T&T: sail costs vs fuel costs

[Robert Phillips]

< I am a trawler advocate and in my old age I prefer the certainty of  
power to
the ambiguity of the wind but, at least from my experience, to say  
that sails
are a more expensive form of propulsion than fuel is absurd. >

At 5000 miles a year, a set of sails will last about six years, if  
you take care of them and they were built right to begin with.  I  
have crewed charter boats that sail twenty weeks a year on charter  
that get ten years from their sails, but they aren't doing 5000 miles  
a year.  I do have some larger boats, one a Frers 78, that is in the  
7th year of his mainsail and probably 50,000 miles, but that is an  
exception.

A furling genoa when rolled gets doused when it rains and water runs  
down the luff, saturating the sail, and steamed when it dries.  The  
sunshield will last five years and the stitching two, unless it is  
coated, then five years.  Even when covered, the mainsail  
deteriorates from salt crystals within the fabric cutting the fibers  
as the sail moves slightly when the boat rolls.  The salt crystals   
also attract moisture, which eventually leads to mildew growth.

If you were building a mid forty foot sailboat today, the cost of the  
rig, keel, sails, winches, etc., would be around $80K, if done  
economically (I also project manage new builds and conversions for  
cruising sailboats to racing and vice versa).  With fuel at $4.00,  
thats 20K gallons, or 50K miles at 2.5 miles per gallon.  Some of  
that was spent on a second engine in the trawler and running gear,  
but probably only a third of it in a displacement speed trawler using  
essentially the same sized engine as the sailboat, just times two.

Sails last forever up north, particularly when they aren't used.  In  
the tropics, where we sail year round in warm, salt laden air, with  
wind speeds normally in the teens and seas to match in open passages,  
sails don't last very long.  My customers have working boats or are  
ocean voyagers with real world tradewind milage.  Just as the engine  
manufacturers have dropped engine hours in favor of fuel burned to  
determine service life, sail life is measured in miles.

The headsail and mainsail on a Beneteau Oceanus 440 are around $7K,  
more if you live up north, a lot more if buying in the UK with USD.   
We have to compete down here with the Far East, South Africa, etc.,  
and generally are 30% less than street value in the US.  For a 45'  
footer, the cost per ft2 will be 9-10 in the US, 6-7 here, 5-6 in  
China.  With the price of fuel having gone up, China isn't very  
competitive as the lofts there, ours included, still have to import  
their fabrics from Europe or the US to get decent fabric.  With  
freight both ways they end up even.  Small sails for the OEM's are  
more competitive where there is large volume, but shipping has become  
a nightmare.

In my sixty footer, which gets two miles to the gallon, and for which  
sails would cost well north of 20K, fuel is less expensive.  I could  
get my sails, if I had any, to last a much longer time if I took them  
off when not in use, but that doesn't happen when the headsail would  
weigh 150 lb.

Happy at the fuel dock.

Bob Phillips,
Another Asylum, Tortola, BVI