Making a light weight jib from a spinnaker sail

[Dale]

   Wind in my sailing area is almost calm to about 5 MPH.  I wrote about this and several CP owners gave great advice on getting a drifter sail.  Well, nothing in my life is that easy, I always go the DIY route first.  After some thought, I recently bought a 24' radial cut sailboat spinnaker at a garage sale for $30 in very good condition, a working Singer zig zag sewing machine for $3 at another garage sale.  I looked up the #46 Polyester thread, 4" Dacron sail tape, 3/16" polyester line for a new luff, the new twist-on plastic hanks and ordered them from several different places.....Sailrite is OK for ideas but high in prices.
  I laid out the spinnaker on the garage floor, marked the lines from measurements I took off "Molly" with the mast stepped on the trailer. Making the sail measurements of: Luff 15' 3", Foot 11', and the Leech 16' which is about a 80 square feet of headsail for a CP16-2.  Probably could have gone longer on the foot and leech but wouldn't the clew get tangled in the mainsheet block??  Just kidding!  I located then snapped the lines and cut out the section to be the new drifter I wanted.  Carefully removed leech and foot bindings with a seam ripper, cut off the head, tack and clew with the grommets intact.  Then I trimmed down to size all parts, folded and ironed the luff tape, laid in the luff line and resewed all these parts onto the new Drifter.  
  This didn't really take very long to accomplish and it was worth every penny as each corner came to what looks like an originally made light weight sail.  Better yet, the total cast for this was a whopping $79.69 with all shipping costs included.  The experience of the project was priceless!
  This all orange colored headsail looks terrific, and I believe it goes well with Molly's brown and creme colored hull.  Better yet, I have all winter to dream of sailing Molly with Big Orange pulling at the lines!
  My next project is on the drawing board, making a aluminum foil out of the stock flat aluminum rudder.  sounds hard but I have a friend that welds aluminum and can fabricate.....maybe Molly, maybe!

Dale

[capt_nemo]

Way to go , Dale.

I also make my own sails and derive great pleasure from seeing and using the final products. Like you I'm plagued with quite a few light air days down here in SW Florida and my Sun Cat's performance in light air can be classified as poor  to dismal!

I've made 5 sails for boats - the last two were from Rip Stop Nylon Fabric from Joann Fabrics. They are a Light Air Drifter I set "flying" from the tiny foretriangle of the Sun Cat and a Nylon Light Air Mainsail! With my recently completed 4' Bowsprit and masthead forestay I now have a platform on which to experiment and play with larger headsails.

Here are a few photos.

First, the Mainsail during initial sea trials - gaff and rigging since improved.



And second, my little 38 sq ft orange nylon wonder - love it!



Best wishes.

capt_nemo

[Dale]

Great job Capt. Nemo!   These are really nice and I like your boat's color too.  Hope mine move the boat as yours obviously does.  Thanks, Dale

[Tim Gardner]

Here is Dale's article on How I made a Sail:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6htC0vnn485YmQxMWQ2OGUtZTczNy00ZTY2LTg1YjktNGVkNmNlZGQ3MWIz

Enjoy

[capt_nemo]

Tim,

Thanks.

Reading the article brought back memories of the times I spent on hands and throbbing knees measuring and cuttting sailcloth.

Like Dale points out, it really isn't too difficult if you just take your time and follow the step by step process.

You can really save a lot of sailboat bucks by doing it yourself. Most importantly however, the satisfaction of having made a useful working sail for your boat is Priceless!

capt_nemo