Make do and mend - sail question

[aitchw]

I don't know how many forumites are like me and have to keep their
boat afloat on a near zero budget so, please humour me on this one.

I can't afford to have a new sail made for my 16', 2 berth Seasafe
Dandy and I have been unsuccessful in my search for a used one. I
bought her for £450 last year and she came with a Solo dinghy
mainsail which is about as bad a choice as you can get. Designed for
a mast with lots of bend it is far too full and powerful and can only
be used in light airs as I can't control it's shape. It is also fully
battened.

I have acquired a spare Streaker dinghy sail which has a little less
area, is designed for minimal mast bend and is cut in a far more
controllable shape for my needs. It is, however, loose footed.

My question is simple. I need to add a couple of reefs to it so what
do you do at the foot when reefed? Roll it into sausage hanging free
of the boom or tie it to the boom so it is no longer loose footed.

So you have an idea of the scale of things the sail is about 15' luff
and 7'6" foot. Not very big.

Any other comments/advice relevant to a sailor in my position would
be gratefully received.

Howard

 

[Evadne]

Since nobody's answered you yet, hopefully this will be of some help. My boat's not got a loose-footed main but the ones I've seen, when reefed, tie up the reefed portion in a sausage using the sail ties, or even just leave it to flap around, being restrained by the tack and clew. As you say, you are not talking about a big sail so if you fit 2 or 3 sail ties (re-inforced eyes with a bit of string threaded through) when you add in the re-inforcing for the reefed tack and clew then it would not be a big deal if you found you never used them. I wouldn't have thought tying it to the boom was sensible; as you say it would no longer be loose-footed and the shape would be less than optimal.

 

[Robin]

Normally reefs are not tied in at all with slab reefing, just left to hang or if you have them to sit in lazyjacks. Don't ever tie in reefs to the boom, the load could well tear the sail, and the tack/clew eyes you will need for each reef should be heavily reinforced with extra layers of sailcloth shaped to spread the load into the sail.

 

[aitchw]

Thanks, Dave. I've never had the chance to have a look at one so blissfully ignorant. Don't intend being out in those sort of conditions but changes have caught better sailors than me out and I want to stand a chance of being in control.

So I think I'll put three in plus tack and clew.

Cheers.

Howard

 

[Evadne]

As Robin says above, the ties are to stop the loose sail material from flapping around, and shouldn't be under strain. The tack and clew take all the strain, which is why they are as heavily re-inforced as the "real" tack and clew. Modern yachts have much shorter booms than you and I, and they can often leave the loose sail material untied with no problems, but I like to have it under some semblence of control. Have fun!

 

[Lee_Shaw]

I've noticed that on a lot of new sails the reefing eyes at the gooseneck are on the end of a piece of webbing that is stitched in/onto the sail rather than eyes in the sail itself. There are loads of benefits to doing it this way - I can't think of any cons.

I don't know if there is some reason why your retrospective reefing points could not be done like this - I can't think of one - but it seems to make a lot of sense to.

Putting some ties in along the reefing point to tie it all up to the boom nice and neat and tidy is good, obviously the ties will need to be longer at each successive reefing point /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif.

 

[geoffatstanpit]

I've got an old Solo mast (and boom) in my carport somewhere. Might that be a lateral solution to the problem? I bet it'd make a Dandy go better than the sail it comes with. I'm in Christchurch though, which is a long way from you. PM if it might be of interest.

Geoff

 

[William_H]

To my mind a loose footed main is not much different in practice to a main with the bolt rope in a boom slot. You get a lot more camber if you want with a loose foot. Reef ties would make no difference whether they went just around a roll of sail or around the boom as well. The ties should be loose so that their only purpose is to hold the redundant sail against the boom and out of your face. You should have one close to the tack (about 15cms back) and a few more equal spaced. The clew and tack eyelets need to be set in extra layers of cloth and i9t is probably worth getting a sailmaker to do it to get a strong job. Although it could be a wate of money it would be interesting to see how you first sail with too much camber would perform with a reef in it to flatten and reduce area.
Good luck and keep fiddling I respect anyone who tries to do jobs DIY and on the cheap. regards will