As long as we're talking about interesting sails, how about interesting sail materials, not to mention cheap: Tyvek, the 10' wide super-strong stuff they wrap new houses in. http://www.boat-links.com/Tyvek/ has info on how to do it, and you can often get it free. He uses it for his sails and talks about a 40-footer with 300+ sq. ft. sails of Tyvek. I also referred a friend's brother to this and he has made sails for a homemade dinghy, which might be considered the world's cheapest boat. Don't know how they're working out yet. At the least, it may be good for dinghies, practicing sailcutting or as a quick replacement. And if it blows out, you're only out a couple of bucks. Start saving those FedEx envelopes. Of course, you'd wanna change your boat's name to "Tyvek" to match the sails, but DuPont might pay you for it. ;) Interesting idea, anyway. Doug King At , you wrote:
Hi, Doug
Quite a while back someone on the Oar Club bulletin board described some light-air sails he made: he took a used spinnaker and folded it down the center and sewed a low-stretch line into the "crease". Then he can fly it on a broad reach as a jib with the two clews doubled together and the line forming the head and tack or on a run with the sail opened up like twin jibs.
If I recall correctly, he did have to do a little finagling to get the line to fit so the sail actually hung nicely.
With a little hunting, used spinnakers can be had for pretty cheaply.
Tod
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