Excellent video. Not verbose and demonstrates how to fold a variety of sales. If you've already taken the battens out, 1:00-4:45 covers the basic folding technique sufficiently for most.
Jibs and Genoas fold better (with the luff stacking in line) if the first fold isn't really a fold but a dart. The bottom of the luff is folded once under the sail before the first regular fold. Then the rest of the folds are as shown in the video. The person folding at the luff needs to pull harder than the one at the leech so the luff stacks vertically. This makes attaching the luff of the sail to the forestay or foil easier. it also works better with jib or genoa turtle bags.
Never drag the sail toward you to roll it--roll the sail onto itself. On anything but a loft floor, dragging the sail will abrade it and pick up dirt, grass and so on.
thanks, Matt & Geoff for the advice on how to fold my old Westerly Jouster mainsail. I had forgotten how to do this despite nearly 10 years of sailing with mum & dad on their yacht! And I qualified as an RYA Yacht Crew too, but you won't hold it against me will you(?) Hope to be sailing Snowchick next season (March 2020 onwards) around the Solent if the weather is good.
Folded as shown is as compact as they'll ever get. When folded on the boat or worse at sea a bit of extra volume helps. Getting the sail in the bag and stowed is most important, extra volume in the bag can be a major frustration preventer.
never ever fold your sails.. Roll them and store the without bending.. If you can get one of them tubes from your carpet store. That's perfect and always store them indoor.
Of course rolling sails is always better but in standard Dacron it is not going to decrease the life enough to go through the hassle. If you have a small one design(with Polykote) or a laminate sail (racing) then you should make every effort to roll your sails when possible.
@@SailriteDIY I will chose to disagree. I race and so do most of my friends and we always roll our sails. Dacron sails 2 years old which have been raced 12-15 regattas still look fairly new - because they have been rolled. You will never see a good Laser sailor fold his/her sail.