Preventing mildew on laminate sails

[2copplane]

This may be better on an impractical boat owner thread. I’ve a 3 season old main and I can see mildew is starting to spread between the layers of the laminates in the sail. I’ve given it a soak in Brintons but suspect it won’t be able to penetrate and kill the mould.

That got me thinking what would penetrate and the obvious answer is intense beam of gamma radiation. I’m mindful getting hold of some Cobalt 64 may be a bit tricky and as Dr David Bruce Banner found out needs careful handling.

A bit of Googling shows companies do exist for the purpose of using gamma radiation to kill mould, bacteria, err everything, on medical equipment and in particular food. If it’s cost effective for food then must be pretty cheap to shove a sail through the machine.

Googling didn’t find any companies offering gamma radiation cleaning of sails so it’s either a brilliant new idea or a terrible one?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Gamma Irradiation Sterilization Process & Services - STERIS AST ???

 

[thinwater]

Brintens is a quat amine. No, it will likely not penetrate. If it did, it might kill but could not remove the stain.

Bleach does not penetrate laminates well and does a good bit of damamge.... But...

Commercial sail cleaners use percarbonates, and the hydroxyl radical does nenetrate without doing the damamge that bleach does. Oxiclean or the EK equivalent. Do NOT over concentrate, but do soak for 6 hours.