Sail Repair - advice sought

[teneicm]

Hello all-


We recently managed to put a small-ish (14 inch) rip in our headsail during our passage to Seychelles. The rip is essentially parallel to the headstay, about 3 feet from the furler. There is also a "stress line", sort of a distortion of the sailcloth fibers, but no rip, that extends another 12 inches above the rip itself. The headsail is the primary 100% jib, so made of some pretty heavy dacron.


Anyway, what is the proper technique that should be used to repair the sail? A patch? With how much overlap? Should stickyback be used as well? We are about to take it to the only guy that does sail repair here, but he is primarily an upholsterer by trade, so I want to make sure what he will suggest is in line with best practices.



Cheers- Matt

[Kestrahl]

The first question to ask is what caused the rip and distortion in the cloth. And if you fix it is it just going to rip again next to the repair. Was it caused by using the sail partly furled, if it is parallel to the headstay?

A good repair uses wider stickyback under a dacron patch that is sewn with at least two rows on all edges. You want to step the repair, so it goes sail body to two layers to three layers etc, with each layer getting smaller. You don't want to have a hard edge going from the sail body to 2 layers of dacron, then it will just rip along the edge.

Originally Posted by teneicm

Hello all-

We recently managed to put a small-ish (14 inch) rip in our headsail during our passage to Seychelles. The rip is essentially parallel to the headstay, about 3 feet from the furler. There is also a "stress line", sort of a distortion of the sailcloth fibers, but no rip, that extends another 12 inches above the rip itself. The headsail is the primary 100% jib, so made of some pretty heavy dacron.


Anyway, what is the proper technique that should be used to repair the sail? A patch? With how much overlap? Should stickyback be used as well? We are about to take it to the only guy that does sail repair here, but he is primarily an upholsterer by trade, so I want to make sure what he will suggest is in line with best practices.



Cheers- Matt

[teneicm]

Thanks Phil! Makes sense. Thanks also for the info provided in the PM you sent.


Cheers- Matt