[Alberg30] Sail Cleaning

[John Birch]

Hi Christos,

Depending on how much of the sail is soiled you can spot clean it or stretch
it out on a clean lawn and hand wash and rinse the whole thing - it is time
consuming but your sail will keep it's structural integrity. The other thing
is to make sure it is dry when you put it away. Don't hang it in a breeze to
flap about as some people do as it again breaks down the resins.

We are on the Great Lakes so rinsing salt off is not an issue.

Very soft brush or cloth only.

Try to walk on it as little as possible - it's really quite straight
forward.

You can talk to good sailmakers about more aggressive cleaners if you have
to have them absolutely clean but avoid those commercial cleaning companies
like the plague. I saw a beautiful suit of A-37 sails (Murphy Nye's) ruined
by a commercial cleaner and was with the sailmaker when he unbagged them and
the first words out of his mouth were - "oh no, they've had them cleaned."
He then showed me what it had done to the cloth.

I have only spot cleaned my sails when something was really yucky like bird
poop or limited area of dirt. They don't stay absolutely white forever - but
a little discoloration is normal. I do rinse them from time to time to get
any airborne grit off so it doesn't work it's way in, but the resins do a
good job on their own of keeping grit out, and an occasional rinse is mostly
all I do.

Best of luck

Cheers,

John


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christos Katehis" <GreekSailor at worldnet.att.net>
To: "Alberg 30 public list" <public-list at alberg30.org>
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 7:09 AM
Subject: Re: [Alberg30] Sail Cleaning


> John,
>
> Have you washed your sails? Other than lots off space to hang and wash,
what
> else is important?
>
> Thanks
>
> Chris
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Birch" <Sunstone at cogeco.ca>
> To: "Alberg 30 public list" <public-list at alberg30.org>
> Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 1:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [Alberg30] Sail Cleaning
>
>
> > As a rule of thumb - never clean your sails with anything stronger than
> > detergent and a very soft brush or cloth - and do the work by hand.
> > Commercial washers put them in machines which breaks down the resins and
> > ruins them. The cloth becomes much more "stretchy" as the resins that
help
> > bind the threads & fibres and are broken down in the commercial cleaning
> > process. I've seen this damage first hand - sail looks great but you can
> > stretch the cloth by hand off the bias - something you can't do with
cloth
> > in good shape.
> >
> > I have no specific knowledge of the company you are referring to.
> >
> > My source is my sailmaker and every sailmaker I've talked to and books
> I've
> > read.
> >
> > Thx.
> >
> > John
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Christos Katehis" <GreekSailor at worldnet.att.net>
> > To: "Alberg 30 public list" <public-list at alberg30.org>
> > Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 12:42 PM
> > Subject: [Alberg30] Sail Cleaning
> >
> >
> > Has anyone used  "The sail Cleaners" in Ft. Lauderdale, FL ?
> >
> > Christos Katehis
> > Kasia #383
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