300 miles from New Zealand's North Cape . . . a squall, two sudden wind shifts, two crash gybes, and the main splits along a seam. Now what do you do? See page for the BWS solution.

Scenario

Sailing that weather tightrope between cyclone season in the western South Pacific and the end of the winter gales farther south, your 44-foot cutter is beating slowly into the Southeast Trades, bound for New Zealand, some R&R and a refit. Just after supper, at about 30S, you're below, snug in your seaberth, the boat steered by the vane and jogging comfortably to windward. Suddenly, with a slam and a shudder, she's on the starboard tack.

More asleep than awake, you start climbing out of your bunk, and just as suddenly the boat slams back over onto the port tack, throwing you clumsily back into your bunk. The boat bucks and rolls uncomfortably in the sea, the sails thrash wildly, and with 30 knots of wind and a driving rain, the noise is deafening. You leap into the cockpit, bear off, and fill the sails. As the squall passes and the boat settles down, you put the spreader lights on and see that the mainsail has split along a seam just above the first set of reef points. What do you do?

The options

Whatever we do later on, the mainsail has to come down quickly to prevent further damage to the seam. We like to put the boat beam-to the wind and sheet out the mainsail to depower it, at the same time creating a relatively stable platform on which to work. Dropping the sail is easy now, but first we must decide whether to drop it completely or hook the second reef tack onto a horn and continue sailing with a double-reefed main and a headsail or two.

The blown seam is below the second set of reef points and, thus, will not be subjected to any loads, so if the weather is sufficiently unstable, or if this happened at night, this might be the way to go. Conceivably, you could get all the way to Auckland with this rig if you had to; it just might take a little longer. However, the wind has died down, and as you curse your bad fortune - or bad judgment, depending on how hard you are on yourself - you weigh your other options.

It's now 22:30 and black as the inside of a Russian horse doctor's valise. You decide to put in the second reef and roll out the genoa and sail until sunup, have some breakfast, then put the boat beam-to the wind again, drop the main and, conditions permitting, repair the seam. If a seam under the first set of reef points had let go, it might have been feasible to put in the first reef and sail with a reduced mainsail. But you still have a ways to go, and a narrow window, and with the weather becoming increasingly volatile with every passing day, you don't want to waste any time. It's palm-and-needle time on the coachroof.

The tools

Sailmaker's palm: One that fits your hand comfortably (the fit at the thumb-hole is critical), right-handed or left-handed, whichever you need. Purchase a fine palm and it will last you a lifetime. As with a baseball mitt, periodic oiling and frequent use results in a comfortable and efficient fit.

Sailmaker's needles: A complete set, plus extras of the sizes you use most, for therse are the ones most likely to bend or break through use. We prefer needles made by William Smith & Son of Redditch, England, which are beautifully engineered, and strong and durable. Assortments of 20 Smith & Son needles can be mail-ordered through West Marine for about $25. From such an assortment, you can pick out a half-dozen in different sizes to keep in your ditty bag on board. These should be wrapped in cloth that has been soaked in oil (WD-40 is fine) and stored in a plastic needle case. Don't buy inexpensive needles; they'll quickly bend, break and rust.

Sail twine or thread: Three- and seven-ply spun polyester will serve all your requirements. We've used the pre-waxed polyester thread and have been pleased with it, although some marline-spike sailors do not like it because of the thinness of the wax coating.

Beeswax: If your twine is not pre-waxed, run it through a piece of beeswax, which not only makes the thread stronger and more manageable, but also holds the stitches in position while you work. As archaic as beeswax sounds, it's good to have a lump or two in your ditty bag.

Dacron sail cloth: Ideally, should match the weight and make from which your sails are cut.

Sail repair tape: Dacron tape is best. It's very strong and chafe-resistant and, as such, is also applied where sails rub against pulpits, shrouds, spreaders and stanchions for chafe protection on sails. It comes in widths from 2 to 18 inches, in rolls from 15 inches to 30 yards long. Eighteen-inch-wide, 3 _-ounce Dacron sticky-back is great to have aboard for large tears as well as chafe-patches, but it has limitations.

Contact cement: More adhesive than sticky back. Excellent for Dacron patches.

Shears and hot-knife: To cut cloth, tape and twine. A razor-sharp knife and cutting board will suffice, but a hot-knife that seals ther edge of Dacron patches is better. The Portosol butane soldering iron has a knife tip that works well.

Seam repairs

The approach: We take an ER approach to sail repairs when on passage. We like to save the sail and effect a repair that will get it into port to the sailmaker's hospital for major surgery. In the scenario, the stitching, which has rotted after too many months in the tropics, has given up the ghost after the two gybes. This is good, for in all likelihood the cloth has not been damaged and there's a good chance that you can find the original stitch holes and run your needle and twine through these. Applying contact cement or sailmaker's double-stick tape to the seam first will aid in holding the two halves together. On long seams, do this in sections so you can sew with one hand through the hole in the sail until you get near the end of the repair. If sticky-back is unavailable, use a narrow strip of Dacron sail cloth.

Stitching: A No.14 or No. 16 needle is large enough to be easy to thread and use on a rolling deck, and strong enough to withstand the pressures of the job without breaking or bending, but small enough to slip easily through the fibers of the cloth without damaging them. Cut a length of twine as long as your arm; this will require only one arm extension as you draw the thread through the repair.

The thread is threaded through the needle's eye and doubled back on it self. Do not put a stopper knot in the end of the doubled thread. Instead, draw the first stitch all the way through both pieces of cloth - all but the last inch or so, which is tucked ahead in the path of the next few stitches to be made. In this way, the end of the twine is unobtrusively anchored in place, without the hard, abrasive and unseamanlike lump of an end-knot. We favor the flat stitch Figure 1.

A back-stitch or lock-stitch works well on a seam repair. The stitch begins with a downward pass, comes up through the next needle hole, goes down again through the first needle hole, wraps around the first thread pass, then comes back up through the second hole, is tensioned, then moves forward a hole to pass downward again and repeat the process. What you end up with is a double width of thread on both sides of the sail that cinches on itself, locking the stitch in place.

If you choose to patch Figure 2, when conditions warrant, take a soft lead pencil from the nav-station and draw lines, every inch or two, across the edge of the patch onto the sail. These are called "strike-up marks," and they help you keep the patch and sail aligned, helping you stitch without puckering or gathering of cloth.

Tear repairs

As Hervey Garrett Smith wrote in his timeless The Arts Of The Sailor, "A stitch in time may not only save nine, but it may prevent the whole sail from being damaged beyond repair." Entering the Western Approaches to the English Channel a couple of falls ago, we learned the veracity of his words. A UV-ravaged genoa gave out along the foot. It was just a small tear - maybe three inches long - and the skipper of the boat hove-to and effected a "darn" of which your grandmother would have been proud.

Small tears: He used the herringbone stitch Figure 3, which involves alternating short and long stitches with a hitch in each stitch along the tear. He chose to darn the sail, much as Nana darned your socks. We were a couple of days from landfall, and he didn't want to take the time to effect a proper patch.

Because of the nature of the repair, the end of the thread is anchored with a clove-hitch, instead of sewing over it. The key is to start the stitch well before the tear, continuing it on both sides well away from the tear, so that you are anchoring the stitch in the strongest cloth available. It's also important to use the smallest workable needle and thread. The herringbone stitch results in a very strong, attractive and seamanlike repair.

Large tears: Long, straight tears and L-shaped rips in the middle of panels are patched with appropriately-shaped patches of Dacron sticky-back or, lacking that, Dacron sail cloth, from your ship's stores, of the same weight as the sail. For each type of large tear, when possible, cut a rectangular patches of either material that will cover the tears on both sides of the sail, and then some, to ensure that you'll be sewing in sound material. Because the sail cloth is so salt-encrusted after months at sea, the sticky-back will not adhere well to it, even after washing the area in warm, soapy fresh water and allowing it time to dry before the repair. But during the time-frame of the repair, it will hold the two panels together while we stitch around the failed seam, the two long rows of stitches being at least two inches apart for maximum strength. Sticky-back, being of different molecular structure and weight than the mainsail cloth, shrinks and expands at a different rate, which also prevents a successful adhesive-only repair.

Crossing the Bay of Biscay bound for the Canaries, we tore a brand-new mainsail just above a seam. We pulled into La Coruna, Spain for R&R and repairs, and patched the tear with sticky-back on both sides and a duplicated triangular machine-stitch through both patches and the sail. The repair was not pretty, the tape puckered, but it did yeoman duty all the way to the West Indies, where a sailmaker fixed it professionally.

Contact cement applied to the back of Dacron sail cloth results in stronger patch. In fact, the repair is reportedly nearly twice as strong as the original sail cloth when sewn. It will cetainly be twice as ugly, for the patch will become discolored over time. But not to worry: When you get to port, the sailmaker will cut out that section of sail and sew in a clean patch that will look almost as good as new.