Bull Sails. Sailmakers

Protecting your start For prolonged success in sailboat racing it is imperative to consistently get away well at the start. It will greatly increase the likelihood of a good race and whilst a bad beginning is not the end of your day, you just made it a whole lot harder! What is a good start? The benefits of a good start are obvious, clear wind, proactive tactics and most importantly you are already ahead of most of your opposition. The single best way to achieve a good start at speed and on the line is to have room under your bow. This gives you a nice space to build speed and to dip down and keep below the line if you are close. This can be difficult to achieve as the starting process in sailing is unique. Coaches from other sports are often quite amazed that in sailing there is no set procedure except for the countdown. We sailors literally have a situation where the race committee say you are starting here in 5 minutes, sort yourselves out! So we set ourselves...

Whilst I am a big fan of trickle down technology, it sometimes does lend itself to developments that aren't necessarily the best. I was recently reading a post by a fellow sailmaker who was welcoming the introduction of a high end cruising fabric and pointed out that where many large sailmaking companies were very race orientated and spent vast sums setting up new construction techniques, they would often try and add a bit of "value added" by producing a cruising version of their race product! Often in these cases, the performance would be enhanced as one would expect but at the expense of longevity. It struck a chord with me! I have seen some people paying exorbitant prices for the latest construction techniques where at the end of the line it is utilising polyester fibres, basically still a Dacron sail at the price level of a much higher pedigree fibre in terms of both performance and durability! They could have a much better sail at a cheaper price? Most of the w...