Kingston Sail Loft

08/31/2026

Shark Provincial Championship at KYC:

Susan Fraser and Ali Meller were invited to race the Shark Provincials with Roger Bowes on his Shark "Hot Stuff". While Sue has considerable Shark racing experience, this was Ali's first time helming a Shark.

We used our KSL prototype 180% Genoa and main (these are based on the John Clark designs, and are as close to what he was making as we can get them).

We found out the next day that Roger's red-hulled Shark 181 was once owned and raced by John and Shirley Moss, who I was racing 505s with/against when I started 505 racing in the late '70s. Something of a full circle moment, and showing the few degrees of separation in the sailing community.

Good fun in a great event with a large turnout.

Results:

sailwave results

08/25/2026

KSL 505 Sails:
KSL's Ali Meller raced the 505 Ontario Championship (held as part of the Flying High regatta https://www.eyc.ca/Racing/FHOCR at Etobicoke Yacht Club) last weekend (22-23 August). ILCA/Laser sailor Keanu McCarthy crewed for Ali, as Devlin had been recruited to race with his mother Shona.

Ali and Keanu raced Saturday with the second generation KSL 505 main and jib and the Hyde 505 spinnaker (first time we raced with this spinnaker) and had finishes of 1,2. The jib and main were loaned to Shona and Devlin for Sunday racing. Both teams went very well with the KSL main and jib, with Ali and Keanu winning the event, and Shona and Devlin finishing third.

505 sailors had a debrief after the Saturday racing (we were too busy packing up 505s in the rain Sunday for another debrief) going over boat setup, and what we were seeing on the race course, with the participation of the designer of the KSL 505 sails, Keven Piper.

Etobicoke YC ran a terrific multi-class event with outstanding Race Committee, Saturday lunches on the water and a fabulous Saturday evening BBQ.

The 505s are hoping to be back next year with a rather larger turnout.

Keelboat Racing Drysail Racing EYC Open NXT GEN Regatta Hans Fogh Youth Regatta Flying High Open Regatta & 505 Ontario Championships Puffin Cup Pursuit Race

07/20/2026

KSL is continuing 505 sail development.

After testing our first generation prototype spinnaker, main, and jib, modifying them, further testing and further modifications, we came up with the second generation of each of the three designs. Ali and Devlin used the 2nd generation jib and 2nd generation spinnaker on day 1 of the 505 pre-worlds (three races) and had excellent pace upwind in breeze and decent pace wire running with the 2nd generation spinnaker.

Since returning from the Worlds we have continued to test the jib and spinnaker and also were able to look at the 2nd generation mainsail.

This past weekend we had a 505 training event at Kingston YC, with 16 505 teams participating. Ali and Devlin used all three 2nd generation sails, and had very good pace versus the fleet upwind and downwind in the breeze on Saturday, and good pace upwind and downwind in the light and shifty conditions on Sunday.

The sails look great, mast bend, vang tension and sheet tension changes give us the expected shape changes.

We want to do more straight line testing with other teams in a range of conditions, but so far we are very happy with the 2nd generation sails, and hope to have sails we are happy to offer to 505 sailors, soon.

06/08/2026

Testing a new KSL 505 jib designed and built on our floor:

Devlin and Ali were out last Thursday evening, informally joining the PHRF fleet, but mostly to take some photos of the new 505 jib we built on our floor.

We think it is very good starting point, but want to add some luff curve for a slightly rounder entry, and smooth a couple of seams.
There is an earlier post on this KSL FB page about building this sail.

06/08/2026

KSL's Ali (Alexander) Meller led a 505 calibration session at Nepean Sailing Club on Saturday May 23rd. Nine 505 teams participated. With these boats calibrated similarly to each other and many other 505s, tuning/setup information can be easily exchanged.

06/06/2026

Picking up some Selden 505 masts and booms for KSL customers, and a trolley/dolly.

05/24/2026

A Laser II spinnaker we built for a camp, part way through completing it. We built it with a radial head so the sail would hold its shape (not deform from stretching on the bias at the leeches) longer despite years of use.

05/24/2026

505 Sail Development With and Without Sail Design Software

While our full triradial 505 spinnaker is being used by some Ontario 505 racers, we are still working on the main and jib. After lots of testing and photographs of the first prototypes and discussions with our designer, second generation prototypes of the main and jib are being built. We have added luff curve to both sails. We hope to be testing these sails in a few weeks. That is the way most new sails are designed today. They are designed on a computer using sophisticated sail design software, then a file that the cutter/plotter can read is exported and sent to a cutter/plotter. The sailcloth is unrolled onto the cutter/plotter table, the panels are cut and marked, then the sail is assembled and sewn. I think of it as sailmaking as math and production using sophisticated tools and equipment.

In the meantime we are also building another design 505 jib on our floor; this is more of the sailmaking as a craft approach.
We had a particular shape in mind, based on what we thought would be fast. We wanted a large radial clew, but stayed with crosscut panels above that, as we were not using sail design software to calculate panel curves. Experienced sailmakers can usually develop the shapes they want with crosscut panels, based on previous experience. The panel shapes for triradial and briradial sails are best calculated using sail design software.

We drew panels on Tyvek, drew the seam taper we thought we wanted, and taped the panels together with seam tape. So we had a Tyvek prototype. We put some masking tape draft stripes on it, photographed it, then on the images, drew straight lines from luff to leech at each draft stripe and determined the fullness and shape distribution at each draft stripe.

We were close, but wanted more fullness near the bottom of the sail, so opened up the seams of some of the bottom panels, altered the edge curves, and then stuck it back together again.

Now we had what we wanted for shape.

Based on the panel edge curves of that Tyvek prototype we laid out panels in Dacron. We moved the mitre seam up a bit, but were able to use the panel curves as on the Tyvek version.

We had considered using a warp oriented cloth for the radial panels and a balanced high aspect ratio cloth for the crosscut panels, but decided on a single balanced racing cloth, Contender Fibercon Pro RSQ Polykote, as it would work well for both radial and crosscut panels. We chose the 4.05 oz as it is balanced (thread counts in warp and weft), coated (reducing bias stretch) and was sturdy enough that it could withstand being restitched if we wanted to open up a seam and change the shape after initial testing.

The images illustrate the above process.

05/06/2026

KSL’s revised website is live: check it out at www.kingstonsailloft.ca

05/01/2026

Checking the shape of the radial head on a dinghy spinnaker