Nearly every serious sail failure was visible as a small problem first. This page is about looking in the right places, and knowing what a symptom means.
Three levels of looking
Every time you sail, with the sail up: glance at the leech, the corners and the batten ends. Ten seconds.
Occasionally, with the sail down and spread out: work along the edges and around every fitting. Twenty minutes.
Once a season, ideally when the sail comes off for the winter: the full check below, with the sail laid out flat and good light. This is the one that matters and it is why step 4 of putting the boat away is worth doing properly.
Where sails actually fail
Not in the middle. Look here:
The leech
The most common place for trouble on any sail. Look for flutter that will not trim out, tape lifting or stitching failing along the tape, and any hardening or distortion.
Flutter is not cosmetic. A leech that vibrates for hours destroys its tape, then its stitching, then the cloth. If a leech flutters and the leech line will not stop it, it needs attention rather than tolerating.
The corners
Head, tack and clew. Look at the ring or fitting itself, at the stitching around it, at the webbing, and at the edge of the reinforcement where it meets ordinary cloth.
The edge of the patch is where corners fail, not the fitting. Look for the cloth distorting or the stitching starting to pull just outside the reinforcement.
Reef points
Reef tack and reef clew are corners, and are checked as corners. The intermediate points should be intact and their reinforcement sound.
Batten pockets
Both ends of every pocket. The forward end where the batten pushes, and the aft end where the closure is. Look for the pocket wearing through, the batten end poking at the cloth, and the closure losing its grip.
Where things rub
Spreader patches, stanchion and guardrail patches, anywhere else you have found wear. Look for the protection wearing through, and look at the sail beside it.
A shiny polished patch on the cloth is chafe in progress even where nothing has worn through yet.
The UV strip, on a furling headsail
Check the stitching, not the material. This is the most common failure on an otherwise sound furling headsail: the strip is fine and its thread has gone, and the strip is starting to peel.
Caught early it is a straightforward re-stitch. Left alone the strip comes off and the sail’s leech starts taking full sun.
Seams
Run along a few, particularly in high-load areas. Look for stitching that is abraded, has broken threads, or has begun to unzip.
Stitching sits proud of the cloth, so it takes the wear first. Sails are frequently restitched long before their cloth is finished, and that is normal and worth doing.
The cloth itself
Dacron: softness, loss of crispness, and any small holes.
Laminate: delamination — layers separating, often looking cloudy or bubbled — plus creases that have become permanent lines, and damage to the film.
Continuous fibre: damage to the surface protection, hard creases, and any change around the corners and receptacles.
Nylon: hardness or brittleness where UV has done its work, and small tears.
What symptoms mean
The boat has stopped pointing. The headsail has gone deeper through the middle and its draft has moved aft — the belly an old genoa develops. Normal ageing if gradual; if it happened suddenly, look for damage at the luff.
The boat heels more than it used to for the same wind. The mainsail has gone full and its draft has moved aft. Normal ageing.
A leech that will not stop fluttering. The leech line has stretched, broken, or the leech itself has stretched. Attend to it.
A crease running from a corner. Something is loading unevenly — often the corner reinforcement beginning to fail, sometimes a fitting.
A sail that suddenly furls badly. On a headsail, a luff tape issue or a foil problem. On a top-down sail, usually the cable or insufficient tension.
A batten that will not stay put. Pocket closure, or the batten has broken.
What to do about what you find
Stop using it if a corner, a webbing, a seam or the structural cloth is going. These are the things that fail suddenly and completely.
Fix it soon for stitching, a UV strip, a small tear away from a load path, or a worn chafe patch. None of these is urgent and all get worse.
Note and watch for gradual softening, fading, and small marks.
Maintenance worth doing
Restitching before seams fail. On an otherwise sound older sail this is much cheaper than replacement and it is normal.
Replacing the UV strip on a furling headsail. It is consumable, it wears out first, and replacing it can double the sail’s usable life.
Replacing chafe patches before they wear through.
Replacing battens that have broken or gone soft.
Fixing the cause. A sail that chafes in the same place will chafe again. Tape the spreader tip, move the lazy jack, smooth the sharp edge.
Keep a record
Photograph anything you find and note the date. Add useful inspection photographs and notes to the Sail Passport in My Sails.
Two reasons. A photograph from last season tells you whether something is getting worse or has always been there. And if a problem turns out to need support, a record of when it appeared and what the sail was doing is far more useful than a description from memory.
When to ask
Anything structural, anything you do not recognise, and anything that appeared suddenly.
Photograph it before touching it, and see Repairs and Alterations and Warranty and Support.