Performance Sails comes Through

At the Toronto Boat show I was talking to the folks at Performance Sails about our very best sail, a Tapedrive 155% genoa which was starting to show its age. The original manufacturer had been to our marina to discuss options to bring life back into the sail last summer, but for reasons only they know, none of my calls had been returned since.

I explained to the folks at Performance that our sail was a little on the old side, a lot on the abused side, and was starting to give us trouble. The sail had a number of small holes in it where the Mylar had come away from the weave, and was delaminating in a number of places, especially along the foot of the sail. I also said that I didn't want to spend money on a sail that was not going to come back.


It was agreed that we would leave the sail with them over the winter, and between other jobs they would fit it in for a little work here and there. As long as I didn't need them to commit to a date for completion, they would charge me a minimal $100 to refurbish the sail as much as possible. To make things even better for me, their rep would stop by my house to pick up the sail the next time he was in the area.

The rep picked up the sail back in January, and made a number of suggestions for ways to improve it. We told them to just do whatever would give us the most bang for our buck.

A couple weeks back we got a call from Performance that the sail was ready to be picked up. My schedule didn't allow me to make it down to the loft until last night. When I arrived, I was greeted by the owner, and taken for a tour. Eventually we pulled out my sail, and they showed me what had been done.

I paid them for their work, and was handed a large portion of Mylar film with which to continue to maintain the sail as it degrades. These sails are expected to last between 5-6 years, and this one is already 5 years old, so I should expect to get about 2 more seasons out of it. Replacing it will run around $2500. Maybe I should start saving up. Performance did work me out a quote with some other high-tech materials...