sunfish2005
New Member
----------'long-time listener, first-time caller' --------
I tried out a rather extravagant experiment recently and I thought I'd share the lessons I learned from it.
I bought a World's Sunfish recently from a friend who I've raced against for years, who finally had to give up small-boat sailing. I knew that this particular Sunfish had never been sailed in more than about ten knots (since the week of that World's of course). The boat never felt a wave with him at the helm. But to say my friend wasn't the most diligent with sail care would be an understatement. The colorful sail was rumpled, dirty and stained, and looked pretty bad. It went with the particular World's theme of the boat of course, which was attractive that year, and I was pretty sure that I wouldn't find a replacement for it very easily, if at all.
I tried cleaning the sail out on the lawn with mild detergent, but it still looked pretty bad. So....I decided to try a reputable sail-cleaning service that is actually pretty well known in some circles. They advertise that the cleaning and their comprehensive re-resining process costs a bit under $0.95 per sf, plus any necessary repairs, so I figured I'd try being a guinea pig for Sunfish.
Very coincidentally, the week I mailed the sail off to Pennsylvania I happened to meet a big-boat sailor who had just had a huge 550 sf mainsail cleaned by this company. He was pleased and the sail certainly looked great. He did caution me that the cleaning company had done some repairs beyond what he had intended, and that they had sewn his (formerly just adhesive-attached) sail numbers and class logo onto the sail. Apparently they need to do that to avoid possibly gumming up their re-resining equipment.
When they received my sail, the company contacted me prior to starting work with a proposed 'invoice' outlining what was needed; it included the per-sf cleaning costs -- they had measured the sail out at 95sf (wouldn't that be something if it were so!) for billing purposes -- plus they included a fee for sewing on the numbers. The cost for that was about $45, but my over-riding concern was more about the results than the cost. I asked if perhaps they could just remove the existing numbers, but they discouraged that, saying the adhesive residue would be unsightly (apparently they don't do the whole Goo-Gone thing for you) or that they could peel those off and sew on new numbers at $10 per number.
At that point what I should have done was sprung for the additional round-trip shipping (about $40 0r $45) to get the sail back and taken the numbers off myself, and just started over with the company. Instead I went with their proposal, figuring they knew best. The tab was going to be a bit over $150, not counting my end of the shipping. This was about double what I had sort of anticipated starting out -- not the deal I had been imagining -- but I was already in it this far, so I continued.
A few weeks later I got the sail back, folded in a plastic bag like new, and it looked great! The colors were crisp and bright, the sail itself was crisp. Stains were eradicated. All those old wrinkles gone. A new sail! Then I unfolded the the sail and tied it to the spars, and a few things jumped out.
--First, the white, close stitching on the numbers stood out in vivid contrast (the numbers showing in reverse) on the back of the colored sail panels. Aesthetically strange but not fatal.
--Second, stitching the numbers on had caused some puckering of the fabric all around and between the numbers. This was a little more troublesome -- so I jumped in and removed the numbers, and rather painstakingly cut and pulled out the stitching. All those 'ironed-in' puckers remained, though. Removing the stitching left pronounced pinholes that outlined the now-removed numbers. The puckers left the overall impression of a less-than-careful starch job by a Chinese laundry - most everything crisp and stiff until your eye gets to those areas.
--Third - and this was something - it was immediately obvious that the newly crisped sail had been nicely folded...get this...diagonally! Rather than the long folds running roughly parallel to the foot (for example, with a crease just below the window), the first crease was diagonally up the center, as when you roll a sail while it's on the spars, and the rest of the folds were parallel to that -- all perpendicular to the leach. Even across the window.
Now maybe I'll admit to being fussy enough so that I have one 'good' sail that I untie from the spars after each use (actually, I've taken to carefully rolling it on the smooth upper spar) in order to avoid it developing 'the crease'. I'm less meticulous with my everyday club sail - but I'm still careful even with that to minimize the possibility of a center crease. So for me any intentional creasing like that is anathema. I'll take those new-sail horizontal folds, if anything at all, thank you. For many this may seem trivial (and the cleaning company is in that camp) but for those who obsess on this, this could be a show-stopper.
The cleaning company said the creases would disappear with use and I could ignore them. But again for those who obsess over these things and like their sails to have new-sailness -- beware.
I had also sent them a sail similar to a SuperSunfish (about 65 sf, with batten slots) for cleaning and got an estimate of about $350, including some proposed repairs and reinforcements I wasn't aware were necessary (and didn't really want) so I passed on that and just paid to have it shipped back untouched.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is:
(1) even though the service doesn't sound nominally expensive, the final tab can be pricey, possibly very expensive
(2) their cleaning and restoration of sail crispness is superb - if you go with this you'll probably be quite impressed with results
(3) if you do send a sail in, remove your numbers and any adhesive-attached logos ahead of time, and clean any residual adhesive
(4) be explicit about instructions for folding, but if fold placement is important to you, don't get your hopes up.
So that's it. A very remarkable service, quite suited for big boats, but not so much for Sunfish.
I tried out a rather extravagant experiment recently and I thought I'd share the lessons I learned from it.
I bought a World's Sunfish recently from a friend who I've raced against for years, who finally had to give up small-boat sailing. I knew that this particular Sunfish had never been sailed in more than about ten knots (since the week of that World's of course). The boat never felt a wave with him at the helm. But to say my friend wasn't the most diligent with sail care would be an understatement. The colorful sail was rumpled, dirty and stained, and looked pretty bad. It went with the particular World's theme of the boat of course, which was attractive that year, and I was pretty sure that I wouldn't find a replacement for it very easily, if at all.
I tried cleaning the sail out on the lawn with mild detergent, but it still looked pretty bad. So....I decided to try a reputable sail-cleaning service that is actually pretty well known in some circles. They advertise that the cleaning and their comprehensive re-resining process costs a bit under $0.95 per sf, plus any necessary repairs, so I figured I'd try being a guinea pig for Sunfish.
Very coincidentally, the week I mailed the sail off to Pennsylvania I happened to meet a big-boat sailor who had just had a huge 550 sf mainsail cleaned by this company. He was pleased and the sail certainly looked great. He did caution me that the cleaning company had done some repairs beyond what he had intended, and that they had sewn his (formerly just adhesive-attached) sail numbers and class logo onto the sail. Apparently they need to do that to avoid possibly gumming up their re-resining equipment.
When they received my sail, the company contacted me prior to starting work with a proposed 'invoice' outlining what was needed; it included the per-sf cleaning costs -- they had measured the sail out at 95sf (wouldn't that be something if it were so!) for billing purposes -- plus they included a fee for sewing on the numbers. The cost for that was about $45, but my over-riding concern was more about the results than the cost. I asked if perhaps they could just remove the existing numbers, but they discouraged that, saying the adhesive residue would be unsightly (apparently they don't do the whole Goo-Gone thing for you) or that they could peel those off and sew on new numbers at $10 per number.
At that point what I should have done was sprung for the additional round-trip shipping (about $40 0r $45) to get the sail back and taken the numbers off myself, and just started over with the company. Instead I went with their proposal, figuring they knew best. The tab was going to be a bit over $150, not counting my end of the shipping. This was about double what I had sort of anticipated starting out -- not the deal I had been imagining -- but I was already in it this far, so I continued.
A few weeks later I got the sail back, folded in a plastic bag like new, and it looked great! The colors were crisp and bright, the sail itself was crisp. Stains were eradicated. All those old wrinkles gone. A new sail! Then I unfolded the the sail and tied it to the spars, and a few things jumped out.
--First, the white, close stitching on the numbers stood out in vivid contrast (the numbers showing in reverse) on the back of the colored sail panels. Aesthetically strange but not fatal.
--Second, stitching the numbers on had caused some puckering of the fabric all around and between the numbers. This was a little more troublesome -- so I jumped in and removed the numbers, and rather painstakingly cut and pulled out the stitching. All those 'ironed-in' puckers remained, though. Removing the stitching left pronounced pinholes that outlined the now-removed numbers. The puckers left the overall impression of a less-than-careful starch job by a Chinese laundry - most everything crisp and stiff until your eye gets to those areas.
--Third - and this was something - it was immediately obvious that the newly crisped sail had been nicely folded...get this...diagonally! Rather than the long folds running roughly parallel to the foot (for example, with a crease just below the window), the first crease was diagonally up the center, as when you roll a sail while it's on the spars, and the rest of the folds were parallel to that -- all perpendicular to the leach. Even across the window.
Now maybe I'll admit to being fussy enough so that I have one 'good' sail that I untie from the spars after each use (actually, I've taken to carefully rolling it on the smooth upper spar) in order to avoid it developing 'the crease'. I'm less meticulous with my everyday club sail - but I'm still careful even with that to minimize the possibility of a center crease. So for me any intentional creasing like that is anathema. I'll take those new-sail horizontal folds, if anything at all, thank you. For many this may seem trivial (and the cleaning company is in that camp) but for those who obsess on this, this could be a show-stopper.
The cleaning company said the creases would disappear with use and I could ignore them. But again for those who obsess over these things and like their sails to have new-sailness -- beware.
I had also sent them a sail similar to a SuperSunfish (about 65 sf, with batten slots) for cleaning and got an estimate of about $350, including some proposed repairs and reinforcements I wasn't aware were necessary (and didn't really want) so I passed on that and just paid to have it shipped back untouched.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is:
(1) even though the service doesn't sound nominally expensive, the final tab can be pricey, possibly very expensive
(2) their cleaning and restoration of sail crispness is superb - if you go with this you'll probably be quite impressed with results
(3) if you do send a sail in, remove your numbers and any adhesive-attached logos ahead of time, and clean any residual adhesive
(4) be explicit about instructions for folding, but if fold placement is important to you, don't get your hopes up.
So that's it. A very remarkable service, quite suited for big boats, but not so much for Sunfish.
