Folded or rolled sails

Deimos

Member
When I purchased my Laser it came with a rolled sail (on a plastic tube). When you buy a new sail (from PSE UK) you have the choice (the rolled sail is US$845 whereas the folded sail US$780 - I've converted the UK£ into US$).



Do people tend to go for rolled sails or folded ones and does it make much difference ?


Ian
 
mine to came on a pvc tube .... others at the club tend to fold them. I don't think it makes much difference. I personally will not fold mine ... old habit from my 505 sailing days. Folding those sails is a big no no ...
 
The extra charge when buying the sail new has to do with how the sail is shipped from Hyde or North. Normally, as each of them are making the sails (they will make anywhere from 10 to 100 at a time) are kept flat in stacks as they move thru production. When they complete the sail, it is normally folded, bagged and prepped for shipping. They will only roll and shipped it rolled when requested by the builder.

Is there much difference between receiving a new rolled sail vs one that has been folded ? For the avg sailor, prob not. After sailing a few hours the creases in the folded sail tend to smooth out.

The main thing to consider is the fabric itself. The yarns are not heavily resinated (if at all), so you will never have the problem with the yarns cracking and breaking whenever it is folded or creased like you do with higher performance dacron cloth such as used in Star, Etchells etc..


If rolling the sail helps you sleep better at night, or leads you to believe that the sail keeps it performance longer, then by all means roll it.
 
If people buy a folded sail, do they keep it folded (i.e. re-fold it after sailing) or do they then start to roll it and store it rolled ?

I'm thinking of getting a radial kit for my standard this winter and carrying around two rolled sails plus all the spars will be a bit of a pain. Similarly rolling them on the same tube would also be a pain (i.e. removing the sail one is not using to get at the sail you want). Hence the question - or rather that is the reason for the question.

Ian
 
Wow. I have never seen a sail here in the US that was not folded when it came from the dealer. I keep my sail rolled, as do most people around here, but it already has the creases that come from its first folding at the factory. Rolling the sail (around a solid tube of some kind) definitely keeps the sail in better condition than folding...I wonder if there is any way to get a sail that has never been folded here in the US?
 
With a soft sail like the lasersails you could fold them and then jump around on the sail without hurting anything.

The only dacron sails that might need rolling are the incredibly stiff ones and to be quite honest I think they are kind of shit anyway so no reason to use them (with the exception of classes where there is extreme pressure on the sails, and even in that case there are other alternatives which I find better) =P
The classes who use them tend to suffer from that everyone has the same shitty stuff so noone relizes how slow they really are =P

I would laugh at anyone paying extra to get a rolled lasersail.
 
The only dacron sails that might need rolling are the incredibly stiff ones and to be quite honest I think they are kind of shit anyway so no reason to use them (with the exception of classes where there is extreme pressure on the sails, and even in that case there are other alternatives which I find better) =P
The classes who use them tend to suffer from that everyone has the same shitty stuff so noone relizes how slow they really are =P

and what classes are you talking about that use these, as you say shitty incredibly stiff sails? and what better alternatives do they have?
 
I like to roll mine because it's faster. I agree with everyone else, these sails are basically bed sheets out of the bag.
 
and what classes are you talking about that use these, as you say shitty incredibly stiff sails? and what better alternatives do they have?
There are a few classes where the gains from having a lighter sail are so big that the "hard" sails are worth it.
In many, probably most, classes who use them there is no point though. They eather gain nothing on the ligher sail, or, as in most cases, there are rules restricting the weight of the sailcloth so you can't have light sails anyway.

I'm not going to go into why softer sails are better cause it's gona be to bothersome to explain and my english isn't good enough to get it to make sense.

The reason why people use them is simply cause of sailmaker marketing, sailmaker x finds a class who use soft sails, market hard sails as something new and fast and therefore gets to sell loads of extra sails (also they wear out faster so you have to get new ones more often) =p
 

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