How To Clean Sails?

[migs]

Our 5 year old genoa was pretty dirty and had some nasty green algae stains. I googled the forums for cleaning tips, and as usual there was a barrage of conflicting (and sometimes dangerous) advice e.g. use household bleach or throw the sail in your swimming pool etc. Eventually, by a consensus of some of the more sensible posts I settled on the following approach:

Stage 1: Pre-soak the sail in sodium percarbonate (I used Oxiclean) using a wheelie bin. Sodium percarbonate acts as an oxygen bleach and is said to be safe for sails. I used a whole '38 load' tub of Oxiclean, but by my calculations this is actually a fairly low concentration. Hot water is needed for the process to work, so I led a garden hose from the hot kitchen tap to fill the bin; warmth is needed for sufficient oxygen generation. I used a washing up bowl filled with water to stop the sail floating out of the solution. Our bin bulged alarmingly when full, but fortunately didn't burst; however make sure you put the bin in a sunny spot before filling, so that the soak water stays warm, as you won’t be able to move the bin once filled; it will weigh ~200kg. Leave to soak for about 6 hours, but agitate the sail in the solution about every half hour.

Stage 2: Lay the sail out on a tarpaulin (from Toolstation) in the garden, rinse and then wash with standard sail cleaner. I used a soft (blue Swobbit brush) to spread the cleaner over the sail, leave a few minutes for the cleaner to work and then give the sail a very gentle scrub. Thoroughly rinse off, and then the most difficult part - drying the sail. Forum advice to ‘hang the sail up in your barn' wasn’t helpful (we don't have a barn), and so was 'put the sail back on your boat' (we can't get to our boat...). We just stuck whatever non-marking boxes we could find under the sail and left it out to dry overnight.

Stage 3: The easy bit. Leave the sail a day or so on each side in the sun. Apparently the theory is that oxygen bleaching loosens the bonds between the stain and the material and UV bleaching completes the job.

The final result looks good; we’re really pleased with the result - especially as we didn't need to use any chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) or harsh mildew cleaner.

 

[yoda]

Interesting, Thank you.

Yoda

 

[Sandy]

I find it much cheaper and less labour intensive if I give my sail to my amazing sailmaker for him to service and wash. It also gives him some cash to put food on his families table.

 

[rib]

I find it much cheaper and less labour intensive if I give my sail to my amazing sailmaker for him to service and wash. It also gives him some cash to put food on his families table.

Hummm

 

[yoda]

I find it much cheaper and less labour intensive if I give my sail to my amazing sailmaker for him to service and wash. It also gives him some cash to put food on his families table.

Challenging at the moment. Perhaps one day my time will be worth more than the cost but in the meantime I am happy to do it myself. Have to report a very successful and enjoyable day out in the sunshine cleaning the sails to a very slightly modified version of Ettare 's routine and drying them hanging between the house and the copper beach tree. Now all ready for lockdown exit day whenever that happens.

Yoda

 

[Refueler]

Previous clean had been done as sailmaker advised me ... semi-wide fan spray plain water from high pressure washer while sail is either hanging or laid flat on tarpaulin. It removed most but still left stains especially the exposed parts like genny on the furling gear etc.

This year I decided to try do something about those stains :

Chlorine bleach solution in large bin .... sail in and leave for 24 hrs .....

Remove from bin carefully draining of the bleach solution. Into our large bath of warm water and moved around to rinse out the bleach.

Another sail was placed in the bleach solution for 24 hrs while rinsing first.

When first was rinsed - it was then laid out flat on my workshop floor (after it had been carefully swept).

Second sail after the 24 hrs was given rinse in the bath and l;aid out on workshop floor as well. Both sails were left for couple of days and then turned over and left for another couple of days.

Once dry - folded and put aside ready for season.