Storing your sailboat whilst on holiday: Leave it hanging on its stand, relax, or take it down?

Storage during the surfing break

surf editor Julian Wiemar is a self-confessed fan of packing up quickly: “Even when I know I’ve got another session in two hours’ time, I’d rather pack up quickly than spend ages looking for a sheltered spot in the shade. The time lost – how much could it be? Maybe a minute?” Julian is, of course, super-fast at setting up, but he also has the Tips for handling materials with care. If you follow these simple steps, you won’t damage the sail, even if you rig and derig it frequently. The minimum protection during breaks from surfing is a spot in the shade with the luff slightly slackened. At spots with flying sand, such as in Gruissan, it takes less than two hours to turn clear monofilm into opaque, milky glass.

"When unmooring, I lose at most one minute compared to when the boat is properly stowed" (Julian Wiemar)

Surf tester Marius shows you how to lower and roll up your sail without it flapping too much, even in strong winds in this little life hack.

Long-term storage

​Anyone spending two weeks on the Gargano generally doesn’t want to have to rig the same sail from scratch every day – understandably so. Apart from the option of “tying the luff stay in a knot that can’t be undone on the first day and hanging the sail out in the sun on the beach”, we’ve put together a few other options that are much gentler on the material. If you want to relieve the strain on the mast as well as the sail, you’ll have no choice but to loosen both the luff AND the clew. If you only loosen the luff, this does take a lot of tension out of the sail. However, the mast remains bent and is effectively ‘baked’ a second time in its new ‘shape’. Depending on the temperature and the resin used, this can lead to a permanent new bend even in the shade when temperatures are tropical. In any case, a UV-resistant tarpaulin (5x5 metres with eyelets, available from a DIY store) can protect against UV rays by wrapping the entire rig in it. After a season in the sun, this usually shows quite clearly just how much UV exposure you have spared your surf gear.

"It’s actually harder to store camber sails in a way that really protects them” (Stephan Gölnitz, surf editor)

Camber sails present additional challenges. If you leave the cambers on the mast, the battens become extremely bent. If you fold the cambers down, they press against the mast pocket from the inside and can cause serious damage to it (depending on their shape and tension). Ideally, camber sails should be slackened at the luff for short periods and, for the sake of the mast, taken down for longer periods. Here is a summary of our top 5 tips for longer-term storage whilst on holiday:

5th place: Assemble it and leave it hanging from the stand

​➕ extremely comfortable
➕ sail ready to go straight away
➖ may fade and the monofilm may become brittle due to UV exposure
➖ the mast may remain (slightly) bent and lose some of its tension

4th place: Just loosen the luff

​➕ The sail is quickly ready to go again
➕ At the very least, some of the strain is taken off the luff track, which reduces the risk of the material stretching
➖ Fading and embrittlement of the monofilm due to UV exposure are possible
➖ The mast may remain (slightly) bent and lose some of its tensile strength

3rd place: Loosen the luff AND the clew

​➕ The sail is also ready to fly again quite quickly
➕ The load on the luff track is reduced, which minimises potential material stretching
➕ The mast remains rigid and straight
➖ Fading and embrittlement of the monofilm due to UV exposure are possible
➖ Creasing may occur in the sail, and the camber (if fitted) may damage the mast pocket.

​2nd place: Loosen and cover the entire sail (luff and clew)

​➕ The sail is also ready to go again quite quickly
➕ The load on the luff track is reduced, which minimises potential material stretching
➕ The mast remains rigid and straight
➕ UV damage is largely reduced by a UV-resistant tarpaulin (available from DIY stores)
➖ Creases may form in the sail and the camber (if present) may damage the mast pocket.

1st place: Abriggen

​➕ The sail is UV-protected and stored crease-free
➕ The mast remains rigid and straight
➕ Less risk of damage during storage
➕ Useful if you frequently need to use different sail sizes with the same boom
➖ You have to take the sail off the mast

Video: “Rigging in under three minutes”

​The surf recommendation

Our top tip? Take it down carefully! Even if you’re short on time after a session, it’s better to quickly roll up a sail whilst it’s still wet overnight than to do any of the other options. And when you need to set it up again the next day, the boom and extension for that sail will already be set to the right length. You’ll find some useful tips for quick rigging in the surfing video above.