SV Panta Rhei Retirement Trip

We are working on the boat and we are getting help from about every business in Auckland. Chief amoung our saviors is Lidgard Sails who are building our new sails. We've moved our boat to Bayswater Marina in Auckland precisely so that it is easy for Grant Ewing (rep for Lidgard) to orchestrate ALL the activities to support the sailboat systems as well as the sails. Grant has recommended a rigger (who is placing blocks on the outside of the boom to facilitate single line reefing for our third reef and adjusting/inspecting the rig itself), and a Navtek hydraulic expert (to overhaul the boom vang, outhaul, and both backstay tensioners and to replace rusting hydraulic connectors at the base of the mast), and a rope expert to replace all our aged lines with properly selected "new tech" rope. Chafing problems and length limitations on our old lines are being addressed. All this has to be right or the sails won't work. But the "coup de grace" is still the sails, and NZ appears to be the quintessential "land of sails". This is a small country, but there are more than two dozen sail lofts! Wow. Lidgard builds the entire sail from raw materials. Curiously though the "raw material" for our sail, the sailcloth, comes from the US. Really? Yup. Apparently we (the US) still make something! The first step in sail creation is design. Grant measured our boat and we had discussions of what was right and what was wrong with the existing rig and what I wanted my new sails to do for me. I'm now an aging cruiser, so paramont to me is safety and stability. I want less slatting and I want to be able to shorten the rig when I'm scared, so to become unscared! I want the jib lead to be correct when I reef the jib (it wasn't possible with the old jib except by moving the lead out to the toerail which compromised windward performance in high winds) I want three reefs, all accessible from the cockpit. I don't want to plan to do a lot of deck work when the winds and waves are at their worst. I want a sail that doesn't slat excessively in light winds with waves rolling the boat (I'll get 6 large battens in this sail with an improved batten installation system). I want a boat that sails flat on the wind, minimizing heeling and maximizing drive/speed. And I want lines that can protect against chafe at things like reef points. I want a roller furler hub that doesn't choke on all the line when I'm pulling out the headsail. (so new high tech line for the roller furler with reduced diameter but increased strength). We've had to make some changes to the boat to achieve these goals, but its looking good after the preliminary design review. So today cutting of the sails began. The photo shows the business end of the computer driven cutting table for our sail panels. A vacuum system holds the material flat while a computer plots out the cut for each panel. Assembly is done by matching the lines drawn on the panels while sewing. A subtle curve in the cut edge creates the right amount of depth in the sail along the entire panel length....with differing depth for each panel according to its position in the sail.

This will all take a couple weeks and then we get to go for a test sail. The excitement is building.