torn sail

[matt195583]

One of my genoa's and my spinnaker both have small tear's in them about 4-5 inches long . would this be best seen to by a profesional or is sail/spinaker tape a decent fix ?

[jotruk]

I have used sail tape for repair before but have always found that it is only a temporary fix. Sew repairs from a sail loft generally can't be beat.

[Godot]

I used tape to repair a 5' or so tear in my jib and it seemed to work well.  After awhile I hand stitched around the patch (not because it needed it, just because I wasn't sure if I should trust the tape alone), which lasted perfectly a year and a half or so until I sent the sail to sailcare where they repaired it properly. 

Of course, your question was "would this be best seen to by a profesional or is sail/spinaker tape a decent fix ?" to which the answer is probably, yes, it is BEST seen to by a professional.  But I'll bet the tape would do reasonably well, and if you could borrow a sewing machine (or dig out the sail palm and needle) you could probably do a very creditable repair yourself.

[s/v Faith]

  Some friends of ours when we were in NC had done multiple TRANSPAC's, and swore by regular non-adheasive sailtape and 3m 5200.  Before they replaced their sails I was regularly beaten by him aboard his I36 with a 5200 repaired mainsail.

  While the professional repair is a good idea, I bet Adam's patch would have lasted the life of the sail. 

CapnK has been doing this stuff for years, so I would put him in the 'professional' category.  That said, I know a fair amount of his work is done by hand and I would trust it aboard Faith in a heartbeat.  Rose is much better then I, but even my 'less then pretty' repairs have held up pretty well (mine always on non-critical areas, Rose has modified sails before).

One of my genoa's and my spinnaker both have small tear's in them about 4-5 inches long . would this be best seen to by a professional or is sail/spinaker tape a decent fix ?

  I would say that the stitch over sailtape method Adam mentioned would be fine.  I will be interested to hear CapnK's opinion based on his experience.
 

[matt195583]

 Thankyou very much for the advice , looks like I am off to but some sail tape sail palm and a needle  ;D. I intend to recondition or replacethe sails in the next 18 months, but with the economy going the way it is I don't want to over commit myself  :-[ . Might even go tape 5200 and stitching , I like the belt and suspenders approach to things.

[CharlieJ]

No need for a palm and needle unlesds you just want to use them. I just bought a new palm on Weds myself.

But for the weight cloth in most of our sails, and certainly in a spinnaker, a home sewing machine will do jsut fine sewing them. Laura repaired and recut many many sails using a portable Singer before she got her walking foot machine.

Stick the tape on the tear and stitch around it using a zig-zag stitch. Absolutely zero need for a sailmaker for that kind of things.

If you really want to go professional, buy some scraps of sail cloth from SailRite, sew a patch over the tear, trim out the ragged part from the other side and sew that edge to the patch- should be as good as new.

[matt195583]

Thanks charlie you posts are always simple and informative. ;D I am quite keen to get a palm and needle as i want to do some repairs around the clew on my main also . looks like i will be getting mums sewing machine out and trying to rember all that "junk" i learnt in textiles at school .  ???