older sails

[whitecap26w]

My sails are 6 or 7 New England seasons old. t hey are starting to look a little tired. some stretch, on the luff & leash These were quality American made sails, challenger cloth etc
Im debating: do I take them to a sailmaker for refurbishing or just order a new set of sails
any opinions would be appreciated

 

[thinwater]

I'm not sure how to say this politely. You haven't given us enough information. At this point, any book on sailmaking would give sound advise.

• Pictures of damage that might be repaired.
• Pictures of set faults. The first thing to try is vigorous use of the adjustments.
  
• Do you race? Sounds like not.
• How important is performance to you?
• How important is money to you?

They may just need s few stitches and will serve for another 10 years. They may be no good for you. Can't tell.

 

[SailormanDan]

Thinwater has good points, my sails were original to the boat and 33-35 years old by the time I replaced them, but I'm a cruiser, not a racer, and still learning, so I didn't know any better. The stitching will start to fail before the rest of the cloth, so it may just need re-stitched, or could need re- something that a sail loft could suggest.

 

[Running Late]

If racing, get a new set

If cruising, have them refurb'd. SailCare does a nice job restoring and reresining sails. I got a good 4-5 years+ out of a well worn (>15+ yr old) set they restored before I finally bought a new set (I use my old ones as backup).

 

[Joe]

Get an opinion for a sail loft.

 

[SchwarckT]

My experience has been that you are better off buying new rather than refurbishing old sails.

 

[dscribner]

Whitey,

The real question is how deep are your pockets? (Rhetorical) A new suit of sails will set you back a couple of grand. Refurbishing them, re-resined , reshaped, probably $400. Out Mainsail was dated to a date I had no idea about. We called Sailrite and built a new one over the winter, Came out great. Better quality than some of the production sails I have seen. It also gave us a full knot increase. Cost about $500 or the kit, PM me if your interested in more info.

Don

 

[NotCook]

Sounds familiar. We just pulled down our genoa because the sun screen was fraying. We have a Sailrite LZS-1, so we trimmed up all the frays and zigzag restitched basically along the entire length of both the foot and luff. These are sails that are already 15+ years old, but always covered when on the boat. How much more will we get out of these sails? Who knows. For now, they are still serviceable, and still look fairly decent for the most part.

For our part, we will put off buying new sails for as long as we safely can, or when we make our planned rigging changes to convert from a main to a mizzen staysail. Then, we will have to invest in at least one new sail, and possibly two.

In your case, Thinwater asked all pretty much all the pertinent questions.

Let us know what you end up doing.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

My sails are 6 or 7 New England seasons old. t hey are starting to look a little tired.

That's it?!?! They may be barely broken in if you are primarily a weekend sailor for no more than a 4 month season. I'm guessing you don't put a lot of hard wear on your sails based on your question.

I suggest sending them to Sail Care at the end of the season. Your sails will probably come back like new. They will also make any necessary repairs. They are very professional and do very fine work as far as I can tell. http://www.sailcare.com/

My 10 year-old set of mainsail and 150 genoa is going back there this year for the 2nd time. Mine are North dacron sails. I'd say my main sail is ok, but my genoa needs some serious repair (and has probably just about had it) due to more significant abuse at the upper wind ranges of it's service. I'm due for a new genoa so I will purchase a smaller new sail.

 

[Gunni]

Friends of the Vache, they collect used sails for Haitian fishermen to recut. If you are running .4 mm plastic sheets as sails, old dacron looks space-age.