Can you color a sail?

Question

can you change the color of a sailboat sail at home using any paint/dye?

Answer 1

Most cruising sails are made of resin covered Dacron,  which is a polyester material.   Since polyester is a plastic it doesn't accept dye readily.   (Polyester fleece is made out of recycled plastic grocery bags)

Even knowing this, I tried to dye a sail blue.  I used navy blue Rit dye from Wal-Mart.  It came out real splotchy, worn areas were darker, some areas was a real light baby blue.   First time I tried sailing it, it rained.  The dye washed out, blue water was all over the top of the boat.  Currently ,there's a few places where you can see a very light blue tint .

If you just want to paint numbers on the sail, you can use 100% aacrylic latex non-chalking exterior semi gloss paint.

Answer 2

Depends on what it is made of, but yes you should be able to a degree.