PolySail International

High Performance/Low Cost Sails for Small Sailboats

 

Favorite Links for Polytarp Sailmaking, Home Boatbuilding, Sailing Simulators and Other Nautical Aspirations

POLYTARP SAILMAKING

JIM MICHALAK'S BOAT DESIGNS In addition to being the driving force behind the Midwest Homebuilt Messabouts, Jim Michalak has written a number of thoughtful essays on the construction of polytarp sails. A former aerospace engineer, Jim designs carefully thought out small boats for home construction, many of which are pictured on his pages, and offers inexpensive catalogues of his designs.

JOHN'S NAUTICAL & BOATBUILDING PAGE John Kohnen, one of the Oregon Coots, has put together the aptly named Mother of All Maritime Links on this site; and, if you browse the site for a few hours, you can find instructions for building a Tyvek sail here as well.

MESSING ABOUT IN BOATS ON LINE This is the Internet version of the messabout Bible Messing About in Boats edited by Bob Hicks. Both the site and the magazine come highly recommended for all those who enjoy small wooden boats at the grassroots level. There is an online subscription form for the $32 a year magazine (well worth the price for any aficionado who has not yet subscribed).

ODD SAILS FROM POLYTARP  Craig O'Donnell provides excellent information on the construction of polytarp sails, including Gunter sails, batwing sails, Chinese junk sails, and his own sharpie sprit sail. There's also a picture of the irrepressible Captain Freddy who sailed from Massachusetts to Florida with only blue polytarp sails on his boat. (Last I read in Soundings, Captain Freddie was back in Rhode Island trying to sell a book about his adventures.)

PDRACER.COM Click on the “Sails” button when you reach this page, homepage to a very innovative class of class racing sailboats that anyone can build for less than $400.00. This class is also the only racing class sailboat that primarily uses polytarp sails. I’ve had a hand in building nine myself, all very different boats. There is also lots of information on my PDRacer home page at PDR 

SAILPOWER CALCULATOR Calculates sail areas, forces, and moments, given rig measurements and wind conditions.

HOME BOATBUILDING: DAVE'S PROJECTS

CARTOPPER The Cartopper was a great little 12’ dinghy designed by Phil Bolger. My son and I built this boat in 1995-‘96 from plans serialized in three issues of Family Handyman. It was my first homemade boat and the reason I got into the sail business. Check out the sweet curve in that (first ever) 60 sq. ft. white PolySail. Click on the link for more details.

FOOLHARDY, A 16' SHARPIE I first tested this design (my first self-designed sharpie) at the Lake Monroe Annual Messabout near Bloomington Indiana a few years ago. Here's a brief account of my findings.

 

NOTES ON HOT TUB For information on Hot Tub, a 50 lb. scow made from Styrofoamä , fiberglass, wood, and epoxy, click on this link. Hot Tub eventually became a series of five 4’ x 8’ scows that I built off and on during the late1990’s and early 2000’s, including the Z-Boat, a NASCAR-themed, racing version of the Hot Tub seen here on the right. Click on this link for more on the Z-BOAT

RADCRAFT  Ever heard of a Radcraft? Click here for before and after pictures of this great old 1958 16' mahogany plywood runabout

These are some of the boats I’ve had the pleasure of  “sailing” on with my son, pictured here a few years ago when he was in the Navy: An older America’s Cup boat (that’s me at the back of the cockpit looking over my shoulder), the nuclear sub West Virginia, and, more recently, the PDR Wild Duck at the 2009 Worlds in the Small, Jury Rigged Sail Contest. An account of this adventure can be found here under PDR WORLDS 2009

ESSENCE  Essence was my second sharpie, a lightweight 15 footer I used to test PolySails on Lake Vista—one of my favorite boats.

The JACKSON DOYLE was probably the best constructed boat I’ve ever made. Built from oak and ¼” marine plywood, this little 5’ boat was a present to my grandson on his first birthday. I built an oak cradle so that he could rock back and forth in it, but the cradle also served as a sledding platform when the boat was bungied down to the cradle. We tried the boat  out in the swimming pool, but with only about 150 lbs. of displacement, Grandpa would sink it, much to my grandson’s delight.

LAME DUCK, hull # 100 and my first PDRacer, also made a decent sled (and sailboat). However, the ice wasn’t thick, so the safety rope was a precaution. Very detailed building plans for this boat are provided in the CAMP SAILBOAT pages.

WILD DUCK, hull #143, was the only boat I took with me to Florida. Wild Duck is a PDRacer that was built specifically to set a record for the amount of sail carried on a PDRacer. Normally, she carries twin leg o’ mutton sails on a biplane rig of 104 sq. ft. To set the record, she had a third mast and sail for a total of 164 sq. ft. of sail. Later, when the wind came up, I recorded a leg of over 9.0 mph on the GPS, but by then, John Nystrom, my photographer and observer had left for work.

In 2011, having been refurbished with a new deck, boards, and sails, Wild Duck was “roasted” along with Wedgie in a mysterious fire aboard her trailer along Florida’s Turnpike on the way to the 2011 PDRacer World Championship. A new biplane-rigged PDRacer called Dangerous Duck will replace #143 for the 2012 Worlds. This build is being documented in workshops posted in my START SAILING @ 60 forum.

WEBFOOT, hull #199, was very lightweight. She had a 2” Styrofoam™ bottom, and 1/8” sides backed by more foam. With her arched cuddy cabin supports, she suggested a new shape for PDR’s

 

Z-PDR, hull #351 is one of the most innovative PDRacers in the class. Her pleasing hull shape, drop in Styrofoam™ insert, square top sail, and one-piece tiller and rudder case set her apart from other PDR’s.

Ryan leads Michael Storer, the Australian guru of PD racing and designer of the OZ boat that won this year’s Worlds. Mik was sailing a borrowed standard boat, yet still placed 3rd overall.

Ryan is leading heading for the final mark but is too far off the layline and will finish fourth behind Mik in Race 2. There is much more about the races here: PDR WORLDS 2009

SAILING SIMULATORS

ATTENTION: YOU WILL GET AN ERROR MESSAGE WHEN YOU CLICK ON THIS LINK NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOLVO SAILING SIMULATOR  BUT YOU CAN STILL ACCESS THE SAILING SIMULATOR BY ENTERING THE WORDS sailing simulator IN THE SEARCH BOX. CLICK ON “SEARCH” AND THEN EITHER OF THE FIRST TWO OPTIONS THAT APPEAR AS A THE RESULT OF THE SEARCH AND YOU WILL REACH THE ARCHIVED SAILING SIMULATOR. Upgrade your skills and enjoy!

HOME BOATBUILDING

BATEAU.COM  Offers a number of plans for boats of all sizes including the popular flatiron skiff. Bateau.com is also a good source for marine plywood at their BOATBUILDER CENTRAL.COM  partner if you happen to live in South Florida near Vero Beach.

BOATBUILDING.COM  Explore hundreds of links to the boatbuilding community organized by categories at this site.

BOLGER BOATS ON THE WEB  Here's another great site for Phil Bolger fans. The site features builders' completed boats organized under each design name.

CANOE SAILING A joint effort by Dan Miller and Craig O'Donnell provides our paddling friends with everything they might want to know about getting a lttle assistance from the wind.

DUCKWORKS MAGAZINE AND STORE "Written for and by Those Wacky Homemade Boat Builders" reads the subtitle. With pages of resources, letters, features, comics, and a project photo gallery, Chuck and Sandra Leinweber have created an outstanding site for home builders. Post your story on Chuck's site and enjoy a pleasant little ego trip or visit the Duckworks Store and purchase whatever boatbuilding supplies you need.

FREE BOAT DESIGN RESOURCES  Gavin Atkins offers a gem of a site for "Amateur boat designers; seriously cheapskate boat builders; land-locked dreamers; (and) lovers of sharpies, dories, skiffs and pocket cruisers." I personally feel at home in all of those categories. This is a great resource for FREE plans.

GLEN L. MARINE  Long time supplier of plans and kit boats of all kinds. Order their catalog at least once.

GOOGLE SKETCHUP Free software you can use to construct rotating 3-D designs of your next boat.

H.H. PAYSON & CO INSTANT BOATS  Yep, it's the instant boat man himself on the web-H.H. "Dynamite" Peyson, the builder of all those wonderful Phil Bolger designs and author of Build the New Instant Boats. If you need a set of tested plans, this is the place to get them. I counted 26 sets being offered, all in the $30-$40 range. In addition, there's a page of testimonial links to folks who have built many of these boats.

JAMESTOWN DISTRIBUTORS  Another excellent source for boatbuilding supplies. I buy bronze ring nails from them for nailing the bottoms on boats.

PDRACER.COM  This is one of the most active and innovative group of boatbuilders on the Web. Access this site and get answers to all your boatbuilding questions. Or, mine the site for free plans of a class racing boat (or a trainer) that you can build in a week for less than $300. I’ve built five of these boats for myself and helped construct four others in my workshop. Even professional boatbuilders get hooked on this little boat.

SAILING TEXAS  Another great site. You can buy or sell your boat and access over 9000 pages of information about sailing and sailboats; plus a couple of my articles about PDRacers and PolySails are posted there.

STEVENSON PROJECTS  Offers plans for pocket yachts, dingies, daysailers, and the ever popular Weekender. This is a great site for Weekender owners and other boatbuilders to post their current projects. There is an interesting comparison of polytarp and dacron sails under the "What about Sails?" section of the Frequently Asked Questions page. The conclusion: "We found (after quite a bit of swapping around in different configurations) that the Dacron had a bit of an edge in lighter airs, but the tarps were much better as the wind picked up! I won't presume to figure out why, but over the years, we have not felt the need to go with 'real' sails very often."

THE TRAILER SAILOR Provides tons of resources for the small boat sailor organized into useful categories. Post a message or a question on the message board and you are nearly guaranteed a response.

 

 

PolySail International

2291 SE Gaslight St., Port St. Lucie, FL 34952-7332

 Email polysail@polysail.com or call Dave Gray at 317 385-3444

PolySails–Sold on the Web since 1996. Customers in all 50 states and around the globe.

 

This page updated on 12/11/2011