Game Changing Weekend...

This past weekend we traveled all the way to the beautiful state of Washington so I could attend a sail repair seminar in Port Townsend. The seminar was hosted by world renowned sail maker Carol Hasse and her sail loft crew. It was an intensive, long two days but such an amazing weekend. Words really can not describe the high I feel right now. First, if you've never seen the quality of Hasse sails, you can see some of it HERE.

 

Sails build by Hasse and Company are built from premium Dacron and all of them (some 3500+ to a date) are built in their Port townsend loft. Each sail is carefully designed, cut, assembled and finished by a talented group of 12 women. Each sail is reinforced with leather and all corners, rings, chafe areas and hardware are HAND sewn! Not only is the quality of these sails superb and far superior (in my opinion) to other production sails but they are beautiful!! They are truly works of art. 

 

I attended the class with 10 other people. Almost all of them were from the west coast - Canada, Washington or Oregon. One other couple was from Illinois but I was definitely from the furthest away. Each person was shocked to learn I traveled so far especially when I lived so close to one of the nations sailing capitals. Well, there is something to be said for learning from the best. 

 

The seminar was Saturday and Sunday - a total of 14 hours of curriculum. We went over offshore sail inventory, sail inspection, sail construction, sail repair and reinforcement (patch a hole, install a chafe guard, fix a torn seam, apply a spreader patch and reinforce a corner ring with webbing) and hand sewing with a palm and needle to sew in a ring, seize a jib hank, attach a mails'l slide, mend a seam, add a leather chafe guard and make "easy reefs".  The wealth of knowledge these ladies possess is amazing! 

Reinforcing strainer, round stitch and cross stitch

Leather chafe strip with running stitch and flat stitch

Sewn on slide, hank, easy reef and hand sewn ring

All the sail repair work, with machine.  Fixed holes, tears, seams, added patches and chafe guards.

 
 

As I mentioned part of the cirruclum was sail inspection. We were given the option to bring along a sail or two of our own to be inspected so we packed up our storm stays'l and checked it through to Seattle. 

 

We were so lucky to have Carol Hasse teach is portion of the seminar. She went step by step through the process of inspection, using our sail as an example. We knew this one was in rough shape - she had been used and put away wet. Her tack, clew and head rings are "batteries" and all her hanks are press on or crimp on and attached to grommets - so basically there was a lot wrong with this sail. She has another year, maybe two, left in her but I envision her being a training platform.

Battery... this is what happens when rings are not sewn in.  Only way to fix this is to cut it off. Not good when you're hundreds or thousands of miles offshore.

Crimped on hanks, with grommets.  Massive corrosion and unable to be reused or repaired.  Have to remove entirely and replaced.  This would not happen if done properly with sewn on rings and jib hanks.

Armed with this new knowledge, I plan on doing a complete inspection of our existing inventory and making improvements where I can, or "Hassisify" them as they say ;)  I'm so excited to put my skills to use! 

 

I also did some shopping while I was there. I purchased some tools and supplies for my offshore repair ditty bag, a new and beefed up palm from the local wooden boat chandlery as well as The Sailmakers Apprentice book - aka the sailmakers bible as I like to call it. 

New palm and needle case from the Wooden Boat Chandlery

 

I was also able to pick up the necessary hardware in order to turn our furling stays'l to a hank on sail.  Yes, we are once again going the KISS (Keep it Simple Sailor) route. Most folks transition to roller furling, not the other way around. So now that I can successfully, and quite easily, hand sew rings and sew on jib hanks I plan to convert our sail. I'll also be Hassifiying it a bit with some additional leather in the corners and doing necessary repairs I find during inspection. I'll be sure to blog about that project once it gets started. 

 

So we knew before heading to Port Townsend that we were going to order a new mains'l from Hasse. After the seminar, J and I were able to meet with her and put down our deposit. Our new main should be done around September - yay! A long wait but well worth it. We're also toying with the idea of ordering a couple of other sails (trys'l and light air sail) but we're going to have to see how the budget looks after we get done with our current projects. Ideally we would leave with a full suite of Hasse sails but not sure if that will be possible. Perhaps I'll attempt to do a trys'l and storm stays'l... Both are pretty straight forward, small sails - who knows, could be fun or could be a disaster ;)

 

We were able to enjoy some of the local sights while we were there too  - it was such a lovely town, honestly it was hard to leave. Awesome people, great sights, amazing food (didn't have a single bad meal) and the craft brew was some of the best we have had!  

Mount Baker as seen from Point Hudson in Port Townsend

After being there for the long weekend and talking to the sail loft crew as well as some local sailors we're thinking we may alter our route a bit and after the South Pacific, head North and make our way through Alaska and down into WA to spend a season there. It's seriously beautiful there! Oh and did I mention the beer?? ;)