Our mainsail was first hoisted in 1982. We have had a fair amount of work done on it over the years. Due to its baggy state with any breeze over 7 knots the boat sailed more efficiently with the main reefed. We decided for its 40th birthday to put it into retirement.
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A new mainsail, yay! So, What do we get? What would be our ideal mainsail. We started making a list. I have always been impressed with North sails, so that goes on the list. We had previously considered putting a top full batten in our existing sail to help with shape and twist. We should try that. I have always had an active outhaul/ flattening ring so having a loose footed main would be good. That way we could have a flatter sail for pointing and still have a deep sail for broad reaches without the shelf and without the flattening ring. The mate requested leech telltales. We would still want to have a single reef and I wanted to go with at least 6.5 ounce Dacron.
This is going to be great!... This is going to be expensive! The brakes came on. The CFO determined it wasn't going to happen. We could maybe do 25% of a new sail. So I did a quick check of Minnie's inventory and they had a few mains that were within our measurement range. Thankfully Etchells have close to the same mainsail measurements as our Cal 2 29. That means the last season Etchells race sails are possibly new sails for us. These sails were cut for a boat that's 4000 pounds lighter. That means they will be flatter, but flatter is what I'm looking for. So I got to spend Saturday morning in Costa Mesa going through Minnie's inventory. I found a stiff Dacron 9.5 oz. North with Kevlar reinforcement. It had seen little use one season. It met our criteria except no reef and it had a bolt rope for a slotted mast instead of slides.
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Minnies said they'd knock a $100 off the price and throw in some sunburned battens. Sold! Now to set it up for our boat.
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The first item was to remove the old numbers. Simple enough, just peel them off.
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Aakk, what about all that sticky residue?
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The best way to remove the residue is to use a dry terrycloth towel to rub off the thick stuff. then use 3M adhesive remover 38987, spraying it on a fresh towel. Remember whatever you don't remove with the first towel will turn to a gooey mess with the adhesive remover.
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Once you have removed the residue you should wipe the area with a damp towel. When it has dried rub a Kleenex across the area to check for any residual stickiness as this will catch dirt and turn yellowish. It is more time consuming but I advise you work on one number at a time because it is very easy to lose track of the sticky area.
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Now to put on our numbers and our insignia. Sailrite to the rescue with pre-cut and sticky back numbers.
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Take the time to make accurate measurements and mark the sail with pencil. I have seen many lofts just run a single line and mark the spacing. This has not worked for me. I make a box for each element. It guarantees everything is straight and spaced uniformly.
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The insignia is another matter. Bulk sheets of pre-glued material are available through Sailrite. We made a pattern using baking parchment paper. We cut these out and then traced it onto the back of the fabric. Then we cut the fabric. I say we, but I mean the mate. I never could color inside the lines.
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We used the same technique of marking boxes for each element.
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Next was to tackle the sunburned battens. They required gloves to handle because after sitting in the sun they were raw fiberglass. A quick spray of uv protectant urethane and they were like new.
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We needed to adjust their length. Each one was about a foot too long. Marking the batten while holding it in at the right tension was easy with two of us.
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With a easy cut with the saber saw and a little filing of the edges they were done.
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North Sails has a great little tutorial on loading tensioned battens. After a few try's it's easy.
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Lastly changing from bolt rope to slides. Sailrite has a good video on the process. First we had to measure and mark the locations for the grommets.
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The full batten has a box that requires using webbing instead of a grommet and shackle so that needed to be taken into account when measuring. After measuring and marking we used a inverted grommet as a guide to punch the holes.
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Then using the proper tool we seated the grommets.
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We had to buy new slides from Sailrite because the old style we had on our previous sail wouldn't accommodate the shackle. When my daughter worked for a loft I was surprised that even they bought supplies from them. Adding the slide, plastic protector and shackle was simple.
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I stitched the webbing on the batten box with waxed twine using a palm, only took a few minutes.
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Finally I transferred the clew slug from the old sail to the new clew. We were ready to hoist our " new " sail!
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