Sail Work

I spent the afternoon working with the sails.  I wheeled the sail that Pato had repaired to the grassy area of the club and had a look at the repair work to assess the usefulness of the sail.  The repair was as good.  I could see where there had been a lot of re-stitching and new material was sewn along much of the leech.  The UV cover at the leech was re-enforced at the joins and I saw two spot patches to repair damage probably from the crosstree.

Repaired Headsail

Flaked and Ready for Folding for Bag

Good as the repair effort was the fact is that much of the sail material has seen better days and I was well advised to have a new headsail made.  It is difficult to say how strong the sail is - it may be good for only a few weeks or may be capable of taking me back all of the way to Australia.  I won't know the answer to that question unless I am forced to put it up as the backup sail.

Never again will I order a laminated sail.  This one may have been superstrong initially (and I admit that I pushed it hard), but it didn't age well and when it was damaged it was a big pain to manage and try to repair because the material is stiff. 

Yesterday the depth sounder reported 2.0 meters of water, and Pachuca requires 2.4 meters.  The boat continued to sway gently left and right with no discernible lean.  I plan to compare the depth sounder reading with a good old fashioned lead line.