2018 PITTMAN INNOVATION AWARDS
Innovation comes in all shapes and sizes, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Pittman Innovation Awards Class of 2018. As has now been the case for a number of years, the latest in electronics is once again very much a part of the mix in everything from safety to racing. However, this year’s winners also include new takes on such basic products as the safety tether and the lowly canvas snap. Also exciting to see is the trickle-down effect in action in the form of North Sails’ new NORDAC product line: it would be hard to find a better example of this phenomenon than the same cutting-edge technology that powered the Volvo Ocean Race fleet a short years ago now being made available to cruisers. Finally, kudos to Scanstrut for the new para sailing system it developed in conjunction with RS Sailing to get more handicapped skippers out on the water. Not only does this product more than do justice to the memory of SAIL’s long-time technical editor Freeman K. Pittman, who died of Lou Gerhig’s disease in 1996, it speaks to all that’s good about sailing in general.
CRUISING BY CHARLES J. DOANE
NORTH SAILS 3DI NORDAC SAILS
North Sails has been making 3Di sails composed of layers of filament tape incorporating exotic high-modulus fibers for some time, and these have come to dominate performance sailing in such demanding venues as the Volvo Ocean Race and the Vendée Globe. Meanwhile, the default cruising sails for most sailors have remained the same woven polyester sails that first emerged on the market in the middle of the last century—until now. With its new , North has combined the great cost-effectiveness and durability of traditional sails with the 3Di process by building them entirely in polyester, with polyester filaments set in polyester resin in the 3Di structural tape. Tape sections are laid out and vacuumed onto three-dimensional male molds, then heated to activate the two-part resin that holds the whole structure together. As with regular 3Di sails, extra strength can be built into the sail’s structure where needed without disproportionately increasing total weight by adding more
