Hi:

McLube is teflon based, and yes, it's pretty expensive. We've tried nylon spinnakers coated with McLube, and spinnakers made from Dynalite, which is silicone impregnated nylon. For our boat, (Tcat), and I suspect most larger boats, Dynalite is too light for long life. Spinnakers launch and retrieve well, but the retrieval line wears small tears into the cloth (according to Mitch Booth who looked at ours), and Dynalite stretches out pretty quickly. The McLube option works pretty darn well actually. We use a small weed sprayer to apply it, using the finest mist we can cajole out of the sprayer. That's actually more than needed. McLube suggests using a low pressure, high volume paint sprayer to apply the stuff. According to them, the amount required is very small. If it turns your kite white, then you are applying too much. McLube stays on our kites for quite a while. We occaisionally reapply it near the pulldown patches. We coat the launcher with it as well. A little less than a pint (half liter) can do a 250 ft^2 kite. That's about $15.00 worth of the stuff. We periodically wetsand our launcher with 600 grit paper as well.

-Greg