The confessions of a sail repairer

We have been relatively busy over the past 24 hours hoisting and dropping kites. On the whole, these have gone pretty smoothly, something you would hope for after flying kites continuously for the past 13 days.

However, yesterday evening we were dropping 'Bruce' (the lightweight kite) and as we were grinding the clew inboard, too much tension built up between the head and the clew. This led to the old repair around that area giving way and the clew detaching from the rest of the sail. In some ways I had felt we were overdue a kite rip as our last repair was on our way up to Singapore (funnily enough, it was a similar rip). All our kites had also survived the Pacific with no damage - the first time we had survived a leg with no repairs needing to be done!

For any sail repairer, flying kites that have already undergone major surgery can be nerve-racking. Coming up on deck and hearing that the kite has ripped usually leads me to jump to the conclusion that I will have hours and hours of hand sewing to do in a hot sail locker. Thankfully, this was a repair in which I knew what needed to be done, had a working sewing machine and plenty of sail material, and had the help of my sail repair assistant, Orla, back to work with me (we'd worked together on a previous repair on 'Bruce' on Leg 2). The aim was to get the job done as quickly as possible as, 'we need to be flying this kite by the morning'- no pressure!

So we set the sewing machine up, fitting it nicely into a slot in the saloon bench conveniently right next to the snack cupboard, and set to work. Seven hours later the job was finished (compared to the 4 days hand stitching the same repair up to Singapore), and by the early hours of the morning 'Bruce' was flying quite happily.

For now I hope it holds... My 8 months of repairing kites has taught me a lot - NEVER take short cuts, do a thorough job or it will not last, and be prepared to spend hours sweating buckets while the sewing machine decides it doesn't want to play - my patience has been tested quite a few times!

Currently we are sailing along quite nicely with 'Bwian' (medium weight kite) flying. He has served us well and I hope he will continue to do so until we cross the finish line in 2 and 1/2 months!