How much performance loss is there between good tri-radial dacron sails and mid-level laminate?

[flaming]

In our 1 design fleet, you’d be spot on. If you can’t keep your height, you are on a constant path to ruin, just in the st1t of more and more boats until you tack off and cross the rear of the fleet, having ducked everyone in ignominy. The stuff of nightmares. And it does indeed take less than 1% for that to happen. In a handicap fleet it’s not so bad, as the fleet gets spaced out quickly anyway.

Not all handicap fleets. There's a real bunching of handicaps going on at the moment. In most events we go to now, there is less than 10 points covering 90% of the fleet. For a lot of our ww/lw racing essentially if you're ahead you're ahead. Most of our races are targeted at an hour duration. So 1 point is 3.6s per hour. If you're going 7 knots that's 3.6m/s. So in a 10m boat it's almost exactly a boat length per point. So to be beaten over an hour by a boat rating 1 point lower than you they have to be overlapped with you at the finish.
It's leading to some absolutely fantastic racing.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Not all handicap fleets. There's a real bunching of handicaps going on at the moment. In most events we go to now, there is less than 10 points covering 90% of the fleet. For a lot of our ww/lw racing essentially if you're ahead you're ahead. Most of our races are targeted at an hour duration. So 1 point is 3.6s per hour. If you're going 7 knots that's 3.6m/s. So in a 10m boat it's almost exactly a boat length per point. So to be beaten over an hour by a boat rating 1 point lower than you they have to be overlapped with you at the finish.
It's leading to some absolutely fantastic racing.

I can see it would. Something for us to bear in mind if XOD racing should ever pall. Without the Jardine brothers, we can’t boast of quite so many Olympic medals, but it’s still pretty feisty. Sometimes I wonder if IRC racing might be cheaper though…

 

[flaming]

I can see it would. Something for us to bear in mind if XOD racing should ever pall. Without the Jardine brothers, we can’t boast of quite so many Olympic medals, but it’s still pretty feisty. Sometimes I wonder if IRC racing might be cheaper though…

It might be if you combined your 2 boats....

 

[benjenbav]

I’ve sailed in OD classes most of my life. None that had a choice of sail material from dacron to laminate though. I sail now in the longest running OD class. We are averse to change, lol! But it gets talked about. And one of the things that puts us off change is that performance difference that means every Dacron sail is obsolete the instant you allow laminates. To my mind there are no ifs and buts about it. And in truth the cost equation is probably in favour of laminates, that is the long term view, not the short term. So maybe just thinking about that, is it a year or 2’s competitive life you’re after, or longer term.

I’m still undergoing therapy after getting in the way of the Chichester XOD fleet a couple of times, 20 years ago. Colregs didn’t come into it…

 

[Chiara’s slave]

It might be if you combined your 2 boats....

Clearly you haven’t run a wooden race boat. Fairly sure the 2 combined would be. Dragonfly maintenance isn’t cheap.

As for the Itchenor XOD fleet, I know them well. X50 is Roger Yeoman… but he is only medium beer there. One of our greatest comedy moments occurred there in points week. A reach to the finish line, parallel with a well known female sailor, who spent the entire leg begging us not to go down on her. I did ask the skipper if that was a first for him.

 

[sawduster]

Fair point on the laminate / moulded distinction.

3DL was superseded by 3Di, which is a filmless moulded sail. The oldest 3Di I have on the boat is also 13 years old, as the tech was brand new when the boat was new and the 1st owner tried one sail, the J3 in it. That sail, despite a long hard life, is still immaculate and in use as my cruising jib. Honestly, every time I put it up I look at it and think "this is just as good as the current J3". It is a bit heavier though, so I suspect that being at the start of the tech they possibly slightly overbuilt it.

We were tempted by 3Di recently but felt the 50% extra over triradial laminate and 30% extra over filmless moulded wasn't worth it for how often we race. 3Di does certainly seem to hold its shape well so I'm not surprised you be got a good older sail. I can see the value coming from regular racing, though I also saw a seven year old 3Di main split in half recently so it's not indestructible.

My understanding of 3Di as a construction method is that it's glued together in one piece then baked like a boat hull is so is ends up as one fused together layer, whereas all other technologies are a variation of plywood like layers glued to each other. Filmless laminate, Sanders being a big proponent of this at the moment, just skips a few layers to reduce weight and increase durability by glueing taffeta to taffeta with the string in the middle rather than taffeta on to mylar on string.

 

[flaming]

We were tempted by 3Di recently but felt the 50% extra over triradial laminate and 30% extra over filmless moulded wasn't worth it for how often we race. 3Di does certainly seem to hold its shape well so I'm not surprised you be got a good older sail. I can see the value coming from regular racing, though I also saw a seven year old 3Di main split in half recently so it's not indestructible.

My understanding of 3Di as a construction method is that it's glued together in one piece then baked like a boat hull is so is ends up as one fused together layer, whereas all other technologies are a variation of plywood like layers glued to each other. Filmless laminate, Sanders being a big proponent of this at the moment, just skips a few layers to reduce weight and increase durability by glueing taffeta to taffeta with the string in the middle rather than taffeta on to mylar on string.

It's not indestructible, sure, but it's light years ahead of 3DL in terms of longevity.

After that race we spent about 20 minutes putting various small patches on the 3DL main, and it's starting to get that "crisp packet" sound that 3DL does when the plastic is giving up. So I suspect either this winter or next I'm going to be in the market for a new offshore main. The good news is that with our limited offshore program I suspect I'll never need to buy another one as long as I own the boat... But the 3DI uplift for a sail we use maybe 4 times per season is pretty punchy... Part of me is thinking of getting a 3DI offshore main and using it whenever it's breezy for our regular racing, so as to also increase the lifespan of the inshore main... But then another 1010 are really happy with their Sanders main, so maybe go that way.... Hmmmm...

 

[Laser310]

Is that really true? Google suggests 15% is a reasonable assumption for the performance advantage of new sails. That's a race winning increase even against wildly different boats.

way too high...

 

[Chiara’s slave]

way too high...

We sailed on Wednesday with a jib so knackered I had to crawl on the foredeck to read the faded measurers date stamp. We’d lent the boat to someone for Taittinger regatta and they’d destroyed the window on the otherwise decent jib. The date, 2010. We came second by 15 seconds to another XOD.

 

[Birdseye]

Laminates at this sort of level are not about being quicker on 1st hoist as much as still being quicker as time goes on. A good Dacron sail and a decent laminate sail made by the same sailmaker to the same shape should be almost indistinguishable the first time they are hoisted. The difference starts to appear as the sails are used. Gradually the dacron sails need more and more halyard to get an acceptable draft, and the shape in general just starts going. Cruisers would find the shape perfectly acceptable for years, people trying to win races... not so much. Meanwhile the laminate, if appropriately cared for, will still have the same shape that it started with for quite a few years.

Flaming has it right. Its all about holding a designed shape for longer with a laminate than with Dacron. But eventually the laminate tends to de laminate whilst the baggy old Dacron is still going strong.