Maine Sailing Partners

On the floor

Some of the projects passing through these days:

More progress

Now, the new loft is really taking shape.  Too bad we're too busy at this time of year to really appreciate every step of the process.  This taken from the top of a big pile of dirt in the yard... mud season in Maine

Fast Start

We are amazed how quickly a snow-covered pile of steel is turning into the skeleton of our future home.

Sprouting

The seeds we planted almost a year ago when we started to look for a new permanent home for MSP have finally taken root.  Now steel is rising out of a field in Freeport.

Our new building will be a 9600 square foot steel shed. She is being erected by Greg Patterson and his team at Patco Construction.  We're hoping to be in sometime this summer...  We'll keep you posted.

On the Floor

As part of our design process we produce a little sketch of each sail we are going to produce.  Here is a recent sampling:

The sketches let us see where each panel goes when it comes off the cutter.

Something fishy

A continuing phenomenon in the Maine boat business is the popularity of what's known as 'spirit of tradition' boats - new boats built to look like old.  Our friend Jean Beaulieu of Classic Boat Shop has been riding that wave, crafting several iterations of the Pisces 21.  The Pisces is Chuck Paine's Marconi rig update of the gaff rigged Herreshoff Fish Class, a handsome 21 foot day sailor.   (Joel White also did a centerboard  version called the Flatfish which it just so happens my brother-in-law is building in his shop on Georgetown Island.)

Turns our the Fish Class was one of the important one designs in the history of the Seawanhaka Yacht Club.  Now one of the present day members has commissioned Jean to do a gaff version of the Pisces to more nearly match the original. One difference - the new boat will have a carbon fiber mast...

On the Floor

J/105 Class Jib
Turnabout Mainsail
Concordia Mizzen
Hinckley Sou'wester Genoa

Plus many pounds of winter service.

Exotic Maine

Here's a sampling of some of the more exotic materials we're making sails out of these days.  In the foreground is the Cuben Fiber mainsail to Goshawk in the loft for a little winter service work.  Rolled up behind that is the D4 mainsail membrane for Hoi An, third to finish and overall winner of the 2005 Eggemoggin Reach Regatta (Goshawk was first to finish and third overall).  On the table is the carbon GPL 14 mainsail for Gusto.  Curiously, despite their exotic sails, each of these boats was built out of wood right here in Maine!

Just the beginning

As we come into, or I should say, are already in our busiest time of the year I am working on one of our projects; 30 International Class One Design spinnakers.  Pictured is part of one of them that has a graphic of a young swan on it.  This is the first graphic out of 10 that we will be doing.  Needless to say in another month the loft will be covered with a lot of nylon. 

On the floor

Currently Building:
    J/44 Leisurefurl Hydranet Mainsail
    J/100 Asymmetrical Spinnaker
    Custom 43 Carbon Racing Mainsail
    Custom 43 Asymetrical
    Rozinante Jib
    Pearson 30 mainsail cover

Ladies in waiting

These colored tubes are the rolled nylon panels of a couple of dozen International One Design spinnakers, waiting to be assembled.

Carbon

While we await the moving vans, production goes on.  Here Sam is getting ready to glue together some panels for a carbon genoa.

The Old Ways

The old ways aren't necessarily the best, but sometimes they're a lot more practical than the new, especially when one is cutting a sail from 18" tanbark Oceanus sail cloth (which is just too sleazy to cut accurately with our robot plotter-cutter).  Fortunately, we have one of the old masters, the legendary sailmaker Jacob Graves, to handle this task, in this case the mainsail for a Morris Annie 29.

On the floor

We have been in full production mode since January, with no let-up in sight.  Too busy, in fact, to keep up this blog the way we should.  But we'll try to post more regularly.

Building this week:

Taylor 41 X-Tech Aramid #2 and Blade
2 Etchells Jibs
1 Atlantic Jib
Seawind Ketch Mainsail
J/110 RF 155% Pentex racing #1 Genoa
Frers 30 Pentex Mainsail

Taylor 41 Sheerness

 

Special Projects

At left is a mizzen sail for a small sailing canoe.  We make a few oddities like this every year.  For instance, two years ago we built a suit of sails for a 1/5 scale model of the Pride of Baltimore.  The owner and a six-pack of beer capsized the boat on Little Sebago Lake . . . no injuries to boat or owner.  Next up: a crab claw mainsail for a Pacific proa?

Christmas

Sam installs a vision window in a Christmas Cove One Design genoa.

On the floor

Currently building:
    Christmas Cove One Design Genoa
    J/130 Maxx Voyager Carbon Mainsail
    Pisces 21 Main, Jib, and Spinnaker
    Center Harbor 76 Asymmetrical
    2 J/100  Inventories - Mains, Hoyt Jibs, Asym, and Code 0
    Main and Mizzen for custom 38 foot ketch
    2 Etchells jibs
    28 International Class jibs - awaiting only their sailbags.
Never a dull moment at this time of year..

Snuffer

This is a custom spinnaker snuffer for a Nacra 5.8.  Most spinnaker snuffers are pretty straight forward . . . a fabric sleeve with a retrieval line running through it attaches to a light fiberglass scoop.  The rigid fiberglass creates an elbow that makes the turn from the sleeve towards the opening.  Without the elbow, the sleeve would crimp closed as it turns (just try bending a cardboard tube or paper cylinder to get the idea).  The scoop on this snuffer doesn't have an elbow so we had to make it out of cloth . . . imagine making a stove pipe out of cloth and you get the idea.

Storm Warning

For the past few years the ISAF Offshore Special Regulations have required storm sails to contain at least 1 square meter of high visibility orange and recommended that the entire sail be that color.  Here are a couple of large examples.  These boats will be tough to miss when flying these things.

Patriotic

Sailors as a group are patriotic (whether or not they agree with what the government does in their name). In my experience, you're just likely to see a the ensign flown from the stern of a sailboat as not.  Lindsay Lord tells us the ensign hoist should be 3/4" to 1" per foot of LOA.  I have always felt bigger is better - that ideally in a flat calm the lower aft corner of the ensign should just kiss the sea surface. Not big enough for you?  There are other ways to celebrate the 4th of July...

Contrast, Part 2

Now here's a contrast.  This is the spinnaker for a nine foot Turnabout laid on top of the Cuben Fiber genoa clew patch for Goshawk, a 76-footer under construction at Brooklin Boatyard.  For perspective, that's one of Goshawk's 24" sail numbers next to the spinnaker, and that's a six foot ruler at the bottom of the patch. 

Numbers

Our Carlson Plotter/Cutter does more than cut out sails.  Here we're cutting out 24" sail numbers for Goshawk.  The Carlson also cuts out insignias, draws stencils . . . it even does windows.

Good as new

As much as we all love building new sails, we also do a tremendous amount of repair work.  These pictures show the before and after of Jake fixing a spinnaker that was torn into several pieces.

[This is what happens when you drive your boat through the spinnaker during a take down - Win]

Something like this is a lot harder to fix that a small rip or hole.  In order to keep the original shape we have to first pin out the sail and tape the it back together along were it was torn.  Then a patch is put over the torn parts, making sure not to add any wrinkles or more shape than is needed.  Once the new fabric is in place it is sewn on and the old torn cloth is cut out.  With this spinnaker this had to be done in sections and very carefully to make sure the pieces fit back together properly.

Although no one likes it when this happens, it does happen, and we can fix it. 

Kites

A couple of years ago, we were contacted by some of kite boarders from MIT who wanted to design and build their own kites.  One of our cloth suppliers had suggested that we could cut fabric pieces for them based on their 3D computer designs.  We spent quite a while working out the necessary bugs in converting what they had to something that could be used by our cutting machine.  Here's their first flight with the kite we cut for them.

Since then they have set up a web site and offer their designs for free.  They also list us as a possible resource for cut cloth. 

It's a pretty cost effective way to get yourself a kite, provided the only thing you have to pay us for is the material and the time we spend cutting it.  (We don't do the assembly.)  But if you have to pay us for doing work on the computer files we use to cut the pieces, the process gets expensive quickly.

Because of the MIT web site, we now get inquiries from all over.  Here's one from Lithuania, along with my reply:

Dear Mr. Win Fowler,
I'm from Lithuania and I'm making myself a power kite. I wonder if You coul cut the cloth for me and how much will it cost. Thanks in advance.

I'm looking forward to hear from You.

Best regards,
Giedrius Bulikas 

Hello Giedrius,

We have cut out kites previously.  We have no in-house patterns.  Here is what we need.

We need a file in HPGL (.plt) format for each separate piece of the kite.  The file should use a black 'pen' for the lines to be cut and a red 'pen' for the lines to be marked.

We need to know how many of each piece you need and the fabric and color from which you wish the piece made.

We charge the time we spend to do your job at $60 per hour.  We charge for the fabric we use at the manufacturer's list price.  Typical charges for a set of cut pieces have been between $200 and $300.

If your files are not perfect, we also charge for any time we have to spend cleaning them up so we can cut them.  That can get expensive quickly. If you send us the files you want cut, we can look at them and tell whether they need work or not.

Thanks for your interest.  Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions or if we can be of service in any other way.

Win Fowler

 

String Sail

Maine Sailing Partners today joins the string sail age (not an April Fools post) with the assembly of our first D4 product, a mainsail for a customer of Vermont Sailing Partners.  Here's Bill Fastiggi of VSP trimming out the finished membrane.

cut sails

In addition to building and servicing sails, we design and cut sails for small sailmakers in other parts of the country.  Today, after visiting some friends in Maine, Ron & Silvia White of Eastern Sails & Canvas of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, stopped by the loft to pick up the panels for four sails we had designed and cut for them.  Once back in Mattapoisett, they will be assembled into complete sails.  We have been cutting sails for Ron & Silvia for a couple of years now, but this is the first time we've had a chance to meet them.  It's always nice to get to know your customers in person. 

We also received this nice photo from Vermont Sailing Partners of a C&C 99 triradial jib we cut for them being assembled on the floor in Winooski.

Another big one

Rob, left, and Charlie (still sporting a tan from his recent surfing sabbatical to Costa Rica and Panama) shepherd another big Cuben Fiber mainsail through the Ontarian.

On the floor

Currently in the hopper:

• 3 Great Harbor 10 Sails
• A three sail Tanzer 22 inventory
• Sabre 36 main and furling jib
• C&C 30 main and furling genoa for Acadia Sails
• J/29 Maxx genoa and light running spinnaker
• J/105 Maxx class jib
• O'Day 322 main and cover
• C&C 40 155% Pentex genoa for a Virginia loft
• J/42 155% Pentex genoa for Acadia Sails

On the floor

Currently in process:

• Lyman Morse Hood 60 mainsail from Dimension GXLD carbon cruising laminate
• J/120 main for a local artist
• More schooner sails and a J/29 genoa cut panels for Vermont Sailing Partners
• Still inundated by piles of 420 sails for Sail Maine.

On the Floor

On the floor this week:

• Tanzer 22 main and genoa
• Catalina 30 TM main
• 18 suits of 420 sails for Sail Maine

The 420 sails are being extra heavily built.  We have built fleet sails for a number of club and college programs, and we know how tough these kids can be on their sails (especially when someone else pays the bills).  It no harder to make sails for an Open 60 to carry non-stop around the world in Southern Ocean than to make sails that will stand up to hard use by enthusiastic junior and college sailors.  But it's our ambition to support these programs with sails that are as durable and as good a value as we can.  These program produce our future customers...

Storage

Every year we take in several hundred sails for washing and service.  We inspect, repair, wash, dry, fold and store each one.   We give the owner a condition report on each sail so he or she knows how much life we think it has left in it.   
Sails can last 10, 20, even sometimes 30 years.  But that means every 30th sail or so we get in is due for retirement.  We get a remarkable number of comments about these sails of the form, "I just want to get one more year out of this sail".  Sometimes we get the same comment about the same sail several years in a row...

Cross-eyed

Among our many projects this winter are new jibs and mains for SailMaine's fleet of 18 Club 420s.  After designing a sail, we nest the individual panels with Carlson Design's PlotMaster.  The panels are nested in such a way as to minimize waste and properly align the thread line of each panel.  This is simple enough when nesting the panels for one sail, but becomes more difficult when nesting panels for multiple sails.  Nesting the many small patch panels for the 420 jibs yesterday was beginning to make me cross-eyed.  Take a look at this portion of one of the jib tables:

    

Now consider that Win has designed and nested the spinnakers for a fleet of 30 International One-Designs and that each boat had a different panel layout (the owners could choose from 12 different colors), and you can see just how truly complicated this process can get.

Contrast

Yesterday, a sail for a 76 footer.  Today, a 9 footer.  Patience fits battens for a Turnabout mainsail.  They actually call these boats National 10's now (thus the "N-10"), but 10 feet is stretching it a little.

On the floor

This week the floor is pretty much dominated by the Cuben Fiber blade for the 76 footer.  Also in the works:

• Schooner main, foresail and jib panels for Vermont Sailing Partners
• J/105 maximum runner panels for an anonymous loft in Rhode Island
• A couple of sail covers
• The usual weekly pile of sails for wash, check and repair

Stuck to my work

Today on the floor we are gluing together a MAXX Carbon jib and a Cuben Fiber blade using Ultra Bond.  Ultra Bond is an adhesive that we have to heat to 300 degrees before we can use it.  Once it is hot enough we use an air pressured gun to apply the glue to the seams and then apply pressure to the seams to bond them together.  Since the seams are now bonded together no stitching on the seams is needed.

The MAXX is a little harder to glue as it is so soft and light we have to be careful not to push the seams around as we glue.  The Cuben Fiber on the other hand is easier to glue as it is slightly stiffer and the seams don't move around as much.  Both are light and nice to work with compared to other fabrics. 

They both are going together very well, but we still don't know which is worse; gluing your fingers together with extremely hot Ultra Bond or putting a sewing needle through  your finger!

On the floor

Currently building: 

• Center Harbor 76 Cuben  Blade Jib
• J/27 Triradial Square Weave Dacron Mainsail
• 2 - Turnabout Mainsails
• Pearson 28 Triradial Roller Furling 140% Genoa
• C&C 99 Maxx Ultrabond Jib for Vermont Sailing Partners

Playing:  The Blimp (what else?)