Hot Sails

We are new J30 owners. The sails that came with the boat are a mix. North main, UK tape drive jenny, Ulman blade, Cameron kite. Who develops and has the fastest sails for this boat?

I guess you have a pretty good set right on your boat....

our boats gettin there ( in age ) so most sailmakers have some idea whats fast.... just that most dont make a big fuss about it ( use it in advertising) as our numbers are not that big and obviously we are not growing all too much ( compared to J 105 classs for example )

Having said this I think it really depends on the local loft, you like to do business with ... A lot of other folks hate the Chi North Loft... I have to say the opposite, the folks were nice, professional and actually pretty affordable compared to others... I will do business with them again...

thor

The bulk of the top boats have been with North in recent years-and I will say from personal experience that North makes very good, fast, but not very durable sails.

I've had North, Ullman, and Quantum on my boat. The Ullman main was way too flat, Ullman jib had a very strange cut (very high clew) but was fast once I figured it out. Quantum was real nice stuff-fast right out of the bag, durable. North's main was cut very differently-much deeper draft, very different rig tune. We seem to be a different boat in light air with North-where we used to die in our PHRF fleet when the wind dropped, now we hold our own at the top end of the division.

"Smiles" in LIS swears by "Z" sails (and I will testify to his speed), and "Chinook" (also LIS) used to be very fast using UK.

We use North on Lake Michigan in Chicago. Perry Lewis has been pretty responsive.

Benz Faget at the North loft in New Orleans seems to have a pretty good program, though if you're not in NO, then you might have trouble getting support.

If there is a tie, think of giving the business to Benz. The economy is pretty flat. We need all of the help we can get.

I vouch for his quality. We won a few races with sails made by Benz.

His address is benz@sales.northsails.com

Hard to argue with Benz results lately. John White was North Chesapeake but had Quantums when he won back in 1998. Same boat now with David McConaughy is North through the Hampton loft. On the Chesapeake we have many lofts represented but four of the top five over the past two years have been UK including Big Kahuna, Bebop and no respect.

Given the trend of J/30 racers to upgrade to fast new sails on a regular basis, I'm surprised to see so few used sails showing up for sale on the website.

What happens to all the old sails? Do people keep them in their basements? Or do they get sold through other channels first?

Mine regatta sails get recycled into weekend racing sails...

which become beercan sails...

which become cruising sails...

which nobody in their right mind would want.

I try to replace about 1 sail/year, though lately because of circumstances, it's more like 1 every 2 years. I am NOT keeping my local North guy too happy.

I purchased my j30 with "new" sails that were i think described as only 6 races on them. I always thought the uk tape drive 163 was a little wrinkled to be that new and I always got my ass kicked going upwind. I finally broke down this last year and bought a brand new halsey-uk 155% and the boat really pointed as high and fast as the S2s and even the sport boats. I really performed well on all six races . I won the cup this year in main and jib. I think the boat is not much faster with a spinnaker for the upwind downwind racing but i plan to compete with the chute this season if I can get the crew.

Isn't Mike Bird's Circus a Doyle boat ?

They've put up some good results.

It seems that different lofts have different ideas of rig tune so just be sure to get the correct rig tune setup from "your" loft for your sails. That would be a huge factor in optimizing your sails.

I think Circus has a mix of sails, including North which you can see in April's Sailing World.