During our trip North the sails were put under considerable stress as we had to reef them in the strong winds. The aging Genoa tore at the seams several times forcing us to motor sail under the main alone. We were able to pull down the genoa. Then stitch the errant seam and put it back up while offshore. I don't recommend this unless you have to make headway windward as we did. The bow is a difficult place to be in 8-10 seas and there is the ever present danger that the sail will blow overboard and fill with water. Fortunately we were able to make workable repairs to the sail enough to get us North.
Jean is the chief when it comes to these repairs. We have a 110v inverter aboard to power our sewing machine. She directs the operations while I man handle the bulk of the sail. With small repairs this can be done in as little as 30 minutes in calm seas. This photo shows Jean working in the protection of a small bay in the DR soon after making landfall.
We have since learned that even sails that look sound can easily blow out seams in heavy weather. That it is important to cary 50 feet of 2"sticky back sail tape and at least a sail needle, thread and palm guard. The Sewing machine we selected was the Sailrite LZ model with ZigZag feature. The zigzag feature is used on sail seams. Even though we have taken our genoa in to a loft we feel that we have gotten our money back as we have been able to repair sails three times now underway.