Genoa Luff Conversion

I am working towards installing a roller furler on Woodstock this spring.  To this end, I decided to convert my Tri-Radial cut Mylar Genoa. While this sail is getting up there in age I feel pretty confident that I can get another season or two out of it before needing to replace it. This is a pretty complicated process as it involves your boat's specific measurements and I can't say enough about the support from Sailrite on this project. Sailrite's Jeff Franks has a great video on how to do the conversion step by step. I highly recommend watching it here:  https://youtu.be/8AY9c28aicA  The team at Sailrite even got me in touch with Jeff via email to answer a few specific questions I had. Many people want to know about my set up. Specifically my sewing machine So I'll start there. I am using an older Sears/Kenmore sewing machine. It is a pretty strong machine but has its limitations as you will see later on in this post.  Perhaps someday in the future, I'll upgrade to a commercial machine but it hasn't happened yet.  Regardless it gets the job done. 

To start the project the first step is to recut the luff of the sail. This is pretty specific to your boat and the furler you decide to go with.  I'm going with a CDI FF4  So I need to reduce my luff by 22 inches. In doing this recut you also raise the clew. This is to help the sail furl more evenly. I spent quite a bit of time measuring and rechecking my measurements.  Again this will be specific to your boat and furler watch Jeff's Video a few times through to learn how to make the calculations for your sail. 

With the Calculations done the next step is to mark out the line to cut. This will all be covered by the sail luff tape so don't be shy about marking a visible line. Also before you cut be sure to secure your leach line. I just put a safety pin through mine and will go back and sew it in place later. 

The next step is to cut off the luff. Jeff talks about needing to move the head patch assembly down in his video. In his demonstration, he did not need to move his down however, I needed to on mine so I saved the head patch for relocation later.

Next, to prep the luff for the luff tape I ran a  dacron sail tape down the luff. If you are doing a dacron sail you won't need this but the mylar needs additional support here for sewing into.  Sorry I didn't take any pictures of that step. Then I stapled the luff tape to the sail.

With everything in place, it is time to start sewing. Down the luff with a zig-zag stitch.  After the first run. I remove all the staples and make a second pass.  This is actually pretty painless and the machine just chugs right along. 

Now onto the finishing phase.  Remember at the beginning of my post where I said my machine has some limitations. Well, the head of the sail is where you will find these. When I repositioned the head patch it requires sewing through 16 layers of fabric at points. Grr, Tri-radial heads are the worst. It was tough going for a bit. but I got it done. If I had to do this again instead of using the existing headsail patch I would make a new one layering it up bit by bit. The next part was to install the nylon strapping at the head. I was able to run a straight stitch through the nylon webbing but a zig-zag was a no go for my machine. 16 layers plus nylon strapping was the limit for my machine. So I decided to add some additional baseball stitching to the nylon webbing. It may not be the prettiest stitching but it is strong and it will be 28 feet up in the air so who is going to see it anyways. The final part adding the draft tape to the head was the easiest part of the entire project.  I am not going to be putting a sacrificial UV sun cover on this sail. I will be using a genoa sleeve that will be hoisted up over the furled sail. I think the sleave offers several advantages over the sewed on sun cover. First in does not weigh down the leach edge of the sail allowing for better sail shape especially in light winds.  Second like I said earlier I don't plan on this sail lasting more than a season or two so the sleeve can be used with future sails I will be making. Overall the luff conversion project is big but manageable to do at home. With a little bit of research and time, it is totally doable.