[C38] Sails - CAL vs Dacron

[David Epstein]

Larry,

I completely agree with the North designer's opinion regarding the 
mainsail.   The C38 main has such a high aspect ratio, the headsails 
are what mostly powers the boat.

You may or may not know that when Sid Blinder originally ordered 
SuperStar, he specified a boom that was 40" longer than stock.   He 
took one look at the sail plan and concluded that the boom was way 
too short.   With the larger main, the boat was noticably faster, and 
the larger main delivered a significant portion of the boats 
power.  It sailed great and was still very well balanced, although in 
higher wind conditions, good main trim was more critical in terms of 
minimizing weather helm.

We cut the boom to the stock length after PHRF hit us up for nine 
seconds per mile on our rating.  We made up for most of the lost sail 
area with the larger roach and the top two full length battens (which 
quickly became the standard for all C38s).   I have always thought 
that the boat would be even better sailing with a longer boom and 
large roach, and a traveller mounted directly in front of the 
helm.   The problem is that the boat becomes "custom", can't sail in 
class events, and is subject to whatever the local PHRF boards decide 
are proper ratings.

I have never seriously considered a non-Dacron mainsail, other than 
the Kevlar reinforcements in the corners.  Our sailmakers over the 
years have pretty much agreed that there was no reason to go with 
unobtainium materials and that Dacron was the best choice.   And they 
last much, much longer.

As to carbon fiber headsails, I have found that they last much longer 
than other high-tech fabrics in terms of keeping competitive shape 
and their ability to hold up in larger wind ranges, although I have 
not looked closely at the newest materials over the past 5 years or 
so.   We used to get about two years of competitive sailing out of 
our headsails, and the CF versions have held up to those same 
standards for at least twice that long.

Well, that's my 2 cents worth...


David Epstein
SuperStar #122, Marina del Rey





At 09:23 PM 3/5/2012, you wrote:
>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.
>_______________________________________________
>Listserve mailing list
>Listserve at catalina38.org
>http://catalina38.org/mailman/listinfo/listserve_catalina38.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://catalina38.org/pipermail/listserve_catalina38.org/attachments/20120306/c9463cf6/attachment-0001.htm>