How long do sails last?

[dlandersson]

How long do sails last?

[lelandmorris]

check out the website sailcare.com. They use a process that rejuvinates the sails. Sails come back looking and feeling like new. Try this before you go to the expense of new sails.

Lee

[Russ]

check out the website sailcare.com. They use a process that rejuvinates the sails. Sails come back looking and feeling like new. Try this before you go to the expense of new sails.

Lee

My Main is original and stretched out. Can they fix that? I'm going to check it out.

Thanks.

[kurz]

Tell us what u find out, pls

[pitchpolehobie]

Sailcare.com is about 90min from me. I am workung to coordinate a visit with a fellow sailor to get our sails done. Looks pretty reasonable. When i get it done i post updates.

[lelandmorris]

I am sure you will be more than satisfied when you get the sails back. They did my Catalina and Macgregor sails as well as suppling all the running lines at about half the price of West Marine. When you see them tell them Hello from Lee Sheldon in California.

Lee

[dustoff]

My experience with sails and lasting depends on how much/and hard you use them, and the quality/durability of what you purchased (kinda obvious).
I bought my from Mike Inmon in 2011. (close friend of Roger MacGregor who ran a dealer shop out of the factory offices). It came with a straight stock main and 150 Genoa. Not knowing a thing about sailboats and sails at the time, I didn't even know to ask about quality/type of sails as an option. The stock sails were very thin and of a normal to low quality. Honestly, I think they were intended for the light winds in Newport Bay, CA.
I kept using those sails way too long (9 years). I tried to take good care of them, and they hadn't torn, or shown any outward sign of damage. But, as I learned later, they were horribly stretched out and nearly useless.
I learned this from interacting on the forum here with Judy B, and BWYachts and taking pics of the sails underway. I got a higher quality/performance main and jib from them. Wow, what a difference!
My roller furling jib and performance main have not shown any deterioration in performance in 6 years of moderate use. I try to keep track of how many hours I've actually been under sail, kinda like tracking engine hours, and they barely have 300 hours of use on them. That's not even a tiny fraction of their use/life. So, my assessment of the real enemy of my sails' longevity is UV, and entropy.
I try to keep my sails well protected when not in use, flake the main as best I can in the stack pack, watch out for mold/mildew in the offseason, and rinse them with freshwater (rain is great for this) occasionally.

Dustoff