Good luck .

Just copy the LT sail

Yes my advice as mentioned would be to get an old windsurfer one design sail or similar, unpick all the stitching, pull it apart and copy it exactly, It will give you the basic skills of cutting panels, taping them together and then learning to sew.

I learnt by doing repairs, then cutting new sails, then was shown step by step joining panels in the correct order and sewing it all together in the correct order.

It does take skill so don't be put off if you forget a few things and mess up, I was taught by one of the best in the biz and still learn new things every time i sit at a machine, and i have worked on a hell of a lot of sails, and messed up my very first repair horribly..lol..

This is the first sail I made from scratch, well I didn't design it, I started after we plotted it out, It is a 4 batten BLADE 4.2m with a longer boom length, I still have it in my sail collection.

I only had one attempt at sail making, that convinced me that my DIY skills were stretched a tad to far, since them I've left it to the professional to make my sails.
I hope you have a more positive experience.

@ P.C_simpson

WOW that looks incredible!

My first sail currently looks nothing like that! Ha ha ha. Oh well.

Did you muck about with seam shaping?

Not for me - How does it work out $$ wise

Overner said..
@ P.C_simpson

WOW that looks incredible!

My first sail currently looks nothing like that! Ha ha ha. Oh well.

Did you muck about with seam shaping?

Na that was all up to Ben, i just suggested a longer boom length to make it a little less twitchy than the production boom length on the old 4.2's

Good on you for trying, but do it for fun, not for saving money as the materials are expensive and the initial sail takes a lot of work building templates.

Your difficult part will be the head and foot, most domestic machines don't have the power to sew the multi layers for strength at these areas. You can go lighter her but with the chance of ripping out the eyes.Every panel has some kind of seam shape, that's how you lock the draft so you get stability.

PVC windows stretch and distort the sail, used to use a product called Vimar, was PVC with a layer of Mylar bonded to it to stop stretch, this is just Xply.

This is my light weight 4.2, more old school as sets without a huge amount of down haul. Would probably be called a windfoil sail now. It looks higher aspect than it actually is, just the way I took the photo.

Just find an old sail and pull it apart. This will show you where the designer put the seam shape and how much. The change the size, eg turn a 6 into a 4.5, cost you nothing, just some seam tape and thread.

ZeeGerman said..
Is there a good online shop with sailmaking supplies? I don't seem to find a place with cloth etc. on offer.

In the us there's sailrite.

I'm making a "grocery" list and in the middle of researching what to use, along with dacron, they have 4mil xply, 7mil mono, and laminate sailcloth. But also tapes, thread, needles, etc. There's also eBay and Amazon. What are you looking for?

Thank you!

I forgot I should have enough leftover sails to make one sail! Never realized how precious battens, pulleys or mast protectors could be!

So I need needles, thread, double sided tape, dacron tape (to cover sharp edges?) and I think I may be able to salvage the rest.

For now, I'm making a small scale paper version. 1/5th.

Anyone has constant curve mast data?

What about increased downhaul tension, how does it help the shape? Any impact on integrity when caught in the waves?

Design your sail for the mast you have.
Mast bend is a major factor in final sail shape.
But I think only a minor factor in the way the sail works, as long as the sails end up the same shape.

In other words a single sail will rig differently one each mast bend. and will handle differently on the water.
But 3 sails deigned to have the same shape on there designated mast, will behave similarly on the water.
The stiffer mast will probably work better for heavy sailors and the flexy top better for lighter sailors, and maybe other factors I'm not aware of.
But for your first sail, I wouldn't worry about it. The final shape is what will affect the handling, not so much how you achieve it.
The cynic in me thinks curve is merely a marketing ploy, at one stage NP and Gastra went in opposite directions, so you couldn't use NP masts with Gastra sails and vice versa, and then over the years things change. Was this so you had to buy new masts with new sails, and get locked in to one manufacturer? (I don't know, but I only buy sails that rig on constant curve masts, because that's what I have)

A dead flat sail unrigged, gets all it's shape from the difference between mast curve and luff curve. So mastbend is critical to sail shape. Downhaul determines when the mast achieves the ideal curve. If you want a lot of skin tension for sail stability you need more luff curve.

Seam shaping relies less on mast bend for shape, and allows for less mast/batten tension if you have camber inducers. and if no camber inducers allows the sail to turn on earlier.
So you need to work out what qualities you want in a sail, then figure out how to get it.

A quick update:

Plotted out my 4.7, took for.e.v.e.r! But it's near perfect. Next will be design updates.

Received my machine it's capable of 6 maybe 7mm wide triple stich. It seems that most sails are 8mm and up to 9!

So I was thinking about using two rows of stitches with a lighter V69 thread to substitute the single row wider V92 stitches. Sounds good or 6mm is good enough or does it depend on materials as well?