As all sailors know, paying someone else to fix our stuff is expensive. Since I am broke, all repairs and upgrades have to be done by me. I feel this is better for a few reasons: It not only saves money, it also provides me with the experience and gratification of repairing something on my own.
A few months ago while on a nice afternoon sail I noticed my sail looked torn. Upon further inspection I found it to be worn on the leech where the leech line rubbed the seam. See the pics below for the repair:
Leech line sticking out of the leech of the 140% Genoa. Sal loves a bigger head sail, this is her favorite all aound headsail!
The required materials from Sailrite....about $25
total. The local sail loft wanted $40 just to evaluate the sail.
A nice rolling hitch to create a new edge. BTW this caused some serious blisters on my fingers because of the thickness of the sail. I highly recommend and will be getting a sailor palm!
Some nice new sail tape over the repair. Looks good and lasts a long time!
I have yet to test the repair as the winds lately have just been too light for this sail. I have been using the No.1 genoa lately which I believe is a 163%...or something crazy like that. As I said, Sal really likes larger headsails. I think this may be because of her low aspect rig, but I am not too sure.
This head sail is in fair shape but could probably stand to be replaced. For now however, I will keep repairing and mending the sails myself to keep ol' Sal moving along as we prepare her for cruising.
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