Cant work out how to upload any photos. Bummer.

Basically the way they are made is as follows.

First the sail is designed as a normal cross cut sail. Generally the seams can be narrower because the tape takes most of the loads in the sail.

The tricky part is working out the load paths. If your lucky enough you have a computer program that put the load lines on to the sail. There can be some variations in the layout depending on you line on thinking. You can work out a denier or fibre count from the tape layout and type of fibre that you are using. If you dont have the cool software you can use a lofting batten to mark the lines on the sail in the pattern you want once the sail is one piece.

We generally use carbon or kevlar tapes that are supplied by various sail cloth manfacturers. You could make your own out of strips of sticky mylar and dry fibre. You just have to lay the tape down the line that you have drawn on the sail. Then finish the sail as normal.

The main advantage Tape construction has over Radial is weight saving and shape retention. In radial sails not all of the fibre ends up running in the direction of the loads. You basically end up with fibre in the sail that is not doing anything or not in the right orientaion. The tapes in a tape drive sail attempt to run in exactly the direction that the load is travelling. The tapes also concentrate in the corners of the sail were the load is the highest. And spread out as the loads spread in the sail. Concentrating the tapes in the corners also means you need minimal additional reinforcing. Also saving wieght.

The biggest wieght saving comes from the ability to use a really light base cloth. The base film does not really need to be that strong. It just needs to fill the gaps in the tapes.

The same theory is used in all the string sail technology. But tape doesn't require massive amounts of money and infrastructure. So its cheaper.

Cool way to build sails. Wouldn't recommend that you try it at home tho.