"Thom Stewart" wrote
Good luck with your advice. If it Neal that rec'v. it, it just may be
late all the way around.

I tried to warn him about cheap Hong Kong Sail for his Coranodo but he
got stuck with them.

It sure looks like that Jib was made with an Iron Cable for a Bolt Rope.
Now what kind of an Idiot would accept a sail whose bolt rope was
magnetic. An who would have been stupid enough to not have replaced it
after owning the boat almost a year?

Duh! I don't think my little sail would fit a Coronado 27. I only wish my sails
were only a year old. I think they're the originals that came with the boat.
That would make them about twenty years old. No wonder the cable rusted
through. They probably were put away wet with salt water on them and
sat in the bag inside the boat for years before I bought it.
But Ian's given me some good advice. I'm going to snip out some of the
zigzag stitching and I'm gonna get all the broken rusty cable out the back
way. Then I'm gonna sew it back up using the same holes. It's really hard to
push a needle through the sailcloth but easy where there's already a hole.
Then I'm gonna roll the sail up tight along the luff. Then I'm gonna soak the
luff in a bucket with a couple inches of oxalic acid in it until the rust is gone.
I googled sailmakers supplies and found a great site for things I need.
http://www.sailmakerssupply.com/prod_detail_list/24 Check out those little
plastic swivel hanks. I'm gonna get about eight of those and just screw them
on. I can put a little bolt rope in when I put the luff tape on. No more green
corroding brass hanks for me and no more corroding hank grommets.
Then I'm gonna get some dacron luff tape and sew it on using a sewing
machine. http://www.sailmakerssupply.com/prod_detail_list/30 Probably
the five inch wide tape would be perfect. It can wrap around the luff and
be about two and a half inches wide on both sides. With zigzag stitches it'll
look perfect. It will also cover up the black patches.
I decided I don't want another cable. It makes the sail stiff and hard
to put in the bag. I can clean and scrape the grommets on the head and tack
and make them look better if the acid doesn't do it. Then maybe I can use
some of the oxalic acid to get rid of the stains on the rest of the sail. Then
I can use something to brighten them up. They'll be almost like new. And it
won't cost too much.
Don't you wish you had a boat.? See all the fun your missing :-) I guess
you sold yours. I didn't realize it till I read one of your posts recently. The
one about how your glad you don't have a boat any more because of the snow....
Hey, you should get a little Tangerine like mine. You could keep it on a trailer
in your driveway and you could go sailing when it was nice. The mast isn't too
hard to get up. One person to steady it and one person to pull it up using the
jib halyard.

Cheers,
Ellen