sun shades

Perhaps you've found why Aldil sell triangular topsails rather than squaresails. I use open weave greenhouse shading "hessian" dark green coloour absorbs the heat better seemingly and open weave means wind can pass through to some extent, to cool the cloth. And as the sun is never perpendicular to the plane of the cloth, fully intercepts the suns rays.

What is rain ??? :-(

I bought the triangular-shaped one from lidl.

The 5-metre-long side is attached to the house using three eye bolts, high up with the fourth attachment lashed to some garden rails so that the whole thing slopes downwards.

It has stretched so that the side parallel to the rear house wall droops down each side of the central fixing point.

You could just buy one of those extendable poles for washing windows and use it like a tent pole to hold up the centre of your sail.

You are right I could and that would work except there’s a large table and chairs directly underneath the sail.

I think I need to install a mesh sail and add some intermediate support cables to stop the mesh drooping.

You have to be aware of a serious wind gust "throwing" ancillary kit and causing damage to neighbours property etc. I only use light cordage and small light caribenas to daily fix the shdes to the cordage , so the cord would break somewhere in a gust and 3 sheets to the wind

That’s a good point. I’ll be installing mine permanently for the summer months. I’m planning to use some very small tie wraps to fasten the mesh to the intermediate cable supports to stop it flapping when it’s windy