Sailboat racing, and the sailing industry at large, is anything but green despite being a sport powered by wind. Hulls, sails, cordage and most components are largely derived from fossil fuels, and sailors, as end users, ultimately consume a lot of petroleum. Industry resources, however, are now being devoted to reducing the sport’s footprint. One area that is seeing a shift toward sustainability is sail manufacturing. Typically built from petroleum-based fibers and film, these consumable items are an obvious place to start pushing for innovation.

As the world’s premier offshore racing environment, the IMOCA 60 Class, which is used in both the Vendée Globe and The Ocean Race—has taken charge by mandating sustainability into the sail inventories of these well-funded teams. Beginning in 2023 and 2024, each IMOCA team will be required by class rules to carry at least one “green sail.” With these 60-foot ocean foilers limited to carrying eight sails in a race, the new green sail rule is seen as a small but necessary step in the right direction. To qualify as a green sail, sailmakers must prove a reduction in waste consumed as well as deriving at least 25 percent of energy used in sail production from renewable sources and avoiding aviation travel in the sail’s production and implementation.

“The green sail rule came about because it was an ambition from the class members to start to reduce the impact of the sails for the IMOCA boats,” says Imogen Dunham-Price, Sustainability Manager for the class. “We didn’t know how to define a green sail, so we contacted the sailmakers and then followed with a life-cycle assessment of an IMOCA sail. The key areas we identified were waste, energy and transport in the sail manufacturing process. So, we said let’s go and tackle improvements in those areas first.”

11th Hour Racing’s IMOCA design and build report from 2021 revealed a staggering figure that underscores just how wasteful and dirty sail making and boatbuilding really is: for every kilogram of sail produced, there are at least 6 kilograms of raw and secondary materials consumed. Between fibers and resins used in creating a sail and consumable materials such as gloves, tape, paper, etc., there is significant waste that results from the manufacture of each new racing sail. Extrapolating these figures out for an entire sail inventory, with sails weighing somewhere around 1,100 to 1,300 pounds, there is approximately two to three tons of waste—in sails alone—for each and every boat in the IMOCA fleet. While this figure is a considerable amount of waste and byproduct, it also represents an opportunity to achieve a meaningful reduction in waste.

“As the awareness has grown around sustainability, we were five years ago talking about compromise and additional cost, but more and more the solutions out there provide not just better business practice but financial and operational gains as well,” says Damian Foxall, 11th Hour Racing’s Sustainability Manager. “Things begin to snowball and accelerate in the right direction. We’ve had some fun wins in regards to sustainability, some small, some big. We did an audit on everything and just one small way we improved was by stockpiling and sending cardboard and other supplies back to suppliers. Not only was there financial gain for both parties but there was a huge reduction in waste. When you get sustainability and finance doing the same thing, it’s a win-win.”

Another way is to get used carbon fiber out to recyclers, Foxall says. “In some ways, carbon is becoming harder and harder to get, so we need to get that carbon out to the right recyclers and for them to feed that carbon back to us in the right form.”

Transforming one product to another product, however, demands additional raw energy, Foxall says. “In our study, which was backed up to a previous life-cycle assessment, the first question to ask suppliers is where does your energy come from? It’s maybe not something you immediately think about for a green sail, but energy is the first thing you should be looking at. There are big gains to be had, and it’s oftentimes a cheaper and/or similar cost. One of the sail lofts which is doing quite good work and being leaders on alternative materials is OneSails. They have a nominally circular material process which is theoretically recyclable. Kudos to them. It’s important for the IMOCA class to get to a circular space in terms of materials. The complication when you go too quickly down that route, however, is you end up with issues of durability. So, what the green sail rule is…on one hand it’s intended to be pragmatic but also to incentivize teams to improve.”

Top-level racing yachts can go through sails very quickly, so anything that can significantly increase durability is a victory in terms of sustainability. If a mainsail that used to get replaced every two years or perhaps every four-year Vendée Globe cycle manages to go twice as long as before, then that is a measurable reduction in waste and energy consumed. With that in mind, 11th Hour Racing and other racing programs swear by the longevity of North Sails 3Di.

“The most sustainable sail is 3Di,” Foxall says. “They don’t change shape and they last forever, so we’re trying to beat something that is pretty good in terms of durability. The next step is to clean up the construction process.”

Part of the green sail rule is to incentivize teams to create a life-cycle assessment for each new sail, with the goal being sails that stay on the racetrack longer. Striking a balance between real sustainability gains and the unimpeded pursuit of performance at all costs is no trivial challenge. Alternative materials now exist to make a real and tangible impact in terms of sustainability, and they’re evolving rapidly. In the most recent Vendée Globe, Pip Hare and Ari Huusela each raced around the world with working sails that were ISO 14040 certified to be fully recyclable. With both sailors using sails built using OneSails’ “4T Forte” technology, they have proven that a recyclable, more sustainable sail can be built, one that offers good performance and enough reliability to make it around the world.

“We began using thermoplastic as a bonding agent rather than adhesives,” says Mark Washeim of OneSails. “There were a lot of advantages to this; the main one being that the bond was molecular rather than chemical. The sails weren’t glued together, they were unified. The thermoplastic would encapsulate the fibers, and the bundle of fibers would remain soft. It’s kind of like an extension cord where you have metal cables encapsulated in plastic, so that the bundles would not fracture. This allowed the use of lightweight, low-stretch membranes. An additional advantage of this method of sail construction was that the sail could be made to be recyclable.”

Another sustainability gain, Washeim says, is a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of other systems, including Dacron. “It does it without the use of pollutants such as glues, resins and solvents. It’s very clean and has all kinds of certifications and documentation for being green. And it is. Our technology was the first racing sail to be certified as being fully recyclable, but it’s not like you can take a sail and throw it into a recycling bin and turn it into another lower-grade plastic. The membrane has to be stripped of its additional components like Dacron edge tapes, batten pocket components, luff slides, corner rings, etc.”

While OneSails may be the first company to build a recyclable racing sail to go around the world in the Vendée Globe, their core goal of more sustainable sail production is shared by many industry leaders and is already trickling down. Challenge Sailcloth has recently introduced their “Palma” line of sailcloth which uses their new UPE material that is made entirely from recycled polyester fiber and films. UPE is Challenge’s acronym for their recycled variant of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE), which is the same material as Spectra or Dyneema. From a sail-making perspective, it’s darn good stuff. It’s relatively light weight, super strong and resists chafe, tearing and stretching. In other words, it’s nearly bullet proof and holds its shape well. By making a UHMWPE cloth from recycled materials and then gluing it together with a proprietary adhesive that includes no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) nor harmful solvents, Challenge has innovated a new means of building sails that uses 100-percent recycled materials, reduces greenhouse gas emissions during construction and can be recycled. By supplying this cloth to a lot of the industry, consumers can now purchase sails built from sustainable cloth from sailmakers such as Quantum, OneSails, Elvstrøm and others.

The net gains of the IMOCA class’ new ‘Green Sail’ rule remains to be seen. But with IMOCA teams now forced to consider the carbon footprint, usable life cycle and waste generated from what will likely be the next sail purchased in their inventory, it is a start, and it does move the needle and the conversation in the right direction. With new materials and construction processes constantly being innovated and tested on what is the most demanding race track on earth, these sustainable practices should do more than just clean up IMOCA class’ sail programs. They stand to push an industry-wide shift that will spread to other racing classes and club racers. 

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Tactician In Tune

Jackson Benvenutti is on a roll. In 2017, he won the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup with a talent-rich squad from Southern YC. As a tactician, he followed up by winning the Viper North American Championship, and before that won the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta in Annapolis, Maryland, as a Viper skipper. Earlier in the year, Benvenutti won the St. Petersburg NOOD on the J/70 Tea Dance Snake as tactician, and as a trimmer and helmsman on board Warrior, a Volvo 70 campaigned by New Orleans’ Stephen Murray Jr., Benvenutti helped notch two course records: the Annapolis to Bermuda Race and the new Antigua to Bermuda Race. With an ever-expanding trophy haul, Benvenutti, a two-time All American at College of Charleston, brings a little New Orleans to every team on which he sails, with his recognizable Southern lilt and laid-back but excitable personality.

As a sailmaker, what are your primary responsibilities at the loft?
I’m in sail sales! I focus mostly on one-design classes, but because I’m in New Orleans, the market is pretty diverse, so I do a bit of everything — from Vipers to J/111s and the Volvo 70.

If you were a dance move, which one would you be?
A disco one.

If you could swap places with any sailor in history, whom would you choose?
Paul Elvström. He’s amazing in what he was able to accomplish and has such a respectful vision of his competitors. “You haven’t won anything if you’ve lost the respect of your competitors.” He invented hiking too.

It’s the Rock-Paper-Scissors World Championship, and you’re in the final against Peter Burling. Who wins and why?
I’m a professional rock-paper-scissors player, so obviously, me. My winning move depends on what he has played; it’s strategic.

You and your friends at the loft start a cover band. What’s the band’s name and what are you covering?
In San Francisco, I actually was in a cover band called the Tin Whiskers. I played guitar and was the lead singer. We listened to local radio, so we had a lot influences from the area. A Southern rock/funk/jazz band, I would say.

What song describes your work ethic?
It would probably be something by the Grateful Dead.

A penguin walks through the door right now wearing a sombrero. What does he say and why is he here?
He’s probably hot because the weather is changing, and he’s like, “What the heck, mate?” Because he’s wearing a sombrero. Get it?

You’ve got your team over for dinner during a regatta weekend. What are you cooking?
It could be boiled shrimp, a spicy Cajun meatloaf, chargrilled oysters — I’d probably stick with the NOLA fare, so good seafood or something gamey like duck or dove gumbo.

Best tactical advice you’ve ever given? Keep it simple, stupid. It’s more of a mental thing than one specific piece of information. “Get to the right at the top” is one I’ve used recently.

How lazy is the wind?
It’s as lazy as you are. It likes to go over and around things, not through things.

Are you actually the coolest?
I was the coolest out of the people we were hanging out with.

You’re the editor. What’s on the cover?
I’d be cheering on Vestas 11th Hour Racing to kick some ass, all the shore workers and everyone — they don’t get enough credit and they contribute a lot. The headline is “Vestas the Bestest.”

Tack, duck or send it?
I’m going to get grief for this but, send it!

Mast abeam?
No. Unless you want to have boats smash into each other. I’m curious how many people from my generation actually know that rule once existed. No, that’s not a good rule.

Best beverage to drink from a sailing boot? The only thing I’ve ever drunk out of is a sailing boot, I certainly don’t have a clue what it was.

This story was originally published in the March/April 2018 issue

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UBC Sailbot

In a couple of months, students from 19 schools will race in Gloucester, Mass. But you won’t find anyone onboard their sailboats. In fact, you won’t even find anyone controlling these boats remotely for part of the competition. Sailbot, which has been held annually since 2006, gives students the opportunity to design boats that sail autonomously. In other words, the boats are programmed by the students to trim sails and change direction to get around the racecourse.

Drew Bennett, a professor of robotics and the Sailbot team‘s mentor at Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Mass., which is hosting Sailbot this year, explains: “The amount of manual control depends on the race. In the fleet race, we allow full manual control. The other contests—navigational accuracy, station keeping, and the long-distance race—they all have to be autonomous.”

Colleges will race in three fleets according to size: 1-meter, 2-meter, and 4-meter. Boats are designed according to a box rule. For example, boats in the 2-meter class must be designed in a box that’s 2 meters long, 3 meters wide, and five meters high, from the tip of the mast to the bottom of the keel. “One team at the Naval Academy [in the 2010 Sailbot regatta] brought a trimaran with a wing sail,” says Bennett. “It didn’t work so well, but they got a special award for innovation. We want to encourage people to experiment.”

Olin College is a newcomer to the competition, having formed a team in 2011 that finished second at the 2012 Sailbot Regatta hosted by the University of British Columbia.

Olin races in Vancouver, B.C., at their first Sailbot regatta. Photo: Olin Sailbot

“It was our first attempt so we patterned our boat after the old America’s Cup 12 Meter hulls,” says Bennett. “We had a fairly large, tubby shape that made it easy to work inside, but we were really slow. This year the team went back to the drawing board and came up with a new hull design.

“Reliability seems to be a big issue for all the teams. I think we got second because our boat never broke down during the race. We weren’t the fastest boat; if we weren’t the hare, we were the tortoise.”

Reliability is a major focus as all the teams prepare for the regatta, which will be held from June 9 to 13. The University of British Columbia Sailbot Team is the defending champion, and a major focus is testing enough to ensure they’ve got a reliable boat to bring to the East Coast. “You can’t be successful unless you test the hell out of it,” says Kristoffer Vik Hansen, captain of the UBC Sailbot team. “Last year we had forty days on the water testing before the competition to go through all the challenges in the competition and try the worst-case scenarios.”

For most on the UBC and Olin teams, the experience is at least a partially novel one. UBC has 30 members on its team, and about half of them sail. “We have some really good sailors who have been to competitions,” says Vik Hansen, “and then we have some people who don’t even know the physics of sailing, but they’re into the engineering challenge.”

On Olin’s 50-member team, only a couple students have sailing experience. “Most of them are robotics geeks,” says Bennett. “Last year they admitted, ‘We have a great robot, but not so great of a sailor.’”

UBC Sailbot team members at the drawing board last November. Photo: UBC Sailbot

Mentors like Bennett help facilitate the experimentation. “We rely heavily on our mentors to help us through the design phase of the project,” says Vik Hansen. “The design comes from all of us having ideas on how to make the boat faster and lighter. Then we go through those ideas with our mentors and see which one is reasonable to do and feasible with the time we have. We go straight into doing sketches; sketches turn into drawings; drawings turn into 3D modeling.”

UBC does a final float test before the deck goes on. Photo: UBC Sailbot

Even when a boat does break down during a competition, the teams pitch in to help each other out, which creates a congenial racing atmosphere. Bennett says of last year’s event, “When one team had a problem with their electronics, other teams were running up with soldering irons, spare components, and advice, offering to help in any way they could.”

This year, high school teams will also participate in the event with 1-meter boats. In fact, a separate team at Olin is creating a boat kit to pass off to US Sailing, which the organization will then support and subsidize to get more high school students involved in sailing and robotics.

Currently, 11 colleges and eight high schools are signed up to sail. You can check out the action at this very different type of collegiate regatta on Gloucester’s waterfront in early June. Maritime Gloucester will be the primary base of operation.

Check out this introduction to the Olin Sailbot Team for more information, and go on board UBC’s boat below:

Go on board UBC’s sailbot at the 2012 competition:

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Mainsail Trim

As part of my new role at North Sails heading up Operations for Class Sail Development (CSD), we have developed North Sails Client Services (NSCS). Our goal is to help one-design sailors better understand their sail trim using the one simple tool that everyone has access to: a digital camera. Our mission at CSD is to get out on the water at major one-design class events, document what top teams are doing with their sail trim, and then share the images (and video clips) with everyone at post-racing slideshows and informal debriefs.

From off the boat, a picture will tell us everything we need to know about your sail trim, and the same is true if you you take your own onboard photos (you do, right?). The key to being able to make use of onboard sail-trim photos, however, is to take the photo correctly in the first place. With years of snapping photos up the mid-girths of many a sail, we’ve learned how to do it right. Let’s first cover a few important starter tips.

• Don’t take a picture in bright sun at noon. Direct sunlight onto the sail makes it impossible to pick out the draft stripes.
• Make sure your sails have draft stripes at all three one-quarter points, and are consistent from sail to sail.
• Take pictures on the tack where the windward side of the picture is in the shadow.
• Do shoot two sequential photos. If one is somehow out of whack, or blurry, the next may be fine.
• When shooting two pictures with different settings (such as outhaul adjusted, jib halyard changed, etc.) shoot a picture of that adjustment so you know what you have done in sequence.
• If your camera has the capability to record audio notes at the same time (as some advanced cameras can), you can add extra information as you’re taking the picture.

Editor’s Note: Chuck Allen and the CSD team will host a special sail-trim debrief at the Sperry Top-Sider St. Petersburg NOOD Regatta, after racing on Friday, Feb. 15 (second floor inside the St. Petersburg YC). Open to all competitors.

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Make a plan.
Mike and Tim wanted to fine tune straight-line boatspeed upwind and test different settings. So we went upwind (for a couple of hours), did just a handful of tacks, and motored back to the harbor at the end of the session. Their plan was specific, so we maximized our time on the water by focusing solely on that plan.

**Get the boats even first.
**Before we raised the sails, we set our sidestay and forestay tensions at base (20/15 on the J/24 with a LOOS gauge) to get the settings of the two boats close. When we got out on the water, we fine-tuned those settings upwind so that our speed and pointing were nearly identical. In addition to rig tension, we compared jib trim and jib halyard tension, the relationship of the boom to centerline, mast butt location, and weight distribution.

Switch skippers.
Once the boats were going about the same, Tim and Mike switched boats. One thing Tim noticed quickly was that Mike’s boat felt heavier. Mike had extra sails, tools, and other gear down below, so I switched over to Tim’s boat to help even up what they deemed about a “Meredith” amount of weight (although Tim admitted that he didn’t get a different feel after I left—it could have just been a different steering feel particular to the boat). Tim and Mike sailed until they felt even once again, and returned to their original boats.

**Then make adjustments.
**Keeping one boat at the base setting, we tried out different rig tensions, jib lead settings, and mast butt locations on the other boat. Trying a more outboard lead setting didn’t have much of an impact on Tim’s boat, but we also weren’t in the ideal conditions for that, which involves much more chop. Mike tried moving his mast butt forward to straighten the mast out, but ultimately found that a farther aft mast butt worked better.

Bring radios.
Being able to communicate over the radio during the straight line testing allowed us to go sail more continuously and coordinate adjustments on the boats without having to stop and regroup every time.

**Keep talking. **
The trimmers on both boats were best placed to constantly relay speed and pointing comparisons to the skippers. They kept talking throughout the session, while the crew farther forward chimed in with pertinent observations not only on speed and pointing, but also on boat set-up and wind conditions.

**Get a take-away. **
Think about what worked or didn’t work on the motor (or sail) in—Mike noted that the farther aft mast butt seemed to work well, which was something he hadn’t been expecting. Tim and Mike’s teams didn’t debrief, but planned to digest their sail overnight and regroup in the morning with some thoughts ahead of the next day’s tuning session.

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