North Sails have recently teamed up with Beneteau in the USA to work together and promote shorthanded sailing writes Nigel Young.
Our own company president Ken Read has been leading from the front and getting stuck into this existing segment of sailing.
Here in Ireland, the short-handed sailing is growing in popularity and we have been involved in quite a few projects in recent months.
The sail requirements for these boats are quite different to "round the cans" inshore racing sails and generally they have to cover a much wider wind range than an inshore sail.
This is an area where the 3Di sails really score over the opposition. For their strength, 3Di is lighter than anything else on the market so you can still have a sail that's happy to fly in its designed shape in 12 knots TWS and choppy water but it is also strong enough to be reefed and used right up the range.
Reefs in Headsails are not uncommon and all sorts of other little tricks to make it easy to handle the sails when you can hardly keep your eyes open!
3Di copes better with rough handling and of course as you all know there is no plastic film to crack in 3Di sails which keeps them out of the service loft.
In fact, we have seen a major reduction in service work on the 3Di sails, some clients have 4-5-year-old sails that have never even seen the service loft!
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