You're talking about a coooold Canadian
winter, eh?
It will depend on the condition of the sail fabric. But I can see the appeal of the idea, and it would be an interesting
experiment. All you'd want to invest in by way of thread would be regular dacron sail thread. It's UV treated. And damage to the fabric will be mostly UV. I don't know at all whether you'd get more than one year out of it, but the 4
sails should represent enough fabric. Be sure to at least double it at chafe points, kind of depends on what kind of machine you'll be using, what the max number of layers is. You'd want to use something around the cutouts for
rigging, etc, if you leave your
mast up. And, figure out how you're going to keep it tight, how it will be attached, or tied underneath the boat, etc. Before you invest all the labour in it, you might talk to a local boat cover maker and see what kinds of fabrics they offer, that might give you an idea as to how unsuitable, the old sails might be.
Ann
PS, on edit. For experiments, in the past we've used the cheapest tarp material you can get from the big box store, to make the "prototype". Usually we learn that we left out some things we should do differently or better, after we've used "it" for a while, and before making the investment in more expensive fabrics.
Something that might be a problem with using the sails is that forces that are not aligned with the straight grain of the fabric (parallel to or perpendicular to the selvage edges) are on the bias of the fabric, and that is stretchy. Solving the problem of how you're going to mount it (over boom? with peak line bolt
rope? how will it be supported above the
deck?) may lead to deciding how to make it.
Draw up some pictures to scale (use quadrille paper), and post them here, notiesbob, and we'll see if we can help.
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