Presented by Vetus-Maxwell. Got a tip? Send it to sailmail@sailmagazine.com Fall in line In the days before GPS, the best trick outside the book for finding a harbor in dense fog went like this: if it’s surrounded by rocks, forget it; if not, in you go, but never try to hit it ...read more
TIME FOR NEW SAILS? Q: I have had the same Dacron sails on my boat for five years, and the previous owner had them for a number of years before that. I know that they are getting old, but how do I know when it’s time to replace them? Pat Chandler, Chardin, OH BRIAN HANCOCK ...read more
For the past seven years my wife, Jody, and I have been cruising aboard Blue Pelican, our Pearson 424 ketch. We spent most of those years sailing the East Coast of the United States and the Caribbean, but in 2015 we transited the Panama Canal and sailed Blue Pelican across the ...read more
Sailmaking ain’t what it used to be, especially out in the Nevada desert Some years ago I visited the Bavaria factory and was amused at the thought of a powerhouse boatbuilder turning out its products smack bang in the middle of rural Germany, surrounded by fields of cows and ...read more
I’ve always been less than enthusiastic about changing my genoa sheet leads on different points of sail. I know I should move the lead forward to improve its shape when I’m reefing or sailing off the wind. However, when I’m sailing singlehanded it is a bind to release the genoa ...read more
It used to be simple. In the old days, your sailmaker offered you one kind of mainsail, and sailors were generally happy with the result. You got a sail with a moderate roach, four battens to support that roach, a few reefs and some sail-trim devices, like a cunningham or a ...read more
When it first came out twenty-six years ago The Art and Science of Sails immediately established itself as the preeminent text on how sails are made and work, covering the length and breadth of modern-day sailmaking—including the latest on sail design and engineering, as well as ...read more
Look after your sails, and they’ll look after you Dacron sailcloth has two natural enemies—sunlight and chafe, both of which are found in abundance on the typical sailboat. There is not much you can do to stave off damage from ultraviolet light except to keep the mainsail ...read more
Am I the only one confused by all the different names for headsails these days? When I first started sailing, things were pretty simple. A non-overlapping headsail set on a boat’s headstay was called a jib. An overlapping headsail was called a genoa. You might differentiate ...read more
Although there’s nothing quite like spotting a whale at sea to make a sailor’s day, the relationship between whales and sailors has long been a checkered one, to say the least. For centuries, of course, it was sailors who were the bad guys, as whalers slaughtered countless ...read more
Salona aims its boats squarely at the performance cruising market, which was then dominated by X-Yachts and Beneteau’s First line in Europe, and J/Boats in the States.
Setting up your genoa Unroll the sail completely and look up its luff. Adjust the halyard tension until the sail is perfectly smooth – you don’t want to see any horizontal wrinkles along the luff. Halyards can stretch under load, so crank another half turn on the winch. If ...read more
If you furl your headsail when sailing off the wind, there’s a good chance the sheets will get in the way when you’re either peeling the spinnaker or taking it down. That’s why the bowman should always tie them down, out of the way, with a sail tie. When the spinnaker is up and ...read more