18ft Skiff Sails

Hyde sails have been active the 18ft skiff class for over 10 years now. However, with the latest advances in sail technology and boat design the class has been rejuvenated in the UK, creating a surge of interest and also demand for the highest quality sails combined with world leading designs. 

Hyde sails runs two works boats that compete on the 18ft skiff world circuit and supports a couple of others too. Andy Budgen, who sails 'The Project', in Sydney, narrowly missed out on the JJ Giltinan trophy last year, which is the unofficial world championships held in Australia every year. He has taken his campaign to the next level this year in the hope of going a step further and taking the title. To do this he approached Mike Lennon of Hyde sails, who has multiple titles to his name, in development classes including the International 14, which is near identical boat the 18ft skiff just scaled down. He then designed, using the new patented continuous fiber membrane system, available only to Hyde sails a complete set of upwind sails using feedback from Andy and his team.

The technology uses a design created by Mike, which is then made into a bladder which is expanded using nitrogen, which is 4 times more stable than air. Therefore, allowing the perfect flying shape to be created ready for fiber guiding to commence. 'Fiber guiding' is the process of rolling the fibers onto the bladder giving the membrane its uniquely designed load path to manage the flow of the over it correctly.

Downwind sails have also been carefully designed in collaboration with Grant Rollerson and his 'SLAM' team based in Sydney and Andy Budgen on 'the project'. We use a specific software system called 'Sailpak' which was developed by the Americas cup team Luna Rosa for their campaign. This is expensive software designed for making the smoothest 3 dimensional shapes.

Latest News from hyde sails