So, laminate sails generally should be made into radial type sails because these cuts align the loads along the fabric such that it decreases stretch. Dacron is used more for crosscut sails because it seems to do better in the diagonal (bias). The reason against radial cut sails is they obviously are more labor intensive to make and have a waste factor of about 25% which is expensive when the materials run 36$ per running yard. This is an oversimplification BUT...
there are new laminates out there that are designed for crosscut sails. They have some fibers that run diagonally across the sail which, in theory, increases it's bias strength and allows for crosscut sails to be made out of laminate cloth.
Anyone have any experience with this, thoughts, suggestions?
It is complicated and outside of the top 1-2% of racers, I doubt it makes much of a difference, but thought I would see. The 18HT I used to sail on had a very fast main (Orig equipment) which was crosscut though I can't remember whether there was a diagonal fiber in there.