03/26/2026
Repairs to an Abbott 33 Genoa:
Mylar creases and can eventually crack where it is folded or repeatedly bent. Stress concentrations (and bending) often happen where cloth layers in a sail go from two layers to one layer, such as on the edge of a clew patch, or just inboard of the leech tape on a Genoa. We call this a hinge ...
When this sail was built, John Clark had run Insignia tape up one side of the leech, inside the leech tape, to prevent that hinge from happening on the edge of the leech tape. That was very successful, but over time the hinge effect started to happen on the inboard edge of the Insignia tape.
Our repair was to remove the leech tape, run wider Insignia tape up the other side of the sail, and sew a new lightweight leech tape back on. The new layer of Insignia will stop the sail bending where it was bending and had creased, and weakened.
The clew had already been repaired once, with narrow Dacron tape sewn across the "hinge" where the clew cover patch ended, and the fabric layers went from two to one.
Our repair was to stick on wider (6 inch) Dacron tape on the other side, then run Insignia tape over the edges of the Dacron tape so we would not create a hinge at the edge of the Dacron tape. That was sewn down.
Despite being far from new, this reinforced laminate sail is ready to back on the race course.
Mylar will weaken and possibly crack where it is creased or repeatedly bent. Try to avoid using the same folds over time, put the folds in different places when flaking the sail. Or roll it if you can avoid folding/flaking.
Stop the leech of a Genoa from fluttering by pulling on just enough leech line to stop the flutter.
