Just for grins I looked up the thermal vacuum stability of fabrics and film. None of what we use for sails is great. I also do not see any difference between 75 and 120F. It gets somewhat better at 32F but not a lot (months increase in life, not years)

I do not know how you store your sails, but mine is either in my sailbox or in my garage. There is not a lot of temperature difference between the 2.


I have been pondering the "store sails in cool dry place". Where I live the only cool dry place available to store my sails in the summer is under my bed and I am not going to go that far.

So, in conclusion unless you store your sails in a humidity controlled refrigerator at home, I do not see any impact to storing the sails in a dry ventilated sail. However store them wet and you will see a big difference.

If you are worried about aging try Beta Cloth or Rene 41. I think they would suck as sails but they would last a long time.


Personal experience. I have seen many old dacron Tornado sails pulled out of sailtubes or trailers stored on blacktop in Houston for 3-10 years with no damage. I have seen nearly new Hobie, Laser, or Sunfish sails
stuck togather or brittle after similiar treatment. I don't know the difference in the fabric.