Main sail repairs??

[Scott Davis]

I have a small tear just forward of a batten pocket in my main. Anyone out there know how to fix this? Can you just sew a patch over the tear. Its aprox. 1.5" up and down. Yea, I know. Get a new sail!!! Scott <----poor mans sailer!!

 

[Bill]

Patch

Sure you can patch it. Rips at the end of batten pockets are not that unusual. They can usually be sewen by hand. Try www.sailrite.com for supplies or go to a local sail maker. In reality,I just had this done along with repair of a small tear and some restitching on my genoa and it cost $58.00. So you can go either way.

 

[Ed Schenck]

Go right to Sailrite.

Bill's suggestion is a good one. If you purchase their sail repair kit it comes with an excellent instruction booklet. I have been doing my own, both by machine and by hand.

 

[red coles]

DIY

Hello Scott: As a confirmed DIYr, I always do all my own sail repair. If I understand your's, it's at luff end of batten, easy fix. Remove sail,batten and all hardware near tear. Use 5oz cloth for repair. Cut 1'' wider (top to bottom) than tear, and 1' longer (to wrap around sail) Wrap repair cloth around luff, use basting tape to hold in place. Use home sewing machine (mine's kenmore) with #18 needle, and G69 dacron thread. In a pinch you can use fishing rod repair thread. Now sew straight stitch tightly against luff rope, then zigzag stitch around patch and across tear. Two rows are better than one. BTW I just finished modifyingStock main on my h27 to full batten. Cut 18" off foot, and gave it a nice rounded leach, used 6 battens. Made a huge difference in weather helm, and sail is much easier to control with no noticeable loss in power. Good luck  red

 

[Scott Davis]

Red You Du-Man

I had no idea, you could make such changes to your main at home. My tear was at the forward end of the batten pocket. I patched it last night and hand stiched it up for now. Thanks for all the help. Scott