Dart 15 Forums

Help. My sail is about 9 months old, and 5 of those have been spent in the garage roof. Hopwever after my last race I noticed that the sail had completely worn through at the tack and the bottom 3 inches of bolt rope was loose. I've sewn it up and covered it with spinnaker tape, but I do not want to be doing this every 3 months. Am I doing something wrong? Or is the boat ( which is also 9 months old) or mast not right in some way?

Richard Harrison

My sail is a couple of years old but is used just for best, then spends most time suspended from the garage roof. The bottom two inches of bolt (luff) rope have gone up the sail. Must be due to some stretch, makes stuffing the last bit of sail down the track before attaching the cunningham a pain in the bum.

Have done a bit of DIY sail repair, by cutting a short length of rope of about the same diameter as the luff line, slitting open the bottom corner of the tack and sticking it up the luff then sewing (don't tell the wife a pinched her best needle and thread) into position. Seems to be ok at the moment. I think the tack area of the sail does get quite a hammering especially if you load the cunningham.

This might sound stupid but are there any signs that the stitching and luff cloth could have been chewed by mice - especially if you had the bolt rope end near the sail bag opening (was the sail rolled top down or vice versa? had you sprayed the luff / rope with anything?).

You said your garage roof and that could potentially be a hideaway for mice. Do not underestimate where they can get - I have seen a rat nearly 20 feet up a rendered concrete wall before it realised it was being watched and ran down again. Mice can get through gaps not much more than 1/4" -1/2" high.

Mice seem to be partial to sails and bolt ropes - we have a Mirror sail at our club to show what they can do.

Just a thought. I bring our sails indoors from our store shed in winter for this very reason.

Steve Willis

Richard,

I've had some trouble with this in the past.
Usually I've found that the chafing has been caused because the sail is being pulled out of the bolt-rope track.

When I was still using the original style v-groove down haul, I found that it would often come un-cleated, and that would allow the sail to ride up the bolt-rope track. The real bad bit was, if it got to the stage where there was only a few inches at the bottom of the sail left tucked in the track, it would literally pull through the narrow part of the track, badly chafing the sail material as it did. A decent downhaul tension also helps keeps the sail in place at the top of the mast.

To fix this

1) I switched over to the cam-cleat downhaul system. Which not only works better but it never accidently comes uncleated.

2) Close up the bolt rope slot in the mast at the top and bottom. Just carefully tap it on each side of the slot with a hammer on a block of wood.
Ideally, the slot should be only just wide enough to pass the sail through.

Hope that helps
Regards

Gordon Goldstone

Richard

I'd get the sail to your sailmaker for a repair, the amount of pressure & wear you are likely to get in that area will probably destroy your hard work on 1 windy day. He should be able to remove the cringle in the tack, put some good webbing on (not too heavy so it won't go in the track!) & replace the cringle.

Make sure he knows that the bottom of the sail goes DOWN the track, if he's not a Sprint / Dart sailor he might not be aware.

My sailmaker would do that for about £20, though he is particularly reasonably priced.

Charles.

May be also check there are no rough edges inside the luff groove, it can be caused a number of ways but a small nick in the groove will soon cut the material.
Brian wndsport

I go along with Charles, my bolt rope rode up the sail and also keep comming out of the slot. I took the main to the local sailmaker in Liverpool were he cut out the downhaul eyelet so he could repair and sew in the boltrope and replaced eyelet, I closed up the mast slot (carefully) with rubber mallet and its still good that was about two years ago, Oh and last year I switched over to the cam-cleat downhaul system supplied by Steve Sawford. Hope this also helps
SteveR
Loosecannon 1910
Penmaenmawr S.C

The following message was relayed from Bob Carter:

The reason that the tack wears out in no time on the new boats is that the mast slot is too big. The bolt rope at the tack of the sail where the force is greatest gets jammed in the >4mm slot. It is here that there is also maximum friction due to the motion when the downhaul is used. Mine started to do it after only a few uses but I caught it in time and put some more Teflon tape on the sail.

The fix is to close up the slot at the bottom of the mast to 2.5mm.* This can be done with a hammer and a wooden drift. You need to do the WHOLE SECTION below the sail entrance slot. All owners of new boats with South African Masts need to do this if they have not already done so.

Once the sail is damaged it is best fixed with Teflon Tape by a sailmaker. Spinnaker tape is useless. Richard if I was you I would send the sail back to Hyde and have a proper repair with a new cringle. I bought some Teflon tape from Hyde and fixed my own but the bolt rope had not broken out.
Hyde are a super Company and very helpful. The Contact is:

John Brooks.
Direct dial telephone and fax: +44 (0)1268 684604.

Hyde Sails Limited
Unit 2
Eastlands Boatyard
Coal Park Lane
Swanwick
Southampton
SO31 7GW

Telephone: +44(0)1489 563420.
Fax: +44(0)1489 563421.

I hope that this helps

Regards

Bob

I have another query on the bolt rope, at the tack area.

Whenever the downhaul is eased off, the tack of the mainsail jumps out of the lower groove of the mast. This is particularly noticeable with newer sails, perhaps because the old sails have stretched a bit.

But perhaps not. Is the tendency a defect in the sail or is it the mast? If the lower luff groove was extended a little upwards, the sail wouldn't jump out.

I have observed various heath-robinsons to remedy, eg a second hook on the tack, a velcro band around the mast etc.

Comments welcome, please.

Andrew 1520,
TBYC.

Hi Andrew,
The original mast opening did allow that to happen and could mak it difficult to get the tack into the slot if the sail was jumping around requiring you to line up the bolt rope and the luff groove + tension the downhaul.
The new masts have the slot futher up by a few inches which allows you to slip the bolt rope into the slot before you start adding down haul tension, very similar to the dart 18.

It is unlikely you would ever need to ease off downhaul so the bolt rope jumped out of the slot on the old mast, so an idea is to make the downhaul rope where it comes out the jamming cleat and add a knot in the rope there when sailing preventing the line from running out too far by accident. Back to teh beach you may need to to take the knot out so you can get the downhaul hook off etc.

My thoughts
Brian Windsport.

Thanks Brian for this. It seems the newer boats and their masts are the best they have ever been. Everything seems to have been ironed out.

Andrew.