Friday, December 18, 2015

How Can You Tell If Your Sails Are Worn Out???



One of the quickest ways to estimate if your sails are worn out is to have someone in another boat take some photos of you sailing.  Make sure that the photos show the sails.  Close-hauled or close-reaching probably reveal the most information.  Look closely at the sails in the photos.  Wrinkles in the sail cloth often indicate that the cloth has stretched.  This stretching reduces the efficiency of the sails and can contribute to excessive heeling, slow performance and an inability to point close to the wind.







Take a look at these two photos.  Notice the wrinkles in the sails.  Wrinkles that radiate from the clew corner of a sail indicate that the sail cloth has stretched to the point that the outhaul control line for the main sail and the sheet for the jib will not smooth out the sail.
Are there wrinkles that parallel the leach?  The sail cloth near the leach has stretched so much that the battens no longer support the leach.  The leach may even be curved over one way or the other (hooked).








Wrinkles that are perpendicular to a sail’s luff can sometimes be smoothed out with halyard tension or with a Cunningham or downhaul.  Wrinkles perpendicular to the sail’s foot can often be smoothed out with the clew outhaul  (mainsail) or sheet tension (jib).






The sails in the last photo look smooth and wrinkle free.  These sails will drive the boat efficiently on all points of sail and give the best windward performance.

barnaclebillholcomb@gmail.com
509 993 3214





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