[C38] Sails - CAL vs Dacron

[Steve Smolinske]

Very true, I have often thought we would do better in very light winds
by dropping our heavy main and using only our Lt#1

 

From: listserve-bounces at catalina38.org
[mailto:listserve-bounces at catalina38.org] On Behalf Of Larry Malmberg
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 9:24 PM
To: 'Catalina 38 Listserve'
Subject: Re: [C38] Sails - CAL vs Dacron

 

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.

________________________________

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1424 / Virus Database: 2113/4853 - Release Date: 03/05/12

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://catalina38.org/pipermail/listserve_catalina38.org/attachments/20120305/4e0f294a/attachment-0001.htm>