What is the heart of a sailing boat?

For us the sails!

We thought for a long time about which sails we should take. The market offers a lot of good sellers and many more different materials. It’s easy to get lost in all these informations.

Hydra Net, Hydra Radial, Cruising Laminat, Racing Laminat and so on. This is just a small glimpse of the diversity of the canvas. To get a little more experience we thought we go to a “THE” cloth manufacturer, Dimension-Polyant.

The Vice President of the company and marketing responsible, Robert Kühnen, took his time and introduced us to the matter of the canvas. The project sailing4handicaps played of course a major role because the needs of the crew will be partly something outside the normal sailing routes. For our project we need a very stable cloth with good sailing characteristics.

Our choice has in the end been a  radially Hydra Net. This cloth is comparable to a laminate cloth but very durable.

Now we got the cloth, but what’s next?

The next step has been to find a very good sailmaker.

For us it was important that the sailmaker wouldn’t have just take the measure and  would have then produce the sails somewhere in the East because we also wanted to follow the production process.

For us it was also important that the sailmaker would have already equipped one or two long cruising  sailing boats himself.

Also in this situation Robert Kühnen of Dimension-Polyant helped us. He put us in contact with the Seglerwerkstatt Stade.

There we were welcome from Jens Nickel and his team.

Our expectations were more than exceeded! He himself is a sailor and has already equipped with a set of sails a lot of  long cruisers.

First, he wanted to that a close look to our project and our sailing areas.

Our experience and sailing style was aswell an important topic.

After all the questions have been answered, the measurements were made. Another main actor of the Seglerwerkstatt Stade jumped in in this job, Simon Klaas.

Simon Klaas is himself currently active in the sailing Bundesliga and has worked intensively with our new sails.

It was also to Klaas that the sails will be exposed to the harshest conditions and will thus be extremely stressed. The highlight was without any doubt the striking of the new sail. Shortly after that we had our first training with  the new sails with wind blowing up to 34 knots. The sails have been amazing (of course reefed)!!!

Thus, we are not done yet with the Seglerwerkstat Stade! The guys offered to come on board to trim the sail with optimal adjust.

In the last weeks we have learn a lot about sailcloths and sailing! Thank to Dimension-Polaynt and the  Seglerwerkstatt Stade for their great support!

For Klaas it is never too late… If he tackles something then he pulls it through too.

The last corections have been made.

We checked the new reffs position on the sails.

This results in a lot of questions. But luckly Klass has always an appropriate answer. We got an impression of what kind of work is done in a sailing manufactury.

D-day has come. Have the measures done good? Will everything fit? The tension was great!

The poles in the sail will later give it stability.

At first we lift the jib.

Pictures of the main sail will follow