Spinnaker Cloth for Hammocks

[Miguel Arboleda]

I remember reading on a sailing fabric site about quite a few spinnaker cloth samples being air permeable, unlike the waterproof qualities of the material used in the Gossamer Gear SpinnShelter and SpinnTarp. I was going for my run yesterday, and thinking about what kinds of very light fabric I might use to make a hammock, and I wondered about using air permeable spinnaker or even, if it is available, air permeable cuben. Would any one have any idea or experience using these materials this way?

I was thinking of just using a single layer of 1.1 nylon (until now I’ve always used either 1.9 or two layers of 1.1) for a new hammock, but just don’t trust the strength of the material, unless I can find the heavy duty rpistop reinforced material that Hennessy Hammock is using in their new Hyperlight A-Sym Hammock. If anyone has any idea about a source for this, I’d love to know.

Thanks.

[paul johnson]

Miguel, i’ve heard the same thing about spinnaker cloth being air permeable. this confuses me, however. I know nothing about racing sail boats or any time. I sailed a few times decades ago, but there was no spinnaker. So…

make believe with me, here i am, racing in my yacht, and i deploy the spinnaker hoping to catch as much wind as possible. Why do i want to use cloth that lets some of the air through? Would i sail faster if the sail didn’t let any of the air through? So i must wonder is spinnaker cloth air permeable? Does it really need to let a small amount of air through? I don’t know. Maybe it does? Maybe there’s some aero-reason for it? It reduces vortices spilling off of the edges of the sail? Don’t know.

Does anyone have an authoritative opinion on this issue?

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