North East Promotions Scotland UK - Automated Sail Cleaning

 Until recently the only facilities for sail cleaning were manual - with no consistency or guarantee of quality of treatment. The investment in equipment to achieve good cleaning is substantial and NEP Sailclean has done this and additionally the company has 30 years experience of cleaning large areas of canvas. The difficulties that sail lofts have had in offering a quality service have been solved and we can offer a seem-automated sail wash that gives:

1-Careful handling - sails are unpacked on a carpeted floor, loaded flat into a soak tank, fed (again flat) onto a large roller and into the machine.
2-The sail goes through the machine and is treated with a safe washing fluid (free of bleaches, hypochlorate etc.), lightly and softly brushed on both sides, then rinsed and dried.
3-The machine, using a high volume of warm air safely does the drying.
4-As the sail comes off the washer it is flaked and packed on carpet for dispatch.
5-The actual process takes about 1 hour including drying.

By way of background interest North East Promotions Ltd, fortuitously for yachtsmen, got involved in cleaning sails due to the anxiety of yachtsmen concerning laundering.
Doug Yeats, a yachtsman from Banff, asked a Mediterranean sailmaker to wash a sail. Based on the Rivera the sails required washing with so much red Sahara dusts the local loft indicated that the treatment they could offer would not involve the best solution to the problem. Returning to Scotland it was apparent that most sail washing available would be far from satisfactory. By consultation with Northeast Promotions he was made aware that they had recently installed machinery for washing large areas of canvas and were investigating sail washing. Research and test indicated that the our machines and techniques would be ideal for handling sails with a foot length of up to 5 metre and a luff length of 15 metre - ideal for the Dufour 43. Washing the main and genoa of this yacht proved a big success. Other yachtsmen, including Dave Morgan - correspondent for Yachting Life, used our system with similar results.

Dave Morgan said... "After watching my grubby Elvstrom headsail passing through the machine it was easy to see why this washer means good news for north east yachtsmen." (Yachting Life-April 2004)

North East Promotions Ltd  Gables End, Station Road, Turriff, Aberdeenshire, AB53 7ER, Scotland, UK  Tel: 01888 562767