Reef points on Tarp Sails

[mrthethird]

I am interested to know if anyone has installed reef points on their tarp sails, and what they did, if anything, to reinforce the reef points. Also, any good ideas on how to complete such a task would be appreciated.

[Barry Pyeatt]

I've seen at least a half a dozen sets of poly tarp sails with reef points in them. All but one of them seems to be holding up OK. But the poly tarp sails themselves are not expected to hold up more than a couple of seasons with use.

The single case was simply a short piece of duct tape applied to each side of the sail and a hole poked thru it with a piece of light weight twine knotted on both sides to hold it in place. It works, but not well and there is some tearing out around the holes even thru the duct tape.

The others were all done with strips of poly tarp sewn onto both sides of the sail from luff to leach and anywhere from 4-6" in width.

Two of these were with zig-zag stitching running full width in multiple rows. Then straight line stitching running along the edges of the strips of poly tarp from luff to leach. Then small grommets were placed thru diamonds of polytarp about 8" square and applied with double faced tape where the grommets would be placed. Then stitched around the edges.

Both of these had additional layers of half circle patches sewn on both sides of the poly tarp sails at the luff and leach with new grommets attached at the luff and leach. In both of these cases these were larger gaff sails than the Weekender's. They both were friends that made up their sails themselves from white poly tarp and the info from PolySails. One of these used lightweight rope for the tie downs and had a jiffy reefing system installed. Slick and it all worked well. The other used shoe laces thru the grommets to reef down. Both of these boats sails were approximately 3 years old and had seen a lot of use. But had held up just fine, but now needed to be redone simply because they had bagged out quite a bit. Both of the owners were more than satisfied with their poly sails and were planning on making new one nearly the same way during the off season.

Two others had double faced tape applied along the strips on both sides of the sail and the edges sewn in double rows. These both had grommets installed thru the strips thru round patches stuck on with double faced tape as well and sewn around the edges. These two used boot laces to secure the sails. One set was two years old and had not been used much but the owner was satisfied with the ability to reef them down. But there were some pulled out places along the reef points. The other was ready to be redone completely. The sails had been used a lot and in some heavy weather and repaired in a number of places. This owner was going to replace with Sail loft dacron sails instead.

Another sewed diamond patches on both sides of poly tarp and installed grmmets in the middle of them. Reinforced the luff and leach at the reef points with sewn on patches and new grommets there. He didn't use the reefing hardly at all, but said it worked fine. When it began to get rough and windy he would just drop the sails and head back to shore.

[Barry Pyeatt]

Oh, one other thing. These all had only one set of reef points and in all but the last case they were between 22" and 26" up from the foot. The last one had one set at 30" up from the foot. He said that he was going to have the main reefed down from the get go, if necessary, if it looked like there might be higher/gustier wind conditions come up while he was out.

[mrthethird]

Stitching on 2 dozen reef points by hand could take all winter :shock:

I do not have access to a sewing machine, at least not one strong enough for such a task. Which led me to thinking about some sort of adhesive, one that was resistant to UV, heat, cold, and water. Duct tape is out, but what about rubber cement, like the kind they use for patch kits for repairing cheap PVC rafts? Wouldn't that hold for a year or two?

Honestly, I plan on suiting her in a nice set of Tanbark colored Dacron sails in the near future. I have some ideas for tweaking the sail shape I want to try first, though.

[capt jake]

at least not one strong enough for such a task.

Poly tarp would be a lot easier to sew than dacron. Most machines should be able to handle poly tarp.

[Barry Pyeatt]

Two dozen Reef Points! :shock: They don't need to be that close together! And you probably won't ever use more than one set of them. Most sewing machines will do OK with a heavy duty needle and silicone spray lube on the needle as you work. Just take your time and have patience enough to let the machine do the work. After all you have all winter to get them done. :wink: Getting a sailmakers palm will also help with the hand work.

The challenge with most adhesives and poly tarps is the polyethelene. It heat sets well but weakens with too much heat. It doesn't glue up well at all. The new 3-M Pressure sensitive double stick tapes are used in layup work. They bond all sorts of things together including UHMW poly stock. That is about the only thing that I can think of that may bond the poly together well enough to hold up. You might do some research and find out which tape they use to hold the UHMW shoes on glass boats. That is a 3-M industrial product. It is thin and flexible enough to use for a sail.

There is a 3-M spray adhesive as well that is for industrial use and it may also fill the bill. It is for difficult to bond surfaces.