I've just bought brand new North Sail E_Type 6.6 and it came along with 430 Silver series SDM mast and Silver series boom. Problem is that sails persists to have wrinkles in lower part no matter how it is rigged (see images). Having battens (3 lowest ones) really tight removes some of the wrinkles but not all.
To make things more complicated, this is already second sail. I returned first one exactly for the same reason and manufacturer sent new one admitting that sail was incorrectly sewn and/or cut in the factory. It was great surprise to find out this second one to have the same problem, slightly less severe as the first one, however.
I got response today from manufacturer saying that amount of wrinkles is within tolerance and they won't affect performance of the sail. Dealer is very co-operative and says that I can return the sail in case I feel so. As this is my first sail I'm not sure what do.
1) Is this normal "feature" of brand new sail that should be just accepted?
2) Will these kind of wrinkles affect the performance of the sail?
Thank you for any opions on the subject.
Firstly, good choice of sail.
When I first rigged mine I tightened the battens a lot. The sail will almost backwind as you put on the downhaul. After the first sail on it, it won't do this anymore.
Also, I found the E-type works best if you can constantly adjust the outhaul.
Fun, quick and light sail.
Good sails are designed to work on the water not on the beach. We don't sail on the beach. The sailmaker has to take into account the mast bending sideways when powered up, sea way etc. Here are some pictures of my 7.7. The wrinkles in the luff sleeve and the vertical wrinkles on the top three panels are gone when sailing. There is no point in having a pretty sail on the beach when it doesn't work on the water.
Those wrinkles look to be from not enough batton tension. If you tighten them up, most of all those wrinkles should disappear.
New sails stretch with rigging, sailing and tensioning.
You will probably find most of those wrinkles will come out after the sail has been used a few times.
Don't overdo the batten tension until you have used it a bit.
My wife has a few wrinkles when she's on the beach which seem to smooth out when she's on the water.
I don't care about the looks as long as it works And based on your input it shouldn't be a problem.
I've tried with different downhaul, outhaul and batten settings. The pictures were from taken from the setup with least wrinkles. Lowest 3 battens were as tight I could get them with provided tool. Based on your recommendations I will now loose them a bit before sailing.
Let's see if there is any differerence after sailing few times. If not, I'll try the ironing then
Bloody hell , whatever you do , DONT IRON !!!
Also don't max out using the tool , back it off a little, run the thing in first
Mostly my confusion came from the warranty return of the first (identical) sail. It had about the same amount of wrinkles and it was deemed to be faulty (by the manufacturer after they rigged it in the factory) and this second one not.
Well, I'm OK now with your opinions supporting. And no worries, I promise to keep my iron away from the sail
I think the wrinkles in the green panel at the tack are far from ideal. That area should be the smoothest part of any sail. Something not right there but it is nothing that would make any noticeable difference to the performance.
Ive heard if you put the whole sail in the oven you can shrink an old forma sail into a wave sail . The same way we used to shrink empty potato chip packets .