If you have recently chosen a new sail for your sailboat, yacht, or America’s Cup challenger, you know that modern sailcloth is manufactured using a variety of engineered materials and construction techniques far advanced from the simple sails of yesteryear. Today, sailcloth is generally constructed from woven polyester materials or high-performance laminates, where layers of film and polyester are glued and then bonded under extreme pressures to form composite, or laminated, sailcloth. The finished sail is coated with either a durable melamine thermoset resin to add bias stability or a urethane to reduce sail porosity.

Once it is ready to trim to finished shape, the sail material is cut out on a large-area flatbed laser cutting system. The polyester sail edge is sealed during the cutting process, which prevents fraying. To demonstrate the cut speed and resulting edge quality for several sailcloth fabrics, we set up our XY gantry system with a 63.5 mm (2.5”) optic that provides a 100-micron (0.004”) spot size with a 1.8 mm (0.07”) depth of focus. Clean, dry air (CDA) at a pressure of 1.4 bars (20 PSI) was chosen as the assist gas.

The woven sample with a melamine coating shown in the first photo measures 0.13-mm (0.005”) thick and was cut using 100 watts and 200 watts of power. Even at the 100 W power level, the cut speed of the woven polyester sailcloth exceeded 51 meters per minute (2000 inches/minute - IPM), which is the maximum speed of our table. The cut edge is clean and sealed with no discoloration.

The laminate sample shown in the second photo consists of a polyester weave bonded to a Mylar film. This material, measuring 0.38-mm (0.015”) thick, was cut at a speed of 19 meters per minute (750 IPM) using 100 watts. At the 200-watt power level, the polyester composite sailcloth cut at a speed of 38.1 meters/minute (1500 IPM). Again, the cut edges are cleanly sealed with no discoloration.