sail cleaning

[Ruby S]

Does anyone have information on cleaning sails?    Our genoa has mildew stains as well as other stains and marks.

[Jim Price]

I have cleaned old sails a couple of ways.  One was to lay out the sail on smooth surface and scrub with a soft bristle "floor" brush using diluted bleach to clean and kill mildew and fungus.  I rinsed repeatedly with hose and hung sail from couple of trees (neighbors thought I was Crazy) to do more rinsing and let it dry.  Best to do this on sunny hot day so the mild bleach will have best affect.

The other way I did the last cleaning was to use same cleaning agent but applied with pressure washer on low / low medium setting to clean and rinse.  Was much faster and rinsing was much more thorough.

Again this was with old sails and I had nothing to lose.  By the way, the last cleaning I did on the head sail with the pressure washer method was 3 years ago and it is still flying - and the sail is 15 years old and in pretty good shape!!

This may not be the preferred way to clean but again with old sails, it has worked just fine for me.  Just don't over work the stitches.

Oh, final thought, don't use cleaning services - did the mainsail and it shrunk about one foot on the foot and leach.  Still used it another 3 years before replacing with new Kappa main.

[Ron Hill]

Ruby : If you don't want to "do it yourself" like Jim proposed, then take your sail to any sail maker in your area.  They will clean, inspect and repair (as necessary) your sail. 
DO NOT send it to a local cleaners or you'll have a CLEAN, but limp dish rag when it returns!! Most regular cleaning will take the resin out of the sail cloth.   

[wind dancer]

Oxyclean works OK as an safer alternative to bleach.  I used it and am happy with the result.

[tonywright]

Check out the Doyle sails website. They have great info on what to do (and what not).

Tony