J/80
UK Sailmakers J/80 sails have won the class’s world championship, regattas around the world, four out of five previous Kiel Weeks and in 2015, Martin Menzer’s PIKE became the seven-time German champion, five-for-five between 2011 and 2015, where the J/80 fleet is still strong.
UK Sailmakers J/80 sails are fully class legal and come with ISAF IHC stickers.
Below is the tuning guide created by Menzer for his UK Sails.
J/80 Mainsail
The main sail is made of Dimension Polyant’s 280 AP HTP and 310 HTP Sq Radial cloth, which comes standard with radial corners. The sail comes with four rocket loading battens, Velcro straps at the tack and clew, a spreader vision window, three draft stripes, numbers and a J/80 logo. Draft stripes and numbers come in blue, black, red or green.
J/80 HEADSAIL
To meet class rules and to achieve the best performance, the class jib is made with black Technora yarns laminated in our Titanium construction. The yarns run continuously between the sails corners and are not cut at the horizontal seams. The films can either be black for best longevity or clear for better visibility. Shown above is a sail with clear films and shown to the left is one with black films. Sails come standard with four draft stripes, a telltale window (a second window is an option), three vertical velcro loading battens for the cleanest leech exit in the class, foot skirt round, luff tape cut out for the feeder, maximum class legal size, and stainless steel O-ring in the head and tack.The design was changed slightly in 2016 to make the entry slightly fuller.
J/80 CLASS ASYMMETRICAL
To be light and strong, UK Sailmakers uses Contender Superkote 60 performance nylon cloth. The sails come with telltales, small O-rings at the head and tack and webbing at the clew for fast gybing. Each corner has a label to avoid the embarrassment of putting the sail up backwards or sideways. Sail lower and faster than the competition with the UK Sailmakers class asymmetrical spinnaker.
