Sail Care?

[Tom]

Has anyone used a company called "Sail Care" www.sailcare.com to
recondition (clean, repair, and re-resin) their sails?
Thanks,
Tom

[DS King]

Tom wrote:

> Has anyone used a company called "Sail Care" www.sailcare.com to
> recondition (clean, repair, and re-resin) their sails?

I have never used them myself, but have a couple of friends who
have.

The only thing they do that is worth paying for IMHO is recutting
the sail. Re-resining (if that is a word) does nothing at all for
the sail! It does not restore the strength of the cloth, it does not
restore the aerodynamic shape of the sail, it does not restore the
elasticity of the panels.... it makes it look & feel new, but what
you have is a clean & pretty old baggy weak sail.

The people whom I know all highly recommend Sail-Care, but then they
also do not actually sail their boats much... except for the one guy
who figured it was still a lot cheaper than a new sail and tried it,
but he actually sails his boat in real wind..... it blew to shreds
on him. But the shreds were nice and new-looking.

Save up a bit longer and get new sails. Or get a set of nearly-new
second-hand sails.... usually available at about 50% the cost of
new. Lots of racing sailors only use their sails for one season.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

[MLSALWA]

Tom,I have used their services on two occasions and plan on sending them a
third sail. They repaired some bad spots on both sails that I sent them but the
most remarkable thing was how clean they were when they came back. If your
sails are on the older side and you have never had them cleaned the difference
will amaze you. On both occations I received an estimate before they did any
work.

[felton]

I have used them, but it was some time back. The sails came back
"whiter". The loft services that they performed were screwed up and I
had to take the sail to my local sailmaker and have it redone. It was
money down a rathole. I would follow Doug's advice and either save up
for a new sail, buy a good used sail or, if your sail is only in need
of cleaning, contact North Sails. Their San Diego loft cleaned a sail
for me last year and did a great job. Further, their loft check and
minor repairs were very reasonable and done right. If your sail is
tired, have a reputable sailmaker look it over. Don't kid yourself
that it can be brought back to life by some re-resining process.

Good luck:)

Randy