Learning as you go!

 Because both of us had sailed for most of our lives we thought we already knew a lot about sailing and sailboats, but we quickly found out that there is a whole world of information about live aboard sailboats that we will need to learn as we go!  If we wait until we know everything we will never leave port.😁😏

One of the first things we needed to learn about was sail repair.  The boat we bought had a damaged jib sail.  The last hurricane to come through central Florida in Nov. 2022 had unraveled the edge of the sail and beaten it up pretty good.  We hoped we could just have it resewn. So we took it to a sail maker in Cocoa Village, FL., Sails by Morgan.  He has a great reputation and has been doing this awhile.  Below are a few pictures of his shop.

Taking measurements for possible fixes.  This sail is over 300 square feet of sail material.  

He needs this huge wood floor to stretch the sails out for measurement and repairs. In the background you can see all the types of rope he sells to attach your sails to the standing rigging.  

I watched his apprentice repair another sail with a heavy duty sewing machine that has 5 needles side by side.  There is a metal guard rail about 6" wide in front of the needles to keep the operator's hands clear of those.  He is sewing through the equivalent of 3-5 layers of denim material.  The edges of a sail (the pretty blue on this sail) are called the sacrificial.  It gets its name from the fact that if the sacrificial tears it may spare the main part of the sail. Sail cloth costs $14-$32 per yard and the sunbrella material around the edges costs about $26/yard.

Unfortunately, our sail needed to be replaced so we ordered a used but near new Genoa sail.  The difference between a jib and a genoa is how far behind the main mast the sail can extend so we added a big more sail with this purchase.  I also learned that the jib or genoa (or you can sail a spinnaker) actually is designed to funnel the air unto the main sail to increase your overall speed.

David and I have been learning new things constantly for the past month.  It can be overwhelming but we are trying to approach each new skill as a fun challenge for our slightly used brains.  We have also met several people who jumped into buying a live-aboard sailboat without any prior sailing experience and have lived to tell the tale!  I'm grateful that our past experiences have made us a little more comfortable with this big life change.