Polytarp Sprit-Boom Sail 101 - Todd Bradshaw

Author's note:
I'm not a big fan of polytarp sails. I don't believe the tarp material has adequate strength
or stability to make a quality sail and firmly believe that anybody who tells you it does is
either lying to you or doesn't know much about sails or sailmaking. The photos and
building instructions that I've seen on the subject posted on the Internet just reinforce
those beliefs. Be that as it may, a very large percentage of what these people are teaching
is just bad sailmaking - in any kind of fabric or material. Many of the sails that they are
making are absolutely atrocious and it quite often has nothing whatsoever to do with the
materials they're using. They simply don't have the knowledge that's needed to make a
decent sail.
This PDF deals with one particular style of sail and won't apply to all situations or all
types, but much of the information may be useful and can be applied in the production of
other styles. It's mostly basic, simplified traditional sailmaking and sail design - the skills
and information these people should be using to design and construct their sails in the first
place. They are generalized instructions and there are no specific sail dimensions given. I
would suggest obtaining copies of Jim Grant's booklet "Make Your Own Mainsails"
and/or Marino's "The Sailmaker's Apprentice" for a more in-depth look at the subject.
Both are excellent and will fill in a lot of blanks if you're seriously interested in making a
real sail - from any material.

Step #1 - Draw the perimeter shape you want. Use the Luff x LP/2 calculations to check your
sail area (LP stands for "Luff Perpendicular"). You can multiply the linear dimensions by a
percentage if you find you need to increase or decrease the sail's area - but when multiplying
the current square footage figure, you do it twice. This is because you're designing in two
dimensions, so linear measurements once, area figure twice. Example: A 10' luff x 120%
would become 12'. If that 10' luff happened to be attached to a 60 sq. ft. sail, we multiply 60
sq. ft. by 120% twice - 60 x1.20 x1.20 = 86.4 sq. ft. for our new, bigger sail. Same process if
you are reducing sail size with a percentage.
Once the size is determined, you can do most of this stuff in scale on paper or full-sized on
the floor - the traditional way. You can mark out the perimeter with strings and pins or with
tape (driveway and chalk?). Also divide the sail's height into quarters and mark the floor at
those heights.

Head

#1
3/4 height

LEECH

1/2 height
LUFF

Sail Area = Luff x LP divided by 2

LP (90 degrees to luff)

FOOT

Tack
Corner

Perimeter drawn and Quarter Heights marked

#2 - At the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 height lines, measure the widths of your sail from leech to luff. These are
your "chord" measurements.
To create draft in the sail, we will add a little bit of fabric out in front of our plan's luff and actually
turn the luff into a convex curve. We do this by adding a percentage of each chord's length, and it
doesn't take a lot. Typical, "normal" sail draft is about 1' draft for each 10' of chord. To achieve this,
we add about 2.7% (the little blue chunks in the following drawing, next to the luff and extending the
red chord lines).
Some boats work better with slightly more draft in their sails, some with less, but this is a good place
to start for most. Using a lower percentage would make a flatter sail, adding a higher one makes a
fuller sail. If in doubt on a dinghy, erring on the flatter side (like 1.5% or so) is usually better than
going deeper, but we'll stick where we are for now.
We also have to allow for mast bend on many boats, and this type of light rig is no exception. We can
hang weights on the mast when it's suspended horizontally from it's ends to see how much it flexes,
or estimate flex from past building experiences. In any case, allowing for bend is always a
compromise and a rough estimate at best. As wind conditions change, so will the bend. Therefore,
our bend allowance will never be perfect at all times when we're actually out sailing.
The measurements which we will now add for mast bend are just like those we added for draft - an
extension at each chord measurement which will make our new luff curve even more convex (the
small brown chunks on the drawing - next to the blue chunks and red chord lines). Unless the mast is
a real noodle, I'll usually add about an inch for bend at the one-quarter height, two inches at the half
height and maybe 1.25"-1.5" at the three-quarter height on a sail of this type and general size. There
may well be times when the mast is bending more than that in use, but you have to consider what
bend allowance does in light air, too. If it's not windy enough to bend the mast much and we wind-up
with more allowance than we need, that extra fabric works just as if we had added more draft
allowance and suddenly we have a very deep draft sail in conditions where deep draft doesn't work
too well. See, I told you it would be a compromise.
So...we've drawn our chords and added small chunks for creating some draft and to allow for bend.
We are now ready to tape out our actual luff curve on the floor.

Bend allowance added

#2
Upper
Chord

3/4 height

LEECH

Middle Chord
1/2 height
LUFF

Lower Chord

1/4 height

2.7% added to each

Chords measured, draft added, bend allowance added

#3 - OK, we have five points to connect with a batten and then we'll mark our new luff line on
the floor with tape. We'll connect the three chord+draft+bend spots with the original tack and
head corners. Note that just running a batten along them doesn't always create a fair curve.
There is a certain amount of acceptable "fudge factor " here, when needed. The head needs to
be at the head and the tack needs to be at the tack. It's a good idea to also leave the half-height
(maximum bend and draft) alone as well. If you need to fudge a little on the 1/4 &3/4 height
positions to get a nice curve, that will still work fine. If you find yourself off by half-a-foot or
some other big distance, go back and re-check your measurements and calculations. Once the
new curve looks good, tape it out on the floor.

#3

LEECH

LUFF

FOOT

FINAL LUFF CURVE DRAWN

#4 - Before we actually start laying fabric (and/or eerrr tarp) on our lofting, we need to add one
more taped-down reference line. This is our Broadseam curve (the gold line in the following
drawing). A broadseam is simply a gradual increase in the width of our seam overlaps when the
sail's panels get taped or sewn together. In the center of the sail, the seams will be whatever our
normal width is. Where broadseams are made, they will gradually overlap more as we approach
the ends of the seams at the sail's edges. What do they do? Well, there are actually two types shown
by purple lines on the drawing. The three which intersect the luff edge are "luff broadseams". Their
function is to move the draft created by our curved luff away from the mast and into the body of the
sail, giving us our airfoil shape, rather than just a flat plane of fabric with a bulge along the luff.
The single, small broadseam, mid-leech (some sails use more than one) is just there to snug up the
leech edge a bit as it wears and to help prevent leech flap when sailing.
Let's start with laying down the reference curve. They're rather free-form and you could spend a
lifetime perfecting your layout methods, but here's the nutshell version. We start at the bottom,
45%-50% of the width of our sail aft of the tack corner. We want to draw a smooth, not-too-sharp
curve that ends at the luff 2/3-3/4 of the way up the sail. It's done by eye unless you happen to own
some very sophisticated sailmaking software and the computers to run it. It's certainly an important
curve, but don't get too wound-up about drawing it. If it looks decent and similar to the drawing
you'll probably be just fine.
Now we're ready to start paneling. With any fabric (or non-fabric) having some sort of visible
weave (including polytarp) that weave is there to increase strength and to resist stretch. We
ALWAYS want to position the cloth so that the weave helps out the weakest, least-supported edge
of the sail - which is the leech edge. So, we panel the sail with the weave running along the leech
(see drawing). Radial sails even go a step farther and align the panels in fan shapes, following the
stress lines of the sail, but here we're building a simple cross-cut and we need to make our leech as
strong as possible and as resistant to stretching out as possible. So follow that edge!
If your "fabric" comes in hunks, rather than bolts, you will need to cut it into a few big strips. As
you can see in the drawing, the cloth panels run perpendicular to the leech and sort of diagonally
across the sail. You can't broadseam if there aren't any seams to work with, so cut the fabric into
narrow enough widths to give you at least three or four seams in the sail. Broadseams are also often
seen where panel seams strike the foot of a sail, as well as along the luff. In this case, and on this
particular type of sail and foot shape, we can probably get away without any seams on the foot,
even though a broadseam striking the foot would give us the ability to put a bit more of a cup-shape
into the foot. Since our lowest panel here is just a sliver, we'll be getting our shape from the lowest
seam, which is very close to the foot and should be OK. On a sail design with a lower clew corner
and a wider bottom panel, I'd probably put in a foot broadseam for shape. You can also split a
single panel if needed to induce shape into a sail. There is no rule that states that all panels need to
be the same width and this is sometimes done. In our case though, lets keep it as simple as possible.

Steps 4&5
Panel Seam

FABRIC (TARP)
WEAVE IS
ALIGNED WITH
SAIL'S LEECH
EDGE

Panel #3

LEECH

Panel Seam

Slight
Panel #2
Broadseam

New LUFF
Broadseam
Reference
Curve

Panel Seam

Foot Panel - #4

Panel #1
Broadseams

FOOT

Broadseam curve drawn, fabric properly aligned,

#5 - Your fabric should be cut to width now, but don't try to cut it to it's exact length yet as we'll
need a little excess on the panel ends to work with. Start by laying the first strip over the lofting,
perpendicular to the leech, and it will be the panel which meets the top side of the sail's tack
corner (#1 - the biggest panel). You can trim it to length. but leave about 3" past your luff and
leech reference lines marked on the floor. Next, lay out and rough-cut the panel above it (#2)
allowing for your seam overlap and with a similar amount of excess on it's ends. Now do the top
panel - same deal. Finally rough-cut the foot panel, leaving a little extra along both the leech and
foot edges.
Position panel #1 properly, and you may want to tape it's ends down to the floor so that it doesn't
move around. Now lay panel #2 in it's place. Using whatever method you have chosen to join the
panels, start at the leech edge and work your way towards the luff, keeping a consistent overlap
until you come to the broadseam curve. At that point, you gradually and evenly start increasing
the overlap. As I mentioned before, broadseaming (even the shape of the tapers themselves) can
be pretty complex, so we'll do a fairly simple, basic one and hope for the best. I'm going to
assume that polytarp in good shape is similar in firmness to lightweight, medium Dacron, so we
want to increase the seam overlap an extra 1/2" for every 30" of the broadseam's length (a normal
1/2" wide seam would gradually widen to 1" at a point 30" forward of the reference curve. If your
broadseams are shorter than 30", get out the calculator and figure out how wide they should end
up when you get to the luff edge. A stiffer fabric would need wider broadseaming, a softer,
stretchier fabric would need less.
Just as your seaming operation approaches the luff edge, give the broadseam a little bit of flare
(extra overlap) for the last couple inches. This has to do with adjusting the roundness or flatness
of the sail's entry (it will make it slightly rounder). This, too can be a very complex subject that
we don't need to get into at this point for a polytarp sail, but a little bit of round made by flaring
the broadseam at the entry makes most sails work better.
Once seam #1 is done, proceed upward to #2. We also start this seam at the leech, but begin with
the solitary leech broadseam. What we want for a leech broadseam is a smooth taper (no flare at
the edge) maybe 18" long with a total overlap increase at the leech edge of 1/8" or less - just to
snug-up the leech a little bit. Once you get 18" into the sail, you're back to normal seaming width
as you head down toward the broadseam curve. Once you get to it, calculate your overlap increase
for it's length, seam it in and give it the little flare at the bottom. The top panel is next, with no
leech broadseam and a pretty short luff broadseam with a tiny flare.
For joining the foot panel to the rest, we follow the same procedure with one exception. This
seam, the tack seam, is a big-time sail shaper. It determines the cup shape of most of the bottom
half of the sail. We broadseam from the curve to the tack corner (with end-flair) but double the
normal amount of overlap. If it happened to be 30" long, out broadseam would grow to an inch
wide, plus a bit of flare at the edge. If you haven't already had to, you'll kind of need to "bend" the
fabric here and there as you tape to get a smooth-looking seam. You'll also notice that your sail is
no longer flat and won't lie completely flat on the floor any more.

#6 - It's now time to cut away the excess and get the first look at the real shape of the sail.
Position it over the lofting as well as possible, even though it won't be flat everywhere. Because
of the broadseams, some edges will now be a bit shorter than they were during the initial fabric
layout phase. This is why we left some excess. Getting the lofting's tack corner aligned with the
tack seam is a good place to start. Next be sure that the weave of your leech fabric follows the
edge on the lofting.
Now take a batten and start marking and/or cutting the edges. I usually mark them first and then
do all the cutting. Follow the curve up the luff and mark it. The foot on this type of sail (a spritboom sail) is usually cut dead straight from the tack corner to the clew corner. The boom/foot
configuration is "self-vanging" - meaning that the geometry automatically keeps the tail of the
boom down and limits excessive sail twist up high. In the process, a fair amount of tension is
created between the tack grommet and clew grommet and that tension is in a straight line. If we
were to cut a nice, round shape on the bottom, it would most likely just sit there and flap, so we
cut the foot straight, along the line of tension. Remember that if you intend to finish any edge of
a sail with a rolled or folded-over hem, you need to leave enough fabric past the cut line to fold
over. On the other hand, if you plan on binding the edges with tablings, strips of cloth, luff-tape
etc. you cut right at the perimeter lines.
Next, we lay out the leech cut line. If we left the leech dead straight, sooner or later it would age
a bit and start to flap, even with our leech broadseam and proper weave alignment. So we cut a
slight hollow into the leech. Measure it's full length and get out the calculator. You want to
hollow the leech edge in a nice smooth curve with it's maximum, mid-hollow depth equivalent
to about 1" of hollow for every six feet of total leech length. Once all edges are marked, get out
the sissors and cut away the excess.

#6
Leech hollowed
1" for every 6'
of leech length
Panel Seam

LUFF

Panel Seam

Foot is cut straight

Panel Seam

Final Shape cut with leech hollow and straight foot

#7 - Corners should be reinforced with corner patches, consisting of three or four extra layers of
fabric and graduated in size (each patch 1.5"-2" bigger than the one below it). The biggest of
each group should be 10%-15% of the length of the longest edge it's reinforcing. Align the
weave of all patches to the weave of the base fabric. This is stronger and helps prevent lumps
and wrinkles in the sail.
Congratulations! You have just designed a sail - a real sail. You're still only about 2/3 done and
need to finish the edges with whatever means you people use to finish edges, make luff tapes,
pound in a few grommets, etc. but the tricky part is done and what you have learned is real,
traditional sailmaking that can be transferred at any time to any type of sail fabric.

#7

Corner patches added, edges finished, luff tape added, corner and luff grommets
installed. A REAL sail when made from any suitable material...even Polytarp