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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