Thinking of upgrading your sail wardrobe? Winning skipper and coach Ian Walker shares advice on how to choose the right sails Andy RiceWhen asked his advice on how to extract maximum value from your sail budget, Ian Walker first offered a health warning: \u201cYou do know that I work for North Sails, and we provide sails for the vast majority of the high performance market?\u201d In other words, North Sails are not the cheapest. So it\u2019s unsurprising that Walker is keen to point out that buying purely on price is not the best option, even when budgets are tight.
\nIt\u2019s a broad, difficult subject that we have asked him to address, but Walker\u2019s knowledge is highly sought after and he offers some good, solid advice for sailors who have to make sure they spend as prudently as possible.
\nBuy on value
\nIt\u2019s easy to be taken in by the lowest price, but buying the cheapest sails can be a false economy. Ask yourself why they\u2019re cheap. How well have they been designed? Are the materials inferior? What technology is used to make the sails? Any of these factors will result in lower performance and potentially less longevity, which means you will not perform well and could end up needing to replace sails more often.
\nDo your research
\nThe best sources of research you\u2019ve got are looking at race results and word of mouth recommendation. Ask around the fleet, find out which sails are doing well in the fleet. How well have the sails lasted? What kind of service and advice can you get from the sailmaker? They\u2019re all critical factors to consider. A common mistake is to be lured by the latest fads.
\nCarbon is certainly useful in the right circumstances but it\u2019s not right for every boat and ever sailor
\nDo you need carbon?
\nOne of the biggest fads of all is carbon for carbon\u2019s sake. People will buy a sail because they\u2019re told it\u2019s got carbon in it. But depending on what you\u2019re planning to use the sail for, it could be completely the wrong yarn. Carbon may offer the lightest, lowest stretch sail but it won\u2019t be as robust, it won\u2019t like being folded as much and won\u2019t like being dragged along a deck. It might also not be the best sail for your mast, rigging or deck fittings.
\nWhat is important is to have the right combination of materials in your sails for your boat and your style of racing. You may want to trade off the last 1% of performance for increased longevity and durability. Your boat may also not be suited to sails with very high modulus (low stretch). So if you\u2019re buying sails for a cruising boat, you\u2019d almost certainly want a higher Spectra content, and you may want enough aramid or carbon to make sure the sail has the right stiffness. You might also want an outer protective scrim like taffeta to protect it further.
\nInshore to offshore
\nIf you\u2019re used to mostly doing windward-leeward racing, you don\u2019t worry about genoa staysails, flying headsails, Code 0s or blast reachers. But if you\u2019re entering offshore races, you need to turn your focus on to reaching sails and downwind sails. Depending on your boat there could be an array of sails for certain angles and different wind speeds offshore, which you don\u2019t need inshore. Talk to other sailors who race similar boats to find out which form of reaching sail might work best.
\nInshore you don\u2019t necessarily need your sails to go through the wind range as much. So most racing boats might carry a light, medium and a heavy jib. On a Maxi 72, for example, you might carry four codes of jib: light, light\/medium, medium\/heavy and heavy. But offshore you don\u2019t ideally want to do a lot of sail changes \u2013 especially if you\u2019re short-handed. Most likely you\u2019ll want your sails to go through a broader range and might take just a light\/medium and a medium\/heavy. Therefore you might need to consider different structures and different depths.
\nThe Maxi 72 Momo using Doyle\u2019s cableless tech. Note the lens structure built into the luff. Photo: Ingrid Abery
\nStructured luff sails
\nNow, this is going to sound like a sales pitch but one of the revolutions in sailmaking is the structured luff, which we [at North Sails] call Helix [other sailmakers have their own versions]. Because of the carefully designed structure in the sail you can manifestly change the shape of it by adjusting the luff tension. Which means that a structured luff jib can go through a much wider wind range. One minute, it can be really full, then by tightening the luff, it can be altered to look like a flat, heavy air jib.
\nThis is why structured luff sails are becoming popular in short-handed racing where you need to be able to change gears through the wind range without too many sail changes. Bear in mind though that your light jib may have to be built slightly heavier than it might have been because you\u2019re going to push it up the wind range.<\/p>\n
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Thinking of upgrading your sail wardrobe? Winning skipper and coach Ian Walker shares advice on how to choose the right sails Andy RiceWhen asked his advice on how to extract maximum value from your sail budget, Ian Walker first offered … <\/p>\n