Ellen MacArthur wrote:

"Ian Malcolm" wrote

Still waiting to see a piccy of the damaged edge of the sail being held up by Ellen, wearing clothes so I dont get all
distracted.

Now, Ellen, if your reading this, dont get all offended that I might doubt you, After all, this group is known for
elaborate co-operative trolling and the CRaptain was an expert. . .

Knowing and accepting that I am probably talking to one of ADN's many
socks, but on the off chance you are for real or ADN is pretending to be
the fount of all nautical wisdom and is relating our replies to some
cute young new boatowner, pretending they are his own words, I'll have a
shot at being helpfull. At least its vicarious sailing :-)

I can take pictures of the sail and post them but I can't hold up the sail and
take the pictures at the same time.

The same person who took all your other photos could take this one . . .

You'll just have to be satisfied with pictures
of the sail. I even read the instruction book for the camera again and now I
know how to take *macro* pictures which is another name for close ups.

I really would like to see an over-all shot of the bottom 1/3 or so
(where the wire broke) as well as the closeups. Why not spread it out
accross the cockpit and sit on the coacroof to take a picture of as much
of it as you can fit in the frame?

Some advice about whether the sail's worth bothering with would be nice.

On a dead calm day, wet the sail to give it some weight and tension the
luff between two stakes or posts a few feet off the ground then tension
the clew keeping the sail level until the shape of the sail hanging down
looks about right. Crouch down and look at the shape. The maximum depth
of the curve should be rather nearer to the luff than the leach. If its
past half way back, replace the sail. If there is *any* doubt, tape
accross the sail with black electrical tape parallell to the foot at
20%, 40%, 60% and 80% of the height KEEPING THE TAPE ABSOLUTLY SLACK and
as streight as you can when you apply it then stretch the sail as above
and take us all a photo showing the *whole* sail from the foot looking
towards the head, down at a shallow angle. It also helps ifyou can get
someone to hold a thin streight rod just barely touching the luff and
leach at the 40% height so we have a reference line.

I'm thinking maybe I should take out all the old hanks which are all green and
stiff

Good first step, but have you priced replacements? They may come good if
soaked for an hour or two in a 25% solution of a Formic acid ciontaining
kettle descaler, working their pistons at intervals and when they have
freed up, rinseing *very* thouroughly, drying and spraying with a good
brand of silicone lubricant.

If they are sewn on, put them aside to fit later otherwise if held by a
bronze 'claw' you may need to anneal the claw with a blow torch while
protecting the body of the hank with a sopping wet rag to avoid loosing
the temper in the spring. Any which show signs of cracking in the claw,
dont work freely or seem to have lost their spring must be replaced.

Thereafter spray evey 6 months taking care not to get *any* silicone on
the deck or sail.

and toss them in the trash then I can take out the old corroded grommets.
Then maybe a sail shop could sew a long piece of heavy sailcloth along the length
of the luff.

Getting a sail shop to do *anything* wont be cheap and they have a much
better press for putting eyelets in than you or I can hope to have. Take
the hanks off then ask the shop if the sail is worth saving and if so,
roughly how much to do the whole job except refitting the hanks? N.B. a
general Canvas shop will NOT have the expertize you need unless they
have a sailmaker on the staff.

Then I can melt or cut holes in the right spots and put new grommets in.

Unless the holes are badly chewed, you can probably re-use them if you
go to a slightly larger size. You use the punch in the eyelet kit to cut
the holes. A small patch hand sewn over the luff wire and accross both
sides of the hole can be used to fix any bad ones. Tapeing the whole
luff unless done by a pro, is likely to upset the luff tensioning and
give an unsatisfactory result.
Ideally you'd hand stitch the rings for all the new eyelets before
closing the 'hat' over the new leathering using the punch and die in the
kit.

Then I can put new hanks in. The sail's little - only 60 square feet so I don't see
why it needs a wire running up the luff.

To get a streight luff. When hoisted on a small boat, all the load
should be on the luff wire with the forestay just slack. All the hanks
do is controll it while hoisting or lowering. Consult a decent book on
traditional knotcraft or sailmaking for the correct way to tye the hanks in.

But I think it needs some webbing looped
through the head grommet and tack grommet and sewed on up and down for
a foot or so.

NO WAY. Only applicable to a sail with a high tensile fabric tape the
whole length of the luff.
What you actually need is a loosely fitted luff wire extending right to
the eye at one end and actually forming part of that eye and with a
talurit eye in the other end about an inch beyond the corner of the
sail. The eye at the free end of the sail is laced to the corner to set
the cloth tension for best sail shape after the sail has been hoisted as
tight as possible. Thereafter check the laceing occasionaly. Its
handiest to have the head fixed to the wire and the tack free.

Getting the old rusty wire out is gonna be trouble. I wonder if it would hurt
to just cut the sail cloth along the edge and get it out that way. Sewing on a new
strip of sailcloth would cover up the cut and rusty sailcloth.....

DONT cut the sail. Oxalic acid will dissolve the rust. Its usually sold
as a powder wood bleach. I reccomend a strong solution in hot water,
applied and left to dry in the sun a few times then the next day more
solution and gently working at the edge will probably free up whats left
of the wire. Once you have removed it, patch any holes and work a piece
of solid wire in to let you pull through a nice new piece of 3mm 7x19,
which it's worth treating with melted beeswax before you use it. Then
you just need to get the talurits on the end swaged, and do the other
items discussed above and you're golden.

Does Armour All work on sails. Making them look newer and bluer where it's
faded and stained? Or is it too slippery so the deck will get to slippery? Is there
something else that can be sprayed on the sails to brighten them up and seal the
pores so the wind doesn't go through and they work better. My sails are thin.
They're more like spinnaker cloth than thick crinkly sail cloth.

There are companies that re-proof sails commercially. I am not sure if
its worth doing though. Dodgy seams can be oversewn by hand if the
sail cloth is still sound enough to hold stitches, if not, its new sail
time. There is a product callled seamcoat or something like that for
treating properly stiched seams to protect and strengthen otherwise
sound seams. DONT use ArmourAll. It wont do any good and will make
futture repair work impossible.

Cheers,
Ellen

How about a nice picture of you sailing just for me? It would cheer me
up in our horrible winter weather no end. I'd like to see you on the
helm with the boat sailing with a bone in her teeth.

--
Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk
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'Stingo' Albacore #1554 - 15' Early 60's, Uffa Fox designed,
All varnished hot moulded wooden racing dinghy.