Maine Sailing Partners

Mainsail Design

The first steps in creating a sail here at Maine Sailing Partners take place in the virtual world - the world of sail design software.  Here is a quick visual overview of the design process, in this case for the mainsail of a 36' racer cruiser:

Step one: develop the basic outline of the sail.

Step two: create a 3 dimensional mold of the sail.

Step three: check enlarged horizontal and vertical sections for fairness.

 
Step four: add panels, battens, reefs, reinforcements and other details.

Of course, there is a little more to it than that, but you now have a sense of the process.

Preview

I like to see the previews when I go to the movies.  I think that most people would like to see what their new sails will look like before they're delivered.  Now you can preview your sails in your email in-box.  SailPack Viewer is an interactive program that gives you a 3D preview of your sails. 

Particularly useful is the SailPack Viewer feature that allows you to customize your spinnaker colors and panel layout.

Simply download the free SailPack Viewer software from SailPack and open the sail file.  Next time you're looking for sails, ask for a preview. 

Purple Cow

 

I never saw a Purple Cow,

Until the loft made this one.

But I can tell you, anyhow,

I'd rather make than be one. 

New guy, Thatcher Rose, contemplates a J46 purple cow spinnaker.  Interested in a spinnaker graphic or battle flag for your boat?  Asks us for a quote.  Apologies to Gelett Burgess for butchering his poem.  

Channeling Bob the Builder

Can we fix it?  Yes we can!  Today we did an emergency mainsail clew repair for the Tripp 75 Bella Pita in Boothbay Harbor for the Shipyard Cup. Bella Pita's crew asked for our help after another sail loft gave up on the repair.

 

At Maine Sailing Partners we're more than sales people who sail.  We make sails, and we have the skills and the tools for even the most difficult repairs. 

We take as much pride in repairing sails as we do in making them. 

Details

One of the things that we work hard on are the little details that make the sails we build work well.  Here's a look at the luff reinforcing patch for a mainsail:

Six radial layers with strong fill in the radial direction with 3 layers of very heavy, very firm fabric under them.  The corners and reef reinforcements are the most heavily loaded parts of the sail.  We build our reinforcements to minimize distortion at those points.  Minimizing distortion is the key to both proper sail shape and sail longevity.

Here are the rest of the reinforcements for the sail:

Yarn

Just got in a new batch of yarn:

No, we don't knit sails, but we do use a lot of tell tales...

Service

With our tunnel vision it's hard to fathom, but we are discovering that some sailors don't know that, in addition to building sails, we also provide complete sail service.  So we're spreading the word, by distributing our new sail service brochures to boatyards around the state.  Feel free to click the link and download your very own copy.

The year of Hydra-Net

So far this year, we seem to be inundated in Hydra-Net radial sail projects:  a Deerfoot 65 mainsail to New Zealand, a Little Harbor 52 main and genoa bound for England, a Voyager 64 catamaran inventory for here in Maine, a Taswell 56 inventory for the Atlantic grand tour, a White 42 catamaran mainsail for the South Pacific, a J/42 inventory for Finland. 

Hydra-Net is a single layer woven Dyneema polyester hybrid.  It's advantages are low stretch, excellent UV resistance, refusal to harbor mildew.  It is a hands down choice for performance cruisers from 40 to 70 feet who want bullet-proof construction and enduring good looks. 

It's such tough stuff, that Ken hates to cut it, but other than that we love the stuff.

Red Sox Sweep Yankees

Just a little fun at Ken's expense.

Almost here

We are pretty much entirely moved to our new space.  Today, with the help of our former neighbors Material Handling Sales, we moved the last and most difficult major pieces of equipment - the 8 foot, 600 lb Ontartian sewing machine and two 40 foot steep rails that keep our cutting table in alignment.  Here are a couple of views of the new place...