Sails...letters & numbers

[mark rocco]

I pretty sure that the letters on a sail diagram are the way you get the dimensions/size of your sail. But i want to be sure So if any one out there knows a thread or diagram so i can see i would greatly appreciate that info...Thank you in advance
Mark

 

[bgary]

You mean the I, P, E and J?

If so, yes.... sort of:
"I" indicates the vertical hoist of the jib/headsail
"P" indicates the vertical hoist of the main
"J" indicates the horizontal distance between the tack fitting and the front of the mast
"E" indicates the horizontal distance between the gooseneck and the clew of the main.

I say "sort of" because those are design parameters. A sailmaker will be aware of those, but will (or should) always measure your actual boat before designing a sail, because that's the only way to know the right size for *your* boat. Plus, they use other/additional measurements, such as "LP" (luff perpendicular, the measurement that becomes the jib size, i.e., a 110% or 135% jib), mid-girths, luff curves and leech profiles, all sorts of things.



$.02

 

[Joe]

You can go to any sailmaker site and there will be an instructional on how to measure the sails on your boat. The dimensions in the diagram above are part of that process. Every sailmaker will also have a database of these basic dimensions, and usually more, for practically every production boat ever made. They will use this information go give you a ballpark quote for the new sail.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=how+to+measure+sails

http://thesailwarehouse.com/cgi-bin/web_store_TSW.cgi?page=measure.html

 

[mark rocco]

Thank you, Thank You......Mark

 

[pateco]

I thought this post was about Sail numbers, so I am still going to ask my stupid question. I do not have the original sails for my boat. The sails I am using were bought used with numbers already attached. How do you determine the sail numbers that should be on your boat? I found on US Sailing how to apply for a new numberNORTH AMERICAN SAIL NUMBERING SYSTEM FOR OFFSHORE BOATS, but if the boat already has numbers assigned, How would I find out what they were so that I could just to revert back to them.

 

[Brian S]

I thought this post was about Sail numbers, so I am still going to ask my stupid question. I do not have the original sails for my boat. The sails I am using were bought used with numbers already attached. How do you determine the sail numbers that should be on your boat? I found on US Sailing how to apply for a new numberNORTH AMERICAN SAIL NUMBERING SYSTEM FOR OFFSHORE BOATS, but if the boat already has numbers assigned, How would I find out what they were so that I could just to revert back to them.

Not having a racing boat in my O'day, but having stupid aspirations, I looked to my HIN to find out which hull number I had. Turns out I have #60, so I self-assigned my sail number to be 60 on my new main. Will help when I occasionally race Portsmouth with the club, although I am just as likely to use my Force 5 for racing. In the case of the F5, the class association assigns sail number to the skipper. Since it was unassigned, I have registered 6620 to myself. It happens to be the registered hull and sail number of my GP14, so I have fewer numbers to get confused about. Someday I gotta restore that GP14