The mainsail is back together again, in one piece and working very well. But it took some effort and many hours of repairing and thinking about how we could best do it. Read more here about all the help we got and the awesome work that was done! After finishing Race 1 of the Tall Ships Race series 2015, we spend a night in Kvalsvik and then made our way into Alesund a day early. We had hoped to take this time to find a sailmaker and get our mainsail sorted out as soon as possible. But we were not the only ones.. Others had blown out two, three even five sails! And send them to the sailmakers already.
When the sailmaker arrived he looked at our mainsail with big eyes and scratched his head.. he said he would be able to repair the seam, but the aft was a problem, his arm was not big enough and the strength of the machine might not be enough to get through the layers of sail cloth. He wanted to try.. but could not promise anything.. if we wanted this, he would pick up the sail the next day..
So Megan set out to talk to some friends on the bigger ships, to see if they had room and time to help out. When she came back, it was with good news! The Sorlandet had their sailmakers apprentice on board and she was more then happy to help out! The captain had said we could use their banjaard to spread out the mainsail and even get some extra help from the crew moving things around. Very happy, we set out with the mainsail in a dinghy and got working on it..
But with all the help, we could not make the machine, the sail, the room etc work and we had to find another solution. In came Mike, he had passed us several times to ask about the sail and see if we needed his help as the sail maker of the Lord Nelson, now in function for the STI. As he had many other obligations, we had hoped we did not need his help.. but it turned out, we did! We moved the sail from the Sorlandet to a loft of sorts, where Mike installed himself with a chair and needle and thread. He worked hours to repair the seam of the main, get at least one side stitched up and get it all straight. He did an amazing job and on the evening before we had to leave, we picked up the mainsail. Ready to set sail into the Geiranger fjord.. but not sailing with the mainsail yet.. some work still had to be
done..
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