There are some great sales going on at Sailrite right now, $65 USD off on one of their great machines and free shipping on order over $149. We bought an LSZ-1 sewing machine (Straight stitch plus zig zag, and all important walking foot for thick fabric folds) based on Scott's recommendation a few years back and have truly enjoyed using it. Skipper is a talented seamstress with decades of experience and she loves her machine. We have quickly recouped the cost by sewing a sail, several boat covers, repairing other items and making a rain fly for CYANE. Sailrite has great videos on their youtube channel and website to tutor folks through any project, there is even one specific to Sunfish covers with a Mast Up zipper added. FMI: https://www.sailrite.com/ and feel please ask us or the Sailrite Tech Team any questions that you might have. Cheers, Clark and Skipper
We got our tanbark spritsail kit from Sailrite, rolled out the panels, (Edit: Now is a good time to sew on reef point reinforcement patches, BEFORE panels go together), seamed them with double back tape and sewed the panel seams together on the Sailrite Ultrafeed LSZ-1. Made a few adjustments to the machine first, lots of pressure foot tension is required.
Skipper knocked me over to get to the sail.
Here is everything that came with the kit, pluse we ordered #4 and #1 grommet sets.
The vertical panels for the spritsail come on a roll. Save the tube, you might use it later to roll up parts of the sail when sewing.
This is the double sided tape used to baste the panels together. It is awesome.
Here are the panels laid out, ready to baste. STOP. Now is the time to sew on the reef point reinforcement patches, that way you only one panel has to be manipulated through the machine vs the whole sail.
The instructions told us what stitch width and length we needed. The sail can also be sewn with a straight switch machine.
Sewed the first panel with the Sailrite LSZ-1 machine.
Skipper sewed her first sail panel!
Sail panels all sewn.
Skipper has been sewing for many years, and she has a Masters Degree in Costume design. So she knows her way around a sewing machine and it is a treat to watch her manipulate fabric.
Everything came out great, corner and reef point reinforcements next, then grommets.
08 Jun 17:
Sewed on some of the reinforcing patches for the tack, reef tack and peak of the sprit sail. They are 4 layers of different size material, smallest patch goes on first. We taped them all together then placed them on the sail on the marked locations.
The reef point patches are placed differently than the tack and clew patches. They also may need to be trimmed. So take a minute to review the instructions before sewing. We didn't but they still look nice and will work as needed.
Reinforcement patches were 4 layers thick and they are installed with the smallest patch on the bottom of the stack. We used a chalk pencil to mark their location on the top side of the biggest patch so we knew where to sew. On white fabric you may be able to see the layers through the fabric. If not use a pencil to mark where to sew.
More patches. This sail is four sided so there are extra corners and edges.
Reef patches need to be trimmed and placed lower than tack and clew patches.
Sewing a sail takes a lot of presser foot tension.
Here are the settings we used for stitch width and length.
