DACRON IN 2020
While laminated sails made of exotic materials – which we will refer to here as high-tech membrane sails – have increased in popularity over recent years, a great many polyester racing sails are still produced, not least for those dinghy and small one-design keelboat classes whose rules still stipulate polyester (woven polyester in the majority of cases, but some classes also allow laminated polyester).
In its early days, polyester cloth was popularly known as Terylene, and in more recent years Dacron. Both of these are trade names, however (for products made by ICI and du Pont respectively – there have been others, too), but as the term Dacron is a genericised trademark that is often used inaccurately, we will stick to the word polyester.
Most sailmakers buy their cloth from four major suppliers: Contender, whose headquarters are in the Netherlands; Challenge in the USA; Bainbridge International in the UK; and Dimension Polyant in Germany. Between them they manufacture around 40 different woven polyester cloths, almost all in different weights, some in different colours, and finished in various resins.
Woven polyester sailcloth is constructed of ‘warp’ yarns running the length of the roll, and ‘fill’ (or ‘weft’) yarns running across the roll. Traditionally, the fill yarns run straight and there are
