Sail cleaning & maintenance
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Posted: Jun 10, 2013 - 04:04 PM
Purchased an '82 Hobie 16. The sails are in ok shape but need to be cleaned up. These are the original sails. Don't have a clue what type of sail cloth was used for these sails. Question is: What is the best way to clean them and maintain them in the future? Any help will be appreciated. -
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Posted: Jun 10, 2013 - 04:59 PM
They are Dacron.
Use this and dilute to 10:1- if not more.
http://www.amazon.com/303…3+fabric%2Fvinyl+cleaner
Some sail lofts will rejuvinate sails for a fee, but yours are three decades old so I suggest you buy the soap and take a hard look at them before you shell out the $$$ for anything else.
Edited by klozhald on Jun 10, 2013 - 05:09 PM.
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Sheet In!
Bob
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Prindle 18-2 #244 "Wakizashi"
Prindle 16 #3690 "Pegasus" Sold (sigh)
AZ Multihull Fleet 42 member
(Way) Past Commodore of Prindle Fleet 14
Arizona, USA
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Posted: Jun 10, 2013 - 05:56 PM
catman42,
Welcome to TheBeachcats.com!
Bob's link is good stuff, just depends on what your are trying to clean off. Stains from rust or mold can be tough to remove, regular dirt/grime can be washed using any cleanser that is safe for fabric. I've used OxiClean with decent results.
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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN
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Posted: Jun 10, 2013 - 06:54 PM
Oxyclean is great stuff, with one caveat. It is a chemically engineered product that works wonders on stains of an organic nature, ie blood, grass, oily residue from fingers or chicken wings. IF the stain is of an inorganic nature, like rust, or mineral oil, it is not much better than plain soap.
A tub of Oxyclean is not much money, get access to a bathtub & go for it, it may work wonders, or not, but your only out a few $ & some time.
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Posted: Jun 10, 2013 - 07:48 PM
Bucket and buckets and buckets of acetone should do the trick!
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John Schwartz
Ventura, CA
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Posted: Jun 10, 2013 - 07:52 PM
LOL John I don't think many are still around who get the "buckets of acetone" joke, probably just as well.
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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
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Posted: Jun 10, 2013 - 08:24 PM
Didn't someone in that thread come up with the wacky idea of using ping pong balls for flotation??
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Philip
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Posted: Jun 11, 2013 - 05:11 PM
~~ I've taken mine to ''Colonial laundromat''..... use the 75# machine, yank out the battens (cause they won't fit through the door). Laundry soap, Oxiclean, a little bit of bleach.... ROCK-N-ROLL They came out pretty good. Do it 2 times if ya have to.. 
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Posted: Jun 12, 2013 - 07:40 AM
Dang Philip...
This is like listening the the Classic Rock radio stations and they play a few oldies from the vault..
Do you know if Harper ever got his gloves
?
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John Schwartz
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Posted: Jun 12, 2013 - 10:27 AM
I have a feeling you aren't kidding... Thanks for the tip on the battens, I would have just bent them until they fit.
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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
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Posted: Jun 12, 2013 - 12:30 PM
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Posted: Jun 12, 2013 - 07:28 PM
That was a practical application of simple ancient physics, Archimedes principle. My first thought was, why he didn't use a far simpler method of calculating the buoyancy of a ping pong ball?
Archimedes states that buoyancy is equal to the amount of displacement. All he needed to do was put some water in a narrow graduated cylinder, available for $2, or borrowed from any high school. Take note of the water level, & use an eyedropper to fill it to exactly one of the markings,say 100.
Now push a ping pong ball down with a needle, you want to use something very fine so as not to add the displacement the stick, needle etc creates.
With the PP ball underwater, read the level of the water surface against the wall of the graduated cylinder, say 135.
This tells you that it displaced 35 milliliters of water. We know from the very simple metric (SI)system, that 1ml is 1cc (cubic centimeter), & that 1cc weighs 1 gram. Since it displaced 35cc of water, it's buoyancy would be 35 grams. For our American friends, there are 454 grams to a pound, so 454/35=13... therefore 13 PP balls will just float a 1 lb object.
Even quicker would be using a micrometer to measure the diameter of the ball, & apply that to the volumn of a sphere formulae, sheeeesssshhh, no wonder our kids are getting dumber!
A similar system was used during WWII to recover some aircraft that ditched in a river in China. They got a bunch of Chinese kids to free dive & stuff pieces of bamboo into the fuselage. They raised the plane in a matter of hours.
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Mystere 6.0XL Sold Was a handful solo
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Bombardier Invitation (Now officially DEAD)
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Posted: Jun 12, 2013 - 07:50 PM
while you got the idea you missed one important point and that is that buoyancy is a force and the formula for it is
F=(rho)(g)(V)
where rho is the density, g is the force of gravity and V is the volume.
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Posted: Jun 12, 2013 - 08:28 PM
It's not truly "wacky", just less practical than say stuffing a few blocks of closed cell foam through a hatch opening.
Using the above physics, & my 19' Cat weighing in at appx 375lb results in 375 x 13 = 4875. (Since 13 PP balls will float 1 lb). Less than 5K of PP balls, (2500 per hull) will keep my 5.7 at the surface.
As I said, it's probably cheaper,(unless you live next door to MythBusters & can score a deal on a bunch of PP balls) to just slide strips of blue styrofoam SM through the hatches.
Incidentally, if anyone wanted to add this safety factor to a boat, calculate buoyancy by Length x Width x Height of the biggest piece you can get into your hatch. It comes in 2 feet x 8 foot boards. If you used a 3" thick one(1/4 ft), that displaces 4 cubic feet of water, or almost 250lb. It doesn't matter how many pieces you have to cut it into to make it fit, but 2 of those 3" boards will keep your Cat at the surface were you to split BOTH hulls. Now you know why those pieces of "flotation" you see in some hulls are so small.
The statute of limitations has expired, so I can tell the following story.
Way back when I flew aircraft on floats in the far North, one of our guys tore the bottom out of a Twin Otter float, landing on the river in the middle of Nahanni National Park. http://www.google.fr/sear…0CC8QsAQ&biw=939&bih=577
Now, you were only permitted to land just above the raging Virginia Falls,(twice the height of Niagara,or Rabbit Kettle Hot Springs. The whitewater kayaks didn't want to portage their gear a mile through trail less grizzly bear infested terrain, so Al though he would do them a favour.
He had the foresight to drive it hard against the heavily timbered shore before it sank. Being a National Park along the lines of Yellowstone, & a UNESCO World Heritage Site meant deep doodoo for any "environmental impact".
The engineers quietly flew another plane in, got out the gas axe, felled some shoreline timber, (I still laugh when I think of a comment Damon once made, "an electric chain saw makes far less noise than a gas one, just sayin." We didn't care about noise, we wanted it done quick!), & winched the plane partially up on shore. They removed the caps from the punctured compartments & laid some plywood along the bottom to cover the sharp edges. Next was to fire up a small generator,plug in a compressor, stuff inner tubes into the float compartments, & blow them up to about 2 psi. I can say that they conformed quite well to the inside of the float. All that was left was to screw the hatch covers back down & didi mow.
The tubes weren't perfect, but they didn't need to be, we only needed to displace some of the water, the rest exits from the tears after liftoff. Nothing like watching a plane leave, trailing a stream of what looks like heavy smoke.
Edited by Edchris177 on Jun 12, 2013 - 08:54 PM.
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Hobie 18 Magnum
Dart 15
Mystere 6.0XL Sold Was a handful solo
Nacra 5.7
Nacra 5.0
Bombardier Invitation (Now officially DEAD)
Various other Dock cluttering WaterCrap
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Posted: Jun 12, 2013 - 08:48 PM
Quite correct, however since we are talking BeachCats, I simplified it to use only the density of fresh water, the salt water sailors would, as you point out, experience a greater force. And we know that were the lakes composed of mercury, we could walk on it, sinking only to our ankles.
It is also the reason blocks of concrete make suck poor anchors, they just are not dense enough
Edited by Edchris177 on Jun 12, 2013 - 09:01 PM.
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Hobie 18 Magnum
Dart 15
Mystere 6.0XL Sold Was a handful solo
Nacra 5.7
Nacra 5.0
Bombardier Invitation (Now officially DEAD)
Various other Dock cluttering WaterCrap
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Posted: Jun 13, 2013 - 09:40 AM
grtting back to cleaning sails. Someone told me that a sail in good condition should have some 'crispness". In cleaning is there any chance of removinging the crisp? -
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Posted: Jun 13, 2013 - 11:53 AM
Heat and folding are a sails worst enemies.
Let your Oxyclean cool to room temp if you mixed it with anything that made it get warm.
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Sheet In!
Bob
_/)_____/)_/)____/)____/)_____/)/)__________/)__
Prindle 18-2 #244 "Wakizashi"
Prindle 16 #3690 "Pegasus" Sold (sigh)
AZ Multihull Fleet 42 member
(Way) Past Commodore of Prindle Fleet 14
Arizona, USA
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Posted: Jun 13, 2013 - 03:03 PM
Yes, and no.. as it will depend on the fabric and the sizing... Sunlight can do more damage that anything else on the synthetics used these days.
When it comes to cleaning sails there is no real shortcut... Some good ole-fashion Dawn detergent, soft bristled scrub brush, a hose, and some elbow grease... You would be surprised how fast you can clean a sail the size of a Prindle 18 mainsail... Besides you need to get those arms in shape for sailing season.... right!!!
If you have some deep stains you may want to pretreat them with Shout or any other pre-wash stain remover that can be used on polyester. I can't speak to oxy-clean as I have never used it, but I would take the advice of those that have..
Edited by JohnES on Jun 13, 2013 - 03:05 PM.
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John Schwartz
Ventura, CA
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