I spent some time last night trying to join the two halves of my sail with my wife's 1980's-era Kenmore sewing machine. First, I had to pin the sail together in the proper alignment. I'm planning to use a flat-felled seam, and I want the stitching to pass through all four layers of fabric, so there's a lot of work necessary to get the sailcloth in the proper arrangement before you start sewing.
I tried pinning, but it would have taken dozens of pins to hold the entire seam in place, and then how do you sew it? Then it occurred to me to use masking tape to hold the edges together correctly. I can sew right through the masking tape, and the tape should just tear off as the sail is used. After a bit of work, that job was done, and I had a rather stiff pre-assembled seam consisting of 4 layers of sailcloth and 4 layers of masking tape. To the machine!
But the sewing machine kept binding, which would require undoing the stitches, cutting the thread, clearing the jam, rearranging everything, and trying again. Over, and over again. Once, I even broke a needle; another time, I accidentally disassembled the bobbin assembly while trying to clear it. That took 15 minutes to sort out.... Somewhere along the way, the thread got routed wrong and the machine was no longer producing stitches.
My wife was very patient as I clumsily abused her machine. I eventually figured out that the jamming was due to my not holding the free ends of the thread taut as I started out. Armed with that knowledge, I successfully produced several inches of pretty, zig-zag stitches before the thread frayed in the needle and I had to stop. Sigh.....
I knew this process wouldn't be easy, but I was unprepared for the complexity and finicky nature of the sewing machine. I'll try to pick up a heavier needle and try again tonight.
Meanwhile, here's a neat write-up of outrigger canoes and small catamarans from a British sea kayaking web site. For the record, I was seriously considering building a sea kayak before I decided on the Melanesia. I like the mobility and versatility of the kayak, but I wanted something that could carry a flexible number of people, and sail effectively. The link above touches on all of these points.
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