The early Alcort Sailfish and Sunfish sails were laced to the spars with line, nowadays they are attached with sail clips. We have started lacing ours on again with 1/8th inch nylon line from New England Rope, sold in a 50 foot pack at West Marine.
To start we gather the line and an S hook.
The goosenecks on our boats are set from 21-24 inches back from the end of the metal part of the spar, so we split the difference on CHIP and set this one at 22 1/2. When lacing a sail it is necessary to set the gooseneck before the line goes on, the gooseneck can't be moved past where the line goes through where a grommet is on the foot of the sail. But first I had to loosen the gooseneck and move it to the correct orientation, it should point to starboard, spars to port of the mast. That way the halyard runs from the gaff, over the mast fairlead and back down the starboard side of the mast to the halyard block or fairlead which are on the starboard side of the deck.
We found this nice vintage sail on ebay. The logo helps orient the sail, the foot goes along the boom (lower spar).
Make sure the Sunfish logo is up by the gaff (upper spar).
Attach the S hook to the interlocking bolts and tack of the sail. The S hook is a factory part.
Nice Wilcox and Crittenden blocks on the boom, these years they were through bolted. Other years they are riveted, or screwed into wooden booms. Speaking of wooden spars, in the early 60s Alcort switched the wooden hull over to aluminum spars.
A little extra draft is cut into the bottom of the sail to give it a better shape and account for spar ben under heavy load.
Cut about 2 feet of the nylon line and tie a bowline for an outhaul on the head and clew.
Lace the line through a few times then finish it off with a few half hitches. We take the slack out of the sail but not much more than that.
Take the remaining long piec of line and find the middle.
Loop the line through the interlocking eyebolts.
Run the line around the spar and back up through the tack grommet, and UNDER the excess line, basically a half hitch. Continue the running end of the line aft on the boom.
Lace the marlin hitch all the way down the boom. Under the spar, through the grommet and inside of the excess. Leave enough slack so the luff of sail can stand up, don't cinch the sail down too tight.
We add sheet hangers, they help keep the sheet from drooping between blocks and catching on our PFD.
Leave a small tail on the lacing and the outhaul and trim to length. Seal the ends of the line with FIRE!
There a few left over pieces of line, they make good sail ties.
We laced on VIPER's sail. Our buddy Dozer shared this great photo of the rig in action. He liked the high boom too, even in heavy wind.
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