[QUOTE=name='atavist' date='Dec 16 2009, 06:08 AM' post='39119'
I'd like to add to my set: a big grommet kit, a bunch of hanks (once I get rid of my crappy old roller furling), a sewing machine.
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I forgot to mention the spare piston hanks, jackline piston hanks, and sailslides...this all ends up running over into my spare rigging bag which has loads of stuff in it like toggles, wire thimbles, shackles, blocks, etc...completely forgot about those hanks.
An immediate thread drift--Do you have the kind of roller furler that is just on a wire w/o a foil? It doesn't roller reef it simply furls. That's the oldfashioned kind I like as you can take it down easily and put a wire up in its place (if needed) for hanked on sails. Of course its nowhere near as tight of a stay as the newer foil kind of furler. The Code 0 furlers follow the same design. We'll eventually get that type of furler for the jib (11 feet forward of the stem on the bowsprit...) to keep us off the sprit during rough seas.
Back to sail parts and supplies--
If you want a good deal on piston hanks, start making friends with a couple large rigging lofts--they often convert sails from hanked-on to furler for people and will have the hanks from the conversion. If you can't find them that way, figure out what size you need (they range from 1/2" to about 4") and contact the used boatparts places as they'll have them too. You want the "sew on" type not the press-on type. Pick up a copy of
The Sailmakers' Apprentice: A Guide for the Self-Reliant Sailor by Emiliano Marino--there
on page 341 you'll see instructions for how to seize the hanks onto the sail. Further, if you have that book, you might be able to figure out how to properly convert your wire-luff headsail to a hanked on headsail. There's plenty of information about installing rings/eyelets and all kinds of finishwork in this reference book.
Once I picked up a copy of this book and inspected our sails, I was able to pick up things that would be needed to keep our sails in good repair. Many people keep an old sail with decent dacron around for use as spare sailcloth but I've decided that I need to purchase some new dacron because if I'm going to go sewing a repair onto the sail I want the cloth to last.
Regarding sewing machine--you can only do "edge repairs" with a machine that doesn't have a really big throat unless the sail is pretty small. Our sails are so large that they cannot fit on our machine so if I ever had to do seam repair across the sail's middle sections (say reinforce a reefing point or seam) I'd have to do it by hand.
I have a big modification to do to our mainsail (whole 'nother story) and I'm trying to figure out how to do it with our machine...
Seizing on hanks from the Sailmaker's Apprentice:
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