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Advice on location, mounting points, fittings and assembly of your new Sail Shade.
You can download this guide as a PDF file using the link at the bottom of the page. Planning Your Shade Sail Structure There are many, very important considerations when planning your structure, and in fact this is the single most important aspect of the whole process. Proper planning will ensure that your sail shade structure performs in the way it was intended.
You will already have an area in mind that you wish to cover with a shade sail. regardless, the area is known but the how to remains in doubt. There may be opportunities for creating attachment points for your Shade Sail on areas of existing structures, or you may need to install steel or aluminum posts to create a totally free standing structure.
Movement of the Sun The sun rises daily in the east and sets to the west.
As the seasons progress, it also moves from low in the sky during the cooler months to high in the sky during summer. Your structure should be planned to provide maximum shade protection during the height of summer as this is when it will be needed most. Sail Design And Architectural Twist Sails work best when they are designed to have a twist, or architectural hypar effect.
This is where the fixing points, being steel posts or brackets, are created at different heights, such that the sail is then twisted in order to fit. A flat sail is harder to tension correctly, and in times of heavy downpour can catch and hold water for long periods of time, thus putting excess load pressure on the fixing points. Further, from an aesthetic perspective, they look less interesting. We recommend you install your fixing points with diagonally opposite high and low points, to avoid these problems and create a visually appealing Shade Sail structure Sail Size In order to fully tension the shade sail, it requires a space between the sail and fixing points for rigging tensioners, and also catenary curves in the sides of the sail.
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Source: (shade sail installation guide) http://shade-sails.org/blog/shade-sail-installation-guide/