"Doyle” Sails??!! What?
Andy Inglis
At Vince’s request:
The May meeting of the NWMA was a field trip to Doyle (nee Ballard) Sails. My insights are shaped by my sailing background. I have a little 17’ plastic trimaran that has taken me on many adventures, extended dinghy cruises, and most recently, the WA360. I have “crewed” on some monohulls in a few STYC races, but any boat that takes me on as crew will mainly study the transoms of the other boats as they disappear in the distance. It is interesting how varied transoms can be.
I had met Alex and Elisha of Doyle Sails previously, as I had commissioned them to build me a new mainsail a few years back, a larger flattop that gives my boat a little more push in light air, saving me from the oars in some situations.
The following is my take on the meeting. I am sure there are many factual inaccuracies, and improper terminology used. I am also sure other members will gently correct me. Apologies in advance.
I arrived right at 6:30 with the first wave of multi-hullers, and as we waited for the rest to show up we had a lively chat on various topics, including two T-bone incidents in recent races, one of which was so severe that one of the boats had to be “put down”, to use horse-racing parlance. I guess someone didn’t yell “Starboard” loudly enough. Sad.
This informal session confirmed my impression that Alex and Elisha know just about every boat and skipper in the Salish Sea.
Alex kicked off the educational program with an explanation for the switch from “Ballard Sails” to “Doyle Sails”. I hope I don’t misrepresent this too badly, but basically he saw great advantage in having the design and knowledge resources of Doyle behind him, and access to their sailcloth and manufacturing prowess, while still being able to do what he loves, which is going through the process of building sails that make sailors happy.
He and Elisha then went over the process of producing a new sail for a customer. It starts with a lot of questions, but the important ones include what do you want the sail to do, and how long do you want it to last? (I take it “everything” and “forever” are not acceptable answers. “I want a sail that makes my boat faster than Monkey Business in 8-12 knots of wind,” probably would be ok.)
I will note that neither Alex, Elisha, or any multi-huller in attendance mentioned “budget” at any point in the evening, but as there were stacks of various grades of incredibly high-tech sailcloth-sample books strewn about the loft, I’m sure that point gets mentioned eventually.
Once there is general agreement on what will be built, Alex goes out and measures the boat. Precise measurements are critical and should be done in person on all but the most standard of one-design boats because most boats have quirks and variances. Considerations include things like mast bend and rake, spreader geometry, etc. Alex then takes these measurements, usually with the incredibly high-tech method of running a tape measure up the halyard, and, with actual pencil and paper, makes a sketch of the reference points, allowing a screening of sheeting angles, jib car placement, and so forth. (The example drawing he showed us had a minimalist sort of beauty, in a kind of post-Cubist way. If I were getting another sail from them, I’d ask Alex to sign my drawing and frame it: “The Essence of a Sail, Crazy Janey gets a Screecher.”)
The measurements are sent off to the designer with the “design brief” (my words) who then models a “virtual mold” on what must be a very specialized CAD program for the sail. This produces drawings which get sent back to Alex and the customer, and if everyone is happy, the factory starts producing the panels for the sail. Some sails will be completed off site, and some will be sent as panels to Ballard for sewing and finishing. If you want your sails to be constructed in Ballard, the wait will generally be quite a bit longer.
We then trundled upstairs to the main loft floor where most of the action happens in the shop. Alex ended up getting trapped against one wall, while a horde of eager multi-hullers peppered him with questions about design, construction and so on. It was as if he was facing a group of reporters after throwing a perfect game in the World Series.
Even though I have no urges to go out and start winning sailboat races, I found myself awash in a sea of cool. Listening to all the factors going in to making a sail that will propel the boat to its maximum capabilities was fascinating. The interplay between things like mast shape, sail shape, batten design, roach, twist, etc gave the geek center of my brain nearly orgiastic stimulation. But I digress.
Now I’m really in over my head, but at this point the team went over two common sail construction methods, molding and triradial. The molded sail is assembled from wide (6’ or so?) horizontal sections. Each section is formed by a computer-driven machine that lays out a skeletal web of high-tech fibers running in the directions of stress that the sail will encounter. It somehow also produces the 3-D shape of the sail as it goes. Incredible. These sections then get sent on to the loft, where the horizontal seams are glued and stitched, and all the other edges and fittings are completed. Elisha unrolled a giant TP 52 foresail produced in this fashion, a beauty, and Jeff commented that he thought the sail material was awfully lightweight. Yes, this was the sail for winds between 8-12 knots. (Yikes.)
We were then shown a picture of a jib that was of the triradial variety. In this design, the sail is made up of a large number of relatively small, generally triangular panels sewn together with seams that radiate out from the corners of the sail. Each panel itself is flat, but the edges are curved so that when assembled the sail assumes the desired curved shape. The warp of the cloth runs parallel to the lines of maximal tension. They partially unrolled a bundle of cloth panels for a sail waiting for completion. There were a lot of panels of all shapes and sizes. A lot. Hopefully they were labelled!
Then, THEN, we were treated to a demonstration of seam-gluing. The glue gun itself was another technological marvel. Driven by compressed air, it shot out a steady stream of hot liquid glue needed for the long stretches of seams. (Damn, don’t show this to Martha Stewart around the holidays!) Typically, the pieces to be joined are lined up, Alex runs the gun and Elisha has the critical job of following the hot stream of glue he lays down (keep your minds out of the gutter, please) pressing the two pieces of fabric together, keeping the edges perfectly aligned to a curving seam, all while not getting burned. Both are working on hands and knees. If the seam doesn’t turn out perfect, they reheat the glue, separate the seam, and start over. It looked like that TP 52 sail had maybe 50 yards of seams. I said “yikes” earlier, but I’ll say it again here. Yikes.
The seam is finished with a row or two of stitching, although most of the strength in the seam comes from the glue.
Sadly, at this point I had to leave so I did not get to see the end of the presentation, including the sewing demonstration. There were two sewing machine stations in the loft, each partially submerged in a “pit” so that the sewing needle was at loft-floor height. The machines themselves were impressively hefty.
What I really appreciated about this demo was how modern sailmaking utilizes incredible cutting edge technology of design and fabric construction but retains the skills of age-old, hands-on craftsmanship that can only be achieved through passion and experience. We are very lucky to have this resource in our community. Thanks to the crew at Doyle Sails!
Cheers,
Andy
Vincent DePillis
--
Email from Northwest Multihull Association via Google Groups.
To unsubscribe from this group, send (any) email to northwest-multihull-a...@googlegroups.com. To update your delivery options, visit at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/northwest-multihull-association?hl=en
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Northwest Multihull Association" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to northwest-multihull-a...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/northwest-multihull-association/CAOMvZm-d-vv4SBF_OuHCh0s8FTVnyvK1gDWt%3Dz-WRdO7-eNi8Q%40mail.gmail.com.
Eric Lindahl
--