Industry Guide List
Success Story
EuropSails, located in Geneva Switzerland, is a full service sail loft. They offer state of the art sails, awnings, bags, covers, lettering, repair, and even lessons. One of the largest lofts in the region, they have a large manufacturing facility and convenient drop off location on either bank in Geneva.
Sailmaking
About
Sails, large multi-panel wings, require exact measurements over a large area. A large sail, plot and cut manually, can take many hours to layout and cut. Repeatability and consistency between sails is very important and mistakes or wasted scrap can be very costly because of the expensive material used in sail construction. Sailmaking is also very physically demanding, as any sailmaker knows, as it requires much of this time spent on your hands-and-knees.
The early adoption of Computer Aided Design by the sailmaking industry in the late 1980's, the high cost of materials, the precision and quality required to make a great sail, and the physically demanding nature of sailmaking created the perfect storm for the invention of the computer controlled plotter / cutter by Carlson Design in 1987.
For 25 years, Carlson Design's bread-and-butter has been addressing the needs of sailmakers with affordable, reliable, and very accurate plotting/cutting systems. Today our plotter/cutters are used in over 200 sail lofts around the world. As sailors ourselves, believe your time is best spent on the water and have designed and built our equipment to help you get out there where you belong.
Which Plotter/Cutter:
The Classic CTx was designed to be the best fit for most sail lofts and was originally called the "sailmaker". at 72" (1.829m), it will accommodate the most popular bolt widths in sailmaking (up to 64" or 1.62meter). The dual rail frame is ideal for work on long tables and will produce very accurate cuts on even heavy material like spectra, Kevlar, or carbon fiber. Steel rotary blade great to cut everything but heavy laminates.
If you operate a production loft with high volume cutting or want to cut heavy laminates, you should consider the Pro PT-72. If you are making the occasional sail, but want the precision, quality, and ease of production provided by an automated plotter or plotter/cutter our Studio STx-72 is an excellent affordable option.
Which Vacuum Table:
Phillocraft or Home Built or Lofted vacuum tables. Average table length is over 24' long (7.3meters). Sailmakers have the longest tables in the industry at over 80'. Sailcloth does not require a lot of vacuum to secure during cutting and a 3-5HP radial blowers per 24' of table length work in most cases. Plastic cutting surface (polyethylene or polypropylene) work well for all sailcloth -- if doing a lot of heavy cutting, the porous rubber cutting surface will last longer, although it may be too soft for lighter spinnaker cloth.
All of the sailmakers around Lake Geneva built their own lofted tables to maximize their work space.
Which Accessories:
These can be added at anytime.
- Ceramic Rotary Blade Holder - to cut carbon fiber and Kevlar (best method).
- Carbide Drag Blade Holder - lettering in heavier material, leathers, or patches.
- Zirconia Drag Blade Holder - to cut carbon fiber and Kevlar (alternative method).
- Wireless Remote - ideal when working on very long tables to position cutter.
- Fiber Path - lay your own fiber sails with a Carlson Fiber laying system and software.
Which Software:
Carlson Design Plotmaster Software Suite will import from all commercially available sailmaking software including Sailcut, SailPack, SMAR Azure, SMSW, Sailscience, and prosail. It comes standard with nesting software and patterning software to make basic sailing accessories like bags, drogues, boomcovers, letters, and more.
Free sailmaking software called Sailcut, by Robert Laine is easy to use and makes great sails. We offer a Sail Analyzer to examine sails in the field and our own free broadseaming sail design program call Sailform.
We can provide a computer preloaded and tested or you can load your own.
Use the BUILD page to add or remove the options listed to price your plotter/cutter system today or call or email us anytime!
*Photo courtesy Roby Vencato @ Ullman Sails Italy.
