"Sailcut" Sailmaking Software URL: Gaff, Balanced Lugs

[dadadata]

Robert Laine sends me this:

note that Sailcut 4, 6 and 8 are freeware/demoware programs which run using Windows' Visual Basic. I run it on an iMac using VirtualPC and it's fine.

<<
For professional sailmakers, Sailcut2000 with twist foot cut and the much demanded Vertical cut for old timers is now available at http://www.stentec.com/software/sailcut2000_i.html


For amateurs, Sailcut4, 6, 8 shareware site is now http://home.wanadoo.nl/robert.laine/
>>

Sailcut 4 is mainly for "traditional" four-sided sails. You can adjust various parameters and you will get panel shapes as output.

Sailcut 6 is for spinnakers.

Sailcut 8 is for Chinese battened lugsails or similar battened sails, for example, Batwing style canoe sails.

The main advantage to the home sailmaker is that you can add draft at the place you want, in the amount you want.

It is much simpler than the other two since there are some simplifying assumptions about number of panels, etc. With a little perseverance you can replicate just about anyone's battened sail or junk-sail shape, though.

... if you'd like a try a slightly more hands-on approach to building a junk sail, see my Cheap Pages for the technique used by Vincent Reddish in the UK. (He used blue tarp).
http://www.friend.ly.net/~dadadata

[Ian McColgin]

All of which is a long way from watching my sailmaker guru showing me how to lay out my jib and foresail.

The luff of the jib got a compound curve to it.

To figure the gather, we laid out the panels under a string triangle, marked the measured center of draft for each seam, and then faired by esentially casting a lank line. He took over a half hour just staring at the line and tweeking it here and there, squating, squinting and wrecking his knees.

Very earthy. But I drew the line at hand stitching the boltrope . . .

[dadadata]

Well, I hate to admit it, but I make sails from blue tarp, cut flat, tape and grommets and occasionally a little tarred marline. I havea couple photo sequences showing how I laid out larger sails using the Reddish/Colvin method -- spike the stuff to the lawn, basically.

These would be 20-40sf for a sailing canoe. Work just fine for something that can go three knots <chuckle> and it's fun to experiment.

Sailcut 8 however I had some input on when Robert wrote it. I noticed that photos and old paintings of Chinese sails show a lot of "belly" between flat battens, and asked if it would be possible to have something that generates a more controllable panel shape than simply "cotton duck, let it stretch".

So this is a "belly between battens" approach.

[BrianCunningham]

Actually I think they look kinda neat ...
( from you pages )

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Yep. Real polytarp sails on a real sailboat.

They got him from Massachusetts to Florida. He couldn't afford anything else.

So why can't you rig your little craft with something made from tarp? Oddly enough, many older and traditional rigs are either insensitive to sail cut, or just plain flat-cut. The batwing, dipping lug and the crabclaw are examples of the latter. Bermudian sails are probably the toughest to whip up from tarp.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Nhoj]

Here are my poly tarp sails. 60 sq ft total. They work great and I can sail off the wind 30 degrees.

John

[outofthenorm]

Dadadata, the first link is good, but the second didn't go where it was supposed to. Got another?

[Nhoj]

Here is the second picture. It just gives a better profile of the bat wing sail. The sail is 11 feet high and 4 feet 4 inches wide at the foot. I have drawings I made of the sails and breakdown stackable mast if anyone is interested.

John

[DerekW]

Dadadata, the first link is good, but the second didn't go where it was supposed to. Got another?

Not that I'm Craig, but anyway...

You might try the Sailcut Wiki