Sail Cleanup

[Carlton]

Hi All,
I have a white 65 sq. ft Dacorn Lateen sail that could use some cleaning up.
I tried a combination of hot water, Dawn soap and OxyClean on a small spot, rinsed and looks a little brighter.
I'm thinking Dacron should be resistant to this mixture and it seemed not to harm the Dacron.
I'm just curious what others have tried that produce good results.
Thanks!

 

[John Sand]

I'm interested, but have little success to report.
The first really dirty sail I tried was a very old cotton lateen, completely discolored. The fabric had lost most of its strength too. All I dared was a soak in gentle soap like Downy or Woolite. It looked a little better after.
The worst sail was a mizzen for my ketch, that through a series of mishaps became stained with dirty motor oil while stored. I tried various soaks on that, OxyClean, Tide, maybe Simple Green. None had much impact, as the stains had time to set.
Most recent challenge was discovering that mice had moved into the sail bag of a dinghy I bought. I soaked that sail in laundry detergents too, with some improvement. There was an article in Small Boats Monthly by Ben Fuller (I think) detailing the paired use of stain removers that had success. One was specifically for pet stains. I tried them on a small section of the mouse stained sail. One round had little change. Rereading the article I think Ben gave it several treatments. I'll try again now that the weather is warm enough to dry outside.