Sail cleaning the DIY way

Mike Attree shows how he spruced up his genoa in the garden

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Our nine-year-old genoa was dirty, had green algae stains and definitely needed cleaning, writes Mike Attree.

We considered having it cleaned professionally, but it’s fairly easy to clean a sail yourself, and DIY does save quite a bit of money.

I checked the internet for sail cleaning advice and there was the usual barrage of conflicting, and sometimes unwise suggestions; for example, using household bleach or ‘throwing the sail in a swimming pool’, even though both of these can damage a sail.

A wheelie bin

Sail was weighed down and left to soak in a wheelie bin. CreditL Mike Attree

Bleaching is a very useful way of tackling stains, and bleaches often use oxidising agents to do the work.

Household bleach (sodium hypochlorite) releases the powerful oxidising agent chlorine – a toxic and corrosive gas – which is effective, but can damage fabrics.

The word bleach is in fact the name for any chemical used to whiten fabric, and there are bleaches based on sodium percarbonate available that are much kinder to materials.

I used this type of bleach to clean our genoa.

Sail cleaning: Pre-wash

Using a wheelie bin as a container, I immersed the sail in a solution of sodium percarbonate bleach (I used Oxiclean), and to speed up the bleaching process I put the bin in a warm, sunny spot.

It’s also best to start with a hot solution, so I ran a hose from the kitchen tap to fill the bin.

I used a large crate part-filled with water to keep the sail from floating out of the solution and left the sail to soak for about six hours, agitating it every hour.

Finally, I syphoned the solution from the bin and rinsed the sail with fresh water.

A sail drying in the sun in a garden

Mike improvised with garden furniture to dry the sail off the ground. Credit: Mike Attree

Next, I laid the sail out on a tarpaulin in the garden and cleaned it with sail cleaner and a soft brush, then rinsed it with water.

Drying the sail can be tricky, and the easiest way to do this is to put the wet sail back on the boat.

I couldn’t do this at home, and I didn’t have a barn to hang the sail up in, as was suggested online, so I put some garden furniture under the sail and left it to dry overnight.

UV Bleach

Next is the easiest stage – just leaving the sail for a day or so on each side in the sun.

The thinking is that chemical bleaching loosens the bonds between stains and sail, and this helps ultraviolet light complete the bleaching process, and it works.

A woman sail cleaning and making repairs to a sail

Once cleaned, it’s a good time to make any necessary repairs to the sail. Mike Attree

While the sail is spread out on the ground, it’s a good opportunity to check for any problems and make any necessary repairs.

The end result was not bad at all, and the sail looked very much better for being cleaned. It’s not perfect, but then there’s a trade-off to be made between cleaning power and sail preservation.

Nevertheless, the method I used was both effective and safe, and turned out to be quite a satisfying job.

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