Askin' fer a friend: where do old sails go to die?

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DaveC426913
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Askin' fer a friend: where do old sails go to die?

Post by DaveC426913 »

My friend is thinking about repourposing discarded sails as tarps on his farm. Where do they end up?
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Herschel
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Re: Askin' fer a friend: where do old sails go to die?

Post by Herschel »

I suspect a lot of them just end up in folks' garages, basements, barns, and storage units. They seem to be some of those items that have value even if you can't decide just what you want to do with it. Here in Florida I put up special sunshades over my pool in the summer made of fairly porous material so they won't collect puddles of water and compromise the support system. I originally thought my old sails would work for that, but old sails tend to be baggy, and I suspect would hold too much water before it seeped out the stitches. So I don't use them as sunshades. As tarps they are not really water proof so what you are covering is going to get wet. Many naïve years ago, I took a catamaran on an overnight intending to use the sail as a tent spread over the boom while I slept in the trampoline. Well, it rained a little that night and every one of my seams in my air mattress became little canals of rain water that seeped down from the sail/tent. Not good! :P I'd like to see what other sailors have to say about this. Interesting question.
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sailboatmike
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Re: Askin' fer a friend: where do old sails go to die?

Post by sailboatmike »

I think the assumption by many none sailors is that sails are just flat bits of cloth if stretched out, as we know thats far from the truth they have bellies sewn into them to create the wing shape we all aspire to when we trim out sails, as they get older and stretch the belly becomes deeper, I imgine this would fill up rather quickly with water should it rain and make the middle flap around in any sort of wind (we know it as luffing)

I have made a dinghy cover for my little mirror sailing dinghy (about 11 foot long) out of a old main sail for a 18 footer I was given, seems to work well HOWEVER it certainly wasn't made of the flimsy 4oz fabric that OEM Mac sails are made of, it was a good 5oz and pretty stiff
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