[Regia-NA] tent fabrics

[Linda Rice]

I remember reading about the use of horse fat applied to the wool sails to aid in waterproofing. 

I found a few sites that may be of interest:
http://www.qnet.fi/rus-project/The_replica_Rus.html

About 2/3 of the way down is the pertinent sail question:
http://www.pbs.org/safarchive/3_ask/archive/qna/3283_ocrumlin.html

Pax,  ::Linda::

 
-----Original Message-----
 On Behalf Of Steve Etheridge
To: list-regia-na@lig.net
Subject: Re: [Regia-NA] tent fabrics

>From: "Chris Boulton"

>So....exactly what fabric was used in period I don't think we really know,
>but by examining the characteristics of the various types we may draw some
>conclusions as to which are the most likely. Wool has been claimed to have
>been used for sails, but unless they had a way of weaving it so that it
>didn't stretch and sag badly when wet, I've always had my doubts.

At Roskilde, most of the (authentic) sails are made of wool.  This surprised 
me, but apparently it acually has better properties under aerodynamic 
loading than linen or cotton.  It is also woven with the natural lanolin 
still in it, so with a natural waterproofing and rotproof in it there are 
advantages.

However... they also recon that it would have taken as many women to weave 
the sails as it took men to build the hulls.

Expensive things, boats!  but I cannot see that having a woolen tent would 
have any notable disadvatages over an authentic linnen one.

Steve