After some weeks of looking on the internet, I recently discovered a tarp supplier that is not only easy to work with, but a block away from where I work ( :oops: ). They have a material that looks very promising for a longer-lasting tarp sail, but my concern is that it might be a little heavy. It is 18 oz. vinyl coated material. Upon checking the stuff out myself, it doesn't appear much heavier than a lot of sail material I have seen. My last sails were made from 12 oz. canopy material, and worked very well, so well that I will most likely be able to use them all of this coming season.
The question, then (realizing that opinions are like some other things), is will the 18 oz. vinyl be too heavy for sails?
Personally, unless you are looking for heavier weather sails, I would pass on that. They would probably be tough enough if sewn right to work OK in higher wind conditions, but I just wonder if they are too heavy to work well in light air.
The lighter polytarp materials, 6 and even the 8 oz materials tend to be just fine for most of the winds you are likely to encounter on the lakes in your area. Under light air, the lighter sails will help performance a lot. But then it is all in how you go about fabricating them too.
Wow. Even 12 oz sounds heavy to me. What kind of material was the 12oz?? How did it do in light airs??
Got some wake action goin'....
![[Image: Poser_1.JPG]](http://home.comcast.net/~brithowell/Poser_1.JPG)
The 12 oz. material is standard tarp material, but with a vinyl coating.
Found a 'nuther supplier who has the same vinyl-coated canopy tarp in 8.5 oz. Gonna check it out later this week.
Does anyone know what the poly tarps suggested in the plans weigh(per yard weight)?????
The majority of the blue tarps are typically ligher weight than 6 oz material. The cheapies are just 4 oz. The "Heavy Duty" Blue tarps are 8 oz.l If they are fabricated with a little care and stored with a little common sense, they will last for several seasons unless they get into some pretty heavy blows and get whipped around. When storing them off season they should be rolled and put away dry rather than folded or just stuffed into a bag or box .
If you get a Polysail kit with white tarp material it is 5.5 oz material.
There are white tarps available from 5.5 oz to 8 oz. online at the suppliers listed above.
Under most light to moderate wind conditions the lighter weight material will do just fine. If you have light air conditions most of the time then I would use the lighter weight material. The heavier the material the less the sail will fill and take shape. It also makes it a little more difficult to fabricate when you get several layers of material to try to work with.
Typical poly tarp material is measured in a few different ways. Weight per square yard, thread count per square inch and denier (density of fiber mass).
Weight is important in sail cloth selection, typically leaning toward the lightest cloth you can carry for the expected conditions. An average daysailor will need a 4 to 6 ounce cloth. 4 being likely to stretch in sustained winds over 15 knots and 6 being too heavy to fill nicely in very light air.
Thread count sizes typically range from the cheap stuff 7 x 7 square, cross weave to 14 x 14 square, cross weave, which represents the good stuff.
The PolySail site, where much useful information and fabric can be gotten, sells a 12 x 12 weave, white material that most folks use. I'm not sure of the exact weight, but it's around 5 ounces and has a denier of about 1000.
What does all this stuff mean? Well, look for the tightest weave you can find (14 x 14), good UV stabilized fabric with the weight you need (extra weight just limits the boat's abilities) and high denier (1200).
I have a supplier of poly fabric that is 14 x 14, 5.2 ounce, 1200 denier (white) that can be had in larger sizes then available form PolySail and it's cheaper per square yard too. You can buy just the material, not having to purchase a "kit" like PolySail does. Anyone interested in their address can drop me a line and I'll send it off to them.
To directly answer you Brit, 18 ounce is pretty heavy fabric, difficult to sew at least and likely to not fill well without wind strength over 10 knots. See if your local supplier can offer somthing else. Let them know you're making a sail and that you don't want stretchy.
Thanks for the responses. After a thorough search of the local markets, I'm back to the internet searches.
There are a lot of small boats out there that use polysail kits or just get the instructions and dimensions from their website and purchase the materials from other sources. They work fine.
Of of course you could purchase White poly tarp material and white duct tape from the internet and just make the first set yourself from the plans.
http://www.nbmc.com/tarps/white.html
http://www.tarps.com/white.htm
http://www.identi-tape.com/duct.html
They are not hard to make and will work just fine. From 40ft away it is really difficult to tell that they are not dacron It is also easy to then make up a Lapper or with a little creativitey to make up a loose footed main. If you wish to use a furling system, then it is easy to lay in a luff wire while making these up.
Quote:From 40ft away it is really difficult to tell that they are not dacron
I once had someone get a close look at my tarp sails and thought it was an expensive high tech racing sail. Without a feel or a really close look noone knows they're not traditional dacron.
Keith