Summer Dance didn’t have much in the way of canvaswork when we bought her: an original mainsail cover and an old outboard engine cover that also looked pretty ghetto. Besides being 1980’s brown in color, the canvas of the mainsail cover was faded and shredded in places, much of the stitching had disintegrated, and the…
Category: Sails
How to Clean Sails at Home
Just like a white shirt is a magnet for spaghetti stains, your sails are magnets for stains, dirt, and mildew. Unlike a white shirt, you shouldn’t bleach or machine wash your sails, it will ruin them. That means don’t clean them in a chlorinated pool, either. For hundreds of dollars, you can send your sails…
How to Add a Draft Stripe to a Sail
This project is a companion to my previous projects, How to Add Numbers to a Sail and How to Reproduce a Class Insignia on a Sail. If you’re getting started in club racing or if you just want to get the best performance out of your sails for cruising, draft stripes can help. A draft stripe…
The 6 Worst Things You Can Do To Your Sails
Crisp, clean sails not only look better than dirty, worn out sails, they also work better and let your sailboat heel less. New sails are expensive so it’s smart to take care of the ones you have so that they will last longer before you need to replace them. Here are some simple things that…
How to Add Numbers to a Sail
Have a new mainsail without numbers? An old mainsail with peeling numbers? How about a used mainsail that you bought or that was given to you and has the wrong numbers on it? You can easily replace or add professional-looking numbers to your mainsail without taking it to a sailmaker and I’ll describe how.
How to Rig a Cruising Spinnaker in 4 Stingy Stages
If you don’t have a spinnaker for your sailboat yet, aren’t you a little envious of those big, colorful, billowing sails you sometimes see at your favorite cruising spots? Nothing says, “Yeah, we’ve got this!” quite like a racing or cruising spinnaker. It’s as though the sailboat is puffing its chest out with confidence and…
No Furler? Make a Foredeck Sail Bag
If you have a headsail furler on your sailboat, this project will probably be of little interest to you. But if you have hank-on headsails and want convenient protection for them like the sacrificial covers on furled headsails, read on. A foredeck sail bag is something of a luxury for the trailer sailor. It’s not necessary…
Use Your Boat Hook to Sail Faster Downwind
In a previous article, I described How to rig a cruising spinnaker in 4 stingy stages. If you don’t have a spinnaker yet, or even if you do have one but you don’t want to raise it for short runs, one of your best options when sailing dead downwind is to set your sails “wing…
How to Reproduce a Class Insignia on a Sail
This project is a companion to my previous project, How to Add Numbers to a Sail. If you need to add or replace your sail numbers, you might also need to add or replace the class insignia too. Or maybe you want to add a company logo to your sail or a graphic that illustrates…
The $tingy Sailor 