Recycled (Circular Economy or Closed Loop) Sail Manufacturing

[lw395]

3 years?
We have a sail a bit older than that which is still known as the 'the new main'.
It comes out for open meetings etc.
Most of our racing is done with a sail which we've had 5 years, and it was used when we got it.
Yacht sails, apart from top-end racing, which would be laminate anyway, everyone I know expects more than 5 years from a cruising sail in amateur use.
To be fair, the local keelboats buy a new suit every 3 years, but many run at least an old jib for windy days or less important races.

I think putting sails on HP and encouraging people to churn them like company cars is hardly saving the planet.

 

[solosails]

I don't think I'm going to go looking to have inferior sails made from part-recycled material.
I buy brand new sails infrequently and expect to get a long life from them.
In terms of resources used, the raw material is actually quite low in relation to the retail cost.

Perhaps a scheme that might work is similar to car tyres, where consumers pay a charge for environmental disposal, which subsidises lower end re-use?
In the case of car tyres, it's things like rubber matting for play surfaces, landscaping materials and others.

But you have to be very careful with recycling, many schemes waste more resources in transport than they save.

The response to recycled sails seems to be quite similar, that generally people don't want 'inferior' sails.

I am going to attempt to technically describe why this wouldn't actually be the case, and in fact has potential benefits in cruising applications, 50% recycled sails, wouldn't need to be twice as heavy and nor would they be half as strong ...

Firstly we need to look at how sail cloth is manufactured, (a well known subject), and also due to the way it is manufactured, how we use that cloth in Cross Cut cruising sails.

Woven sailcloth is made of two directions of fibre yarns, 'warp' and 'fill' or 'weft' as it is also called.

As you can see, the weft or fill yarns are straight, and the warp's are crimped. This means that the crimped warp yarns will elongate if much load is place upon them and is the reason why we have cross cut sails laid out in a particular way so that the majority of the load in the sail is aligned to the already taught and straight fill or weft yarns, so that they don't elongate so easily.



If we were to use the recycled yarns for the warp yarns, they wouldn't need to be so strong anyway.

lets assume (for now, as I don't have an actual figure) that the recycled yarns have say a 10% drop in tenacity, but of course, only half of the sail is made of that yarn (the low loading part) and so only a 5% drop in overall tenacity (and in reality because the warp yarn isn't required to be so strong anyway, less than that, perhaps 2-3%).

So, we only need to increase the weight of the sail by about 3% in order to end up with a sail with exactly the same structural qualities of an all new fibre one and if we do the sums, ...

A 7 ounce fabric would need to be 7+3%= 7.2 oz's in order to have the same strength.

The fantastically good thing about having a sail that is slightly heavier (thicker) for cruising purposes, is that it is more resilient to chafe, it is less likely to tear and it will bear more UV degradation before failure.

So, the question is, would you be happier to have a stronger, more resilient sail that was a fraction heavier when you knew that it had saved 50% plastic and oil usage when compared to a non recycled one?

I know that I would jump at the chance. I hope that is enough to clear this notion that recycled is inferior, on the contrary, it is using the fibres in a more efficient way than we already do to achieve a better product.

 

[Daydream believer]

But if you made the weft & warps the same so the cloth could be used both ways & developed a way to stop the stretch ( which occurs because they want to elongate )
or put 2 layers of light cloth or weave processes together with the warp at right angles to that in the first layer of cloth with the resin in the middle then you would - presumably- do something about the 19% waste at manufacture. If you concentrated on the weave you might also cut down on resin plus have a cloth that is stable in 2 directions with better tear resistance as a side benefit

 

[solosails]

But if you made the weft & warps the same so the cloth could be used both ways & developed a way to stop the stretch ( which occurs because they want to elongate )
or put 2 layers of light cloth or weave processes together with the warp at right angles to the first with the resin in the middle then you would - presumably- do something about the 19% waste at manufacture. If you concentrated on the weave you might also cut down on resin plus have a cloth that is stable in 2 directions with better tear resistance as a side benefit

There are 'warp orientated' and 'balanced' cloths that do that already, but they are used for different reasons, radial cuts and racing applications.

In a cross cut sail, it is better and more efficient to engineer the weave so that you concentrate on where the load in the sail is actually going. If you increase the strength of both, you are simply wasting your time putting strength where it simply isn't needed, that is just poor engineering.

RE the 19% manufacturing waste you keep harping back to, this is impossible to combat unfortunately, you cannot make anything out of anything without having an unfortunate amount of surplus waste, end of story.

It is the unfortunate reality of life, you cut a loaf of bread, and you probably throw away the crust, you will lose a percentage in crumbs etc etc, you can apply it to anything you like, there will be an inbuilt amount of waste produced. (a rubbish example, but you get the point) It just so happens that in sailmaking when you are cutting different shaped panels from a rectangle, you have an amount of scrap.

Of course, if we could cut down the manufacturing waste we would save money, so we do our absolute best to do this, which is why as I mentioned already that we have spent £2,000 on a piece of software that nests the panels as efficiently as possible, this is the best algorithm in the world and we simply cannot reduce this figure. There is no point in keeping on asking to reduce this figure, it just isn't physically possible.

And actually, I was being generous with the figure to prove the point that we make waste at all levels of production and end use, mostly, in a cross cut sail, the waste is less than 10%, but I hope you get the point that it is a simple reality of life that we cannot cut curved shapes out of a rectangle any more efficiently than that. So I hope that explains that one enough for you to stop using it as some sort of blunt object to hit me with?

 

[Daydream believer]

In a cross cut sail, it is better and more efficient to engineer the weave so that you concentrate on where the load in the sail is actually going. If you increase the strength of both, you are simply wasting your time putting strength where it simply isn't needed, that is just poor engineering.
?

With all due respect ( & I do mean with respect) I do not actually match your comment with reality
If as you say a cross cut sail is Ok & you do not have significant stretch along other directions why do sailmakers even bother with radially cut sails or why do companies like ( I think) UK Halsey go to the bother of making sails with a carbon ( or whatever it is) thread or tape running over the sail like the railway junction at Kings Cross.

Are you suggesting that they are just doing this for a marketing ploy because it looks good on the boat

 

[Daydream believer]

So I hope that explains that one enough for you to stop using it as some sort of blunt object to hit me with?

I am not using it as blunt instrument - that must just be your conscience ( as was shown with the false claim that I accused you of profiteering which i did not)
What i am suggesting is that it is not always the end user - who it might be considered you are blaming- who is responsible for the waste in the first instance

Going back to your analogy with bread. Should not the manufacturer be looking at the packaging first?

 

[Tranona]

Find it strange that you are talking about how sails made with recycled materials would compare with new when you have yet to establish that old sails can be recycled and what properties the recycled materials would have.

Until you can do that most of what you write is just guesswork or pie in the sky, to use the vernacular.

 

[dom]

With all due respect ( & I do mean with respect) I do not actually match your comment with reality
If as you say a cross cut sail is Ok & you do not have significant stretch along other directions why do sailmakers even bother with radially cut sails or why do companies like ( I think) UK Halsey go to the bother of making sails with a carbon ( or whatever it is) thread or tape running over the sail like the railway junction at Kings Cross.

Are you suggesting that they are just doing this for a marketing ploy because it looks good on the boat

You may be talking about top end 3DL technology, designed to enable laminate sails approach the load bearing and firm shape characteristics of a rigid airfoil. These sails are based upon a flexible composite membrane which is in turn built from filament tapes/scrims pre-impregnated with glue, then arranged in multiple axes to create the necessary load path stability for the chosen wind strength, then finally heat moulded into shape. Fab, but eye wateringly expensive!

More likely you are talking about carbon/ high-modulus black aramid (dyed black for UV stability) structural yarns, typically set within a grey film. Without an external taffeta layer these sails also have little to do with cruising sails.

To be fair I don’t think solosails ever said that either of these sails were just a “marketing ploy”, but he might well come along to say that such constructions have almost nothing to do with the cruising sails that 99% of non-racers use. And he’d be right

As I read it solosails is attempting to figure out a way to recycle old fibres into new ones, but in such a way that the loss of modulus would not interfere with the sail in any material way. He’s only thinking the idea through; that is the nature of early stage ideas/engineering and he’s never claimed otherwise. As an aside, should we not be a bit more welcoming to a professional sailmaker on what is afterall a “sailing” forum? Just think of all the threads he could help out on.

 

[solosails]

With all due respect ( & I do mean with respect) I do not actually match your comment with reality
If as you say a cross cut sail is Ok & you do not have significant stretch along other directions why do sailmakers even bother with radially cut sails or why do companies like ( I think) UK Halsey go to the bother of making sails with a carbon ( or whatever it is) thread or tape running over the sail like the railway junction at Kings Cross.

Are you suggesting that they are just doing this for a marketing ploy because it looks good on the boat

Ok, sorry for the blunt object thing, that was uncalled for!

RE x-cut vs Radial Vs Carbon etc, there is no conspiracy here, there are different cuts for very good reasons.

Radial cut sails spread the load even more efficiently than a X-cut due to the same principles as I mentioned earlier, the fibres whether they be Polyester, Kevlar, carbon etc are aligned to the principle stress directions of the sail. As they are more efficient in terms of load effectiveness, they can be lighter and use less fibres altogether, which is why they are used for racing mostly.

This is in reality (when talking about sewn sails from rolled goods) is the way all sails should be made in actual fact, but the problem is, that a radial cut sail takes about 3-4 times longer to make because there are so many more panels to sew/glue together. On top of this, the amount of waste increases as the more panels you have to cut out of a roll of cloth, the more waste you have (as I explained earlier about the waste percentage) so therefore they cost more to make and sell.

So, in order to keep the price down for customers who want affordable general purpose sails (that seems to be everyone in this discussion), we use X-Cut sails that use the method I discussed above. These use less material in terms of waste, do a good job of keeping their shape, but are heavier in order to achieve that.

So, no, there is no marketing ploy, just good use of the available methods and tailoring for what the market wants.

So, assuming that you all want to carry on having affordable, hard wearing cruising sails, then X-Cut sails will be around for a longtime. If you're all happy to pay more for more efficient sails, then I'm all up for that as well! But I get the impression that nobody here wants to pay more for their sails, fair enough.

 

[solosails]

You may be talking about top end 3DL technology, designed to enable laminate sails approach the load bearing and firm shape characteristics of a rigid airfoil. These sails are based upon a flexible composite membrane which is in turn built from filament tapes/scrims pre-impregnated with glue, then arranged in multiple axes to create the necessary load path stability for the chosen wind strength, then finally heat moulded into shape. Fab, but eye wateringly expensive!

More likely you are talking about carbon/ high-modulus black aramid (dyed black for UV stability) structural yarns, typically set within a grey film. Without an external taffeta layer these sails also have little to do with cruising sails.

To be fair I don’t think solosails ever said that either of these sails were just a “marketing ploy”, but he might well come along to say that such constructions have almost nothing to do with the cruising sails that 99% of non-racers use. And he’d be right

As I read it solosails is attempting to figure out a way to recycle old fibres into new ones, but in such a way that the loss of modulus would not interfere with the sail in any material way. He’s only thinking the idea through; that is the nature of early stage ideas/engineering and he’s never claimed otherwise. As an aside, should we not be a bit more welcoming to a professional sailmaker on what is afterall a “sailing” forum? Just think of all the threads he could help out on.

Thank you Dom for some modicum of reason here!

This is just a joke, so nobody please post a reply in offence, but .. " Will somebody throw me a frikin line here!? "

 

[Lakesailor]

3 years?
We have a sail a bit older than that which is still known as the 'the new main'.
It comes out for open meetings etc.
Most of our racing is done with a sail which we've had 5 years, and it was used when we got it.
Yacht sails, apart from top-end racing, which would be laminate anyway, everyone I know expects more than 5 years from a cruising sail in amateur use.
To be fair, the local keelboats buy a new suit every 3 years, but many run at least an old jib for windy days or less important races.

I think putting sails on HP and encouraging people to churn them like company cars is hardly saving the planet.

I suggested three years, not because it would be the cycle of replacement, but because that would have been enough time to realise that the marketing of such a scheme would not produce the desired results.
That is to say. Not many people would take up the concept.

 

[solosails]

3 years?
We have a sail a bit older than that which is still known as the 'the new main'.
It comes out for open meetings etc.
Most of our racing is done with a sail which we've had 5 years, and it was used when we got it.
Yacht sails, apart from top-end racing, which would be laminate anyway, everyone I know expects more than 5 years from a cruising sail in amateur use.
To be fair, the local keelboats buy a new suit every 3 years, but many run at least an old jib for windy days or less important races.

I think putting sails on HP and encouraging people to churn them like company cars is hardly saving the planet.

Maybe three years is not the correct time span, but the idea is a suggestion to be discussed.

I originally suggested 3 years as this was a reasonable time span from the sailmakers point of view in terms of warranty coverage etc. A sail is warrantied for that period, after that time, they start to get a bit knackered and loose their general performance edge even though they are still in one piece.

If you were to lease a sail, then you want it to be really good, 3 years is probably a reasonable amount of time for a hard used sail. But again, it's just an idea, perhaps 5 years is a more reasonable term.

RE efficacy in ecological terms, yep, that is a difficult one to quantify and would have to be thought out very carefully. On one hand, it would increase the amount of sails being manufactured, but on the other hand, it would also (due to them being recycled) reduce the amount of plastic being made by possibly more than the number of units. Also you need to factor in the fuel/energy used etc to transport the old sails for recycling.

What it would also do though is enable more people to have more efficient sails, more afford-ably. Some people may well like the idea of spreading the cost of a new sail over several years making sailing more affordable to the less wealthy.

My accounting software is leased, it works very well for us, I pay a monthly fee, and I am always getting the latest version with any bugs ironed out. There is no real reason to think this method should not be applied to sails as well, the user gets the latest sail using the latest materials and has the luxury of spreading the payments out making it more affordable.

Its more like the idea of making sailing a predictable budgeted expense per month. Maybe we could even apply it to boats themselves if they could find a way to recycle them more readily?

As Dom mentions, I am just thinking aloud here.

 

[Tranona]

Maybe three years is not the correct time span, but the idea is a suggestion to be discussed.

I originally suggested 3 years as this was a reasonable time span from the sailmakers point of view in terms of warranty coverage etc. A sail is warrantied for that period, after that time, they start to get a bit knackered and loose their general performance edge even though they are still in one piece.

If you were to lease a sail, then you want it to be really good, 3 years is probably a reasonable amount of time for a hard used sail. But again, it's just an idea, perhaps 5 years is a more reasonable term.

RE efficacy in ecological terms, yep, that is a difficult one to quantify and would have to be thought out very carefully. On one hand, it would increase the amount of sails being manufactured, but on the other hand, it would also (due to them being recycled) reduce the amount of plastic being made by possibly more than the number of units. Also you need to factor in the fuel/energy used etc to transport the old sails for recycling.

What it would also do though is enable more people to have more efficient sails, more afford-ably. Some people may well like the idea of spreading the cost of a new sail over several years making sailing more affordable to the less wealthy.

My accounting software is leased, it works very well for us, I pay a monthly fee, and I am always getting the latest version with any bugs ironed out. There is no real reason to think this method should not be applied to sails as well, the user gets the latest sail using the latest materials and has the luxury of spreading the payments out making it more affordable.

Its more like the idea of making sailing a predictable budgeted expense per month. Maybe we could even apply it to boats themselves if they could find a way to recycle them more readily?

As Dom mentions, I am just thinking aloud here.

Suggest you look at the thread running on this forum about the annual cost of running a boat. Then you might understand why leasing would not be attractive to leisure sailors.

Leasing works with non discretional capital items. You need your accounting software otherwise you cannot operate. You have a choice of buying it and writing off the costs as depreciation over its life and saving cash to replace it or leasing it so somebody else picks up the capital cost and you effectively pay them out of your cash income each month. You can do the same with just about any capital item that you consume over time.

Boats are not like that. They are entirely discretionary and even though you consume sails over the life (typically 10 years) it is not essential to either account for their use, nor replace them at a particular point in time. Most people do not even pay for their boats over time - that is they pay for them using discretionary savings, and pay for replacements in the same way.

So no form of lease scheme will be attractive to the majority of leisure sailors. It represents a fixed future financial commitment that removes all flexibility from future expenditure. Just think about the advice given to people looking to buy new sails. For most it is a rare occurrence - some people go through their entire sailing careers without buying sails, simply using the sails that come with the boat and changing boats before the sails fall apart. They therefore need to go through the whole process starting with deciding what sort of sails to buy, then finding a sailmaker. This involves searching the market and getting the best deal they can for what is often a one off purchase. Last thing on their minds is thinking about the replacement for the new sails they are about to buy, or what will happen to them when they wear out. They might be thinking about what they do with the old sails, although as we have seen on this thread, many either keep them or pass them down to somebody who can get a bit more use out of them.

This gets me back to the point I have tried to make several times. The way to engage the buyers is to offer them an alternative product incorporating recycled materials and it will stand or fall on its merits - that is how well it performs and the value it offers to buyers. An incentive for trading in old sails may well be a useful selling feature, but nobody is going to make any future commitment.

So, back to your drawing board and get your colleagues in the business engaged in developing recycled cloth and sails that make best use of the material. Then you have something tangible to put before potential buyers.

 

[Daydream believer]

Thank you Dom for some modicum of reason here!

This is just a joke, so nobody please post a reply in offence, but .. " Will somebody throw me a frikin line here!? "

I think that if you read the last 2 lines of tranona's post you will have your life line
& if you go back to your original idea I suspect that you might now accept it was a little ill conceived
But fair doos for "putting your toe in the water" even if some stamped on it

I think i would buy recyclable sails if I could see it made sense ( to me at least). But i would not want to get involved in deposit or lend lease schemes & i doubt that most of the forum would disagree with that.
i would certainly buy a sail if you could show that it lasted longer on a £ for £ basis so less sails actually needed to be recycled simply because they lasted longer. You would certainly get more customers that way, although the industry would be shooting itself in the foot

 

[solosails]

I think that if you read the last 2 lines of tranona's post you will have your life line
& if you go back to your original idea I suspect that you might now accept it was a little ill conceived
But fair doos for "putting your toe in the water" even if some stamped on it

I think i would buy recyclable sails if I could see it made sense ( to me at least). But i would not want to get involved in deposit or lend lease schemes & i doubt that most of the forum would disagree with that.
i would certainly buy a sail if you could show that it lasted longer on a £ for £ basis so less sails actually needed to be recycled simply because they lasted longer. You would certainly get more customers that way, although the industry would be shooting itself in the foot

Helpful views, thanks.

Yep, you're all loud and clear that you just want to buy your sails and expect them to last the same or longer.

The recycled line of sails I am talking about should film this adequately. As everyone is saying here it's just a case of getting it off the ground in the first place which I why I posted here to see what kind of ideas the public might go for.

I do not have a massive R&D team who I can pay to do this research for me, and so you are my free research team.

I must admit I am disappointed with the virtually non existent support for the general idea but feel that with a little further opening of the suggestion people are starting to be less anti the proposal.

The big problem is as I say, I am a small loft, a small voice and it as such it is hard to get traction on completely ground breaking new methods. Also, I don't have time to devote my full attention to it.

I was hopping to find a few enthusiasts here who might want to help research and get the ba rolling on statistics for modulus loss on uv degraded PeT etc.

I will fire off a few more emails this week and see what we can get done.

Thanks for your help everyone.

 

[dom]

I will fire off a few more emails this week and see what we can get done.

Thanks for your help everyone.

I don't have any hard answers and doubt your original idea would work. Then again just about every big human success one can think of is built upon the ashes of failure: Orville and Wilbur Wright, NASA, Apple :encouragement:

 

[lw395]

Suggest you look at the thread running on this forum about the annual cost of running a boat. Then you might understand why leasing would not be attractive to leisure sailors.

Leasing works with non discretional capital items. You need your accounting software otherwise you cannot operate. You have a choice of buying it and writing off the costs as depreciation over its life and saving cash to replace it or leasing it so somebody else picks up the capital cost and you effectively pay them out of your cash income each month. You can do the same with just about any capital item that you consume over time.

Boats are not like that. They are entirely discretionary and even though you consume sails over the life (typically 10 years) it is not essential to either account for their use, nor replace them at a particular point in time. Most people do not even pay for their boats over time - that is they pay for them using discretionary savings, and pay for replacements in the same way.

So no form of lease scheme will be attractive to the majority of leisure sailors. It represents a fixed future financial commitment that removes all flexibility from future expenditure. Just think about the advice given to people looking to buy new sails. For most it is a rare occurrence - some people go through their entire sailing careers without buying sails, simply using the sails that come with the boat and changing boats before the sails fall apart. They therefore need to go through the whole process starting with deciding what sort of sails to buy, then finding a sailmaker. This involves searching the market and getting the best deal they can for what is often a one off purchase. Last thing on their minds is thinking about the replacement for the new sails they are about to buy, or what will happen to them when they wear out. They might be thinking about what they do with the old sails, although as we have seen on this thread, many either keep them or pass them down to somebody who can get a bit more use out of them.

This gets me back to the point I have tried to make several times. The way to engage the buyers is to offer them an alternative product incorporating recycled materials and it will stand or fall on its merits - that is how well it performs and the value it offers to buyers. An incentive for trading in old sails may well be a useful selling feature, but nobody is going to make any future commitment.

So, back to your drawing board and get your colleagues in the business engaged in developing recycled cloth and sails that make best use of the material. Then you have something tangible to put before potential buyers.

That's very true.
I only buy sails when my business is good, I have made decent money since xmas, I am probably about to buy a spinnaker. If business is mediocre over the next year or 5 years, I won't buy any new sails.
IT's the kind of spend that can be put off for a long time.
I'm also weighing up whether to buy made in UK, or far east imported.
Any loading on the UK sail for greenwashing will only push that one way....

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Not me and nimbyism, no. As it happens, I live in the middle of a town and there is zero possibility of a landfill site opening up within half a mile of my home, because the cost of compulsorily acquiring hundreds of houses in the SE of England would make any such prospect totally uneconomic.

But nimbyism in general (i.e. not mine per se, but the British public at large). It is just so difficult to get permission for new landfill sites in the UK because of local opposition and that is definitely part of the reason why we incinerate far more rubbish than we used to, notwithstanding the fact that some of what is burned produces some nasty exhaust gases which then require energy to scrub.

And not all of what ends up in landfill is as inert as we would like to believe. Unfortunately, waste streams are rarely as pure as we would all wish - so stuff buried in the ground is rarely as inert as people would have you believe. Nasty stuff can leach out.

There are also large swathes of the country where suitable sites for landfill are rare - e.g. a lot of East Anglia. Guess what - South Cambridgeshire has one of the best and earliest records of recycling, simply because the alternatives are too expensive. My understanding is that they make a profit on recycling, as well - they can guarantee a good stream of processable material, and of course, are not hit by Government penalties for NOT recycling. There is no fee (beyond Council Tax, which is much the same as anywhere else, and lower than a lot) to residents. As I say, the net impact on local taxes is either neutral or a bit positive. Other District Councils in the area are rapidly catching up; East Cambridgeshire was one of the worst but is now rapidly improving. All that the resident does is a) sort their refuse into 3 groups (compostable, recyclable and non recyclable) and b) put the right bin out each week.

If you don't believe that landfill is nasty stuff, have a look at a recently completed landfill, especially one that (as many in East Anglia are) is mostly above ground level. Despite being sealed above and below, you will see a complex of innocent looking vents and pipes. These are to a) discharge waste gases and b) allow monitoring of leachates.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

If the sail is worth normally £1500, how about a nominal life expectancy was put on it of say 3 years for example.

For most CRUISING sailors, a lifespan of 3 years would be laughably short - mine must be around 20 years old, and still going well enough for me; I'm not seriously considering replacing my white sails anytime soon (I may invest in a cruising chute or suchlike one day). I don't think I'm unusual!

 

[AntarcticPilot]

A general comment on recycling.

Basically, recycling is viable if it costs less (or the same) to produce material from a recycling stream than it does from raw materials. It helps to think of the recycling stream as "ore". If it is cheaper to produce a given end-product from a recycling stream than from natural sources, then recycling is economically viable. So, it is (generally) worthwhile recovering gold from waste electronics because the concentration is WAY higher than in natural ores (commercial viable gold ores have minute concentrations of gold). Similarly metals like iron and aluminium are worth recycling because it is cheap and easy to separate them out. Plastics are worth recycling because of the vast bulk, and because there is a market from the producst produced from recycled plastic - which is inevitable of lower quality than the input stream.

We should not ignore the environmental cost of recycling. It may well be better not to recycle materials IF the environmental cost of doing so is high - for example, if the energy used is much higher than that used to process raw materials. Further, the energy locked up in a product such as some plastics may be of greater value than the materials - incineration to produce electricity or thermal energy may well be a more environmentally friendly approach than recycling.