Sailcloth is cloth used to make sails. It can be made of a variety of materials, including natural fibers such as flax, hemp, or cotton in various forms of sail canvas, and synthetic fibers such as nylon, polyester, aramids, and carbon fibers in various woven, spun, and molded textiles. Contact online >>
Sailcloth is cloth used to make sails. It can be made of a variety of materials, including natural fibers such as flax, hemp, or cotton in various forms of sail canvas, and synthetic fibers such as nylon, polyester, aramids, and carbon fibers in various woven, spun, and molded textiles.
Viking longships used wool for sailcloth. The cloth was woven in one of three ways, according to locality and tradition: plain weave with individual threads going over and under each other, three-shaft twill with two threads going over and under at each cross thread, and four-shaft twill with thread interwoven with two threads at a time in either direction. Such was the practice from the 11th through the 14th centuries.[1]
Sails could also be made from woven mats of other similar plant leaves and fibers, including those from sugar palms, buri palms, and nipa palms.[16]
The characteristics of a sail are due to design, construction and the attributes of the fibers, which are woven together to make the sail cloth. The following sections discuss the attributes of fibers assuming a good design and careful construction. According to Mahr, there are six key factors in evaluating a fiber for suitability in weaving a sail-cloth:[17]
There is no perfect solution since in most cases the increase of one attribute generally results in the decreased attractiveness of another. Reduced stretch generally also reduces the flexibility causing a trade-off of performance for durability. Solving both problems generally sends the price out of range for most sailors.
Nylon is used in spinnakers because of its light weight, high tensile strength, superior abrasion resistance and flexibility. However, it has a low modulus allowing too much stretch to be suitable for upwind sails. Nylon is more susceptible to UV and chemical degradation than polyesters and its physical properties can change due to moisture absorption.
Technora is an aramid, which is produced in Japan by Teijin, has a slightly lower modulus strength than Kevlar 29 but a slightly higher resistance to flex fatigue. The fiber''s lower UV resistance is enhanced by dyeing the naturally gold fiber black. Technora is most often used as bias support (X-ply) in laminate sailcloth.
Twaron is an aramid, which is produced in The Netherlands by Teijin, is chemically and physically similar to DuPont''s Kevlar. Twaron HM (High modulus) has similar stretch properties to Kevlar 49, greater tensile strength and better UV resistance. Twaron SM is similar to Kevlar 29. Like Kevlar, the fiber is a bright gold color.
Spectra is an ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) made by Honeywell, which offers superior UV resistance (on par with PET), very high initial modulus numbers (second only to high modulus Carbon Fiber), superior breaking strength, and high flex strength. However, it also exhibits permanent and continuous elongation under a sustained load (AKA: creep). This results in a change in shape as the sail ages. Because of this Spectra is only used in spinnakers on high performance boats where the sails are replaced regularly.
Equivalent to Spectra, Dyneema is an extremely strong fiber produced by the Dutch company DSM. It is often used by European sailcloth manufacturers, is available in a wider variety of yarn sizes than Spectra, and is growing in popularity. Dyneema DSK78 set a new standard combining the typical high strength to weight ratio, excellent low stretch, abrasion, and UV resistance but added three times better creep performance compared to Dyneema SK75 and nearly two times better than Dyneema SK90.
Hoechst Celanese produces Certran polyethylene similar to Spectra, with about one half the modulus rating of Spectra. It has similar properties to Spectra including superior resistance to flex fatigue and UV degradation but also exhibits creep.
PBO (Poly (p-phenylene-2, 6-benzobisoxazole)) is liquid crystal polymer developed by Japan-based Toyobo under the trade name Zylon. It is a gold fiber with an initial modulus that is significantly higher than other high modulus yarns, including aramids. Among PBO''s desirable properties are high thermal stability, low creep, high chemical resistance, high cut and abrasion resistance, and excellent resistance to stretch after repeated folding. PBO is also quite flexible and has a soft feel. But PBOs have poor resistance to both UV and visible light.
Carbon fiber is a high modulus synthetic fiber made from carbon atoms. It is virtually unaffected by UV exposure and provides exceptionally low stretch. Variants can balance along a continuum from brittle with no-stretch to extreme durability/flexibility with only slightly more stretch than aramid sails.
Sailcloth is woven in two forms: balanced and unbalanced. The yarns in balanced cloth are the same diameter and weight in lengthwise (the "warp") and across the width of the cloth (the "fill"). Unbalanced means a heavier yarn is used in one direction. Most moderns sails are "crosscut", which is an unbalanced technique where the heavier yarns is in the fill. This allows greater loads to radiate up from the clew (back lower corner) along the leech (back edge). This is especially true of mainsails and high aspect jibs.
Woven sail cloths have an inherent problem with stretch resistance. In a weave the warp and fill yarns pass over and under one another. As load is applied the yarns attempt to straighten out, this results in the fabric stretching, commonly referred to as "crimp". Fibers which are resistant to stretching cannot be woven as tightly as more flexible fibers such as PET, thus the cloth is more affected by crimp.
PET film is the most common film used in laminated sailcloth is an extruded and biaxially oriented version of PET fiber. In the US and Britain, the most well-known trade names are Mylar and Melinex.
Strands are combined from fibers; these are frequently narrow flat bands or ribbons of high strength material. Scrim is a loose weave or lattice of strands, typically bonded where they cross to maintain the grid pattern. Strands and scrims are used to strengthen or reinforce sailcloth (see laminates below).
In the 1970s sailmakers began to laminate multiple materials with different characteristics to synergize the qualities of each. Using sheets of PET or PEN reduces stretch in all directions, where weaves are most efficient in the direction of the threadlines. Lamination also allow fibers to be placed in a straight, uninterrupted paths. There are four main construction styles:
Film is sandwiched in between two layers of woven taffeta, the film provides most of the stretch resistance and the taffeta enhances tear and abrasion resistance. The high-end versions of this method use a woven Spectra or Kevlar taffeta. In some newer styles, off threadline aramid yarns, are also laid into the laminate. In some cases the second layer of taffeta is eliminated for cost and weight savings
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