I think I noted a couple of weeks ago that although the Contender Class can use Dacron or Mylar for their mainsails, the top two boats in their Midwinter Championships were using North built, Dacron mainsails. Must try and chat with Mr Contender World Champ, Stuart Jones about that….. He was one of them, of course…
Been reading this on Speed Sails Site…
When film/mylar sails first started making an appearance in the late 1970s, the development of the new materials was heralded as being a breakthrough for sailmaking technology. Despite a few trials and tribulations, most sailmakers soon mastered the new skills needed to work the film based panels, with Mylar sails quickly becoming an exciting option for those forward looking classes who were happy to adopt the new technology. What soon became clear however was that using Mylar was far from simple, as it was not just a case of substituting one material for another. The change to the new material should have brought about a sail making revolution, but the end result was far more a case of cautious evolution, as the sailors themselves would take time to change their understanding of their rigs. What was needed to drive the next step forward was a technique that would allow sailmakers to fully utilise the advances offered by the new generation of materials. The end goal had to be sails that were constructed with panel shapes and thickness dictated by the loadings within the sail itself……….
You can read the full article here:-
White cars in a recession. Interesting. I was spending some time at my sailmaker the other week, when we had another customer visit unexpectedly. New sails required, thinking about mylar, what are the benefits? The sail will be stiffer, lighter and it will definitely look good. And the downside? – mylar is more expensive and the sail will cost more to make – seaming process takes longer – plus you may need to consider a fully battened construction to stabilise the material. Will it last longer? No not if you use it. Why ? Mylar will only stretch a tiny % of it’s panel width or length before it will not recover it’s original shape. I bet he will buy mylar, because it will look really good.