Titanium Sails, the Holy Grail of Sail Material ?

[beiland]

Great article and worthy of some discussion:

Titanium Sails, the Holy Grail of Sail Material ?
The marriage of film and fibre to produce lightweight sails is nothing new, but UK’s latest development in this field is taking a new approach that brings additional qualities to the laminate never seen before

It is fitting that the name UK has chosen for this new material is the very definition of strength, lightness, toughness and durability: TITANIUM....

see the rest of the article and a drawing HERE:

http://www.seahorsemagazine.com/10-c...sail-materials


Comments from any users ??

[StuM]

Had me going there with you Subject line.

I thought it was going to be about titanium sails (as in made of the metal of that name), not TITANIUM™ sails.

[beiland]

That is a rather 'catchy' name isn't it.


Looking to find some persons who may have had personal experiences with these sails.

[Jim Cate]

Boy, it sounds good when you say it fast! And indeed, there have been so many interesting advances in sail "cloth" of late that all sound wonderful. In fact, there are a number of folks who manufacture exotic materials, each one of which is better than all the others.

So,I can understand your desire for real world feedback on this (IMO) misnamed wondercloth. However, I doubt that too many of us cruiser types who populate CF will be early adopters for Titanium sails on our boats... I suspect that it is bloody expensive, and Dockhead has already purchased his new sails (!).

Jim

[TJ D]

We're flying laminate membrane/load path sails (carbon/technora blend) at the moment. This looks like a very good design, especially if it doesn't need the dacron taffeta for UV. The weight savings would be welcome.

Anybody know what kind of pricing on these relative to other higher-end sails?

I also suspect that very few pockets amongst the cruising folk will be deep enough.

TJ

[Kestrahl]

The taffeta isn't just for UV and technora is pretty good in UV anyway. A PET film sail isn't going to last well for cruising, the film is normally the first part of a race laminate to break down with flexing over time. Its good they have figured out how to do continuous fibers like Millennium tech, but apart from that there is nothing really special here that others can't do. The latest direction for membrane manufacturers is getting rid of the PET films in favor of lightweight non-woven fiber array skins which would be closer to the taffeta cruising sail without so much weight.

[beiland]

Originally Posted by Kestrahl

The taffeta isn't just for UV and technora is pretty good in UV anyway. A PET film sail isn't going to last well for cruising, the film is normally the first part of a race laminate to break down with flexing over time.

What about if it is utilized in a roller furling application?...less crimp type bending??

[beiland]

Shore Sails Fabric
Cuben Fiber Performance—The Best in the World

.....interesting quote from this article...

Paneled sails are proven faster than molded sails

[reed1v]

For long distance cruisers, nothing beats sails that have a soft hand to them. Soft Dacron easy to repair, holds up to lots of punishment, and holds its shape well. We were partial to UV coated cloth(yellow tinge to sails) and without battens. Less wear, easy to furl into lazy jacks, and lasted for 20 years of hard sailing.

Did some racing with mylar sails. You are trading off some increase in speed to handling efforts. Stowage was a pain, but not my boat so not my problem. Suspect titanium sails or those with kevlar would be super stiff. Not something you would want on a cruising boat.

[Dave22q]

This thread needs to be labled advertising.

[Jim Cate]

For long distance cruisers, nothing beats sails that have a soft hand to them. Soft Dacron easy to repair, holds up to lots of punishment, and holds its shape well.

While I agree that soft dacron is nice to handle, to say that it holds its shape well is, well, just silly. And your soft sails that "lasted" twenty years... your criteria for "lasting" is rather different than mine!

Many cruising sailors don't care much about sailing performance, and if you were happy with a battenless, soft and very old sail, you must be amongst that group. But there are also cruising sailors who enjoy the benefits of better sails, ones that hold the designed shape over time and in varying wind strengths. Those sailors are interested in the development of new sailcloths, even ones that seem to claim to be made of metal (!). Some of those sailors go as far as spending extra dollars to experiment with those newer materials.

I'm happy with my Hydranet sails, even though they are pretty stiff and hard to flake. I have a reasonable expectation that they will actually maintain their design shape far longer than their Dacron predecessors. Dockhead seems thrilled with his high tech laminate sails, and several of the multihulllers have posted favorable comments about other modern sail materials. Soft Dacron may be nice to handle just as Egyptian cotton was, but it is not always the best thing for even your stipulated "long distance cruisers".

Jim

[TJ D]

I have to second Jim's comment.

We have been dacron only for all of our working sails until we bought the 55 footer and the new laminate sails at the same time. (with a fully battened, very roachy main).

For me, I don't have a bit of interest in ditching these for any kind of dacron when it comes time to replace. If anything, we'll go with a square-top, more race oriented sail as long as UV and chafe concerns are addressed by whatever material is used in place of the current taffeta.

They hold their shape for the life of the sail, through any wind range.

Sure, they're a little stiff, but we (two people) still handle an 880 square foot main with no problems. Battens, stiff cloth and all. I have found no operational difficulties whatsoever. We had these sails built to a very heavy specification just for longevity, so they are probably as stiff as anything that we're likely to encounter on the next set.

Turns out that these new materials are actually pretty damn good. And yes, we are 'long distance cruisers' too.

TJ

[Rorzech]

[QUOTE=beiland;2158601]Titanium Sails, the Holy Grail of Sail Material ?
The marriage of film and fibre to produce lightweight sails is nothing new, but UK’s latest development in this field is taking a new approach that brings additional qualities to the laminate never seen before

It is fitting that the name UK has chosen for this new material is the very definition of strength, lightness, toughness and durability: TITANIUM.

The process to produce TITANIUM resides in a corner of Hong Kong that is off-limits to visitors due to the sensitivity UK Sailmakers has to revealing the numerous innovations developed in the production of this material that may be the Holy Grail of sail materials.

“It’s a lot of science, a good helping of art, and a pinch of black magic,” says UK Sailmakers’ Barry Hayes of UK Sailmakers’ massive loft in Hong Kong. “Titanium sails are true one-piece sails that have continuous yarns running between the corners of the sail. They are the latest chapter in a story that began back in the 1980’s with UK Tape-Drive.”

When first introduced, Tape-Drive represented a remarkable insight to knowing how to separate the load-bearing and the air-impermeability functions of a sail. Using carbon tapes that followed the computer predicted load paths between the corners of the sail, Tape-Drive was a leap forward in producing membranes that were strong in the right directions without having excess weight.

UK’s TITANIUM sails continue this heritage of innovation through a new process of building the film-fibre-laminate sails. It starts with two thin films made of tough PET that are coated with a co-polymer to comprise the outside faces of the construction, with the familiar pattern of load-bearing carbon fibres oriented along load paths in the sail. In Uni-TITANIUM sails, a uni-directional carbon cloth is also introduced between the skins to help further stabilize sail shape.

This construction method has the exterior films perform the combination of both the ‘finish’ and the glue that holds everything together. Shiny and weatherproof on the outside, the grey (or black) PET co-polymer skins are tacky on the inside, holding the whole layer cake together as it is constructed and also providing the resin that is going to melt down and through the interior elements, just like the cheese in a Reuben sandwich. There is no need for added glue on the fibres, which contributes to not only excess weight, but in time the brittle glues break down and can cause de-laminations.

Furthermore, that makes for lighter sails (by 15-30%), happier foredeck teams, and ultimately happier owners who are not replacing their mis-shapened and broken sails as often.

The PET film is a key element to the sandwich: at only 1.3 micrometers thick, this material provided by Dimension Polyant is incredibly tough, and will be most familiar for its use in plastic litre bottles and in some paper currencies - try tearing either of these apart. Sunlight and heat up to 50°C does nothing to PET, not even make it shrink like many other similar materials.

The other key element is the Carbon used in Uni-TITANIUM sails, which is extruded as a 2m-wide continuous fibre sheet for added strength yet with unmeasurable thinness. This looks similar to one of your old cassette tapes, but is a lot stronger and less likely to be used as emergency tell tales.
UK Sailmakers

The four layers are dropped into a custom-formed variable geometry thermoform in which the sail is UV-bonded into one piece at 1 bar pressure under vacuum. This is a concave form, and the ‘variable geometry’ part is the unmentionable proprietary part of this process. Suffice to say the copolymer melts around the carbon fibres and then down through the unidirectional weave cloth, and the result is a whole that becomes substantially greater than the sum of its parts.


What’s happened here is that instead of applying the load path structural members to a pre-made sail membrane, the sail skin and load path structures have been fabricated as one integral product. The result is a sail that is formed to exactly the right shape, as stiff as cross-grain plywood thanks to the unidirectional panels, as strong as the carbon load-bearing fibres can make it, and – here’s the bonus – it is not subject to UV degradation. In fact, quite the opposite, because along with heat, ultraviolet light is part of the process that bonds everything together.

This unidirectional carbon cloth is also massively strong as well as gossamer light, and its job is to provide rigidity to resist the typical twisting forces found in a sail that is being pulled in four directions – from the head, the tack and the clew, as well as form the luff to the leech.
UK Sailmakers

Hayes recalls how the development process started. “When we made our very first (Uni) Titanium sail there was inevitably a certain amount of experimentation,” he said, “a sort of suck-it-and-see process where the materials were concerned. We sandwiched three layers of unidirectional cloth into a No 3 jib built for Frank Pong’s R/P 76 JELIK. We knew the material was strong, but we didn’t expect the jib lead car to get ripped straight out of the deck! So it’s strong – stronger than we realised. JELIK’s present No 3 only has one layer of unidirectional in the sandwich, and it is holding up just fine.”

Another impressive result came recently at the ORC World Championship, where Heinz-Peter Schmidt’s GP 42 NEO SILVA team earned Bronze medals in Class A. They had high praise for their Uni-TITANIUM sails contributing to their success in a class of 27 boats from several nations.

“The sails were incredibly light and flexible, but also stable,” said Schmidt. “The trimmer’s work was much easier because the shapes never distorted, yet they could add depth and move the draft in the mainsail in a wide range of wind speed. The mainsail weighs only 25 kg, but we never have any problems when the wind is strong. In fact, our targets had to be adjusted because we were 0.3 knots faster upwind!”
UK Sailmakers

Schmidt is no newcomer to success: his last boat won the ORC European Championship in 2011 and again last year, and was also equipped with UK sails. He credited his team’s ongoing success with the support he has received from the UK Sails operation in Germany, one of 50 lofts located around the world. It’s this strength in depth that has come together time and again over the decades to produce some of the finest racing sails in the world, with the latest of these being UK Titanium – strong, light, stiff, practically bulletproof, and beautifully engineered.

...from Seahorse Magazine

If you can whip me up a set of sails to fit my Irwin 23' by the beginning of Sept 2016, I'll sail them around the world for you, to give them the "Real World Test". You can emboss them with any kind of logo / advertising you like. As long as you promise me that you will replace any sails that don't make the complete trip. I will be Blogging and You Tubing, the entire trip with GoPro cams & Drone Cams. If you can solicit me, then I should be able to solicit you's.
I'm looking for serious sponsors only.
Cheers.

[Manos1955]

Thanks for the info but too much of advertising for an item that most of us will never see in reality

[Adelie]

Being as this is a cruising forum I would have to say the holy grail of cruising sails is solar film as light, durable, cheap and sew able as polyester. Any time the sails are up you are charging you batteries.


A house is but a boat so poorly built and so firmly run aground you would never try to refloat it.