Building a New Sail Cover

Santa Clause was good to Woodstock this year. He brought me a new Sail Rite mainsail cover kit and some luff tape for a roller furler conversion.  After some debating back and forth on whether or not to just order the fabric, parts, and pieces I decided to go with the kit for the cover.  First I thought I would just make a copy of the cover I currently have but by the time I added it all up the kit was only a few dollars more and offered pre-laid out directions and patterns. 

The first step is to layout the material. I went with Sunbrella silver to match the bimini I installed this summer.  

Sail Rite marks all the lines you need to cut right out for you on the fabric.  I lay a cutting board underneath so as not to mark up the floors. Then it is pretty simple to just follow the pre-laid outlines with a hot knife. My hot knife is not a $150 specialty tool. It is a harbor freight job that doubles as a wood burner. It does a really nice job cutting and sealing the edges of the Sunbrella. 

With all the panels cut out, I used a straight edge and a pencil to mark out all the edges for the hems. 

For this project, I pulled out the big sewing machine. This is an old Kenmore I purchased used off the Facebook market. Half this hobby is the canvas work and sailmaking and my wife's little Singer isn't going to get the job done. The next step is to tape and sew the hems along the bottom. These are 3 layers thick in the end so a heavier machine is needed. I can get 2 and a half runs or about 25ft of material sewed up before I have to reload the bobbin of the machine. I'm sure different machines will vary but it is something to think about as you are zipping along on these long runs. 

With the bottom hems completed, I moved on to the zipper. My advice here is to look at the directions Sail Rite sends carefully. I ended up putting the zipper on incorrectly and having to sit down with a seam ripper and pull the zipper off and do it again.  Live and learn. 

When you finish up the zippers you will come to your lower hem. This is the thickest part you will need to sew through. At this point, the zipper, zipper clasps, and hems come to a total of 9 layers of material. To do this, I use the sewing machine's handwheel and go through this slowly. No point in rushing through here and breaking a needle. 

I decided to go ahead and install the Sail Rite logo badges. This is an option you could leave off but I figured they are here and I wanted to try out the zig-zag stitch on this machine. With that finished you simply lay the two sides of the cover together and run two stitches down the inside of the spine of the cover.

Next, you hem and install the mast neck. 

I took a variation at this point from the Sail Rite directions. They had you sew the necktie in with a patch. I decided to use one of the grommets I had leftover from the spinnaker sock project. This will allow me to change out the line if need be and should be a lot stronger in the long run.

I also installed a few extra grommets at the base of the cover to add a pull-down tie. The beauty of doing these projects yourself is being able to add some customization. 

Back to the directions, I went for the hardware installation. The Sail Rite kit comes with all the hardware you need and they sent these nice twist-lock clasps for the bottom edge of the cover. You place and mark where you want them along the lower edge of your cover. 

Then cut out the slits for the installation.

The hot knife makes cutting through the layers easy.

Next, you press the prongs through the cloth.

On the inside of the cover, you tap down and press the prongs flat with a pair of pliers.

Once the ring is installed, you come back with your hot knife and cut out the center.

With the rings in place, it is time to set the twist clasps on the other side of the cover. 

Mark, then cut. 

The buttons go through the finished side.

The kit comes with the button set tool you will need to finish this.

Set it up and bang.

To finish the cover, I'll need to hem the stern end. Sail Rite recommends doing this final step after fitting it to the boat. So that will have to wait until spring when the mast goes back up.