Spend some time around sailmakers who specialize in building sails for offshore sailors, and you’ll hear a familiar lament: If you do your job right, you might not ever see your customers again. This is particularly true if their clientele are sailors who are bound on oceanic loops, circumnavigations, or open-ended cruises.
If I were to guess, I’d say the average long-term cruise of this kind lasts four or five years. If the aim is to amble slowly around the world, the adventure might stretch to 10 years-or more. In either case, if you outfit your boat with new sails when you depart, they should last the duration of your cruise.
Thus, the sailmakers lament.
While the world is still blessed with many good sailmakers, few have so intimately connected with the cruising community as Carol Hasse, the owner of Port Townsend Sails in Port Townsend, Wash. Hasse builds sails for some of the most demanding world cruisers, among them PS contributors John and Amanda Neale, who take passengers around the world through their company Mahina Expeditions. Neale recently examined a set of Hasses sails after 20,000 miles and found they needed nothing but a good cleaning.
Hasse’s loft is in a beautiful, old building overlooking Port Townsend’s public basin. I’ve visited several times and am always impressed by the work that goes on. What sets Port Townsend Sails apart from other lofts I’ve visited-especially the large factory lofts abroad-is the special emphasis on chafe protection, corner reinforcement, and repairability.
Sure, any loft will happily add chafe patches and additional reinforcement if you know what you need (many sailors don’t). However, the third element-repairability-isn’t usually a high-volume sailmakers priority. Building a sail that is serviceable in the field requires a sailmaker who has a deep understanding of the real-world conditions that the cruising sailor faces. The sailmaker has to understand the sailors goal, read the peculiarities of the boat, and comprehend the limitations of the crew and the onboard equipment.
There isn’t space here to address the many modifications that Hasses team makes when it builds a cruising sail. However, one example-stitched-on, bronze hanks for a working jib, storm jib, or staysail-offers a peek at the philosophy behind her approach.
Hanks (or slides on a mainsail) are typically the metal crimp-on type. The silicone bronze hasps clip through pressed-eyes in the luff of the sail. Usually, there is a plastic insert or leather patch (better) to protect the sail against chafe, but chafe is inevitable.
Hasse strives to minimize the metal-to-sail contact with sewn-on grommets and hanks (see photos). Not only do these steps help reduce chafe, they simplify fairly complicated repairs so if there is a problem mid-ocean, even a patient novice can manage some good-as-new-repairs. With one of Hasse’s sails, a sailor’s palm, some needles, twine, thread, and a few spare parts, chances are good that you wont need another sailmaker for years and years to come. And that’s a something to celebrate-unless, of course, your business is making sails.
