Anonymous wrote:
Thanks everyone who responded to my post on this a couple of weeks back.
Before I read the posts recommending Colin Goodman, Hyde put me onto another former employee, Chris Henderson (Blue Marine), also based in Rayleigh.
He was able to repair the detached luff rope without removing the tack-eye, and also fix a batten pocket end for under ?40 and within a day of my delivering the sail. Now I just need to put the repair to the test on the water!
Chris was also able to educate me a little in sail technology, which I'll share here:
1. Luff ropes shrink over time. Because they are generally fixed at head and tack, this can make it hard to fully tension the luff (and flatten) older sails.
2. The bolt rope does not provide the longitudinal strength of the luff - the sail material does that. It seems logical now I think of it, but I had assumed the rope took the strain applied by the downhaul.
3. Because of the above, it is actually better that the luff rope is not fixed at the tack end, rather it should be free to slide in/out of the sail, and short tail left to protrude below the tack so you don't lose the rope up inside. To this end Chris has spliced a short length to the end of the original luff rope so I shouldn't lose it again.
I'll let you know how I get on.
A final plug for Hyde - they did offer to repair the luff rope under warranty if a manufacturing fault was identified (not bad given the sail is ~3 years old, though hardly used) - but I decided against this given the cost ot getting the sail there and back from Essex by courier.
