Making a Different Statement – Shade Sails for Outdoor Cool

Keeping cool outside – and keeping away from the sun’s harmful UV rays – is a priority for everyone in the summer time.  From small children to adults, everyone is affected by carcinogenic UV:  which means that enjoying time out in the sun isn’t what it used to be.  The depleted ozone layer requires that sun worshippers slap on layers of greasy ointment, or dash out for truncated periods before returning to the safety of indoors.  Unless those sun worshippers have shade sails, of course – in which case, they can spend as long as they like out there without fear of skin damage.

Shade sails are a different sort of sun protection – funky looking sail-like objects strung from the side of a house, or mounted on poles, to provide wide, clear areas of genuinely cool shade for outdoor users.  Unlike normal sun-protective furniture, shade sails offer large areas of sun blockage – and because of their shape, they allow users to see the sky, which means they don’t feel cut off from the day and its lovely views.

Shade sails, like real sails, curve upwards at the edges.  Usually triangular, and looking for all the world like a sail on a boat that has filled with wind, shade sails have a flipped-up bit at each corner, where the stiff material is mounted to a pole or wall.  That means that the whole edge of the shade sail rises slightly away from the person underneath – which, in turn, means that if you’re lying under one you are still looking at the bright blue sky.  Shade sails remove the feeling of obstruction that most sun protective furniture engenders – under shade sails, people still feel connected to the world they’ve come out to enjoy.