For 20 years Elvstrøm Sails has been steadily refining its ideas for Code Zero development alongside the advances in design and fabrication. Most recently, Elvstrøm Sails’ EPEX Technology of precisely matching film and fibre has been particularly useful for engineering these sails due to their complex shapes and load characteristics. In fact, it is this technology that has enabled the development of the cable-free code sail, where the cable is replaced by load-bearing fibre passes in the luff section.
This has been vitally important in Elvstrøm Sails’ clever way of working around the restrictions on minimum mid-girth dimensions imposed by the rating rule authorities, who seek to define these sails as spinnakers. For IRC this is 75 per cent and DH in Denmark at 65 per cent, which makes it difficult to have an effective flying shape for a sail this big without having too much roach on the leech. [ORC rates these sails in a separate category, calling them headsails set flying, where there is a more flexible 55 per cent mid-girth minimum.]
