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You need a new sailmaker. There is no relationship between the lifespan or length of time that a sail retains its shape and whether the sail has a loose foot or not. In a properly made sail with a bolt rope or boom slugs, there is a shelf on the bottom of sail that allows the sail to retain a proper shape when the outhaul is eased. In most cases, when a sail is properly made, that shelf exerts no support or pressure on the sail itself. What that means that even when you have a sail that is not a loose-footed sail, in highest stressed cases such as power reaching or going up wind, even a non-loose footed sail is acting as a loose footed sail with all of the leech and foot loads concentrated at the clew. In other words the stress mapping within the sails are identical at the highest stressed times.
Gordon covered most of the advantages of a loose footed sail to a cruiser. One advantage of a loose footed sail over a shelf foot sail that Gordon did not mention is that you can often do away with a flattening reef on a loose footed sail because you do not have the shelf limiting outhaul travel.
Jeff
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