Experience with Challenge Fastnet sail cloth

[hugy]

Hi there,

We are looking for a new mainsail for our Jeanneau Sun legende 41 from 1986. We will be using the boat for blue water cruising around the med and tropics in the coming years.
I got a good quote from a local sailmaker for a tripple reefed, fully battened main. He was using the Challenge Fastnet 9.88 cloth. According to challenge this is the cloth of choice for High UV cruising. But I can't find much info about it. It does seem to be one of the cheaper options though.

I read that the recent Challenge marblehead cloth hasn't been that good with UV handling.

We will mainly be sailing down wind and costs are offcourse of consideration. Does it pay to go up to another sail cloth and which would you recommend.

[Kestrahl]

Originally Posted by hugy

Hi there,

We are looking for a new mainsail for our Jeanneau Sun legende 41 from 1986. We will be using the boat for blue water cruising around the med and tropics in the coming years.
I got a good quote from a local sailmaker for a tripple reefed, fully battened main. He was using the Challenge Fastnet 9.88 cloth. According to challenge this is the cloth of choice for High UV cruising. But I can't find much info about it. It does seem to be one of the cheaper options though.

I read that the recent Challenge marblehead cloth hasn't been that good with UV handling.

We will mainly be sailing down wind and costs are offcourse of consideration. Does it pay to go up to another sail cloth and which would you recommend.

Marketing and reality can be two different things. I tested this cloth for UV and while the big warp yarns do protect the weft yarns from UV, the problem was the big warp yarns were very susceptible to UV so they failed quickly and it tore vertically. The issue may have been fixed as I'm sure they knew about it due to many complaints about sails not lasting in the tropics.
I have some new samples for testing but not completed yet.
For an equivalent low tenacity cheap dacron Contender Supercruise tested much better on the UV and is made in the US.

[hugy]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge Kestrahl. Seems like it would be a good option to request a quote in a different cloth then.

In your opinion what would be the top 3 dacron crosscut cloths for blue water cruising?