Partial Taffeta – Cruising Genoa
The leech of overlapping genoas gets beat up every time the boats tacks as that part of the sail gets dragged across the shrouds and the front of the mast. The faster the sheet is trimmed or the higher the windspeed, the greater the friction of the sail against the mast and rigging. To protect the sail, UK Sailmakers can adhere a thin layer of woven polyester taffeta onto one or both sides of the sail’s leech. On X-Drive sails, the taffeta can be put over the tapes to protect the sail from protruding items such as whisker poles, radar domes, deck lights, baby stays, radar reflectors and or loud hailers.
Shown above is an example of taffeta (which comes in white, black and grey) applied to back leech of the main as well as the overlapping part of the genoa and the foot of the genoa.
The white areas in the drawings show where taffeta can be applied on an overlapping genoa.
Two carbon X-Drive genoas with a partial taffeta layer over part of the sail that overlaps the mast. This prevents the mylar over the tapes from being abraded as the sail comes in contact with the mast and shrouds during tacks.
