Small Sail Stitching - Moaning Chair

 21 Jun 22:

I spent some time in The Moaning Chair recently, while sewing together the Sailrite lug sail kit for our Nutshell Pram EXCUSE ME. I read the instructions wrong and put one wide zigzag stitch right down the middle of the panel seams. The prescribed method would have been a smaller zigzag next to each edge of the seam,  or a straight stitch next to each edge. 

Luckily the folks at Sailrite are very responsive to queries, and their sailmaker Jeff said this method should be okay on this small 37 square foot sail, just to check it periodically for abrasion and repair any loose stitched areas. Moaning Chair time over.

In the process of researching my goof, there was an excellent learning lesson about the straight zigzag stitch, which is a zigzag where each tiny row of straight has 3 stitches versus one. Professional lofts use this stitch sow that they only have to make one pass over each seam. In 3 decades of sail ownership, I never noticed. And I finally found a stitch that even Skipper's stable of machines won't do...so she might be on the hunt for a 7th machine. 

Our 1950s Alcort Standard Sailfish sail seam has 2 rows of straight. Plus it is a silk cloth, we believe this sail may have been done by the Old Town loft, which provided early sails to Alcort

Our Grumman gunter was done by a private loft back in the day, they might have been in a hurry...

ONKAHYE's suit of sails has double zigzag along the panel seams. 

Nice to have a sail rig that fits inside the tow vehicle :)

Log of EXCUSE ME.