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Re: Cheap sails? where?
By:NPenney
Date: 8/10/1998, 2:29 pm
In Response To: Cheap sails? where? (Brian C.)

Going high tech. Clear plastic drop cloths. You get god knows how many square feet of material for just a few bucks at places like Home Depot or Wallmart.

For installing them onto the spars I'll use carpet tape, which is double sided mylar. Can't say enough good about that type of tape. I plastic coated my window screens for winter use several years ago and they were still going strong, in spite of some very vicious winds and such.

I've seen the poly tarps used, and don't personally like it too much. I've sailed enough with blinding sails to be absolutely sick of them. A low sail that one can't see through is an invitation for disaster. Sorta like that time we rammed that one boat racing because a certain skipper will not put windows in his sails. But I digress. :-)

I don't much like the use of eyelets for kayak scale sails. They cause tears and poor sail shape. Made all that much worse on a tiny kayak sized sail. Taping the cloth to the spar on the other hand should spread the load nicely, and keep sail shape better.

By using clear plastic tarps, carpet tape, fir dowels and cheap rope, I could probably make 20 sets of different sails for under a hundred bucks.

Would an expensive custom made sail work better? Probably, but for my needs, I'd rather go cheap and play. In fact, I'd really hesitate on expecting a custom sail maker to do better for a kayak sail. They don't make them normally, and the needs are substantially different then your typical sail boat sail.

> Where are you getting the material/knowhow for the sail? I priced
> out my batwings and the reply from SailRite was...

Messages In This Thread

Anyone else building a CLC SailRig?
Brian C. -- 7/31/1998, 1:39 pm
Re: Anyone else building a CLC SailRig?
NPenney -- 8/10/1998, 7:48 am
Cheap sails? where?
Brian C. -- 8/10/1998, 11:06 am
Re: Cheap sails? where?
Mark Kanzler -- 8/10/1998, 5:16 pm
Re: Cheap sails? where?
NPenney -- 8/10/1998, 2:29 pm
Forgot to ask about the edge treatment
Brian C. -- 8/10/1998, 8:32 pm
what about a roller jib?
Brian C. -- 8/10/1998, 5:27 pm
Re: what about a roller jib?
NPenney -- 8/11/1998, 6:40 am
that roller is for the main sail
Brian C. -- 8/11/1998, 6:48 pm
Re: Roller Reefing
Mark Kanzler -- 8/12/1998, 10:27 am
Re: Roller Reefing
NPenney -- 8/12/1998, 2:18 pm
Re: Roller Reefing
Mark Kanzler -- 8/12/1998, 3:57 pm
Re: Roller Reefing
NPenney -- 8/13/1998, 11:56 am
Roller Reefing just for Jib - Batwing mains'l
Brian C. -- 8/12/1998, 2:00 pm
Re: what about a roller jib?
Mark Kanzler -- 8/10/1998, 5:41 pm
Re: what about a roller jib?
Mark Kanzler -- 8/11/1998, 1:04 pm