Storing a mylar genoa?

[Jotun]

I have a hank-on 130% mylar genoa that I use for racing. It came with a tubular sail bag for storage. The problem is it is a real pain in the A to roll such a large sail up and then slide it into the bag. It's near impossible to do on deck or in the cabin and the gravel parking lot isn't really conducive to sail longevity. Anyone have any suggestions or tips? Is the old flake and fold into a normal rectangular sail bag better or worse for mylar sails?

[sailingdog]

The reason the sail came with a tubular bag is that mylar sails don't like being bend or creased much at all. A good way to destroy the sail is to flake and fold it...

What we've done in that kind of situation is to use the dock as area to roll the sail up on. The dock is probably long enough, provided you keep most of the sail on the boat until you're actually rolling it up... and then you can put the bag over the end of the rolled sail and slide it down the sail to bag it.

It will probably require three people to do this... or so. Two to actually roll the sail, and one on-board the boat to help feed it over the lifelines.

[NOLAsailing]

I roll mine over the boom just like the mainsail.

[Jotun]

Hmm. If I had room under the main sail cover, I might consider that. The dock where is I am is pretty skinny. I doubt I would have the room to roll it there or three people to help. Right now, I gather it in a heap and use a dock cart to roll it to my SUV, then stuff it in the back and roll it up in the yard when I get home. If it's late though (post-race beers) I just leave it lying in the laundry room. The wife loves that.

[Hartley18]

The other thing you can do is wrap it round a length of 4" plastic drain pipe - then slide the whole lot into the bag. Not hard to do on the deck or on the dock - even after a long race..

--Cameron