Taking shape

Things dried up in my neighborhood enough for me to roll out the full sail today.  Wow!  It's big!  Generally, I'm very pleased at the amount of shape I can discern from just laying out in my driveway.  How she sets when bent on spars in a fresh breeze or under "brutal downhaul" (that's an official Storer term) remains to be seen.

 This view is from atop a ladder that is set down hill of the sail.  More important are the wrinkles.  This shows that the cloth is not flat and will develop some shape when filled with wind.

 I rotated the sail and shot this pic from a window of my house.  Neither photo captures how tall this sail is.  It's over 5 meters or 17.5 feet tall.

These two pics are from opposite ends of the luff.  I pulled a chalk line out to compare the edge curve to a straight line.  This is the luff which is meant to be straight.  At over 2 meters or 6+ feet long, the amount of deviance is slight.  When it comes time to stitch on the edge tape, I will pull this edge taught.  What ever excess shape there is will be pushed into the body of the sail, creating more draft.

 This is what I was most interested in.  This is the head of the sail, looking from the throat to the peak.  This amount of rounding is what will match up with the yard's shape as it bends under tension.  During light to moderate winds, there will be less tension on the yard and this amount of excess cloth will be free to fill with wind and create a nice foil shape.  Under stronger winds, the downhaul will be tightened, the yard will flex, and the sail will flatten to about what is seen here.  Or so the theory goes.


Next up: corner reinforcements.