I'm starting research to have a sail made for my Nacra 18 square. I have two questions. 1: I have both an aluminum Tornado mast with prebend, and an early Nacra mast with straight spreaders. The Nacra mast is the "old" light extrusion. Which would be better to use? I angle toward the nacra mast because it's a bit lighter, and the sail can be cut to any mast.
Second: Who should cut the sail? I'm thing a squaretop in modern materials would be ideal. Thanks y'all.

Go with the Nacra mast but put new raked spreaders on it so you can start with prebend. The straight spreader bars worked O.K. with dacron (stretchy) sails but if you are going to a mylar laminate sail cloth you really need a mast with prebend in order to tune the sail properly. The sailmaker should be able to give you specifications as to how much prebend to run in the mast for the sail design.

I had great experience with Calvert sails who made a set of Pentex sails for my 5.2 (now the 'frankenboat 5.2'). Elliot Patterson has a good bit of Nacra and 18sq history too that might be worth considering. A sailmaker should be a great resource for this line of questioning too...consider that when choosing sailmakers.

Go with prebend, and have the sail made by Ullman. Get in touch with Charlie Ogletree over there in Kemah.

Service is excellent. Charlie came over and measured the boat, which you're close enough you and he can meet up so he can look at the boat. Imagine that, someone actually looking at the BOAT and RIG to fabricate a sail.

Year warranty, too.

Ullman (Ogletree and Jay Glaser) is who makes DENNIS PALIN's sails, need I say more?

sea ya
tami
email me direct at vileine18sq @ hotmail.com and I'll have Charlie's email there

What kind of Tornado mast do you have? It makes a big difference. A tapered Marstrom would be best, I think


I do not think anyone has developed any new sails for the NACRA mast in years.

Ullman has some excellent 18 sq sails based on Tornado sails.

Ullman has lot of experience cutting sails for an al Tornado mast. You could expect a very good match between mast and sail.

A prebent Tornado mast is a lot more stable than the NACRA mast.

Slightly used Tornado mains are cheap if you know were to look and you might be able to use them as fun sails or light air sails.

Charlies email is:

cogletree@ullmansails.com

I can highly recommend Tony Arends who is making RacerX sails. Prior to designing our new sails he sailed with me to learn the boat, he measured the boat (specifically the mast), and we discussed desires and design ranges, especially for the jib. He then sailed with me on two more occasions to look at his sails and how they fit the boat/mast. He decided to change the battens and add little bit of upper luff curve. Just recently at the c100, he looked at the main and suggested to us that the top three or four battens needed more tension and after I agreed he proceed to do it for me. He has also made us a spin. I gave him a bunch of info about other boats spins, I20, N6.0NA Spin, tornado, 18ht, and on. In terms of our design discussions, I asked him to maximize luff length instead of area, didn't care what the overall sqft would be, and didn't want a long foot and still wanted to sheet to the back beam. One final design requirement was to make it be fast! He has met my goals with this sail also, during the c-100, when we had wind on the latter part of the second day, we were on the same tack and in the same wind as two N20 ahead and to leeward of us and we were reeling them in, going slightly lower and faster than them. Incidentally it was a highlight of the whole race for us! If you want his info, PM me. He has built several a-cat sails in our area.