Jeff & Margo Ramstad and ALIBI – 2000 Bavaria 37

Cleaning the furling Headsail. When we unfurl our headsail in the spring we find a collection of dirt and green mildew forming on various portions of the sail and U.V. Protection Strip due to the rains we get here on the West Coast over the winter. Rather than just leave this to accumulate I prefer to invest the time annually and lightly scrub & clean the affected areas. Over the course of the Summer with the sail being used and aired and getting lots of sun & spray (hopefully) a good deal of this soiling will be eliminated naturally, however I still prefer to get the nasty bits off at the start of our season. We lower the sail to a cleanish deck and mix a mild solution of bleach to warm water, it does not take a lot of bleach, just a liberal splash to a pail of warm water and then a light scrub with a soft deck brush to almost remove the green and dirt stains. Follow this with another wash-down with a bucket of warm water and a mild detergent solution scrub followed by a really good rinse off. Then raise the halyard and treat the next 6 feet or so, you get the idea. Pre-marking your halyard at the stopper is a handy idea. Allowing a half day for 2 people to complete this task is a good rule of thumb with time to spare including cabin, deck & topsides rinses. Do not use any harsh or abrasive cleaners and make sure you rinse both the sail and the deck and topsides of your boat well both during and afterwards. Allow the sail to hang and dry for the balance of the day on your well fendered and secured boat or even better, go sailing to dry your sail off! As mentioned, experience has shown us that the balance of stains will be taken care of by the summer’s sun, spray and good salt air. Safe and sane practices for using bleach apply so don’t wear good clothes, get in your eyes or drink the stuff please!

We have also used even milder bleach to warm water solution to treat black spot and green on our canvas dodger as well. In this instance use even less scrubbing and a little more soaking with an excessive fresh water rinse. Do not over-scrub a stubborn stain, it will most probably not come out and you will be left with a fairly permanent lighter area of fabric. Please be aware that each cleaning will remove some of your waterproofing and the color will lighten somewhat over the years from this procedure. We consider this to be a reasonable trade off to having a really terribly stained dodger after a year or two though and we like the protection that the dodger gives us over the winter. Needless to say there are many treatments available for the lexan windows and some people actually wax them from time to time however we just spray off the bird crap before it burns on and only use a soft cloth to wash very occasionally. After 4 years we just replaced our dodger lexan windows but it was because the Lexan had actually developed minute crazing (from U.V.?) and the visibility became very poor. There are also polishes you can use to try to polish out scratches and sheet burns but they do seem to be limited in their effectiveness regardless of their cost.

Our tie up lines both port & starboard are on deck all year round (the away from the dock side hang from the pulpit and pushpit and they collect grime and green especially where they are in the shade. Again with the bleach solution and water, remove the offending lines, whether tie-up, sheet or halyard and let soak for 5-6 hours, no scrubbing needed. Then carefully drain off the dirty solution and refill the bucket with fresh water, now is the time to scrub the loosened and most soiled areas with a bristle brush. Please to remember my disclaimer and caution about bleach! We swap our lines side to side and port to starboard each year as they are all the same length. This way the main wear areas where they round a dock cleat are alternated, mind you I also run stitched together leather chafe protectors around the lines where they lead through the deck chocks.