Sailing is the fun part, cleaning, well not so much. Still, if you don’t take care of your equipment, Murphy will take care of you. Luckily, for those of us in the sailboat and yacht cleaning business we can make money taking care of the challenges that go along with boat maintenance and keep repairs to a minimum by helping owners keep their vessels in ship-shape. I’d like to explain one aspect of boat cleaning that many boat detailers fail to take advantage of, and that is sail cleaning.

Why clean sails? Well, of course you want them to look good when you hoist them up, free from black mold and ugly salt marks. But that’s not the only reason, healthy sails will not chafe as easily, nor will their stitches come apart as much. Doubt what I am saying? Well, then let me recommend some required reading.

In the January 2017 Issue of Sail Magazine there was a relevant article titled; “Sail Care – Look After Your Sails And They Will Look After You,” by Peter Nielsen. The article talked about the fact that if you don’t clean the dirt or salt off the sails, then you will have abrasions from the dirt and rats will smell the salt and be attracted to it, then make their nests there and eat away at the sail. Cleaning the sails is not hard to do, but many sailors and yacht owners do not have the time or are too tired after a day of sailing to clean them properly.

The article and most professional boat cleaners recommend soaking the sails in warm water and detergent, something mild and approved by the manufacturer – always remember that sails have different amounts of material and stitches in them and the manufacturer knows what’s best to use to prevent deterioration. After soaking the sails you want to thoroughly rinse them, I recommend soft or RO water. The article stated to rinse until you could no longer smell any detergent and I’d suggest you don’t smell any salt either and if you’ve rinsed them properly you won’t. It might take a couple of rinses to be sure.

Charging $100 per sail is not unreasonable, but be careful if they haven’t been clean in a while, you’ll need to charge more for neglected sails or sails that are dirty or starting to come apart as you have to use a little elbow grease (lightly) and it will take you a lot longer to clean. However, if you regularly clean the sailboat for your customer, $80 to $100 for average sized sails turns out to be a nice add-on to your boat cleaning services, larger sails go up in price try $150 to $300. Think on this.