Moose McClintock

Courtesy North Sails

Well it started out to be ten questions, but its hard to ask a guy like Mosse just ten, so I think we doubled it, and even that isn't enough. Its not what Moose has won, more like what he hasn't. He's won the J-24 Worlds (five times), J-22 Worlds, Swan Worlds, too many NA titles to mention, been involved with two America's Cup campaigns, you get the picture. A native Newporter (RI, not Cali.), born and bred and still lives on the island.He went to URI which was his initiation to high level sailing (and drinking), graduated and went to work for Shore Sails in Newport. Moose stayed there for 15 years, eventually running a company they set up called Shore Cloth which was a takeoff on North Cloth. This was his first look into all the different styles of cloth available to the sailmaking public and he found it kind of interesting. After 15 years he figured it was time to move on and went to work with Bainbridge Sailcloth, an excellent company that had a change of direction after 5 years so he left with several other co-workers and opened an office for Contender Sailcloth that was closer to home. McClintock worked there for about 4 years when he tried his hand at sailmaking again, working for North One Design. This was a fantastic opportunity but the time constraints were difficult on his family so he decided to get back into sailcloth when offered a job by Dimension/Polyant. Moose truly loves selling cloth and talking about it with people.

Since you are now again a man of the cloth (Dimension/Polyant), and a former North guy, let's talk about sailcloth. In my opinion, it is mostly misunderstood by a lot of people. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about fabric?

MM
Actually, I've been ordained in sailcloth the last ten years, first with Bainbridge and then Contender before a year at North One Design, so I would guess I have a pretty good overview of all the suppliers. I think you're correct, most sailors misunderstand sailcloth unless they have a very good idea about what they want out of their sails. One thing about sailcloth, and I don't think it's a misconception so much as a wish, is whether it will perform at a high performance level for a long time. There are a lot of cruisers who want to be able to race competitively, and there are a lot of racers who expect their sails to last a long time, but the requirements for an inexpensive, durable cruising sail and an expensive, high performing race sail are at opposite ends of the spectrum in construction and fiber. I guess you'd say the biggest misconception is that there is a single fabric that will service everyone's needs. There isn't, so talk to your sailmaker, define exactly what you need and live with your choice. Secondly, there is no perfect fiber for every application so you have to understand what your sail is capable of doing and stay within its' performance parameters. If there were a perfect fiber we'd all be using it so you've got to deal with what you need and what you can afford. Expensive: Spectra for high-end cruisers, Vectran for racer cruisers. Less Expensive: Carbon for top end racing, aramids for generic racing. Least expensive: Pentex for the price conscious racer cruiser, polyester for the cruiser, and of course combinations of all of the above with each other: there are a lot of options, figure out what you expect and go with it. Notice that every style has expensive attached to it; sailcloth is not cheap to make or buy.

For Sailcloth 101, explain the differences between a laminate and a woven fabric, and their respective applications:

MM
Well, they look different. But the biggest performance difference is strength to weight, and for racing you obviously want the strongest, lightest fabric you can, for a cruiser not so much since durability is more important. Sailcloth is tested by how much it stretches at given loads. Laminates, with formed scrims and straight, un-crimped high modulus yarns, stretch far less for a given amount of fiber than a woven fabric with weave-induced crimp. And of course as you use higher and higher modulus (resistance to stretch) fibers the amount of fiber you need for the same strength as a woven goes way down so the weight becomes even less. The high modulus fibers we use in laminates don't weave well since most don't shrink in the heat set process (where a woven polyester might shrink up 18%, making the weave tighter and firming up the bias), that's why high modulus weaves (like Kevlar or Spectra) are laminated to film.

The other, and probably biggest, difference is how the scrim is formed compared to cloth being woven. The nature of weaving is for the fill yarns to be stronger and less crimped; in laminate scrims the warp is stronger and less crimped. By building a tri-radial sail you can orient a very strong fiber in directions that better address load (particularly in what would be the bias, and weakest, direction of a woven). In a crosscut woven, unless you do panel rotation, you only have a strong thread in one direction so it really isn't anywhere as efficient for the weight.

Are most of your laminates meant to be glued together as opposed to sewn?

MM
Either way, really, though gluing is recommended. For minimum movement on the seams, particularly in film on film styles, the glued seam is far better since the stitching will comb through the film unless there is a taffeta to slow it down.

If you could point out the three biggest advancements in cloth in the last 5 years, what would they be?

MM
The biggest advancement has probably been the introduction of Carbon as a mainstream product. By backing away from the highest modulus Carbon yarns suppliers can provide a very strong, pretty durable (depending on how you make the cloth) product. Combining the carbon yarns with an aramid or Technora base has resulted in much more durable fabric than 3-5 years ago. Second biggest is the advances made in Cuben Fiber. Though still prohibitively expensive, it is an excellent choice for very large applications where shape holding and minimum weight (think mega cats) is critical. The ability to construct the fabric is multidirectional axis is unique and in the multi-layering needed for the heavier weights there isn't the shrinkage you see in the lighter weights. The question is whether the performance edge is worth the dollar investment: you have to get up there in weight before you see benefits. Third is the advance in nylons: there are more options for performance nylon over a wide range from all suppliers than there has been in the last 20 years.

Now that's the cloth end. The sail construction end has had lots of advancements but you should talk to a sailmaker about that.

It is my opinion that the North 3 DL product forced sail fabric manufactures to build a better product. Agree or disagree and why?

MM
North has upped the game, there's no doubt about that, and the cloth suppliers followed the market as sailmakers asked them to get lighter and stronger. This really meant just small changes in what was going into the fabrics, the fibers didn't really change that much and lamination is the same. Films and fibers were tried and discarded and we're almost back to where we started with some minor changes. If you look at 3DL, it's essentially the same too, just different glues and yarn paths and different processing.

More than anything, 3DL is a different process to get to basically the same shape other sailmakers are looking for. Their process is being copied (and may have been a copy itself, but that's another issue) by other sailmakers in various forms and the issue now is whether the different sailmaking systems have an identifiable "proprietary" means of construction to woo the customers. The initial response to 3DL was to build very light, very load oriented, unidirectional fabrics. What we're seeing now is that customers are more interested in a durable product so there is more yarn being put into off angle directions, closing the windows of open film (which accelerate shrinkage) and making a sail that will not be throw away. The Grand Prix market is going away and many PHRF guys feel that a durable, dual-purpose product is the way to go.

Spinnaker cloth has seen the Nylon-Polyester-Nylon evolution. Where is it today?

MM

The America One daze.............

Nylon has actually been one of the bigger areas of development in the sailcloth business over the last 5-7 years. This coincides with the growing use of windward leeward courses, the decline in point to point and distance sailing and the tendency of most sailing going the route of weeknight beer can stuff. It used to be that everyone had an AP .75 and a 1.5, even on boats as small as 35', and .5 oz. kites were a rarity. Without reaching around in lead-mines, the need for 1.5 has virtually disappeared in racing for boats under 50'. In lighter evening breezes, .5 oz kites are more and more necessary, and in leftover chop from breeze earlier in the day it's even more crucial for stability. More .5 and .6 nylon is being sold in the racing market than anything else, with .75 and 1.5 almost strictly cruise unless the .75 is being used in one design where there's a minimum weight.

Of course, this scenario is a worst case for polyester unless the sail is older and more stable. The good points of poly are non-stretch and non-water absorption so it has a good application in powered up, windy conditions. However, if in those conditions you get shock loading (like burying the bow) the chute won't be forgiving and will occasionally explode. In light air it's so unstable from the non-elasticity that it's basically useless. One of my first experiences with it was on a J-24 where we were blazing downwind in the first race of a night series while the sea breeze was blowing, and parked the next race when the wind had died but the chop was still there. So on the whole, nylon is coming on pretty strong with advances in construction, better availability of 20 denier nylon (critical for properly woven .5 and .6) and better coating techniques. Polyester remains for some specific applications but is losing popularity for the most part. However, some pockets of the country still think it's a really good product.

What are the current asymmetric spinnaker materials available, and their applications?

MM
Any nylon out there is fine for Asso's. There are several silicon-coated styles that, ideally, increase speed in hoists, jibing and shedding water. Many sailmakers dislike using it because it is hard to construct (the search is still on for the perfect tape to use while sticking it together) but if you don't mind paying a slight premium for construction add-on it should be better. Many sailmakers are using .5 or .75 and spraying them with McLube, it achieves the same result and it's an after construction thing that doesn't impede the production line. There is some polyester going into Asso's, mostly high speed applications (cats) where the apparent builds up and the stretch has to be minimal, but there is a durability issue that cuts down on it's overall use. On the AC boats in '00 this wasn't really even a thought, we used off the shelf .5 and .75 and it was fine. I might add that in '95 we used almost all polyester and the Asso's weren't particularly fast till they had a lot of use on them.

Let's say I just bought a T870 - a boat with a big main, non-overlapping jib, and huge asso kites. I want a light and strong inventory of an inshore main, 2 jibs and two kites. What would you recommend?

MM
If you want performance just go with a carbon main and jib, the main has full battens so the impacting and flex problems are minimal, you can be really light for a lot of strength and you'll be pleasantly surprised at the durability. The heavy jib would probably be the same weight, since it doesn't hit the rig (impacting under load is the biggest source of breakdown in any laminate, in Carbon maybe more so) it should last quite a while. You could go pretty light on a light jib, you can get to 2.5 oz. pretty easily for the under 8 knot range. As a side note, Tim Woodhouse of Hood Sails did a carbon inventory for his T35 last year and sailed the boat a lot, lots of weeknight racing every week, distance races, everything. At the end of the season the shape was almost exactly the same as when new, zero breakdown in the fiber, no breaks. For chutes you would use ½ oz for both if you're strictly doing inshore racing, if you were expecting to do point to point you would have to decide on how heavy you'd want to go for a VMG that would double as a heavy runner. For the speed of that boat I think a 30/20 would probably be fine, there's more load on it in VMG conditions when high angles generate more apparent wind and it would deal up to 25 knots no problem as a heavy runner when the apparent wind would only be about 10 knots.

Give us the straight dope on Carbon - is it worth the price premium, and how much of a premium are we talking?

MM
Carbon is terrible as dope: you can't light it so you can't smoke it. Carbon is really pretty good for sails though….far better than I thought it would be when I saw it in the '95 AC. The carbon in those sails broke quite easily and I thought it wasn't really a long-term product. However, in the '00 AC I saw hardly any breakage and I was frankly quite surprised that there was as much improvement as there was. The biggest difference is the modulus of the fiber being used and the methods used in building the cloth. The high modulus carbon yarn was just too brittle, this was what went into most of the early carbon sails and led to failure. The yarn was also being used in a preformed scrim. The scrim is quite firm and tends to flex at the same point when a crease occurs, this hinge point breaks down rapidly. The medium modulus we use is in fairly big bundles and are not pre-pregged so they flex more without breaking down. Although not as strong as the highest modulus carbon, it is still about 50% stronger than Kevlar and doesn't lose anything through UV exposure. The irritating thing about Kevlar is it needs to be built about 30-40% heavier in total yarn count because it degrades so fast through the combination of flex and UV. With Carbon there is zero UV loss and loss of strength through flex is not as much as you would think.

Joe PHRF has a masthead WingNut 35 and needs an AP 155% genoa. He doesn't want to spend a fortune, but he wants a good racing sail. What do you recommend?

MM
I thought the WingNut 35 was one design. Well this is PHRF so Kevlar is still a good, proven product. Overbuild it just a bit to make sure it's strong enough to cover the upper range of its' application. The biggest problem with new sails is getting carried over its' limit and getting permanently distorted. Obviously, a good part of this is impact in the rig but the unseen damage is in the luff: the halyard is tensioned to the proper load for straight line loading, when you tack and the load is taken off the headstay the halyard transfers all the load to the luff of the sail which is generally built lighter than the rest of the sail. The constant load and unload of the film breaks it down rapidly leading to the fine entry everyone sees in laminate sails. A perfect example of this was a genoa we used in the '95 AC: the wind picked up over the sail's designed range right off the line and had to be tensioned more than the yarn load would handle, we then had a 20 tack duel up the beat. The sail was completely spent in 25 minutes.

How is the market - are people still buying sails?

MM
It's a little slow……I think wars tend to do that. However, the market in sailmaking is much like boat building, there are rich people doing big boats and they need big sails. The people who have had their boats for a long time and realize they're not going to move onto another boat are upgrading their sails and that is a pretty constant. Cruisers make up the majority of the boats on the water but they only get sails as they wear out which is generally 6-10 years so that is constant though not as frequent. The slow area is the mid-range sailor who is wondering if his .com is going bust and if not if he should move up to a new boat…it's all indecision. One sailmaker told me the business is there, it's just taking an incredibly long tome to get people to close deals.

Are there any cloth advances of note for smaller One Design boats - J-24's, Stars, etc?

MM
Cloth advances in one design, where the fabrics are usually woven polyester, are smaller and less earth-shaking. There was an effort in the last two years to introduce a new yarn into the market that did not meet its' expectations, it's still hard to top Dacron. The quest here is for a more durable fabric, either through weaving with various rip-stops to cut down on cloth degradation, and in finishes that will hold the shape longer. Polyester (Dacron) hasn't changed much in the last 45 years so you don't see big changes in the end result, there are some newer fibers that have been introduced but they are both good and bad as far as how they affect the cloth in the long run. One of the worst things that has happened is the discontinuation of many yarns that were used to make excellent sailcloth. It's not like DuPont is going to keep carrying expensive fibers for a small market like sailing (small in relation to all the woven stuff that goes on in the world). So when people say "why can't they make cloth like they used to" it's mostly because the fiber's not there.

I think a big concern for a lot of sailors is the ultimate cost of sails. With improvements in material and manufacturing, tell us how cloth will factor into sail cost for the future.

MM
Improvements don't necessarily mean cheaper. Hopefully, the improvements mean the end user doesn't have to buy as many sails over the long run because they'll be more durable. The different sail molding processes that are being developed right now should mean less cost since there is less raw goods going into the sails but the expense of developing the process has to be amortized into the cost of the sail (and as soon as that gets taken care of they'll upgrade to the next level and start the chain all over again).

What can people look to in the future of sailcloth, both in terms of product and price?

MM
Sailors are always looking for the next "big" thing. As I said earlier, if there was a perfect fiber we'd all use it and there would be little debate. There are 1 or 2 new fibers that are in development that may prove to have substantial performance advantages: what their cost will be and whether they work is still to be seen (see PBO). Right now that perfect fiber isn't available so I think you'll see more and more carbon coming into play since it's fairly new in its' acceptance and offers a performance upgrade. It will be a little more expensive but it's all relative, everything costs more if you're upgrading, from boats to electronics (to BMW's) and so forth. Kevlar will remain but I think you'll see it become more of a commodity product rather than the elite product, used mainly for the guy who can't afford the step up to Carbon (much like where Pentex vs. Kevlar is now). The price of sailcloth is really determined by the price of the raw goods, as those costs go up the overall cost goes up geometrically with it. Cloth suppliers are working hard to hold down the price to help the sailmaker but there will always be a steady climb in cost, that's the nature of the business. In the near future you'll probably see more sailmakers trying to build some sort of molded sail and the suppliers will help however they can though it's not necessarily in their best interest. And woven polyesters will always be there as the good, inexpensive way to get out on the water.

We've stuck to sail cloth so far, but let's turn to actual sailing. Was there a regatta on a certain J-22 that involved a crew member, an owner and a swim?

MM

From the 2001 J-80 Worlds.

Of course, this comes from Steve Hammerman who I've had the pleasure of sailing with in a couple J-80 regattas. Wally was our trimmer and was a diligent, hard working part of the team. We had a couple disagreements on trim and tactics but overall he worked as hard to make us win as anyone on the boat, I'll leave it at that. As for doing the J-World jump, it's SOP in Newport because of all the pots (the move is so named because the J-World guys are always getting stuck on them) and after Steve whiffed on the leeward mark rounding (and with a "what the f**k do I do now" look on his face) I took a dive for the team: however, as anyone who's sailed with me knows, swimming is not my forte, I certainly didn't let go of the boat.

You've been a part of a lot of varied winning programs. What have been some commonalities they have?

MM
First and foremost, every winning program had a really good driver (Kenny Read, Vince Brun, Terry Hutchinson, Paul Cayard, Peter Isler, Chris Larson), someone who could do what I asked of them (if I was a tactician) or could over rule me and be right. They generally drive you to do a good job but in a pleasant way, for the most part. I don't mind having the guy driving tell me I'm wrong, I know they're a better sailor or we wouldn't be there in the first place. Second, we always have a good crew. There are a lot of good guys out there who never crack the top because they just can't get over the hump……a good crew cannot be measured enough. Third, I sail with my friends. I always have people asking me to sail but for the most part, I'd rather hang with my buddies, we all get better together. I often sail as an accessory in other programs with people I don't know that well but it's not as much fun.

Define some of the qualities that have made you an accomplished sailor.

MM
On the boat I'm a team player. I usually get to the boat early and help rig everything up, I generally take criticism well, though not always (I did crack a couple times in the last Cup, you can only take so much mental abuse), so that the driver can blow me shit if he wants and I can mostly deal with it. A constant whine will eventually get to me but for the most part I try to put my head down and forge ahead. I did a lot of match racing with Dave Perry and Peter Isler, this has helped a lot in boat on boat situations so I think this helps me a lot in different one on one cases, anticipating situations and having escapes. I'm finesse oriented on the boat so I stress boat handling as a way to gain places….bad crew work drives me right through the roof. I don't criticize during a race (though I whine a little….I'm human) and try to look objectively at everything at the end of the day. Mostly I try to learn something every day I'm on the water. The day you're not learning is the day to take up golf (which I'm also flailing at).

Has there been one win that stands out above all others? And why?

MM
The first time I won the J-24 Worlds, in Annapolis in '92, was pretty special. It was something I'd worked toward for a long time (though I'm sure for Kenny it was old hat by then) and that was an impressive fleet (over 90 boats, any of the top 15 could have won). We didn't have to sail the last day. It was pretty cool.

Of all the classes you've competed in, what is the toughest?

MM
I used to think it was the J-24, certainly the competition in the class through the '80's and early '90's was as good as it gets, and Solings were very tough on a world basis, certainly our trials in '84 were abut as hard as anyting I've sailed. The IOR 50 class was really tough but since the boats weren't one design they weren't even. Looking at it, I'd have to say the Farr 40 class is the toughest, one design and very close, every race counts in a big way.

If you were buying a boat for yourself, what would it be?

MM
Well, I sail my Laser as much as I can and I'd like to have a new one. I think the Laser is the best boat ever designed, it rewards you mightily if you do it right and punishes you if you do it wrong, it's a great workout, it's one design and it's almost always incredibly tight sailing. But since I already have one I think I'd like something like a Nonsuch 36, not too big, easy to sail, lots of room, perfect for my wife and daughter to do a quick overnight. I don't need to go upwind real fast.

Thanks Moose!

MM
NFP!