Sail structure
AssigneeTeam New Zealand Limited
InventorStephen James Collie
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed is a sail comprising a head, a tack, and a luff extending between the head and the tack; a luff region extending along the luff; wherein the luff region has a significantly higher degree of elasticity compared to the average elasticity of a remainder of the sail. Also disclosed is a method of making a sail comprising laying out material to form the sail; arranging material in a luff region of the sail and in the remainder of the sail such that in the direction of the luff, the luff region has a higher degree of elasticity compared to the remainder of the sail; curing or sewing the sail to form a cohesive structure.
Claims19
A sail, being a mainsail or headsail, comprising
- a head,
- a tack, and
- a luff extending between the head and the tack, the luff comprising
- i) a sail retainer to retain the mainsail to the mast, or to retain the headsail to the forestay, and
- ii) a luff region, extending further aft in the sail from the sail retainer, and extending along the luff,
- wherein the luff region has a higher degree of elasticity compared to a remainder of the sail and comprises a first material that has a lower stiffness in a direction parallel to the luff relative to a second material further aft in the sail than the luff region, and
- wherein the luff region is configured to stretch as it is tensioned in a direction parallel to the luff.
A method of making a sail, being a mainsail or headsail, comprising
- laying out material to form a luff, the luff comprising
- i) a sail retainer to retain the mainsail to the mast, or to retain the headsail to the forestay, and
- ii) a luff region, extending further aft in the sail from the sail retainer, and extending along the luff,
- laying out material to form a remainder of the sail, and
- arranging material in the luff region of the sail and in the remainder of the sail such that in a direction along the luff of the sail, the luff region has a higher degree of elasticity than a remainder of the sail and is configured to stretch as it is tensioned in the direction along the luff of the sail.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.