I was certain I'd seen some advice about washing sails on the forum, but I couldn't pull up anything in search. I have an old radial cut laminate Genoa that needs sprucing up. Just dirt and grime and a couple of small rust spots. I kept coming across sodium percarbonate as the likely best chemical to wash with, although it won't help with the rust.

Sodium percarbonate is the active ingredient in Oxiclean and Nappisan etc although they only contain about 30%. Seems like the home brewing guys use it for cleaning and flushing equipment too. From what I gather it should be safe to use on a laminate. Does anyone have experience with it? Let me know how you wash a sail and what you use?

Don't know about laminate but I soaked my 35yr old Dacron mizzen in sodium percarbonate and it tidied it up nice, I get it from my brew shop for $10 / kg, good for ropes, etc

woko said..
Don't know about laminate but I soaked my 35yr old Dacron mizzen in sodium percarbonate and it tidied it up nice, I get it from my brew shop for $10 / kg, good for ropes, etc

Good one, I've ordered a kg from a chemical company. I'll try it on a rope too, thanks.

woko said..
It's a soak job for cleaning, I managed to poke my little mizzen into the bath tub, just. What's your plan ? A blow up pool ? oh yeh the way it works is releasing oxygen bla bla .....the wee little bubbles all congregate in folds of the material & float it. Plan ahead for weights & flaking

Yeah maybe a kiddie pool. if I can find a cheapie that's big enough. Or I read about using a large plastic tarp, wetting down the sail with the mix. Once that's done on both sides, you roll up the sail in the tarp leave it for the night before rinsing off.

edit: this one is pretty big www.bigw.com.au/product/intex-12-foot-easy-set-pool/p/2449/

500g in 100l tub and soaked overnight, need to use hot water to help dissolve it, at that rate it's fizzy. For sterilising brew gear 30g/ 10l so I nearly doubled it, and the bath tub was super clean to boot !

The rust stains are going to be a problem. I have found spreading the sail on a lawn and scrubbing the sail with a soft broom and a strong mix of warm water and truck wash does a good job. Do both sides and then hoist the sail into the air and hose off.

Foolish said..

woko said..
500g in 100l tub and soaked overnight, need to use hot water to help dissolve it, at that rate it's fizzy. For sterilising brew gear 30g/ 10l so I nearly doubled it, and the bath tub was super clean to boot !

thanks. I've got one rust smudge on a new sail that drives me nuts.

Oxalic acid will be better for rust, but I'd mix it at 100:1 to be safe. Ok on Dacron but anything else ????

2bish said..
Great help thanks guys!

Hey Foolish, with further reading, it seems like it's best to treat rust stains before using sodium per carbonate as it can "fix" the rust stain and make it harder to remove. Oxalic acid or Spotless Stainless seem to be most recommended. I'm going to spot treat rust first with successive very weak solutions of Spotless Stainless, as Woko mentions. If it doesn't budge, I won't push it and just live with the stains

Hi Shaggs, dare I ask what the source of blood on your sails was from? I'd heard you drove your crew hard..??

G'day 2bish,
Sadly it was mostly mine . Usually from being up on the foredeck stubbing toes or from smacking my head with the boom.
In some race off Fraser we had had a pretty frenetic 45 mins of sail changes in the dark just before sunrise. As the light filled in one of the watch captains just starts cursing. All eyes followed the pointing finger and as the dark changed to light you could see the whole back of the cockpit floor was bright pink and red with blood, it looked like a boning floor. I'd belted my head somehow in the dark and like all head wounds it bled like the proverbial. Like a bad crime scene, you could follow the handprints from the headsail (checking luff tension), mast and main (checking foot tension) all the way to the helm .
Good times.

Foolish said..

woko said..
500g in 100l tub and soaked overnight, need to use hot water to help dissolve it, at that rate it's fizzy. For sterilising brew gear 30g/ 10l so I nearly doubled it, and the bath tub was super clean to boot !

thanks. I've got one rust smudge on a new sail that drives me nuts.

Hey Foolish, I found this guy on youtube tonight with advice about removing rust stains.

2bish said..

shaggybaxter said..
Everyone told me UV is supposed to get rid of blood stains on sails...that proved to be a fairy tale!

Raul has the answer here too Shaggy. Awesomely bad edits and sound, but I think he knows his stuff.

Awesome, thanks 2bish!
Yes I'm missing the boat big time, I am throwing myself into work as a salve and trying to learn too many new things at once . I bought an oscilloscope so I can learn how to measure circuits as everything seems to have a bloody IC in it these days. I'm drowning in all the techno mumbo jumbo and understand about 1% of it so far .