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January 31, 2012
Fort Lauderdale to Key West Race
 Greg Petrat's 1974 Swan 48 Constellation taking a pounding at the start of the 2012 Fort Lauderdale to Key West Race. "It was our first time doing the race and we learned a lot; I'm looking forward to doing the race again." About his Tape-Drive® sails, "I love them. The loads on this boat are tremendous, but we now have a tough set of sails that we can depend on." John Payne Photo
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January 31, 2012
AVOID WIND SHADOWS, ESPECIALLY IN LIGHT AIR
 The following article is from Speed and Smarts, a racing newsletter written and published by Dave Dellenbaugh -- a name that needs no introduction in the sailing world. I am pleased to announce that Dave will be a regular contributor to our email newsletter. For those of you who are serious students of the game, I strongly recommend subscribing to Speed and Smarts. Each issue is packed tactical an more |
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January 31, 2012
COPA GALPAGOS REGATTA
 Every three years the Salinas Yacht Club in conjunction with the Ecuadorian Navy and the Ecuadorian Federation of Yachting runs the Copa Galapagos Regatta that includes a 600-mile race to the Galapagos Islands. The islands are a World Heritage Site made famous by Charles Darwin. These islands inspired him to write his seminal work "The Origin of Species," that put forward the theory on natur more |
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November 23, 2011
Charles "Butch" Ulmer, owner of UK-Haley International announced the appointment of Des McWilliam as the new president of UK-Halsey International.
  | | Charles "Butch" Ulmer |
"Des is well respected by the loft owners in the UK-Halsey group," said Butch. "He will be key in getting the this gr more |
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November 23, 2011
sail care
 It''s been a great summer and unfortunately, old man winter is here all too soon. When you put your boat away, don''t forget to send your sails to UK-Halsey Sailmakers for the service that includes washing, inspection, repair and storage in our climate controlled storage facilities. UK Winter Service is preventative maintenance that''s designed to look wearing effects of UV sunlight, luffing and f more |
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November 23, 2011
COOL VIDEO LINK
 Check out this YouTube video the Pogo2 Mini TransAt 6.5 sailing in the Ship Rock Race off Southern California. UK-Halsey has been supplying sails to the only US production builder of these 21-foot ocean racers that are the proving grounds for professional singlehanded racers. For more information, click here for the Open Sailing website or contact them by e-mail at: info@opensailingusa.com.
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November 23, 2011
Singlehanded Super Mac and Back: 1000 miles of Fresh Water Racing
 In 2011 Adrian van den Hoven aboard his Mirage Ophir raced the Super Mac and Back and placed first in her division and first overall for all three legs, as well as setting a new course record for this singlehanded 1034-mile race. This is an amazing accomplishment. Adrian has written an account of the race, detailing with what he encountered during the race and learned from it. His long article is more |
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August 30, 2011
THE UK-HALSEY CODE 00
 Pictured above is the new UK-Halsey Code 00 spinnaker. This chute is designed specifically for jib reaching situations on boats rigged with non-overlapping jibs.
Jibs used on boats with this sail configuration are intended for windward performance. They are typically very high aspect sails, which means they develop tons of twist the minute the sheet is eased. In a word, they are not good re more |
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August 30, 2011
WindAlert- BETTER DATA. BETTER DECISIONS
 Web, iPhone, Android- Free Applications!
* Real-Time reports from over 50,000 stations worldwide.
* Virtual stations for any point on the globe.
* Customized Alerts- Set your wind alerts for Real Time or Forecasted thresholds.
* User Profiles- Build your own list of stations and share them with your friends!
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August 30, 2011
SKIPPERS TIPS ON USING BOOM VANG Learn to Sail Like a Pro - Pump up Your Performance with Sailing's Secret Weapon! Do you use a boom vang--also called a "kicking strap"--on your small cruising or racing sailboat?
Vangs on larger boats combine a rigid tube with the mechanical advantage of block and tackle. If not, you are losing lots of power from your mainsail and your small sailboat will be thrown out of balance on reache more |
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August 30, 2011
STARBOARD ALWAYS HAS RIGHT OF WAY RIGHT? WRONG! HERE ARE SIX TIMES WHEN YOU NEED TO THINK AGAIN
 What is going on in this picture? Why aren’t protest flags flying? Boat 18484 is on port tack and the boat in the middle on starboard tack is
maneuvering to keep clear. The Beneteau with sail number 40 seems to be exerting her rights as a leeward port tack boat. It looks like the big guy
in the middle is about to be squashed. Well this is one of the six times on the race course where a boa more |
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June 17, 2011
ACCUMEASURE UPDATE
 UK-Halsey has just updated AccuMeasure, its a free digital sail shape analysis program to run on PCs running Windows 7 in 64 bit mode. The program allows you to measuring the flying shape of sails.
AccuMeasure allows users to place curved splines over the draft stripes in digital pictures of sails to find how deep the sails are and how far aft the maximum draft point draft is. These measur more |
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June 17, 2011
REVISITING THE JIB TOP: A NECESSARY DISTANCE RACING SAIL
 In the 2011 edition of the 180-mile Block Island Race, UK-Halsey customers showed that having the right sails for the job gets you onto the podium. A lot of the race was close reaching and the sails that made a huge difference were code zero spinnakers, jib topsails and reaching staysails. Colin McGranahan, owner of the J/130 DRAGON FLY said that they won their division as a result of their jib to more |
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June 17, 2011
SAILBOAT ENGINE SECRETS - DOES YOUR ENGINE LOSE POWER WHEN YOU SPEED UP?
 Does your small marine diesel engine hesitate like a lamb or roar like a lion when you increase speed? Follow these five steps to solve the problem fast:
1. Clogged Fuel Filters
Dirt and gunk block a smooth flow of fuel from the tank through the fuel more |
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June 17, 2011
MAYBE NOT NINE, BUT TAPE-DRIVE DOES HAVE QUITE A FEW LIVES
 Above is a local fishing boat in Guam with a Tape-Drive mainsail. Al Scal who lives in Guam, has been collecting old sails and giving them too island people in the Pacific so they can live and work their boats. This is truly a good cause and a great way to recycle.
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June 16, 2011
UNDERSTANDING LIGHTNING
 Lightning refers to one of the several forms of visible electrical discharge that typically occurs during thunderstorms. It is essentially a giant spark that jumps between pools of positive and negative electrical charge that form inside thunderstorms. They can sometimes form during volcanic eruptions or dust storms as well. The primary forms of lightning discharges are cloud-to-ground more |
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April 14, 2011
HOW WE MAKE A GREAT CRUISING GENOA LAST EVEN LONGER
 Our original Passagemaker II came from our experience with Tape-Drive racing sails. These original load path sails had proven themselves to be the most durable high tech sails on the market. They are light, strong and reasonably priced.
To make the Tape-Drive Passagemaker II even better, we now offer an option of a Dacron chafe guard. Pictured above, this chafe guard, covers the after part more |
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October 1, 2010
UK-HALSEY RE-POWERING PLAN
 Working closely with Steve Pettengill, Hunter Marine’s director of product development, UK-Halsey has created a much more powerful mainsail that takes advantage of the B&R rig that is used almost exclusively by Hunter Marine. The B&R rig that uses swept back spreaders and no backstay, which allows powerful mainsails with an over-sized roach and a fat-head or square-top.
This idea was tried more |
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August 2, 2010
FOILFEED; A REAL LUFF TAPE IMPROVEMENT
 Are you tired of your bow man taking forever to get you jib in your foil? Tired of having to burn off the top of the luff tape to get it into the feeder? Did you ever have the entire luff of a jib pull out of its foil?
If your answer to any of these questions was "yes", perhaps you should consider adding a Foilfeed to the top of your jibs.
Foilfeed, pictured above, is a molded nylon more |
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August 2, 2010
A GOOD HEAVY WEATHER RIG FOR CRUISERS
 Like the boat pictured below, many cruising boats have a roller furling genoa as their primary headsail. This works fine until the wind starts to blow hard and then the combination of too much sail and not enough crew can make things difficult and unpleasant.
Getting rid of the big genoa is usually easy thanks to roller furling but what do you do then? Changing sails on the furling unit is more |
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September 16, 2009
Preventative Maintenance 101: Exposed Webbings and Stitching
 In the December '07 UK-Halsey Newsletter, we called attention to the fact that the stitching and webbing at the head and tack of furling genoas and at clew of furling mainsails is exposed to sunlight all the time. The result of this exposure is a dramatic deterioration in strength. Unfortunately, this loss of strength is virtually invisible to the eye and usually only shows up when the stitching o more |
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August 11, 2009
UK-HALSEY TO THE RESCUE OF ROLLER/FURLING MAINSAILS
 ARE YOU TIRED OF SAILING AROUND WITH A MAINSAIL THAT IS SO SMALL, IT LOOKS LIKE IT'S REEFED?
DO WANT THE PERFORMANCE OF A NORMAL, FULL-SIZED SAIL AND THE
CONVENIENCE OF IN-MAST FURLING?
If your answer to these questions is "YES", UK-Halsey has the solution;
AIR BATTENS
With an AIR BATTEN system, you can have all the area of a normal mainsail without giving up your f more |
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June 19, 2008
STOP SINGING THE BLOWN-OUT-SAIL BLUES
 One of the reasons sailors don’t like heavy air sailing is that heeling excessively is uncomfortable. Boats with old sails end up heeling more than boats with new sails because sails stretch and distort as they get older. The distortion gets exaggerated as the wind builds. Baggy sails create more heeling force than flat sails do. The top picture shows a well-shaped Tape-Drive sail and below is a b more |
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April 29, 2008
NEWEST SAFETY AT SEA VIDEO POSTED: FIGHTING SHIPBOARD FIRES
 The United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, continues to set the bar higher and higher for safety at sea training. In early April they ran their second hands on seminar where 140 sailors took the helm during crew overboard exercises with a real person in the water, shot off flares and fire extinguishers, inflated life rafts and climbed in from the water in fu more |
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April 29, 2008
ATTENTION CRUISING SAILORS: VERTICAL BATTENS MAINS ARE A TREMENDOUS UPGRADE.
 For decades, boats with in-mast furling mains have been sailing around with under performing sails. These hollow-roach sails are starved for power and the boats end up with leeward helm since the mainsail is too small to balance the genoa. BUT, the roller-furling mains are convenient for setting and stowing the mainsail.
Now sailors with roller-furling more |
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February 1, 2008
UK-HALSEY’S SAILCARE SERIES: LEARNING PROPER GENOA LEAD POSITION
 To make your genoa pull better and last longer, position the genoa lead block properly. As the photos show, too many sailors sail around the with the lead block too far aft. As a result, the top of their genoa flaps in the breeze and flogging is a sail’s worse enemy. The fore and aft position of the lead block affects the tension on the leech and foot, which in turn helps you trim the top and the more |
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January 11, 2008
CRUISING SAILORS: BEWARE OF EXPOSED CLEW WEBBING
 More and more cruising sailboats are being delivered with roller furling mains and jibs. The usual method for attaching the head and tack of these furling sails to the roller unit is a webbing loop. Likewise at the clew, clew blocks, stainless rings or other hardware are attached with webbing that is passed through the hardware and then sewn down to both sides of the sail. The adjacent pictu more |
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January 10, 2008
LEECH LINES AND LONGEVITY
 All sails today come equipped with leech lines or cords that enable sailors to stop that annoying flutter between the batten pockets on your mainsail or up the entire leech of your genoa. This flutter usually gets more pronounced as the wind increases and in some cases can get so noisy, it becomes difficult to hear anything else
In the days of Dacron sails, adjusting the leech line was a ma more |
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July 28, 2006
TIPS FOR MAKING YOUR SAILS LAST LONGERSAIL SUN SCREEN
Always make sure to roll your genoa with the UV protection cover on the outside. If the sail gets rolled up with the acrylic cover on the inside, the sun will cook the leech of your genoa.
If your main does not roll into the mast, make sure to put the sail cover on when the sail is down. The leech (back edge) of any sail carries the highest load, more |
