Sail Cloth Survey

[w32honu]

From the cruising sailors perspective..............

What is the highest quality sail cloth these days??

Wear and tear?

Holds the best shape the longest??

UV??

Anyone have any experience with Vectran (Hood) cloth??

Thanks.............

[Bash]

Vectran is nice, but for a main I'd rather have a hybrid cloth built on a mylar core, such as North's Soft Norlam.

[barnakiel]

I would guess quality polyester is huge bang for buck.

Probably some sort of Spectra (possibly of a laminate construction) is better quality (less stretch, less weight) at a higher price.

b.

[islandplanet]

When we build our Dacron Offshore Plus voyaging sails we favor Challenge Marblehead for low aspect sails and Challenge's Fiber104 or high aspect cloth for high aspect sails.

Vectran has a lot going for it and there are some good choices in a variety of materials that use Vectran. There are drawbacks to laminates for extended cruising as they can be difficult to get repaired in the third world.

There is no magic bullet product. Each one has pluses and minuses. Read the cloth manufacturers websites. There's some good info there. A good sailmaker will spend as much time as you need to arrive at the best choice for your application.

Most sails these days are built overseas. One production loft, that Practical Sailor referred to as the "800 pound gorilla of modern sailmaking" produces for many of the big brand names as well as for smaller independents like us. Many of the high tech sails are made there and marketed under different names. It's become a highly globalized industry and technology has leveled the playing field.

Look past the labels and ask specific questions about how the sail is built. Compare specifications closely. Get past hype and into the facts the best you can.

[Weyalan]

Check out Dimension Polyant's Hydranet sailcloth. Not necessarily the crosscut, but the radial.

[Dame.n.Jess]

Can you get any type of UV proofing applied, maybe a coating of some type to slow the breakdown of the various materials in the sun? and if so what materials is this restricted to?

[w32honu]

Another question..................

Vektan, as promoted by Hood, is not a laminate. From their description of the material it is woven.................????

I agree with the notion that laminate sails have no business on an offshore cruising boat. Just curious about the UV and wear issues. Thought they might be on to something with interweaving of "Vektran" with Dacron polyester.

Its always best to go to the forum and "check the hype" that may be promoted by a manufacturer. Sounds like good old fashion Dacron with a high weave count and less resin fill may still be the way to go.................

???

[islandplanet]

Originally Posted by Weyalan

Check out Dimension Polyant's Hydranet sailcloth. Not necessarily the crosscut, but the radial.

Hydranet Radial is great stuff but very pricey. It's appropriate for a performance cruising boat with serious voyaging plans and open pocketbook. I priced out a main for a custom Farr design recently. The HydraNet Radial was about 10 or 15% more than a Carbon/Technora load path cruising sail.

The Hydranet crosscut does not offer much advantage over a high quality Dacron like Marblehead of Challenge Fiber 104. There was some formal testing done on it by our production loft which is why we only recommend the Radial cloth.