On a boat, it's always something...
Upon arrival in George Town Prodigal had a torn Jib and Mizzen sail.
(look at the front sail and see the tear half way up)
I 'think' it all started from old rotted thread that had been ruined by the Sun.
The two major tears are about 15' across and 20' up-down.
It "just needs 4 patches and 25ft of repair here." -Anastasia
before
after
Anastasia thinking about HOW to fix this tear...
Working...
Anastasia and her Husband Daniel are Russian. (Like from Russia) and they are working as crew for other boats. They are trying to continue south to round Cape Horn. Apparently it has always been Anastasia's dream... Maybe Danny too? But his English is not as good and he is shy about speaking. I can tell he understands the English spoken, but does not often speak it. I can tell he understands by seeing his comprehension on his face AND when i ask him a question he looks at Anastasia and answers without her asking it again in Russian. (Anastasia tells me HIS mother was an English teacher, ergo he fought against it. funny and sad both. "When will I EVER need to learn this.")
But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I heard Anastasia on the morning net program. Daily on channel 72 at eight am the cruisers have a short vhf radio show. One section is cruisers needing help. Another is 'Buy, Sell, Trade, Give away.' I had called for aid on sail repair and got hooked up with Anastasia via another cruiser. (its a small tight knit community.) This happened while the one local guy - from Haiti - who sews sails and fabric was out of town for two weeks visiting family. Anastasia needed work, I needed sails repaired, and another cruiser had a Sailrite sewing machine.
~$1,200.
Then we found a third boat who had special sail thread to sell. ($20) I then bought all the sail repair tape that could be found in George town at the one boat shop, Top II Bottom. (9' @ $27) Fortunately i had a brand new roll of sail repair tape that i've carried aboard for 5 years. Plus we got two more rolls of sail tape from another boat. So, "It's an entire village helping a stupid drunk sailor get home safe."
The first thing Anastasia and I did was drag the torn Jib and the new 'spare Jib' to the city park to spread them both out on the grass and assess the situation. Well that's actually the second thing. FIRST i 'tried' to put the spare NEW jib onto the forestay back when nephew Ryan was here. Except the lead rope was too big to slide into the groove. (it no workey) So back to the story - Anastasia and i needed to lay the new spare over the old torn and confirm they were the same size before we tried to remove the lead rope from the torn sail and sew it onto the new spare jib.
The NEW spare jib is a foot too long ...
After laying them down and stretching the two sails it became very clear that the NEW spare jib would not fit without being cut down and totally remade. Anastasia and i decided it would be easier to repair the torn old jib than to cannibalize the new one. So we rolled the spare back up and renamed it 'that damn jib i have to get off the boat.' Yesterday we gathered up the old jib and all the sail tape, plus big industrial pins - borrowed from yet another boat - and went to the city park to spread it all out and start the repair. We worked from about 1030a till 6p and got all the sail tape applied and the patches cut and pinned in place. (the 'patches' were cut from my torn Mizzen Sail which i will not attempt to fix or replace. Not till i get back to Florida) Today we started at 930am by dragging out the jib onto the foredeck of Prodigal to get it rolled up so it can be sewn. [*note: the owner of the Sailrite machine is wanting to head North on their boat starting tomorrow. So it's got to finished today! No pressure.] Now imagine having a very heavy Dacron fiber sail that's about 40' by 20' by 60', weighing about 70lbs and you are trying to work with it in Prodigals cockpit.
Jib, the sail on the left, pointy end of the boat
folded nicely when you have space to work.
So back to our reality. All this very thick heavy fabric is being shoved into a small space. We carefully try to turn it all, fold it so she can sew. It's like having a circus tent and trying to squeeze it all in and work in a Minivan. It's giving ME the Heebie Jeebies. My anal retentive control freak, Type A nature is screaming out for me to dive overboard, swim to shore and not watch this... No worries, we have a few more hours and only 9 patches to make, sew and fix...
What could possibly go wrong?
Dennis bought it used - $400
20,000 Rubles
Quick, How do you say in Russian, "Hurry - sew faster?"
Anastasia laughed so hard yesterday when i told her 'we are going to create a Frankenstein Sail.' I just hope 'Franky' can get me safely back to Florida.
- Seamstress Skip
Dennis at work on fixing it
UPDATE:
I was working on the blog earlier and posted the above about 1:30pm. I was down below in the salon to stay out of Anastasia's way. I found out at 2:30p that she broke the needle and after replacing it could not get the machine to sew properly again. So after trying everything - she called Dennis, the machines owner, for help. Dennis replaced the needle again, properly and then left. The machine continued to malfunction. So Anastasia called s/v Enjoy and her friends Nina and Donny, who also own a Sailright machine. (duhh) 4:30pm and we gather everything up and rush to their boat. By then it's 5:30 and we've lost about 4 hours of working time. We worked till after dark and only quit when i started crying @ 730p... Tomorrow is another day and we will go back to s/v Enjoy at 11am, after Beach Church to try again.
Rolling up the sail to reach the center stripe repair.
Donnie changing needles
Donny at their Sailright
Me helping roll up the fabric to force it through the machine
____________
I am curious what this job is going to finally cost me? So far i have paid for sail tape, two places, and thread. I hope i can buy it ALL for less than 10,000 Rubles? *I'll post here later with that answer...
