Our new Ocean Voyager 2021 annual issue has an informative article by Jayme Okma Lee for which she interviewed sailors on three voyaging boats about the decisions they made in replacing their cruising sails. One of the sailors interviewed was the cruising instructor and author John Kretschmer, who has long worked with Peter Grimm at North Sails in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., for sails on his and his wife Tadji’s Kaufman 47, Quetzal.During a recent phone conversation, Grimm mentioned to me that North Sails — well known for its high tech racing products, its sails were used by various boats in the recent America’s Cup races — still makes plenty of cruising sails for voyagers. He said that North’s high tech reputation definitely precedes it because sometimes he’ll have voyagers call him and ask, a little defensively, “Can I still get Dacron sails?” Grimm reassures them that, yes, Dacron is still very much in the mix. According to Grimm, North is so attuned to the needs of voyaging sailors that based on the way one boat owner who called in planned to use his sails while voyaging in the Pacific, Grimm talked him out of radial cut sails, telling him, “You really need cross-cut Dacron sails.” And the owner realized that Grimm was right. Sails are not one size fits all and use often dictates the best cut and material — for many voyagers that’s still Dacron.
