Sacrificial Covers on the Sails

Our boat is a relatively large sailboat.  We are not in the league of the big yachts you see out here, nor are we a "little boat".  We had made a lifestyle choice when we decided to come out to the coast to put our son in a place where we - as parents of an autistic child - could get the support as parents and he as a child in school.  All that has worked very well and we thank the British Columbia government and the Archdiocese private Catholic schools for their commitment to these children and their families.  We sold our house in Alberta and bought this boat and have never regretted it.

So what makes this different than living on land?  Well, the sails are part of it.  They are the engine that drives the boat and the Dacron really doesn't like the sun's UV rays and when they are stored  furled up around the furling foil, the outer layer of fabric is in the weather.  Hence the need to replace the covering from time to time.  As mentioned in an earlier post, we have the staysail down and we have so far cut 9 panels of 23" x 46" for the leech of that sail.  We ordered another 10 yards of Sunbrella material from Sailrite to cut the remaining 3 panels for the staysail and all the panels for the Genoa.  Once all the cuts are made with the trusty hot knife, we start sewing things together at Val's sail loft (our good friend's garage with ping pong table)

We'll take a lot of pictures of the process.