Beashel replaces 16 year old North Sails mainsail

by Helen Hopcroft on 8 Aug 2007 It’s the only member of the famous Beashel sailing family ever to retire. Ken Beashel recently decided that it was time to replace the mainsail on his cruising monohull, a 50ft Derecktor named ‘Mother Goose.’ The 16 year old mainsail was originally built by North Sails and had done more sea miles than your average yacht deliverer. North are currently building him a new mainsail, and if it’s anything like the last one it should still be going strong in 2023.

Ken reckons that it was the years spent cruising on Mother Goose, who was thus named because she is a ‘big mother of a boat’, that helped his sons Colin and Adam become champion yachtsmen. Colin was a member of the America’s Cup winning Australia II crew in 1983, and the following year participated in the first of many Olympic Games.

Earlier this year Adam was the strategist on board America’s Cup challenger Emirates Team NZ, and will be tactician on board defending champion Wild Joe in the Grand Prix IRC Racing Division at Hamilton Island.

Ken had earlier established a blistering reputation as a champion skiff sailor, so it’s not surprising that his children inherited his talent and love of boats.


Mother Goose was launched in America in 1971 and Ken and his family brought the yacht and sailed her back to Australia in 1975. Prior to leaving America they converted her from a Cruising Club of America rule boat to a cruising boat.

‘We used it as a family cruising boat as the kids grew up…They were pretty good times’ said Ken Beashel.
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One time we were at sea for 25 days on a 4000 mile trip. In those days we didn’t have any self steering or anything like that, so they (the children) all took watches. They’ve been sailing all their lives. The youngest boy had his 7th birthday in the Marquesas. Colin, the eldest boy, had his 16th birthday in Tahiti. And the daughter had her 13th birthday in between.’


Mother Goose was big enough to carry about three smaller boats on her deck, so the family later used her both as a cruising vessel and as way of transporting racing boats between regattas. Beashel says that he has lost count of the number of East Coast trips Mother Goose made with his sons on board.

‘Lord knows how many times up and down the coast chasing Olympic selection with our sons sailing.’


In 1991 he asked North Sails to build him a new Spectra cruising mainsail, though at the time he had no idea the sail would still be on the boat 16 years later.

‘With this mainsail we’ve sailed down to Tasmania and circumnavigated Tasmania, and we’ve sailed it across the Tasman. She’s done five Tasman trips. We’ve been out to the islands, out to Tonga, and Fiji and those places a couple of times. We’ve been down to Melbourne for regattas and down to Hobart again and probably four Lord Howe races. And also social races.’

‘It’s a lot of miles, it’s been an ocean voyaging boat, so it’s a bit hard on sails. The mainsail goes up and it’s up anything up to 10 or 12 days. And in that time it’s reefed, and pushed and shoved around a lot. It’s taken a fair bit of work and it’s stood up very well.’

Beashel commented that the only damage to the 16 year old sail is some chafe, wear on the thread and mildew.

‘It’s surprising just how well the material has stood up… In a cruising boat a lot of the time it’s steered by autopilot or windvane and the sail gets quite a bit of chafe because the boat is not sailing in a direct line or as good as a helmsman might steer it.’

He has asked North to put the old mainsail over the new one to identify areas most at risk of chafe, and these areas will be reinforced.

‘And that way we can be sure that we will beat that from the start. A lot of the time you can work out where chafe is, but it’s nice to use an old mainsail to show you where it really is.’


His new mainsail will be constructed from North Cloth Dyneema Gatorback ™ which is also known as Spectra under another brand trademark. Julian Plante, from North Sails, said that this cloth is perfect for performance cruising sails because of its low weight, very high strength and extremely good resistance to stretch. The cloth has good resistance to wear from bending and flexing and features excellent UV resistance.

The mainsail will be made in a tri radial panel layout to use the best stretch capabilities of the cloth, with staggered cloth weights to improve performance.

Plante said that having a well cut cruising sail which holds its shape well is something that makes cruising a safer and more enjoyable experience.

‘From my own experience if you’re sailing offshore and you want to get from A to B, the quicker you get there the less likely you are to get caught out in an adverse weather system that hadn’t been predicted. You can jump between ports quicker.’

‘People think that it’s just a cruising sail, but you still want to have the best possible shape you can have. The best sail shape means the best performance. There’s no point having a slow sail when you can have a good looking one that performs well: it’s going to make the boat perform better.’


Both men agree that just because a boat’s cruising it doesn’t mean that the principles of good sail trim go out the window. It’s something that Beashel is quietly passionate about.

‘You’ve got to be fair dinkum about it. If you shake a sail, some of the life is going to go out of it.’

Plante agrees on this point and added that buying a better sail, even if it is initially more expensive, is a good decision both in terms of longevity and boat handling.

‘A lot of the clients that we get are former racers or people that understand and appreciate a good sail and a good sail shape. But other people tend to forget about that and they buy a cheaper sail: it might be made from a cheaper material or be under specification in terms of the finishing, reinforcing and detailing. It’s not as good and it won’t last as long and it won’t perform as well.’

‘They’re the ones you see struggling up the bay and trying to go to windward and not really achieving that very well.’

The final word really needs to go to Beashel. Would he recommend North cruising sails to other sailors?

‘I would now. I think they’ve given the cruising bit a lot of thought. With the modern material, we know that the shapes there and the shape will stay there. And that’s important to a cruising boat because you want performance as well.’

North Sails (Australia) Pty Ltd
12 Polo Avenue
Mona Vale NSW 2103
PO Box 511
Mona Vale NSW 1660
Tel: + 61 2 9997 5966
Fax: + 61 2 9997 4805
Email: office@au.northsails.com