MILLENIUM: FEATURES AND ADVANTAGES.

Pier Carlo Molta, the engineer in charge of OneSails Research and Development, answers some questions to help clients understand the benefits offered by Millenium sails, the most technologically advanced and highest performing product of its kind on the market.

Q: What is Millenium?

A: Millenium is a completely innovative sail-making technology. Its main feature is a continuous thread reinforcing structure, which guarantees the best possible maintenance of the sail’s shape over long periods. This technology avoids the need for glues and generates a whole series of advantages that its competitors lack: it allows for extremely light sails that are both flexible and highly resistant. For the first time, it has become possible to make sails entirely reinforced with carbon fibre that are totally reliable.

Q: What are the main advantages of sails made using this technology?

A: The most important things are their lightness and the stability of shape that comes from the optimum exploitation of carbon fibre.

Q: To be more accurate, exactly how much is the gain in terms of sail lightness, compared to competitors’ products?

A: That depends on the size of the sail. Generally speaking, for smallish boats Millenium can eliminate 15/20% of sail weight. The biggest gain comes with sails for maxi and mega yachts, where there can be a weight saving of 40/45% compared to other kinds of sail. Improved manoeuvrability and better resistance to wear and tear are the most obvious plusses.

Q: What kinds of fibre are used in the construction?

A: As we said, carbon in medium or thick sizes distributed according to the kind of sail in question. These can be complemented or replaced by classic fibres, like Kevlar or Twaron, while we are especially in the forefront of experimentation with Dynema, an extremely interesting new material, which is just finishing a long testing phase, firstly at a technological level and then at sea, a process that all our products go through before being offered to our clients.

Q: Can Millenium sails also be used for cruising yachts?

A: Yes, they make excellent cruising sails, especially for boats over fifty feet: here they offer sails that are light, extremely hardwearing and easily to handle. On request, they can be lined with a lightweight protective taffeta fabric.

Q: What’s the advantage of using taffeta?

A: It’s a protective fabric that is totally adherent to the base membrane used to make the sails, pre-treated to provide protection against wear and bacterial mould.

Q: What are Millenium’s advantages in terms of UV damage? A: Basically the carbon fibre is totally immune to UV damage, while the absence of glues (which are normally the most sensitive and degradable elements in sails) reinforces this immunity.

Q: Can it used to make rollable sails?

A: Certainly. In such cases we make a suitable arrangement for the reinforcing fibres, with the double effect of also preserving them better.

Q: Are there size limits for this kind of sail?

A: No, none at all. We can make sails of any size without any interruption. The most spectacular example is the project we carried out for the J Class 'Shamrock V', where we made the biggest continuous thread mainsail in the world, with 46 metres on the mast, 18 metres on the boom, and over 410 square metres surface area.

Q: In a sector where your competitors use foreign technology and materials, OneSails has come up with an answer using Italian technology and entirely Italian-made components. Are they also actually made up in Italy?

A: Yes, just near Florence we have a production unit devoted exclusively to Millenium sails, which guarantees us maximum levels of quality and product control, from the planning phase all the way through to final delivery to the client.

Q: To sum up: why choose Millenium sails?

A: For competitive yachting they offer the most technologically advanced and best performing options on the market. For cruise sailing they last superbly, are easy to sail with and light to handle.