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UV strålning skadar segel….
Everyone speaks about sails they have had that are damaged by the sun. Well you just try laying around without sunscreen for hundreds of hours and see what happens to you.
that’s right, hundreds of hours. every time you lay your sail flat on the beach with the sun passing through it, you are shortening the working life of that sail. in tests done in strong sun areas, monofilm material of 5 mil thickness (125 micron), which is the ’normal’ material found in most race and recreational sails, will lose half its strength after 200 hours of such treatment. whether r not the second half will survive the other two hundred hours is up to how hard the sail gets used.
OK. so this sounds like a short time. it is. four hours a day laying flat, gives you 50 days of being able to treat your sail poorly before it shows up dead.
the lesson here?? first, never leave your sail in the sun. it’s not only the film that suffers, but the rest of the materials do also. they are just plastic too.
if you are going to lunch, find shade for your sail. at the least, set it on edge so the suns rays don’t go through perpendicular.
the best would be to cover it somehow. those cheap blue tarps from the hardware store are perfect.
and don’t sweat it when you are sailing. the sail is up and moving around so the ’cooking’ damage is absolutely minimized, and besides, that’s what you bought the thing for.
we are working on a coating which can potentially double the life of your film. it’s being tested right now in hi-tech’s rental fleet and on my roof top. it makes the film cloudy so it’s not pretty but who’s looking when it makes the sail last longer?
the main thing… don’t leave your sail laying flat in the sun. or every hour you do is hours you won’t be using the sail in the future.i have seen sails used hard for years that have always had the shade treatment. they last a surprising amount of time if treated with care. sometimes it’s hard to remember that more damage happens to your sail while you’re not using it than while you’re out having fun with it. so like your mom always said, be sure and cover up and wear your sun screen.
aloha
Barry Spanier -
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