Mainsail Headboard Repair

As usual, I'm ass backwards! The very top photo is of course the last photo sorry! Jay

At the end of sailing season '08, I flaked my mainsail, tucked in the sheets, and zippered the cover that would cocoon my boom and sail in my basement until the spring. Everything works out with reason. In early December, while hiding Christmas presents in my basement, I happened to notice that the headboard and upper part of the sail had dropped out from it's cocoon. As I unzipped the bag to tuck the sail back in, I took a good look at the headboard with my thoughts of maybe going to a aluminium headboard, when I noticed that I was missing a lot of little brass rivets that sandwich the sail in between the two pieces of the headboard to hold it together. Man I'm glad my sailing season was short last year, because if it were any longer, and being blind to the fact that these rivets were dropping out all over me as I sailed, I'm sure I would of have done some nasty things to my sail,....like rip the hell out of it. Fate.

Next was the dilemma of finding rivets. I checked the web, searched stores, and even called Ullman Sails, which their answer was to use stainless steel bolts. I didn't want regular rivets that leave a big wad of metal on the one side, 'cause that looks like hell, and I didn't want the rivets to catch on anything. So what I did find are these things called a binding post, or threaded post with screws. Perfect. Thin flat heads and a flat back. They are made out of aluminium, so please don't run out and replace your rivets yet! This is untested, and let me be the first to see if they work. I will let you know through out the '09 sailing season.

The first thing I did was to punch out the old rivets, except for two or three, which held everything in place. I then used a butane lighter to heat the tip of a 13/64" drill, so as I drilled it melted the plastic and sail material, just because! I then inserted the post and a #10 stainless steel washer into the hole. If the material allowed,( less layers of material), I placed another #10 washer on the top side. Next, I placed one drop of loc tite on the screw threads and screwed it tight. I repeated these steps until I was done.

I'm happy with the way it turned out, it looks good, and I'm hoping that it doesn't rain down on me in a hard blow! I promise to keep you posted. Thanks, Jay