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| LAST CHANCE GIFTS |
Order from the UK-Halsey online store and we will send out your order via FedEx. Just call us for the expedited shipping cost. We get a good break from FedEx and we are happy to pass on the savings to our customers. This offer is the last chance to all you procrastinators. Check out our new belts, sailing gloves, polo shirts, duffel bags as well as our popular Rules Quiz CD – dubbed the easiest way to learn the rules of sailing.
Click here to get to the store. To get a price for FedEx shipping, call or e-mail Adam Loory at: adam@ukhalsey.com or +1 718-885-2028.
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| UK- Halsey Sailing Gloves |
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| 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 matter of eliminating a nuisance, nothing more. Today many cruising sailors and virtually all racing sailors use laminate sails, which places a new importance on properly adjusting the leech line to prevent damage to the sail.
For example, let’s consider the leech area in your mainsail between the clew and the lowest batten pocket (see photo). At the very edge of the sail, there is a Dacron tape that encloses the leech line. This tape usually extends 1-2” into the sail and then you are left with whatever laminate the sail is made of. When the leech flutters, the laminate bends or hinges back and forth just inside of this tape and as we have all seen, this frequency of this bending can amount to hundreds of times per minute in a stiff breeze.
To get an idea of what this is doing to the laminate, straighten out a paper clip and flex it back and forth a couple of times. The result is obvious! Of course the metal in a paper clip isn’t nearly as flexible as a sail laminate but Mylar film and some high modulus yarns used in racing sails do break down rather quickly when flexed.
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1. Pay attention to the leech of your sails and adjust the leech line when the edge of the sail starts to flutter. |
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2. Make sure the leech lines and cleats are adequate for the job. For instance they should be a low stretch line and of sufficient diameter to hold in the cleat. On large genoas, you may need a mechanical advantage (2 or 3:1 or even a small tackle). If your leech line cleat gets stripped and fails to hold the leech line, tighten the leech line and then tie it off until you can get the cleat replaced. |
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3. Your mainsail leech line should be able to be adjusted when the sail is reefed; notice the cleat just above the reef in the picture. Cleats on the leech of the sail cannot be adjusted when the boom is eased out over the water; therefore, some offshore mains have two leech lines, where the second one is led over the top of the sail and down the luff to a cleat at the tack. |
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| Youngest Skipper Finishes In Top 10 at the Rolex International Keelboat Championships |
SHOREACRES, TEXAS -- November 12-17 The Rolex International Keelboat Championships is one of the most prestigious all-female events in sailing. Thirty-nine teams came to Houston, Texas, to compete in J/22s on Galveston Bay. The fleet included Olympic medalists, world champions and America’s Cup veterans who came to Houston Yacht Club to sail in the twelfth running of the event. After 11 races sailed over four days in trying conditions, 17-year-old Chelsea Bethancourt, sailing RIFT with a full set of UK-Halsey sails, managed to finish 10th – a terrific result for a talented young sailor. The local crew racing with Chelsea included her mother Dana Bethancourt, Patricia Escorihuela and Sandra Baldridge.
“We had a great regatta, meeting all of our expectations and goals,” said Chelsea’s mother Dana.” Chelsea did a great job at handling the big breeze and the light breeze. The Galveston Bay chop was excruciating at times, but we were able to keep our speed. Our sails were fast; even when we had less than stellar starts, we were able to foot off for speed and get back up to the top of the pack. This is exactly what happened in the race we finished third! This was an amazing experience for everyone, but especially Chelsea. Hopefully, this will be a spring board for her sailing career.”
UK/Halsey Houston would like to congratulate Chelsea and her crew on such an outstanding result and wish them well in their future endeavors; we know she will be someone to watch for in the coming years!
Micheal Byrne photos www.byrneartandphoto.com
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Caedric Reader, of UK-Halsey Sydney, grabs Tim Colclough as the maxi BROOMSTICK races in the Solas Big Boat Championship in Sydney Harbor. This photo ran in the Sydney Morning Herald and was shot by Tim Clayton.
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| Three UK-Halsey Lofts Doubling in Size |
Not only has the UK-Halsey group been adding lofts recently, but our lofts are growing in size to meet the increasing demand of sailors worldwide. In the month of December our lofts in Sydney, Australia, Denmark and The Netherlands have moved into new buildings to double their size. Pictured is the new loft building in The Netherlands. It will be the central production facility for the four other UK-Halsey/DeVries Sails lofts and it is located in the town of Makkum.
John Penfold of UK-Halsey Sydney, Australia writes, “UK Halsey Sydney has moved around the corner to a brand new state of the art loft with three times the area. The new loft has much better access from the main road and allows customers ample parking. We are on Carter Road in Brookvale above the Ultra Tune. Parking is up the ramp right at our front door. With more staff and a larger loft we will be able to easily match the growing business.”
And in Denmark, Morten Ullmann has moved to a 4300 sq/ft loft (400 sq/m) in Humlebaek. In his new facility he can make or work on any sail. |
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