Old sail recycling

After my sail ripping debacle I was wondering what to do with the ripped sail and how to replace it. Sadly there are no more newish secondhand Solo sails on the Solo website at the moment and although I do have one newer sail (the North P2) I think it is useful to have a couple of sails to choose from - especially if you go away to an event.

The ripped sail is a Dacron one made by Purple (former Solo National Champion Jim Hunt - now at HD Sails) and the material is still crisp - I don't think the previous owner used it much. I thought it would be good to recycle it...

I know that Jon Clarke at Edge Sails in Dartmouth will re-cut an old sail as a Solo B Plan sail (the smaller one for windy weather). In fact he offers this service for £65 which has to be bargain for anyone. I gave Jon a call and sure enough he should be able to re-cut my ripped sail as a B Plan. 

Sending the old sail over to him by post is expensive (long parcels are not taken by the usual delivery firms) but he told me to take out the battens and fold it down - much cheaper (about £10 by ParcelForce for example). It seems the B Plan sail will have new Edge battens - Jon tells me the battens are not the costly bit.

I asked him to make me a new sail to replace the ripped one too - so now I am expecting two Edge sails! I will take some pictures when they arrive. ⛵