Hi, I am the owner of TOTALed MAYHEM. I spent quite a bit of time discussing sail options with our Annapolis sail loft in prep for NAs. My take...

I went with 7.4oz North-made Dacron. North claims their Dacron is better than Contender for Radial designed mains. I even spoke to contender and they agreed. I went with 7.4 for durability, the lighter option is not going to last as long. I did not go with the “oly” coating which makes the sail stiffer as it would have added more weight to the sail which I did not want for Chesapeake light air sailing. My understanding is that the price between cross cut and radial for North is nominal, as North uses their own Dacron for radial and outsources for cross cut. So although more stitching on the radial, the material costs them less, as they make it.

I feel the radial option allows you to tweak the sail with slight adjustments more than crosscut, especially as it ages. I had the same sail I bought new for the 2016 NAs. I used it for 3 seasons and it held up well. I will still be using it for Wednesdays for the next two seasons. The sail’s “crispiness” goes away quick, like after using it for two regattas. But the shape holds well. I have been very happy with our speed and point compared to those boats with crosscut. I’m not willing to “Downgrade” to cross cut given our performance with the radial main.

I do see that Wildcat’s main is not the same as mine. It came from a different loft. The panels appear to line up more exactly which I have always been told looks good but is actually not ideal. Not sure if that is correct or not. I see he has 1 more panels in the lower part of the sail, minimizing the size of the panels. I also see he has a “fake reef” meaning less reinforcement at the luff and leech at the reef and only two grommets and not 4.

Our jibs were also different, in fact we laid them on top of each other when measuring in. Mine is raw with extra protection on the area that overlaps with the rig. Wildcat’s appeared to not be a raw sail but a full endurance sail. Not sure if any performance difference, but I liked that the entry of the sail was lighter and reacted to backwinding quicker and clearer to the eye. Also wildcat’s genoa was about 5” longer in the leech, however luff length was the same. This appeared to require them to move the lead forward on wildcat more than Mayhem as seen in the pic above.

I hope that helps.
Doug