Bay Area Sail Repair

[Rearsteer]

Hi all, I need a sail repaired in the San Fran Bay area. Is Doyle in Alameda the place to go for repair work? I don't want to miss a small sail shop that you all love. Thanks, Scott

[Bash]

I've had good work done by Rooster Sails, which specializes in repairs. It's basically a one-man operation where you know that the guy fixing your sails isn't more interested in selling you a new sail than getting the old one back up to speed.

Rooster Sails

[Rearsteer]

Thanks Bash, just what I was looking for.

[Misiu]

I have always had my sails repaired at Pineapple Sails with consistently excellent results.
Pineapple Sails Sailmaker

[Rearsteer]

Thanks Misiu, looks like another good one. I didn’t know Alameda had so many sail lofts.

[Bash]

Pineapple is great, but they tend to be pricey. If I needed a recut, I'd be more likely to take it to Cammy at Pineapple (which is in Oakland, by the way.) He did a recut for me about ten years ago after the Doyle loft botched the job. If I needed a repair, I'd be more likely to take it to Rui at Rooster. When I needed a new sail built last winter, I had Hood (Sausalito) do the job because they were significantly less than Pineapple for a hand-built made-in-the-USA sail. North (Sausalito) built me an amazing gennaker a couple years ago. The only local loft I would never use again is UK (Alameda, last I checked), who once built me a main where the spreader patches didn't match the spreaders and they didn't use the material I'd specified. Disaster.

[roverhi]

Ive had Rui at Rooster sails do a few repairs for me. Price was reasonable, good work abd finished when he said it would be done. Rooster has moved to the Grand Marina Complex in the old Alaska Packers Building on the estuary end of the building.

Last I checked, 3 weeks ago, Pineapple was in Alameda unless they have two lofts. For new sails, Pineapple isn't cheap, almost twice what I ended up paying. They have reputation for making very god sails, however.

[Misiu]

Kame Richards (Pineapple) moved to Alameda from Oakland some time ago. I had couple of repairs made by him and it was also reasonable. I agree with the price of new sails. I ended up buying my new jib from FX Sails (half the price). Kame makes sails locally compared to most who order/make them in big lofts in China (as far as I understand) so here is the price difference...

[EmilF]

I got my sails repaired at Pineapple and had a terrible experience. The customer services was just terrible, and the costs were not reasonable. I assume there are many other sail makers in the bay area who are more affordable and will actually help a customer with an issue.

I'll never go to Pineapple again, but if you do I hope you have better luck than I did.

[islandplanet]

Do you know that sometimes a sailmaker is making more money on a repair than if you were buying a new sail? Here's why.

Margins on sails have been trending down due to increased competition and more consumer awareness. People are reading articles in Practical Sailor and discovering that one loft, that the magazine refers to as the "800 pound gorilla of modern sailmaking" is used not only by brand name sailmakers, but smaller independents like us. People are recognizing that they can get an equal or even better sail for less money, especially if they can take their own rig measurements.

Here's the recommended decision matrix for repair versus replacement.

Take the cost of the repair and divide it by the number of season you might get out of the repaired sail. That's the cost of ownership per season.

Now take the cost of a new sail and divide by how many seasons you expect to get out of it. That's the cost of ownership of a new sail.

Take into consideration that your old sail will have poorer shape than a new sail resulting in the boat heeling more than it should and of course not pointing as well. If you're a cruiser planning to leave the country consider that it may be very costly to get a replacement sail, even in our neighboring country of Mexico. A spinnaker shipped to Puerto Vallarta for a South Pacific bound cruiser cost the customer about $450 more than it would have anywhere in the US or Canada.

If you end up selling the boat in a few years, do you think it will be easier to sell with a newer sail, or with a patched up one?