Oct 20 , 2005 - SAIL LONGEVITY
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

	Reefed sails.

When you have strong-backed crew members trying for record runs, you choose different sails than do couples who habitually sail long distances on their own. Cruising sailors want sails to be not only efficient, but also durable, trouble-free and easy to handle. We go to a sailmaker with a good reputation for fine quality work. We ask that our sails be stitched with extra-heavy UV-protected thread. We specify heavy material.

Early roller-furling headsails were prone to problems, and many yacht delivery skippers used to curse roller-furling gear as they fouled, failed, and fueled apoplexy. They promised themselves - never again would they agree to deliver a boat with a roller-furling jib! With such tales ringing in our ears, we sailed with hanked-on sails until 1983, when we had a third genoa made as a roller-furling headsail. Nevertheless, we kept (and still keep) a masthead running inner forestay, stowed by the mast to set various sails like the storm jib and big drifter, as well as to hank on one of our old genoas as an emergency replacement for the roller furler should it ever fail, god forbid. You can't be too careful, we reckon.

With our home brew roller-furling headsail, we were able to make changes to what had always been "the done thing". Unlike commercial roller-furling spars, we made ours with a one-piece NZ extrusion around the forestay, one with an efficient narrow section that doesn't spoil the airflow onto the sail. The halyard sheave is mounted on the top of the extrusion. It has a hook that locks the head of the sail aloft. This does away with the expensive and troublesome bearings used on commercial units. Also we made a large diameter drum for the recoil line. This allows us to roll in the heads'l with some wind pressure in it, without having to luff up or let the sail flog. The sail rolls more tightly on the furler spar, thus offering less windage, and also absorbing less rainwater. We soon realised that our roller-furling genoa can be reefed down to storm jib size, saving us the hassle of changing headsails. We were delighted with this unexpected windfall.

We had specified a concave footed headsail, knowing how destructive a fluttering foot is in strong wind, so we were disappointed to find that the foot of our brand new sail was convex. On our windward trip from NZ to BC against prevailing winds, how we cursed it when hard on the wind in a blow. The flutter frazzled our nerves, as it weakened the foot of our new sail. Fortunately, because of the way the sunshield had been stitched on, this happened on one tack only, as the sunshield was inflating itself into a firm sausage on the other tack. Finally we were able to have the foot hollowed.

So delighted were we with the roller-furling genoa, we decided a few years later to devise a roller-furling mains'l, also home brew. We decided to convert our 'roller-reefing' system into a 'roller-furling' system. We had been able to roll the entire mains'l around the boom on a couple of occasions when lowering the reefed sail in extremely strong wind. Rolling down was easy, but feeding the sail slides back onto the sail track on the mast was slow and a bit tricky, which is why we normally dropped the sail to furl it.

Roller-furling mains at the time were in-mast affairs and not always successful. We decided to add a bolt rope track to our mast so that the new mains'l could have a bolt rope luff, and slide up and down the mast without the hassle of sail slides. The reason why boom roller reefing was so often unsuccessful to begin with is that the geometry of rolling a sail onto the boom has to be considered carefully. The sail luff must be perpendicular to the boom. Otherwise it will roll further in or further out on the boom. The boom must have a smaller diameter where the luff rope rolls on; otherwise the luff will roll in faster than the rest of the sail, and the boom will drop down at the clew. These difficulties we had solved on Magic Dragon's roller reefing, but reefing requires rolling only half of the sail at the most. To furl the sail entirely around the boom needed careful consideration, especially when the sailmaker suggested full battens. The problem is that to give the sail its shape, the luff of a mainsail is not a straight line. How then were we to position the batten pockets so that the battens would roll parallel to the boom? We started by experimenting with our old main, but finally decided that the new sail would have to be made and the batten pockets marked while actually rolling it onto our boom.

Sail repair.

Many years before, we'd written an article called GET RID OF THAT ROACH telling how we'd had a sailmaker hollow the roach and remove the battens from our second mains'l after shattering battens and ripping batten pockets several times while reefing in very strong winds. For years we sailed without battens, so we were hesitant at first about a fully battened sail. Nevertheless we are pleased to have made that change. Experimenting with our old sail, we were able to mark on the sail plan the angles of the lower three battens, asking that we be notified when the batten pockets had been finished to that height. We said we'd pick up the sail to try it out, just to be certain the angles were such that, when rolled, the battens would not try to roll themselves around the boom. Fortunately, because of a niggling hunch, we called by the loft one day to find that they had just finished stitching on the next highest pocket. We made off with the sail, tried it and discovered that the battens must be on a tangent to the sail luff, rather than parallel to the foot. Fortunately, only that one pocket had to be redone. There it remains, a ghostly reminder that you cannot be too careful.

Once again, we chose to have our new furling mainsail fashioned as we had our two previous mainsails, with heavier fabric on top, the part that is left up when rolled down to a deep reef. This sail also has a sunshield stitched on the leach like a roller-furling genoa, so we can leave the sail cover off between frequent sails. As with the genoa, we were pleasantly surprised to see that rolled sails retain their shape and new look better than sails that are bagged or crumpled when not in use.

We were amused to see that the sailmaker's logo had been left off this experimental sail. It was not until much later, after we had made a couple of successful offshore trips, and had brought the sail back into the loft to have the luff rope replaced, that he actually affixed his logo. The luff rope had gotten swallowed a few inches as the luff rope shrank, and the sail stretched some with hard use. It taught us all the importance of leaving the luff rope several inches too long to allow for eventual sail stretch or luff rope shrinkage. We are delighted with our roller-furling approach. It took a bit of experimentation, but it was worth the bother and the expense.

The way you use a sail can make a big difference in its life span. We put on the mains'l cover when the sail is not in use for any length of time. Sun is even more destructive in the southern hemisphere than elsewhere. Another precaution, we try never to let a sail flog if we can help it. We'd rather roll sails in windless conditions when there's a big swell. Sails flapping and banging from side to side can suffer more wear in a few hours than in days of hard sailing. We reckon that diesel fuel is cheaper than sail repairs, even now. It's certainly easier on the nerves. We try to remember to dry a sail as soon as possible after it has been rolled when wet. Every now and then we wash off the inevitable mildew (we believe that it weakens the fabric), following that by brushing onto the affected areas a waterproofing/mildew proofing solution made for tents and awnings. When we leave the boat for any length of time we choose to remove the sails to store them belowdecks. We are often distressed to see how those leaving their boats for months or years at a time leave their sails on, but can only suppose that their pockets are far deeper than ours. We have had the sunshield replaced occasionally, saving money by removing the old sunshield ourselves, a fiddly time-consuming operation.

As for emergency sail repairs, we carry a roll of glue-on sail tape as well as scraps of the same, and some extra sail fabric and sail thread. These have come to the rescue of our aging spinnakers on several occasions and other sails as well. We have an old Singer hand-operated sewing machine, twenties or thirties vintage perhaps? At any rate, it's a heavy-duty beast, able to chew through several layers of sail cloth, providing the needle is sturdy enough. But even it has its limits. Occasionally we have had to resort to sail needle, sail maker's palm, and grunt.

When we noticed at first light one morning in mid-ocean that the foot of the aforementioned weakened roller-furling headsail was in ribbons, we were able to roll it before it was too late, hank on an old Jekyll sail, and carry on to our destination some four days away. That early genoa of ours is just too heavy for septuagenarians. What a nuisance it was to take up and down when we absolutely had to. When we arrived in Vava'u we were fortunate to find the big S&S Jakaranda with Andy the sailmaker aboard. He recut and beefed up that genoa foot using his teak deck as a sail loft floor, taking the sail belowdecks to stitch it on his heavy-duty professional machine. It was a masterful job with wonderful handwork finishing touches. But it wasn't cheap. We remember paying for that repair the better part of what the sail had cost us some fifteen years beforehand.