SailNet is a forum community dedicated to Sailing enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about sailing, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, repairs, reviews, maintenance, and more!
I have a few sails that came with our boat that have not been used in many years. We actually had them in a storage closet where it was not the best conditions for them. A bit damp and musty.
What would be the best solution to clean them in. I am thinking of soaking them in warm soapy water in our large jacuzzi tob.
I used the tarp in back of pickup+hose=redneck swimming pool trick to soak/clean my sails a couple years back. Waited for the water to warm up a bit and soaked my sails for a few hours with CS530...and it helped a lot, the water was certainly dirty when I pulled the sails out and the sails were visibly cleaner...but not CLEAN. So layed out the sails, hosed them off, scrubbed them, hosed them off again, called it a day.
I did try some sodium percarbonate on a badlyblood-stained old jib once (long story), that came with the boat. I got the stains down to about 10% of their former nastiness with repeated treatments, and percarbonate is nowhere near as harsh as chlorine bleach. And it didn't touch much of the stitching.
Some recommend mild bleach or oxalic acid solutions....but eh. I'm a bit too pessimistic. I'd rather have dingy sails than potentially chemically weakened ones.
I've tried just about everything that I could find that is recommended here on SN and elsewhere (soaking, scrubbing, oxi, etc). They all work, sort of. You'll get the easy stuff off but don't expect bright, white sails. They will be better, but generally kind of disappointing. Still better than the cost of sending them off to be professionally done with a strong bleach solution which may weaken the stitching IMHO.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
SailNet Community
1.7M posts
173.8K members
Since 1990
A forum community dedicated to Sailing, boating, cruising, racing & chartering. Come join the discussion about sailing, destinations, maintenance, repairs, navigation, electronics, classifieds and more