Join Sail America and a crew of sailing industry leaders Wednesday, April 19, in Newport, Rhode Island, at the annual Sail America Industry Conference. The conference opens with afternoon J/22 racing in Newport Harbor followed by a reception Wednesday evening.

Two days of lectures and educational events kick off Thursday morning with a welcome from Sail America President Kevin Carlan and a keynote address by renowned race skipper and North Sails President Ken Read. The schedule includes a preview of the Ocean Race stopover in Newport this May, as well as presentations from a number of well-known sailing industry leaders. 

Come for the sailing—stay for the conversations that will surely follow!

There’s still a few Sail Newport J22s available for Wednesday’s race—gather you mates and sign up soon.

For regatta and conference information, and to register, visit sailamerica.com.

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Lowell North, a legendary sailmaker and racing sailor who, in his later years, became a dedicated long-distance voyager and cruiser, passed away on June 2, 2019, at his home in San Diego. North, the founder of North Sails and a two-time Olympic medalist who won gold in the Star class in 1968, was 89.

Nicknamed “The Pope” by his peers—“God” was probably pushing it—North began his sailmaking career at the tender age of 14, when he recut the cotton sail of his dad’s Star in the family’s garage. Almost instantly, the father and son went from last place to first in uber-competitive Star class regattas and North became a hot commodity. San Diego sailor Malin Burnham recruited North to sail with him in the 1945 Star World Championship, which they won handily. North’s wry assessment of this feat was both humorous and probably very accurate: “It wasn’t me Malin wanted. It was my mainsail.”

Before long, everyone wanted North’s sails. Having obtained an engineering degree, North opened his first loft on Shelter Island in 1957. As sportswriter Bernie Wilson noted in a retrospective story on North’s life, “His methodical and scientific approach to sailmaking changed the industry.”

As North Sails grew into the leading sail loft on the planet, the company’s founder continued to race at the sport’s highest levels. In addition to a silver medal in the Dragon class at the 1964 Olympic games, North won the Star Worlds’ on three more occasions and finished second five times. He skippered Enterprise in the 1977 America’s Cup trials, and Dennis Conner was flying North Sails when he won the Cup in 1980.

North sold his company in 1984 and, in retirement, continued to race competitively. A consummate sailor who loved every facet of racing and cruising, he also purchased a Tayana 52 called Wannago, aboard which he voyaged and explored extensively in the South Pacific for many years.

North was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame in its inaugural class of 2011. “In my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have imagined where North Sails has gone,” he said. An innovator, visionary and gentleman, Lowell North will be sadly missed. His legacy remains, on the familiar, little blue patch bearing his name on the tacks of racing and cruising boats all over the planet. While North may be gone, his impact on the world of sailing remains strong and lasting.

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3Di Outlasts The Adventure
Francois Gabart and his 30-meter trimaran Macif broke the solo around-the-world speed record in December 2017 with a 3Di mainsail that had 45,000 miles BEFORE the start of his record run. 3Di powered all three around-the-world speeds records currently held.

No Film. No Delamination.
3Di is composite technology, not a sail laminate. All other sailmakers use laminates of which Mylar film is an integral component. Moisture, sunlight, and fatigue degrade both the adhesives used with the film, and the Mylar itself. These cause delamination and film failure over time.

Another Dimension
North Sails created 3D technology and is the only sailmaker to utilize full-sized molds. 3Di uses reconfigurable molds that are set to the sail’s intended flying shape.

Made By Robots (mostly)
The only sewing on a 3Di sail is for attaching details such as corner reinforcements and clew straps.
The majority of the 3Di process is automated and run by computers.

Unique To You North Sails has four versions of 3Di to suit different sailing styles and budgets.

It Has To Be North
3Di is a patented sail technology that is exclusive to North Sails. There are many “black” and “gray” sails on the market, but they are actually Mylar based string sails hidden underneath a cover layer giving them the superficial appearance of 3Di without the performance.

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North Sails has been the exclusive official supplier to the Volvo Ocean Race since the debut of the VO65 one design fleet in the 2014-15 edition. Now, after analyzing extensive race data,further modeling and listening to feedback from Volvo Ocean Race sailors, North has created a new 171m² sail to fill an apparent gap between the masthead code 0 (MH0) and the J1 jib, boosting the performance of the VO65s in the process.

In the most recent edition of the historic race, sailors reported having to constantly switch between the MH0 and the J1, two of the biggest sails carried onboard, in search of the configuration that gave them the best speed.

Crucially the introduction of the J0 will eradicate the need to change headsails so frequently – welcome news for the sailors, who expend thousands of calories a day manually hoisting the massive sails.

“The most important feedback we got from the last race was that there was a gap between the J1 and the masthead zero,” said North Sails designer Gautier Sergent, a Volvo Ocean Race expert.

“Between ten and 15 knots of wind the crews were forever changing sails as they looked for the best configuration. We wanted to provide a solution for this gap, so we introduced a new J0 that fits perfectly between the J1 and the masthead 0.

“The teams will still have to stack the J0 but they don’t need to tack or gybe every day when they are sailing offshore, so overall it is a net gain with fewer sail changes.“

North Sails has spent a lot of time comparing recent race data with historic weather routings, using software developed with Great Circle, to guarantee the J0 strikes the perfect balance among the VO65 fleet’s sail inventory.

AkzoNobel training

Targeted for conditions between eight and 15 knots upwind and up range reaching, the bowsprit-set J0 is already proving a useful tool in a much wide range of conditions.

Not only will the Volvo Ocean Race crews now have a new sail to play with but they will also get better use of their existing arsenal.

The masthead code 0 will be much more effective while the fractional code 0, which had a very narrow range in upwind conditions in the 2014-15 race, becomes a dedicated downwind sail.

“The addition of the J0 is better suited to the new race course, which has more of a Southern Ocean routing,” Sergent added. “It also allows the fractional and masthead code zeros to become more efficient and the fractional zero to become more downwind-oriented.”

The current crop of Volvo Ocean Race sailors got their chance to put the new sail through its paces during Leg Zero, the four-stage qualifying series that included the iconic Fastnet offshore race.

Early feedback from the teams has been overwhelmingly positive.

Leg Zero, Departure delivery Sanxenxo to Gosport. Photo by Ugo Fonolla/Volvo Ocean Race. 26July, 2017

“North Sails have done a really good job – they listened to the feedback and developed the J0 for this edition, which is what we need,” said Dongfeng Race Team crewman Daryl Wislang. “Upwind it’s a very versatile sail but it can be used at the wider angles as well. It’s going to get a lot of use.”

Dee Caffari, skipper of Turn the Tide on Plastic, added: “It’s the first time we’ve even seen a J0, and I think it’s my new favorite sail. It’s a really interesting space that it fits into so we’ll have a look at that in more detail. It’s a big change for the sail wardrobe for this edition of the race.”

Leg Zero, two boat training with Dongfeng Race Team and MAPFRE in Sanxenxo, Spain. Photo by Jeremie Lecaudey/Volvo Ocean Race. 31 August, 2017

Pablo Arrarte, watch captain on MAPFRE, said each team must decide how best to use the J0. “It is a critical sail, new for everyone, and we have to test it intensely,” he said. “Each team will make their own conclusions while training about how to use it to their best advantage.”

Just like the rest of North Sails’ Volvo Ocean Race inventory, the cutting-edge J0 is made from its unique 3Di technology that pushes the boundaries of sail design.

The patented technology, developed for the Volvo Ocean Race, uses tiny pre-impregnated filament tapes to mirror the load-bearing and shape-holding qualities of a rigid aerofoil wing while remaining lightweight and durable.

The Volvo Ocean Race begins in Alicante, Spain, on October 14, with the opening round of the In-Port Race Series before the fleet departs for Lisbon, Portugal, on the first of 11 offshore legs on October 22.

Learn how North Sails 3Di can transform your on-the-water experience, no matter what type of sailing you do: northsails.com/sailing/en/sails/materials

AkzoNobel

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“There is nothing new under the sun.”

That idea, from Ecclesiastes, was new just over 2,400 years ago. Woven cloth was new about 25,000 years ago. Polyester was invented in 1941, and since around 1950, woven polyester cross-cut sails have been the reigning technology on cruising sailboats around the world. (Racing sailboats are a different story.)

3Di Nordac technology, introduced this summer by North Sails and created for cruising sailors who truly want to sail, is something new under the sun.

The Trouble with Weaving

3Di manufacturing at the North Sails sail loft in Minden, Nevada.

“The big difference between a good cruising main and a bad cruising main,” says North Sails CEO Dan Neri, “is the twist profile, where the top of the sail is the most open place on the sail. Then it’s progressively less open when you go down.” On a normal Dacron sail, where you don’t have any control of the stretch, the middle of the leech becomes the most open when it’s time to twist the sail, he says. “That pulls the top of the leech in, which gives a deeper head and open middle. And that makes the boat heel more.”

The question for sailors and sailmakers, then, is: How do you create a sail that holds that desirable shape over time — a shape that delivers the most forward-driving lift with the least speed-killing drag?

The history of sail-making is marked by innovations in both fiber and cloth. The year 1851 was a watershed year. That’s when the schooner America trounced 15 British contenders for the Hundred Guinea Cup, later called the America’s Cup. While all the Brits were flying sails made from flax (linen), America demonstrated something new: cotton (canvas) sails. Retaining a flatter shape, the sails contributed to less heeling moment, a drier foredeck and — most notably for an island empire held together by its sail-powered Royal Navy — a pointing angle that was 6 degrees closer to the wind than that of the nearest competitor.

It was another ­transatlantic competition, some 90 years later, that produced the next major innovation in sail-making. This was the quest to commercialize organic chemistry. The result was the British discovery of polyethylene ­terephthalate (PET) — better known as polyester. In 1946, DuPont purchased the patent and called it Dacron.

Since about 1950, cross-cut polyester sails have been the reigning technology on cruising sailboats. Throughout this period, the sailmaker’s goal has been to control stretch. Newer fibers such as carbon, aramid, Spectra or Vectran stretch less but bring other downsides, including cost.

In two-dimensional cloth, warp yarn runs lengthwise and fill yarns run the width. In a fill-oriented cloth, the warp yarns bend, or “crimp,” under and over the fill yarns; such cloth stretches less in the width dimension. “Bias” is the diagonal between warp and fill. The most typical cruising sails are cross-cut sails, made from panels of fill-oriented polyester cloth. Because they stretch least in the width dimension, the panels are aligned perpendicular to the leech, where the primary loads occur. The trouble is, not all of the loads are in that direction, so the sails eventually stretch into rounder, deeper shapes.

Beginning in the 1970s, sailmakers found a way to avoid some of the problems inherent in all woven cloth — particularly stretch in the bias direction. They laminated yarns on a layer of Mylar film (another form of polyester). But with rare exceptions, the downsides of durability, longevity and cost made laminated sails, or “string sails,” more popular for racing sailors than for cruisers. Lamination, many found, was too often attended by its evil twin: delamination. From fiber to cloth, we move from one dimension to two. But sails are three-dimensional airfoils. To create that third dimension of draft, sailmakers cut curved edges into the flat panels of cloth in a technique called “broadseaming.” The placement of the draft is a fundamental difference between good sails and poor sails. When a formerly good sail stretches out, its draft slouches aft.

3Di Nordac Sails

3Di manufacturing at the North Sails sail loft in Minden, Nevada.

North’s 3Di sails were new about 10 years ago and born of yet another transatlantic competition. Neither a weave nor a laminate, 3Di is a composite of flat tapes of fiber layered in a matrix of thermoset resin, much like your boat’s hull. While woven cloth or laminated string sails are “load-path” structures in which virtuous properties align more with some yarns than in other directions, 3Di is different. It’s a quasi-isotropic material — “isotropic” meaning that it exhibits its properties of strength and stretch-resistance in every direction.

During the 1992 America’s Cup event, Bill Koch’s America 3 syndicate introduced a material subsequently called Cuben Fiber. Round yarns, or tows, of fiber (Dyneema, carbon, aramid) are spread out into a flat tape of side-by-side ­filaments. At the time, Cuben Fiber was used in laminated sails. Then, in 2001, Swiss sailmaker Gérard Gautier imagined such flat tapes put to a different use — one that would get rid of the film in the laminate. In Gautier’s version, the tapes were impregnated with a thermoset resin that, once catalyzed, would hold its shape despite heating or cooling. The Alinghi syndicate tried Gautier’s technology in the run-up to its successful America’s Cup defense in 2007.

Before long, North Sails did what DuPont did with polyester: It bought the patent. But the patent was only for the process, which Gautier accomplished in two dimensions before applying the traditional broadseaming technique to join the panels in a concave shape. North Sails’ engineers adapted Gautier’s idea to their own previous innovations in sail-making directly on a 3D mold. The result was to eliminate seams altogether.

Since 2011, North’s 3Di sails — built with such fibers as carbon or aramid — have been the state of the art for Volvo Ocean Race competitors and other grand-prix race boats. Speaking to durability, Volvo boats previously carried 28 sails per circumnavigation, including three mainsails, says Neri. Using 3Di sails, they can do it with 11 sails and just one main. When Thomas Coville set the solo round-the-world record at 49 days in 2016, he left the dock with 3Di sails that already had 50,000 miles on them. That’s two full circumnavigations.

What’s new under the sun this summer is the combination of 3Di technology with tried-and-true polyester for cruising sailors. With this cloth, sail repairs can be done on the dock, using adhesive. There are also no seams, or the stress risers they cause.

Like all new things, we may still have more to learn about how Dacron behaves in the 3Di environment. But it certainly looks promising for cruising sailors who truly love to sail.

Tim Murphy is a Cruising World editor-at-large and a longtime Boat of the Year judge.

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Spinnakers should be dry and free from dirt or salt before storing. Many spinnaker fabrics are woven from the small denier threads. Any dirt or salt left on the sails will get into the fibers and cause the cloth to deteriorate prematurely. If your sail is wet from salt water, fly it upside down, with the clews tied together at the top and the head at the bottom. To rinse saltwater off the sail, use a hose spraying from the top and letting the fresh water flush to the bottom. Using this method the sail will float gently in breeze and dry off pretty quickly. Use this same method for sails wet with freshwater or spread out indoors, inside your boat or in an enclosed space with a dehumidifier running.

Once your asymmetric is clean, fold and store them properly using these tips:

Step 1: Start with the spinnaker open and flat, with one person at the tack and one at the clew. Begin to take flakes in the sail, of equal widths, along the luff and leech.

Step 2: Continue to flake the sail. Make the flakes along the luff, which is longer than the leech, slightly wider so sail flakes evenly on top of itself.

Step 3: Finish flaking by making the head reinforcing patch lie flat in the the center of the flaked sail.

Step 4: Start rolling the flaked sail from leech to luff.

Step 5: Continue to roll to luff. The finished product will look as it does in Figure 5 above.

The easy way to store your spinnaker is just to stuff it in the bag it came with. By taking good care of your sail, flaking and storing it properly, you will extend its racing life and ensure you get the most from your investment.

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Like your engine and other onboard systems that get special attention in spring, your sails — along with all the gear that lets you raise and trim them — will benefit from a thorough pre-launch inspection and maintenance routine. If you didn’t already do it when the boat was hauled, the first step as you prepare for commissioning is to pull your sails out of the bag and examine the stitching on the genoa’s UV cover or leech areas (also check any other headsails set and stored on furlers during the season). It’s these areas that are exposed to sunlight and weather, and it’s where the stitching is most likely to slowly break down over time. If caught early enough, your sailmaker can make a corrective repair before the damage and repair costs spread.

Also on the genoa, it is a good idea to look at the spreader patch and the area where the sail rubs against the bow pulpit to see if there is any heavy wear and tear that needs addressing.

On the mainsail, look for chafing on batten pockets, and if battens are held in place with Velcro, make sure the hooks and loops seal firmly. Also check where the sail comes in contact with shrouds for any marks to determine if the cloth or stitching there is wearing through.

Storage Tip: Unless you plan to sail over the winter, take the sails off the boat and store them inside rather than leaving the main bent on under a sail cover and the genoa rolled on a furler. Winter weather can lead to a lot of mildew growth, green slime and general pollution finding its way into the sailcloth. After five months, sails can turn an ugly color. Worse, our loft see a lot of jibs shredded by winter storms.

Next move your attention to the leech lines. Look to see if they are working correctly (can be pulled tight) and if the line is holding well in the end fitting, often a jam cleat of some sort. Check the Velcro that holds the cover over the cleat and keeps the excess leech line from flying about because this can weaken over time.

Once you’ve completed your sail inspection, it’s time to move on to sail-control systems. Go over the sheets, looking for any chafe. If you didn’t do it in fall, now is the time to give them a good rinse in the sink or a backyard kiddie pool, and wash them using a mild detergent such as Woolite.

Use fresh water to rinse out all the turning blocks and bearing races in the furler that you can reach. This will remove old salt and any grime that’s collected over the winter. Then relubricate as recommended by the gear manufacturers. Service your halyard and sheet winches to make sure they are fully lubricated and running well before the season starts.

Rerigging

When you’re ready to put the sails back on the boat, wait for a calm day and do it with the help of a friend. When hoisting any sail with a luff tape, like a furling genoa, it works best to have one person guiding the sail into the groove as the other mans the halyard, because it is easy to accidentally catch the tape, tearing or jamming it as the sail goes up.

When bending the main back on, acetone can be used to clean the track or groove in the mast. Rinse off any rollers or slides with bearings to remove as much salt and dirt as possible, but be careful that the ball bearings don’t get dislodged. To make the job go more smoothly, you can coat the track and slides with a product such as McLube Sailkote Dry as they go in. Avoid oil-based lubricants because they tend to collect dirt and turn it into a gooey mess.

If the mainsail is still tough to hoist and you have regular slides, it might be time to look into upgrades such as slides with rollers or even a new track-and-slide system, if your budget allows. There are lots of different options from which to choose. Lastly, just to make sure your sails provide a ­season’s worth of good service, have your local sailmaker put together a simple repair kit to suit your boat and the ­material your sails are made from so you have something on hand if you need to do minor repairs on the fly.

On The Water

Once the boat’s launched and you’re out sailing, it’s a great idea to take pictures of your sails at work. This really helps your loft understand the sails’ shape underway and identify where improvements could be made over the following winter. Many cruising sails are made from Dacron, and can lose their shape as they age. As this happens, sailing performance decreases, and eventually the boat heels more. Short of buying a new suit of sails, a sailmaker might be able to make repairs or suggest an upgrade such as fitting full battens in a main to extend its life.

Dennis LeFeaux is a sailmaker at North Sails Canada.

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