Laminated or Polyester Yacht Sails? What’s the difference?

Since the 1950s, synthetic fibres have replaced natural fibres in the production of yacht sails. Until recently sails were made almost exclusively of woven polyester often known under the Dupont trade name Dacron. Polyester sails are relatively cheap and durable and most sails are still made of polyester cloth.

Driven by demand from racing yachts we’ve now seen the development of laminated sails. Laminated sailcloth is a loose weave of yarns known as scrim which is sandwiched between layers of polyester film, most commonly Mylar. This produces a very low stretch sail cloth. The scrim can be made of Pentex, which is a low stretch polyester or various exotic fibres like kevlar or carbon fibre.

The advantages of laminated sails are that they are very stable and don’t stretch, enhancing sailing performance, and they are usually lighter for a given strength. On the down side they are more expensive, UV resistance is low and they are more prone to tearing, though they may have a polyester taffeta exterior layer to combat these problems. Generally speaking they will only last half the life of woven polyester sails given the same amount of use, however the sail shape remains constant throughout the life of the sail.

Woven polyester sails are cheaper, durable and easy to repair. On the downside, they are stretchy and start losing their shape almost immediately making it difficult to get a good sail shape.

Whats best for you?

Mainly it comes down to cost and performance. Racing boats will opt for the best laminated sails they can afford. For some high performance cruising yachts it’s going to make sense to have laminated sails. For the rest of the cruising fleet it comes down to how important you rate sailing performance against what you can afford. For most of us standard woven polyester sails will make the best option.

There are quite a few variations and crossovers of the different sail making technologies and new developments are constantly being made even in the production of polyester sail cloth. So it makes sense to talk to a couple of sailmakers and and see what they suggest given your envisaged usage and budget.