What kind of sail is this?

[bigd14]

This roller furling headsail with foam luff came with the new boat (34-2). I assume it’s a laminate sail. It’s made of a pretty soft material, or maybe it’s very worn material, and has a bunch of woven fibers in between layers. The sun cover is definitely worn and there are a few small moldy spots but otherwise the sail looks pretty good. But it’s hard for me to know its actual condition as I’m not familiar with high performance sails and how they age. So is this treasure or trash? So far most of the discoveries in various compartments have been treasure.

The current jib is a North 90% Dacron in great shape nearly unused except sitting on the furler for a few years. The main is a bit older North Dacron fully battened with a fair amount of life left in it.

 

[Prairie Schooner]

Sorry Doug, no help on the sail. But thanks, it's fun to vicariously experience the surprises of getting a 'new' boat with extras.

 

[peaman]

The first image looks like it is reinforced with Kevlar strands between the outer laminations. Kevlar has super low stretch, so if the sail isn't damaged, it may well have some good use left. Look out for any places where the laminations have separated.

 

[Loren Beach]

Back in the 90's, North was selling a lot of lower-stretch material sails with a layer of something-like-mylar sandwiched between outer layers of dacron. The result was said to exhibit less stretch and longer-lasting shape. This seemed like sort of a conventional-appearing 'stealth mylar' with a price above all-dacron, but not too far above. I would take it in the the NS loft for an off-season checkup. And, a positive ID.

 

[Christian Williams]

Sounds like taffeta, used to protect mylar and laminates. If it was a racing laminate, they have relatively short lifetimes. But for daysailing, if it works, it works.

 

[bigd14]

Look out for any places where the laminations have separated.

Looked pretty sound to me. I’ll take it to the local North loft and have them inspect it.

 

[Angel D.]

Have no Idea on the details but looks like a treasure and not trash . To me , any sail that is not rip is a good sail. Simple enough. And if it rips stitches work wonders. And after that make shade with what's left. Been doing dumpster diving for years but haven't come across any discard sail so far. Lot's of gold indeed on dumpsters out there , people throw away instead of figuring out a fix. And my favorite " If you can fix it you can have it " That's how I ended up with this boat ... What a blessing!

 

[bigd14]

Some internet sleuthing finds this to be a Banks Membrane Cruise K with taffeta covers (good call, Christian) and aramid fiber grid. Banks is based in Italy. They seem to have a local office associated with a canvas company. I plan to call them soon and see if they can have a look at the sail.

 

[ConchyDug]

If it's a kevlar laminate you'll find out pretty quickly if it's bad, they fall apart with spectacular fashion! Look at the back third on the clew side if it has a bunch of delamination it's not long for this world. I've seen enough "looks new laminate sails" to not be optimistic. A friend had a "looks new" one fall apart while installing it, just sheets of mylar raining down while we raced DF95s on the other side of the harbor, good times. The Banks loft here shut down like 5 years ago, they mostly worked on canvas near the end.

 

[Pete the Cat]

Yes, one of those came with my Ericson. I thought looked pretty decent. The sucker exploded when the first SF Bay breeze hit it. Fortunately I had not left the slip yet. Humbling.

 

[Angel D.]

Yes, one of those came with my Ericson. I thought looked pretty decent. The sucker exploded when the first SF Bay breeze hit it. Fortunately I had not left the slip yet. Humbling.

That's insane that they collapse like that , what a headache. At least you end up with fabrics for line gags or shade for your backyard.

 

[bigd14]

Yikes! I’ll think twice about using it.

 

[ConchyDug]

Another option is send it to SeaBags.com before it gets totally delammed and get a cool bag from it. My wife does this locally as well as shower curtains if the material is clean.

 

[toddster]

Laminated sails very much like that, but from Ullman, came with my (J) boat. Twenty years old. By the time I sailed from Seattle to Cabo, the main gave up. Couldn't sew patches onto it, but had some success (for a while) with glue. The headsail lasted a bit longer, but had much less use (the boat had many headsails.) Not really much use for sewing bags. The laminate won't hold stitches. Unfortunately, my sewing machine and the old sails are 2000 miles apart, so can't experiment much. Gave them to my sister in law.

I bought new Banks sails (Dacron) for the Ericson - they're still going strong. AFAIK.