North 3Di 330/370 Ocean

[Joli]

Originally Posted by FlyingScot

Curaçao. It just hauled out today. I talked to the owner. He said they were great for two years and good after that but failed rapidly once they started to fail.

We love our North 3Di we bought from Andrew in Antigua.

If you're only sailing 6 months a year you've only gotten a years sailing from the laminates after two years of sailing before they've failed. They just put a 3di main on the boat.

Other friends with another HH are reporting degradation of their laminates after 6 months here in the Caribbean. If you want laminate sails and you're using the boat in the Caribbean just plan on replacing them every two or three years.

We replaced our North laminated spectra main because of mold and delamination with hydranet. We're replacing our UK laminate jib with hydranet or 3di this off season, our laminate looks like swiss cheese.

The thing to remember is you've got to have tough sails because you're constantly reefing here, it's windy. We have slab reefing so we are constantly scrunching the fabric. That's really hard on a laminate. I don't know how well 3di mainsails handles reefing.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Joli

If you're only sailing 6 months a year you've only gotten a years sailing from the laminates after two years of sailing before they've failed. They just put a 3di main on the boat.



Other friends with another HH are reporting degradation of their laminates after 6 months here in the Caribbean. If you want laminate sails and you're using the boat in the Caribbean just plan on replacing them every two or three years.



We replaced our North laminated spectra main because of mold and delamination with hydranet. We're replacing our UK laminate jib with hydranet or 3di this off season, our laminate looks like swiss cheese.



The thing to remember is you've got to have tough sails because you're constantly reefing here, it's windy. We have slab reefing so we are constantly scrunching the fabric. That's really hard on a laminate. I don't know how well 3di mainsails handles reefing.

HydraNet (woven) and 3Di (fibre path) are fundamentally different materials, with HydraNet eventually failing in the same way as pure Dacron woven-cloth sails - due to excessive stretch.

Our cat had 10 year old HydraNet main and jib that we replaced with about 45,000 ocean miles on them, but they were bagged out after 35,000 miles and 6 years of use they had before we got the boat. After 10 years the material itself was still in pretty good shape, but the stitching and webbing were starting to fail and the shape was horrible.

You’ve got a powerful cat - woven material sails just won’t last from a performance point of view. And there are options even in laminates for hot and humid climates, but you need to talk with lofts in SE Asia that build those kind of sails for local clients. Find out from them which sails on incoming cruising boats they repair or replace and which ones hold together well.

Regarding reefing and crushed fabric under the clews, laminates are particularly bad as they use Mylar or similar relatively stiff and brittle material as the carrier for the fibres. 3Di and similar membrane sails don’t use any material to hold the fibres in place - they use a resin. The outer taffetas determine the crushing characteristics - a polyester taffeta will be heavier and more bend tolerant while a UHMWPE taffeta will be lighter but stiffer.

In the North Sails 3Di range the differences in taffetas determine the longevity. https://www.northsails.com/sailing/e...3di-technology and https://www.northsails.com/sailing/e...ials/3di/ocean

[Joli]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Our cat had 10 year old HydraNet main and jib that we replaced with about 45,000 ocean miles on them, but they were bagged out after 35,000 miles]

Ten year old sails with a **** ton of miles? Really? What do you think your new sails will look like in ten years?

I'll be happy to get 35,000 miles from a suit of sails. That's a lot of miles and you gotta know some of those miles are tough miles.

We put 20k on our sails in the past 30 months, if they last another 15k I'm a happy camper. We'll replace them.

Sails wear out, they go round and deep. If you race and get two years from a suit of sails your doing well. It is what it is. For the price of some of the exotics you can buy new dacron every third year and be ahead. There really is no free lunch, sails wear out.

I've raced allot during my life, I've bought allot of sails in that time. You think your sails still look good after three years, think again, they're slow. You don't know it till you get up against a sister ship with new sails, then you know.

I gotta laugh about people replacing sails with tons of miles on them and saying they're crap because they don't look like new sails. Doh...

[bullsails]

Originally Posted by fxykty

HydraNet (woven) and 3Di (fibre path) are fundamentally different materials, with HydraNet eventually failing in the same way as pure Dacron woven-cloth sails - due to excessive stretch.

Our cat had 10 year old HydraNet main and jib that we replaced with about 45,000 ocean miles on them, but they were bagged out after 35,000 miles and 6 years of use they had before we got the boat. After 10 years the material itself was still in pretty good shape, but the stitching and webbing were starting to fail and the shape was horrible.

You’ve got a powerful cat - woven material sails just won’t last from a performance point of view. And there are options even in laminates for hot and humid climates, but you need to talk with lofts in SE Asia that build those kind of sails for local clients. Find out from them which sails on incoming cruising boats they repair or replace and which ones hold together well.

Regarding reefing and crushed fabric under the clews, laminates are particularly bad as they use Mylar or similar relatively stiff and brittle material as the carrier for the fibres. 3Di and similar membrane sails don’t use any material to hold the fibres in place - they use a resin. The outer taffetas determine the crushing characteristics - a polyester taffeta will be heavier and more bend tolerant while a UHMWPE taffeta will be lighter but stiffer.

In the North Sails 3Di range the differences in taffetas determine the longevity. https://www.northsails.com/sailing/e...3di-technology and https://www.northsails.com/sailing/e...ials/3di/ocean

Were the Hydranet sails the original crosscut style? That had stretch issues but was incredibly better on tear strength. The newer HNR (Hydranet Radial) has much better shape retention way in excess of even better Dacron.
Re the glue versus mylar reefing, both are susceptible to degradation when crunched. Maybe the glue a little better?

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by bullsails

Were the Hydranet sails the original crosscut style? That had stretch issues but was incredibly better on tear strength. The newer HNR (Hydranet Radial) has much better shape retention way in excess of even better Dacron.
Re the glue versus mylar reefing, both are susceptible to degradation when crunched. Maybe the glue a little better?

Our HydraNet sails were triradial cut, presumably with the primary load path having the UHMWPE fibres, and were made by Delta Voiles in France circa 2011. They were well made but did suffer from some design errors that I think caused the bagging out that we saw from when we first got the boat:
- no horizontal reinforcement of the reef feet (between each clew and tack)
- poor reinforcement at each reef’s clew and tack
- two of three reefs had the nearest batten very close above the reef

Interestingly, our current mainsail (a membrane fibre path sail with polyester taffetas on both sides) is no lighter than the HydraNet sail it replaced, though it is 10% bigger (more roach). We worked closely with the designer to ensure that it would perform optimally at each reef point and avoiding the three errors of the previous sails. We spend about half of our sailing time on one of our reefs - that’s one of the benefits of a performance cat.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by markiobe

Does anybody have any experience of these relatively new North sails (330 and 370 Ocean) on a 13.2m performance cruising multihull? We're having one built and wondering about sails.

We have no plans to race and will be tropics cruisers. Coming from a racing background I'm clear on the benefits of shape holding and weight and as far as I can see North would win on both counts. The question then is longevity, chafe and UV resistance. They seem more expensive than equivalent sails from Doyle, or made with Contender sailcloth so do they last that much longer?

They are expensive but will probably hold shape and outlast the usable life of Dacron By 2-3 times.

We have a new 3DI main and jib. This was the best for our high aspect rig. We sail the Caribbean with 15-20 knots true most of the time. The Quantum 130 yankee was too big, too high cut, too old (16 years). New 98% 3DI is fantastic. These are the best sails I have ever had on my boats. Many large cruisers and mega yachts are switching. There are not really any equivalent constructions, no seams, one piece molded. Performance and speed increased a lot on Roxy. Higher, faster, reduced helm

[GRIT]

Thanks for that Report Nicholson58.

We're ordering a new Asym, and an upwind sail for the end of the sprit, this fall.

Our mainsail issues seem to be further exacerbated by the battens possibly being a little too flexible. We talked to North this spring about a 3di, and they wanted us to decide which battens we wanted for the new main. I couldn't answer that question, and thought they would have had some strong suggestions for us, though that didn't happen. So we're in research mode, again, so we don't waste any possible performance increase, by buying the wrong battens.

Cheers.
Paul.

[jdazey]

Our new 3di endurance came with RBS battens. I'm not sure what the options would be. I wanted light battens, and that's what the Seattle loft suggested.

[GRIT]

Thanks Joe.
They offered a selection of three. I don't remember what they were, but I'll add yours to my data sheet. Thank you.

Are you happy with your battens?

Cheers.
Paul.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by GRIT

Thanks for that Report Nicholson58.

We're ordering a new Asym, and an upwind sail for the end of the sprit, this fall.

Our mainsail issues seem to be further exacerbated by the battens possibly being a little too flexible. We talked to North this spring about a 3di, and they wanted us to decide which battens we wanted for the new main. I couldn't answer that question, and thought they would have had some strong suggestions for us, though that didn't happen. So we're in research mode, again, so we don't waste any possible performance increase, by buying the wrong battens.

Cheers.

Paul.

I can add that several of us Salty Dawgs crewed for another cruiser on FATJAX a Shipman 63 while in Antigua. We did the club races with AYC. FATJAX is crazy fast, big and powerful. She caries 3DI main, jib, staysail and code zero. The AS is 5500 sq ft traditional but heavy materials. Check out the site for a bit of boat envy. We usually finished an hour ahead of the local fleet. https://www.fatjax.com/

[jdazey]

Originally Posted by GRIT

Thanks Joe.
They offered a selection of three. I don't remember what they were, but I'll add yours to my data sheet. Thank you.

Are you happy with your battens?

Cheers.
Paul.

We just got the sail installed, so impressions are preliminary. The RBS battens are indeed light. They're tapered rectangular sections. The associated batten pockets/receptacles are a huge improvement over the old ones. The batten tension needs adjustment in a couple of places, but the initial shape looks good. We'll scrub the moss off of the bottom this coming week and start tuning things up.


Cheers,

[GRIT]

Originally Posted by Nicholson58

I can add that several of us Salty Dawgs crewed for another cruiser on FATJAX a Shipman 63 while in Antigua. We did the club races with AYC. FATJAX is crazy fast, big and powerful. She caries 3DI main, jib, staysail and code zero. The AS is 5500 sq ft traditional but heavy materials. Check out the site for a bit of boat envy. We usually finished an hour ahead of the local fleet. https://www.fatjax.com/

That's a fast looking boat. I love the dinghy garage!

Thanks for the link.
Cheers.
Paul.

[GRIT]

Originally Posted by jdazey

We just got the sail installed, so impressions are preliminary. The RBS battens are indeed light. They're tapered rectangular sections. The associated batten pockets/receptacles are a huge improvement over the old ones. The batten tension needs adjustment in a couple of places, but the initial shape looks good. We'll scrub the moss off of the bottom this coming week and start tuning things up.


Cheers,

Thanks for that Joe.

I hope you'll share your impressions on this thread, once you get things tuned up. I'd love to hear your thoughts on comparing the new sail to a typical Dacron sail. I've heard it's like tacking with Steel sails, as to how they change tacks. No give. That certainly seems to make a good argument as to their strength.

Cheers.
Paul.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by GRIT

Thanks for that Joe.



I hope you'll share your impressions on this thread, once you get things tuned up. I'd love to hear your thoughts on comparing the new sail to a typical Dacron sail. I've heard it's like tacking with Steel sails, as to how they change tacks. No give. That certainly seems to make a good argument as to their strength.



Cheers.

Paul.

We had a tired HydraNet mainsail and switched to a membrane mainsail a year ago (self tacking jib too). We now have 8000 nm experience with the new sails over a couple of ocean passages, extended coastal passages, and day sailing in the past year.

Weight is roughly the same, as we requested polyester taffetas on both sides to help with chafe.

The membrane sail is very stiff and barely fits the stack pack that we had made for the previous sail. After a year of use it is no less stiff and needs to be flaked to fit.

Once the sail is hoisted there are no further adjustments of outhaul, halyard or cunningham needed - the shape is the shape is the shape (for you monohull sailors with bendy masts and lots of shaping controls, remember that I’m talking about a rock solid catamaran mast that doesn’t move or bend at all).

The sail snaps across with a fair bit of force during a tack or gybe, with the battens flipping their curves - make sure your rig is tight (the diamonds that support the mast) because it shakes the mast. We use a fair bit of tension on all the battens, with a bit of extra on the top two battens to better support the roach (we don’t have a square top). In light winds the top two battens need some encouragement to flip. If you don’t already have ball/roller bearing batten cars then you will need to upgrade your mast track. Make sure that your car system can take the extra load that the material will generate. We’ve had to upgrade our mast track and cars, but they were under size to begin with (Harken System B; now we’ve got Ronstan Series 30).

We have a 14mm double braid polyester main sheet running 4:1 and split to each side of the cockpit. We now can see and hear the mainsheet minutely stretching a couple of mm with every wave - the sail material is transmitting all the load to the sheet and not loosing anything to material stretch. Our next mainsheet with have a UHMWPE core.

We specified the battens to be placed just above each reef, so that they’re not in the way with slab reefing. As well, ensure that each reef is designed with the same structure and support as the original foot - with a membrane sail you can’t have off-axis loads.

The old sail’s battens were round fibreglass rods and really heavy. Our new sail uses fibreglass Rutgerson battens, which are rectangular and quite a bit lighter than solid rod. The Rutgerson batten receptacles are really nice, with a simple threaded bolt system for tensioning. https://www.rutgerson.se/product/bat...cles-aluminum/

More money but nicer battens is C-Tech, with hollow rectangular battens. https://www.sailbattens.com/home.

We specified Rutgerson Quick Reef Solutions LFRs for our reef clews https://www.rutgerson.se/product/quick-reef-solution/ and these are very nice - low profile and nothing sticking out behind the leech.

As for the jib, beautiful. Halyard tension doesn’t matter and the shape is solid in all designed wind strengths. We don’t use the jib reefed so can’t comment on how it retains its shape with some furls.

We point a few degrees higher with more speed upwind, especially at higher wind strengths when the old sails would be too full. Our tacking angle has improved about 5*. Otherwise, hard to tell.

[fxykty]

I should have edited that our membrane sails are not North 3Di - they were designed and made by Zoom Sails using Italian-made filmless membrane with Dyneema and Aramid fibres. I assume that the general characteristics of our sails are the same as if they had been 3Di.