Mylar headsail

[catalina1]

Mylar headsail

Hi
Can you user a mylar headsail on roller reefing/
Will it Roll or does it have to be taken down every time?

 

[exfinnsailor]

Re: Mylar headsail

It will not take kindly to being rolled round a roller reefing .. Had one on my FINN and you always had to fold or roll it after use .. The roller reefing will make a mess of the Mylar in time and it will delaminate .. All it normally is is two pieces of mylar with something like kevlar in the middle and then the two sides are bonded .. You get very good sail shape but it is quite stiff and unforgiving as opposed to Dacron

 

[oldsaltoz]

Re: Mylar headsail

Why would you want to put an out and out racing sail, no doubt cut for wire onto a furler, the cut would be wrong and it will destroy the sail as well reduce performance.

Or am I missing something?

 

[flaming]

Re: Mylar headsail

Depends what you want to do with it.

Several racing classes, mainly the J boats, use roller furling with very high tech sails.
The key is roller FURLING. Not roller REEFING.

A mylar sail is designed to be strong where it needs to be, and only where it needs to be. If you alter the size of the sail you alter the load paths and load up parts of the sail that are not designed to be loaded. And that will get expensive very quickly.

And don't leave it on the foil, as soon as you're back on your mooring the sail is dropped and rolled/flaked into a bag and put away.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Re: Mylar headsail

I'm going to disagree with everyone else (again!) who says it doesn't work, because it worked for me with me on my boat when I had a Mylar laminate headsail.

Dragonfly trimarans come with roller reefing as standard on all models, and most of them use laminate sails on some kind based on Mylar. If the sail is made with this intended use it works fine, both furling and reefing.

My first headsail was a UK/McWilliams Tape Drive Gold Mylar/Kevlar laminate. It had a foam luff and was designed for roller reefing.

When it eventually failed, it was UV damage along the leech that damaged it, not being used roller reefed and roller furled. It was replaced with a non Mylar laminate (because of lack of funds at the time), but this has lasted less well than the original. I'm going to replace this imminently, and going back to a Mylar laminate, because the shape throughout its life is much better. Why would I want to do it? Because although I don't race often, I want the better performance I can achieve with laminate sails.

Mine was left on the foil all its life. It lasted 5 years. It had no sacrificial strip, but instead was covered by a sock when not in use. Unfortunately the fabric of this sock was not sufficently thick, and UV degradation damaged the sail along its luff and foot.

I'm not suggesting that all types of Mylar laminate are suitable for this use, but some certainly are when designed from the start to do this. I suggest you talk to a sailmaker who can produce a sail for this use, like UK/McWilliams (Now called UK-Halsey).

UK-Halsey

Here's a clip of it in action. You can see the foam luff (or panty liner, as sailmakers call it)...