New Sails.

[Carbon]

I bought my Catalina 34 this spring knowing that the sails were blown and that I'd be ordering new sails promptly. At first, I thought I'd get a suit of traditional cut Dacron sails and be done with it. But once I started shopping I started thinking about triradial cut sails in one of the laminated sailcloths. There is a fairly active club racing scene on the lake and I wanted to be competitive. My first thought was that putting "racing" sails on a cruising boat would be silly. Upon reflection, I started thinking "why not?". It's not a Porsche, so if my mid-life crisis is contained to upgraded sails, I'm doing pretty good.

I got quotes from Precision, Quantum, and Evolution for a triradial cut Main and 135% Genoa. After some research, I settled on Contender CDX pro sailcloth for a good mix of price, durability, and performance. I got the quotes back and started having second thoughts about indulging my mid-life crisis; they were expensive.

Along the way, I came across a place called Direct-Sails (www.direct-sails.com). At first, I was ruling them out because they do not have a US presence at all. The sales and design office is in Hong Kong and the actual loft is in Shenzen China. I got a quote from them and the price difference was too big to ignore. Roughly 30% less than the name brands.

Along the way, I also learned that all the big lofts have their sails made somewhere in Asia; Vietnam, China, etc... Even North Sails has sails in the C34 size range made in Sri Lanka. Unless you have your sails made at a local loft, they are coming out of Asia. Well, there is no local loft in the middle of Missouri.

After a lot of correspondence with Direct-Sails, I became convinced that they are a legit business and loft and PayPaled off half the money.

We went through about a week of measuring and double-checking and they released the design to manufacturing. I had the sails about a month after that which includes the shipping time.

The upshot is that it was a great experience. They did everything they said they'd do and beat the delivery time by a week. They fit perfectly, and I can't find any quality problems at all. The stitching is excellent and all the material and hardware is top notch.

We are in the middle of the summer doldrums in the Midwest and I've only had the new sails out once with light wind. So, I can't attest to the performance of the boat with them. But they fit perfectly and look great. I'm sure they will be a big improvement over the blown-out bedsheets I took off.

I've got a few pictures and I plan to take more this weekend (hopefully with more wind).

Jack 



 

[Ron Hill]

Jack : Glad that things worked out OK for you. 8932 is your racing numbers?

A thought

[scgunner]

Jack,

Your new sails look very nice. The bad news is if you get into racing your mid life crisis will not be contained with a new set of sails. In racing whether it be with sails, wheels, or wings you'll always be looking for a way to go faster and going faster is expensive.

As you've discovered most production sails are made offshore and are adequate for most sailors while being reasonably priced. If you have specific custom needs like racing or long distance cruising a good loft like North Sails will do it in house of course that's when it starts to get pricey. When Illman Sails was building me a new jib they had just gotten back a huge racing main they had recently completed for $50,000 it had been tested and raced a couple of times and was back to get a new set of battens custom made in Italy for an additional $10,000! You can only imagine the cost for the full inventory of sails on that boat. As the old saying in racing goes "It costs money to run up front".