Is that Sew?

Yes, that's sew!  Jenny hasn't been sitting on her duff (while she's not at work) while Mike is slaving away on Abake.  After the winch covers were finished, we decided that we definitely need screens for the portholes.  Since the screens that fit inside the porthole frame aren't made in Abake's size (and shape) any more, we needed a quick compromise.  So, we went with what we'll call the "shower cap" design, and made 10 of them, one for each of the portholes.  Now when we get to the Bahamas, we won't be bit by mosquitoes while inside.  No see 'ums?  Probably.  But not mosquitoes.


Porthole screen

 Then, gathering up the courage to cut on the jib and the working jib, Jenny tackled the job of converting the hanked-on jib sails to the luff tape for our new roller furling.  She studied the video from Sailrite (from where we also had obtained all the materials for both sail conversions), made notes, made measurements, then swallowed some rum for courage (not too much -- the cut had to be perfectly straight!) and started cutting the hank-on luff off of the working jib.  (The working jib was the guinea pig -- if mistakes were to be made, it was on the smaller, lesser-used sail.)

For those of you who have no clue what we're talking about, the old sails (the different sizes of jib sails) were raised by clipping the forward edge (the luff) of the sail onto a cable (the forestay, see clip in picture on right).  A rope (halyard) used to pull it up until it was taut.  With a furler, you only raise the sail once (slide the luff up the grooves in the tube) and then roll (furl) the sail around the tube (the furler) when it's not needed.  The sail stays raised, but is rolled or unrolled (furled or unfurled) as needed.  And, a rope is wrapped around a drum at the bottom, allowing you to furl and unfurl (and partially unfurl) the sail from a distance (e.g., the cockpit). 


 

Cutting off the old luff with the hanks

 

Old clip that is "hanked on" to the forestay



 



Basting the luff tape to the sail



Since we were lucky and both of our sails were short enough to fit on the furler without cutting down the sail, we saved a couple of big steps.  After cutting off the old luff, the sail is held taut and the new luff tape is basted, using a stapler, into place.  You can see that the new luff tape has a small rope in the one edge.  This edge is what slides up the groove in the furler.  So rather than only fastening at the hanks, the entire luff of the sail is attached to the forestay.



Sewing the new luff tape



Then, the sewing begins.  For the two sails we used a total of 8 bobbins and only broke 1 needle!  (One was broken when repairing the sails, so that doesn't count here.)  Dacron tape is basted and sewn at the luff edge where no furling tape is sewn.  Two lines of zigzag stitching holds the new luff tape to the sail.  And the edge of the luff tape is sealed by folding a piece of draft tape over the edge and stitching it on.

Webbing basted, before stitching

Finally, sew on the 1" webbing with a loop for the new head and tack.  

This is now a sail that fits our new furler.  We took the working jib to Abake and raised it in 10-12 knot winds to make sure everything worked okay, and found we were successful.  Happily, the second jib was converted. 

Now, for those who think that it sounds easy, here are some shots of the "sail loft" we used (after washing the garage floor).  Try wrestling with this much fabric.  It took 30 seconds of sewing, then 3 minutes of adjusting the fabric so the next 12-16" could be sewn.  The top two pictures are of the (smaller) working jib.  The third (lower, center) is the full jib.

Sewing the working jib

Working jib stretched out

Full jib piled up after sewing