J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment What Sails are Fast & Last Long?

The timing of this posting should allow some feedback from those who are having fun at Cedar Point for the 2006 North Americans. I'm looking for feedback since the 2005 rule changes on sail materials took effect. I need replacement sails on Rhapsody in the following order;

1. Main (replacement before spring 2007)
2. #1 (replacement before spring 2008)
3. Spinnaker (replacement before spring 2008)

There was a great thread discussing this topic in 2004. Can those of you who have recent experience with the lofts please provide your experience with the one design sails you've bought? I'm interested on what is "fast" and like other J/30 owners, want the investment to last a few years. Info on lofts, materials, prices, experiences with loft, etc. would be helpful.

Thanks,
Bill - Rhapsody J/30 #348

Hey Bill...I have been hearing all sorts of comments...unfortunately the most common scuttlebutt about sails has been that they don't measure in as they are supposed to... mine was too big, another spent big bucks only to find it cut too small...not an advantage on the race course. Why don't you hop in the car and come down for the after race party...get it from the horse's mouth?

Cynthia,

I'd love to join the party but have committed to one of the last beer can races we can do this season. At least I'm taking the time today to troll the Newport Boat Show and take in all the sights. I'm going to get quotes from all the lofts that are exhibiting there. Based on your comments, sounds like I should get a written guarantee that the sails will pass one-design measurement criteria, or they replace them. Any specifics on what measurements / sails had problems? I remember at the 2004 NAs, Laserbeam had a brandy new Z-Sails spinnaker that was cut a couple of inches too long (failed Spinnaker Half Width along luff as I recll).

Make sure you save some rum for all those other J/30 sailors there....

Bill

I suppose for fast, North Sails New Orleans designs by Benz Faget have a pretty good track record. Zephyr was using a new panelled kevlar #1 that seemed pretty darned quick.

I think North chutes are as fast as anyone else' (as long as it's cut for class oversized pole that is).

Zephyr used to have a really full "sharkskin" main. They weren't using it this weekend, but I don't know why. Sharkskin seems to be out of favour these days after the J/105s had problems with it in their mains.

My experience is mostly with the midwest North loft. The 3DL #1s I've had generally last 2-3 years if taken care of. Main and chute for quite a while. I'm still using sails from '95 in PHRF races and doing just fine. We have a new panelled kevlar #1, rather similar to Zephyr's. I expect it may last longer than the 3DLs.

I'm not sure where Rhapsody lives... RI? Benz' sails are pretty unique, and there's no tuning guide for them, so trying to get your rig set up to work properly with the sails might be a challenge.

Thanks Dennis. Yes, I'm in RI

Kool.

What happened to the Narraganset Bay boats at the NAs this year?

BTW, if you need a good foredeck, I happen to know of one in Kingston

Sharkskin isn't made anymore, because the manufacturers had massive production issues with it. Sharkskin was basically normal dacron made with a different binder/sizing material (which gave it the grey color) What I heard from North was that the manufacturer was swapping from making normal dacron to Sharkskin and back, and they never found a good way to clean the full set of equipment between runs, so that they ended up with large rolls of material which was 90% white dacron with bits of Sharkskin binder mixed in, an vice/versa. If you got your sail built from a roll of well behaved Sharkskin, you were a happy camper. (We still have use our '02 Sharkskin main for low end stuff, and it's shape has held up quite well) But... If you got a bad batch, the stuff distorted and stretched, and did so unevenly, making for really, really ugly sails in a hurry.

- David

If anyone would like to contact Benz Faget, his e-mail address is
benz@sales.northsails.com .

His North sails work well for us.



[This message has been edited by David Erwin (edited 09-18-2006).]

I'll second that looking from (too far) behind Dave/Zephyr. The number one they had looked sturdy, had much more depth forward than the others I saw, and was blazingly fast in heavy and ultralight, maybe a little less dominant in medium light (of course those races didn't matter much to team Zephyr).

David - thanks for the info. Question that I'll probably end up asking North directly, but maybe somebody knows...

The Loft in RI is 1/2 mile from me. Does the Loft in LA have a "secret recipe" or should I be able to get the same results here. Henry Little is the local North guy I've dealt with in RI. I would expect that the local loft should be able to help with initial rig tuning to get the most from the sails.

Thanks,
Bill