstay — Schaefer recommends installing a halyard restrainer on the mast. It is essentially a bail that the halyard runs through as it leaves the masthead shiv. Rebecca went aloft armed with a hammer, center punch, drill, bit and tap. Holding the restrainer in place, she marked the bolt holes with a marker and then drilled and tapped them so she could screw the restrainer’s fasteners into place. On deck, I attached the furling line to the drum, and voila, it was Miller time.

All the prep work, reading the instructions multiple times, and watching and rewatching the video paid off. Everything went together properly, there were no ­unexpected parts left over and the new furler fit perfectly.

The real test, of course, came the first time we took Jackalope for a sail. With a gentle tug on the sheet, the entire sail unrolled. In a bit of breeze, I was able to furl the sail by hand, no winch needed. Ditto, when it was time to put the sail away and head for the barn. There are many ways to make sailing easier, safer and more enjoyable. Having a ­reliable furler, in my mind, ranks right up there at the top.

Mark Pillsbury is CW’s editor.

The post Replacing the Roller Furler appeared first on Cruising World.

It was about midnight, and we were barreling along on a close reach through boisterous seas in a gusty 20-knot breeze. I was on watch aboard a Saba 50 catamaran, and while checking the sail trim, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the forces at play — particularly on the massive mainsail. It’s impressive.

With these forces, the sails aboard a modern cruising cat need to be up to snuff. If you’re in the market for new sails, what are the details that you should be looking for? I checked in with sailmakers who specialize in multihulls to find out what they would recommend for a midsize ­production cruising cat, such as a Leopard 44 or Lagoon 42.

Let’s start with the main. The mainsail is the driving sail aboard catamarans, and a backstayless rig, which you’ll find on most cats, allows for a large amount of roach. These massive sails have different requirements from their cousins aboard monohulls, which impacts what materials and techniques will be used to build the sail.

“Due to the higher sail loads, we would go up to a heavier weight of material than a similar-size monohull,” says Tim Yourieff, of Neil Pryde Sails. “Also, multihulls tend to have very swept-back spreaders and shrouds, which tend to chafe on the battens when the mainsail is eased when sailing downwind. It is very important to reinforce the batten pockets where they come in contact with the shrouds.”

Zach Mason, a multihull specialist for North Sails, adds, “I would recommend a high-roach full-batten mainsail for daysailing and cruising. Reefs should be appropriate for boat setup. If only two reefs can be easily set up, the second reef should be in the third-reef location, with the first reef splitting these.”

Looking to improve your speed, especially in light air? “For customers seeking more performance, we could build a square-top main,” says Mason. “But that requires additional hardware to lower and raise the gaff batten. It’s important to make sure that the existing hardware can be adapted or new hardware can be installed to make raising and lowering of the gaff batten easy. Overall though, square tops offer better sail shape and allow the top of the sail to twist off as a puff hits.” This unloads the sail, without someone having to immediately ease the mainsheet or traveler.

Which sailcloth you choose is highly dependent on your budget, cruising plans and how you sail. “Cross-cut Dacron still offers the best value in cost and longevity,” Yourieff says. “We recommend using a fairly balanced weave Dacron, with big yarns in both the warp and fill direction, especially if sailing in high-UV areas. The sails will last much longer.

“If the budget allows, then a performance upgrade would be to make triradial sails in either a cruise laminate or a warp-oriented Dacron, which is now also available. Triradial construction provides ­better shape-holding control as opposed to cross-cut ­construction because the fabric threads are more in line with the loads out of the corners of the sails. If sailing in high-humidity areas, we would recommend the warp-oriented Dacron over a cruise laminate because it is less likely to become mildewed. The upcharge for going to triradial over cross-cut is approximately 25 percent.”

If you have an eye on performance, and a larger sail budget, consider going with a more high-tech option. Mason recommends North’s line of 3Di sails, which are molded as one piece instead of stitched together. “With 3Di sails, we can align fibers in the sail in the exact load-bearing directions seen in square-top and high-roach sails. This is not achievable with paneled sails because there will still be high off-axis loads using paneled sailcloth.”

As with most things, the devil is in the details. For sailors coming from a mono-hull background, Mason points out some of the things to keep in mind when purchasing sails for a cruising ­multihull: “Due to the high righting moment, the sails should be overbuilt versus typical monohull sails. The base material might be 50 percent stronger than a monohull of the same size. Corner rings and webbings need to be upsized as well. Seaming in ­paneled sails needs heavier thread and more rows. Battens need to be stiffer and more durable. Do not skimp on battens, because the mainsails are heavy with a large roach that needs to be supported. Batten angles should be optimized for easy flaking, and square-top sails should have a detachable head carriage. Furthermore, we recommend chafe protection on batten pockets for shrouds and lazy jacks.”

For headsails, many cruising cats have self-tacking jibs, which are a good choice for boats with shorthanded crews, but at a cost of performance. These sails are typically tall and thin, and can develop too much twist at the top once the course sailed is past a close reach. Sometimes vertical battens are added to help this. As for a genoa, Mason recommends that “the sail be built as large as possible because most cruising boats are underpowered, but it should have a higher clew for good visibility.”

Both sailmakers suggested adding an off-wind sail, if the boat doesn’t have one already. Yourieff recommends a screacher set to fly on a low-stretch torque luff rope on a furler with a UV cover so it can be left hoisted and rolled while cruising. “This sail will add considerable performance to the boat in lighter winds and when sailing off the wind in heavier air.”

Mason adds that “nylon sails should not have UV covers because the material stretches at different rates, making for a poor-looking sail. If you require a UV cover to be left up and stored, the sail should be low-stretch or a laminate equivalent. If your boat does not have a bowsprit, we would recommend a free-flying G-2 gennaker that can be flown from centerline or from the windward hull to get lower angles.”

Whether your boat is a high-performance rocket or just retiring from charter duty, adding new sails will improve performance and make your cat or trimaran easier and more fun to sail.

Jennifer Brett is CW’s senior editor.

The post New Sails for a Multihull appeared first on Cruising World.

3Di Outlasts The Adventure
Francois Gabart and his 30-meter trimaran Macif broke the solo around-the-world speed record in December 2017 with a 3Di mainsail that had 45,000 miles BEFORE the start of his record run. 3Di powered all three around-the-world speeds records currently held.

No Film. No Delamination.
3Di is composite technology, not a sail laminate. All other sailmakers use laminates of which Mylar film is an integral component. Moisture, sunlight, and fatigue degrade both the adhesives used with the film, and the Mylar itself. These cause delamination and film failure over time.

Another Dimension
North Sails created 3D technology and is the only sailmaker to utilize full-sized molds. 3Di uses reconfigurable molds that are set to the sail’s intended flying shape.

Made By Robots (mostly)
The only sewing on a 3Di sail is for attaching details such as corner reinforcements and clew straps.
The majority of the 3Di process is automated and run by computers.

Unique To You North Sails has four versions of 3Di to suit different sailing styles and budgets.

It Has To Be North
3Di is a patented sail technology that is exclusive to North Sails. There are many “black” and “gray” sails on the market, but they are actually Mylar based string sails hidden underneath a cover layer giving them the superficial appearance of 3Di without the performance.

The post North Sails 3Di – What You Need to Know appeared first on Cruising World.

Sails do not last forever, but with proper care, cruising sails made of a high-quality Dacron sailcloth will provide many years of service. I know this because I spent more than 70 years maintaining sails, often turning for advice to Graham Knight, of Antigua Sails, who has been repairing sails in Antigua since 1970. Knight has repaired or supervised the repairs to more sails than anyone else I can think of.

My sailing career began in the days of cotton sails and manila or linen running rigging. It was a good school in which to learn how to repair sails, as there were few sailmakers in the Caribbean in the late 1950s, just a few locals who made or repaired canvas sails entirely by hand. We yacht owners did most of our own sail maintenance, also by hand.

When Dacron sails first arrived on the scene, we thought it was heaven. Dacron was unaffected by changes in moisture. Gone were the days of having to carefully ease the halyard and outhaul as you sailed into a fog, or when rain soaked the sail. Gone were the days of carefully drying sails to make sure they did not get mildewed, and we could forget about putting on the sailcover to keep the nighttime dew off the sail. I did, though, miss the most comfortable place to sleep in a boat: curled up on a dry cotton spinnaker in the fo’c’sle.

Over time, we learned from experience that Dacron sails become damaged in three ways: as a result of weak stitching, from flogging, and by degradation from exposure to UV radiation from the sun. The stitching was a particular weakness in those early Dacron sails, in part due to the sensitivity of the thread to UV exposure.

A Stitch in Time

I quickly learned that when the stitching fails, a sail will split from the leech in, seldom from the body of the sail out. If on Iolaire we noticed a seam opening up in the body of a sail, my crew or I would restitch it by hand at the end of the day. If a seam started to fail from the leech in, it would split all the way to the luff before we could get the sail down. I vividly recall spreading a mainsail across the fuel dock at Yacht Haven in St. Thomas, restitching by hand where it had split from luff to leech — two rows of stitches, each 15 feet long. That taught me to regularly inspect the leech of every sail and restitch the weak points before they failed.

Just before my late wife, Marilyn, and I decided to emigrate to Grenada, I acquired a heavy-duty Pfaff electric zigzag sewing machine mounted in a proper table. We disassembled it and packed it in Iolaire’s port pilot berth so it would be on the windward side going to Grenada. Periodically, I set up the sewing machine in the bar at the Grenada Yacht Club, where I could spread the sails out. I regularly restitched them along the leech and along the seams to 3 feet in from the leech. I did the same along the foot of the high-cut yankee. That ended the weak-stitching problem for Iolaire.

Take it from me, you will substantially increase the life of your sails by periodically taking them to a sailmaker who can inspect them, make any obvious repairs and do as I have described above. Also, have the batten pockets restitched if the stitching looks weak.

Once a sail is two or three years old, it will become apparent where it chafes on shrouds and spreaders. Have your sailmaker glue on reinforcement patches in the way of the spreaders and narrow strips over the seams where they chafe on shrouds. Taking these simple steps will lengthen the life of the sail considerably.

Knight recommends you persuade the sailmaker to use Gore Tenara thread when you have your sails restitched. Sailmakers do not like to use it because it is expensive and the machine must be specially set up for it, but the thread will last longer than the sail.

Shaken to Pieces

Flogging is another major cause of sail damage or destruction. In the days when Iolaire had cotton sails, I had a lot of trouble with the batten pockets or the sail under them tearing when the sail flogged during a tack or when reefing. When I ordered my first Dacron mainsail from Charlie “Butch” Ulmer, I asked for a battenless main. This eliminated the problem of broken battens, and battens fouling in the rigging when sails were hoisted or doused, but introduced another: I always had a fluttering leech unless the leech line was pulled taut, and then I had a curled leech.

When the battenless main was coming to the end of its life I replaced it with a main with battens. To keep the wooden battens (plastic battens did not yet exist) from breaking and tearing the batten pocket or sail, I installed three very thin battens in each pocket. The thin battens would bend more without breaking than a single thicker batten. I also removed the batten pockets, sewed a patch under each pocket, then reinstalled the pockets. As a result, if a batten did break and tear a hole, because of the double thickness, the hole was usually in the batten pocket rather than in the sail. A hole in the batten pocket was much easier to repair than a hole in the sail.

The problem of the flogging mainsail was solved in 1989, when Robbie Doyle gave Iolaire a fully battened mainsail with one of his first StackPacks. I will not get into the debate about which sails are faster, but from the cruising sailor’s standpoint, a fully battened sail beats the battened soft sail six ways to Sunday. A fully battened sail does not flog when it’s being reefed. If a squall approaches and the skipper feels it will only be a brief one, the main can be eased so it’s completely depowered but will not flog. It may take some strange shapes, but it will be depowered. It can be retrimmed once the squall has passed.

We discovered a few problems with the Doyle StackPack as originally conceived, but we sorted them out over time. A fully battened sail installed in a StackPack or a similar cover will last virtually forever.

After six hard seasons in the Caribbean and a transatlantic passage, I replaced Iolaire’s original StackPack with a Street Pack — a Doyle StackPack installed with zippers (see “From StackPack to Street Pack,” page 85). I replaced it not because the sail was worn out but because the cover and the membrane were falling apart and, being all sewn together, were too difficult to repair. Since then, the cover and membrane have been removed and repaired three times, but the sail was still going strong when I sold Iolaire 17 years later!

Many sailmakers make their own versions of the StackPack. Before ordering one, make sure the sail, cover and membrane (if fitted) are all connected with zippers rather than being sewn together.

UV and Polyester

We discovered the hard way in the tropics just how susceptible to rapid degradation polyester fabrics like Dacron are when exposed to UV rays. Knight showed me how to determine how severe the damage was. He pushes a sail needle through the cloth. If it goes through cleanly, all is well and the sail can be restitched and repaired. But if the needle goes through the material with a pop, the cloth is toast.

We also discovered that the light, easily handled Dacron sailcovers were not the answer; they did not protect the sails from UV damage. The solution was to make the covers out of mildew-proofed Vivitex or, later, Sunbrella. The life expectancy of boom-stowed sails on all rigs was greatly increased if the crew put on the sailcovers every day as soon as the sail was dropped. The StackPack took care of the UV problem to a great extent, on Iolaire’s mainsail anyway. Headsails were another matter.

On Iolaire, we fought the problem of UV degradation on roller headsails for 50 years. In 1961, I installed a jib and a staysail that roller-furled on their own luff wires. We made them work by setting them up on two-part halyards led to a winch. The luff wires were the same diameter as the stays, and we tensioned the luff wires until the head and staysail stays were slack. The system worked well, but the sails were all the way out or all the way in. To minimize damage from UV rays, any time we would not be sailing for two or three days, we lowered the sails and stowed them coiled in bags.

Eventually, the leech and foot of the yankee, which remained exposed when the sail was furled, were shot. The body of the sail was fine, so my crew and I laid out the sail and removed the luff wire. I then had a sailmaker cut 18 inches off the leech and foot and rebuild the head, tack and clew corners. My mate and I shortened the luff wire to suit the new luff length, fed it through the sail and tensioned it between two palm trees with a four-part tackle. We then adjusted the luff tension of the sail, secured the head and tack cringles to the ends of the wire, and secured the sail to the luff wire. We now had a good J2 and bought a new J1.

This same operation, cutting the sunburned material from the leech and foot of a high-cut jib, can also be done on a genoa, reducing a 150 percent genoa to a 135. With headsails fitted to a roller-­reefing foil, this operation is much easier than with the old sails with luff wires.

Roller Reefing

In 1986, Olaf Harken offered me a very good discount on Harken’s headsail ­roller-reefing gear. From the late 1960s to the ’80s, bent-up and ­broken-down roller-reefing headsail gear was stacked like cordwood in rigging lofts across the Caribbean, so despite the limitations of my roller-furling headsail rig, I was not at all interested in switching to a roller-reefing headsail on a foil.

What Harken really wanted was for me to test his company’s new gear for larger boats. When he offered to give me the gear and a headsail to go with it, I accepted. The gear worked perfectly for nine hard years in the Caribbean, three transatlantics, 17 years cruising and racing in Europe, and was still going strong when I sold Iolaire.

In one way, though, it was a step backward. To protect the sail from UV rays, we removed it whenever we were not sailing for any amount of time. With the headsail it replaced, one person could slack the halyard, drop the sail and, with some difficulty, coil the furled sail into its bag. By contrast, removing the big yankee from the headstay was a three-person job, as was hoisting it. Thus we did not do it with the frequency we had with the roller-furling sails, and the sail suffered.

To eliminate the sunburn problem, many cruisers have a protective layer of Sunbrella about 18 inches wide sewn on the leech and foot. It looks like hell and does not improve the set of the sail. The better solution for a roller-reefing headsail is a cover of the kind I first saw on German yachts in the Baltic in the late ’90s and is now becoming common elsewhere. The cover, which is a long sleeve, is hoisted, usually with the spinnaker halyard, then tightened with a lanyard threaded through a series of hooks and eyes. It covers the sail completely and does not flap in the breeze. However, friction imposes a limit as to how big a sleeve can be made and still be practical to hoist and douse. Knight says the maximum practical luff length is about 60 feet. A sail with a luff any longer than 60 feet is too big to regularly take down when the boat is not being sailed, so it is left up and the leech and foot remain exposed to UV rays. Some skippers, rather than use a colored protective material, have sacrificial strips of cloth the same color as the sail sewn on the leech and foot. Mark Fitzgerald, the longtime skipper of the 115-foot high-tech ketch Sojana, coats the leech and foot with white emulsion paint, which has proved to minimize UV damage. North Sails has a liquid “ink” that reduces UV damage. It is available in several colors and can be sprayed on existing sails if they are clean.

Be sure when you furl your sail on a roller furler that the drum turns in the ­direction that leaves the Sunbrella cover and not the sail itself exposed.

I have been told by Evelyne Nye, head of Custom Canvas and the North Sails agent in St. Thomas, that the best headsail covers are made by Etienne Giroire, a French singlehanded racing skipper who does business as ATN (atninc.com). This certainly looks like the solution to the UV problem with roller-furling headsails.

With diligent care, Dacron sails can be made to last a good long time: Don’t let them flog, inspect and restitch vulnerable areas on a regular basis, and protect them from sunlight.

– – –

Voyaging legend Donald M. Street Jr. has been racing and cruising on both sides of the Atlantic — and writing about his exploits — for over five decades.

The post Making Your Sails Last appeared first on Cruising World.

North Sails has been the exclusive official supplier to the Volvo Ocean Race since the debut of the VO65 one design fleet in the 2014-15 edition. Now, after analyzing extensive race data,further modeling and listening to feedback from Volvo Ocean Race sailors, North has created a new 171m² sail to fill an apparent gap between the masthead code 0 (MH0) and the J1 jib, boosting the performance of the VO65s in the process.

In the most recent edition of the historic race, sailors reported having to constantly switch between the MH0 and the J1, two of the biggest sails carried onboard, in search of the configuration that gave them the best speed.

Crucially the introduction of the J0 will eradicate the need to change headsails so frequently – welcome news for the sailors, who expend thousands of calories a day manually hoisting the massive sails.

“The most important feedback we got from the last race was that there was a gap between the J1 and the masthead zero,” said North Sails designer Gautier Sergent, a Volvo Ocean Race expert.

“Between ten and 15 knots of wind the crews were forever changing sails as they looked for the best configuration. We wanted to provide a solution for this gap, so we introduced a new J0 that fits perfectly between the J1 and the masthead 0.

“The teams will still have to stack the J0 but they don’t need to tack or gybe every day when they are sailing offshore, so overall it is a net gain with fewer sail changes.“

North Sails has spent a lot of time comparing recent race data with historic weather routings, using software developed with Great Circle, to guarantee the J0 strikes the perfect balance among the VO65 fleet’s sail inventory.

AkzoNobel training

Targeted for conditions between eight and 15 knots upwind and up range reaching, the bowsprit-set J0 is already proving a useful tool in a much wide range of conditions.

Not only will the Volvo Ocean Race crews now have a new sail to play with but they will also get better use of their existing arsenal.

The masthead code 0 will be much more effective while the fractional code 0, which had a very narrow range in upwind conditions in the 2014-15 race, becomes a dedicated downwind sail.

“The addition of the J0 is better suited to the new race course, which has more of a Southern Ocean routing,” Sergent added. “It also allows the fractional and masthead code zeros to become more efficient and the fractional zero to become more downwind-oriented.”

The current crop of Volvo Ocean Race sailors got their chance to put the new sail through its paces during Leg Zero, the four-stage qualifying series that included the iconic Fastnet offshore race.

Early feedback from the teams has been overwhelmingly positive.

Leg Zero, Departure delivery Sanxenxo to Gosport. Photo by Ugo Fonolla/Volvo Ocean Race. 26July, 2017

“North Sails have done a really good job – they listened to the feedback and developed the J0 for this edition, which is what we need,” said Dongfeng Race Team crewman Daryl Wislang. “Upwind it’s a very versatile sail but it can be used at the wider angles as well. It’s going to get a lot of use.”

Dee Caffari, skipper of Turn the Tide on Plastic, added: “It’s the first time we’ve even seen a J0, and I think it’s my new favorite sail. It’s a really interesting space that it fits into so we’ll have a look at that in more detail. It’s a big change for the sail wardrobe for this edition of the race.”

Leg Zero, two boat training with Dongfeng Race Team and MAPFRE in Sanxenxo, Spain. Photo by Jeremie Lecaudey/Volvo Ocean Race. 31 August, 2017

Pablo Arrarte, watch captain on MAPFRE, said each team must decide how best to use the J0. “It is a critical sail, new for everyone, and we have to test it intensely,” he said. “Each team will make their own conclusions while training about how to use it to their best advantage.”

Just like the rest of North Sails’ Volvo Ocean Race inventory, the cutting-edge J0 is made from its unique 3Di technology that pushes the boundaries of sail design.

The patented technology, developed for the Volvo Ocean Race, uses tiny pre-impregnated filament tapes to mirror the load-bearing and shape-holding qualities of a rigid aerofoil wing while remaining lightweight and durable.

The Volvo Ocean Race begins in Alicante, Spain, on October 14, with the opening round of the In-Port Race Series before the fleet departs for Lisbon, Portugal, on the first of 11 offshore legs on October 22.

Learn how North Sails 3Di can transform your on-the-water experience, no matter what type of sailing you do: northsails.com/sailing/en/sails/materials

AkzoNobel

The post New Versatile Sail Completes North Sails VOR Inventory appeared first on Cruising World.

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