Sails and Rig - the prime movers!

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Well taking the boat on the OSTAR got me thinking of course about her sails and rig. The rig was an easy decision – standing rigging was at least 10 years old and just had to be changed. The insurance company demanded it as much as me. A lot of work in this – the mast is keel stepped and had a little heel corrosion to deal with. The work was all done by myself so I am feeling pretty content and know every inch of the mast has been closely examined at ground level. Cabling renewed just in case and sheaves serviced etc.

Then the sails – I bought the boat 7 years ago with a full set of white sails by Westaway of Devon and they were of variable age at that time and had powered the boat winter and summer whilst she was on charter duties, for several years as well as an Azores and back passage and several longer challenging passages under full racing conditions. Since then the boat has covered a good few thousand miles more and mostly in the bright sun of the West Med. Sun = UV damage to me and on top of that, it rains red mud over here in Spain at times and white sails do suffer heavy discolouration. Balancing this, only the very oldest sail, the staysail, has needed any repair but this was visibly tiring. The Yankee genoa, next oldest, had a tired UV strip but otherwise good shape and the full genoa seemed to me to be in very good order. The fully battened mainsail had a few small chafe holes from reefing and needed new tell tales but still has very good shape. The original Hood spinnaker had so much use it was only good for light breezes and is huge anyway. I felt I wanted a heavier and slightly smaller kite to be better able to cope single handed. It was lucky I had to visit Devon in January on other business, so decided to drop into Westaway and seek advice. Well, I can only say how professional these guys are – in no time they were able to track the build details of all my white sails and asked me some questions and offered good sound sensible advice. I thus decided to take my existing sails on the race, there no longer being any question marks in my mind about their capability. They have good shape already but there still remained the issue of some servicing needed on them, which I was reluctant to give to an unknown local Spanish sailmaker and preferred Westaway to do it but my schedule was to arrive in Plymouth just in time for the race deadline of 21st May. The 21st is a Thursday and the Race starts Monday and it is a May bank holiday weekend in between. I posed the problem to Sean and Jamie at Westaways and what helpful guys they are! “No problem”, they said, just get them to us as soon as you hit Plymouth and we will service them fully and return them in time for the race. They also offered me a great deal on a new staysail and agreed to part-ex my old spinnaker against a heavier and slightly smaller newer one. Furthermore, they subsequently advised that yes, they would also manage to repair my Sprayhood and sail cover, both of which got damaged during the gales en route to Coruna recently. So I am going to start OSTAR with one of the oldest sets of sails perhaps but in the fullest confidence that they were built so well they will readily cope with the planned double Atlantic crossing and still retain their shape for efficient sailing. They may be among the dirtier sails on the start line but I could not be happier to be taking them. I look forward to trying the new staysail but this has to wait until the race starts. I cannot offer enough praise to a very professional set of people, who deliver excellent quality sails with longevity built in and provide an exceptional service where nothing is too much trouble – thanks guys – see you in Plymouth.

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