LESSONS LEARNED WHILE CRUISING Jamie & Behan Gifford

Preparing for the crossing:

Are your sails ready?

On April 1, Totem departed Mexico

for the Marquesas in French Polynesia. Before departing, we evaluated our sails to determine their readiness for the 3,000-mile trip. Jamie spent many years as a sailmaker and outlines below how to evaluate your sails – whether sailing across the Pacific or across the Sound.

Why even go through this process

yourself when Salty Sails is nearby; and Salty himself apprenticed as a sailmaker onboard Captain Vancouver’s ship Discovery as it explored Puget Sound? First, most people bring a sail to the loft after there is a problem. If you had known what to look for, you may have paid half as much for preventative maintenance, instead of a hefty reconstructive surgery bill. Second, if you are lucky enough to live the cruising dream, the quantity and skill of sailmakers in Mexico and points south and west varies from limited to none. Third, knowing the fundamentals used to evaluate existing sails will serve you well when considering new sails.

Preparation

Understanding the condition of

your sails is essential. If your sails are newer or recently inspected, keeping a watchful eye in the normal course of sail handling should be enough for you to spot most problems. After some use, however, you need to take a closer look.

Getting the sails off of the boat and

finding a place to spread them out may be like choosing to have a tooth pulled. When space is lacking, a wide section of dock will do, as was the case with our recent sail inspection. Inspect stitching and sailcloth concurrently and on both

48° NORTH, MAY 2010 PAGE 40

sides of the sail using the following techniques. Inspect thread for UV

and chafe damage with the fingernail scratch test. Simply scratch the thread with your fingernail and look for broken or frayed stitches. If there is breaking or serious fraying, the area needs new stitching. Lightly fraying thread indicates minor UV or chafe damage. It’s a good idea to try and correct the source of damage; for example, chafe patches in an obvious chafe area such as at the spreaders. Check the stitching at the seams, UV cover, edge tapes, and webbing straps. Inspect sailcloth for UV, chafe and

structural damage. Damaged cloth may not be easily repaired by most cruisers. However, if you discover a weak area and there is no sailmaker around to fix things, you can help prevent problems by going easier on that area of the sail until it is fixed. Chafe damage to the cloth is often

obvious, such as tears and frayed cloth fibers, but damage can also be subtler. Along with visual inspection, feel the cloth for softer or thinner areas. Sailcloth with sun rot is easy to identify. It tears easily and often shows a slight discoloration. It is essential to repair sun rotten cloth because it has no structural integrity and a tear that starts in a sun rotted area can gain momentum and carry into otherwise good sailcloth. UV covers on furling sails serve to protect the base sailcloth from UV damage. There is no question

that it will rot, so one way to make the cover last longer is to stow the furling sail below decks if you’re not going to use it for awhile. Sailcloth structural damage can

show in many ways: stretch marks, crease lines or a baggy sail. Common causes are an extreme load event, undersized reinforcing patches, using the sail beyond its designed range, poorly chosen/quality sailcloth, or rig tune and sail design working against each other. Damaged Dacron sailcloth is not usually in danger of catastrophic failure, but when subjected to repeat overloading, something will eventually give way. This is another bit of drama we would prefer to avoid during our passage. Totem’s mainsail cloth is distorted in the areas around the leech reef patches. The sail, made for the previous owner, has undersized reinforcing patches – consequently, we spent two days sewing a ply and reinforcements to get the sail ready. For spinnakers and asymmetric

sails, attach the head to a fixed object, such as a lazy landlubber, walk under the sail with hands holding the cloth Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98