Sail Cloth for Small Sailboats

Last winter the open sailing canoe guys (well mostly one gal, Marilyn Vogel) asked me to jot down some thoughts on sailcloth for sailing canoes for their newsletter (in my varied professional career, I have been a sailmaker - though not at the present time). The main issue I was asked about for the open canoe class was their rules referenced a now defunct sail cloth (hence the section on Bainbridge cloth). Though most of the small boat sailors out in the bloggosphere sail one-design boats where they don't worry about the type of sailcloth they are putting up the mast (alert, alert, technical data to follow, ignore if you don't care), there may be a few out there who have some interest in options for small boat sails.