3Noreen schreef :
Terwijl ik in deze donkere dagen Miles Smeeton’s The Sea Was Our Village (her)lees brengt het stukje waarin hij de keuze voor linnen zeilen beschrijft een glimlach bij mij. Linnen was hem aangeraden als “the only material for a long passage”.
leuk stukje over linnen (flax) en katoen in Maximum Sail Power:
"From Flax to Cotton
It may seem foolish for any modern look at sails and sailmaking to be discussing cotton and flax sails. On the other hand it would also be foolish not to look back to the very beginnings of sailcloth, if only to illustrate how and why progress and change takes place, since it is sometimes for the most unusual reasons. In the early 1800s, for example, American warships had sails made from flax, at least until the Navy decided it needed to find something new. It did so not because it was concerned about the strength and usability of flax sails, but rather because the fabric was imported from Europe and the powers that be were afraid that if the supply of flax were ever cut off by the enemy the effectiveness of the American Navy would be compromised. There was at the time a small domestic sailcloth industry using cotton to build sails, but while it showed promise as a fiber for making fabric, there was still some debate among the ship captains of the day. Some felt that cotton absorbed too much water and was difficult to handle.
Others said that flax was stronger and easier to use. Still others claimed that cotton sails did not stretch as much and the sails looked better than the flax ones. In the end it came down not to any decree from the Secretary of the Navy, but rather to a now historic boat race.
In 1851 the yacht America raced around the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England and handily beat the competition to win the Hundred Guineas Cup.
That cup came to be known as the America’s Cup, and while new fibers and fabric have been at the cutting edge of America’s Cup competition since, few of them have had the impact that the sails on America had back then. While many observers were impressed by the schooner’s hull shape, others noted that the cut
of her sails was “as flat as a sheet of paper,” which allowed the boat to be sailed closer to the wind, a huge advantage on any race course where the boats have to sail to windward. America’s secret weapon then was not just below the waterline, but also in the cotton sails flying from the masts. Flax might be stronger in terms of breaking strength, but cotton did not stretch as much, and minimizing stretch became the name of the game. Soon the use of flax on warships was replaced by cotton."