NORTH SAILS BLOG

Modern sailcloth begins life as industrial fiber and film. Some of these products are well known to sailors by a specific supplier’s brand name. A better understanding of the characteristics of these fibers can be helpful in choosing the right sails for your boat. READ MORE

Remember when your spinnaker was new—how crisp and clean the material felt and the way it crinkled going into the bag? The whites were white and the colors were bright, and it even smelled like the brand new nylon that it was. READ MORE

North Sails offers three material options to help you find the right sails for your needs. Every North cruising sails is custom-designed for your boat and sailing style. By matching the right materials to your sailing goals, you'll be even happier with your new North sails. That could mean easier furling and flacking, smoother tacking and jibing, headache-free sail handling and storage or optimum performance and longevity. Cruising sailcloth comes in three styles: woven Polyester dacron, cruising laminates, and 3D composite material. Each provides a different balance of durability and performance. Dacron fabrics are the toughest and most structurally stable. Cruising laminates offer lighter weight and increased shape holding. 3D composites are a new generation of cruising materials with exceptional shape holding and structural integrity beyond many laminates. READ MORE

RIGGING THE 3Di HELIX MOTH SAIL Featuring North Sails Moth Expert Rob Greenhalgh Follow Rob Greenhalgh, a National and European title holder in the International Moth Class and the North Sails Moth Class Leader as he demonstrates rigging the 3Di Helix Moth Sail. Released in 2022, this 3Di molded sail features a fully integrated Deck Sweeper and luff tube along with Split Batten Technology developed by North Sails for a smooth sail shape. Greenhalgh was instrumental in the two years of development that went into creating this fully molded seamless sail. So between his intimate knowledge of the performance potential of this sail and its relation to the boat, Rob is the perfect person to walk through rigging your sail for optimal results. Have questions about Moth sails or how to rig for speed? Contact Rob for more information. READ MORE

STRENGTHENING YOUR SAILS FOR THE SYDNEY HOBART YACHT RACE How To Maintain Your Sail Inventory For The Offshore Racing Season Ahead Preparing for the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is a bit different to any other event due to the nature of the type of conditions and weather the race can present. Whether you’re racing in each lead up race possible, or using the race to tick off the bucket list item, making sure your sail inventory is in good condition can have a big impact on your race. North Sails Expert and Service Manager, Nick Beaudoin, has a wealth of experience when it comes to sail planning and servicing. And the key to ensuring your sails aren’t going to let you down, is preparation. “The thing with the Sydney Hobart, is that the fleet tends to also be doing the Blue Water Pointscore, so the service preparation actually starts in October for most of the fleet.” comments Nick. “What we recommend is to keep the maintenance up while they’re racing. It’s what we work on over the four months of ironing out all the little details of the inventory and getting the sails ready over that longer period of time. It’s all planned three to four months ahead of time, which really is right about now in early October.” “At the beginning of the season, our North Sails team will start having conversations with customers about the sail services they may need for the offshore season ahead. It could be jib recuts, main recuts, IRC remeasuring, spinnaker flying checkovers to repair tears, all the little things. It’s about dialing in the inventory for the individual clients.” Maintenance Is Key Sail servicing isn’t just about repairing sail issues, but keeping your sail inventory in good working order to both extend the lifespan of your sails and achieve your best performance on the water. “Most of our customers know how we operate, so they’re very familiar with the process – every race week they’ll get their sails in, we’ll do a service, see if they have any issues, and we go forward from there with enough lead time. The maintenance comes down to essentially a weekly thing for them.” North Sails offers a one week turnaround at the major yacht clubs in Sydney, when every Monday the team collects the sails in the North Sails lockers at Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Middle Harbour Yacht Club, Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club. The team then conducts general maintenance and repairs during the week, and delivers them back to the yacht clubs on the Friday. “We like the Blue Water Pointscore, as it’s one race per month where we can assess what each yacht needs pre and post-race. The sails will come in that have any repairs needed, or need to get looked at if you’re unsure. For the majority of the fleet, it’s very hard to pull their sails out unless there’s a park or somewhere they can go with enough space to do it.” Jibs In Working Order With the range of conditions and sail changes to be expected during an offshore race, jibs can endure a lot of wear and tear over time. However, Nick has some essential tips to extend the life of your jibs, to keep the luff tapes in good condition, check the battens and batten tension. “As it’s not always easy to just pull your sails out on any given day for maintenance checks, it’s about crews being very observant when using the sails. Having your crew conscious of the shape and condition of the inventory, especially your foredeck team being conscious of the sails if they notice anything, luff tape damage, battens on the jibs, or if they notice any chafe from stanchions or any of the high-wear areas and just keeping an eye on it.” “We like to encourage jibs to come in for post-race luff tape repairs. It’s a very small thing that can cause a lot of grief, you don’t need your bowman up there mucking around trying to get the headsail plugged in, so we like to stiffen the head and very top of the luff tape so it can’t open up.” Flying Spinnakers After the last Blue Water Pointscore race and as the Boxing Day start of the Sydney to Hobart approaches, the timeline for major repairs becomes tighter. Preventing the larger sail issues can be one of the easiest ways to ensure you’ll be on the start line, and spinnaker checkovers are high up Nick’s list of race preparation maintenance tips. “Again, it’s very hard to assess a sail properly unless you’re pulling it out in the park, and you know exactly what you’re looking for. When we fly a spinnaker, we have two to three people put the sail in the air and look up underneath it, to look for any holes. If you just have the sail on the ground it can be easy to miss things.” “We’ll also check the tensions on the luff, leach and foot lines, because over the course of the four months of sailing, ropes shrink and most likely need to be eased off and re-tensioned. You’ll find different setups denote different tensions and you evolve as the boat spends more time offshore.” “Usually the foredeck team has eyes on the sails, as do the trimmers, so just picking up on any potential issues early and getting the sails into the loft to fly, check over, pull out and repair as necessary is a great way to prevent more expensive and possible race-ending damage.” Maintaining Sail Performance Committed to helping you maximize your performance with your sail inventory, our North Sails Service team also provides sail recuts and re-measurements. “A service we offer for 3Di sails is to look at recuts for performance. As sails get older, say two to three years old and it’s been used offshore, it may need a little attention.” Nick explains their process to restore the sail to peak performance shape, “In jibs and mains, as the sails become round over time, we do slices to reduce the broad seam, and straighten the leach exit. It’s glued and bonded in the same process as when they’re manufacturing 3Di sails, so it’s very very strong, and a simple thing to do to increase performance.” “Another thing is remeasuring for rating certificates. As we approach the deadline to get your certificate in for the Sydney Hobart, we encourage our clients to get their inventories in to us. Jibs are a big thing as luff tapes shrink over a period of time, as once the luff tape shrinks, the luff actually gets smaller. Leading into Hobart, remeasuring is something we like to offer our customers to improve their overall performance, especially at the pointy end of the fleet.” Nick says, “Now is the time to be preparing for the Sydney to Hobart. For everyone on board it’s just about making sure that whoever is on the boat, whether it be the owner, helmsman, or crew, they understand they’re part of the team to be aware of the issues.” “These conversations all start at the beginning of the season, and there’s nothing last minute about the Hobart race!” Contact your local North Sails Expert to make sure your sails are ready for the offshore season ahead. READ MORE

ZEKE’S J70 TIPS TO THE PODIUM Lessons Learned at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta – Marblehead 📸 Chris Howell As usual, the town of Marblehead pulled out all the stops for competitors to descend upon the quaint New England town for a weekend of racing in multiple one design classes. The J70 class showed up in full force with most of the top American teams including several class World Champions. At stake were two 2 qualification spots for the 2023 Worlds in St. Petersburg (1 open, 1 Corinthian) so the racing was as tight and competitive as ever. As crew for John Heaton on Empeiria, along with teammates Zach Mason and Will Felder, we were fortunate enough to come away with the Championship and a berth in next year’s Worlds. In addition, our North Sails teammates on Smokeshow, skippered by North Sails North American One Design Manager Allan Terhune with Paul Sevigni, North Sails Expert Chris Larson and Dave Hughes finished second, rounding out a weekend to celebrate for North Sails. Our team was successful at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series Marblehead by relying on lessons we’ve learned over the past couple of years. Admittedly part of our success is due to having sailed together for over 2 years and there is really no substitute for being comfortable with and confident in one another – trust that comes with time. However, aside from our team experience, there were past lessons we drew from during this event that helped us stay fast in the wide range of conditions presented. The J70, due to its rig and hull dimensions, is a boat that has a very fine line between being underpowered and overpowered. The conditions in Marblehead exaggerated this characteristic as the wind range was constantly hovering on either side of this fine line. So it was imperative to adjust your sail and body trim to accommodate for either the lack of power or abundance of power since it was rare to have the rig tuned perfectly. Following are some of our tips that should help keep you fast through the transitions in your next race. Outhaul The outhaul is one of the controls that’s easiest to ‘set and forget!’ But it’s actually an incredibly important adjustment for your power package. Due to the high aspect ratio (tall and skinny) of the J70 mainsail, the outhaul affects a larger area than it does on a sail with a lower aspect ratio. So a quick ease of the outhaul will put a boost of power into your sail plan to give you something to hike against. Our team has learned to be very diligent with this adjustment when we are transitioning from hiking to bodies in. Zach is our jib trimmer and we try to leave him in the boat the longest so he has a view of the jib as long as possible. If he is in the boat, we leave the outhaul quite loose to power up the main and try to get him hiking. We’re desperate to get him hiking as more righting moment = more speed! At this setting there is probably 6-8 inches between the boom and the foot of the main. As soon as he’s able to get on the rail and start hiking, we pull the outhaul back on to flatten the main and reduce drag. Any time Zach moves in or out of the boat, we make the appropriate outhaul adjustment. Jib Foot/ Inhaul How much to inhaul the jib can feel like quite the moving target… and it is. Its important to set the weather sheet in the cleat in a place where the jib trimmer can play it by “banjoing” it on when we need more power and then easing it back when we want to flatten the bottom of the jib and open the leech. When set correctly, this can be done without adjusting the weather sheet in the cleat. Think about your jib lead and inhaul setting similar to how we set the outhaul as described above. In light air or chop, you want more power in the bottom of the jib which means you want more depth in the foot compared to when it’s windy or flat water. A good rule of thumb is to try to get the foot of the jib to contact the cabin house as much as possible to prevent air from jumping through the gap under the foot. If it’s windy, you’ll need to pull the lead back a bit to depower the sail in order to inhaul enough to bring the foot to the cabin house. If it’s light air, you’ll need to push the lead forward a bit in order to provide enough depth in the foot (power) when the foot is along the cabin house. A good range on the jib lead is between 6 – 7.5 holes showing between the front of the car and the forward most factory bolt in the jib track. Cunningham The cunningham tends to be neglected just like the outhaul. Most of the time it’s not the most critical adjustment to make but there is a time when it becomes your very best friend. We saw this condition on the second day of racing in Marblehead when the breeze ranged from about 8 knots in the lulls to upwards of 16-18 knots in the puffs. We all know it’s best to set your rig tension for the lulls and do your best to survive the puffs and that’s where the cunningham comes in. For most, if you’re caught with your rig too loose, your first move is to whale on the backstay to depower and keep the headstay tight. But the problem is that without adequate rig tension, the tight backstay will quickly invert or wash out the main sail leaving you with huge overbend wrinkles and that ‘inside out’ look. But your headstay is still unstable making the boat hard to sail. This is when you want to really whale on the cunningham. To be clear, I don’t mean to just take those luff wrinkles out, I mean WHALE on it! Loads of cunningham tension pulls the draft of the main forward, putting some shape back into the sail (un-inverting it). This then allows you to pull even more backstay on to control the headstay. Your leeward shrouds will be doing basketball sized loops – blowing in the wind, but your headstay will be controlled and you’ll still have shape in your mainsail – albeit a flat shape. Will sits all the way forward going upwind and he keeps the cunningham in his hand. If we hit a light spot, he eases the cunningham as I ease the backstay to power up the rig and then as the next puff hits, he trims it on as I trim on the backstay. Keep your eye on the inversion wrinkle that comes out of the clew and goes up to the inboard end of the bottom batten. When overpowered, you want to see this wrinkle only and use the cunningham to eliminate the wrinkles below/forward of it. More cunningham = ability to pull more backstay = more controlled headstay = FAST! Weight Placement The J70 likes to have the crew weight forward going upwind. In fact, in light air it’s difficult to get forward enough. Some teams have experimented with sending their forward-most crew just in front of the shrouds and it seems to be pretty quick when the breeze is very soft. It’s also important to know that fore/aft weight placement can help the boat with moding. All other things equal, pushing weight forward tells the boat to point while moving weight aft helps with a bow down mode. In light air, it’s also important to think about body drag through the air. Try to hide the bodies from the wind as much as possible by tucking up to the cabin house or to your teammate in front of you. Also think about how you can position your body to be as aerodynamic and small as possible. Instead of facing forward with your shoulders square to the breeze, scoot forward and rotate your shoulders so they’re more in line with the wind direction. Sounds insignificant but reducing drag is the name of the game, It seems like no matter how much we learn in the J70, we’ve never learned enough. It’s important to always be thinking critically and creatively about how to get faster. Keep the learning curve steep and watch your results improve! For more in depth information or for any specific questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to your J70 class North experts. Contact your North Sails J70 North American Experts here: ZEKE HOROWITZ ALLAN TERHUNE ALEX CURTISS READ MORE