[C38] Sails - CAL vs Dacron

[Larry Malmberg]

Well here goes my 2 cents worth on sails.  I recently took our North
mainsail in for a small repair in Los Alamitos CA.  When I dropped it off
the sail designer for North sails was in the office and I had a small chat
with him.  A couple of weeks later when I picked up the main sail he was
there.  I asked if I could chat with him for a few about sails, materials
and design.  He accommodated me.  He told me that he was extremely familiar
with the Catalina 38 and for racing suggested some very expensive sails.  I
won't go into material etc here now but he did tell me one thing that has
stuck in my mind.  He suggested a Dacron main sail stating that our boats
get their power from the head sail and not really that much from the main
sail, his advice was to invest in the head sail for racing.  Made sense to
me and he WAS NOT a sail salesman.  LOL
 





Best regards,

Larry Malmberg
Team Hassle


  _____  

From: listserve-bounces at catalina38.org
[mailto:listserve-bounces at catalina38.org] On Behalf Of Angelika - A Room
With A View
Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2012 1:36 PM
To: listserve at catalina38.org
Subject: [C38] Sails - CAL vs Dacron



Hi All

 

We purchased our beautiful C38 (362) Boheme nearly 7 years ago in Sydney and
sailed her to her new home to the southern-most harbour on the Australian
mainland, Apollo Bay. Boheme has taken us up and down the eastern seaboard
as far as the Great Barrier Reef, a couple of times.

 

We are currently considering purchasing new sails as she is no longer
pointing as high as she initially did and is certainly being out-pointed by
most of the keel boats within our local Sailing Club (a very varied fleet
ranging from dinghies to a 2007 Jeanneau 39 - this is not GRAND racing but
we still like to be relatively competitive).  

 

While we bought Boheme predominantly as a cruising boat we do race her here
in Apollo Bay-only over the summer season Oct-Apr.

 

After initially speaking with my husband Gary, our sailmaker said that CAL
sails were the best for us  (we have noticed that Steve/Peregrine was
mentioned on another website as having purchased them).  After speaking with
me (where I mentioned that I was hoping that CAL sails were also going to
improve our cruising sailing speeds etc and therefore justify an additional
50% spend) he has backflipped and suggested that:

9oz Strong Fill Dacron should be used to replace the ORIGINAL Mainsail 
and we could possibly consider 80z Bluewater Cruise for the 10yr old, 135%
Headsail.  

 

Now we are both totally confused as neither of us can see the point of
buying cheaper sails if they run the risk of losing their shape and
performance quicker therefore needing replacing much sooner - on the
otherhand CAL sails do blow our initial budget by about $2000  (ie $5k -6k
vs $8k approx.)

 

If others have had experience with CAL sails your thoughts would be much
appreciated especially regarding their ability to maintain correct shape in
the longterm as opposed to good quality Dacron

 

Thanking you

 

Angelika Millar
Apollo Bay Vic Australia

 

PS Many thanks to Commodore Chuck Finn for finally making it possible to get
our emails through to the Listserve.  We have 'silently' enjoyed the
exchanges for almost 12 months now.

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