Sails All Done

Woo Hoo..... All done. Although, I am gonna miss it a little. It was fun. However, I have a lot of other things to do, so onward and upward. I was going to modify our tent a little for backpacking before getting on with other boat things, but I found out today its not going to work, so I guess I'll have to buy a new tent instead. That means tomorrow I am on to dinghy modifications.

Serena gave me "what for" the other day, because I have made it sound like the sails were easier to make than they would be for someone else. I have this horrible inability to believe that I am capable of doing things that others can't or won't, don't know why, simpleton complex or something, (I just made that up). But for some reason I always think that if I can do it, so can everyone else. I am not going to change that, but I will say that I have a lot of experience doing these sorts of things, and the skills needed to make the sails have developed over a lot of years. When I was in basic training for the military, the only compliment I received during the whole ten weeks was about how well I had sewn my name tags in all of my clothing. My squad supervisor was concerned that he might rip out his finger nails, if he tried to pull off the tags, as he had with several others. One year I actually made my own hockey equipment, and I was a goalie. I was playing against some very good players, some of which had even played at the junior level, so that puck was moving. I have fabricated so many things over the years out of fabric and hardware; quilts, bags, wallets, a boom tent for our last boat, and I modified our sails on our last boat, including give the mainsail a roach-ecotmy, getting rid of those nasty battens. Curtains, (shower and window), recovered furniture, made tarps, modified just about anything you can think of. I have more needles, thread, and accessories than you can shake a stick at. Two sewing machines, and my poor old Kenmore has been put through hell over the years. I don't even know how it survived this long. So, I have a lot of experience, most of it gained by trying, screwing things up, and trying again. Moral of the story, yes making the sails was relatively easy for me, however, if someone would like to try and make their own sails, they should assess their own abilities first, or do lots of learning. My lawyer made me say that.

30 hours, almost to the minute. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. I also did a little repair to the old mainsail, a grommet had popped out, so I sewed a piece of dacron tape and put in a new grommet. Plus I folded up the sails all nice and bagged them up.

Its a really nice looking sail. My only concern is that maybe it is too heavy. In light airs it might be a little irritating, and it probably won't fill well. I console myself with the fact that I have a nice reacher though, to handle those light days. And I am actually thinking of making a nylon mainsail. That way we can fly it when the winds are light and fluky, and the sail won't slat about.

 Here is one of the regular sliders. The webbing holds in on while allowing the boltrope to move inside the sleeve of the sail.

 And this is the one steel slider. Don't know why this one is steel, and the rest are plastic. Maybe if something gets stuck in groove, then the steel is stronger for knocking it out of the way.

 Here is one of the leech reef points. I used the same chafe protection as the luff since the abrasion comes from the same direction. There was enough leather in the staysail kit in order complete all of the required protection on both sails, except one of these grommets, so there is a lot of leather left over. Spares kit!

 These last few pics are of the completed sail. Not very flattering, but I'll get a picture of them flying from the mast in a breeze, after the boat gets in the water.

I also put another row of stitching all the way around the staysail. It was a pain, because I had to stop and go around all the hardware, but I feel much better knowing that the sail is that much stronger.

I can't say enough about the sailrite kits. I was proud to put their logo on my sails. Sure the instructions were a little wonky at times, but the computer cut pieces were perfect, and they gave me enough spare stuff to almost make another sail. Extras included, 200 feet of seamstick (which is a god send). I am digressing again, but making a sail like this without a proper sail loft could only be accomplished with the double sided seamstick  tape that holds everything together while it gets sewed. 3 - 4oz rolls of V92 polyester thread, and that's a lot of thread. 7 - #2 grommets, 2 square feet of pearl grey leather. A roll of sailmakers 5 ply waxed twine, each kit came with one roll, I used one for two sails. 3 number 16 hand needles, the kits came with 4 and I broke one. A few feet of tape, and about 4 square meters of 7.4 oz dacron fabric. The only thing that kind of threw me off was the machine needles. I bought about 100 of them different sizes, so I wouldn't run out, and I broke one during the whole process. Guess I have enough needles for a lifetime. That's good though, because you can't buy them anywhere around here.

All that's left now is the cleanup. Ughhh, my favorite part.