Mainsail Design Question...

[PaulinVictoria]

They look cooler, that must add at least half a knot.

[killarney_sailor]

I think that conventional Dacron sails from a good loft are quite remarkable. When we bought our boat our #2 was obviously shot and our Hood furling main looked pretty good but was far from new. We bought a #2 from North with a great boat show price. Our first year we went NYC to Bermuda and back for a shakedown and then the Cheaspeake as far south as Grenada and back. Before we left we assumed we would need a new main. When we got back to Florida we could not see any change in the main and the genoa needed only minor repairs. So we put off getting a new main until later (Oz or NZ?), With further minor repairs in Brisbane and South Africa we are ready to head to the Caribbean and North America. We wii be over 30,000 miles by then and these sails have been up in winds they were never meant for. For a cruiser I wonder if the fancy cuts are worth it.

[MedSailor]

Originally Posted by Jeff_H

Med, I mean no disrespect to you or your girl. We all love our boats for different reasons, and of course overall performance is but one item that you may or may not cherish. In the end the best boat for anyone is the one that we think works for us.


... That sail cloth was pretty short lived in the leech where fluttering and flogging stresses the horizontally oriented, weaker woof fibers (rather than the stronger vertically oriented warp) to a premature failure...

Jeff

Absolutely no offense taken, I was just having a go. We do love our boats for different reasons (see my signature) .

Setting aside cost difference completely for a moment, do you think it is possible that a tri-radial dacron of say WarpDrive cloth would fail sooner than a crosscut sail or more standard cloth? Or is it a given, or at least more likely, that the tri-radial dacron sails last longer?

Thanks again for your thoughts.

MedSailor

[Jeff_H]

Challenge is a well regarded cloth supplier so I would expect Warpdrive to be a quality product. But as to durability I would be hesitant to comment since I rarely end up with Challenger products when I have had sails made. For no obvious reason I typically end up with Dimension fabrics. It's mostly about some particular weight and weave pattern to hit a specific goal that I had in mind.

Which is a really long way to say this is really something that you address to your sailmaker.

Jeff

[Sternik]

Last year, when I inquired with my sailmaker for recommendation on new set of "white dacron-like" radial sails, that could be used with integrated lazy jack/sail cover and jib roller, he recommended two materials:
- Dimension Polyant AP Blade
- Dimension Polyant Square (this one being pretty much race-ready material without going into the laminate sails)
He also mentioned both materials do not need special handling, unlike laminates.