Perusing a topic posted in 2011 on tips for purchasing and maintaining a sailing boat, one respondent advised purchasing sails from overseas to "save a small fortune". That correspondent went on to recommend one such supplier giving the name "FES". Search as I might, I cannot find any web-site associated with sailmaking of that name.
Can anyone throw light on the 'FES' reference, and/or suggest other overseas sailmakers enabling one to 'save a bundle'.
Thank you. Nautique.
I would suggest going back to page 6 and find the thread, ***east sails ?
As then I would suggest contacting Tony Bull in Geelong Sails in Geelong who is Galatea on this forum who provided some interesting info on where most of our sails actually come from. Check outhttp://www.leesails.ca/images/Sailsfromchina2.pdf
I have a furling heads sail from this loft in cruising laminate and its very good.
FES make absolutely outstanding cruising sails. I paid $1300 for a main on my S&S34. It is a superb sail for that money. My sister got a main and heady for her Valiant 40. Again excellent sails for a serious cruising yacht and excellent value for money. If you are racing and need to be really
competitive get a local sailmaker to make and fit sails to your boat but for cruising sails go to FES.
The FES ordering process makes it very difficult to get measurements wrong. You do really have to be quite incompetent to cock it up, they insist on a thorough measurement process.
I can't recommend them enough.
I don't know whether this would be possible but I don't believe it will guarantee a good fit. The sail that fits just right could already have stretched so the true measurement for a new sail that is yet to stretch would be smaller. As I'm sure Cisco knows but others mightn't, sails stretch over time, more so in the first periods of use.
The measurement forms FES provide have all the instructions, drawings, photos that you need to measure your boat. For the cost of a long tape measure and an hour or two anybody can get the right measurements.
The critical measurements for my main were the position of the tack cringle from the mast and boom, all explained with drawings by FES, and the luff and foot length.
These are the areas where people cock it up and, in effect, disobey what FES tell you to do. With the luff and foot length people try to make the sail the absolute maximum that will fit the boat and by doing so they take up all the sail stretch room. If you do the sums, taking 20cm off your luff length makes very little difference to the sail area but it provides room for stretch on the sail to continue to get the required tension.
If your boat doesn't have marks on the spars marking the correct positions of the head and clew of the sail you need to allow for this. My head mark on the mast would be about 25cm from the sheaves and the clew mark about 15cm from the outhaul sheaves.
Allow plenty of room, from memory I took an additional 10cm off each measurement from the lines marked on my spars.
You can specify the sail cloth FES use. I specified Contender dacron of the FES suggested weight. I did think of going up one weight but I'm glad I didn't as new sails are very stiff and the extra weight would have been an overkill and made the sail difficult to use.
Local yacht, Swanson 32 has a new Hong Kong mainsail, not Far East Sails. Cross cut in Dacron for $900. With all the trimmings too. Looks ok from what I have seen of it so far.
Whether they fit perfectly or not, I think is not going to be the deciding argument, rather it's going to be decided by what people can afford.
Most cruising type sailors would I believe accept some shortcomings in their sail if it gave them beer or rum money in the pocket.
I am not knocking Asian made sails as it doesn't matter where the sail is made, rather how well it is made.
The workmanship with Chinese sails is exceptionable. Computer designed and cut.
Have a look at a few photos of Sydney Hobart yachts from 10 years ago or less, some of the sails from the leading lofts were appalling.
Taskers in Thialand is worth a look as well, made my sails great price and run by australians, so no communication issues
I have a Taskers furling heady. It is a good sail and having the Oz agent measure up was very useful.
Price, about $2200, was $1000 more than I could have done with FES if I had known of them at the time.
FYI- a S&S 34 main (luff 10.67 Foot 3.35) in 8oz cruising dacron would be $1415 delivered to your door or $1273 with the 10% pre-payment discount. Price includes 2 reefs, battens (1 full, 3 partial) Luff slides, loose foot and GST.
Photo of Moody 33 sail we diid in same cloth and construction.
Australian designed and serviced, assembled in China from 1st grade cloth
There are two types of Asian imported sails....
The type that are available to the public where they think they have... but really have no control over the design and specification of the sail.
And the type that only sailmakers have access to where they have total control over the design, specification and finish of the sail that suits their customers requirements. They will know this by the way of repairing and recutting your old sails and making your covers and accessories and talking to you about your beloved boat.
Just because you specify a contender or other suppliers fabric does not mean they will use the most appropriate fabric. For example contender have at least 5 x 8oz fabrics in their range. Over the past few years in Australia I have seen a massive increase in yacht sails that have only lasted half as long as they should due to the fact the wrong fabric has been used... The customer would be totally unaware of this..
There are two types of Asian imported sails....
The type that are available to the public where they think they have... but really have no control over the design and specification of the sail.
And the type that only sailmakers have access to where they have total control over the design, specification and finish of the sail that suits their customers requirements. They will know this by the way of repairing and recutting your old sails and making your covers and accessories and talking to you about your beloved boat.
Just because you specify a contender or other suppliers fabric does not mean they will use the most appropriate fabric. For example contender have at least 5 x 8oz fabrics in their range. Over the past few years in Australia I have seen a massive increase in yacht sails that have only lasted half as long as they should due to the fact the wrong fabric has been used... The customer would be totally unaware of this..
There are two types of Asian imported sails....
The type that are available to the public where they think they have... but really have no control over the design and specification of the sail.
And the type that only sailmakers have access to where they have total control over the design, specification and finish of the sail that suits their customers requirements. They will know this by the way of repairing and recutting your old sails and making your covers and accessories and talking to you about your beloved boat.
Just because you specify a contender or other suppliers fabric does not mean they will use the most appropriate fabric. For example contender have at least 5 x 8oz fabrics in their range. Over the past few years in Australia I have seen a massive increase in yacht sails that have only lasted half as long as they should due to the fact the wrong fabric has been used... The customer would be totally unaware of this..
