Yes, there's not doubt about the fact that Arne is a pretty slick sailmaker, but if he hadn't tried making the first one, he'd still be going to a sailmaker now!  I'm  completely with David on this one: sailmaking is relatively easy to learn, especially for junk sails.  Indeed very, very few of the sailmakers that I know ever had any formal apprenticeship and more than a few taught themselves.  Making sails is really satisfactory work: clean materials, not working bent double in a confined space, no nasty chemicals, out of sun, wind, rain and snow and requiring little in the way of specialised equipment.  And best of all, every other person who is intimidated at the thought of making their own believes that you are some sort of superman!  If you are nervous about wasting expensive fabric, make a scale model out of a nice light material and stick a model mast in the ground to play with it! 

Hi Antoine and Dennis

I am sorry if my photos discouraged you. I didn’t mean to be smug. Remember, there has been a first time for me as well. Actually, when I made the 32sqm blue cambered sail for Malena in 1994, I spent less time on that job (around 40h). That was because I used ‘Amateur Method A’ which was much quicker. Also, the rope type boltrope I used then, which was hand-stitched onto the edge of the sail, came on faster than the webbing I use now (triple-stitched). I remember that I roped that sail in 8 hours sharp, and that included splicing in the big hoops at each batten end  -  24 short-splices. What I saved was the fitting of corner loops plus all the little black webbing loops at foot and head and at all the batten ends. The webbing type boltrope is ‘for everyone’   -  if you can ‘drive’ a sewing machine, you can rope the sail.

It is quite a mental struggle to start such a project, I can see the point with that.
The main thing you must master (to some degree  -  you need not be an expert) is the sewing machine, and the machine must be able to handle fairly thick thread.

This time I decided to loft every panel onto cardboard templates first. It is better to make the errors (which I also do) on paper.

My lofting procedure this time went like this:

I started with one of my master sailplans with AR=1.90. This was scaled down so that batten length B=4.90m (instead of 5.077m in the master sail). After having re-calculated all the measurements needed for lofting, I could clear the floor in my living room and set to work:

1.      First I lofted the parallelogram shape, common to panel 4-7, and added the calculated round onto the cardboard. The cardboard template is the net shape of the panel, so when laying the template onto the rolled out cloth, another 20mm was added for hems etc.

2.      All the panels 4-7 were cut out to this template  -  there was not room for lofting and sewing at the same time.

3.      Then all panels were hemmed where they should (Panel 7 even along the foot).

4.      Then I started sewing the panels together along the battens. I use staples for basting them together.

5.      With these panels assembled (and all staples removed) I put this section aside.

6.      Lofting ‘the transitional panel’, panel 3 was done by reshaping the template for panel 4-7, and the sail was cut out from it. This time I had to add a little corner as the cloth (163cm?) was not wide enough. Triple-stitched flat seam was used. This adding of cloth was of course also needed on the following two top panels.

7.      Lofting panel 2 (from top) was done onto fresh cardboard and starting with the triangle shape, shown on Sheet 2 of the sail plan, and the panel was cut out from that.

8.      Finally, panel 1 was lofted by reshaping the pattern for panel 2.

9.      Then the 3 top panels could be assembled, much in the same way as the lower section.

From there on it was a question of adding all the bits onto each section  -  surely a lot of sewing, but still easier work than the lofting.

Finally the two sections could be mated along batten 3 and the last bits fitted to it.

The Odyssey III which I used, is a wonderful, amateur-friendly material to work with, and the use of my  amateur method of joining the panels means that there is no need at all for passing big rolls of cloth through the sewing machine.
To spell it out slowly:

Anyone who can sew a handkerchief
can sew a junk sail!

Cheers, Arne

PS: No doubt my string of photos has left black holes of  (lack of) info, so just ask if you need to have details explained.

 PPS: Antoine, I will use 50 x 1.5mm battens for the two upper ones plus the boom. For batten 3 - 6 I will use 35 x 2mm tube. I haven't quite decided on the yard yet.

PS3: I uploaded a photo of the thread bobbin to the same album. The needles are size 110 (/18). The sewing machine is of the ordinary domestic type, so the needle socket is called 130/705 H.

Arne,

A wonderful job.

Unfortunately, all it did was intimidate me.   I may bring the pictures to my local sail maker and get a quote on HIM doing it as it appears to be far beyond my skill set.

Once again, truly impressive work

Dennis

Today I started the construction of a new sail for my Marieholm IF, Ingeborg. It is happening in my living room. Although there is barely enough floor space for it, I think it will encourage me to get the job finished, hopefully within 2  - 3 weeks. I start with the lower section, panel 4 – 7. Here it pays to make a paper template first. I may even use templates for the upper panels, to avoid making errors directly on the canvas  -  we’ll see.

Instead of making a write-up about it, I this time just take photos as I go and upload them to a special album under my member’s albums.

Cheers, Arne

PS: Here is Ingeborg’s sailplan.