Day 5

Day five was the last day of the week and I am looking forward to the weekend. Em and I have worked a lot this week. I finished making my first sail today, which was awesome! I had to do 3 final rows of stitches. It took me a long time to do because I am still getting used to how the sewing the machine works. I kept having bobbin issues but I think that’s because I had so many problems I was able to learn how to fix them. Also I understand how the sewing machine works a lot better now. I used to ask for help a lot when the machine started to act funny, but now I am able to fix some of the problems. Everything has to be done a certain way because the machine is very touchy. When I finished sewing the sail I laid it out on the floor to look it over. I cut small pieces of string that were hanging off and cleaned it up to look nice. I then put on the tell tails and the Sperry Sail sticker which meant that it was finally finished. I then folded it up and tied it up. Now, its ready to be picked up by its owner. While I was finishing making the sail, Rich was making a different sail. This time it was made out of brand new sailcloth. He showed me the program that they use for designing the sails. They put in the numbers in the computer and it draws it out. It then sends the information to the cutting machine up stairs. The cutter then knows the exact measurements that need to be cut on the sail. Rich also told me about draft on a sail. Draft is the curve in the sail. Sails are not exactly straight. If they were straight then they would not be able to fill up with very much wind and the boat would not move very fast. When the pieces of sail are cut they are cut curved on purpose so that it will have a draft. The computer calculates the draft so that it gets cut properly. Whenever I think of sails I always think of them being strait but they are not. Now that I know that though it makes a lot of sense. Emily and I started on a new project of repairing a sail. The sail belonged to a Pico, which is a small boat that usually is used as a little beach boat for fun. The sail was in really bad shape. The sail was made out of plastic rather than typical sailcloth material. We spent the rest of the day repairing it by patching it up and sewing broken seems. We will go back to fixing the sail on Monday.