At the Solo Racing Festival I met Andrea Fornaro, who is making the sails for Italian OSTAR entrant Luca Zoccoli so I decided to ask him to give me his view, as a sail maker, as to what should be the choice for high performace sails for a race like the OSTAR, in an ideal world, that is. You can read at the bottom Andrea's impressive sailing curriculum.
Andrea Fornaro:
The sails must be manageable yet performing ensuring maximum reliability in the conditions the sails are likely to face.
These requirements can be met by stable sails with excellent shape-holding properties maintaining power and profile speed allowing for simple and effective trim and/or sail reduction.
We believe the best choice is a primary carbon yarn structure, best suited to achieving these goals, coupled with a “hidden frame” of aramidic fibres to enhance reliability with the latter appropriately shielded from the two elements they are most sensitive to, UV light and dampness.
This secondary structure, when appropriately distributed, ensures the integrity and endurance of the sail exposed to the harshest sailing conditions.
The outer film that holds together these two structures is composed by a polyester film (mylard®) which can be strengthened with a light taffeta layer with high resistance to chafe; this can be limited to specific areas further reinforced on both sides by an internal backing made of multi axial aramidic fiber netting with rip-stop properties.
We are also testing new types of non-polyester films with greater flexibility and greater strength in comparison to mylard® without compromising on weight. Weight is a key point in our R&D as sails durability, like for many other yacht components, is also a function of the inertial stresses caused by the weight of the component itself; in addition to the obvious benefits of reducing any weight above the waterline
We bring together all the above considerations in our Millenium technology sails where each component of the sail can be designed and constructed to serve the intended purpose, with flexibility and adopting the solutions more suited for each application.
As to the life-expectancy that you can expect from such a sail, it’s a matter of defining durability as a variable of the project that you intend to undertake; this plays a defining role in the choice of the construction solutions in relation to spirit of the project, the boat and the sailing style of the skipper.
In our experience, the durability of the sails has exceeded our expectation and target, opening the opportunity to further personalisation thanks to a membrane which is light and technologically advanced.
For further information on high performance offshore sails you can contact Andrea Fornaro of One Sails
About the author:
Andrea Fornaro is no stranger to high performance in sailing.
At 16 he becomes team member of the National Vaurien Squad, at 17 he is Italian national champion Juniores.
At 25 he turns professional winning the J24 TAN circuit, first against 76 other boats.
From there Andrea went in 2003 to win the IMS Mediterranean series as tactician, the Adriatic championship as helmsman, and was 10th in the world’s j22 championship.
In 2004 he brings home more trophies, winning 1st overall in both the Italian and European J24 series as helmsman and obtains a respectable 12th place in the world series.
In 2006 he is 1st in the world’s IRC minimax as navigator and again 1st as trimmer in the Swan Cup.
In 2007 he is Italian IMS series class C overall winner as tactician, and 2nd in the European’s.
Now Andrea is training for the 2012 London Olympics as helm in the STAR class.
Unsurprisingly, his day job career has turned towards sailmaking.
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