Make a Dacron Sail

There are several excellent Instructables about making sails from poly tarps and traditional cotton, but so far none for Dacron. Well, time to fix that!

In this Instructable, I will be making a sail for a Buzzards Bay Rookie, a small one-class sailing dinghy that was popular in Southeast Massachusetts about a hundred years ago. The Rookie fleets were eventually replaced by Optis in the '50s or '60s, but you can still find a Rookie hull here and there. We restored one at the Woods Hole Historical Museum this winter, and I made the following sail for it.

You may be wondering why I would make a modern Dacron sail for a 100 year old boat. Good question. The builder of our boat, Oscar Perry, was famous for boasting that he could build a Rookie in a single day. Given this attitude, do you think Mr. Perry would have used Dacron cloth, seamstick, and luff tapes if they were available to him? Of course he would have! So, although this sail is not period in terms materials, it is most definitely fitting in with the spirit of the original.

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Step 1: Tools, Materials, and Resources

Materials needed to build the Rookie sail:

7 yards of 3.8oz Dacron
4 yards of 5-6" wide, 5-6oz Dacron tape
5 yards of 2" wide, 3.8oz Dacron tape
1/2" wide Seamstick double-sided tape
#46 thread, #14 and #16 needles
6" of 1" wide velcro
3"x4" headboard
x7 #0 spur grommets
x2 #3 spur grommets
x8 sail slides
x2 12"x5/8" battens
x1 18"x5/8" batten
Heavy polyester twine for seizings and handsewing (I make this by breaking down 1/2" polyester three-strand line)

Tools needed:

Sewing machine
Hotknife
Stapler and staple remover
Tape measure and a long metal ruler
Mechanical Pencil
String
Thumbtacks
Sailmaker's needles for handsewing and seizing
Chunk of beeswax for handsewing and seizing
Sewing palm for handsewing and seizing
Hole cutters for #0 and #3 spur grommets
Setting dies for #0 and #3 spur grommets

You will also need enough space to lay the sail out full-size...preferably on a floor that you can stick thumbtacks into.

As we go along through the steps, I will explain what each of the tools are used for, and possible alternatives.

All of the tools and materials listed here can be purchased from:

Sailrite
Duckworks
Jamestown
Challenge (By far the cheapest, but you need a tax id)

For more information on sailmaking, I recommend The Sailmaker's Apprentice by Emiliano Marino and Make Your Own Mainsails by James Lowell Grant. Both of these books are available on Amazon and Sailrite.