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How to care for your sails

7 tips to help your sails last longer

Unless you’re into serious racing, it’s a fair bet your sails are made from Dacron. Even though Dacron is a fairly robust fabric, it does break down and even a little care and attention will extend the life of your sails considerably.

Here are 7 tips to help you care for your sails.

1. UV protection

If you let it, the sun’s ultra violet radiation will cause more damage to your sails than anything else.

Sailcloth manufacturers add UV stabilisers (usually titanium dioxide) to their cloth when it’s made. Titanium dioxide may add weight and stiffness to the cloth, but it absorbs and blocks UV radiation. However, when this treatment has absorbed as much radiation as it can, or has worn off, it can no longer protect the sailcloth.

Unfortunately there is no way to reapply the treatment and nothing can reverse the damage caused by UV radiation.

For the mainsail, the answer is to flake and cover it at all times or remove it from the boom if you’re not going to use your boat for more than a couple of weeks.

Similarly, for a furling headsail make sure the “sunshield” layer on the front is in good condition before you leave the sail furled for more than a couple of weeks. It’s preferable to remove the headsail and stow it below.

Make sure you wash your sails periodically to remove salt crystals which can act like tiny light prisms increasing UV damage.

2. Luffing

They say 5 minutes of luffing can cause more damage to a mainsail than a month of normal use.

Prolonged luffing of a mainsail damages the head of the sail just below the head board due to the shock loads on the sail at this point during luffing. In heavy weather, allowing the main to depower by letting it flog will also damage the leech of the sail.

Damage around the headboard can be reduced by having a full length batten at the top which stiffens the sail at this point. However damage can occur at the outboard and inboard ends of the batten pocket.

It’s good seamanship as well as good economic sense to reef before you get to the point of having to depower the main by letting it flog.

3. Chafe

The obvious areas for sail chafe are lifelines, staunchions and spreader tips and most of us apply patches to our sails at these points.

However, if you don’t keep your sails clean, salt crystals will work their way into weave and seams of the sail. The sharp edges of the crystals chafe and cut the filaments of the fabric, effectively chafing and wearing out the entire sail.

Make sure you wash your sails periodically during the season.

4. Take photographs

Before you finish sailing for the season take lots of photos of your sails on all points of sailing and from all angles.

There’s nothing like a photo of a flogging leech or a strange set of wrinkles in the luff to help explain to your sailmaker the problems you’re having with a sail.

5. Wash your sails

At the end of the sailing season, or twice a year if you sail all year round, you should remove all your sails from the boat and clean them.

Spread out the sails on a clean, non-staining surface and rinse them off with fresh water. Scrub the sails gently with a soft bristle brush. You can use a mild laundry detergent in plenty of water for dirty areas. Don’t use any bleach. Dark stains are best left to the sailmaker.

Dry your sails away from strong sunlight to avoid UV damage. Pack your sails when dry by flaking them down by the foot and then roll them up from the luff to the leech to form a “brick”. Store them away from moisture and add some moth balls to the sailbag.

6. Inspect your sails

Carefully inspect each sail at the end of the season and decide if the sails need service by your sailmaker. Batten pockets, headboards, sunshields, grommets and chafe patches are all good candidates for repair.

You can write a sail log of the work to be done on each sail and stick colored spinnaker repair tape near the areas to be repaired to help your sailmaker. You could also write in pencil directly on the sail the repair work to be done.

Photographs help too.

7. Spinnakers and gennakers

If your light weather headsails are more than 3 years old and you’re concerned about your light weather performance you can test the sailcloth for porosity.

Light weather sail material loses its surface finish over time and will allow more air to go through the material and also allow the material to absorb more water. Get your sailmaker to give you a small new piece of your spinnaker fabric and test the difference in porosity between the new piece and your sails by placing it over your mouth and sucking air through the fabric.

If you can suck air through your sails you know the fabric has lost its finish and is leaking air when hoisted on your boat.

Unfortunately there is no way to replace this finish on the sail fabric.

Conclusion

Take just a small amount of care and your sails will last longer and keep their design shape longer.

And if you're not totally convinced sail care is important - check the price of a new set of working sails for your boat at your local sailmaker.