Sail Lashing help

[Florin {VACATIONER}]

Anyone have any drawings/pics/links for different methods of lashing the main to the boom and gaff?

Will the sched40 pipe still be needed on the foot and head of the sail with different kinds of lashings?

How could I instead sew in re-inforcement patches on the clew and tack on the main to go loose footed? Never done this before or seen it done so I sure need some help.

Thanks

[Frank Hagan]

Here's one method:

This is called the marlin hitch, and has the advantage of not allowing too much "slip" ... but I found it tended to fold over the lower edge of the sail since the grommets on my main were up from the edge a bit. So I changed to "robands", individual loops of small stuff through each grommet, tied around the boom or gaff. With 4 wraps around, the robands stayed put.

I did put up a little tutorial on how to tie the marlin hitch at http://users2.ev1.net/~fshagan/marline.htm (the quality of the pics is a little rough ... it was done back in my "dial up days".)

[Barry Pyeatt]

Florin,

Go to your library and check out a book called "The Sailmaker's Apprentice". They will order it on inter library loan if they don't have it in their system or order it from Amazon.com thru Frank's line here. Good reference and information on sewing up all sorts of things for sails. And in particular look at loose footed mains.

The following drawing shows overlapping portions of sailcloth sewn into the tack and clew. The size can start at about a 9-12" radius and increase by about -12" with each additional "patch". the smallest patch can be the top layer. All of the layers would be sewn together with a zig-zag stitch. This helps to spread the stress and re enforce the tack and clew so that they can handle the additional stress of a loose foot.

Roach is a curved line outward from a direct line point to point. On a main sail the size of a Vacationer's you would drop the deepest point at about 30 -40% of the way back from the tack. How much you drop this curved foot is a matter of trial and error but an additional 9" wouldn't be out of order. Then sweep it back up to the clew with a nice gentle curve.

This allows the sail to belly out and grab a bit more air. You could also sew in a dart or darts at the tack that would help to create a belly.

Go to David Greys Polysail Website and look at sail shaping. Easy enough to do and it works. He also shows how to cut and fold corner reenforcing patches.

For alternate lacing plans, etc. Just go to the Gaff Rig Page in this forum. Good information there.

'

[Dave R1]

Like Frank I've gone to robands on the foot of the main. I middled short lengths of line through the grommets and seized then to themselves. I like this better than the marlin hitching method which I used previously. I haven't run my sail loose-footed although I thought I might see what it's like tomorrow.

I am still using marlin hitching for the head of the sail though when I have time, I will probably put robands in there as well.

[Bill Paxton]

I started out with the marlin hitch, but encountered the problems Frank noted. I switched to a plain spiral lacing for the boom and gaff, and am quite happy with it. I've notice that's the way many Friendship Sloops lace the sail to the spars.

I also lace the sail to the mast, using a back-and-forth method. When we were in Key West we sailed on a 60' schooner that had attached its sails to the mast and the spars in exactly that same way.

(There's a photo that illustrates this in my gallery, but I can't seem to make it show up in this post.)

[Florin {VACATIONER}]

OK, I got the suggested book on order. See what I can come up with after reading it.

Thanks a lot guys.

[Frank Hagan]

(There's a photo that illustrates this in my gallery' date=' but I can't seem to make it show up in this post.)[/quote']

Its not real intuitive the way the PhotoPost Gallery works ... I would change it, but I'm not sure how to make all the photos transfer over to a better program. But that aside, to make the photo appear here, right click on the photo itself, and select "Properties". Then highlight the entire "Address (URL)" field, right click and select "Copy", then, when you switch back to the message editor, you can click the "Img" button, press CTRL-V to paste the "Address", and finally click the "Img*" button again. You should have a URL pasted between "[ img ]" tags that looks like this:

[img=http://www.messing-about.com/photopost/data/500/54waconia7-med.jpg]

When the message is displayed, you get a magnificent example of back and forth spiral lacing:

[Bill Paxton]

Thanks for your help and the tip, Frank.

[Florin {VACATIONER}]

That explains it.... I can see now what you mean... Looks a lot better than mine.

Thanks