When first designed, sails are 'attached' to a mast in a file for a particular boat. A typical boat file might contain a short and a full battened main, a range of genoas, jibs and storm gear. The principal measurements are all stored internally by SailMaker as a percentage of the mast length so when a sail is copied to another boat most rescaling is performed automatically. The design files above can be thought of as mathematical moulds round which cloth is wrapped to form sails. On a daily basis, a sail designer may do little other than rescale and tweak his standard shapes.
Most time is spent in panel development.
Panels are developed independently of the mould and many different panel layouts can be used with any mould. For a more information on SailMaker and PlotMaker, download the SailMaker Overview PDF file from the Information page. A listing of the SailMaker modules and options and the SailMaker pricing guide follows below. Used for mains, jibs, gaff sails, panels and patches. Now with Sailmaker 1.8, panel layouts can be saved and reloaded for instant panel development with any sail mould.