Note we do not have any financial arrangements or other interests in any the products mentioned here!
For just about every question, there are almost as many different opinions as there are sailors. And, most of these different opinions are in fact valid for the specific individual with their particular boat and their unique mission. That said, below are our opinions based on our experiences to date. We reserve the right to change them, or even admit they are wrong, at any later date :)
18. What do you carry for light air and downwind sails?
28. What sort of full battens do you use?
31. What recommendations do you have on sail cloth?
31a. New sail cloth developments
41. What do we use/recommend for mainsail handling?
46. What sort of downwind pole should we have?
62. Any tips on making our mainsail reef lines easier to work?
Also see:
Downwind Sailing - 2004, Cruising World
Light Air - 2005, Cruising World
Pole Bridle - 2000, Sailing
Click on Sail Combinations and look at the "a-chute", "code zero" and "blast reacher".
On Hawk, we do have the luxury of a large sail locker. She was designed with a forward head, which we did not need or want, so we turned it into a sail locker. If we had a boat Silk's size and could only carry one light air sail, it would be a light air upwind/low stretch code zero. You could always use this sail going deep, but you cannot use a deep sail going upwind. Also the continuous line furlers are much easier to handle than socks/a-chutes. When a squall comes through, we can just roll up the code zero and roll it back out as the squall passes. With a sock you really have to pull down the sock and then drop the sail on deck and then re-hoist/set the whole thing. Top of Page
We started out with all carbon fiber battens (PowerX). They were supposed to be 'unbreakable Volvo spec.' But in the Southern Ocean running in light air, we went over a swell, the belly of the sail popped and one of the battens smacked against a stay and broke and punched a big hole in the sail. More recently we broke a carbon join in another of these battens. So, I removed the (top 4) carbon battens that can impact the stays. We now have the lower two carbon and the upper 4 are extruded round 5/8" fiberglass. Over time I have modified the fiberglass ones in two ways - I have put carbon sleeves over the forward end where they go into the luff hardware because the fiberglass splits otherwise, and on the lower two I have stiffened up the aft half to help move the draft more forward. Top of Page
For most cruising boats we think simple good quality woven Dacron is the best choice. A good woven Dacron sail provides an excellent combination of performance, durability and cost. It will probably maintain its shape for a circumnavigation or 4-8 years (depending on your usage).
If you want slightly higher performance, the first step to consider is a jib of lower stretch laminate cloth. The boat's performance is more sensitive to small changes in jib shape than in mainsail shape. Also the laminate cloth's lower durability is less of a liability in a furling jib as (on a cruising boat) the jib tends to suffer less chafe than the mainsail. Finally, the low stretch laminate cloth will likely roll to a smaller diameter than Dacron, helping both at anchor (reduced sailing around) and upwind when using the staysail/storm jib. But even this 'improvement' really only makes sense if you expect to be going upwind for some distance into strongish winds, as that's when proper jib shape pays off, and most cruisers try to avoid doing that (see footnote*).
The main signal that you should start to consider lower stretch cloth for your mainsail is if it is big and/or loaded enough to require a two ply leach in woven Dacron. Two plies can cause both shape problems (differential stretch along the two ply to one ply join) and handling problems (heavier and stiffer).
On Hawk, we have used lower stretch/higher performance laminated cloth on both main & working jib. We have done this primarily because of ease of handling rather than improved performance. Our sails are quite large by cruising standards (760sq ft main and 520sq ft working jib). Beth would have trouble hoisting a Dacron mainsail by hand up to even the second spreaders and would need to use a winch for half the hoist. With a laminate sail she can hoist it by hand almost all the way. Also, when taking the sails off the boat, say to the sailmaker, one person can lift and move the laminate sails while it would take two (or a halyard/crane) to move Dacron ones. So, on boats with sails this size we do think it is worth considering higher performance sails. However, it's still probably not the most economical choice. We get about 25,000 miles from laminate sails. John Neil and Amanda Swan have always used all Dacron sails on their HR46 and get 40,000 miles (of good sail shape) at about half the initial cost.
Our sense is the most logical progression in fabric to consider is first cross-cut woven Dacron (good for most cruising applications), second tri-radial spectra laminate (good when you want a lower stretch/lighter sail that can take some chafe/rubbing), and third Vectran 'load path'/'string' sail (e.g. 3DL, Tape Drive, 4D) (best possible sail shape/weight but vulnerable to chafe/rubbing/cutting). Spectra tri-radial sails used to be considered advanced/sophisticated but are now pretty much a commodity that every sailmaker can produce - they all have access to similar cloth, all use similar computer design programs, all have computer cutting for the panels, and all use similar seam adhesive.
We have used laminated sails with Spectra, Vectran, Pentex and Dacron fibers. Spectra is our favorite as it combines (most of) Vectran's low stretch with Dacron's UV resistance. Our current main is a Spectra laminate tri-radial. However, our 3DL sails used Vectran fibers, because Spectra will melt at the temperature that North uses to laminate their 3DL sails. Vectran is an excellent fiber if it is protected from UV, and we have Dacron 'taffetas' (thin Dacron covers on both sides) to protect the Vectran fibers from direct UV (also the Vectran threads are large enough that even if the outside gets cooked by UV there is enough strength on the inside to carry the load). Dacron and Pentex laminates have higher cost and reduced durability (vs. woven) with relatively little extra performance and thus don't seem to make much sense for cruising.
We have not yet had a hole or rip develop in a Spectra sail, always abandoning them because of shape issues before this happens. However, those friends of ours who have run their Spectra sails until they fail structurally tell us typically the leach explodes in a spectacular, impossible-to-repair fashion. We have eventually developed holes/tears/rips in all our string sails but usually only in the taffetas and the strings have been intact so its been possible to make temporary repairs. So, the tradeoff here appears to be better durability with spectra tri-radial but better reparability with string sails. In either case our practice has been to carry a new replacement sail in the sail locker whenever we set off on passage with more than 20,000 miles on one of these low stretch sails.
We have used both 'tri-radial' and 'load path' (e.g. 3DL) laminate sails. We much prefer the load path sails, but they have proven vulnerable to chafe/rubbing/cutting. The load paths are lighter (again primarily a handling advantage for us rather than a performance issue) and roll to a smaller diameter on the jib furler (which helps reduce windage). Finally the shape is tremendously better - the 3DL load paths just set into perfectly smooth foils, with none of the small wrinkles or bulges that occur along the many seams on a tri-radial sail. Having Dacron taffetas on both sides greatly improves the durability of the 3DL sails. Up to 2005, North did have a big problem with 3DLs in hot and wet climates and quite a few of our fellow cruisers found their 3DL sails delaminating in the tropical environment. North appears to have reduced but not eliminated this problem by changing the adhesive they use in the lamination - however, if you are planning to sail full time in very hot weather (like the tropics) we would not recommend 3DL, one of the other non-molded string cloth's (like Quantum's fusion M cruise) would probably be better. The three main factors when specifying load path sails for cruising usage are (1) to have durable taffetas on both sides, (2) to have extra load paths designed to handle the loads when the sails are reefed (mains and roller furling jibs), and (3) to have extra Dacron or spectra sticky back reinforcements added in any areas that encounter repeated rubbing or chafe - such as the lazy jack, reef line & check stay contact points.
There is a myth that the low stretch laminate sails do not lose shape over time. This is simply not true. Just like Dacron sails, their shape starts to degrade from the moment they are first hoisted. Because of this top racing boats replace/recut their laminate sails at least once a season. The sail shape was completely distorted after about 3 years of usage on our Code zero (Pentex laminate) and 4 years usage on a Vectran 3DL jib and 4 years on our spectra staysail genoa. The shape degradation happens in a different fashion than on a Dacron sail, which simply tends to get very deep. The Mylar within the laminate actually shrinks on UV exposure (aprox 1.5% over 4 years), while there is stretch on the bias and in the highest loaded areas. The laminates tend to develop extra twist, so the top of the sail will not pull, and the leaches gets loose, and the draft moves aft. The major longevity difference vs. woven Dacron is that laminate sails self-destruct about the same time their shape goes really bad, while woven Dacron sails will remain structurally intact long after they are completely bagged out.
In terms of handling, none of the laminate sails like to be crushed under the mainsail reef points, so you can greatly extend longevity by pulling the sail folds smoothly out from under the reef points before cranking the reefs down tight. None of the sails like sustained leach flutter, and we have found we can extend our sail lives by specifying a 3:1 leach cord (rather than the normal 1:1 or 2:1) with an extra long tail, which allows us to more easily adjust the leach when the 2nd reef is set in 30-40kts.
We generally do not think much of the various attempts to insert small amounts of Vectran or Spectra fibers into a Dacron woven cloth. Basically the sail performance gains are relatively low because (1) the sail will stretch, both on the bias (45 degrees to the weave) and on the crimp, no matter how much low stretch fiber is added to the weave; and (2) there is usually not enough vectran/spectra added to carry the entire load which means in the end you have just a Dacron sail with some blown out low stretch fibers. Finally, (3) it's hard to give Vectran fibers proper UV protection in a woven cloth. These low stretch fibers will provide some additional rip-stop protection, but rip stopping is generally not a big problem with good Dacron cloth, so is not worth much of a price premium. If you want to use low stretch fibers you really should use laminate cloth to minimize the stretch (bias and crimp) inherent with woven cloth.
Net, net woven Dacron seems the best choice for most cruising applications. For easier handling in large sails and better shape holding in higher performance boats (possibly only the working/furling jib with a woven Dacron main) our top choice is (a) for everything but full time tropical sailing: North's Vectran Marathon 3DL, (b) for tropical sailing Quantum's Fusion M cruise vectran, (c) for maximum durability Spectra tri-radial (which you can get from almost any loft so there will likely be more price competition).
*Footnote: there is a simple reason that cruisers don't plan to sail to windward. It is that the typical cruising boat, loaded down with cruising gear, with a slightly foul bottom and slightly used sails (still in good but not absolutely perfect shape) is very very slow to windward. It's usually much more enjoyable to sail somewhere else on a reach or wait for the wind direction to change. Just for example, a typical 40' cruising boat, in 15kts of true wind, will sail upwind at about 6 kts at about 35 degrees to the apparent wind in flat coastal water (and make 3 degrees of leeway) and about 5kts at about 40 degrees in open ocean wavy passage-making (with 4 degrees of leeway). This produces true tacking angles (including leeway) of 103 degrees in flat water and 113 in ocean water, and 90 miles made good per day in flat water and 66 miles in ocean water. That's for a typical boat and by no means the worst case. That makes upwind passages pretty painful and 'higher performance' sails (with the same amount of wear/usage on them) will not change this much - in the best case they will add perhaps 4-5 miles/day made good. Even Hawk, which has been carefully designed and fit out to be a good windward boat, and is very good by cruising boat standards, will make only 126 miles/day vmg in flat water (82 degrees tacking angle) and 109 in ocean waves (91 degree tacking angle) dead upwind. Top of Page
There are two relatively 'new' developments in cruising sail cloth. I have not yet used either of these personally, but will consider both in my next sail inventory:
One is Dimension-Polyant's Hydra Net® radial cloth. I have not been a fan of DP's normal hydra-net cloth, for the various concerns discussed above (bias stretch and not enough spectra added to make any difference). However the hydra-net Radial does address many of these concerns - it has more spectra content, enough to make a difference in stretch and durability and it is designed for radial sail construction where those spectra fibers can be better used. It will still have more bias stretch than a laminate and still depend on resin, which will flog out over time, to hold the weave tightly together, and it is relatively expensive. But it does represent an interesting option between straight Dacron and high modulus laminates. If you want 'woven Dacron' durability with some extra performance and longevity, this might be the ticket. This product has been out a few years but there is still not yet very much serious cruising experience with it but we have now seen a couple cruising sails out there that have lasted very well. So, the risk with this cloth is not high - in the worst case it will function as well as a good plain dacron cloth.
The second is North's 3di - which is an entirely new sail construction process, not woven and not laminated (there is no film). Instead it is 'pre-preg' sail construction, done somewhat like high end boat construction. The promise for us cruisers is that we can get a sail with both durability (high spectra fiber content and no mylar film to break down) and high modulus performance. It currently has quite a bit of successful race experience, but is unproven in our cruising application. It 'should' be excellent, but like with the string sails there will probably be some initial teething problems as it gets introduced to the distinctive durability problems (tropical climate and rough handling) in cruising sails. For cruising this still has to be considered 'the bleeding edge', but it is something to keep an eye on. Top of Page
Mainsails have gotten quite big as boats have gotten bigger and tended toward sloops (and away from two-masted rigs). We experienced this transition when moving from Silk, our 37' ketch, to Hawk our 47' fractional sloop. Hawk's mainsail is 750 sq ft (without its quite big roach) and it is quite a bit of work to flake, put the sail cover on, and control the big flaps of cloth when we put in a reef. We looked at the mainsail handling options when we built her and continue to look over the options. There are basically three workable approaches. Lazy jacks are used by all the short-handed offshore race boats. It requires no mainsail shape compromises and is the simplest, least expensive, most bulletproof approach. That's what we have used on Hawk. Lazy jacks do have the potential to chafe the sail and do require a sail cover be put on over the sail. We have found that lazy jacks are best rigged with uncovered Spectra lines (about 6mm). Dacron lines will chafe the sail but Spectra will not. In addition, with Spectra lines, you do not need any blocks in the lazy jack system, you just use Spectra loops (which are strong and slippery). This further reduces chafe, expense and weight aloft. To eliminate chafe, it is best to rig the boat so the lazy jacks can be brought/stowed forward (to a cleat on the forward end of the boom) when sailing long distances with the mainsail set full. When reefed we have learned to tie the buntlines in to prevent the fold of reefed sail cloth from flapping/rubbing against the lazy jacks in stronger winds. There are various 'stackpack' systems that incorporate a sail cover into the lazy jacks. These tend to work fine during coastal sailing but break down due to flogging during passagemaking and you rarely see them on offshore boats. We will drop the mainsail into the lazy jacks, tug it a bit by hand to straighten it out, throw sail ties around the sail, drop the lazy jacks and then put the sail cover. This allows us to use a simple sail cover (without needing flaps to go around the lazy jacks) and also prevents the lazy jacks from chafing/rubbing/cutting the sail.
A second alternative is a system called 'Dutchman', which has lines led vertically through grommets in the sail from the topping lift to the boom. It has two problems. Mainsails with big roaches can get hung-up on the topping lift if hoisted with the wind on the wrong side. Second, the system requires that the tension on the vertical lines is just exactly right and on long distance passages they will often stretch. This system is perhaps best for shorter distance coastal sailing. You also need to add a sail cover with Dutchmen and it has to be a relatively complex cover with lots of flaps to get around all the vertical lines.
A third alternative is mainsail furling. In-mast furling has been around quite a while and works pretty well. It does contribute quite a bit of weight aloft (especially when reefed) and does not allow full (horizontal battens) so requires some mainsail shape/sailing performance compromise (vertical battens can help somewhat but do not fully recover the performance). It has proven relatively reliable, but is a complex mechanical system and (like everything aboard a sailboat) will break sometime and you may then be stuck with no way to drop the sail. Boom furling is an alternative that avoids many of the mast furling pitfalls but has other shortcomings. It allows full battens and full roach, so the sail shape can be quite good. If the boom furling breaks, it is usually still possible to lower the sail. However, the boom furlers will typically not work well when running (the boat needs to be brought up into the wind to reef), the boom angle needs to be set just exactly right (within a degree) or the sail will either roll forward or aft and jam, and an electric halyard winch is pretty much required for boats bigger than about 40'. These systems have also proven much less reliable that the in-mast system. Top of Page
The short answer is no (except for Cat 1 & 2 racing), but nice to have.
The first priority for storm sails is to get the storm jib perfectly sorted out. Most boats will sail reasonably well in strong winds with just the storm jib, both upwind and down. The sail should be sized and constructed to handle 50kts (sustained wind speed) upwind and you need to be able to get enough stay tension (likely with checkstays) to keep it reasonable straight in that loading. You should take the sail out in 35kts and sail upwind - to make sure you can sheet it properly (make a mark on deck for the correct jib car position so you can set it without messing around in a storm) and to make sure you do not have lee helm (a very few boats do). The ORC prescriptions for storm jibs are: area not greater than 5% height of the foretriangle squared, with luff maximum length = 65% height of the foretriangle; Dacron & Spectra/Dyneema are allowed but not carbon or aromatic polyamides, should either be of highly-visible coloured material (e.g. dayglo pink, orange or yellow) or have a highly visible colored patch added on each side; a means to attach the luff to the stay, independent of any luff groove device (hanks are preferred).
The second priority is a reef point in the mainsail that will allow the boat to comfortably forereach in 50kts. It's again important to test this out in 35kts to make sure it sets nice and flat and the leach does not flutter (if it does it will quickly self destruct in 50kts). The ORC prescriptions is for mainsail reefing to reduce the luff by at least 40%.
Then we get to the trysail. There are four reasons for adding it. (1) it will act as a replacement if the mainsail is blown out or the boom broken, (2) it saves the much more expensive mainsail from the wear and flogging often involved in storm usage, (3) it is usually lower cut with more area aft than the reefed mainsail so often a better design to heave-to or forereach, and (4) it takes the boom out of the picture in heavy weather, removing one source of potential injury or crew overboard.
The trysail should be designed so that it sheets without the boom to snatch blocks on the stern quarters. This is good sheeting for upwind angles but not so good for off the wind, and it is preferred to design the sail so it will also set sheeted somewhere along the boom which is usually better for reaching angles. The trysail track should come right down to within a foot or so of the deck, so you can sit on deck and load the sail on the track. Two common mistakes are not bringing the track down near the deck and having the track too close to the mainsail track so it's hard to hoist the trysail past the flaked mainsail. We have found it's best to put the trysail on the track and in a bag sitting on deck before leaving on passage. Then it is quick and painless to hoist it. If we don't do this we rarely get the energy in a building storm to dig down to the bottom of the sail locker and dig out the trysail and pull it on deck and get it on the track. The ORC prescriptions call for a storm trysail which shall be capable of being sheeted independently of the boom with area not greater than 17.5% mainsail luff length x mainsail foot length. The storm trysail shall have neither headboard nor battens, bright patches on both sides are again recommended and Dacron & Spectra are the allowed materials. Top of Page
A pole is very useful (almost essential) for efficient downwind sailing (see Downwind & Pole Bridle for related articles). The 'traditional' blue water cruising set-up in the 1970s was two J length poles mounted on a mast track (and when not being used stowed vertically on the front of the mast). See article by Scott Kuhner (two-time circumnavigator) on using twin poles for downwind cruising. This made for easy deployment (unclip the bottom end of the pole from the mast, hook on a topping lift, and bring the upper end of the pole down the track), stows the poles out of the way/off the deck, and allows two jibes to be poled-out, enabling downwind sailing up to 120 degrees either side without any further sail handling.
This is still a quite nice arrangement, but there have been three developments:
(1) The old poles were aluminum (or wood). We had an aluminum pole on Silk, but have a carbon fiber pole on Hawk. It's less than half the weight, so one person can easily handle it even in a big swell. So, we do like carbon fiber poles and on Hawk we have one big and strong enough that we can also fly our asymmetrical spinnaker from it if we want to sail really deep in light air.
(2) Adjustable length 'Line control' poles have been developed. These can be useful if you plan to pole out different jibs with quite different foot lengths. You can set the pole length to match each jib and get the optimal projected sail area from each sail. The downside is that these poles are heavier, weaker (you should not use them to fly a spinnaker), and more complex (requiring some maintenance). If you have two poles, then it might make sense to have one be adjustable (we had one on Silk) and one fixed; but we now prefer fixed length poles (simpler, lighter, stronger) and don't find we lose that much sailing efficiency.
(3) On a boat that is designed to sail well upwind, it does not make complete sense to mount two poles vertically on the mast, as that arrangement adds weight aloft and windage. That's why the racers stow their poles on deck. For 'traditional' cruising designs, which don't sail all that well upwind its not a big issue, but for a more modern 'performance cruiser' it make sense to have deck chocks in addition to the mast stowage. That way you can stow the poles on deck if you have an upwind leg. On Hawk we carry only one pole, which can be stowed either way. This minimizes the cost, weight and windage; It does mean a bit of extra sailing work compared to a two pole arrangement, because when the wind shifts form one side to the other we have to jibe the pole (the jib on the 'upwind' side is poled out and the jib on the 'downwind' side is simply free flying on its normal sheet).
Forespar is a leading brand for pole end fittings. We like their 'TS' toggle fittings for the mast end and any of their remote release outboard end fittings. There is an alternative way to rig two poles called the Twizzle Rig. We have not tried this approach, but it is quite popular among German cruising boats. Top of Page
We are aiming for two things: (1) to make them as friction free as possible, and (2) to avoid getting a fold of sail cloth crushed under the reef lines (which will dramatically shorten sail life and make the reef less tight).
The easiest move to reduce friction is switching to spectra single braid line. Spectra is inherently much lower friction than Dacron (and in addition to reducing friction will reduce sail chafe). Spectra is also very strong, so you can go down a size or two, which will reduce friction in the blocks. Because of how slippery it is, spectra line is prone to slipping thru clutches, but this is easy to fix by threading some cheap cord down the center of the (hollow braid) spectra line where the clutch closes on it. That bulks up the line and gives the clutch something to squeeze on.
Often the reefing hardware and deck layout can be reorganized to remove a lot of friction. Ball bearing blocks have about half the friction of non-ball bearing blocks. If you want to go to more work, moving blocks and particularly deck organizers (which on many boats are located more for esthetics that in the place that make the line leads as straight and friction free as possible) to make the lines run as straight as possible can reduce quite a bit of friction.
We do not use blocks webbed to our mainsail reef points, instead running the clew reef lines thru normal grommets. Having blocks webbed to the leach create hard points and increase leach 'hinging', both of which reduce sail life. For the tack lines, we have spectra webbing loops sewn at the tack reef points and attach shackles to these webbing loops and run the tack reef lines thru the shackles. This makes it a bit easier to take the sail off because we can simply undo the shackle rather than untying and unthreading the tack reef lines.
To avoid crushing sail cloth under the reef points, it is helpful if you train the first flake of your mainsail to fall on the side of the boom away from the side the clew reef lines come down and tie to the boom. If you are sailing on a tack where the leeward side is the side where the lines come down and tie to the boom then the sail fold is likely to be blown under the reef lines no matter what you do. You can sometimes minimize this by lowering the main halyard in small steps and tightening up the clew reef line at each step. Then just before you get done with the reef, you may have to tug some sail cloth our from under the reef lines to the other side of the boom. We don't know anyone else who does this, but when we are heading off on a passage where the wind will be predominately on one side (as it will be in the NE trades on our passage from St Helena to Antigua) I move the reef lines so that they will come down (and tie to the boom) on the windward side of the sail, so that the sail folds will be blown away from the reef. (Top of Page)
We do if we expect the reef will be set for any significant length of time (say more than a day while on passage or a whole day sail while coastal hopping). There are four reasons for doing so. (a) It stops the loose sail cloth folds from fluttering against our lazy jacks. WE did not tie in the bunt lines for a three day period while double reefed in 30kts on the way to Hawaii. They fluttered against the lazy jacks for all three days and at the end we had a hole in the sail cloth. (b) It stops a big pocket of rain water from collecting in the sail cloth folds. This only happens with laminate cloth - as rain will typically drain thru woven Dacron. But with laminate cloth, several gallons of water can be trapped in the sail cloth folds, which is a significant weight to be swinging around (10lbs/gallon). Furth on that point, in sail trials for one of her boats, Ellen MacArthur put a reef in while sailing (which is always a bit sloppier than a reef put in while in harbor), market where the water would collect, and had the sail maker put in a couple grommet holes to drain those points. (c) It probably does not make much difference in a cruising context, but when sailing upwind its faster if you tie in the bunt lines, because it reduces the profile and drag of the reefed sail bundle. (d) If the wind really picks up and you have to drop the whole mainsail, its much neater and easier if the bunt lines have been tied in. Otherwise the sail blows ever where and you have to struggle in strong winds to collect it and get sail ties around it.
On the other side - Tying in the reef lines can be a bit of a pain, especially in conditions which call for the second or third reef. You can damage the sail if you forget to untie one and start to raise the mainsail without paying attention. You can damage the sail if you reef line chafes thru or comes loose - because then the leach loading will come onto the aft most bunt line and the sail is typically not very strongly reinforced at the bunt grommets (to minimize this problem you should tie the buntlines under the sail foot but above the boom, but even so, the loading can still potentially still come onto the aft buntline.) Finally, the bunt lines themselves can chafe the sail cloth. We use uncovered spectra line for our bunt lines because they are the most slippery and chafe much less than Dacron. They are so slippery they don't hold the bunt line knots very well so we tie a double bow knot in them. (Top of Page)
Remember, perseverance wins. Dodging along under easy sail waiting for the weather to get better will not do it. Use what you get all the time and you’ll get better.