Warp-Drive Cruise Range - Challenge Sailcloth

Just received news from Challenge sailcloth about new Warp-Drive Cruise fabrics. Here is their announcement:

We are happy to announce our new line of Warp-Drive Cruise fabrics.

Warp-Drive Cruise styles in 7.11, 9.11, 11.11, and 13.11 will join our very successful Warp-Drive Race styles in 4.11, 5.11, 6.11, 8.11, and 12.11.

The cruise styles have the same fibers in the load-bearing warp direction and now have double the fill yarn size. The fill yarns are on the surface, and the large fibers now offer double protection against UV, tearing, breaking and abrasion.

saildesigner.net - one more sailmaker comunnity website

saildesigner.net is new sailmaker community effort. It has started few weeks before METS 2014. I have heard about it from BSG Developments.

There is forum for colaboration. Here is what they say about it:

The SailDesigner Forum is a global meeting place for sailmakers and suppliers from around the world to discuss software, hardware, materials & machinery etc.

 Currently there are around 30 members which are not very active but I hope this will change.

There is also something like webshop implemented.

The SailDesigner Shop is a truly international sailmaker's trading warehouse. Users can browse, buy AND SELL sail designs, cut files, services, surplus stock, & materials etc.

And news publishing area

The SailDesigner News portal aims to provide the latest industry news from suppliers, manufacturers and innovators from around the world, all in a single community space

All in all nice effort and I hope it will stimulate sailmakers collaboration.

H-Bite Technology - new website and HMATT fiml/taffeta range

H-Bite string sail lamination company from Italy have lunched new website few weeks ago.

Also on METS 2015 they have introduced new HMATT films and taffetas

MilleniumTech membranes now available to all sailmakers

In past this Italian company was offering membranes just to One Group, year ago they started offering this to sailmakers which are not in One Group area of interest and now its products are available to sailmakers all over the World.

MilleniumTech is offering continuous threads regardless sail size and soon their Monolitic technology (membranes made with spread fiber technology) will become available.

More can be found on their web page.

D4 membranes production transfered to Incidences Technologies

From 1.1.2014. D4 membranes can be bought from Incidences Technologies instead Dimension-Polyant. This is not really news as there were rumors about this acquisition for more then year ago. More info can be found on following links:

http://www.incidences-technologies.com/

http://www.bymnews.com/news/newsDetails.php?id=122723

Fibercon Hybrid “powered with Dyneema” - Contender sailcloth

After more then 6 months from initial unofficial announcement finally I have received official announcement in form of flyer. Probably this sailcloth is Contender response to DP HydraNET sailcloth.

Below is part of flyer text:

Fibercon Hybrid “powered with Dyneema” is a new addition to the Contender Fibercon Pro range of performance woven sail cloths.
Carefully designed with performance cruising yachts and long distance cruising in mind, Fibercon Hybrid combines tremendous strength and durability in a woven fabric suited to
today’s high-tech radial sails.
Fibercon Hybrid is a warp oriented woven fabric which uses a mix of our exclusive Fibercon Polyester yarns with super-durable, high strength Dyneema fibres. There is no film in the construction, it’s bias and fill strength coming from Contender’s tightweaving, the use of the Dyneema/Fibercon mix in both warp and fill, and a newly developed coating. Because it uses a woven construction, rather than a laminate, Fibercon Hybrid much less prone to impact damage and wear and tear in use or to the growth of harmful and unsightly mildew.
The 30:70 ratio of Dyneema to Fibercon makes a fabric close to double the performance of a normal polyester weave which can still be finished and assembled in the normal way. Large 800denier Dyneema yarns give Fibercon Hybrid its unique appearance and protect the fabric from impact, tearing and abrasion damage in use. Classic Melamine finishes such as our Polypreg and Polykote finishes cannot be used with Dyneema, which has a relatively low melting point. For this reason, we have developed a new coating which stabilises the weave and locks the Dyneema fibres.
The result is a super-durable, high performance cruising sailcloth which is much stronger than normal woven fabrics and which makes stable, long lasting and great looking radial sails.

VSPARS - sail vision and rig vision system in real time

Finally I found time to break long non posting period :)

Probably many of you knew about VSPARS system but I just have found it on internet so let me share with you.

From data on their web pages seems very useful tool for checking/testing sail design on water.