Robbieandrew Posted May 21, 2014 Report Share Posted May 21, 2014 My sails are pretty old, especially the main, but a new set at about $1,500 would probably cost about the value of my boat. Do yacht shops or sail makers ever offer any kind of service to refurbish older sails, just to bring a bit of life back into them or anything like that? Has anyone ever had an experience with this and would you recommend it or not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knobblyoldjimbo Posted May 21, 2014 Report Share Posted May 21, 2014 Answer is yes, there are services. I think there's one in Sydney that puts some sort of refinish on the material. One of the best things I've had done is 'fixing' the bolt rope. I did this on my Careel 18 and on the yellow sail that I had on the Maricat. The bolt rope goes hard and loses its flexibility so for the Careel Dave Turner at Eastwind Sails (Gosford) spliced another couple of feet onto the rope. For the Mari he just cut the bolt rope loose from the stitches at the foot, he replaced this with a bit of additional rope just to keep it in the mast track. Both were very effective and significantly changed the performance of the sails. In the Careel we used it to win several championships, not so lucky with the Mari though. Alternatives are to buy a second hand set. In some classes new sails are pretty much a requirement to stay at the top of the fleet and some buy more than one set per year. Not sure that applies in cats but find a competitive Etchells fleet and the top guys will probably have a shed full of good sails that they don't use anymore. I think the same goes for the 470 fleet (although that also applies to the boats too). KO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
korwich Posted May 22, 2014 Report Share Posted May 22, 2014 Darcy used to have some 2nd hand sails that were for sale, I purchased one off him to replace my old multi coloured sail, the sail I ended up with was a Wayne Barry handme down, Wayne used to get a new sail just about every year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knobblyoldjimbo Posted May 22, 2014 Report Share Posted May 22, 2014 Didnt twig you were talking about Mari's. Darcy has my 'old' Tasker main.Considering that a sailmaker would be charging $80 per hour, $400 for a main that's only had six months of use represents a mere 5 hours worth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbieandrew Posted May 22, 2014 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2014 Thanks for the advice I'm not talking about a Mari, it's a calypso 16, and I guess that because there's not many around, I'm pretty attached to my current original calypso sail. There are second hand calypso sails about but about $600 each. I did replace the bolt rope about 1 year ago and it made a huge difference in hoisting and lowering the sail. I guess I might take it into Binks or something and see what they can do and get a quote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knobblyoldjimbo Posted May 22, 2014 Report Share Posted May 22, 2014 Have you looked for alternatives, say H16/18 or dare I say it Maricat! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbieandrew Posted May 23, 2014 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2014 Well, I've thought about it, but even a second hand H16 sail is still going to be a lot of money (in student terms anyway) to get one even in similar shape to my current one. I'm really thinking like max $200 or something, depending what sort of treatment it can get, hence the refurbishment option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbieandrew Posted May 23, 2014 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2014 I'm also perfectly open minded to the fact that I'm probably being very stingy and unrealistic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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