The Sail Making Saga

We actually wanted to report about sail making at the end of February, but strictly speaking the process is still ongoing, with further tweaking required.
When we sailed from Puerto Escondido, in the Baja California Sur, we had the original flat-cut sails that did not perform particularly well; especially to windward in light winds. We knew before we left NZ that, long-term, we wanted the better performance of cambered panel sails. Fortunately, the marina in Guaymas was an ideal place to start this project as they allowed us to use a large untenanted commercial office space for the work.
We had already ordered the material on our shopping trip to the States which was to be delivered to the marina in Mexico. The material, "Top Gun 9" is a vinyl-coated, sun-resistant canvas that has already proven itself on Tystie's sails. With a width of 1.3 m, we ordered 45 meters in red and 23 m in white.
We waited a long time for delivery. Ultimately, we learned that the package could not be delivered because a special license is required in Mexico to import textiles. Since we didn't have this, the shipment was sent back without further ado. It took us weeks to find another way to transport the material to Guaymas. Fortunately, we heard from a woman who often commutes between Tucson and Guaymas to deliver packages to sailors. We have used this option several times and were very happy every time we finally got the stuff. In this way we got the sailrite, the salon tables and our water-maker in addition to the sail material.

We studied Arne Kverneland's manual, "a DIY guide to rigging a boat with cambered panel sails", which we downloaded from the JRA "Jung Rig Association" website. This was a substantial work to be studied and understood. We took various measurements from the existing sail, e.g. length and spacing of the battens, length of the masts, etc.
Then we ventured into the calculations of the camber needed for each of the various panels.

Deep thought. The Captains calculations

In order to mark out and cut the panels out of the material, we needed something that we could use as a template. It had to be stable and not stretch or change shape. It's not so easy to explain to someone what you need and what you want to do if you don't speak the language well enough and the other side has no idea what you are attempting. Our "boys" helped us to find some stronger paper. Of course it was always unlikely that we would find a material large enough for a sail panel so we taped the paper sheets together to get the area we needed.

Making the paper templates by taping the single sheets together

The taped together sheets of paper made surprisingly robust and serviceable templates. With the templates marked and cut out we were ready to start marking out the sail cloth. We soon discovered that each panel was wider than the 1.3m width of material. This meant that material had to be joined before a panel could be marked and cut out. This was something we had hoped to avoid. It was, for us newbies, difficult and time consuming work and we were less than pleased with our early lumpy looking seams. However, our technique improved and the seams have flattened out and appear completely normal in the finished sails.

Panel template on top of the joined material in preparation for marking and cutting. Note the puckered seam; as already mentioned this tended to flatten with time. 

  

One section after another was cut out, hemmed, marked and put aside. We cannot express in numbers how many metres we slid across the room on our hands and knees during the process.

 Top panels, one a template, the other already cut out

The top two triangles were again a challenge. We lacked the reference points that Arne mentions in his method. We solved the problem geometrically using measurements from the designer's plans. Now all the sail sections were cut out and some of the most difficult work began, in that, we were by now short of material and the batten pockets still had to be manufactured. The only solution was to put all the small off-cut pieces together like a puzzle until adequate length was obtained to make a batten pocket.

Batten pocket off-cut puzzle with two battens to gauge length.

We became a good team, with both marking and cutting, as well as feeding the large fabric parts through the machine.
At the beginning the parts to be sewn were relatively small, but with each added section it became more difficult to feed the fabric through the sewing machine. It was critical to reduce the drag of the material across the sewing table so as to avoid short stitching. There were frustrations, going off track and having to unpick and restitch or sewing beautifully for half a metre or more with the lower bobbin empty of thread.
We slowly assembled a sail by joining the parallelogram panels from the bottom up. After 2 sections were joined, the batten pocket was sewn onto the seam. So the sail slowly grew in size and weight. The two triangular panels were joined, then joined to the five paneled parallelogram part of the sail. First we sewed the somewhat smaller headsail and then the main sail.

Renate finishing a seam. Note the improved joining seam by her left hand.

We completely ran out of material on the main sail. We were still missing 3 batten pockets. Importing more material into Mexico was too daunting and time consuming. An alternative solution had to be found. With the help of a Marina employee, we were able to find a company in another Mexican state that was selling a“sunbrella” type of material . So we ordered enough material to finish the batten pockets for the main sail and manufacture our planned Dodger (weather protection for entry into the boat).
When all sail parts were assembled, the edges of each entire sail was sewn with webbing for strength. Loops were attached to fix the sails to the spars and to secure the battens. Renate's artistic talent came to fore. She designed and made a 'Taiko' icon from scraps of white material, these were then sewn to the lower triangle on both sides of each sail. We think it rather stylish.

The finished fore sail, flaked down with camber visible along the batten pockets.

The sails were brought on board along with the freshly painted battens and the process of dressing the masts began. The sails was hoisted on the mast panel by panel. We, the crew, and onlookers were surprised at how good the sails looked even though it was obvious the more work would be required. Fortunately while dressing the masts there was very little wind.

The Capt'n is looking skeptically at the sails. The diagonal creases in the sails were not pleasing. Photo also shows dodger frame with provisional pattern attached. 

The Capt'n was not happy. It took a long time to try and test the sails to find out how we can get rid of the diagonal creases in the sails.
Here the error of using mixed methods manifested itself. The upper triangular section made from the designer's original plans did not 'peak up' the parallelogram panels made to Arne's method sufficiently, causing the battens to droop too much, thereby creasing the panels. It was determined by experiment that the triangular section of each sail had to be shortened by 750mm. So the sails had to be removed again and a good piece cut out of each sail.

The sail with the cut out section in the lower part of the picture.

The modification was a success, the creases disappeared.

In the meantime we have sailed quite a bit with the new sails. They pull well and we make good progress, especially in light winds. The Capt'n is still not 100% satisfied and plans to have split sheeting to control sail twist. That is, a sheet for the upper panels and one for lower panels. The fore sail deck blocks will be shifted aft to get a better angle and to better accommodate the dinghy when it is on deck.
It's amazing how many other sailors come by and say how impressed they are with our sails and how much they like them. It is hard to believe that we made them ourselves. It makes us a little proud of our Taiko. 

Approaching the Anchorage at San Everisto