Laminated sailcloth – HOW stretchy and strong IT IS?

At the end of the 20th century laminated sailcloth, made from layers of thin polymer films and tough fibres, has revolutionised yacht racing. Sails made from these laminates were stronger and faster than conventional, densely woven sails. It is partly due to the smoother surface of the new sails, which results in lower aerodynamic resistance and better airflow, as well as to the fact that such sails are lighter and because of that faster than woven sails. Still, to achieve maximum sail performance and win a race, stability of the initially designed aerodynamic sail shape is also required. In order to investigate how stable new sails can be under different wind conditions, we performed numerous tensile tests on different modern, laminated sailcloth. The paper presented here describes how stretchy and strong new sails really are.