The play for the patent is in my opinion one reason why it may not be called "broad seaming". Because if it is identified as such then no patent could have been awarded and everybody could have made 3D sails. But that is a different topic.

More important is that 20% of next to nothing is still next to nothing.

A normal F16 radial mainsail, excluding battens, weights something like 3.5 to 4 kg. 20% of that is onlu 0.7 to 0.8 kg (= also less then 2 pounds). If that amount of weight savings puts you below minimum weight then you have to put it back on your boat again as lead.

20% weight savings may add up to many kilograms on large yachts, that do carry many sets of sails, but on a F16 where only a single suit of sails is allowed, it is almost negligiable.

Patent problems : It was indeed Sobstad and yes the patents are soon ending. So if anything we can expect alot of competition in this field driving down prices. That is, when assuming 3D sails are attractive enough commercially for sailmakers. I guess we'll know soon enough.

The "spray" idea is basically 3D polymerization and we have already covered that earlier.


By the way, Marcus used a "tapedrive" (tm) mainsail on his Blade F16 at the GC 2007 event, this is extremely similar to 3D sails. The difference is mostly that it is made by somebody else then North Sails. I showed his mainsail to some potential customers who came over to check out the F16 boats as Marcus wasn't available himself at the time. The sail felt light but also a thinner then some of the radial sails I handled.

For of large picture of this sail follow this link :

http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6095

And click on full size version

Wouter