My main sail is a Naish. It is less than a year old. From the Naish User's Guide (verbatim, I will quote it) :-

Care and Maintenance of Your Sail

Always store your sail rolled and dry in the sail bag.
Rinsing your rig with fresh water before storage will prolong the life of the sail.

This is unambiguous. This is the procedure I've followed for years.


To complement the Naish, I have purchased a new Ezzy. From a "common questions" brochure included with the sail (again, quoted verbatim)

Do I need to rinse my sail with fresh water after sailing?
No

Do I need to dry my sail before rolling it up?
No

Can (Ezzy and Naish) both be correct? Is the Ezzy position supported by anyone else - NP, Gaastra, North etc? Is the Ezzy material different to other sails? Does the Ezzy come with magic ingredient xyzzy, thus preventing sailrot?

Has anyone tried the "not drying before storing" technique? If so, did it make any difference to the life of your sail?


Sorry to raise this as a fresh topic, but I was unable to post to the past thread.

Fresh water promotes mildew, which rots your sail.

Salt water makes salt crystals, that scratch the film.

Ideally you would rinse in fresh water straight after sailing, dry your sail, then roll it up.

However if you roll your sail up at the beach then unrolling it to wash/dry it would probably do more damage than just leaving it to dry rolled up, with all those little salt crystals in there.
Also leaving your sail to dry in the sun would again do more damage (UV) than the salt crystals would do.

Sails have a lifespan, life's too short to be anal about it, I roll my sails up after sailing and let other people worry about 'proper' maintenance.

I'm with you nebbs,
I think the major damage is UV so when everyone else is rinsing their sails a drying them in the sun I roll em up thinking salt will stop the rot and they will dry anyway.
Washing and drying may make the film stay clearer but I'm not sure about making them last longer.
I too have naish and ezzy so I like to work on the ezzy theory.

Yep, agree with Nebs, just keep them out of the sun while not actually sailing them.
If I'm at home, (wave sailing) I wash off with fresh water, leave in shade for a while then undo boom clamp, let off the downhaul and hang them in the shed, (you can see 2 of them in the shed thread). If speed sailing and there's shade around, I leave them till last to derig, and put in their bags, (helps keep saltwater out of the car) If there's no shade, they go straight in the bags, which get left upright to drain a bit before going in the car.
My speed sails aren't very old so can't comment on how this treatment affects life span, but some of my smaller wave sails are 10 years old without a problem. The bigger ones of the same age died from UV exposure, mono film just fell apart.

I really don't think it matters. I sail in salt water. I dont rig on sand. I dont rinse or dry my sails. Have done for years and they show no ill effects.

I understand that salt is not hard enough to scratch sails. The scratches are caused by sand.

UV is the killer.

I don't know about mildew because it doesn't happen with salt water.

I dry my sails with a towel after sailing. Only wash them in fresh water when I can hang them up to dry well in a shady spot (about 3 times a year). Sails look in very good condition.

The other problem with sails rolled up wet with salt water is that the salt water ends up in your car (if you transport them inside). The little bit of sail water that drips out of my boom has corroded the seat rails and the tailgate stryker, so not good for cars..

Select to expand quote

nebbian said...

Fresh water promotes mildew, which rots your sail.

Salt water makes salt crystals, that scratch the film.

Thanks, Nebbian. This is helpful; makes it crystal-clear.

Now I understand the Ezzy answers, which are simplistic. They are Maui-centric. People do indeed sail on fresh water; Lake Garda, the Gorge, Chiemsee, The Great Lakes come to mind.

90% of my sailing is on very fresh water. If I were to blithely follow the Ezzy advice, I would be doing my sails no favours 90% of the time.